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. Without explicitly saying the word Hotmail, Google recently launched an Email Intervention campaign. Designed to help us get our friends off of old providers, and onto Gmail so we can gchat, call, and video chat with them, the video is aimed at hotmail users, and the people who love them.

    Days later (coincidence?), Microsoft releases Gmail Man, a friendly, creepy mailman who asks embarrassing, intrusive questions while he delivers your email.

    Never mind that Google Apps for Business (the closest analog to Office 365) doesn’t have ads in Gmail, and that Microsoft’s Hotmail is full of even blinkier, more garish ads (a better comparison for ad-laden consumer Gmail in the video).

  2. It’s a common misconception: That unlike Excel, the Google Docs Spreadsheets program doesn’t support pivot tables.

    And it was true. Up until May, one had to enable a special third-party gadget that was two-menus deep. But no-longer. Google Docs Spreadsheets now fully supports Pivot Tables.

    Google adds features almost weekly to to Google Apps, so when surveying the Google Apps landscape, be prepared to check in frequently.

    (Also be prepared to wrap your mind around different models of features. Many Google Apps programs don’t map quite directly to Microsoft Office feature models.)

  3. 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.

  4. 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

  5. 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.”

  6. 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.

  7. 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. 

  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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