In brief

Short takes on this week news

New CMA chairman to put pressure on Ofcom

Phil Sayer is the new chairman of the Communications Management Association as the organisation plans to further pressure regulator Ofcom and the government over the poor state of UK broadband. The new chairman hopes the CMA will reflect the changing skills of its membership. "Our members' responsibilities do not stop at the PBX. Their jobs now take in network management, security and IT integration," he said.

Spot checks show low take up of chip and Pin

Spot checks at 500 retailers across 10 towns in southern England found that more than half were not using chip and Pin. Retail supplier Retail Logic visited small shops to national chains including high-risk areas such as jewellery and low-risk groups such as booksellers.

Firms without Wins patch come under attack

Companies that have not installed a Microsoft server security patch against a flaw in Windows Internet Naming Services (Wins) are increasingly coming under attack. The Sans Institute Internet Storm Centre and the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Centre in the US have reported increasing attempts to enter networks using the flaw.

Dell cuts server and notebook prices

Dell has followed up its pre-Christmas US price cuts with reductions in the UK on servers, desktops and notebooks. It has cut prices up to 36% on servers, by 30% on Latitude Notebooks and 15% on Optiplex Desktops. The Dell Poweredge 2600 costs £599, a reduction of £330.

Suppliers' ability to deliver services doubted

In a survey of 250 top European companies conducted by Computer Sciences Corporation, respondents said they were concerned about suppliers' ability to deliver separate parts of the same or interdependent outsourced services, such as a helpdesks or networks. They were least satisfied with their ability to "gain access to world-class skills and expertise" through outsoucing.

For the record

Paul Vlissidis is head of penetration testing at NCC Group, not at the National Computing Centre (NCC) as stated in the 7 December issue.