Short takes from this week's news
Gateway reviews 'create £730m savings'
The Office of Government Commerce's Gateway Review process
created value-for-money savings of £730m in 2003/2004, Cabinet
Office minister Jim Murphy told MPs in a parliamentary debate last
week.
Veritas patches Java flaw in Netbackup
Veritas has patched a security flaw in its Java authentication
service running on the firm's Netbackup software. The vulnerability
potentially allows remote hackers to gain access to information
stored on back-up servers.
IBM donates code to open source foundation
IBM is donating some of its Rational project development
technology to the open source Eclipse Foundation, which is
developing a Java-based platform to allow software from different
suppliers to be easily integrated and developed. IBM is donating
3,000 lines of code, representing 15% of the Rational Unified
Process platform.
US bank regulator sets authentication
deadline
US banking regulator the Federal Financial Institutions
Examination Council has given US banks until the end of 2006 to
introduce multifactor authentication for "high-risk" online
transactions. It said banks should use enhanced authentication
methods when checking the identity of online customers and added
that single-factor authentication was insufficient for transactions
involving customer information or the movement of funds.
Cost of basic ID cards to be capped at £30
The cost to the public of basic ID cards will be capped at £30,
home secretary Charles Clarke has said. Combined ID cards and
passports - the government's favoured method - will still cost £93
each. Clarke said, "We remain confident that further significant
savings to government and the private sector be identified as plans
are developed."
Indian database to tackle rogue call staff
Indian IT trade body Nasscom is to set up a database of call
centre workers to help prevent rogue employees stealing sensitive
data. The database will hold records of more than one million staff
and, although registration is voluntary, firms have said they will
only employ registered staff.
NHS warns BT over late delivery of systems
The NHS has warned BT it could face penalties if it fails to
install software in two London hospitals in November The company,
which has already been fined £4.5m by the NHS for late delivery of
networking services, admitted it was nine months to a year behind
on a project to install patient administration systems as part of
its contract with Connecting for Health, which runs the £6.2bn
national programme for IT in the NHS. Richard Granger, director
general of NHS IT, said there could be a "domino effect" with 42
remaining hospitals in London should it miss the deadline.
UK companies to spend more on IT than EU
firms
UK companies intend to increase their IT spending by an average
of 4% in 2006 - the average planned increase for European companies
is 3%, according Gartner. The analyst firm quizzed more than 400 IT
users about their spending plans for the coming year. The research
revealed that companies plan to increase spending on security
software and mobile devices but spending on servers will be cut
.
Public shared services risk duplicating
effort
The public sector risks duplicating effort because of the number
of government bodies working on IT shared-services initiatives.
John Oughton, head of the Office of Government Commerce, warned
public sector organisations to be wary of starting IT
shared-services projects when similar schemes already existed.
Oughton said 70 shared-service initiatives at 130 sites were
already under way.
BT plans higher-speed broadband network
BT will next month begin trials of its ADSL broadband Max
service, which will deliver downstream line speed of up to 8mbps.
The trial is expected to pave the way for the launch of high-speed
broadband services across the country by next spring. BT will
initially make the service available to 50,000 end-users across 53
telecoms exchanges.
Wireless network for Institute of Education
Teacher training body the Institute of Education has rolled out
a wireless network to give 6,000 students and 800 staff access to
learning materials and applications anywhere on campus. The
network, which uses Nortel technology, links the institute's three
sites in London.