The two lessons of IE’s demise that IT support must understand

For technology enthusiasts who vilify it for poor security, lack of performance and incompatibility with modern web standards, Internet Explorer belongs to a bygone era of computing.  For many users however, Microsoft’s often criticised web browser is quite simply ‘The Internet’.  The Internet Explorer (IE) desktop shortcut was - until collective technical knowledge began improving - the only gateway to the online world for millions of people, making it the most popular web access tool by a massive margin.  Yet a recent re-evaluation of browser usage figures, which show that the reign of IE is seriously under threat, helps us make two very important points about the use and perception of IT today which those in a support capacity must grasp.

Don’t let ‘IT innovation wars’ blind us to common sense

IT innovation is currently one of the biggest buzz phrases in ITSM, and with good reason.  Many IT departments had become stale, a fact highlighted vividly by the speed at which business users have adopted consumer devices.  That users will accept the pitfalls of being an early adopter - and use their own cash to acquire expensive equipment in the process - shows how great the appetite is for cutting-edge tech.  We have argued before that IT operations need to have the same mindset if they are to remain relevant today.

Consumerisation merely a precursor to the ‘major wave’ of personal tech

If you are surprised how quickly individuals in your organisation - who previously had no interest in technology - have taken consumer tech to their heart, analyst Gartner has the following message: you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Will IT make big banks redundant?

Advances in technology will allow savers and investors to bypass financial services providers and, in the process, end the monopoly of the incumbent banks. 

Stop ignoring consumer device support (before your customers start ignoring you)

Service desks may curse the day that Apple unveiled the iPhone, kickstarting as it did a movement which has seen consumer devices undermine the internal IT stronghold.  Yet the need for IT teams to get past their prejudices towards Apple and Android products, and broaden the net of products which they support, has been further underlined by a research from Jabra, which shows that 83 per cent of office workers now regularly work remotely (the report is available here, there’s plenty of good material about demographics/types of devices being used which will be helpful for any support team investigating this issue). 

Join our campaign demanding value from your service desk investment

We recently wrote a blog article about the latent potential of most service desk installations (50 per cent of service functionality is unused), and explained how vendors and customers need to work harder to derive value from their investment. 

IT a priority as businesses prep for recovery

Pessimism regarding the economy will not deter small businesses from investing in new systems, with 50 per cent of those questioned by Iconnyx insisting they will plough money into technology this year.