Have your say at Computer Weekly.
The value of on-the-job experience
University is not the only place to study, and taking an IT degree
is not the only way to gain IT skills.
If the industry is serious about avoiding a skills shortage,
organisations need to wake up to the importance of life-long
learning, not scaremonger about a fall in graduate numbers.
Given the rate of change in the technical sector, degrees bring
little concrete value to the business unless topped up with skills
acquired on the job, whether through training or e-learning. Today,
success is predicated by employees taking responsibility for their
own learning, not just relying on a degree.
Barbara Greenway, managing director, Parity Training
You report the latest predictions from employers of a "skills
shortage" due to fewer IT graduates coming on to the jobs market in
the next few years. If only those same employers could find a pool
of under-employed but experienced IT professionals to bridge that
gap - people who would benefit from investment to bring their
skills up-to-date and would stay with employers longer than the
typical graduate.
But of course, these are the same employers that have been busy
throwing their staff onto the scrap heap as they export jobs
overseas, and refuse to employ anyone over the age of 35, as your
letters page illustrates every week.
It is hardly surprising that few students are attracted to a career
in IT that might only last 10 years before the next skills shortage
coincides with yet more redundancies.
Chris Webster
Outsourcing to Eastern Europe
We welcome Gartner's outsourcing advice to businesses to consider
Eastern Europe as well as established destinations such as India
and China.
This advice comes hot on the heels of the news that Hyundai is
following Volkswagon and Peugeot Citroen in investing in
Slovakia.
Their choice is proof of the appeal of Eastern Europe to
manufacturers as labour and manufacturing costs in Western Europe
creep higher.
Gartner is right when it warns that a key criteria for assessing
outsourcing destinations is software and hardware resources. Pilot
projects need to be run to check the compatibility of enterprise
resource planning systems, which need to be adjusted to handle
differences in tax, currency and languages. International companies
need to ensure their global operations comply with the
Sarbanes-Oxley regulations and the international financial
reporting standards.
Increased investment in Eastern Europe is positive news, but we are
advising customers that they need to consider these differences
before moving their manufacturing to one of the new EU accession
states.
Andy Eardley, vice-president EMEA, QAD
Taking the plunge and buying Linux
Many businesses today are still built on IT management decisions
which are swayed by the name on the tin. When IBM ruled the world,
no one ever got fired for buying Big Blue.
Now, when purchasing an operating system, there remains an almost
religious belief that the brand which dominates the market must be
the best, which inevitably pushes companies towards Windows.
However, Unix remains far superior to Windows as an operating
environment. For example, Linux - today's most popular flavour of
Unix - delivers a faster performance and is also more stable, more
scaleable, more secure and substantially cheaper to run than
Windows. All this guarantees a quick return on investment.
Linux was built for server computing. Windows aspired to it with
the help of add-ons. But the lure of the established brand is
powerful.
Managers narrow their eyes at the mention of open source, looking
for the devil in the detail. There is no catch - just the risk of
being seen not to buy Microsoft. Users should move away from making
decisions based on the biggest brand and base them on benefit and
value. Perhaps then Linux will move from cult status to an accepted
religion.
Stephen Jay, director, Hansa Business Solutions
XBRL is a questionable choice of standard
I welcome the news that the Financial Services Authority is asking
all financial firms to submit electronic reports by April 2005
(Computer Weekly, 9 March). However, the choice of using Extensible
Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is questionable, given its
proprietary nature and complex taxonomy controlled by national
interests.
The implications of XBRL are profound. Analysts and stockbrokers
would love a much easier and quicker way to receive and interpret
results and for statutory filing to be far less error-prone.
Companies House and the Inland Revenue have stated intentions to
use the UK XBRL dictionary in conjunction with the Institute of
Chartered Accountants as a forerunner to wholesale adoption by the
UK. But even they have become mired in the minutiae of detail for
adopting XBRL. If national interests are this cumbersome, how can
we expect international transparency in financial reporting?
We need financial systems to produce XBRL-based data for onward
electronic submission, which is no mean task given the morass of
different national reporting standards. So far the adoption by the
main financial system suppliers has been lukewarm lip service
rather then a concrete product.
The use of XML in this area makes a whole lot of sense. Common
standards are needed if we are to move forward, and XML is clearly
the most suited to the current environment (which is set to last
for the foreseeable future). However, the choice of XBRL as the
schema for statutory reporting is questionable.
Running a business is not just about orders and invoices. Financial
reporting is the end game, and if you cannot do that credibly, all
the sales in the world will make very little difference.
Eduardo Loigorri, managing director, Exchequer
Software
Work smarter to comply with EU working hours
I read with interest your report on the suffering health and
productivity of IT staff (Computer Weekly, 9 March).
The European Commission's Working Time Directive limits an
individual to working 48 hours a week. So far, the directive has
not had a major impact on professional services firms in the UK,
but it takes just one employee to support the directive to upset
the applecart.
Professional services organisations now have to face the biggest
test of their existence to date - continuing to deliver above their
client's expectations to ensure their service offering remains
indispensable, without simply turning a blind eye to EU legislation
and over-working staff to the point of burn-out.
To keep employees as satisfied as their clients, service
organisations have to automate core business processes to improve
project management, administration and scheduling of
resources.
It is not about working longer or harder, it is about working
smarter, which means matching the right skills to the right
projects and making the best use of staff across the company -
something many companies are unable to achieve because they are
over-reliant on manual processes.
Only by having accurate data about people skills, attributes and
availability in one snapshot are service organisations able to take
action to address inefficiencies in workload and boost productivity
of projects, profit margins and improve staff morale, and therefore
staff retention.
Len Palmer, managing director, SharpOWL
Sun should make Java the industry standard
Last year was a difficult economic year for the software industry
and 2004 is turning out to be a challenging year for an entirely
different reason.
This year open source will either become a cornerstone of the
entire industry or will wither and fade. If Linux is derived from
royalty-bearing intellectual property, SCO shareholders will become
wealthy as the industry pays. If SCO's position is disproved, Linux
will then be the operating platform of choice.
If SCO wins, Sun's shareholders may also be happier, which may
resurrect hope that Sun can rebuild its leadership in proprietary
Unix.
Sun has reached a fork in the road with Java. Sun could embrace
IBM's suggestion and make Java freely available and explicitly
unencumbered from patents. A Trojan horse-free Linux would result
in Linux and Java being the foundation for the entire industry. Or
Sun can continue to guard Java and aspire to collecting future
licence revenue to rebuild its fortunes.
Why should Sun and its shareholders act magnanimously? Could Sun
build a new business on services and added value to open source
Java? Or does it believe it could build a successful business from
royalty-bearing software in opposition to Microsoft and C#?
Successful software companies are going to be those that help their
customers get maximum and durable returns from investment. Sun
should say yes to IBM and move on to the real opportunity.
Chris Horn, chief executive, Iona Technologies
See compliance as a business
opportunity
CGI strongly agrees with the sentiments expressed by Jim Fleming,
that the commercial environment is becoming more regulated
(Computer Weekly, 9 March). Compliance is required in almost all
aspects of the business, from health and safety to accounting
standards and financial regulation.
Investment in new technologies will almost certainly help
businesses comply with the changing regulatory environment and will
encourage a rise in corporate IT spend. However, it should not be
viewed as a drain on resources or as disruptive to business.
Compliance is simply bringing forward an inevitable overhaul in
processes and will bring UK IT huge benefits in the long run.
Regulation brings a real chance to overhaul existing business
processes, improve efficiency and, with careful planning, bring
rich rewards.
Andrew Nightingale, senior business consultant, CGI Group
(Europe)