The word of the day: psammophile, a noun, that means an organism that prefers or thrives in sandy soils or areas. That was the winning word spelled by Dev Shah, a 14-year-old from Largo, Fla., to win this years Scripps National Spelling Bee. Take that, Wordle.
News from name brands. Microsoft’s big event for developers, Microsoft Build, can be spelled with two letters this year: A+I. Greater availability of Azure OpenAI service, Copilots for Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform, and more AI inside Bing are just the beginning.
The Dell APEX portfolio expands it’s as-a-service multicloud strategies across more Microsoft and Red Hat offerings and public clouds, and extends PC-as-a-Service among other advancements.
Security news. ControlOne, CYTRACOM’s SD-WAN/SASE platform, now lets MSPs give end users nonstop passwordless connectivity at home, in the office, and everywhere in between without re-authenticating.
The new GravityZone Security for Mobile from Bitdefender hopes to protect some of the 6.8 billion smartphones in the world with advanced mobile threat detection for businesses and MSPs.
You have plenty of security and compliance policies, but tracking which users follow them can be dicey. Hello to 365 Permission Manager from Hornetsecurity, an admin-centered tool to manage and enforce those rules within Microsoft 365.
A new feature in Keeper Security’s KeeperPAM solution, password rotation, will securely rotate privileged credentials on demand or on an automated schedule.
Security education can never stop because hackers never stop either. Thus, the new QR Code Phishing Security Test tool from KnowBe4. Another fun attack vector to try and explain to executives who still try to get away with “password” as their password. But wait, there’s more! KnowBe4 also integrated it’s Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training platform with TDI’s automated Cybersecurity Performance Management soluti0on, CnSight.
Hardware wallet company SecuX partnered with Trend Micro to launch the SecuX W20 Trend Micro edition cold wallet (pictured) with extra protectionfor cryptocurrency and NFT transactions.
Now that N-Able is collaborating with the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, N-Able partners can get access to a rich crop of security boffins and more.
IoT news. Secureworks pulled the curtain on two new products, Taegis XDR for OT and Taegis ManagedSDR for OT, to secure IoT devices used in operations.
GovTech discusses 5G and IoT security with expert Tony Dolezal from Verizon Business.
Verdict in the U.K. details IoT imaging drone advances using info from GlobalData. So far, there have been 300+ innovations and counting, so now you can write off some of your drone hobby for business.
Our friends at Parks Associates share news, research, and new products from presentations at the “Connected Health at Home” portion of their Connected Health Summit. Surprise use? One woman tracked the rodents helping themselves to her vegetable garden.
Forbes takes a look at Wi-Fi HaLow, based on IEEE 802.11ah, that greatly extends the range of Wi-Fi for IoT uses thanks to using sub-GHz frequencies.
Other product news. Ooma and the NexHealth Synchronizer will do a better job getting patient info onscreen for agents calling about dental services for clients.
Think fast, what data centers need to go on a power diet? All of them, right? Check out Supermicro’s new servers for NVIDIA HGX H100 rack scale solutions. Can reduce power costs by 40%.
Hybrid working solutions that rely on sharing desks between different users on different days have some help from the new Logitech desk booking service running on Logi Dock Flex, for hotdesking. Manage multiple shared desks across multiple locations. But wait! Those same companies need better videoconferencing in huddle rooms, the exact goal of the new Logitech Rally Bar Huddle (pictured), an all-in-one appliance-based video bar for smaller rooms that includes a conference camera.
Maybe those hotdesks should come with the new Logitech MX Keys S Combo, which includes the also new Logitech MX Keys S keyboard, and MX Master 3S mouse, and MX Palm Rest. There’s also a new MX Anywhere 3S mouse available separately. Full disclosure: This article was typed using our personal Logitech ERGO K860 ergonomic wireless keyboard
Non-product vendor news. The guy wandering around 8×8 looking for the office supply closet is new CEO and board member Samuel Wilson.
Over at Seceon, the guy looking for the break room is new VP of Marketing William Toll (pictured).
The feet walking the red carpet to the doors of Sectigo belong to Christopher Bray, joining as senior vice president of partner and ecommerce sales channels.
The Welcome Wagon waiting at Impartner was for Brent Taylor, the new CFO.
Congrats to Kimberly Staro, channel director at AVANT, for being named the Big Impact Winner for Q1 2023 by the Alliance of Channel Women.
Pax8 and CrowdStrike shook hands for a strategic partnership to put the CrowdStrike Falcon family of products on the Pax8 Marketplace.
Finding trained techs remains a problem for about 99 of 100 tech groups, so cheers to CompTIA for adding training and certificate programs in six new areas: CompTIA A+_cyber, network, cloud, server, data, and coding.
Ivanti is working with carbon-accounting firm Greenly to improve sustainability and employee involvement in environmental awareness.
This week’s stats ticker:
The latest update of the SMB Barometer from Analysys Mason found only 69% of SMBs anticipate growing revenue YOY compared to 73% six months earlier, and that SMBs have slipped into a “strategic realignment” mindset as economic conditions slow business performance. SMB IT spending will increase, but at a slower rate than six months earlier, as client businesses report slowing conditions as well. Most cite inflation as their main concern, and they expect these feelings and lower performance to linger through the rest of 2023.
Apple device management solution provider Addigy discovered that Apple Rapid Security Response (RSR) updates are not being deployed in up to 25% of macOS devices within many managed environments. Why? Some macOS devices end up in a “stuck state” after an update is pushed but never implemented. Bad news? There’s no way to know which devices are lacking updates without manually inspecting the device and enabling the update. The OSUpdateScan command seems to be the main culprit. Addigy will release an MDMD Watchdog utility, free to customers, within the next three weeks.
Barracuda’s “The Evolving Landscape of the MSP Business Report 2023” found that MSP are expecting growth of about 25% in 2023, 90% plan to grow their managed service offerings from one to nine services, most are optimistic about 2023, but 83% agreed that the struggling economy in 2022 was a hindering factor in their growth. The survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne.
Maryland is for Gamblers. Bitrot remains a thing, although this is more linkrot though incompetence. Maryland license plates commemorating the War of 1812, issued between 2012 and 2016, had a URL of www.StarSpangled200.org on the bottom portion of each plate. An estimated 798,000 cars still drive around with those plates, and that URL.
Unfortunately somehow (as in someone screwed up), the URL lapsed and was snatched up by a Philippines gambling website.
According to reports, the Maryland IT department is working on “options to resolve the issue.” Here’s an idea: flip a coin. No, that won’t work, because the house finds a way to win most bets. Maybe throw lots of money to the new owners and transfer the domain? This time, pay attention to renewal dates.
Photo: Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration
