Coffee Briefings are timely deliveries of the latest ITWC headlines, interviews, and podcasts. These briefings drop on Tuesday mornings. Today’s Coffee Briefing is delivered by IT World Canada reporter Pragya Sehgal, with files from editorial director is Alex Coop. Missed last week’s Coffee Briefing? We got you covered.
ITWC Podcasts
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
A story about high-pressure sales tactics at a Toronto consumer electronics store gains national attention, Apple invests a few more millions into glassmaker Corning, and guess who’s suffering from Zoom fatigue? It’s Zoom’s CEO.
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
Deadline looms for Women In Cyber Day petition, data theft from insurance quote websites and advice from Canada’s top cyber agency
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Tendances (Hosted by Direction Informatique)
If you live in Quebec or prefer to consume the latest technology news in French, our sister publication Direction Informatique has you covered. Follow them on Twitter as well.
In case you missed it
The recent tech news that we maybe didn’t get to yet, or it’s the news we’ve reported on and feel is worth resurfacing.
It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when
Last week, technology solutions and services provider organizations CDW Canada released its 2021 cybersecurity study, Innovation in Cybersecurity: Approach, Tools and Technologies.
Since the outset of the pandemic, digital solutions have played an increasingly important role in maintaining business continuity for Canadian organizations. But that digitization and shift to remote work has led to a rise in cyberattacks and a general heightened sense of cybersecurity awareness. Ninety-nine per cent of businesses surveyed reported a cyberattack between November 2019 and November 2020.
In addition, the survey found the cost of cyber compromise reached an all-time high – averaging $1,257,000 expended per organization – as malicious actors continue to capitalize on the ongoing changes and disruptions facing businesses today. This has increased by 47 per cent from $853,000 in 2019.
This was a Canada-wide cross-industry survey of 557 IT security and risk & compliance professionals [Complete findings of the research can be found here].
75% of IT leaders still find hybrid cloud integrations challenging
Hybrid cloud management platform provider CloudBolt along with knowledge-as-a-service platform Pulse surveyed 100+ tech executives (directors, vice-presidents and CxOs) globally to take a temperature check regarding integrations with existing IT infrastructure, network and security tools within their organizations
It turns out people are still having a hard time wrapping their heads around hybrid cloud integrations: 94 per cent of respondents agreed that hybrid cloud is critical to digital transformation but many hurdles still impede progress. Specifically, respondents cited three top initiatives most critical for digital transformation through hybrid cloud: enabling self-service IT, accelerating automation initiatives, and optimizing cloud spend.
The respondents agreed the following challenges currently exist in today’s approaches:
- More than half (56 per cent) say they believe that their self-service IT is too difficult, requiring expertise in clouds and infrastructure tools
- 76 per cent say they still rely on some form of custom coding when it comes to integrating different tools to advance their IT automation initiatives
- 78 per cent say they lack the visibility necessary to optimize cloud deployments, while 54 per cent say they lack automated ways to optimize cloud costs
The data was collected from February 24 through March 11, 2021 [Complete findings of the reports can be found here]
More open to crypto
The Mastercard New Payments Index shows 94 per cent of Canadians are considering using an emerging payment method, such as cryptocurrency, biometrics, contactless, or QR code, in the next year.
More than half (52 per cent) of Canadian millennials say they are more open to using cryptocurrency than they were a year ago. Close to four in 10 consumers say they are excited about the potential of biometric verification methods (38 per cent) and feel safer using biometrics to verify a purchase. Sixty-two per cent say payment methods like biometrics, QR codes are cleaner than cash (62 per cent) and more convenient (52 per cent) for in-person payments.
The survey methodology comprised online interviews of over 15,500 consumers in 18 countries in four regions worldwide, with more than 1,000 respondents from Canada [Complete findings of the study can be found here].
U.S.-based data centre company Stack Infrastructure enters Canada
Last week, U.S.-based data centre company Stack Infrastructure announced its first international expansion with a new 56 MW data centre campus in Toronto, ON.
The company has formed a partnership with First Gulf, Canadian development and construction company, to develop the data centre which it says will include immediate capacity ready in mid-2022 as well as future expansion.
Stack Infrastructure says the new data centre in Toronto will enable hyperscale and enterprise clients to choose among ready capacity, powered shell, and build-to-suit customized opportunities [Full news release here].
ICYMI – IT World Canada
What’s worse is if that adoption doesn’t pick up, the chief executive officer for Toronto tech firm SQL Power Group, Sam Selim, said it might end up hurting the city in the long run.
Semiconductor industry leaders have founded Canada’s Semiconductor Council to strengthen and secure its position in the semiconductor industry.
Ottawa invests $80 million to support cybersecurity R&D and commercialization [Full story]
This week, Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne announced the launch of the new Cyber Security Innovation Network program with an investment of $80 million over four years.
ICYMI – IT Business Canada
Cyber insurers now demanding firms have MFA, says Canadian broker [Full story]
Infosec experts say CISOs must add multifactor authentication for logins to better protect their organizations against credentials theft.
Setting a new normal in a hybrid cloud world – CMO Talks with Jay Badiani [Full podcast]
Jay Badiani is comfortable chatting about everything from quantum computing to corporate citizenship. As the guest of ITWC President Fawn Annan for an April 2021 installment of CMO Talks, a podcast series on marketing challenges, he focused on his mission, as chief marketing officer for IBM Canada, to set a new normal for customers and partners in a hybrid cloud world.
Amazon is putting a hold on its Prime Day marketing event in Canada due to recent COVID-19 outbreaks at its facilities in Ontario’s Peel Region.
ICYMI – Channel Daily News
Canada15Edge Data Centers and Whipcord join forces to create new MSP [Full story]
Colocation data centre solution provider Canada15Edge Data Centers recently announced that it’s merging with Whipcord Ltd., an Alberta-based cloud and colocation provider.
HPE unveils cloud-native storage portfolio software-defined data services business [Full story]
Not unlike the rest of the industry, HPE is moving to a subscription-based, everything-as-a-service business with its GreenLake offering, and earlier this week, the company announced that its storage business is the latest to receive that treatment.
D&H adds gaming business unit and new leadership [Full story]
D&H Distributing is launching a “Components and Gaming” business unit around its esports, PC gaming, and integrated components for customized PCs.
Bookmarks of the Week
These are bookmarked tweets that we think are worth sharing.
Here’s the ‘Sorry. Im sorry. Im trying to remove it’ statement https://t.co/eqdmEGBG6Q pic.twitter.com/uynh9U2q8W
— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) May 10, 2021
A New York-based building company completed a 3D-printed house in just eight days, and it’s on sale for $300,000. pic.twitter.com/LLbrTzUUFQ
— CNET (@CNET) May 9, 2021
Toronto Council APPROVES the PayIt deal, 17-8. pic.twitter.com/Ymj974DW68
— Matt Elliott (@GraphicMatt) May 5, 2021
#PrivacyTip: See if your smart device has an option to disconnect and become a “dumb” device, in case a security threat that cannot be guarded against presents itself down the road. #PrivacyAwarenessWeek #2021PAW https://t.co/9aYSOnXFRS pic.twitter.com/WVnX5J9OOU
— OPC (@PrivacyPrivee) May 5, 2021
