After Hours

Welcome to After Hours, the Rank + File weblog covering the consumerization of enterprise IT.

Rank + File offers essential intelligence for CIOs and IT leaders on the technology their users bring inside the organization, by hook or by crook.

  1. Wily correspondents: your days are numbered. Google Apps enables email receipts.

    Read receipts allow senders to monitor the status of the messages they send and allow recipients to acknowledge receipt of mail.

    Opinion has long been mixed on email receipts. Overt aggression on behalf the sender? A necessary evil for evasive recipients?

    Most use receipts only as last resort when communicating with poor correspondents or as pseudo-legal documentation tool. In any case, they are a staple of enterprise culture. Long enabled in Microsoft Exchange/Outlook environments, Google has brought them to Google Apps.

    Email read receipts must be enabled by an organization’s domain administrator before users can access the feature.

  2. Telecommunications costs are falling worldwide. The report covers mobile, fixed line, and fixed line broadband costs. Our interest is in the topic? Consumer broadband pricing doesn’t only enable remote work habits. In many cases, consumer broadband quality drives them. /via theeconomist

    Telecommunications costs are falling worldwide. The report covers mobile, fixed line, and fixed line broadband costs.

    Our interest is in the topic? Consumer broadband pricing doesn’t only enable remote work habits. In many cases, consumer broadband quality drives them.

    /via theeconomist

  3. Can you be an enterprise-only device-maker?

    Jean-Louis Gassée says no in this HP WebOS thought piece:

    “The consumerization of IT renders the “enterprise-only” pivot null and void. In this new world, Google and Apple wage an ecosystem war: devices + apps + distribution. Add marketing, if you want, but Word Of Mouth is still more potent than ad dollars. Or merely reinforces it.”

  4. Enchanting Google desktop client concept. Would love bit of social in the nav. Particularly avatars of peers who recently edited/viewed/shared Google Docs. It would answer the eternal question, “did they get my notes on that…?” 9-bits: Josh Collie has been doing some fantastic mockups on Forrst for a desktop Google application.

    Enchanting Google desktop client concept. Would love bit of social in the nav. Particularly avatars of peers who recently edited/viewed/shared Google Docs. It would answer the eternal question, “did they get my notes on that…?”

    9-bits:

    Josh Collie has been doing some fantastic mockups on Forrst for a desktop Google application.

  5. Microsoft battles Google Apps campus popularity with some creative licensing

    As of June 2011, more than 12 million students use Google Apps for Education.

    Google provides its premium Google Apps service for free to schools, so it’s tough out there for a Microsoft enterprise sales team courting the next generation.

    parislemon:

    Microsoft Pays University of Nebraska To Use Office 365

    When you can’t beat em (Google Apps in the Cloud), don’t even try. Pay people to use your service instead. 

    No, it’s not straight-up cash. But it’s still hundreds of thousands of dollars in incentives such as other Microsoft software. Money that would otherwise be revenue from the University of Nebraska to Microsoft. So yes, they are paying them. 

  6. Google’s recent Extreme Makeover(s) reminds one of an episode of The Office:

    After witnessing the rapid ascension of Ryan and his website project, a paranoid Creed dyes his hair black. 

  7. Google IO starts today. Reminder that all main sessions are live-streamed for free.

    Google is excellent about recording and archiving proceedings of nearly all of its events, be it an internal tech talk, regional meetup, or product announcement. Google I/O is no exception. 

    While all individual sessions are recorded and archived after the event, all main sessions and keynotes will be live-streamed this week at http://www.google.com/io.

    We defy you to look away.

  8. The White House is not immune to IT consumerization angst. technipol: President Obama complains White House technology is ‘30 years behind’ “President Obama may be content using a slightly outdated (though admittedly secure) BlackBerry while on the go, but it seems that he’s far more disappointed in the technology at the White House itself. Speaking at a fundraiser in Chicago this week, Obama said that “when it comes to technology, we are like 30 years behind,” and he’s not just just talking about some ancient Windows desktops left over from the previous administration in the West Wing. He went on to complain about the lack of “really cool phones and stuff,” saying, “I’m the president of the United States. Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.” Maybe he can get some of his new tech industry friends to help him out with that if manages to settle in for a second term.” [Engadget]

    The White House is not immune to IT consumerization angst.

    technipol:

    President Obama complains White House technology is ‘30 years behind’

    “President Obama may be content using a slightly outdated (though admittedly secure) BlackBerry while on the go, but it seems that he’s far more disappointed in the technology at the White House itself. Speaking at a fundraiser in Chicago this week, Obama said that “when it comes to technology, we are like 30 years behind,” and he’s not just just talking about some ancient Windows desktops left over from the previous administration in the West Wing. He went on to complain about the lack of “really cool phones and stuff,” saying, “I’m the president of the United States. Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.” Maybe he can get some of his new tech industry friends to help him out with that if manages to settle in for a second term.” [Engadget]

    (via villagevoice)

  9. Enterprise IT quality suffers because it operates in a closed system

    cosupport reblogs from 37signals: The End of the IT Department

    “The problem with IT departments seems to be that they’re set up as a forced internal vendor. From the start, they have a monopoly on the “computer problem” – such monopolies have a tendency to produce the customer service you’d expect from the US Postal Service. The IT department has all the power, they’re not going anywhere (at least not in the short term), and their customers are seen as mindless peons. There’s no feedback loop for improvement.”

    (emphasis added by Rank & File.)

  10. So iPad file management is a work in a progress…

    stantonjones:

    “The default way on the iPad for moving files in and out is a Rube Goldberg nightmare…” http://t.co/40joYjV via @chris_loope #cio

    (Source: stantonjones)

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