E-Business
Looking For Agility “As A Service”

The drive for improved agility and more rapid deployment of services is a main concern for business leaders across virtually all industry sectors.
For their part, IT decision-makers are under increased pressure to make sure business solutions can deliver on these ambitions.
In its latest “Business Value Scorecard”, Forrester found that business leaders increasingly measure success by comparing what percentage of their IT-spend actually fuels innovation to how much just helps “keep the lights on”.
This view of success is undoubtedly a large driver behind the rapid rise of cloud computing in the past few years, and why the technology has today joined the enterprise’s formal IT portfolio.
In its many forms, the technology offers businesses a gateway to improved agility.
To add to this, vendors’ cloud offerings today have at once become more varied and more granular, which means discerning companies can pick and choose exactly from a large menu of business solutions to suit their needs.
The public cloud, in particular, has become popular with businesses seeking a cost-effective means to reduce their time-to-market for new services or quickly deliver crucial add-ons to customers using their existing offerings.
With customer satisfaction scores now serving as a measure of success for IT initiatives, it’s hardly surprising that the market for Software-as-Service (SaaS) cloud solutions is set to expand by 17 per cent each year up to 2018.
The public cloud has already earned a reputation as an enabler of service agility in a number of fields, with the healthcare industry serving as a prime example of this.
According to a recent survey, 67 per cent of healthcare institutions use SaaS cloud-based applications.
What’s just as notable, however, is what these organizations expect from the cloud. 45 per cent of respondents cited “speed to deploy new services” as a top measure of the cloud’s value to their business.
This fell only slightly behind the top measure – “improving technological capabilities” – which is of course the central purpose of any technology investment.
SaaS cloud solutions area also leading the pack in this regard by helping mid-sized businesses and expansion-oriented larger companies gain agility in the pursuit of their growth ambitions.
As they become more successful, businesses will need to build on the breadth and functionality of their IT systems.
SaaS applications allow organizations to very quickly make scale-appropriate upgrades and implement expansion packages developed specifically for their needs.
As a result, they can make the jump to the “next level” without the high costs and growing pains that have traditionally accompanied these expansions.
Of course, companies will continue to consume the cloud in different ways depending on their needs.
For example, while many financial institutions and government bodies do make wide use of SaaS, others may have specific requirements that make an in-house cloud platform more appropriate for some applications.
That being said, business agility takes many forms. By taking advantage of the variety of cloud platforms available to them today companies can actually gain a great deal of flexibility when launching new services.
Because SaaS applications from established vendors are built on the same heritage and technologies as those traditionally developed for in-house IT systems, companies can seamlessly transition between a public and private structure as they see fit.
Business leaders eager to launch new services quickly to stay ahead of the market can roll these out in the cloud in a matter of weeks, and then move them in-house if they want to keep valuable data or processes out of the public domain down the line.
The truth is that the debate over which cloud platform – SaaS, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, or one of the many other options available – is creating a lot of noise but has in fact become a moot point.
Ultimately, business leaders will make intelligent investment decisions as they always have – first determining what pain points they want to address and then choosing whichever cloud platform and add-on services they need to address these challenges.
For example, many businesses have already begun to create their own mobile applications to empower employees to work more collaboratively and productively using their connected devices.
Applications developers need the proper tools and resource libraries to build this software, and will fuel rising demand for Platform-as-a-Service cloud solutions in the coming years.
No matter what they want to achieve with the cloud, what IT leaders will notice is that the breadth and customization options offered by vendors today present them with a seemingly unlimited range of options to choose from.
With the level of flexibility and extensibility available to them, it will be up to business leaders to choose the most suitable cloud platform for their needs, and build on their investment by developing services and add-ons that will set them apart and help them remain agile no matter what the market throws their way.
By adebayo sanni, country managing director, Oracle Nigeria
E-Business
Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
E-Business
NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
E-Business
NITDA, API Partner Against Harmful Online Content

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with the Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API), has convened a one-day workshop in Abuja to advance dialogue on the draft Online Harm Protection (OHP) Bill to confront harmful online content.
The bill, a rights-based, locally rooted, and multi-stakeholder initiative, is aimed at addressing the challenges of the digital age.
The event, which held yesterday, brought together government officials, civil society, academics, digital platforms, and legal experts to shape a policy framework designed to combat online ills such as cyberbullying, disinformation, hate speech, digital exploitation, and gender-based violence, while safeguarding democratic freedoms and digital inclusion.
In his keynote remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA urged a paradigm shift in the way society engages with digital technologies.
“For almost two decades, we have viewed digital technology through a consumer lens. But these technologies are not just products and services. They are transforming how we live, work, and interact. They shape our politics, our society, and our democracy,” he said.
Warning against unaccountable digital power in the hands of private corporations, the DG likened the digital journey to the tale of Alice in Wonderland, where initial fascination with innovation has given way to deeper concerns about privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by big tech platforms.
“We thought we were using Google, but now we realise Google is using us. Social media, once a tool of expression, has become a tool of surveillance and influence,” Inuwa noted.
He, therefore, emphasised the urgency of developing a democratic and accountable framework. He explained that following the 2021 Twitter ban, NITDA facilitated dialogue between the government and platform operators, leading to a Code of Practice that stressed Nigeria’s sovereignty and legal standards.
According to him, the same process birthed the multi-stakeholder steering committee and the OHP White Paper in December 2024, laying the foundation for the current legislative push.
Earlier in her opening remarks, Victoria Manya, co-founder, API, observed the moral and civic necessity of the bill.
Her words: “The internet did not break society, it merely revealed its unfiltered version. Every day, Nigerians are exposed to harassment, disinformation, exploitation, and even algorithmic violence. The OHP Bill is not a war on the Internet. It is a peace offering to its users, a social contract for a digital future that is safe, inclusive, and democratic.
“We cannot answer the question of algorithmic power with unchecked state control. We must answer it with shared, rights-based governance. This bill must not be written for the people, but with them.”
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