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Mobile helping to push cloud uptake
22 / The National Business ReviewAugust 15, 2014
Business is going mobile-first and it’s changing the way we work and how we handle data. There is a growing need to balance the rise of cloud storage with employees bringing personal devices on to the job. Often the key to streamlining business communications simply comes down to teaching employees how to safely handle sensitive business data.
Special Report
IT: Mobile & Wireless
Chris Keall
If you want to know what’s driv-ing cloud adoption, look in your pocket.
The rise of smartphones and tablets, and an increasing number of core business apps running on mobiles, is helping to drive busi-nesses’ move to the cloud.
“Organisations are invest-ing heavily in the application of mobile-enabled cloud solutions,” says Adam Dodds, who follows the IT services market for research company IDC.
“They see the opportunity to get closer to the customer as paramount to driving loyalty and revenue. The strategy is to be more insightful about their customers through delivering more personal-ised value while retaining organi-sational intellectual property and customer information. Cloud and mobile are the vehicles for them to apply big data analytics and social business to drive further customer adoption.”
According to IDC’s latest study, which canvassed 2300 companies, 68% of businesses in New Zealand have or are looking to invest to improve customer service and experience through mobility.
And for those who are investing more in mobile, security ranks as the top priority.
“With the movement of the ‘internet of things’ whereby ‘every-thing’ becomes connected to the network, the amount of informa-tion available to organisations is about to explode. The sobering focus is then for New Zealand organisations to consider not only how they use this information but also how they protect the informa-tion through both security tools and policies.”
More competitive “Competition is heating up in the New Zealand market,” Mr Dodds says.
New players are entering the fray, and existing contenders are sharpening their act.
Vodafone’s purchase of Telstra-Clear (which it bought in a bid to boost its corporate business) looked to be paying off as the com-pany recently won a major New Zealand Post tender for network services, office and wide-area net-works, wi-fi, video conferencing, security services and, yes, good old-fashioned phone calls.
Chinese giant Huawei is look-ing to expand from selling network gear and managed services to phone companies and UFB players to general New Zealand business through its new alliance with Atlas Gentech.
And Spark and Spark Digital (formerly Gen-i), having restruc-tured and refocused over the past 18 months, are coming at mobile with a new vigour. “Spark and Spark Digital have signalled this is a space they really want to own,” Mr Dodds says.
“Network providers are focused on ensuring that the value of the network is retained. There is a conscious shift to optimise the net-work [mobile and fixed] for cloud and content based services,” Mr Dodds says.
But he notes that the multi-
billion dollar ultrafast broadband fibre rollout is making space for smaller players, too. “The market is also flattening, given the structure of the New Zealand market. With UFB there is an opportunity for new providers to compete with niche strategies focused on col-laboration, network and video based services – for example, video security.”
Beyond heavy focus on mobile, IDC’s cloud survey also found:Q 100% of New Zealand organisa-tions have a cloud budget forecast between now and 2016;Q�79% believe that they are using two to five cloud services already;Q�cloud adoption is showing high levels of forecasted growth (+10%) across off-premises infrastructure between 2014 – 2016; Q�there is no growth shown for on-premises cloud technology;Q�the top two reasons for business-es going to the cloud are to reduce IT costs and avoid investment in owning their own infrastructure; andQ�the barriers to the adoption of cloud are coming down. “Secu-rity of information” is still the No 1 concern to businesses (36% of
businesses identify this as a top concern) followed by the technical constraints of legacy architecture (16%).
CFOs hold keys to the cloudNew Zealand has reacted well to the changing needs of a more util-ity-type approach to the adoption of technology via such elements of cloud, mobile, social and big data, Mr Dodds says.
However, New Zealand still lags countries like Australia in cloud uptake.
To mature further, New Zealand needs to be aligned at executive level and one of the outstanding steps is the engagement of the CFO [chief financial officer], Mr Dodds says.
This will allow legacy organisa-tional structures and processes to evolve from being business case aligned (that is, capital expenditure models) to “pay as you go” or oper-ational expenditure based models.
In short, anyone who works in technology is convinced the cloud is the way to go but the bean coun-ters still need to get onboard.
“Organisations don’t go to the cloud to be cheaper. They go to the cloud to become more responsive to the market and more agile,” Mr Dodds says.
But it will take time for the CFO to take on anything other than a control and cost out approach to technology, the IDC research direc-tor says.
And the CFOs do need to get onside for New Zealand to do bet-ter at cloud adoption, Mr Dodds says.
New Zealand organisations are “giving it a go,” albeit in an ad-hoc manner, IDC’s study found.
To move to a more optimised
60%
Source: IDC
Cloud costs not major concern
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0
Not at all – we tend to use more
Sometimes – we review our our usage
and spend on an intermittent basis
All the time – we actively look at
our usage and costs and change to reflect
our needs
FOCUS SHIFTING TO CLOUD BENEFITS: ‘The subtext to this result is that New Zealand organisations are extracting such a level of benefi t and satisfaction in the use of cloud that the need to focus on cost is low,’ says IDC NZ research director Adam Dodds. ‘Instead there is a clear focus of the value of business agility and scalability in relation to its customers.’
New Zealand needs to be aligned at executive level and one of the outstanding steps is the engagement of the CFO Adam Dodds
TITLE QUESTION: Thinking of your approach to cloud, do you actively manage the use of the cloud services by scaling up and scaling down your requirements to control costs?
SPECIAL REPORT: IT: MOBILE & WIRELESS 23The National Business Review / August 15, 2014
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model, organisations need to be clear on the value of its business information and as such where it should sit (for example, in a local hosted environment or in a public cloud).
The CFO has an important role to play in this pro-cess. Equally, CFOs must evolve a mechanism for the governance of the use of cloud. Some 53% of New Zea-land businesses are not tracking their use of cloud, they are just using more.
“CFOs appear to be the last to the table in the new world of cloud services. Only 32% of businesses think that their financial governance is set up to manage, optimise and track the flexible consumption models of cloud. The concern is that the CFO views the adoption of technology as a cost-out [cost saving] exercise and, as such, all processes are orientated toward a supply chain/procurement approach rather than one of ena-blement, differentiation and business agility,” Mr Dodds says.
Beyond the geeks Overall, budgets for IT are shifting across the business, with 56% of New Zealand organisations surveyed show-ing that the IT budget is now shared.
Another recent New Zealand study showed mar-keting and the lines of business are now as great a, if not greater, influence in the decisionmaking process around the adoption of technology than the CIO (chief information officer).
But just as the technology teams no longer get their own way on spending, it’s also important they get a seat at the top management table.
“The role of the CIO [chief information officer] remains critical but it requires the function of a ‘true’ CIO,” Mr Dodds says.
Some larger New Zealand businesses have no CIO, and some that do bog the person down in day-to-day operations rather than allow them to focus on the big picture and strategy.
“Having the right CIO among your team will be ‘gold,’ and reporting directly into the CEO creates an executive model that is highly optimised, Mr Dodds says.
“New Zealand has reacted well to the need to be more strategic in its adoption of technology as a busi-ness differentiator. The challenge now is to find the right CIO to realise the opportunity and elevate them to the executive table. At the same time, there is a growing role of the chief marketing officer and the lines of business.”
Don’t DIY“If I was looking for guidance about the adoption of cloud, I would be seeking a service provider that can demonstrate great success in taking customers to the cloud. Research has clearly shown that using a service provider has a higher opportunity to be successful than taking a DIY approach”, Mr Dodds says.
Companies still not taking mobile security seriouslyNathan Smith
This year’s Black Hat hacker conven-tion wrapped up earlier in August but not before it outlined a series of severe security threats.
The world’s professional hackers gather at the convention each year to show off their skills and learn new ones.
Presentations included showing the audience how any USB device can be hacked and how to create fake web-sites identical to real ones. Stories were told about the discovery that Russian hackers had amassed 1.2 billion logins and two billion smartphones were vul-nerable to hijacking.
Some, like the USB hacking, might represent an entirely new class of network attack for which there is cur-rently no defence. If true, that’s shock-ing but not entirely unexpected.
It’s hard for a business or corpora-tion to come away from a conference like that feeling that their secrets are safe. Or that they could ever really be
safe. No matter how much money a company throws at security, there always seems to be a malevolent per-son sitting behind a keyboard trying to figure out how to get into a system.
On top of the hacker threat, 15 months ago US citizen Edward Snowden released classified intel-
COLIN JAMES: A lot of organisations don’t understand the impact of poor security Continued on P29
Decisions are made by people, so accuracy and a good understanding of security is crucial
24 SPECIAL REPORT: IT: MOBILE & WIRELESS / The National Business ReviewAugust 15, 2014
APPLE
If I could only pick one smart-phone, it would be Apple’s iPhone 5s (the company’s current top-of-the-line model).
The hardware is beautifully
engineered. The software is the easiest to use. And there’s never any question that a new app will be available for iOS (the Apple software that controls iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch).
The simplicity comes from Apple’s closed system. The company designs its own hard-ware and software, and keeps independent app developers on a relatively tight leash.
Although a number of smartphones have fingerprint recognition now, the iPhone 5s is the most impressive. The physical home button doubles as a fingerprint reader, and it works quickly and every time for home screen unlock – securing your phone without the need to faff around entering a PIN.
The performance of the Siri voice assistant has improved markedly over the past couple of years – in part because Apple has done the technology (which rests on one of the com-pany’s server farms rather than on the phone itself), and partly because Telecom, Vodafone and (just this month) 2degrees’ mobile networks have had 4G upgrades – offering faster, more consistent connections. Siri is not switched on by default for New Zealand, as it’s not optimised for our accent but, if you haven’t used it before, it’s well worth a go (hit Settings to enable it). I use voice commands for everything from initiating calls to setting alarms to search.
Although the iPhone is impressive, it’s not perfect. Like all smartphones, battery life is poor. If you’re using your iPhone intensively, it’s easy to chew through the battery in half a day. That means the hassle and expense of an ABC (always be charging) lifestyle with charg-es at home, in your car and on your desk.
There is online storage on tap through Apple’s iCloud but the free allocation taps out at a lousy 5GB (luckily, the iPhone 5s and the slightly cheaper 5c include models with 64GB of onboard storage; Androids typically top out
at 16GB or 32GB, though with options to add more capacity through an SD Card).
And while the 4-inch screen looks gor-geous, it feels puny if you’ve used one of the larger-display Androids. Apple has always used the argument that a 4-inch screen is the maximum thumbable size for using your phone one-handed. Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are quoting sources who say the iPhone 6 will have a larg-er display. The iPhone 6 is widely tipped to be announced at an Apple event scheduled for September 9. If Apple follows its usual patter, the new iPhone will go on sale about a month later in the US, and in New Zealand within a couple of months.
More online: check out iPhone reviews and news at www.nbr.co.nz/apple
ANDROID
HTC, LG, Motorola (bought by Lenovo), Sam-sung, Sony and others make smartphones that run on Google’s Android software.
Collectively, Androids now account for about 80% of the global smartphone market, although the dominance is largely due to a proliferation of budget Androids. In terms of top shelf-models, it’s much more even-
stevens with Apple.Worldwide, and
even more so in New Zealand, Samsung has dominated the Android pack. Fan boys on both sides of the fence will hate me for saying this but the basic Android inter-
face is not a million miles from Apple’s iOS. If you’re used to using an iPhone, you’ll move readily to an Android (and the likes of Sam-sung and HTC have apps that’ll help you copy across all your contacts).
Google’s own Nexus series (made by LG) is the best example of a clean, no-frills Android interface. It includes the Google Now voice assistant, the Android world’s equivalent to Apple’s Siri.
But other brands overlay the basic Android interface with their own software in a bid to boost features and to stand out from the com-petition. Sometimes these extras are useful,
such as the unified messaging feed most offer to get Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other service updates in a single stream. Sometimes they’re clever but not something that you actually use much in every day life (such as the Samsung Galaxy S5’s ability to pause a video when it senses you’ve looked away).
While Apple’s latest two iPhones offer a single screen size (4-inches), if you buy an Android the world is your oyster – from budget-priced models with small screens to top-shelf models with monster displays.
There are hundreds of Androids to choose from, but in NBR’s mind there are five that serious business buyers should put on their shortlist: Google’s Nexus, Samsung’s Galaxy S5, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, Sony’s Xperia Z2 and HTC’s One M8.
The Galaxy S5 and the Xperia Z2 are both water and dust proof to the IP55 and IP58 standards, which personally I found really useful. Not because I’m a triathlete or working on a building site but simply because I often hold my smartphone out in the Auckland rain to txt-a-park. If you’re after an Android with the metal finish to match the iPhone 5s, check out HTC’s One M8 (NBR is not a fan of the plastic used in various case elements by the other flagship Androids).
Most top-of-the-line Androids, including the models name-checked above, have dis-plays a little over 5-inches (by industry tradi-tion, screen size is measured on the diagonal, in imperial). Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 offers a bumper 5.7-inches, edging it into the so-called “phablet” class of device. It also features a pen stylus with hand writing recognition and the ability to scrawl notes on photos or maps. If that’s your thing, the Note 3 is well worth checking out (or checking out again if you had the first model but found the stylus a little sluggish; handwriting recognition, draw-ing etc are now snappy).
Android used to be the poor cousin for apps. But these days it’s a given that any app developed for iPhone will also appear in a version for Android. At worst, you’ll have to wait a few weeks after the iOS version appears (simply because it’s harder to make an app for Android, given the riot of different models).
More online: check out Android smartphone reviews at www.nbr.co.nz/android
WINDOWS PHONE
Most of the companies in the Android camp (including Samsung) also make smartphones that run Microsoft’s Windows Phone software.
However, easily the largest Windows Phone backer has been Nokia, thanks to Microsoft pumping large amounts of money into a partnership. Earlier this year, Microsoft put a ring on the relationship, buying Nokia’s mobile phone division for $US7.2 billion.
An increasing number of mainstream apps are available for Windows Phone. Microsoft recently announced there are 300,000, from social media mainstays like Facebook, Twit-ter and Instagram to business mainstays like Salesforce.
But app makers still prioritise iPhone and Android apps, and sometimes Windows Phone just falls off the list. However, the situation is getting better and bet-ter. Microsoft is still in single digit territory in phone share but is mak-
ing billions of dollars a quarter from other parts of its business, and has the war chest for a sustained fight.
While Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android’s static icon-based interfaces are not that far apart, it’s something of a cultural leap to Microsoft’s Windows Phone – especially if you’re using Windows 7 or an older version of Windows on your PC. Windows Phone features a “live tile” interface. Individual tiles butt into each other, and update with mes-sage alerts, new online photos as they’re posted and so forth in real time. It’s an evolu-tion beyond iOS and Android or a bit of a riot, depending on your taste (the tile interface is very customisable).
Unsurprisingly, Windows Phone smart-phones (and Microsoft’s Surface tablet) are the best option for viewing and editing files created on a Windows PC while you’re on the go – especially if you’re using Office 365 (the cloud version of Microsoft Office). Office 365 now comes with a stonking 1 terabyte of cloud storage, which you can use for any type of file you like. Useful stuff.
Microsoft is hedging its bets, however. The company recently released versions of Office 365 for iPhone and iPad. It will be intrigu-ing to see if the company’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, balances things as Microsoft pushes into both devices and cloud services.
More online: check out the latest Windows Phone news at www.nbr.co.nz/windows
BLACKBERRY
Yes, BlackBerry is still kicking around. Last year the former smartphone king released an all- touchscreen model, the Z10.
The Z10 features excellent hardware but it’s proved to be a phone that’s betwixt and between. Traditional BlackBerry users were sceptical of the move away from a traditional keyboard, and some were shocked at the sud-
Choosing theright mobile Chris
Keall
Continued on P29
Android apps,
Windows Phone just falls off the
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CONTACT
To !ind out how Vodafone canmake you a ReadyBusiness, visit vodafone.co.nz/business
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B' full'm!bilisin& vi%#u"ll' "ll !f #$ei%s#"ff, "nd "d!)#in& V!d"f!ne’s L!c"l Numbe%!n "M!bile se%vice, B"'le's re"l Es#"#e $"s%"#i!n"lised fixed line inf%"s#%uc#u%e "c%!ss#$ei% b%"nc$ ne#w!%k "nd subsidised se%vicec$"%&es f!% #$ei% "&en#s s! #$e' c"n d!business be##e%. Even#u"ll' #$e' )l"n #!m!ve
#! be usin& #ec$n!l!&' #! %ec!ve% quickl'!% even !)e%"#e #$%!u&$ #$ese even#s”. t$eC$%is#c$u%c$ e"%#$qu"ke is "nunf!%#un"#e%eminde% !f$!wbein& in #$e cl!udc"n, f!%s!mebusinesses,m"ke"ll #$e diffe%ence.“Businesseswi#$ #$ei%d"#" in #$e cl!ud, s#!%edelsew$e%e,we%e "ble #! &e#b"ck u) "nd %unnin&"lm!s# immedi"#el', w$ile!#$e%swe%e lef#be$ind. t$!sew$!we%e %e"d'we%e "ble #!%ec!ve% %e"ll' quickl',” s"'s J"ck.
The bOrderless busINessof #$em"n', f"% %e"c$in& c$"n&es im)"c#in&businesses #!d"', )e%$")s #$em!s# si&nific"n#"%e #$!se %el"#in& #! #$e %el"#i!ns$i)s be#weenbusinesses "nd #$ei% cus#!me%s. D%ivenb' di&i#"l devel!)men#s suc$ "s s!ci"l,m!bile, "n"l'#ics "nd cl!ud, #$esem"j!%#%ends "%e f!%cin& businesses #! %e#$ink #$ei%#%"di#i!n"l b!%de%s. “We seem!bili#' "s#$e ke' #! unl!ckin& #$is !))!%#uni#'” s"'sJ"ck. Ul#im"#el', V!d"f!ne believes "re"d'Business is " “b!%de%less business” (!f w$ic$g!!&le "nd am"z!n "%e #$e s#e%e!#')ic"lex"m)les). New Ze"l"nd businesses !f "llsizes, bein& full'm!bilised "nd in #$e cl!ud,c"n c!m)e#e !n #$e w!%ld s#"&e. “as " n"#i!n
youhear about cl!ud "ll #$e #ime. y!u$e"% "b!u# c!s#-s"vin&s, m!bili#', im)%!vedefficiencies "nd "ll s!%#s !f !#$e% businessj"%&!n. Bu#w$"# d! "ll #$!se w!%dsme"n,in #$e )%"c#ic"l w!%ld? h!w d! #$e' "c#u"ll'im)"c# '!u% business?
t$e c!nce)# !f bein& " ‘re"d' Business’is !ne V!d"f!ne is usin& #! $el) "nswe% #$eseques#i!ns. acc!%din& #! V!d"f!ne’s he"d!f En#e%)%iseM"%ke#in&, Juli" J"ck, “I#’s ")$il!s!)$' #$"#will $el) businesses m"kesense !f #$e bi& #ec$n!l!&' #%ends #$"# "%es$")in& n!# jus# !u%w!%k)l"ces bu# "ls!!u%w!%ld.”
deAlINgwITh The uNpredICTAbleD%"m"#ic s!ci"l, #ec$n!l!&ic"l, )!li#ic"l "ndec!n!mic c$"n&es "%e dis%u)#in& #$e w"'businesses !)e%"#e. t$is is $"%dl' news. Bu#w$"# is diffe%en# is #$e )"ce !f c$"n&e "nd#$e c!nsequences i# is $"vin& f!% businesses!f "ll sizes. We $"vem!ved f%!m "w!%ld !f%el"#ive s#"bili#' #! !ne!f v!l"#ili#', unce%#"in#',c!m)lexi#' "nd "mbi&ui#', !f#en %efe%%ed #!b' #$e "c%!n'mVUCa. “Businesses "%en’#ex)ec#ed #! be "ble #! )%edic# #$e fu#u%ebu# #$e' "%e inc%e"sin&l' bein& ex)ec#ed
“Vodafone's new officesin Christchurch (artist'simpressions right) willbe paperless and anexample of how a ReadyBusiness operates.”
ABOVE: Julia Jack,Vodafone's Head ofEnterprise Marketingin New ZealandRIGHT: Mike Bayley,Bayleys ManagingDirector.
"ll !f #$ei% #ele)$!n' in#! #$e cl!ud. B"'le'sre"l Es#"#e is "n ex"m)le !f "re"d' Business- in V!d"f!ne’s defini#i!n. t$e' iden#ified "c$"llen&e "ndused #ec$n!l!&' #! !ve%c!me i#.
whAT exACTly Is A reAdybusINess?acc!%din& #! V!d"f!ne’s Juli" J"ck, "re"d'Business $"s dis#inc#ive c$"%"c#e%is#ics:l t$e' !)e%"#e efficien#l' "nd f!cus!nd%ivin&!u# c!s# "nd embeddin& sim)lici#' in #$ei%business. “We !f#en see businesseswi#$ l"'e%s!f du)lic"#i!n #$"#, !nce %em!ved, en"ble#$em #! %educe c!s#s si&nific"n#l'. Even f!%sm"ll businesses, cl!ud "nd$!s#ed se%vices "%een"blin& #$em #! %e"ll' c!n#%!l c!s#s "nd !nl'inves# "s "nd w$en #$e' need #!.”l t$e' inves# in flexible w!%kin& s!lu#i!ns.“Businesses n!w $"ve f!u% &ene%"#i!ns in #$ew!%k)l"ce "nd #$is in i#self is &!in& #! d%ivem!%e c$"n&e. t$e numbe% !f B"b' B!!me%s%e#i%in& in #$e nex# five 'e"%s is m!%e #$"nd!uble #$e numbe% !f gen X "ndgen y"v"il"ble #! #"ke #$!se %!les. S! "side f%!m #$equi#e !bvi!us skills s$!%#"&e we will be f"cedwi#$, i#will be c$"llen&in& #!m"n"&e #$ediffe%en# ex)ec#"#i!ns!f #$!se &%!u)s "ndfi&$#f!% '!u% s$"%e !f #$e #"len# )!!l.”l t$e' "%e vi&il"n# "b!u# #$e secu%i#' !f #$ei%inf!%m"#i!n. t$e %e"li#' is #$"# #$em!%e '!uen"ble '!u% )e!)le #! bem!bile, "nd #$em!%einf!%m"#i!n '!u s#!%e in #$e cl!ud, #$e bi&&e%#$e %es)!nsibili#' is #! ensu%e #$"# "ll !f #$"#inf!%m"#i!n is secu%e.l t$e' "%e c!m)e#i#ive. re"d' Businesses)%!"c#ivel' l!!k f!%w"'s #! s#"' "$e"d !f #$ec!m)e#i#i!n "nd find new !))!%#uni#ies #$"#en"ble #$em #! #"ke "dv"n#"&e !f #$e c$"n&eswe’%e seein& – %"#$e% #$"n jus# su%vivin&.
AskINg The rIghT quesTIONsS! $!w %e"d' is '!u% !%&"nis"#i!n?W$"##%"nsf!%m"#i!ns "%e '!u seein& in '!u% indus#%'?W$"# )%!blems "%e '!u #%'in& #! s!lve "nd"%e '!u c%!wd s!u%cin& inf!%m"#i!n #! #"ke"dv"n#"&e !f #$ese c$"n&es? t$ese "%e #$eques#i!nsV!d"f!ne$"s been "skin&businesses#! $el) #$em fi&u%e !u#w$e%e #$ei% %isks "nd!))!%#uni#ies lie.Wi#$ businesses s#"%#in& #! %e"lise #$"#
#ec$n!l!&' $"s #! be " c%uci"l )"%# !f #$ei%s#%"#e&', n!m"##e%w$"# indus#%' #$e'’%e in,i# is "ll "b!u# iden#if'in& s)ecific c$"llen&es"nd f!cusin& !n &%!w#$. “Bein& %e"d' f!% #$esec$"n&es isn’# "n !)#i!n”, s"'s J"ck. “t$e'’%e$"))enin&w$e#$e%we like i# !% n!#. t$ebusinesses w$! #"ke "dv"n#"&e !f #$emwillbe #$e !nes w$! d!n’# jus# su%vive, bu# #$%ive.t$ese #%ul' "%e exci#in& #imes.”×
Vodafone says connected technologies can help revolutionise businesses of all sizes
Gearing up for theunpredictable future
s&''(i%$ cont%nt
Nick Grant
The mobilisation of the workforce via increasing use of smartphones and tablets and associated applications provides companies with myriad opportunities to improve the way they do business in terms of interact-ing with staff, customers and other companies.
With those opportunities, however, arrives an attendant array of risks, chief among them the way making business data remotely available increases the possibility of it being accessed inappropriately by people both internal and external to your company.
As such, seriously considering how you secure data, applications and mobile devices has never been more important.
Despite Keith Archibald’s techie title, the head of innovation at Revera – the Spark subsidiary that specialises in the developing and providing vir-tual IT systems and cloud services – is at pains to point out that this isn’t just a technical conversation.
One of the big challenges faced by corporate IT is meeting employees’ expectations of ease of use.
“Staff have gone through a massive transformation in their personal tech-nology environment in the past few years with the consumerisation of all this IT tech: smart phones, tablets and even smart TV,” says Mr Archibald. “As a result they have much higher expec-tations about things working quickly and easily but in some instances that experience isn’t there for them in the workplace.”
This, he says, can often lead to employees engaging in what he describes as “shadow IT.”
“It’s not done with malice – it’s just the result of frustration or the pure desire to get things done but they start working around the systems that are in place because they’re not as convenient as what they’ve become accustomed to in their consumer world.”
This activity can have several unintended consequences: making sensitive data vulnerable; and mak-ing useful data unavailable to other parts of the company “because one particular team has accidently siloed it off somewhere that’s unknown to other parts of the organisation, so that information isn’t able to provide value in other areas,” Mr Archibald says.
There are two complementary ways to prevent both of these poten-tial problems. The first is staff educa-tion on the issues, something he says organisations often aren’t very good at.
This education process should
be led by an inhouse IT team that, as more cloud services are adopted, should be “moving away from the maintaining speeds and feeds kind of philosophy and more into being custodians of the company’s informa-tion.”
The IT department’s evolving duties should include ensuring infor-mation is stored in the right places under the right kind of rules. The first step to achieving this is profiling the organisation’s data in terms of its sen-sitivity, then making staff aware via clear guidelines of the varied ways in which different types of data can be appropriately shared and providing them with a map so they know where to find the information they need.
The second way to curtail “shadow IT”, Mr Archibald says, is to “provide IT systems that are convenient and effective for staff to use within the corporate framework.”
Two key facets of that IT system are devices and applications. With each, organisations must strike a balance between ensuring they’re both secure and easy to use.
When selecting what mobile devic-es to deploy, you need to be aware of the different types there are to choose from, notes David Reiss, propositions manager of the converged IT and communications solutions provider known as Gen-i until last Friday, now rebranded as Spark Digital.
“You’ve got BYOD and CYOD – which stand for Bring Your Own Device and Choose Your Own Device – as well as COPE, which is Company Provided Personally Enabled,” Mr Reiss says. “The approach you want to take for those types of devices is actu-ally quite different – maybe secur-ing the device is the right approach, maybe securing the app is, in a lot of cases it’ll be a combo of the two.”
Choosing the correct option requires a plan. “That can be as sim-ple as a high-level risk assessment – typically for a smaller business or one less concerned about risk – or it can be to the point of defining a complete security policy.”
When it comes to securing mobile devices, “at the extreme end you can lock things down to the point that, for example, the user can’t install apps and is really fixed into working the way the IT team says they should,” says Mr Reiss.
But, he warns, “if you take away a lot of the power of the device – the fact they’re always on, quick to get into, quick to engage with, and so on – a lot of the potential benefits they offer can be lost. So it’s important to understand how people are actually using them and how they’re meant to use them.”
Sometimes the issues don’t require a technological solution, Mr Reiss notes, echoing Mr Archibald’s senti-ment.
“A lot of the things you don’t want people to do because it would put your business at risk is probably stuff covered off in a fair use agreement or potentially their HR/employment contract,” he says. “That comes back to understanding what the risks actu-ally are.”
There are of course some tech-nological measures it almost always makes sense to deploy on mobile devices.
On the cost management front there’s the ability to turn off data while in roaming mode.
For security purposes there is ensuring a pin code and/or other security is required to open the device, that it has anti-virus software installed and can be remotely located and wiped.
Electing to use some of these management tools will affect what kind of device is appropriate for your organisation, Mr Reiss says, pointing out “there’s some murky stuff around the contractuals” if, for example, you want to install the ability to wipe the data on an employee’s BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).
In terms of securing apps, choos-ing those that have been written with your business in mind and are therefore inherently secure is the best option.
“Simple consumer-based solu-tions are probably the biggest threat to mobile security,” says Mr Reiss. “Those free pieces of software that warn about all the various things the app is able to do? Most of us just tap ‘next’ through the warnings without really thinking about the type of data you might store on that app and what access you’re providing the vendor of the app to that data.”
Simply summarised, Mssrs Reiss and Archibald agree, much of the management of your company’s mobile-enabled IT environment is having an understanding of what and where your data is, what applications have, should and should not have been installed, and providing staff with secure, easy-to-use alternatives that become the path of least resistance.
26 SPECIAL REPORT: IT: MOBILE & WIRELESS / The National Business ReviewAugust 15, 2014
When you would like to talk to the New Zealand cloud computing partner you can trust, call 0800 OneNet (66 36 38) or contact
www.OneNet.co.nz.
9100
“Many customers are outsourcing operations to so-called cloud services, reducing spending on both computers and software.”
July 17, 2014Wall Street Journal
Keeping your data sacrosanct –
and your staff happy
DAVID REISS: ‘A lot of the things you don’t want people to do because it would put your business at risk is probably stuff covered off in a fair use agreement or potentially their HR/employment contract’
KEITH ARCHIBALD: Watch out for ‘shadow IT’ where staff start working around the systems at work ‘because they’re not as convenient as what they’ve become accustomed to in their consumer world’
Spark Digital provides end-to-end information and communication technology solutions to New Zealand business and government. In the past two years we have committed $1.25 billion to make sure we deliver a great digital platform. Join us and take advantage of the digital future.
SPARKDIGITAL.CO.NZ
28 SPECIAL REPORT: IT: MOBILE & WIRELESS / The National Business ReviewAugust 15, 2014
Nathan Smith
Almost since its inception in 1987, Huawei Technologies has been a pariah in the devel-oped world, with severe market restrictions and outright banning in the UK, US, and Australia.
The company is China’s biggest maker of telecom-networking equipment, moving in the past few years toward the consumer mar-ket, making tablets and smartphones, among other devices.
Yet, while the company’s close ties with the Chinese Communist Party have spooked some governments, New Zealand welcomed the multinational to build its 4G network in partnership with Spark and 2degrees.
Since then Huawei has blazed on to part-ner with New Zealand data, communications and security product distributor Atlas Gen-tech to deliver enterprise and ICT technology to New Zealand businesses. This is the tech space Huawei are moving into.
The question now is: should New Zea-landers be worried about Huawei tech-nologies in their office? The Americans and
Australians don’t want Huawei anywhere near their telecom systems, so New Zealand companies could have access to different technology if everything turns out to be kosher.
Atlas Gentech product manager Chris Fair says if any business has a concern about Huawei products, the Chinese company is very happy to take them to their factories in China, let that person pick any product off the shelf and open that product right up to
the source code level.“The New Zealand government isn’t stu-
pid about who it gets to build its telecommu-nication networks,” he says.
“We’ve provided testing gear to every single one of the tier one and tier two ICT integrators. These are global companies. Just take Spark, if it had a problem with Huawei, would it have let Huawei build the 4G net-work or be using its gear?”
In the same way that Microsoft is a firm and the USA is a country, Huawei is a firm and China is a country. They shouldn’t be conflated and Mr Fair says Huawei takes accusations of deviousness very seriously.
“Who benefits from accusations like that? Who makes money out of accusations like that? One of our competitors has a big prob-lem with the American intelligence services intercepting their hardware and putting unsafe things in them. On the flipside of the coin [a company] might use the other guys but they’ve got a clear problem too,” Mr Fair says.
“When you’re a private company you can do one of two things, you can either cross your arms and shell up and not say anything or you can open up and say ‘right what do you want to see?’
Huawei has done the latter and Atlas Gen-tech, says Mr Fair, wouldn’t have partnered with Huawei if it thought for a second the technology was dangerous or faulty.
Other claims have percolated through the internet about Huawei hardware mimicking existing products. It has spurred whispers of reverse engineering in the industry.
That’s a valid concern, muses Mr Fair, but he says the industry needs to get one thing straight: Huawei doesn’t reverse engineer.
“Huawei has 100,000 employees of which 70,000 are research and development engi-neers, so more than half of their staffing is purely focused on developing and inventing technology for the company. If they were based on reverse engineering, they wouldn’t have that level of investment in people to engineer solutions.
“The second part of that is they’re easily a $40 billion company and over 10% of their revenue gets invested in research and devel-opment, which is a really high percentage.” Mr Fair explains.
Back in June, Huawei posted a whop-ping 19% jump in sales ($25.98 billion) in the first six months of 2014. So it must be doing something right.
“A third part is that it’s sitting on around 41,948 patents in China. When you tether those things up, it doesn’t make sense that people are accusing them of reverse engi-neering,” says Mr Fair.
The accusations of Huawei’s duplicity and spying have that bad smell of garden-variety corporate competition. Latecomers in an already closed market have to deal with established interests all the time. Telecom-munications is surely no different.
“It just takes the focus off what we’re try-ing to achieve,” says Mr Fair.
“One of the things about Huawei is it wants to be a catalyst for change. We want to get involved in projects that change the way people do business or change the way they live. We’re not interested in replacing my competitor’s tin box with my tin box yet, that will come eventually.”
Clearing some of the Huawei controversy
If [Spark] had a problem with Huawei, would it have let it build the 4G network?
Streamlining telephony with cloud/BYOD Campbell Gibson
2talk general manager Jude Flood says cloud telephony systems allow staff to use their own devices. “Opening up the choice to the customer means they are able to choose the device that best suits their requirements.”
When it’s done right, the use of personal devices offers workers countless benefi ts, including fl exibility, continuous access to data, higher productivity, and less dependence on central IT, she says.
Cloud telephony allows companies to expand their network seamlessly without the headaches of installation and maintenance.
But BYOD (bring your own device) can also be heavily disruptive to IT processes and policies, so it has taken some time for enterprises to embrace the change.
There are still issues of authentication and security threats but cloud companies have been beefi ng up their security protocols to combat these common problems.
As mobile users switch phones as new and improved devices become available, the use of cloud-based storage eliminates the need to move data from one phone to another. But this can prove tricky for many users when they are using their own devices.
Servitel general manager Alan Shannon says the major benefi t of cloud solutions is the delivery of unifi ed communications between geographically disparate teams. “It empowers greater collaboration between teams, delivering advantages of cost, fl exibility convenience and ease of deployment.”
His company started out as a taxi communications specialist and still retains its presence in the industry but has since branched out to host private branch exchanges (PBX) to small and medium businesses. He says offi ces that still use digital and analogue PBX solutions face issues of having no visibility over a business network.
Ms Flood says cloud telephony allows IT vendors to supply a hardware they are comfortable with, rather than having to support unfamiliar hardware.
Traditionally, when upgrading a phone system, businesses face purchasing and installation costs. But cloud telephony is just a fl ip of the switch to integrate a device into their network.
Mr Shannon says his clients have seen savings of up to 20-25% on telecommunication services.
BYOD is likely to reach equilibrium in enterprise environments, with new enterprise applications running on a mix of private and public clouds. “The shift to cloud computing gives organisations access to technology, staff and systems that would normally be out of reach and too costly.”
Ms Flood says a key advantage of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services is that remote workers are not tied to physical locations. “Features such as simultaneous ringing, call forwarding and presence also help enable seamless remote working if the staff member can’t directly access their phone.”
The main criticism cloud service companies face is over fraud and hacking threats.
When one cloud server provides a network for several companies, it opens up a potential threat for all clients.
It is imperative for IT to ensure the cloud provider offers centralised security in the cloud when end users use mobile-based applications to access corporate data.
Mr Shannon says many small businesses cannot afford to manage network security inhouse. Servitel uses a host-managed fi rewall to provide “fl exible and scalable” solutions required of remote employees to access company resources.
ligence files to the public exposing the National Security Agency’s (NSA) efforts to monitor the globe’s electronic communica-tions.
The whole episode spurred a new way of thinking about privacy and security in almost every company on the planet, including New Zealand.
Compounding this threat, employees continue to bring their own mobile devices to work and companies are buying new wireless machines. So the vulnerability for potentially sensitive data escaping a workplace gets more acute each year.
Not all New Zealand companies require the kinds of encryption or protec-tion being offered by some software in this post-Snowden business environment but some will be. It’s unlikely even that many New Zealand companies will be targeted by the kinds of hacking threats detailed at the Black Hat convention – but some will be.
The key for a company is to know where to put their precious resources to mitigate as many of these threats as possible, with-out hurting productivity or swinging aim-lessly in the dark.
Vodafone head of security Colin James says larger organisations in New Zealand have a handle on the need to secure their workers’ mobile devices.
“That can be a little harder at the smaller end of the scale. SMEs might struggle with the cost equation in securing mobile com-munications,” he says.
“New Zealanders have had this approach that, because we’re so far away geographically, why would anyone want to attack down here?
“However, when it comes to online businesses, there is no such thing as a geo-graphic barrier. A lot of organisations mis-read that and don’t understand the impact it can have on them,” Mr James says.
And which modern company doesn’t have a website? It may not be the driver of your daily business but how much access could it have to your company files and data? Would bringing down the website in some kind of attack be a manageable event for your business? Are you so sure?
“Android devices have lots of security but they also have more than 90% of the viruses,” Mr James says.
“Decisions are made by people, so
accuracy and a good understanding of security is crucial. Employees need to know more about the general aspects of secu-rity – they’re the key to a robust company security.”
As became obvious during the Snowden affair, an organisation as powerful and robust as the NSA is only as strong as its employees’ willingness to play by the rules. Mr Snowden had access to all the data he stole. Much of it he should never have seen, let alone removed.
“A business can’t rely on the corporate boundary any more,” says Mr James.
“There needs to be controls on the actu-al information. If the document is serious and important, it’s equally important not to let everybody in the business have the tools to access it. Knowing where your data is can be just as important as expensive security systems.”
NetSafe cyber security consultant Chris Hails says a recent presentation on mobile and cyber security – aimed at the SME business size –disturbingly only attracted a handful of attendees despite the wide mar-keting of the event.
“For many people it’s an area they’re still uncomfortable with. And, as with a lot of technology issues, if it is outside their comfort area, many people would rather ignore it and shoulder the risk and maybe not address taking preventative steps,” Mr Hails says.
Staff controlsThe most common risks aren’t exactly Hol-lywood-friendly either. Perhaps that’s one of the issues limiting widespread action. It all seems manageable or not that bad once you think about it.
“The No 1 risk would be loss of a device. If you’re going to buy a range of $1000 smartphones and give them to your staff, the first thing to worry about is where they are going to leave them – and, if they do get lost, who’s going to have access to them and what are they going to be able to access on those devices,” Mr Hails says.
The threat to business data, says Voda-fone’s Colin James, usually occurs around the accidental release of information by a lapse in security procedures, rather than a malicious intent.
“It’s far easier to protect against acci-dental information leaks by teaching employees to handle sensitive emails or documents with care. Of course there is
always going to be a human error some-where down the line,” he says.
“If an employee wants to steal informa-tion or someone outside wants to get into your system, then they’re probably going to find a way. But some people have access to things they simply shouldn’t.”
Equally, if employees want to move data or documents around and a company doesn’t supply an easy way for them to do this, they’re probably going to find a way to do so.
“We’ve heard stories where several members of staff have started sharing a Dropbox account informally outside the network and without telling IT what they’re up to,” Mr Hails says.
“It’s important that companies address what staff want to do and why they want to do it and make sure they ask those ques-tions upfront around where data lives.
“Sometimes there are companies with industrial secrets worth protecting. Fonterra and others will probably have assets they would hate to think would fall into the wrong hands. But likewise, many of us aren’t taking the basic steps for pro-tection all the time.” Mr Hails says.
SPECIAL REPORT: IT: MOBILE & WIRELESS 29The National Business Review / August 15, 2014
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National_Business_Review_Aug_2014.indd 2 13/08/14 1:19 PM
Companies still not taking mobile security seriously
From P23
den decline in battery life over previous mod-els (the Z10 is pretty standard in the Apple/Android universe of one-day battery life, if miserable compared to smaller screen Black-Berrys of yore that last days).
The finger gestures used to control the Z10 all make sense but will be equally foreign to anyone who has used a traditional keyboard BlackBerry or is looking to hop across from an Apple or Android. Another drawback: the Z10 launched without its own cloud ecosystem a
la Apple’s iCloud, Google’s Drive or Microsoft’s One Drive.
The days are long gone when BlackBerry’s push email made it the smart-phone leader. Today, security is the focus. If you use Black-Berry Enterprise Service and all BlackBerry handsets in
your organisation, you can lock things down tight. But there are now also many third-party software services that can be used to wran-gle multiple brands of smartphones, and pull formerly BlackBerry exclusive tricks like remotely wiping a phone’s data, or switching off certain features after hours.
More online: check out a Z10 review at www.nbr.co.nz/blackberry
Choosing theright mobile
From P24
CHRIS HAILS: Many people would rather ignore security issues
