Today Newmind looks back on the year in our blog, as well as taking a glance at how the business landscape has been shaped by a number of innovations and threats that we’ve seen in the headlines.

2014 in Michigan

Newmind was excited to tout its Inc 500 win when we were named to the list in August, but even more impressive was Michigan’s presence on the list. Our little mitten managed to secure almost 10% of the entire IT Services category of the list, generating over $36 million in the last year alone!

Statewide, current population statistics show a growth of 86,000 jobs since July 2013. Zooming out a bit, the IT industry in general remains among the most accelerated industries in the country, with a growth of 18% last year. We’re delighted to see this biz doing its part in pulling us out of the recession.

Big Data & Businesses: Build IT Session 2

2014 also saw us put on our most successful and rewarding Build It Together event to date! In downtown Kalamazoo, we brought together IT and business professionals to share stories and strategies, in a play to help strengthen the community of tech-minded leaders in West Michigan. We’re already well underway planning next year’s event, so if you’re interested at all, bookmark our page and check back for updates and news!

2014 in security

Security and data breaches had a huge year in the news. Between Target, Home Depot, Sony—even Goodwill—losing loads of information to malicious sources, data security is on a lot of corporate minds right now. Security concern doesn’t stop there, though. 2014 also saw the final nail in the coffin for Microsoft XP. After a 12 year run, the OS was finally laid to rest in April, but some institutions are hanging on… a pretty big security faux pas if you ask us.

This year also brought us a number of threats to the individual, most notably the infamous Heartbleed bug that hit in March. Before the year was done though, we also saw the BadUSB firmware released into the wild by developers at DerbyCon, and a big opening in Windows server software. With threats like these looming, we hope your organization has all the right fortifications in place—but if you need more muscle, you know who to get a hold of.

2014 online

Since 2011, the nation has been clamoring over the prospect of fiber-level infrastructure for their cities, with Google Fiber leading the charge through a handful of fortunate communities. 2014 saw another 34 cities (including Phoenix, San Jose, Atlanta, Portland, and Salt Lake City) invited to Google’s pipeline, as well as some remarkable bids to enter fiber-hood.

While some web citizens are demanding the US catch up with other leading nations in bandwidth, even more are continuing the crusade to keep internet “fast lanes” from becoming a reality in the net neutrality movement.

This activity came to a head in April when the FCC issued a proposal to allow ISPs to sell these fast lanes, and since then, many business leaders and public figures have taken a stance on the issue. 2014 draws to a close with 60 tech companies, including IBM and Intel, signing a letter assuring that these practices would dramatically stifle innovation and growth in the industry.

More BIZ news from 2014

Check out more posts on business, security, and innovation from the past year, as well as the notable Google Apps updates of 2014.

Dispelling Shadow IT with Hans Erickson

Power Outages & Brownouts Secretly Hurting the Bottom Line

Got kiosk? Thin devices in “kiosk” mode could change how your organization operates

4 essentials to engage your team

Understanding the Virtual Machine

Ditch the PC, grab the cloud: How the browser is changing IT as we know it

Build IT Together Kalamazoo

Visualizing the workplace with 7Geese

6 Steps to preparing for a backup solution

Building fire knocks out network, Chromebooks help county clerk restore service

Linchpin blog series

Google I/O keynote rundown 2014

  • Google Apps updates of 2014