InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Android and Windows Phone are not ceding ground to iOS — far from it. While lawyers for Apple, Samsung and Google battled in the courtroom, engineers geared up for the next battle in the smartphone war. And now Microsoft and its hardware partners have joined the fray with a new OS and fresh devices. We analyze the best each camp has to offer.

The competition for tablet dominance is heating up as Google and Microsoft, refusing to go down without a fight, release ­competitive new products to take on the Apple juggernaut. But for IT pros charged with managing BYOD programs, all that adds up to is more confusion. We analyze Apple’s new Mini and ­refreshed iPad, Google’s Nexus duo and Microsoft Surface.

The confluence of smartphone-fueled employee mobility and ubiquitous cloud services means it’s time to update your data loss prevention strategy. The key: Data protection isn’t something you can buy. “DLP 2.0” needs to expand into a smart set of ­policies backed up by a mix of products.

Complete vendor responses to our SaaS Collaboration & Project Management Buyer's Guide.

Got mobile users accustomed to nonstop social networking and sporting multiple devices: PCs, tablets, smartphones, Windows 8 hybrids - you name it? Then a cloud-based service may be a perfect fit for enterprise collaboration. Plenty of vendors are eager to win your business. Find out what to look for and get profiles of 11 top contenders.

Infrastructure may be cool again thanks to SDN, but network guys aren’t having all the fun: 48% of the 543 respondents to our latest State of Servers poll mix and match server vendors, and 40% are intrigued by rack-based designs, like the one being developed by the Open Compute Project. But it’s not all fun and games, as 63% say high virtualization/consolidation ratios are stressing their gear.

Faster networks are coming, putting security monitoring systems to the test.

Apple’s latest smartphone ushers in a new hardware package paired with an updated OS. Here’s what enterprise IT teams charged with supporting employee mobility need to know about Maps, security, Passport vs. NFC, networking and more.

While 69% of respondents citing server, storage and data center engineering and management as a top area of planned staffing increase say hiring levels will rise 10% or less, these numbers belie a vibrant environment fueling demand for engineers with virtualization and cloud expertise and a knack for innovation. And, 61% say they pay for training, a nice perk.

With 10 Gbps Ethernet standard and 40 and 100 Gbps on the way, one big question is whether firewalls, intrusion-detection systems, packet analyzers and other monitoring systems can keep up. If not, your need for speed might prove deadly.