Findings from recent IT studies

This week IBM and Harvey Nash published their respective regular CIO Studies.

The IBM Global CIO Study is conducted by IBM through in-depth interviews with some 3000 CIOs. Key findings from this study are that there is improved alignment between business and IT, and that IT is moving up in the business food chain. CIOs are increasingly part of the most senior business forums and wear more and more the business hat in stead of the technology hat. CEOs and CIOs are remarkably aligned on key priorities such as insight, business intelligence, client relationships and people skills.

In the study, 83 per cent cited business intelligence (BI) and analytics as the key tool to enhance their organisation’s competitiveness. Mobility solutions also ranked highly; some 74 per cent of CIOs identified mobility as the next best way to boost competitiveness. This must be satisfying for IBM as these are key strategic areas for the global systems integrator.

The IBM study outlines four CIO groups, which the IBM has termed ‘CIO mandates’. The categories include:

• Leverage: Streamlining operations and increasing organisational effectiveness (doing more with less)
• Expand: Refine business processes and enhance collaboration
• Transform: Change the industry value chain through improved relationships with customers
• Pioneer: Innovate products, markets and business models.

Read more on the IBM Study at: http://www.ibm.com/ciostudy

The Harvey Nash Global CIO Survey 2011 was conducted online among about 2600 CIOs and IT leaders. The study finds that CIO job satisfaction, salaries and standing within the organization have increased compared to last year. The study shows an expansion of their roles and improved standing inside their companies. The number of CIOs with global responsibilities increased to 37 per cent in 2011, from 32 per cent in 2010. Nearly 70 per cent of IT leaders believe they're perceived more strategically inside their organizations this year (69 per cent), compared to last year (64 per cent). Their role on their companies' executive management teams backs up their perceptions: Half of respondents are members of the executive management team, up eight per cent from 2010.

Despite the growing number of CIOs who think their peers view them as strategic business partners, the majority still don't report to the CEO: Only 32 per cent call the CEO their boss, though that number is up three per cent over last year. Approximately one in five CIOs (18 per cent) reports to the CFO. CIOs are according to the study still primarily focused on operational activities and cost savings with only 37 per cent of the IT organizations having a key focus on innovation.

A third, perhaps less authoritative, Internet based survey showed however that IT and the Internet are still becoming increasingly important in (men's) daily life. In a survey of some 200 men aged between 18 and 45, 64 per cent revealed they would give up sex for a week before giving up their ability to get online. The survey also revealed that some 92.6 per cent of respondents would give up alcoholic beverages before giving up online access, and that 88.5 per cent would choose the internet over vanities including a toothbrush and footwear. When asked what their reaction was when their internet went down, 63.5 per cent said they calmly searched for a solution while 22 per cent they would steal someone else’s Wi-Fi signal. Other key findings were that men predominately spent their time reading and sending emails at 87.5 per cent, and that YouTube came in a close second with 72.5 per cent.

Frits de Vroet

Tablet (iPad) apps review

In this blog, I will share some of my experiences with iPad apps. I have been using an iPad for about 6 months and have been quite eager to try out productivity apps. I must admit that I have initially mainly focused on free apps. My Dutch tightness shines through (a friend once characterized Dutch people as having short arms and deep pockets...) and I haven't really mind the ads coming with the free versions. One does want to try out an app before buying and many app developers should consider giving either free apps or introducing a trial period.

 

As with all (new) things, it is largely about identifying potential winners among the many options. Betting on the right apps will secure long term availability, ongoing improvements and higher likelihood that the app will be available on various platforms (iPad, PC, Android, WebOS, mobile, etc.). This is especially valid for productivity apps that one would like to use on a day to day basis while incorporating the use of the tablet into daily life.

 

Apple includes mail, calendar and notes in the base set up. Mail works very well for both Gmail and other mail clients. It allows to handle multiple inboxes and is very easy to set up. It generally works in 'conversation' mode where messages belonging to the same thread are shown together in a sub directory. The archiving of multiple messages is only possible by sliding across the main message in the inbox. Multiple deletion is not possible. Calendar provides good calendaring functionality and is quite nifty integrated with Mail where dates are recognized and hyperlinked for easy calendaring. Multiple calendars can be integrated or shown separately.

 

The notes application is rather limited and does not have location identification and basic time stamping. Individual notes have only one page and can only be edited in simple text. I have used Catch and Evernote as alternative notes apps. Catch is similar to Notes but provides location identification, tags (need to use # in front of the tag in the title or note text) and time stamping. Catch notes are cloud-based and can be accessed from any computer after establishing an account. Evernote is my favourite notes app. It uses 'Notebooks' to files notes as well as tags through an easy interface. Evernote includes audio recording, HTML pages, photos, files (different formats including PDF) as well as input from Noteshelf (a handwritten notes app). Notes can also be send in by email (Evernote provides you with an email address to which input for notes can be sent as part for your account) or 'printed' to Evernote from other apps on the tablet. Like Catch, Evernote notes are cloud-based and can be accessed from any computer. Evernote provides users with 60MB free upload allowance per month in the cloud. Evernote is searchable and has a location function albeit not as intuitive as the one in Catch. There is an Evernote Premium that allows 1GB upload, searching within PDFs and, most importantly offline access to notes. I would expect Evernote to be a winner in the space due to it's broad functionality, strong integration with other apps and good development potential.

 

The discussed notes apps can be used for text input which then can be copied and pasted into other applications be it productivity (MS Office, Pages) or in web-based environments. There are many other text editing apps on the market. I have typed this on Draftpad, a very simple notepad. Draftpad comes with an Assist Library through which text can easily be copied, deleted or uploaded into Evernote. Assist Library also allows users to search Draftpad entry in Google or Safari. Draftpad saves your work regularly and keeps a timeline of your various versions.

 

So far, my views on some of the Notes and Mail apps. In a next blog, I will write about Utility apps such as Dropbox, Task apps and handwriting notes apps.