Small Business Guide to Cyber Threats

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)

Understanding how to protect your small business is the first step to cybersecurity: Cyber attacks aren’t just a concern of big business—42 percent of attacks target small business, according to Symantec. The attacks leave small companies vulnerable: In addition to lost money and time, more than 50 percent of small companies face public scrutiny due to a security breach, according to a recent Cisco cyber security report.

Spam and adware are two of the biggest cyber threats to small businesses, with spam comprising two thirds of all emails, and adware infecting 75 percent of organizations.

Cyber threats come in a variety of forms, from bad links to prompts to change passwords. This guide will help you identify those threats.

Read more at the NFIB website!


About NFIB

NFIB is the leading advocate for small business owners with offices in every state capital and Washington, D.C. We proudly represent hundreds of thousands of members nationwide from every industry and sector.

Cisco Live 2017: Key Takeaways from CEO Chuck Robbins Keynote

Cisco Live Conference, June 26, 2017

Cisco kicked off this year's Live conference with a keynote from its CEO Chuck Robbins, who walked attendees through recent and upcoming news announcements while laying out the company's vision for next-generation networks. Here's a look at the key takeaways from Robbins' talk.

The new networking realities: In 2016, the world hit an inflection point as the number of machine-to-machine network activations exceeded those of phones and tablets, Robbins said. Enterprises are already using billions of connected devices for new business models, preventive maintenance and other pursuits, and the pace by which more and more devices will be connected to the Internet is set to increase dramatically, he added.

Three things will define networks going forward: scale, simplification and security, Robbins said. Of the last, he noted: "We all know what's in the press and as we add more and more things the threat surface expands. Once a month, something major happens. We have to ensure we're building security into everything we do."

Cisco Live 2017 Opening Keynote with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. Live from Las Vegas. Includes guest appearances by Apple CEO Tim Cook and UnitedHealth Group CEO David Wichmann.

Read more at the ZDNET website!


About Cisco Systems

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital opportunity today. Discover more at thenetwork.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.

Cisco Unveils Network of the Future That Can Learn, Adapt, Evolve

Designed to be intuitive, Cisco's new network can recognize intent, mitigate threats through encryption, and learn over time, unlocking opportunities and enhancing business agility

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/20/17 -- Today Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) unveiled intent-based networking solutions that represent one of the most significant breakthroughs in enterprise networking. The introduction is the culmination of Cisco's vision to create an intuitive system that anticipates actions, stops security threats in their tracks, and continues to evolve and learn. It will help businesses to unlock new opportunities and solve previously unsolvable challenges in an era of increasing connectivity and distributed technology.

This new network is the result of years of research and development by Cisco to reinvent networking for an age where network engineers managing hundreds of devices today will be expected to manage 1 million by 2020.

"The network has never been more critical to business success, but it's also never been under more pressure," said Chuck Robbins, chief executive officer for Cisco. "By building a more intuitive network, we are creating an intelligent platform with unmatched security for today and for the future that propels businesses forward and creates new opportunities for people and organizations everywhere."

Read more at the Cisco website!


About Cisco Systems

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital opportunity today. Discover more at thenetwork.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.

A Trillion-Dollar Boost: Salesforce Releases New Research on the Economic Impact of Artificial Intelligence on CRM

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By 2021, AI-powered CRM activities could increase global business revenues by $1.1 trillion and create 800,000 net-new jobs, according to predictions in new study. Salesforce customers are estimated to account for $293 billion of this revenue and more than 155,000 of the net-new jobs by 2021. The global market for AI in CRM is estimated to jump from $7.9 billion in 2016 to $46.3 billion by 2021.

A Trillion-Dollar Boost: Salesforce Releases New Research on the Economic Impact of Artificial Intelligence on CRM

Summary

SAN FRANCISCO, June 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the global leader in CRM, today announced new research from IDC detailing the economic impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on CRM. AI-powered CRM activities will drive new efficiencies in how companies sell, service, and market, ultimately expected to create more than $1.1 trillion in new GDP impact worldwide and 800,000 net-new jobs by 2021 - surpassing those lost to automation.

AI has impacted nearly every aspect of our consumer lives, redefining how we engage with technology and each other. With the convergence of increased computing power, big data and breakthroughs in machine learning, AI is also poised to transform how people work. While some researchers predict automation driven by AI could impact 49 percent of job activities and eliminate around 5 percent of jobs,1 new data from IDC suggests AI could also augment and increase the productivity of employees, specifically in CRM-related fields. From predictive sales lead scoring to service chatbots to personalized marketing campaigns, AI could provide every employee with tools to be more productive and provide smarter, more personalized customer experiences.

According to the new IDC White Paper, commissioned by Salesforce,2 2018 will be a landmark year for AI adoption. More than 40 percent of companies said they will adopt AI within the next two years. In fact, by 2018, IDC forecasts that 75 percent of enterprise and ISV development will include AI or machine-learning functionality in at least one application. AI-powered CRM activities will cover a large spectrum of use cases and touch almost all facets of an enterprise, including accelerating sales cycles, improving lead generation and qualification, personalizing marketing campaigns and lowering costs of support calls."

"AI is impacting all sectors of the economy and every business. For the CRM market—the fastest-growing category in enterprise software - the impact of AI will be profound, ushering in new levels of productivity for employees and empowering companies to drive even better experiences for their customers," said Keith Block, vice chairman, president and COO, Salesforce. "For companies embracing AI, it's critical that they create new workforce development programs to ensure employees are prepared for this next wave of innovation."

Read more at the Salesforce website!

About Salesforce

Salesforce, the world’s #1 CRM company and the Intelligent Customer Success Platform, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information about Salesforce, visit: www.salesforce.com.

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Intel Named to DARPA Project Focused on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

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Extracting Insight from the Data Deluge Is a Hard-to-Do Must-Do

Intel Named to DARPA Project Focused on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Summary

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 5, 2017 - Intel has been selected by DARPA, a U.S. Department of Defense agency, to collaborate on the development of a powerful new data-handling and computing platform that will leverage machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) techniques.

The notion of Big Data emerges from the observation that 90 percent of the data available today has been created in just the past two years. From devices at the edge to large data centers crunching everything from corporate clouds to future energy technology simulations, the world is awash in data – being stored, indexed and accessed.
DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office created the Hierarchical Identify Verify & Exploit (HIVE) program to develop new technologies to realize 1,000x performance-per-watt gains in the ability to handle graph analytics.

Read more at the Intel website!

Extracting Insight from the Data Deluge Is a Hard-to-Do Must-Do (DARPA)

About Intel

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) expands the boundaries of technology to make the most amazing experiences possible. Information about Intel can be found at newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.

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Salesforce Data Management Platform Named a Leader

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Salesforce achieved highest score among all reviewed vendors in strategy and market presence categories

Salesforce Data Management Platform Named a Leader by Independent Research Firm

Summary

SAN FRANCISCO, June 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced the Salesforce Data Management Platform (DMP) was named a leader by Forrester Research in its report The Forrester Wave™: Data Management Platforms, Q2 2017. The report evaluated 11 vendors based on 35 criteria, including current offering, strategy and market presence.

Salesforce received the highest possible scores among all reviewed vendors for the strategy and market presence categories. The report states that Salesforce DMP "approaches data management differently from other DMPs: Rather than algorithmically deriving insights from aggregated data, Salesforce DMP ingests raw data and applies machine learning to allow insights to bubble up, eliminating the inherent biases that algorithms entail...The company's approach works, as one client said: 'Over 85% of our traffic comes from in-app mobile sources. Salesforce DMP has been able to manage our user identify issues, providing deep matches to second- and third-party data sources and addressing a broad range of design needs.' Surveyed customers gave Salesforce DMP high praise for change management, segment creation and management, data security and leakage prevention, flexibility and usability of the user interface, privacy capabilities, cost, and overall flexibility."

Read more at the Salesforce website!

About Salesforce

Salesforce, the world’s #1 CRM company and the Intelligent Customer Success Platform, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information about Salesforce, visit: www.salesforce.com.

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Rackspace Acquires ObjectRocket

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Rackspace reported QE December 2012 financial results on February 12

Rackspace Acquires ObjectRocket to Help Customers Scale MongoDB in the Cloud

Acquisition to Provide Open Cloud Customers with NoSQL Database as a Service Offering That’s Significantly Faster Than Leading Competitors

SAN ANTONIO -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Feb. 27, 2013 -- Today, Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the open cloud company, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ObjectRocket, a MongoDB database as a service (DBaaS) provider. With ObjectRocket’s open source-based MongoDB solution, Rackspace will broaden its OpenStack-based open cloud platform to offer customers a NoSQL DBaaS. The ObjectRocket offering also immediately expands Rackspace’s capability to help customers shoulder big data in the cloud for today’s most demanding applications. The acquisition will close today.

According to a report from The 451 Group, “NoSQL software revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 82 percent to reach $215 million by 2015.” With the acquisition of ObjectRocket, Rackspace will establish a strong presence within the high growth, NoSQL database market. The ObjectRocket offering will be available in early March for Rackspace customers in its Chicago facility and will soon be deeply integrated across Rackspace's Open Cloud portfolio. ObjectRocket also leverages AWS Direct Connect to provide low latency and free bandwidth to AWS customers and will continue to be sold as a standalone service.

“Databases are the core of any application and expertise in the most popular database technologies will be critical to us delivering Fanatical Support® in the open cloud,” said Pat Matthews, senior vice president of corporate development at Rackspace. “As we look to expand our open cloud database offering into the MongoDB world, we are really excited to work with the entrepreneurs and engineers at ObjectRocket.”

Read more at Rackspace.

About Rackspace Hosting

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is the open cloud company, delivering open technologies and powering more than 205,000 customers worldwide. Rackspace provides its renowned Fanatical Support® across a broad portfolio of IT products, including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company, is featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and is included on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Rackspace was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the “2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting.” Rackspace is headquartered in San Antonio with offices and data centers around the world. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.

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Amazon Launches Cloud Player for Autos

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Amazon reported QE December 2012 financial results on January 29

Amazon Cloud Player – Now in Your Car

Enjoy your entire music library on the go – no CDs, no wires, no local storage needed

Access to Amazon Cloud Player in Ford SYNC AppLink-equipped vehicles is the latest in a series of customer benefits exclusive to the Amazon ecosystem of digital content and is available on the 2013 Ford Fiesta, Mustang, Focus, E-Series, C-MAX Hybrid, Expedition, Fusion, F-150 and Super Duty models

SEATTLE -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Feb. 13, 2013 -- (NASDAQ: AMZN) - Now it’s getting even easier to enjoy music in your car - starting today, Amazon Cloud Player is available in Ford SYNC Applink-equipped vehicles. Ford owners can now wirelessly connect the Amazon MP3 app on their Android smartphone to the SYNC connectivity system to access and enjoy their entire Cloud Player music library in their car using simple voice commands or the audio controls. Ford Applink-equipped vehicles include the 2013 Ford Fiesta, Mustang, Focus, E-Series, C-MAX Hybrid, Expedition, Fusion, F-150 and Super Duty models. For more information, customers can visit Amazon.com/cloudplayerinford.

Customers will love the integration of Amazon Cloud Player and SYNC Applink because they will be able to:
* Access their music playlists with the convenience of using voice recognition or dashboard controls
* Play music stored in Cloud Player or play back music stored on their mobile phone
* Enjoy eligible music in high-quality 256kbps audio
* Get rid of CDs, wires, and other ways they used to connect and listen to their music in the car
* Free up local storage space on their phones by storing and accessing music in the cloud

“We want customers to be able enjoy their entire music library wherever they want, from whatever device they choose. And we know that cars and music go hand-in-hand. That’s why we’re excited to bring Cloud Player to the car,” said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon.

There are already millions of customers using Amazon Cloud Player to download, manage and stream their music in the cloud and on Kindle Fire, Android devices, iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac, PC, Sonos, Roku and Samsung TVs. Now with the availability in Ford SYNC Applink-equipped cars, Amazon Cloud Player continues to offer the broadest selection of playback solutions of any major cloud music service.

Read more at Amazon Cloud Player – Now in Your Car

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Rackspace Lowers Open Cloud Pricing

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Rackspace reported QE December 2012 financial results on February 12

Rackspace Lowers Pricing on its Open Cloud

Open Cloud Leader Introduces Tiered Pricing and Reduces Bandwidth Charges by 33%

SAN ANTONIO -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Feb. 22, 2013-- Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the open cloud company, today announced that it is lowering the price for cloud bandwidth and content delivery network (CDN) services by 33 percent. The company also announced that it is implementing tiered pricing for its open cloud product portfolio, starting with Cloud Files, its object storage service. The new pricing changes will take place over the next several weeks, beginning on February 22nd with tiered pricing for Cloud Files.

Rackspace’s customers deploying bandwidth-intensive workloads serving large amounts of content (which include video streaming, mobile and applications that require fast content delivery to end users) will benefit from the lower price of bandwidth, including CDN bandwidth. The price will change from $0.18 to $0.12 per GB.

In addition to the price reduction for bandwidth and CDN bandwidth, Rackspace is introducing a tiered pricing structure. The first product to feature tiered pricing is Cloud Files object storage. The volume discounts range from $0.10 per GB per month for the first 1TB, decreasing to $0.075 per GB per month and even lower for storage amounts over 1024 TB. Rackspace will roll out tiered pricing for additional products throughout 2013. For more details on the bandwidth price reduction and the tiered pricing structure, please visit: http://www.rackspace.com/blog/lower-open-cloud-pricing/.

“The Rackspace Open Cloud is built upon a simple pricing model with no hidden costs or extra charges,” said John Engates, Chief Technology Officer at Rackspace. “This simple and straightforward pricing approach is a key part of how we help customers take advantage of the real value of the Rackspace Open Cloud, particularly for the next generation of bandwidth and content-centric web applications, which must deliver quality user experiences on a mobile and global basis.”

Rackspace aims to make budgeting easier for mid-market and enterprise customers through simple pricing, avoiding charging customers for “extras” that are difficult to predict or estimate. For example, Rackspace does not charge for I/O requests on its Cloud Block Storage product or for API requests on its Cloud Files object storage product.

Rackspace aims to make budgeting easier for mid-market and enterprise customers through simple pricing, avoiding charging customers for “extras” that are difficult to predict or estimate. For example, Rackspace does not charge for I/O requests on its Cloud Block Storage product or for API requests on its Cloud Files object storage product.

About Rackspace Hosting

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is the open cloud company, delivering open technologies and powering more than 205,000 customers worldwide. Rackspace provides its renowned Fanatical Support® across a broad portfolio of IT products, including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company, is featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and is included on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Rackspace was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the “2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting.” Rackspace is headquartered in San Antonio with offices and data centers around the world. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.

Rackspace Lowers Pricing on its Open Cloud

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Rackspace Expands Open Cloud Computing in UK

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Rackspace reported QE December 2012 financial results on February 12

Progressive Approach to Open Cloud Computing Drives Rackspace UK Expansion

Major UK datacenter growth extends Rackspace open cloud computing platform

LONDON -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Feb. 19, 2013 -- Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is cementing its position as the open cloud company by working with Digital Realty Trust to bring a bigger UK datacentre facility online to serve an expanding European customer base.

“We have hired an additional 300 UK ‘Rackers’ in 2012 and increased our total server count by more than 10,000 over that same past year period,” said Taylor Rhodes, Managing Director, International at Rackspace. “Our customers are aligning their IT functions to take advantage of the open cloud and I am resolutely pleased to be able to move forward with an expanded datacentre. The age of the open cloud has arrived and our market success and subsequent expansion is testimony to that fact.”

This energy-efficient datacentre expansion facilitates Rackspace Hosting’s leadership position as an open cloud company, delivering open technologies worldwide. January 2013 saw an agreement signed to build up to 10-megawatts of UK datacenter space with a strategic construction plan designed to bring a total of five “data halls” online in stages.

The UK expansion of Rackspace’s open cloud footprint is based upon leasing “wholesale” datacentre space, as opposed to taking on the task of constructing its own facility premises. Rackspace has followed a similar approach to drive the wider development of its premises in Virginia, Chicago and Dallas in the USA as well as in Sydney, Australia.

Rackspace provides its renowned Fanatical Support® across a broad portfolio of open standards based IT products, including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. The company’s open cloud ethos and methodology centres around customer choice, flexibility and freedom from vendor lock in.

About Rackspace Hosting

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is the open cloud company, delivering open technologies and powering more than 200,000 customers worldwide. Rackspace provides its renowned Fanatical Support® across a portfolio of IT products, including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. The company offers choice, flexibility and freedom from vendor lock-in. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and was featured on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. Rackspace was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the “2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting.” Rackspace is headquartered in San Antonio with offices and data centers around the world. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.

Progressive Approach to Open Cloud Computing Drives Rackspace UK Expansion

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