Do you ever ask yourself: "How can I backup a Mac at work?" In the past, most corporate IT departments did not really have to think about this. Macs used to be a rarity in corporate IT. But now that the executive adoption of Apple products has finally broken down the protective walls of corporate IT standards, and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) is the new rule of the land, things have changed significantly. A growing number of companies offer employees the option to choose an Apple laptop as the machine provided for work or alternatively to bring their own Mac. Consequently, IT departments are confronted with an expanding ingress of Mac clients into their world, previously existing more or less peacefully under the rule of Microsoft.

Solutions are developed to address problems. The bigger people think something is a problem, the more demand there is for a solution. That is why the majority of marketing materials out there are built around educating their target audience about a pain point, and offering a solution. This is how we learned that we need to freshen our mouths with chewing gums, protect computers from malware with antiviruses or backup data to ensure recovery after a server crash. However, no company will talk about problems they don’t have solutions for, and, in the backup world, it means that there may be risks you’re not aware of, and consequently, not protected from.

The enterprise mobility space is a fast-moving market. Probably faster than any other we have seen before in the technology industry. Over the last two to three years it has really heated up: As the Apple iPad was introduced, we’ve had a strong battle between Apple and Android versions, and more recently the introduction of the Microsoft mobility products. The year 2013 will certainly bring even more exciting developments.

2013 is, according to many, the year of software-defined storage.  Let’s discuss what is new and different about it this year.