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(Editor’s note: After this story was posted, the US Senate dropped the controversial measure from the spending bill.)

There is so much to hate about the “One Big Beautiful Bill” now making its way through Congress. And among the things near the top of my list is how it deals with various tech industry issues — especially the proposed freeze on state and local governments’ ability to regulate generative AI (genAI). 

If passed, it would prevent states from enacting or enforcing laws aimed at curbing genAI-related harms, such as deep fakes, algorithmic discrimination, and misuse of personal likenesses. Its supporters, such as Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz, (R-TX), say it’s a way to prevent a fragmented regulatory landscape that, they argue, could stifle innovation and US competitiveness against China. 

Yeah, right. It’s really just a giveaway to genAI companies to do whatever they want with any of your data they can hoover up. Given that the courts have recently decided that these companies can essentially get away with ignoring copyright laws, I foresee great times ahead for them, while everyone else gets taken to the cleaners.

I’m far from the only one who’s ticked off. Even some Republicans aren’t crazy about giving genAI companies a blank check for your data. Over the weekend, the provision was revised after negotiations between Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). The latest version reduces the ban from 10 years to five.

The new language also introduces exemptions for state laws targeting unfair or deceptive practices, child safety, child sexual abuse material, and publicity rights. However, the states of Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Montana, and Texas have already made it illegal to distribute deceptive genAI-generated political ads and “news,” and would likely see their laws rendered ineffective. Funny that, eh? 

In addition, the stick being used to ensure states don’t try to get in genAI’s way is that if they do, they won’t get $500 million in new federal funds for AI infrastructure and deployment. On top of that, broadband funding from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program is also being held hostage.

Under Cruz’s proposal, states that enact or enforce AI regulations risk losing access to both new and already-allocated BEAD funds. If they don’t kowtow to Republicans and their genAI supporters, they can’t improve your broadband.

In other words, if states pass genAI regulations, they can’t have BEAD money to bring broadband access to poor and rural residents. The provision triggered an extraordinary backlash from state officials. In early June, 260 state lawmakers from all 50 states, Democrats and Republicans alike, sent a letter to Congress condemning the moratorium as an assault on state sovereignty and consumer protection. 

They argue that states have been at the forefront of regulating genAI to address real-time harms and that a years-long federal preemption would “cut short democratic discussion of AI policy in the states with a sweeping moratorium that threatens to halt a broad array of laws and restrict policymakers from responding to emerging issues.”

The opposition is not limited to state-level Republicans. Hard-line Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R-A.), Josh Hawley, (R-MO), Rand Paul, (R-KY), and Ron Johnson, (R-WI), have joined Democrats in calling the provision federal overreach that undermines states’ rights. I never thought I would agree on anything with Greene and the rest, but here we are. She has threatened to withdraw her support for the entire bill over the issue. 

The timing of the provision is particularly obnoxious; after years of delay, $42.5 billion in BEAD funding had finally been allocated under the Biden administration. Then in June, the Trump administration rewrote BEAD’s rules and dumped all the previously awarded contracts. 

Now, internet service providers (ISPs) that had been awarded funding must re-bid for the same contracts. Worse still, under President Donald J. Trump’s “tech-neutral” approach, companies such as Elon Musk’s Starlink will now get billions more. How much more? Under the original BEAD rules, Starlink would have gotten up to $4.1 billion. The new Musk-friendly approach could boost Starlink’s share to as much as $20 billion. 

It must be nice to have friends in the White House. 

Of course, in the meantime, poor and rural users will still be denied access to high-speed broadband for another few years because of the BEAD delays. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the genAI rules moratorium can remain in the reconciliation bill, provided it is tied only to the new $500 million in funding — not the broader $42.5 billion BEAD allocation. Even so, a close reading of the bill’s language suggests that states could still be at risk of losing BEAD funding. In short, as Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-WA), pointed out earlier, this provision “forces states receiving BEAD funding to choose between expanding broadband or protecting consumers from AI harms for 10 years.”  

So, what’s going to happen? Well, for one thing, that Big Beautiful Bill won’t pass by the 4th of July. Sorry Trump. Even if the Senate does manage to pass it in the next few days, the Senate and House still have to hammer out the differences between their bills and then pass the final revision. There’s simply not enough time.

Ultimately, though, some version of the legislation will pass. Very few Congress members are willing to stand up to Trump when push comes to shove. And that means  AI companies will be allowed to operate without any legal guardrails, and rural broadband will continue to roll out at an ever slower pace.  

Cloudflare will block AI crawlers from accessing new customers’ websites without permission starting July 1 and is testing a way to make AI pay for the data it gathers.

Furthermore, website owners can now decide who crawls their sites, and for what purpose, and AI companies can reveal via Cloudflare whether the data they gather will be used for training, inference, or search, to help owners decide whether to allow the crawl.

The company began enabling its customers to choose to block AI crawlers in July 2024. Since then, it said, over one million customers have opted in.

“For decades, the Internet has operated on a simple exchange: search engines index content and direct users back to original websites, generating traffic and ad revenue for websites of all sizes. This cycle rewards creators that produce quality content with money and a following, while helping users discover new and interesting information,” Cloudflare said in its announcement. “That model is now broken. AI crawlers collect content like text, articles, and images to generate answers, without sending visitors to the original source — depriving content creators of revenue, and the satisfaction of knowing someone is reading their content. If the incentive to create original, quality content disappears, society ends up losing, and the future of the Internet is at risk.”

Pay per crawl

Cloudflare is testing a new mechanism payment mechanism, pay per crawl, that enables website owners to decide whether they will permit AI crawlers to access their content, and if that access will be free or they will charge for it. The technology, now in private beta, integrates with existing web infrastructure to create a framework to enable site owners to require payment, and tell the crawler the price via an HTTP “402 payment required“ response code.

The site owner can currently set a single price for the site or choose to let certain crawlers access it at no charge, but Cloudflare expects the feature to evolve over time, perhaps to allow dynamic pricing, or charge different amounts for various types of content.

“The true potential of pay per crawl may emerge in an agentic world,” the company said in a blog post about the new feature. “What if an agentic paywall could operate at the network edge, entirely programmatically? Imagine asking your favorite deep research program to help you synthesize the latest cancer research or a legal brief, or just help you find the best restaurant in Soho — and then giving that agent a budget to spend to acquire the best and most relevant content.”

Cloudflare acts as the merchant of record for the purchases, billing the crawlers and distributing the funds to the site owners.

If the crawler doesn’t yet have a billing relationship with Cloudflare, it is blocked but receives an error message indicating that with such a relationship it might gain access to the content.

Cloudflare has invited both crawlers interested in paying for content and content owners who wish to be paid to sign up for the beta; existing enterprise customers can also contact their account executive.

A win-win

Fritz Jean-Louis, principal cybersecurity advisor at Info-Tech Research Group, sees the approach as a positive move which addresses concerns about unauthorized use of content by AI crawlers..

“By giving website owners control over how their content is accessed and used by AI crawlers, this solution empowers content creators to protect their intellectual property and potentially monetize their content more effectively,” he said. “The requirement for AI companies to disclose the purpose of their crawlers introduces a level of transparency and accountability that has been lacking in the industry, helping to build trust between content creators and AI companies.”

But he does see unresolved issues that need addressing, such as how to handle what he called “legacy” information that had already been scooped up by crawlers.

Jean-Louis favors industry-driven solutions over punitive regulations: “This move by Cloudflare could indicate a shift in the industry toward supporting a fair and sustainable digital ecosystem, balancing the needs of content creators and AI innovators: a win-win situation.”

U.S. cyber agencies, the FBI, and NSA issued an urgent warning today about potential cyberattacks from Iranian-affiliated hackers targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. [...]

The Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection has formally requested Google and Apple to remove the DeepSeek AI application from the application stores due to GDPR violations. [...]

Microsoft says its Defender for Office 365 cloud-based email security suite will now automatically detect and block email bombing attacks. [...]

Following reports that Meta had hired away prominent researchers from OpenAI — in some cases offering $100 million — the company is now saying it will review compensation.

According to Wired, OpenAI’s management reportedly told employees they will not stand by and watch this happen. In a Slack message to staff, OpenAI’s chief scientist, Mark Chen, reportedly wrote: “I feel a strong, instinctive feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something”.

Chen said he, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others in the company’s leadership are working “around the clock to talk to those who have received offers,” as well as “adjusting compensation and exploring creative ways to recognize and reward top talent.”

More OpenAI news:

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• OpenAI productivity suite could change the way users create documents
• Microsoft/OpenAI AGI argument unlikely to impact enterprise IT

The government in Switzerland is informing that sensitive information from various federal offices has been impacted by a ransomware attack at the third-party organization Radix. [...]

The Canadian government has ordered Hikvision's subsidiary in the country to cease all operations following a review that determined them to pose a national security risk. [...]

Microsoft has confirmed a new known issue causing delivery delays for June 2025 Windows security updates due to an incorrect metadata timestamp. [...]

Spanish authorities have arrested five individuals in Madrid and the Canary Islands, suspected of laundering $540 million (€460 million) from illegal cryptocurrency investment schemes and defrauding more than 5,000 victims. [...]

When you manage lightweight virtual machines (VMs) regularly, tools like Canonical's Multipass are a lifesaver. It's fast, reliable, integrates seamlessly with Ubuntu, and''until now''has had one major sticking point: not all of it has been open-source.

Linux admins and infosec professionals, let's talk about a sophisticated attack campaign targeting South Korean web servers. Threat actors are leveraging file upload vulnerabilities to deploy web shells and advanced malware, such as MeshAgent and SuperShell, in a coordinated, multi-stage process.

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Ten years ago, Apple introduced the MacBook, a lower-end, more affordable 12-in. Mac the company called “the notebook redefined.”

At only 0.5 inches thick at its thickest point, the compact computer was the thinnest Mac ever at the time, and while the chip was relatively low-powered, it was a popular device until it was discontinued in 2018. Apple may be preparing to introduce something similar.

Ming-Chi Kuo, the widely-cited Apple analyst who seemingly secretively occupies an adjacent pocket to Mark Gurman somewhere in Apple’s boardroom, tells us Apple wants to introduce a new and lower-priced entry-level laptop, probably next year. In order to reach this low price, Apple will allegedly put its A18 Pro iPhone processor inside the Mac.

Doing so is not quite the trade off in performance you might imagine, as 9to5Mac points out the A18 Pro chip’s performance puts it at least on par with an M1 Mac mini, millions of which continue to be used quite happily today. (I use one.)

Compromise or opportunity?

What this means is that in exchange for using a processor that is produced in huge quantities (and therefore likely a little cheaper), Apple gets to offer up an entry-level Mac with enough performance for basic tasks at a low price and likely in a very, very thin chassis due to the low energy of the processor.

This all sounds grand so far, especially budget-holders and particularly those in the education sector who will be seeking an economical route to deploy thousands of Macs. If the speculation is correct, it also underlines two critical realities: Apple Silicon is enabling hardware designs Apple could not have introduced before, and it is becoming increasingly possible to run macOS on an A-series chip — assuming the speculated system is a Mac at all.

Could Kuo have caught half a rumor that leads toward a new hybrid device?

Only time, and probably Mark Gurman, can tell.

A little history

Apple replaced the popular iBook range with the first MacBook in 2006 during the Mac transition to Intel processors and continued to sell these systems into 2011 to make way for MacBook Air. Four years later, in 2015, the company returned with a new MacBook model — the “thinnest and lightest Mac ever.” It was once again updated in 2017 before being discontinued in 2019.

What these Macs did well is likely what Apple envisions for the speculated upon new model. Think web browsing, casual Mac use, access to web services, writing, reading, Apple Music and iCloud. It also likely means Apple Intelligence, access to cloud-based AI and almost certainly movies, light image editing, and so forth.

It won’t be the Mac you use for anything more sophisticated, but for a lot of people it is likely to be all the Mac they need. Thin, light and underpowered in contrast to MacBook Pro, it’s a model that could prove popular, particularly as the A-series chip means battery life should at least compete with other Macs. 

Building the business

Will Apple be cannibalizing its existing notebook markets with a system of this kind?

Perhaps, but perhaps not: You see, while it might lose some entry-level MacBook Air customers to the new product, most professional and aspirational customers will continue to get the best Mac they can afford.

These systems might also compensate for any diverted sales by boosting orders in large-scale markets, such as education, even as the prospect of a lower-cost Apple notebook could help the company secure gains in the all-important emerging markets; that’s where future economic prosperity might emerge as established economies collapse from their own internal moral/economic/political contradictions.

Any gains generated by these new Macs matter quite a lot, especially when seen through the lens of recent Canalys data showing Apple is now the second-biggest notebook maker in the US. (Apple has 18% of that market to HP’s 24%, with Lenovo and Dell sharing third position with 17% and others far behind. Apple is also the fourth largest desktop PC maker in the US, though by wider margins.)

That almost one in five notebooks sold in America comes from Apple shows the tremendous momentum the company once left for dead has built since the beginning of this century. Macs right now are powering a PC market recovery. A move to make some of its products more affordable (while also remaining satisfyingly profitable) can only consolidate these gains and set the scene for a much deeper push at the mid-range PC market. It’s amusing to think this push will in part be driven by an iPhone chip, a processor which with its own existence shows Apple’s growing industry leadership in processor design.

Finally, while it is unsatisfactory to end an article with a question, it is hard to avoid wondering whether Apple will finally put its own 5G modems inside these Macs? Use of an iPhone chip in a low power system does, after all, suggest it could.

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Over 1,200 Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway appliances exposed online are unpatched against a critical vulnerability believed to be actively exploited, allowing threat actors to bypass authentication by hijacking user sessions. [...]

The days of taking care of business exclusively in an office are over. You’ve got a powerful productivity system in your pocket practically 24/7, after all — and with the right set of apps, you can stay synced with the same spreadsheets, documents, and presentations that are on your desktop and work with ’em seamlessly from anywhere.

Best of all? These days, achieving that level of connectivity on Android doesn’t require any kind of compromise. The bar’s really been raised when it comes to office app quality in the Play Store over the past several years, particularly compared to the limited landscape we saw in the platform’s earlier days. The question at this point isn’t if you can find a worthwhile set of office apps for your phone but rather which set of commendable offerings makes the most sense for you.

And to be clear: We’re talkin’ traditional office apps here, not their more contemporary AI-centric cousins. Generative AI apps can certainly be useful in the right sort of scenario — from web-based AI apps that offer a helping hand with presentation creation to Android-specific AI apps that assist in all sorts of interesting ways — but sometimes, you just need a solid tool for standard work that fits in naturally with everything else you’re using. And, of course, many of these apps do now offer some manner of AI elements, too, if and when you want ’em.

I’ve spent time testing all the current contenders, ranging from the small-name efforts that used to dominate my recommendations to the big-name products from prominent productivity players. Focusing on factors such as feature availability, ease of use, ecosystem integration, and overall user experience, these are the best office apps on Android today.

Looking for email apps? See my roundup of the best email and texting apps for Android.

The best fully featured Android office apps Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Microsoft was embarrassingly late to the Android app party, but since the company started taking the world’s most popular operating system seriously some years back, its Android productivity services have been among the best around.

That remains true today with its core Microsoft 365, a.k.a. Microsoft Office, offerings: Word, for word processing; Excel, for spreadsheet editing; and PowerPoint, for presentation work. If you’re used to using the equivalent Microsoft 365/Office 365 products on the desktop — or if you just need fully featured mobile office apps with all the bells and whistles — Microsoft’s trio of Android apps is going to be your best all-around option for on-the-go productivity.

If you’re planning to use all three apps, you can also now download them in a space-saving and easier-to-manage all-in-one Microsoft 365 bundle (which is confusingly branded as “Microsoft 365 Copilot,” not to be mixed up with the other non-Office-associated Microsoft Copilot chatbot app — insert over-the-top facepalming here).

Perhaps the greatest strength of Microsoft’s Android apps is their effortless cross-platform compatibility and consistency: First, as you’d expect, all three apps handle standard Office file formats flawlessly and with pristine formatting fidelity. And beyond that, if you’re already using Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in any other setting, you’ll have little to no learning curve with the matching Android versions. The apps’ interfaces and interaction styles aren’t identical to their desktop and web environments, but they’re similar enough to make sense and be quite easy to master.

When you’re actively working on a document in the Word Android app, for instance, you see a small, scrollable toolbar at the bottom of the screen — a sized-down version of the traditional Office Ribbon at the top of a document in a desktop view. It’s a smart way to conserve space and allow you to have a large working area (especially when a virtual keyboard is present and taking up a significant portion of your screen).

Tapping an arrow at the toolbar’s right side, meanwhile, expands the toolbar into a larger form with menu sections corresponding to most of the Ribbon tabs you see in Word’s desktop or web app: Home, with common commands for basic text formatting; Insert, with the standard full range of options; Layout, with commands for adjusting your document’s margins, orientation, column configuration, and so on; Review, for checking spelling or word count, managing comments, and activating Track Changes mode; and View, for moving between different layouts and zoom settings.

Microsoft Word’s toolbar in its sized-down, scrollable form (at left) and when fully expanded (at right).

JR Raphael / Foundry

The Word app’s toolbar also has a Draw section, which is present in the desktop version only if your device has a touchscreen. It allows you to select from a variety of tools for drawing or highlighting directly on your document with your finger or a stylus. (The standard Word References section is curiously missing in this context, though most of the associated options are just scattered across other appropriate-seeming areas.)

The same approach and expansive feature set applies to Excel and PowerPoint as well. There’s really not much you can’t do with Microsoft’s Office apps on Android — including collaboration (as long as your co-workers are also in the Microsoft ecosystem) and cloud synchronization: Out of the box, the apps support both local device storage and cloud-based storage with Microsoft OneDrive, and if you dig around enough, you’ll even find options for connecting cloud-based accounts from Dropbox, Google Drive, and other providers for seamless in-app access.

Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint provide familiar and feature-packed interfaces on Android.

JR Raphael / Foundry

The one asterisk to all of this: In order to get the apps’ complete set of features — or to use the apps at all on tablet-sized devices — you’ll have to pay for a Microsoft 365 subscription, which runs $100 per year for individuals, $130 per year for families (with up to six users), or $72 to $264 per user per year for businesses. Those subscriptions include a bunch of Copilot AI features, though with a suspiciously vague description of exactly how much you’re able to use the features within any given month. (Officially, Microsoft says you get a monthly allotment of credits that “should be enough for most subscribers.” Riiiiiiiight.)

All AI ambiguity aside, assuming you already have such a subscription for desktop access, going with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Android is pretty much a no-brainer. If you aren’t already subscribed and don’t necessarily need office apps with oodles of advanced features, though, our next option might be the better fit for you.

The best Android office apps for more basic needs Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides

‘Twas a time when Google’s mobile office apps were barely usable, bare-bones affairs. Make no mistake about it: Those days are no more.

Nowadays, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are thoroughly polished and impressively capable on-the-go productivity tools. They boast tight integration with the broader Google ecosystem, along with a first-class system for syncing, collaboration, and effortless cross-device access.

That last item is a critical part of the apps’ appeal. If you’re already invested in the Google ecosystem, personally or professionally — using Google Drive for storage, Gmail for email, and so on — Docs, Sheets, and Slides will fit naturally into your existing setup. You’ll use your same Google account to access them (and you won’t even have to sign in at all from your phone, since your account is already connected at the operating system level). You’ll be able to work on colleagues’ shared files right from your regular interface. And everything you do will be connected to your Drive storage and easily accessible from most any Google app on any device or platform.

The Docs, Sheets, and Slides Android apps are easy to navigate and have all the basic features you’d expect for their respective categories. In Docs, for instance, you can style text, insert tables, adjust alignment, and insert a variety of different types of bulleted lists. In Sheets, you can style and merge cells, create charts, and find and use all sorts of common spreadsheet functions. And in Slides, you can use rich formatting tools, add speaker notes, and insert your own custom backgrounds.

Google Docs and Sheets have easy-to-use interfaces with all the basic features you’d expect.

JR Raphael / Foundry

It’s with the more advanced word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation commands that Google’s apps lag a bit behind Microsoft’s — not being able to style tables within documents from the Docs app, for example, or not being able to sort rows within a spreadsheet in Sheets. If you need those sorts of beyond-the-basics capabilities, Google’s apps won’t be right for you.

In addition, the mobile apps surprisingly don’t sport many AI elements as of yet, which is slightly shocking, really, given how aggressively Google is shoving Gemini into our faces everywhere else thesedays — including within the browser-based Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps. For now, the Docs Android app does have certain limited Gemini functions available for organizations on the $168-per-user-per-year Workplace Business Standard plan and higher, including an AI-provided document summary command, the ability to create an AI-generated draft based on a prompt, and the option to ask Gemini questions about the document you’re viewing.

Other Gemini features are not yet present, and Sheets and Slides are still free from any and all Gemini-related elements — for now. Whether that’s a drawback or a positive, of course, is completely up to your interpretation.

Last but not least, Docs, Sheets, and Slides also use proprietary Google file formats instead of the typical Microsoft formats — but practically speaking, that really isn’t a big deal anymore. Google makes it incredibly easy to import and open any common file format, and it makes it equally painless to export and share your files in any format you need.

Google’s apps are completely free for individual use, without any restrictions. For companies and organizations that require a fully managed setup, the Google Workspace suite ranges from $84 per user per year for a basic setup to $264 per user per year for the fully featured “Business Plus” plan — and onward from there for customized enterprise-level arrangements.

The best Android app for creating, editing, and annotating PDFs Adobe Acrobat Reader

The one function all of these apps are missing is the ability to manage PDFs from your phone. For that, Adobe’s Acrobat Reader Android app is the tool you need to round out your mobile office suite setup. The free (for these purposes) utility has everything you could possibly require for mobile PDF management — and it’s by far the easiest way to view, sign, and edit PDFs on Android.

Even just for basic reading of a PDF, Reader’s one-tap “liquid” function forces a document’s typically static text into an adaptive format that actually makes it legible on a small screen without any awkward zooming. And when you need to sign or mark up a PDF in any way, Reader’s got you covered with an array of options for scribbling directly on your screen or inserting a variety of ready-to-roll elements — including your own saved signatures, if you have (or create) an Adobe account where those are stored.

Adobe’s Acrobat Reader app takes the pain out of editing and viewing PDFs on Android.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Acrobat Reader does offer a premium subscription with a variety of advanced options, including AI elements — but for most typical on-the-go PDF purposes, you really won’t need it. The app’s regular, free tier will handle everything you require.

And with that, your Android office app power-pack is complete. Time to take a brief break (I recommend a grape soda) and then think about what other categories of standout software could help supercharge your Android productivity setup. Note-taking apps? Calendar apps? Travel apps? Apps for team collaboration? Maybe some must-have Android widgets or clever apps for making your phone more efficient?

Whatever you need, I’ve got you covered.

This article was originally published in October 2018 and most recently updated in June 2025.

Available on this website, on YouTube, and wherever you find your podcasts, First Person is the show where we meet the most interesting people in IT, and learn from them what makes them tick by focusing only on their firsts. First job, first great boss, first time they realized IT was the industry for them – first failure or first pet. It’s amazing what we can learn from interesting people talking about serious things in a not-too-serious way.

To get you started we are launching with no fewer than five great episodes, available to watch below, as a video series, on YouTube, and as a podcast.

New episodes drop every Monday, so subscribe now on your preferred platform. And if you are one of the most interesting people in IT, let us know by signing up for the Computerworld Contributor Network, or emailing me at [email protected].

(And if you like unvarnished truths and real-world lived experience from IT professionals and leaders, check out our First Person blog on CIO.com).

First Person: Dr CJ Meadows – Executive Chairman – The Tiger Centre

We meet Dr CJ Meadows – from the US, based in Singapore, having worked around the world from Japan to India and beyond. An accountant by training and IT pro by practice, CJ is an entrepreneur, consultant, and educator who runs a not-for-profit using tech to bring access to education to excluded folks. We spoke about how her career (and life) path has never been linear or conventional. We discussed how the future of work will require leaders who can use design thinking to focus on solving new and real problems rather than building the shiniest tech. She explained how her best bosses showed empathy and support, and that those same skills are useful in family and personal life make for great business success. CJ ends with some great lessons for life: follow your own path, and try not to kill each other. Words to live by.

First Person meets Dr CJ Meadows First Person Meets… Paul Preiss – CEO and Founder of the Iasa

We meet Paul Preiss, the CEO and founder of the IASA, the not-for-profit professional association for all business technology architects. In our conversation Paul describes himself as unbelievably passionate person about everything he does, personal and professional, and how that helped him steer and build a storied career in technology. He describes how he went from doing a degree in Japanese, to what he describes as his calling: IT. His first roles in development, moving to become an architect with Dell, and on to great success. Paul tells us some of the things he learnt along the way, outlines his failures and what he learnt from them, as well as introducing us to some of the great leaders who helped shape him and his career.

First Person meets Paul Preiss First Person Meets… Jim Wilt – CTO | Chief Architect | Distinguished Architect – WVE

We meet Jim Wilt, a voraciously curious CTO, distinguished chief architect and engineering advocate. Jim’s enjoying a stellar career with roles as CTO, CDO and chief architect across a multitude of enterprise organizations. In this conversation we learn about his success and failures, and how he may have learnt more from the latter. He takes us from being inspired by a Disney movie to learn to code on paper because he couldn’t afford access to a computer, to working in medical research and winning prestigious awards for huge organizations. He describes a great boss in McDonalds who taught him the value of giving your best to everything you do, including the story of the janitor at NASA who sent a man to the Moon. Jim shares how he needed to be convinced of his own expertise, and shares the view that material success follows passion and focus – don’t waste your time being safe.

First Person meets Jim Wilt First Person Meets… Arno Schilperoord – Director Global Architecture & Digital Innovation at The HEINEKEN Company

We meet Arno Schilperoord, a global leader for Heineken who believes that coding is magic and poetry, offering the opportunity to create something from nothing and infinite possibility. Arno tells us how studying physics and using computer models and writing computer code to help in the analysis was his way into IT. He says that in IT everybody was learning things for the first time, and explains how designing resilient high-performance solutions was just a small step from his current practice of architecture. Arno tells us that great bosses are able to spot and resolve problems early, and that great leadership isn’t just about technical expertise, it’s about awareness, timing, and creating a culture of high performance and creating an environment where people feel safe and feel supported.

First Person meets Arno Schilperoord First Person: David Jones – Chief Architect – WVE

We meet David Jones – a chief architect, CTO and CIO who describes his work as elevating business technology strategy through architectural excellence. David introduces himself as someone who loves collaborating, doesn’t do politics and is always honest. He tells us how he got started by choosing to study electrical engineering inspired by his brother and a French pen pal, and espouses the value of practical, in-industry training over academic learning (although he returned to his own school to teach). David tells us how he was supported to accelerate his career by studying bleeding edge tech whilst he was working in an operational business, and how that taught him a valuable architectural lesson: the best solution for the organization you are in may not always be the most current technical solution. David’s message to those starting out is to follow your passions, learn, and be open and curious – you never know where life will take you.

First Person meets David Jones

Can’t get the staff

Recently we reported on a global Microsoft 365 outage that disrupted Teams and Exchange services. We said that aggressive traffic rerouting was blamed for service failures; with experts warning of architectural brittleness and rising cloud fragility.  

It was that fragility that caught the attention of Computerworld readers, who rushed to ask Smart Answers about one potential cause. We know that IT skills are in short supply even as lots of IT pros are being laid off. But the chat tends to focus on AI skills: we don’t often hear about how hard it is to get data center staff. But it’s a real factor, both in the public cloud sector, and maybe especially for those who are repatriating data back to their own data centers. We hear reports of understaffing in areas such as operations, electrical engineering, and cloud architecture.  

And it’s a problem. According to Smart Answers, being short staffed increases the risk of human error. It leads to maintenance being delayed, less effective remote monitoring, and longer response times when things do go wrong.  

Find out: How can insufficient data center staff contribute to cloud outages?  

Remind me…?

This week Computerworld broke the stunning news that – alongside all the generative-AI silliness – Google’s Gemini has some genuinely practical purposes on Android — if you know what to ask. Our readers latched on to one in particular. Now which one was it..?  

Oh yes: ‘Remember that’. 

‘Remember that’ is a genuinely useful feature, and Smart Answers has an outline of how to use it. Activation, Information Storage, Information Retrieval, and Note Creation. But you don’t need to remember that list – just ask our own useful AI assistant. 

Find out: How do I use Gemini’s “remember that” feature?  

Danger in the shadows

Recently we reported that SAP and IBM were slammed for their roles in a Quebec auto insurance board ERP overhaul fiasco. We said that a Quebec anti-corruption squad raided the organization that commissioned the over-budget ERP overhaul – (SAAQ) the provincial auto insurance board. Investigation into the project continues. 

Of interest to readers of CIO.com was one risk factor for all operators of large scale IT projects: shadow IT. They asked Smart Answers how shadow IT introduces risks such as vulnerabilities to be exploited by bad actors. There are more – but you’ll have to ask Smart Answers to find out.  

Find out: What risks does shadow IT pose to enterprise infrastructure?  

About Smart Answers 

Smart Answers is an AI-based chatbot tool designed to help you discover content, answer questions, and go deep on the topics that matter to you. Each week we send you the three most popular questions asked by our readers, and the answers Smart Answers provides.  

Developed in partnership with Miso.ai, Smart Answers draws only on editorial content from our network of trusted media brands—CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World—and was trained on questions that a savvy enterprise IT audience would ask. The result is a fast, efficient way for you to get more value from our content. 

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Vulnerabilities affecting a Bluetooth chipset present in more than two dozen audio devices from ten vendors can be exploited for eavesdropping or stealing sensitive information. [...]