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  • Inside Outsourcing

    Who are the top outsourcing advisories?

    The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) recently published the results of its research identifying the world's best outsourcing firms.One part of this focuses on outsourcing advisors. I think the number of CIOs that outsource without taking independent advice must be pretty much z...

  • Public Sector IT

    DWP drops agile from flagship government software project

    The Department for Work and Pensions has dropped a coalition government scheme to avert software disasters from its £2bn Universal Credit programme.The DWP gave up using the "agile" method of software development for Universal Credit, the coalition government's flaghsip reform programme, last month.It had ...

  • CWDN

    The cloud developer's toolkit takes shape

    It's official. The software application development discipline now extends to a wider definition and the cloud software application developer has arrived. Call him (or her) a 'cloud developer', call him a 'service-based computing programmer', call him a 'hosting coder' or call him Software-as-a-Service App...

  • Quocirca Insights

    Next generation MPS: From Big Paper to Big Data

    Paper-based information is not often thought about in today's Big Data picture, which tends to focus on the proliferation of unstructured data from sources such as blogs, social media and video that is growing at exponential rates compared to traditional enterprise data. Yet paper documents are an importa...

  • Inside Outsourcing

    Is outsourcing the answer to IT innovation?

    I recently blogged asking the question: Can you outsource innovation? In this guest blog post Matt Cooper, CEO at Imaginatik, tells us why the answer is yes. In fact he thinks outsourcing could be the answer.This is interesting because one of the biggest criticisms of outsourcing is often that there is no ...

  • Computer Weekly Data Bank

    System Software Spend - Top Manufacturing Sectors

    Beverages & tobacco manufacturers with 1000+ employees spend over £1.2m each on system software.  This is 40% more than large transport equipment makers.  They in turn have an expenditure which is twice that of pharmaceutical manufacturers.Source: IT & Telecom Spend - 80 Industry Sectors ...

  • Inspect-a-Gadget

    BlackBerry Live 2013: BES 10.1 - Security updates

    BlackBerry Live kicked off in Orlando, Florida this week with a bang; a new QWERTY Q5 handset and significant updates to its messaging tool BBM stole the spotlight. However, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) also had a few updates with the operating system's upgrade to BlackBerry 10.1 this week. I've spok...

  • StorageBuzz

    Has the storage hardware lock-in had its day?

    Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Two years ago I wrote that the storage industry was apparently ripe for huge change. The nub of my argument was that storage is a sector of the IT supplier world in which customers are forced to spend money on what are essentially a...

  • Inside Outsourcing

    UK smart metering delayed, as expected by anyone with the ability to think

    It came as no surprise to hear last week that the GB smart meter implementation programme (GB SMIP) has had its target of having smart meters in UK homes has been put back a year.The project, which is planned to be fully completed by 2019, had a target for the introduction of smart meters in homes by the ...

  • Open Source Insider

    Blackberry Messenger (BBM) to run on Android

    Reports emanating from BlackBerry's annual developer conference confirm that the firm is planning to offer the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) service on other platforms. Google's Android and Apple's iOS operating systems are scheduled to feature BBM by the summer of 2013. Rival platforms This is the first time...

  • Inspect-a-Gadget

    BlackBerry Live 2013: Hands on with the BlackBerry Q5

    BlackBerry's third handset to sit on the BlackBerry 10 operating system was announced today at BlackBerry Live in Orlando, Florida. The mid-range Q5 device sports a QWERTY keyboard and is aimed primarily at users in emerging markets, however, UK MD Rob Orr told me that its roll out in the UK and Europe wil...

  • Computer Weekly Editor's Blog

    Is G-Cloud changing the behaviour of the big IT suppliers?

    The government's G-Cloud has its critics, who like to cite the relatively few millions of pounds of spending put through the programme as being tiny compared to the annual £16bn government IT spend. But - putting aside the obvious counter argument that such change takes time and plenty of Whitehall buyers ...

  • CWDN

    How many developers use in-memory computing?

    Big enterprise data vendors can't say enough about in-memory computing and the databases serving these new development streams right now -- but how much usage goes on in the real world? The number of developers using in-memory databases in relation to their software application development has increased 40...

  • Inspect-a-Gadget

    Review: Samsung Galaxy S4

    I have yet to own a Samsung phone but have taken great joy in the past few years at having them on loan to get to grips with. Admittedly I favour the giant Galaxy Note range over the more popular Galaxy S devices, but there is no denying the sales figures and the latter has taken the smartphone industry by...

  • Inside Outsourcing

    How a war injury in 1943 lead to a software development centre in Poland

    I recently met up with the CEO of finance software maker Microgen. One of the things we talked about was outsourcing. Microgen does a lot of its development work in Poland. The story behind this is a great one.Neil Thompson, CTO of Microgen, discusses how, following the advice of his father who was injured...

  • Public Sector IT

    NHS watchdog commandeers data in bid to stimulate privatization

    The Care Quality Commission wants public approval for a plan that will use health data to help private companies make inroads into the NHS.The scheme will see the NHS care watchdog repositioning itself as quasi-market regulator and consumer champion for a newly privatized health service.It was sketched out...

  • Open Source Insider

    A shot in the arm for enterprise Linux

    After this week's news of the International Space Station's move to Debian Linux for its laptop installation, the enterprise Linux space is also now strengthened by Bromium, Chelsio, Fusion-io, nexB and ownCloud all joining the Linux Foundation. NOTE: This year's 2013 Enterprise End User Report show the wo...

  • Inside Outsourcing

    Union threatens strike as O2 plans to outsource call centre

    The Communications Workers Union (CWU) said it will use all actions at its disposal, including strike, to oppose call centre outsourcing at O2 if reports are accurate.I missed this late last month but thought it worth noting.Reacting to an article in the Sun Newspaper, revealing plans at O2 to outsource ca...

  • Open Source Insider

    International Space Station adopts Debian Linux, drops Windows & Red Hat into airlock

    It's nothing to do with Windows 8 and the lack of a 'Start' button (or orb) at all. But reports from the Linux Foundation confirm that the International Space Station's (ISS) laptop installation is to drop Windows into the airlock in favour of a new deployment of Linux for its machines. Manager of the Spac...

  • Computer Weekly Data Bank

    IT & Telecom Spend - Legal Services Companies

    Small legal services concerns with 50-99 staff spend £150m on IT and telecom services.  One third of that expenditure is on IT and telecom professionals whilst a quarter is on telecom services.  A further fifth is directed at computer services.  The remaining fifth is split between hardware ...

  • When IT Meets Politics

    BT launches offensive on Sky's broadband bulge: markets believe Talk Talk, not Sky, will be the main loser ...

    Ian Livingstone parked his tanks on Rupert Murdoch's lawn and the analysts clearly liked what they heard.  At the end of Friday, after some fluctuations, BT shares closed 7% above their peak in March. Sky shares were 10% down from a similar peak. Talk Talk was down 20% from its March peak.   ...

  • The Full Spectrum

    Wi-Fi in the US sky? Follow suit EU!

    Plane taking off (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I recently moved home and had the joyful stresses of trying to move my broadband service. Despite phoning three weeks in advance to organise what should have been a simple change of address and redirection of my connection, I spent two hours on the phone to Virgin ...

  • Open Source Insider

    Amazon launches Android app store in China

    Reuters reports news this week of Amazon.com launching an Android application store in China offering "paid" and free applications. With this move Amazon effectively beats Google (whose store only offers free open source apps) in terms of the amount of digital content it offers to what is indisputably the ...

  • CWDN

    Intel 'Silvermont' Inside microserver microarchitecture

    New software application development stream possibilities have come to light this week after news from Intel as the firm announces its Silvermont microarchitecture. This new technology targets tablets, smartphones, microservers, network infrastructure products, storage and other areas such as entry-level l...

  • Inside Outsourcing

    Should outsourcing ranking be taken with a pinch of salt?

    Two different ranking lists in the outsourcing sector struck me this week because they both lacked the name IBM within them. Both had reasons for not including IBM but it does put into question the value of these lists.IBM Global Services personifies IT services and its absence from these lists was surpris...

  • Downtime

    Facebook outs Fergie's successor

    David Moyes, Manager of Everton Football Club. Everton Played Club America after FC Dallas beat Colorado (Major League Soccer) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)We have all made the odd social network faux pas. From being it tagged in a picture on a drunken night out you didn't want your family to see through to tw...

  • Computer Weekly Editor's Blog

    Help us to recognise the role models for women in IT

    We're proud to this week launch our second annual quest to select the 25 most influential women in UK IT.The issues affecting women in technology have only become more important and high profile in the past 12 months. National newspapers have picked up on the theme - our poll last year even got a mention o...

  • Computer Weekly Editor's Blog

    Michael Dell says "I like to win" - but will he?

    It's become something of a common public perception that Dell is a company in crisis. Fourth-quarter revenue down 11%, profit down 31%, and its founder engaged in a battle with investors to delist from the stock market to buy time and space for a radical overhaul - these are pretty solid indicators that al...

  • Inside Outsourcing

    Cognizant exceeds $2bn in a quarter driven by SMAC and non-linear growth

    Cognizant announced its results this week and reported sales worth over $2bn in a quarter for the first time ever. The company said its social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) services contributed to the sales growth as well as services that achieve non-linear growth. This is interesting because it is t...

  • When IT Meets Politics

    I would love to be a fly on wall after BT's mammoth briefing to investment analysts

    I am told that BT plans a six hour briefing to Investment analysts - said to be a record. The build up is certainly going well. Last week a club of 22 analysts said they expect BT to outperform the market over the next year. Am I out on a limb with my criticisms of BT's plans to invest in content to compet...