Read all about IT!

Three major London hospitals have been forced to revert to processing patients manually after a computer virus shut down their computer systems.

St Bartholomew's, the Royal London Hospital and The London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green were forced to divert ambulances wo other hospitals to ensure that patients did not suffer.

"The Trust's well rehearsed emergency procedures have been activated to ensure that key clinical systems continue while network access is being established," said a statement from Barts and The London Hospital. "Manual backup systems are in use and we are in the process of restoring the computer systems with priority being given to the most important areas for maintaining patients services."

The hospital said operating theatres and outpatients departments remained operational. They have however reduced some non essential activities.

"The Trust is making every effort to provide transport for those patients that need it, but these services are likely to be disrupted by difficulties with computer systems," said the hospital.

Richard Hales, UK and Ireland country manager at F-Secure said an urgent review of the security policy at Barts and The London NHS Trust is needed. "If they are leaving themselves open to a simple computer virus, it could just be the tip of the iceberg."

I'd been employed by AOL for approximately 3 weeks when Yahoo!'s stock hit their dot com boom price of around 113 bucks a share. That was early 2000 - before the bubble burst and the detritus hit the wind machine.

I've not used Yahoo for years - I mean since about '95/'96ish, and so it was a little trip down memory lane when we made a photostory of the different looks of Yahoo! Down the years.

The site needed this slap, they need to refocus, grab the wave to web 2.0, and the company need to have a better eye.

We've seen this scenario before - recently Philip Rosedale of Linden Lab handed over the helm to a new CEO - he may have had the vision, but it was widely acknowledged that the company needed a fresh pair of eyes with perhaps more business acumen than he was able to provide.

Join Cliff Saran on Tuesday 4 November, 4pm, for live coverage from the Social networking in business session at the Gartner Symposium in glamorous Cannes.

We have written lots of stories lately about financial services firms buying off-the-shelf software.

This strategy is a move away from more traditional approaches which saw banks and the like write their own system. Off-the-shelf software is seen as a way to cut costs and reduce the time taken for new projects to be developed.

Although a supporter of using software from third party suppliers Ken Harvey, chief technology and services officer at HSBC, does not think it is ready for large global businesses like HSBC. He said in his 20 year experience he has always used software from suppliers whenever he can. But the  One HSBC project, which has seen the bank create common computer systems for the entire bank, uses in-house software.

Harvey said there are not suppliers with the scale to provide this type of complex software on a global scale.

Is there anybody out there that can provide this level of complexity on that scale?

November the 5th is fast approaching but anyone expecting fireworks when Microsoft gave first preview of its Windows 7 operating system today would be disappointed. The new operating system, due to ship in January next year doesn't offer much more than the Windows Vista. There are a few bells and whistles. Window's 7 support for touch-sensitive displays could prove useful for people that need to use table PCs on the move. And the ability to connect to Windows Sever 2008 without a VPN could also be helpful to businesses. But they don't add up to a compelling reason to upgrade. Verdict so far - a damp squib.

I was at a very interesting presentation today with HSBC's IT and operations head Ken Harvey.

He was giving a presentation about the bank's One HSBC project. This is a project to move all the bank's different units regardless of region or business line onto common computer systems.

It was very interesting presentation and kept my full attention as a result. On the 42nd floor of HSBC's headquarters in Canary Wharf, on a clear day, one could easily to be distracted by the view.

The project is now two years old and is already paying for itself according to Harvey. Some of the achievement so far include the reduction of the number of core banking systems from 55 to 17, credit card systems cut from 24 to 17, internet banking systems reduced to 13 from 41, desktops all on the same standard compared to 40 before and trading systems reduced from five to one. 

By the end of 2010 all of these will be consolidated to one core banking, one credit card, one internet banking, one desktop standard and one trading system and all on the One HSBC platform. HSBC has also reduced the number of datacentres it operates globally from 130 to four pairs.

But as we always talk about savings I thought I would mention some of the advantages of One HSBC to customers.

If you are a corporate and you want to ensure that different units across the world have enough cash to pay their bills you can just tell the bank how much they all need and it will convert the currency and move it around for you.

Meanwhile if you are a retail customer and you lose your card the cancelation and replacement process is far easier for you and the member of staff dealing with you. This process traditionally requires 13 different actions but with the new system it is only five. It also offers customers an identical interface no matter how they are dealing with the bank. Whether they are in a branch or on the road using whichever mobile device you chose the interface is the same.

This Friday sees the UK launch of multi-lateral trading facility (MTF) Bats, which will increase the competition facing the London Stock Exchange.

With the ability to process trades in under a millisecond, Bats has an advantage when dealing with the large investment banks that use computer generated algorithms to instigate trades. With stock prices fluctuating rapidly a millisecond here and there can make a big difference.

MTFs, which compete with traditional stock exchanges, are already in the UK in the form of Chi-X, Nasdaq OMX and Turquoise.

All these stock trading venues use complex core trading software to complete trades and rely on massive IT infrastructures to process and store the information.

Bats, which was launched in the US in 2006, is in the process of building a European business. Its UK launch is on Friday.

It has a technology platform that can perform trades end to end in less than one millisecond. This compares to the London Stock Exchange's three millisecond trades. The length of time it take to complete a trade, known as latency, is very important to large investment firms that use computer generated algorithms to instigate trading.

The markets in financial instruments directive (MiFID), which came into effect in November last year, has liberalised the stock trading sector through the removal of the concentration rule. This rule stated that trades should go through local exchanges, facilities MTFs have emerged.

Coincidentally, Friday, when Bats will launch, is also Hallowe'en. An apt day for bats to take flight?

Bat in Flight
Originally uploaded by Bistrosavage

Think your identity is safe? Well, as one industry insider recently discovered - ironically, during National Identity Fraud Prevention Week - it's not just phishing attacks and software vulnerabilities of which you need to be wary. If your house is physically broken into, it could be more than just your property at stake - and re-securing your assets can be harder than you'd expect, thanks to poor customer service, and the idiosyncracies of current security protocols.

"National Identity Fraud Prevention Week had a cruel twist for me this year: I was burgled as it started.

It would be fair to say I was more stressed about what could be stolen by criminals using my ID than what was actually stolen.

Passports, laptop and mobile phone were amongst the items taken. Also as the burglars helped themselves they had access to lots of personal information such as bank account details.

As soon as we got home to our trashed house and discovered the burglary, both my partner and I were on the telephone to various agencies to cancel various accounts.

The best place to start? Ah, you should call the police, you say. Yes, that's what we thought too. About 24 hours later they finally turned up.

But the thing that really stood out for me was the way call centres are run. If you ask something out of the ordinary they cannot help. "But I can't find my account number because the house has been turned over!"

The de-facto ID is the passport, so I immediately called the Identity and Passport agency. Although the number given out is obviously not the agency directly but a call centre. They could not do anything until I had a crime reference number.

So, 24 hours later, when I finally received my crime reference number I filled in two forms on the website to report it stolen. I contacted them the next day and was told that these forms would be posted to me whereupon I should sign them and send them back. That could take time, I thought, so I printed the forms and filled them in and posted them immediately.

Two days later I telephoned the Identity and passport agency and they could not tell me whether they had received my forms. "The office does not speak to people over the phone about this," said the call centre. All I wanted to know was whether the passports had been successfully cancelled. "You will receive a letter informing you. This could take weeks." Well that's reassuring. In actual fact I did receive the letters quite quickly, so well done, but reassurance over the phone would have been better.

As I was speaking to a call centre, which is powerless, I asked for the number for the actual office involved in Peterborough. I was told they do not have a number for them.

That wasn't the only incident. Just after the burglary I had telephoned my bank to try to ensure that my online bank account couldn't be used by the people that have my laptop, passport and lots of personal details.

The call centre worker asked for my account number, date of birth and mother's maiden name; I asked him if that was all he was asking me and he said these are details that only I would know. Well unless someone had my passport and had seen my bank details. My passport has my name, date of birth and mother's maiden name on it. The burglars could quite easily have my bank details (my cheque books were in the house) and of course they have my laptop.

And my final grip is with a certain telco. Nothing to do with ID theft, but it was poor customer relations all the same. One of the items stolen was a mobile phone. One that allows you to browse the web and check e-mails - you know, like a Blackberry, but not as good. It is an extra £5 a month. Now that the device has been stolen I cannot use the service. Although I am a good customer with a full broadband and phone service the company does not think it would be fair to send me a new device or to cancel the service.

The person on the phone had some suggestions. Buy a new one or get one cheap by adding another user. The latter would mean another £5 per month plus a cut price £29 for the phone. Obviously I was not happy. The company's response was "we offered you insurance".

This is a common theme: the bank mentioned ID theft insurance also. They also tried to sell me home insurance, which actually made me laugh out loud."

So far the IT industry has emerged relatively unscathed from the credit crunch. But with the governor of the bank of England, Mervyn King's gloomy admission yesterday that the UK is on the verge of a recession, the good times must surely be coming to an end.

Today's news that Yahoo plans to lay off 1,500 employees is likely to set the tone for a difficult 12 months ahead. Some major IT suppliers are already tightening their belts, trimming their advertising budgets, and reviewing their head counts.

We will probably not feel the full effects until 2009. Leading analyst, Richard Holway, predicts a 2% recession across IT. But there will be winners are losers. IT companies supplying nice-to-have technology will be badly hit, as the shakeout in Silicon Valley implies.

The real winners will the IT companies that can save businesses money - not in five years time - but now.

In the past we've merely dabbled around the edges, but now, ComputerWeekly.com is diving right into the rich waters of social media, thanks to the addition of our new team member, Community Editor Heidi Foster. Heidi will be looking after our growing online community and caretaking our presence in the world of web 2.0. She's exploring the tools that will enable us to keep you up to date with the world of professional IT wherever you are, and however you like to engage online.

We'd love you to join us. We're already active on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and more services are planned. If there's something you'd particularly like us to add, drop us a line in the comments below.

For details on how to add Computer Weekly's current web 2.0 services follow the link to the full entry (or see below if you're already there...)

and exploring the tools that will enable us to keep you up to date with