Forget about “This Old House” and weekend do-it-yourselfers (DIY) wielding hammers and saws. The DIY movement has now reached information workers. Nearly one in five of them has built or customized a Web app or software for work purposes without support from IT, a new survey reveals.
The result of this DIY push is faster help for customers, improved productivity and better collaboration among employees, a survey of more than 900 information workers sponsored by software provider Intuit showed.
The survey found that 50 percent of information workers now turn to online databases and Web-based productivity apps, instant messaging platforms, video chat services and social networks to solve their own business problems.
Although many businesses recognize the productivity benefits of empowering staff to choose their own technologies to help customers and rethink business processes, there are still pockets of resistance: 35 percent of businesses still do not enable or encourage employees to create solutions independently.
“There’s a fast-growing population of do-it-yourself app creators in every organization,” said Allison Mnookin, vice president and general manager of Intuit QuickBase. “Th
Today: Mountain View-based computer-security company Symantec buys LiveOffice for about $115 million, giving it cloud-archiving offering. Also: Steve Jobs doll will not be released after pressure from Apple (AAPL), Jobs lawyers, and a report says Facebook wants public debut to be in May.
Symantec buys cloud-based archiving company
Mountain View-based computer-security company Symantec joined the rush to cloud computing in announcing Monday its acquisition of email-archiving company LiveOffice for about $115 million.
LiveOffice, based in Torrance, offers cloud-based archiving of information, with a focus on email, allowing Symantec another service to go along with their industry-leading security software.
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Critics began panning the first leg of California’s futuristic high-speed rail network as a “train to nowhere” soon after officials decided to build it not in the major population centers of Los Angeles or San Francisco, but through the state’s Central Valley farming belt.
Since then, things have only gotten worse. Spiraling cost estimates and eroding political and public support now threaten a project crucial to a 21st-century vision of train travel that President Obama promised would transform U.S. transportation much as interstate highways did more than a half-century ago.
Walzem Road improvements It’s taken a few years, but the…
It’s been nearly 28 months since Rackspace Hosting Inc. filed an explosive lawsuit alleging that it was ripped off in a Windcrest land deal, but the dispute isn’t any closer to being resolved.
Rackspace’s lawsuit to recover about $2.8 million that it says San Antonio developer Gary Cain fraudulently received was set to go to trial Monday. But it has been rescheduled for Oct. 1.
High street giant Marks & Spencer said today that it would roll out more discounts in a bid to pull in customers after weak homewares sales dragged on its Christmas performance.
M&S, which has more than 700 stores in the UK, recorded a 1.8 per cent like-for-like decline in general merchandise sales, excluding VAT, in the 13 weeks to 31 December, while food sales were up 3 per cent.
THE House of Avalon vintage clothing and coffee shop in High Petergate, York, is to close at the end of the month.
The shop, which opened in May 2010, is a social enterprise project by Harrogate-based non-profit organisation The Avalon Group, which works with adults who need support to live the life they choose, such as people with learning disabilities, mental health needs, and older adults.
House of Avalon has since made its presence felt in York’s vintage scene, taking part in catwalk shows, fairs and Fashion City York.
It issued a statement on Facebook and Twitter that said: “With great regret we must announce that The House of Avalon is to close, effective from Tuesday, January 31. This is due to a number of factors relating to the current economic climate.
“We are now having a 50 per cent off sale on all stock (excluding furniture). We thank you deeply for your custom, support and interest in our much loved vintage shop and café on High Petergate, York.”
Walzem Road improvements It’s taken a few years, but the…