https://biztechmagazine.com/ en https://biztechmagazine.com/media/video/cdw-summit-2026-how-ai-affecting-retail-customer-experience The CDW Summit 2026 was billed as the “2 Smartest Days in Tech,” and CDW subject-matter experts were on hand to deliver on that promise. As with similar events this year, artificial intelligence dominated nearly every session, presentation and side conversation. Its influence is undeniable no matter which industry is the focus of the discussion, and each vertical faces its own challenges and opportunities as a result. In retail, CDW’s Andy Szanger and Jared Feldman shared how AI is enabling store associates to provide the level of service customers have come to expect after years of shopping… Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:30:48 -0400 https://biztechmagazine.com/media/video/cdw-summit-2026-how-ai-affecting-retail-customer-experience https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/unified-security-key-operational-simplicity-modern-smbs Since its grand opening on the first day of the Seattle World’s Fair back in 1962, the Space Needle has stood as a symbol of the future and cutting-edge innovation. The 605-foot tower provides 360-degree panoramic views of downtown Seattle, Mount Rainier, Puget Sound and the nearby Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. Today, this iconic structure receives more than a million visitors annually. For this modern destination and attraction, downtime is not an option. The Space Needle supports several public-facing systems, internal business systems, third-party integrations and cloud-based… Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:41:17 -0400 Alexander Slagg https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/unified-security-key-operational-simplicity-modern-smbs https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/your-security-stack-working-are-your-security-operations Walk into a modern enterprise security operations center today, and you'll discover just how inexpensive 65-inch monitors are: The walls are covered with them showing dashboards from security information and event management (SIEM) consoles, extended detection and response (XDR) endpoint security platforms, firewall intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and data loss protection (DLP) software. It's all very impressive and mission-control. Yet breaches still occur. And after the worst of them, the postmortem is almost always a variation of the same story. Yes, the alert was received. The log… Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:25:56 -0400 Joel Snyder https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/your-security-stack-working-are-your-security-operations https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/4-questions-about-it-consolidation-during-bank-ma In a merger or acquisition, it’s more than just the business that’s being combined; consolidating IT systems must also be considered as part of an M&A strategy. Without this key piece, inefficiencies, higher costs and wasted resources can mar an otherwise thoughtful move.  After a deal closes, financial institutions should avoid a scramble to figure out their now shared systems, according to Scott Hiemstra, CDW’s director of strategy for financial services, and Brian Hilgenfeld, CDW’s vice president of financial services.  “They rush to consolidate systems, align security… Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:04:26 -0400 Teta Alim https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/4-questions-about-it-consolidation-during-bank-ma https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/cdw-summit-2026-it-leaders-seek-new-north-star-age-ai IT leaders are the midst of an identity crisis. Long seen as back-office superheroes, some IT leaders now find themselves expected to serve as innovators, evangelists and even the “fun people.” “I didn’t know that we were the fun people, man. Like, I was supposed to do one thing, now I have to worry about if it’s fun or not?” said Carollo Engineers CIO Andrew Ivey to his fellow panelist, St. Luke’s University Health Network Associate CISO Krista Arndt. The two were having an introspective but casual discussion about how they were responding to all of the changes in the workplace and IT —… Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:19:48 -0400 Ricky Ribeiro https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/cdw-summit-2026-it-leaders-seek-new-north-star-age-ai https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/why-small-businesses-struggle-acquire-hardware Many small businesses have found it more difficult than expected to procure the hardware they need to run modern IT environments. Blame it on the bots: As demand for artificial intelligence accelerates, the global supply chain has shifted from now-familiar pandemic-era disruptions to a structural squeeze, as semiconductor and memory capacity are increasingly prioritized for data center and high-performance workloads. The result is a new kind of bottleneck: Prices for memory and storage components are rising, lead times for servers and networking gear are stretching, and procurement terms are… Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:32:15 -0400 Nathan Eddy https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/why-small-businesses-struggle-acquire-hardware https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/how-security-platformization-helps-small-businesses-improve-their-cybersecurity-posture General Fasteners, a 75-year-old small business based in Livonia, Mich., has evolved significantly in the past few years from a supplier of fasteners, washers and other hardware into a provider of vendor-managed inventory, engineering and logistics services. In 2025, the company rebranded as GF to reflect those changes and has experienced rapid growth, opening new warehouses in Texas and Washington state, two locations in Mexico and another in Montreal. GF supports military, automotive, heavy truck, industrial and medical customers. That diverse customer base, along with the company’s rapid… Wed, 23 Sep 2026 15:31:17 -0400 Phil Goldstein https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/how-security-platformization-helps-small-businesses-improve-their-cybersecurity-posture https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/how-some-enterprises-give-themselves-ai-advantage As the fervor to adopt artificial intelligence–backed solutions comes to a head, organizations that already invested wisely in data-focused infrastructure and security are at the forefront of delivering on AI's promise. That doesn't mean that those organizations still working through governance initiatives or building out data pipelines will be left behind. The importance of understanding how any new AI initiative aligns to a business's strategic mission — and tracking meaningful metrics that ultimately prove its success — cannot be overstated. Building AI solutions as part of a game of catch… Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:37:13 -0400 Bob Keaveney https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/how-some-enterprises-give-themselves-ai-advantage https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/how-small-businesses-are-innovating-modern-era There's a common thread running through small businesses today, and that’s innovation without limits. We hear from small businesses time and again about the many obstacles and challenges they face, from lean IT teams and disconnected data to disjointed systems and tools that had reached end of life. Despite such hurdles, these teams uncovered a strategic path forward, adopting a growth mindset and purposefully choosing the right mix of solutions to meet their needs — now and for the future — and unlock innovation. In Michigan, 75-year-old General Fasteners has watched its business grow… Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:55:55 -0400 Bob Keaveney https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/how-small-businesses-are-innovating-modern-era https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/review-synology-diskstation-ds1825-network-attached-storage Almost every small and midsize business is quietly drowning in data. Marketing teams store 4K video, finance keeps years of records close at hand, engineering and design files balloon into terabytes, and the AI tools many organizations adopt have an appetite for local data that only grows. The solution for some time now has been to push everything to the cloud, but many organizations soon discovered that storage costs kept climbing while control over their own data kept shrinking. The Synology DiskStation DS1825+, an eight-bay desktop network-attached storage system, is aimed squarely at… Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:16:55 -0400 Carlos Soto https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2026/09/review-synology-diskstation-ds1825-network-attached-storage