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Responsibilities of the Tech Industry
With changing societal habits and rapid advances in technology, governments often lag behind in creating structures that keep runaway possibilities in check. Issues from data privacy and disinformation to artificial intelligence have become areas of concern where regulation would ideally keep technology ethical. But since there’s such a gap between technology’s growth and government action,…
Forrester Ranks Microsoft a Leader in Cloud Security Gateways
Here we are already, rounding out the second quarter of 2021. In this time of year you may be asking: who comes out at the top of Forrester’s Q2 Wave Assessment for Cloud Security Gateways? The Forrester Wave looks at technology providers in a particular category—say, Security Analytics Platforms—and ranks them on both x and…
Lessons Learned from a CEO: Business Impact from the Year 2020 & COVID
Let’s be honest, the year 2020 was a year for the books. Quite literally, this year will be written throughout history books that our grandchildren will read. From a pandemic to an international lockdown forcing schools, shops, and restaurants to shut down, it’s safe to say the pandemic has had a significant impact on our…
Top 10 Announcements from Microsoft Build 2021
It’s Build week—Microsoft’s annual conference for developers and software engineers. If you like to follow Microsoft technologies or make use of Azure, you’ll want to know the news from this digital event. Here are some of the top announcements from Microsoft Build 2021. Continuous Access Evaluation in Microsoft Graph Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE) is now…
Microsoft 365 XDR
Disclaimer: It’s not actually called Microsoft 365 XDR. (But a lot of people like to type that into a search engine.) MD XDR encompasses the entire security suite while the M365 security suite is referred to as Microsoft 365 Defender. We agree with you–it’s just as confusing as the prior ATP product names. Extended Detection…
What Are the Differences Between MDR, EDR and XDR for Cybersecurity?
You may have been hearing about XDR in recent months—this is a rising technology that improves upon MDR and EDR, which themselves are great advancements from older solutions. Gartner predicts that the majority of enterprises will have replaced legacy security software with one of these advanced solutions by 2023. So what do all these offerings…
How Artificial Intelligence is Saving the Earth
It’s no secret that we need to take better care of the Earth. There are currently 150 million metric tons of plastic in the ocean. Humans have caused 322 animal extinctions over the past 500 years. And about 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years due to deforestation. When it comes to…
Infused Innovations Welcomes Matt Sepko as Senior Engineer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 3rd, 2021 Infused Innovations (401) 267-4460 Info@infusedinnovations.com INFUSED INNOVATIONS WELCOMES MATT SEPKO AS SENIOR ENGINEER Emphasizing the firm’s focus on excellent service North Kingstown, RI: Infused Innovations formally announces the hiring of Matt Sepko as Senior Engineer. As Senior Engineer, Matt will be responsible for defining and driving customer technology strategies. He will also develop and deliver on tactical and strategic initiatives for…
XDR Pioneers and Leaders
One of the strongest cybersecurity offerings today is Extended Detection and Response, or XDR. It combines and centralizes security data from several sources: Security Information and Event Management (SIEM); Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR); Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR); and Network Traffic Analysis (NTA). Because these elements are all working together, visibility and and…
7 Ways Microsoft Azure is Stronger Than AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is clearly a leader in cloud services. It offers solutions for all kinds of industries, from manufacturing to travel & hospitality. In terms of its technological offerings, there’s storage, application building, analytics, and more. But as powerful as Amazon is in the world of the cloud, it’s got competition in Microsoft…
Work & Tech Habits That Are Good for the Environment
With Earth Day coming up this week, we’re thinking about some of the ways that we as both innovators and consumers of technology can shape our habits in Earth-friendly ways. It’s easy to overlook simple things that can collectively make a big impact. Here are a few tech habits that make work and home life…
5 Ways to Reduce Your SOC’s Alert Fatigue
With increasing digital and cloud-based work, cybersecurity threats are a continuous and growing concern. Large companies often have dozens of security products from multiple vendors in order to stay on top of these threats. Because of this reality, security operation centers (SOCs) face a deluge of alerts coming from every direction—so many, in fact, that…
A Look at How Deepfakes Work
It’s no April Fools’ joke—deepfakes are a real concern. This misleading practice, which inserts fake faces or speech into videos or photographs, is becoming more sophisticated in its precision. The rising capabilities of the technology behind deepfakes are making them easier to produce and harder to detect. Exactly how do deepfakes work? Here’s a look…
Technology Leaders Embrace the End of Objective Reality
Recent developments in both digital technology and societal trends have led to a world of multiple realities: you can “be” somewhere you’re not really, and fake news can “be” real. (And of course the reverse has also been argued—that real news is actually fake.) Many consumers of technology and news media alike are struggling to…
Infused Innovations Welcomes Brian Smith as Client Advisor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 30, 2021 Infused Innovations (401) 267-4460 Info@infusedinnovations.com INFUSED INNOVATIONS WELCOMES BRIAN SMITH AS CLIENT ADVISOR Emphasizing the firm’s focus on client business outcomes North Kingstown, RI: Infused Innovations formally announces the hiring of Brian Smith as a Client Advisor. As a Client Advisor, Brian will be responsible for helping to support clients throughout their Digital Transformation journey with Infused Innovations. In addition, Brian is working directly with client…
Microsoft Compliance Manager Now Available for GCC & GCC High
Government organizations are subject to a number of regulations that can be complicated to keep track of. Those who work in and with government agencies often have difficulty navigating these requirements without good tools to do so. Microsoft Compliance Manager helps organizations monitor and stay on top of these compliance requisites. Now Compliance Manager is…
What is Project Origin?
One of the major problems arising out of today’s digital world is that of disinformation. This has been a growing issue over the past decade, particularly when carried out by political actors and foreign governments attempting to shape events to their advantage. With the isolation and remote work that COVID-19 brought last year, the dissemination…
Microsoft Mesh: A New Mixed Virtual Reality Platform
If you grew up watching Star Wars holograms—or if you’ve seen any of the myriad sci-fi movies where characters make use of holographic charts floating in front of them—you’ll probably be impressed to see that this technology is becoming a reality. At the recent Ignite 2021 conference, we were introduced not only to security announcements…
Azure Defender & Sentinel Announcements from Ignite 2021
Microsoft’s Ignite 2021 conference featured a host of announcements, from the new employee experience platform Microsoft Viva to the impressive, forward-looking Microsoft Mesh. Aside from the dazzling innovations, leaders at the conference also announced strengthened security protections in Azure Defender and Azure Sentinel. We covered some of our favorite overall announcements from this year’s Ignite…
Top 10 Announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2021
Microsoft Ignite 2021 is here…and it’s early this year! Generally held in the fall, Microsoft didn’t want to keep developers and other technology followers waiting this time around. As they put it, we need these kinds of conferences now more than ever. And, as CEO Satya Nadella said in his keynote, “When you change the…
Forrester’s TEI Report on Azure Security Center: 219% ROI Over Three Years
Forrester’s Total Economic Impact (TEI) reports are studies that assess just that: the overall economic impact of purchasing and using certain technology tools. They’re based on interviews with customer organizations who use a particular product, looking at the economic effects of the choice over three years. Last fall we wrote about Forrester’s TEI report on…
What is Microsoft Viva?
After SharePoint Syntex was released last year, Microsoft’s Project Cortex is yielding another new product: Microsoft Viva. Basically, Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform designed to make work processes smarter and more efficient, boosting employee connection and well-being. It makes use of rapidly expanding AI technologies like cognitive search and knowledge mining to efficiently…
What is a Change Advisory Board (CAB)?
Some organizations choose to designate a team of IT specialists to ensure smooth service transitions that do not interfere with company business. A Change Advisory Board, or CAB, is this group of people. Service transition is a phase of IT service management (ITSM) within an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). This is a framework of…
Building Lasting Customer Relationships
For many organizations, relationships with customers is central to business operation. There are so many reasons for companies to prioritize building long-term customer relationships. From a purely financial standpoint, it’s estimated to cost five times more to create a new customer than it costs to retain an existing one. In business-to-business (B-to-B) relationships, customer experience…
The Benefits of AI for Businesses Today
Perhaps you’ve read articles here and there about artificial intelligence incorporated into today’s work tasks, but it’s largely off your own business radar. You might see it as a tool that enhances operations under the surface of software, still somewhat unknown in your concrete organizational decisions. AI is becoming increasingly pervasive and going far beyond…
Infused Innovations Welcomes Erica Bosse as Director of Customer Success
Infused Innovations FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 27, 2021 (401) 267-4460 Info@infusedinnovations.com INFUSED INNOVATIONS WELCOMES ERICA BOSSE AS DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS Emphasizing the firm’s focus on client business outcomes North Kingstown, RI: On Wednesday, Infused Innovations formally announced the hiring of Erica Bosse as Director of Customer Success. Erica will start immediately in this new role. As the Director of Customer Success, Erica will be responsible for driving value for Infused Innovations’ clients throughout their Digital Transformation…
Microsoft Defender for Mobile Endpoints
We’ve written about Microsoft Defender for Endpoints and Microsoft Defender XDR. The Defender stack is a cybersecurity platform that encompasses several elements of antivirus protection. These are generally targeted toward enterprise computer networks in cloud-based or hybrid business environments. But Microsoft Defender is also available for mobile endpoints. Last summer it first became available for…
Tech Intensity: Expanding Beyond Digital Transformation
One of the big tech buzzwords in 2020, and leading up to it, was digital transformation. Perhaps a good one to ponder as we move into 2021 is tech intensity. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has often mentioned this latter term during his keynotes. (He coined it in 2018 and brought it up again more recently…
Forrester Wave Gives Azure Sentinel a Leader Placement
Gartner isn’t the only technology research group that classifies Microsoft as a Leader. Forrester Research has also named Azure Sentinel a Leader in its recently released report, The Forrester Wave™: Security Analytics Platform Providers, Q4 2020. The Forrester Wave is similar to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant chart in that it classifies technology vendors on a scale…
Tech Trends We Can Expect in 2021
Hindsight is 2020. And many people are glad to put that chaotic year into the realm of remembrance. But we still face the same ongoing challenges as we move into 2021, and our new year will be colored by everything that came before it in the last one. Can our experiences of 2020 help us…
Create Your Zero Trust Business Plan
The recent Solarigate news has many of us chilled and concerned about how to protect ourselves and our organizations. It’s clear that we can’t take cybersecurity for granted and we can never be too careful with our data and networks. That’s why we strongly recommend adopting a Zero Trust policy. Within this type of security…
Budgeting for Microsoft Defender XDR and Zero Trust Security
Building a Zero Trust Security framework with 20+ vendors has zero chance of success. This is why budgeting for Microsoft Defender XDR for Zero Trust Security must be at the forefront of a modern cybersecurity strategy for organizations of any size that are running Microsoft Windows or Office 365. Microsoft Defender XDR allows you to…
How Do You Protect Against Supply Chain Attacks? Assume You’re Breached
The recent news of the SolarWinds and FireEye breaches has left some IT managers wondering how they can better protect against supply chain attacks. The short answer is to assume you’re already breached and use a defense-in-depth strategy to limit your exposure to an attack. (Also referred to as a Zero Trust strategy.) Before we…
Microsoft is a Leader in Five Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrants
It’s no new surprise that Microsoft is a leader according to Gartner, but we can’t help noticing that the company has earned this distinction in five of the 2020 Magic Quadrants: Enterprise Information Archiving Cloud Access Security Brokers Access Management Endpoint Protection Platforms Unified Endpoint Management Let’s take a quick look at each of these…
Security and Productivity Don’t Have to Be Opposites
Some of the most common challenges we hear from our clients have to do with a perceived battle between security and productivity. We hear CISOs saying, “I can’t implement security because it makes my staff crazy / slows them down / kills their productivity.” Or, alternately said, “My employees can only be productive if I…
Who’s at the Top of Gartner’s 2020 UEM Magic Quadrant? Intune.
If you’re not familiar with Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, it’s an interesting way to look at technology companies and where they land in terms of completeness of vision and ability to execute. The chart is broken into four quadrants: niche players, visionaries, challengers, and leaders. A lot of vision without the ability to follow through makes…
Forrester Finds Over 200% ROI in Azure Sentinel After Three Years
A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study published this month analyzed the financial effects for companies using Microsoft’s Azure Sentinel. Forrester interviewed customers who previously used on-premises SIEM solutions and have now switched to the cloud-based Azure Sentinel. The organizations participating in the study specialized in IT services, big data, financial services, and e-commerce on…
What Exactly is Behind a Digital Transformation?
You may have had technology providers offering or promising your company “digital transformation.” This sounds great: your organization will undergo a modern renewal of cyber integrity, emerging more technologically fit than ever before. But what does this actually mean? It’s often used as a catch-all / solve-all term without much substance behind it. Perhaps this…
Microsoft and Infused Innovations Want to Help Your Organization Work Towards Environmental Sustainability
You may have read our article on persuasive technology and the popular documentary The Social Dilemma. But according to the head of our Innovation Lab, Phil Magnuszewski, David Attenborough’s A Life on our Planet is “the most important documentary of the year.” Perhaps this is because even among all our social and political challenges, the…
AI for Earth: Examples of Technology Leading Environmental Change
Here are some examples of how leaders around the globe are using technology and AI to bring about environmental change.
Gartner’s 2020 Hype Cycle for Cloud Security
Over the past several years, companies have gradually been moving their data and work processes to the cloud. Some have been reluctant to make this move, though, most often because of concerns about cloud security. Even for the most avid supporters of cloud-based work, security is an important issue. And accordingly, Gartner has a Hype…
An Election in Today’s Tech Age: from Social Media to Artificial Intelligence
Election day in the U.S. is just around the corner. We’ve seen all the usual pre-election activities: lots of campaign news coverage; an influx of calls, texts, and mail urging us to vote for particular candidates and measures; the signs up around the neighborhood declaring homeowners’ stances. But we’ve now entered an age where there’s…
A Look at AI in Gartner’s Hype Cycle
Artificial intelligence has definitely received a lot of hype in recent years. This has been a long time coming in regard to the general concept of AI. Imagine the first articles you ever read about AI, or the increasing multitude of films that feature various robots as characters. When it comes to more specific and…
Diversity Drives Success in Organizations
It was this day in 1492 when Christopher Columbus first reached the island of Guanahani in the Bahamas. We’ve come a long way since then, and people now largely recognize that he wasn’t the first to discover the Americas. In fact, many places in the United States now call this holiday Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead,…
Persuasive Technology: How Can We Make It More Ethical?
Have you read much about captology? It’s not a term frequently used, but it addresses a pervasive issue in our now very digital world. Captology is the study of persuasive technology—it was coined in the 1990s by BJ Fogg based on an acronym for Computers As Persuasive Technologies. It looks at any technological devices or…
Lost Your Internet Connection? Try These 5 Tips
Let’s see if you can relate… You’re in the middle of an important work meeting and it’s your turn to share the details of a major project you’ve been working pretty hard on. Right as you get the spotlight to share with your team, the connection gets choppy. Your team says “you’re cutting out, we…
What is Project Cortex?
How many times has someone on your team tried to collaborate on a document in SharePoint and had to ask where the document is? Or, how often have you found two people working on the same task but in different departments? Coming soon, Microsoft’s Cognitive Services and AI will be tackling these exact issues. Microsoft’s…
What’s New with Cognitive Services and AI at Microsoft Ignite 2020?
Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference for technology leaders is underway. Curious about what’s been said about AI at Microsoft Ignite 2020? We were too. With the growing relevance of AI today, it makes sense for it to be a prevalent topic at Ignite. Here’s a look at some of the biggest news in AI from the…
Top Announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2020
We’re always here to give you timely highlights of conference events. This week is Microsoft Ignite 2020, the tech giant’s annual gathering for technology leaders. A day into the event, here’s a recap of some of the most important news. Satya Nadella’s Keynote: Building Digital Resiliency Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized building digital resiliency and…
EA or CSP Licensing: Which is a Better Choice for Your Company?
We understand Microsoft 365 licensing. Probably even better than the Microsoft product teams. Need proof? Check out our industry-recognized Microsoft 365 comparison chart. Our team actively responds to community questions on our blog and also via the r/Office365 subreddit. If you’re still skeptical, keep reading. There are a few different ways to purchase Microsoft offerings.…