MANAGED.IT 3 www.managedITmag.co.uk Read Managed.IT online... www.managedITmag.co.uk ISSN 2055-3099 (Print) ISSN 2055-3102 (Online) 04 What’s New The month’s best new products and services 06 Bulletin Why email bans might be counter-productive 11 Tech trends ICT in the UK today 12 Computers Microsoft adds to Surface family 14 Cover Story Take the Frama survey for your chance to win a prize 16 Managed Services How managed service providers are using AI to improve service levels 18 Management What it takes to become a unicorn 21 Workflow Why the future of work is the Inbox 22 Cyber Security The case for enlisting an MSP to help with email security 23 On Test 3M privacy filters get a flexible new attachment option 24 IT monitoring Mark Banfield explains why more businesses are standardising on LogicMonitor 25 Printer Review We put Lexmark’s new A4 colour devices through their paces 26 Scanners Alaris launches new category of scanner 28 Edge Computing The growing role of data centres at the edge 29 Data Centres The attractions of a career in the data centre industry 30 I couldn’t do my job without… Brittain Brown lists the six things he couldn’t do his job without ISSUE 55 www.managedITmag.co.uk Comment Editor: James Goulding 07803 087228 •
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[email protected] MANAGED.IT is published by Kingswood Media Ltd., Amherst House, 22 London Road, Sevenoaks TN13 2BT • Tel: 01732 759725 No part of MANAGED.IT can be reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher. © 2019 Kingswood Media Ltd. Production Design: Sandtiger Media · www.sandtiger.co.uk The paper used in this magazine is obtained from manufacturers who operate within internationally recognized standards and which is sourced from sustainable, properly managed forestation. COMMENT Email’s an obsession of mine. Actually, that’s not true; my relationship with email is more mature than that. After 30 years together I accept its failings and know instinctively when our relationship is in trouble (usually due to neglect), at which point I focus all my efforts on restoring harmony – opening unread emails, filing important ones, deleting old messages, emptying my junk folder. This is a time-consuming process; it can take days – and nights. Which is why I am sympathetic to the conclusions of a new report by the University of Sussex suggesting that introducing email bans outside working hours to improve employee well-being could be counter-productive (see page 6). My email coping strategy may or may not be indicative of someone with ‘high levels of anxiety and neuroticism’, as the report suggests, but it works for me and I’m sticking with it. There’s a lot about email in this issue, which might surprise anyone who considers it to be a relic from the last century unsuitable for today’s agile working methods or a distraction that stops people from getting on with what they are paid to do. The latter seems to be the default position of survey compilers who tend to bracket email with unproductive meetings, office gossip and unspecified ‘meaningless’ tasks. Yes, email is time-consuming; yes, most of us could be more efficient in how we manage it; yes, it is a security risk (turn to page 22 for advice on how to protect oneself). But when did email stop being work? When did it stop being a valuable, arguably irreplaceable, business tool? Perhaps it is time to stop blaming email for low productivity, to recognise that, at worst, it is a victim of its own success and to consider how it can be enhanced and its shortcoming resolved through the application of new technologies like AI and machine learning. As Dennis Fois, CEO of Copper, writes on page 21: ‘The most successful innovations are those that really do make life easier – smartphones, contactless payments and email’. James Goulding , Editor
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