For technology information junkies, 2016 turned into the yr of superlatives -- as in greatest, baddest and OMG.
marvelous thefts of non-public assistance at probably the most nation's biggest tech corporations put dread within the hearts of thousands and thousands, slick smartphones combusted on airplanes, a tweeting presidential candidate flouted the rules and gained regardless of the predictions of the smartest guys -- and algorithms -- within the room.
It turned into not tough for SearchCIO's Searchlight news columnists, whose job is to scour proper tech information, to locate stories that spoke to CIOs and convey evaluation and insight from business luminaries. From data breaches at Yahoo and Dropbox to the remember of the Samsung Galaxy word 7 to Donald Trump's shock victory within the U.S. presidential race, the cautionary stories stored coming.
So once we at SearchCIO seemed lower back at the year's Searchlight columns, we discovered that many of the most-read columns dug into tech experiences that had been, in a be aware, yuge.
computing device failure grounds DeltaWhen a power outage at Delta Air lines' headquarters in Atlanta ended in lots of canceled flights global in August, CEO Ed Bastian spoke at once to Delta's clients.
"or not it's not clear the priorities in our investment had been in the right region," Bastian talked about in a video posted on Delta's site.
The issue become backup energy -- or quite, now not satisfactory of it. About 300 of the airline's 7,000 servers weren't hooked up to the backup gadget.
vigor source testing would have uncovered the concern earlier than it grew to be a a lot, a whole lot larger one, but Delta simply hadn't executed enough of it, mentioned Gartner analyst Mark Jaggers. it be now not only a Delta oversight. IT departments in all places don't do advanced catastrophe restoration planning -- and that's now not respectable.
In our story on the calamity, "Delta outage is a wake-up call for IT execs, CEOs," trade observers delved into why what came about at the airline came about and how IT professionals -- and chief pros -- can improve their company healing operations and ensure they are able to run when it counts.
Trump beats the odds; uncertainty reignsMost pollsters didn't feel Donald Trump would win the Nov. eight election towards Hillary Clinton. Or at the least they did not see a high probability of it -- peculiarly after reduce polling numbers appeared to confirm that voters did not need a president who taunted a fallen war hero's parents and boasted on a 2005 video about groping ladies.
The election effects proved most pollsters wrong -- and, as shown in our story on the upset, "Presidential election predictions forged doubt on statistics evaluation," raised questions in regards to the obstacles of records assortment and evaluation. If the counsel getting in is rarely correct, the assistance coming out may not be, both.
a number of weeks following the election, Trump invited leaders of the U.S. tech industry, whom he had baited during the crusade, to a "expertise roundtable" in long island. The agenda, up to now undisclosed, protected speak of bringing international profits back to the U.S., creating greater jobs and constructing more suitable infrastructure.
meanwhile, as mentioned in our put up-election story, "forget about Trump's tech policy -- or not it's the economic system, CIOs," the have an effect on of a Trump administration on CIOs' budgets will rely greater on the business, measurement and sector of their corporations than on niceties exchanged at a meeting of A-listers in Trump Tower.
"In an uncertain environment you need to be sure you might be basically concentrated to your consumer and you're looking for methods through which you take into account and are delicate and may respond to your shoppers and their own positions," stated Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels, who submit-election diminished his 2017 tech spending projections to 4.three% from 5.1%.
Cyberattacks go huge, hold low profilehere is the year past breaches have come to haunt us. Take our story, "Dropbox hack and the password safety conundrum," for example. Hackers slipped into the cloud storage app again in 2012 and stole e-mail addresses and passwords from greater than 68 million accounts.
and then there's Yahoo. The information superhighway enterprise announced in September that account information of as a minimum 500 million clients turned into made away with two years in the past. It turned into the biggest statistics theft ever of 1 business's community.
Outdoing itself, Yahoo talked about remaining week that another assault, this one in 2013, netted the person information of more than 1 billion clients. As our story, "How is the billion-consumer Yahoo breach diverse from other email hacks?" mentioned, the event may no longer change patrons' online habits, nonetheless it should still supply CIOs and C-suite peers deep pause about their protection ideas.
"You cannot make a cavalier decision about safety," Forrester's Jeff Pollard noted to Searchlight. "It must be idea out, it must be programmatic, it has to be aligned with an organization's lifestyle, its brand and what customers are expecting from them, as a result of what we're seeing right here is that a breach from 2013 can floor in 2016."
The Dropbox and Yahoo hacks underline the need for enhanced authentication, or techniques of deciding upon that somebody is who or what it says it's.
Responding to the Dropbox incident, VASCO statistics protection vp of communique John Gunn mentioned organizations should movement faraway from single-password security.
Pollard observed newer safety technologies like two-factor authentication, which requires users to give two styles of id, and biometrics, which makes use of very own features to identify people, deserve to become mainstream to more desirable give protection to information from hackers. finally, valued clientele themselves will demand that companies use such equipment to guard the capabilities they supply.
more proper tech information: hearth and iPhone 7In September, Apple gave the area the iPhone 7, famously taking away the headphone jack and introducing wireless, à la carte AirPods.
Social media jeered and late-nighttime speak indicates parodied. And now, after some in shape orders for the cellphone, some studies say it might not be selling so well.
Regardless, observed Forrester analyst Christopher Voce, CIOs may still watch what Apple does. that's as a result of their employees are additionally shoppers who like and purchase Apple items.
"CIOs could be most excellent served by paying attention to what sort of technology their employees like and like to make use of," Voce said. "however most vital, focusing on how mobile can assist them, because the business have an impact on is undeniable."
One competitor that had in all probability too vigilant an eye on Apple became Samsung, which rolled out its Galaxy word 7, a excessive-end Android option to the iPhone in late summer season. simply just a few weeks later, sparks started flying -- a battery defect caused some telephones to burst into flames, prompting a voluntary bear in mind and then a compulsory one. The losses in income will little doubt be astronomical, with credit score Suisse estimating the enterprise could lose $17 billion.
Our story, "Samsung observe 7 disaster a CIO parable about fine assurance," underscored an issue endemic to the cutthroat smartphone sector -- and, with the aid of extension, for enterprise expertise: excellent trying out regularly gets short shrift. Many observers notion Samsung rushed the cellphone through construction -- devoid of the relevant high-quality checking out -- to beat the iPhone 7 debut.
"I don't think there is anyone denying that there became a big effect on their time time table to get their most beneficial mobile out prior -- confidently a month, six weeks prior -- to the launch of the iPhone 7 to disrupt that," stated Alan Lepofsky, an analyst at Constellation analysis.
it's new, it be extraordinary, it's untestedleap forward applied sciences like blockchain, quantum computing and driverless automobiles additionally made appropriate tech information this yr, and Searchlight swung their method to learn how lengthy it should be would becould very well be before they're mainstream.
In April's "Hip to be square: Microsoft gets in early on blockchain know-how," we reported on Microsoft's dedication to blockchain, the dispensed database know-how that varieties the basis of digital forex bitcoin. The application significant introduced a partnership with startup R3 and the consortium of financial capabilities companies it ends up in check blockchain. The purpose: to use the technology to in the reduction of fees and just about dispose of fraud in all types of transactions -- from true estate to healthcare to the stock market.
however lots of work is needed earlier than blockchain goes leading time, referred to Forrester's Martha Bennett. this is why the collaboration of Microsoft and agencies like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and financial institution of the usa is a promising development.
"The quicker it will also be dependent what works, what doesn't work and what needs to be finished to make it work, the better. To me, that is the important thing of this partnership," Bennett observed.
one more business trying to others to boost a budding technology is IBM, which launched IBM Quantum experience in may. or not it's the area's first cloud-based mostly platform for quantum computing, which harnesses the legal guidelines of quantum mechanics to process advice.
IBM's platform is available to anyone with a laptop computer or mobile equipment and should enable for individuals to discover what can be carried out with quantum computing, which proponents say may also result in developments in artificial intelligence and large information analysis.
at least one new thought turned into flowing through Pittsburgh in September, when ridesharing carrier Uber set loose automobiles devoid of drivers on metropolis streets, as lined in "Uber self-using automobile event a pink-letter day within the auto ecosystem": that autonomous autos would basically change the manner people get from right here to there.
"in case you consider you've considered change, you ain't seen nothin' yet," Forrester analyst Frank Gillett advised our reporter. "we now have received many years of unraveling what it potential and the way it alterations how we work and what we purchase."
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