​Every year the list of Microsoft National Systems Integrators (NSIs) goes through a reshuffling. The Microsoft U.S. Partner Group's priorities change. Some partner companies change their focus. Others merge, as was the case when longtime NSI Azaleos was acquired by Avanade Inc., the global systems integrator partially owned by Microsoft.

​Chris Miller, CIO at managed service provider Avanade, said that the technology is evolving in a way that supports this. "In the first iterations of enterprise social networking, the capabilities were often in stand-alone silos where participation was optional," said Miller. "The real benefit to the individual wasn't in contributing, but in leveraging the contributions of those around them.  

​Modern businesses are all adapting fast to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technologies, which integrate external and internal management information across the board. Healthcare enterprises too, are not an exception. ERP technology enables seamless flow of information, and also keeps the management connected with the stakeholders. Still, considering how rapidly changing healthcare methods are, the sector has been slow in implementing ERP.

​Avanade, a business technology developer, has taken note of the changing retail landscape. Consumers are becoming busier, or at least less accommodating of wait times, as they become more enthralled with technology, especially that of the mobile variety. Wait times have long been an issue that the retail sector has had to deal with. While many consumers are willing to wait to purchase products, excessive waiting can actually drive consumers away.

​Not long ago, even some of the most committed Microsoft partners advised customers to take a gradual approach with Microsoft Lync. "Part of it was based on our own recommendations to customers that, when implementing Lync, they should perhaps not start with the voice piece out of the gate because that's the most complicated piece," says Scott Gode, a senior director at Avanade Inc. "Start with just instant messaging only, or conferencing only, or instant messaging plus conferencing."

​We've all heard the plethora of acronyms: SaaS. IasS. Platform as a Server (PaaS). Network as a Service (NaaS). I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of, and someone somewhere probably keeps an authoritative list that defines each of these. In a recent conversation with Scott Gode, senior director of managed services for Avanade, he told me they were toying with the idea of offering Devices as a Service (DaaS) because customers need help managing all those connected mobile devices.

​In the nineties I took part in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by providing my idle computational resources from my home PC to look for patterns in the noise coming from outer space. The amount of radio noise coming from outer space is overwhelming but SETI@home, University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory and millions of participants tried to find the patterns that would suggest extraterrestrial intelligent activity. This activity is quite similar to what is going on with big data in today's business world.

​TheEveryone knows the way we work today is vastly different than the way we worked a matter of years ago. New technologies, expectations, policies, stakeholders and even physical work spaces all play into a new way of doing business. A key driver of this change has been consumer and mobile technologies. One of the most surprising things about the impact of consumer technology on the workplace is how undemocratic it has been.

​Big-data is more and more commonplace in the domain of information technology nowadays – many entrepreneurs and experts are extremely curious about this question whether data produces the desired return on the investments made for managing it. A survey conducted by the Avanade IT Research Company. According to the findings of this research study, the majority of companies are satisfied with the ROI produced by the investments on big data in their organizations. This study reveals that more than 73% of the senior management of the companies who participated in this survey believe that their investment in big data tools and business intelligence has increased the revenue of the company – Meanwhile, as much as 27% of these C-level people are not satisfied with the investment in big data.

​Microsoft likely will talk more about "enterprise voice" at its Lync Conference next week. The event, to be held in San Diego on February 19, will be a "first" for Lync, according to Microsoft. The server was previously marketed as "Microsoft Office Communicator," but Lync 2013, the latest server version of the product that Microsoft released back in October, will get aired in multiple deep-dive technical discussions at the San Diego event. Microsoft also sells Lync Online through its Office 365 services. Lync 2013 is a unified communications solution for organizations offering capabilities such as voice over IP (VoIP), instant messaging, presence and conferencing.

​BYOD (bring your own device) is a well-established trend. The next steps are to redesign business processes as mobility takes root and implement a “buy the right device” program. Dan O’Hara, the vice president of mobility for Avanade, told IT Business Edge blogger Carl Weinschenk that both trends lead to increased sales, higher employee morale and other benefits.

​Companies are changing their business processes to take advantage of mobile and consumer technologies in the workplace. Avanade’s latest global study of consumer and mobile technologies’ impact on enterprises shows that 71% of companies have changed at least one business process and 20% have changed four or more business processes. This new trend was one the main topics of a video interview with Dan O’Hara, vice president of mobility at Avanade

​Avanade, the global enterprise IT services company started by Accenture and Microsoft in 2000 to focus on Microsoft widgetry, has acquired the software written by a young 15-month-old SaaS operations start-up by the name of Opstera that helps manage cloud solutions, the underlying platform and dependent cloud services.

​Businesses are eager to put touch devices into the hands of certain segments within an enterprise, said Dan O’Hara, vice president for mobility at Avanade.

​A study that trod more or less the same basic ground was released by Avanade. The firm, according to a report at InfoWorld, found that BYOD – a step child of mobility – poses security threats, difficulties in maintaining compatibility, and challenges for support staffs. The study, in a result that mirrors the findings of The Telework Exchange, found that great benefits in sales, customer acquisition, time to market and other benefits accrue from BYOD.

​The widespread use of consumer technologies in the enterprise, thanks in large part to the growing popularity of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives, is having a sweeping impact on traditional ways of doing business and the results companies can achieve, according to a global survey of nearly 600 C-level executives and IT decision-makers in 19 countries conducted by Wakefield Research and sponsored by managed services provider Avanade.

​Is the widespread use of consumer technologies in the enterprise affecting traditional ways of doing business? An Avanade global survey revealed that businesses are enabling consumer technologies, resulting in an impact on traditional ways of doing business. Results showed that businesses are more focused on employee-driven technologies, instead of enterprise-driven. Here are the results.

​IT admins have been understandably resistant to BYOD. After all, granting user-owned gadgets access to sensitive data and critical applications poses not only a security threat, it also creates compatibility challenges and tech-support headaches. However, embracing BYOD appears to be worth the trouble: Organizations that support consumer tech are nimbler and more profitable says a new survey from software and consulting company Avanade.

​One-third of 600 C-level executives and IT decision makers surveyed by Avanade reported that the majority of their employees are using tablets for advanced business purposes such as customer relationship management, project management, content creation and data analysis. More than six in 10 companies reported that the majority of their employees now use personal computing devices in the workplace, according to Avanade, a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft.

​In a survey of nearly 600 senior company executives and IT decision makers in 19 different countries, business MSP Avanade found that companies that allow their employees to bring mobile devices to work have better sales, more agility, increased profits and happier employees.