What are the threats associated with cyber security?
In part three of his interview with The Cleaning Crew, Bryley Systems President, Gavin Livingstone, answers the question “what are some of the threats associated with cyber security?”
The (near-term) future of computer technology – Microsoft versus Google
The crystal ball is still foggy, but here are my thoughts on Microsoft versus Google and (what I believe is) the battle for world domination. (Microsoft sales are around $77B, primarily from Windows software (25%), business software (32%), and server software (25%); Google is about $55B with approximately 87% of its revenue from advertising.)
Notice, I did not include Apple: The big play is between Microsoft and Google and it is occurring across multiple lines:
- Google (search) versus Bing
- Microsoft Office versus Google Apps
- Google Android versus Microsoft Windows
Google (search) versus Bing
In the search-engine market, there is no comparison with Google (#1) capturing an average of 67% of monthly queries in the US while Bing (#2) captures only 17%. In search, queries equate to advertising revenue, the heart of Google’s success. (Search is currently not a significant part of Microsoft’s sales.)
Google’s familiar, plain-white background seems functional, but also trendy with the occasional changes to the GOOGLE moniker. Bing’s full-screen, image-based background usually displays beautiful vistas or current events; the scrollable “Popular Now” bar across the bottom adds an items-of-interest aspect.
Bing (aka Microsoft) suggests comparing the two.
Winner (by a wide margin) is Google; Bing is interesting, but it will take some major work to break Google’s dominance in this area.
Microsoft Office versus Google Apps
When it comes to productivity applications; Microsoft Office 2013 owns the market at 92% while the newer Office 365, Microsoft’s Cloud-based answer to Google Apps, exceeds $1B per year. (For details, please see the April 19, 2013Forbes article at forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/04/19/microsoft-shakes-off-pc-slump-as-office-and-servers-sales-swell/.)
Microsoft continues to focus on Office 365; pricing now starts at $96 per year, new features have been added, and partners can sell this service directly to users.
Although Microsoft productivity applications dominate on the desktop, Google Apps is a serious contender to Office 2013 and Office 365 with an estimated 33% to 50% share of Cloud-based productivity apps. The primary difference: Google Apps was Cloud-based from the start; it doesn’t have all of the features of Microsoft Office, but is relevant on more platforms, is free to consumers, and costs just $50 per
year for users of Google Apps for Business.
So, Google Apps plays well in a heterogeneous, consumer/small-business world. Also, Google has moved its popular Postini anti-spam service into Google Apps, a move that has angered and confused many of its (former) Postini clients, but one that makes sense from the perspective of beefing up Google Apps for Business to battle against Office 365.
For details, please see the 4/23/2013 article by Kurt Mackie of Redmond Magazine at “Gains For Google In Cloud Office” – redmondmag.com. To compare Office 365 to Google Apps, please visit “Office 365 vs Google Apps” – youtube.com
Winner (by a strong, but potentially diminishing margin) is Microsoft; Microsoft dominates the desktop, but mobile users are changing the landscape.
Google Android versus Microsoft Windows
In terms of projected sales of mobile devices, Google’s Android (DROID) owns the market at 79% while Microsoft Windows is at just 3.3%. However, if you include desktop computers, a declining market, Windows is still prevalent across organizations throughout the world.
Google introduced Android in 2007; it is a Linux-based, open-source operating system designed for touchscreen devices. Its strength is its robustness and ease-of-use, which led to a brisk rate of adoption by users and application developers.
Windows 8 was introduced in October of 2012. It was designed to be compatible with its predecessors (Windows XP and Windows 7) while introducing a touch-enabled, tile-based, user interface that has been more frustrating than enabling. To date, it has failed to meet even modest expectations. (Windows 8.1, a free, significant upgrade to Windows 8, will release on October 17th with the hope of changing this trend.)
Currently a draw if you include both mobile devices and desktop computers: Microsoft owns the desktop while Google owns mobile devices; Windows 8.1 provides hope, but might be too little too late to penetrate the mobility market.
If nothing else, expect prices to decrease as the competition heats up.
Bryley Systems participates in the MetroWest Career Pathways at Hudson High School
Bryley Systems participated in the MetroWest Career Pathways at Hudson High School, a fair held on November 19th for area juniors and seniors that are on track to graduate high school, but may not have a clear pathway for what to do after graduation. Pictured are co-owners Cathy and Gavin Livingstone; they met a lot of students who expressed an interest in a career in information technology.
More ergonomics from Marty Reed
Marty Reed of Top Enterprise, an ergonomics specialist, visited Bryley early in September for a demonstration on proper ergonomics. She then visited our cubicles and made individual recommendations.
Her overall suggestions included:
- Monitor:
- Set distance at one arm-length from body to monitor.
- Set height so eyes focus at about 2” below top of monitor.
- Keyboard:
- Use wrist rests to get hands up and over keyboards.
- Keyboard should lay flat on the desktop; do not tilt up back.
- Chair:
- Use chair arms periodically to rest arms.
- Forearms and thighs should be parallel to the ground.
- Adjust for lower-back support or add a lumbar-support device.
- General:
- Look away into the distance at least every hour to reduce eye strain.
- Get up from your workstation periodically and walk around.
Winner of our business-card raffle at the Central Mass Business Expo (CMBE)
Congratulations to Maureen Raillo, CEO at W Limousine in West Boylston, MA!
Maureen won a Beats Pill, and a Beats Pill character stand. (Beats Pill is a lightweight, portable, and wireless speaker that lets you bring music wherever you go; combined with the character stand, the value is over $250.)
Recommended practices – Part-1: Storage of unstructured data
This is a part one of a multi-part series on recommended practices for organizations and their end-users. Additional parts will be in upcoming newsletters.
Organizations create and consume data constantly, but not all have formal policies or practices that define the value of this data and restrict its amount and location.
Quality is difficult to define and even tougher to enforce; some departments and users save items solely for convenience, even though its value is minimal, while others consider everything they have ever said or done, even 20 years ago, to be worthy of permanent storage. Basically, there is no point to storing unstructured data (MS Office documents, PDFs, etc.) unless it has value to the organization; however, if you must store it, choose a method that allows some type of classification (like SharePoint with its searchable repository of metadata).1
Rather than try to enforce quality standards, many organizations impose limitations on the amount of data stored (since this can be controlled and monitored)2: Even though disk space is relatively inexpensive, backup, data-management, and data-security costs increase as data grows. Quotas also impose discipline; setting a quota allows the organization to get a picture of storage needs by individuals and by departments or functional groups. Quotas can also be adjusted as needed.
There are tools that manage unstructured data via audit/access controls and monitor via usage patterns; these are targeted (and priced) for enterprise-class organizations, but are moving downstream within the reach of more organizations. There are less-expensive tools (and policies included within Active Directory) that limit storage-space usage; limits are usually set by user or by department.
Finally, organizations traditionally assume, and try to enforce, that end-users save and store company data only at designated locations of on-premise equipment (drives mapped to servers, storage arrays, Network Attached Storage, etc.) or at authorized, Cloud-based storage locations; the idea is to save and secure company data where it will receive proper backup, security, and vetting. Saving company data onto personal computers, tablets, and mobile phones, where it might not receive regular backups and is more vulnerable to loss or theft, is discouraged.
The best place to start is to create a clear, unambiguous policy on the storage of company data with these guidelines:
Define what data should be kept and for how long
Define storage-amount limitations and enforcement
Define acceptable storage locations
Define responsibilities for retention
Once defined, processes can be created and tools can be acquired to manage and monitor this policy.
Our recommendations for storage locations:
Remove all data from end-user devices (laptops, mobile devices, etc.).
Map a Home folder for each end-user and restrict its rights to that user.
Move the end-user My documents folder to their respective Home folder.
Deploy a document-collaboration utility (like SharePoint or Google Docs) or create a Shared folder with appropriate subfolders to manage your shared, unstructured data.
Restrict shared access by department or functional group.
Our recommendations for storage management:
Define policies within Active Directory to limit storage space (as needed).
Archive older, infrequently-used data to less-expensive storage.
Monitor usage on a regular basis.
1. Visit “My ongoing rant about unstructured end user data storage”.
2. See Alan Radding’s excellent and relevant article “Keep end-user storage under control” at TechTarget and originally from Storage magazine in November 2006.
Bryley exhibits at the Central Mass Business Expo
Bryley Systems exhibited in the Technology Pavilion at the Central Mass Business Expo on September 8th, which was held at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA.
Pictured in our booth is Anna ; Account Executive at Bryley Systems.
Anna D. achieves VMware Sales Professional certification
Congratulations to Anna who completed the significant training and testing to become certified as a VMware Sales Professional.
VMware is the global leader in virtualization and a key partner of Bryley Systems. A certified VMware Sales Professional has general knowledge in VMware products and business practices.
Anna has been with Bryley since 2010. She moved to the Sales team in 2012.
Summer Fun!
The weather cooperated as Bryley’s summer outing on Sunset Lake in Ashburnham was sunny, warm, and dry. The menu included standard-issue, summer-cookout fare with hamburgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, salads, and desserts; plenty of desserts. Bryley also hosted SwiftecIT and other friends; daylight fishing and pontoon-boat rides (pictured) gave way to roasting marshmallows around the evening campfire.
We Have A Winner!
Congratulations to Geary at USI! You’ve won the drawing for “Roy’s Almost 20th!”
For those who may have missed the news, Roy Pacitto, our Director of Sales, has been an employee at Bryley Systems for nearly 20 years! Since we tend to get excited about this sort of thing, we decided to have a little celebration in honor of his many years of service, only to realize that Roy hadn’t actually finished his 20th year yet. By this point, however, the drinks were already open, the cake was already out, and we were already assembled, so we decided to go ahead and celebrate Roy’s (almost) 20th anyway.
It was about this time that we made another realization. Over the past (almost) 20 years, Roy has come to know a lot of people, and we wanted to get all of you in on the celebration as well. As a result, we put together a little contest in which we hid an image of Roy’s (almost) 20th cake somewhere on our website, and those who found it were entered in a chance to win a $35.00 gift card.
To make a long story short, the contest is over and Geary is our lucky winner! We hope that you will all join us in congratulating Geary and Roy in their respective achievements.
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