Opinion

Opinion

• Be Smart

  Many employees are given smartphones by their employers. But have those employers stopped to write a policy on how these devices should be used?  Continue Reading

• Exclusive - the IP hone 5 operators in the UK revealed

  Which companies are best at tweaking IP performance? Watch this space as we reveal the quintet of the best companies at fine tuning Internet Protocol - dubbed the IP hone 5.  Continue Reading

• Does business have its head in the cloud?

  When I first saw the headline on the MicroScope story, I was pretty impressed. "Cloud to become a business conversation in 2012," it stated.  Continue Reading

• The great margin mystery. How does ChaCha answer any question for 10p?

  Britain's mobile operators aren't always as creative as they might be when it comes to making money out of existing services. They fret about 'delivering OT content' when they already have services that go unexploited. Text information services are ...  Continue Reading

• HMRC extends Business Records Checks

  HM Revenue & Customs has begun an extension of its Business Records Checks programme. Piloted earlier this year in eight areas, the programme involves checks on the adequacy of small and medium-sized enterprises' business records.  Continue Reading

• Is Junosphere the world's first cloud testing environment? Not really

  There's a funny list circulating on the web of the Ten Most Pointless Phrases in technology PR. 'World's first' isn't on it. But it should be. Juniper Networks has launched Jun sphere, which appears to be a cloud based testing system for service ...  Continue Reading

• Five minute interview: David Caughtry, ComputerLinks

  MicroScope puts its questions to David Caughtry, director of core technology at Computerlinks. What is the best/worst advice you have received and from whom? Best: My Granddad always encouraged me to give it my very best.  Continue Reading

• Yes, partners should be committed, but how do you define their commitment?

  "Underperformance is no longer an option." Chilling words from Anthony O'Mara, Trend Micro EMEA senior vice president, in the context of what the vendor expects from its channel partners going forward.  Continue Reading

• Incident Reporting

  Businesses are being reminded by the HSE about new incident reporting arrangements that were introduced last month.  Continue Reading

• IT insolvencies increase but things could be worse

  There's an interesting quirk in the latest monthly insolvency figures from Experian. While the number of insolvencies in August as a whole were the lowest since February, the figure for the IT sector was 9% higher than in August 2010.  Continue Reading

• Reasonable adjustments must aid employee

  Businesses with employees on sick leave or who need some form of rehabilitation to come back to work ought to take note of the case of Salford NHS Primary Care Trust v Smith.  Continue Reading

• Yah boo sucks, that's enough Oracle and Autonomy!

  I love a good spat as much as the next person but am I alone in thinking there is something incredibly childish in the current very public row between Oracle and Autonomy?  Continue Reading

• A sad day for fans of Citizen Jingoism; Sun online forum to shut

  Fans of low-brow debates like myself will be mortified. The Sun's online Forum is to close on Friday 30 September. I'm mortified. All I've got left now is the Nick Ferrari phone in on LBC. The closure of MySun raises a few questions though.  Continue Reading

• Have rumours of Nokia's death been greatly exaggerated?

  As you will probably know by now, Nokia today announced that it will close a factory in Romania and lay off over 2,000 employees, with another 1,000 jobs expected to go elsewhere in the business as a result of changes to its Location & Commerce ...  Continue Reading

• Unused TV spectrum gives new hope to rural 'notspots'

  Personally, I'm obsessed with the continuing story of white space, the invention that uses unused parts of the TV spectrum to create a new form of Wi-Fi, reports Nick Booth. The upshot is that large parts of Britain - unreachable parts of the ...  Continue Reading

• Diluting the Agency Workers Regulations

  They've not even been brought into law yet but rumours are circulating that the Government - more specifically the Prime Minister - is looking at diluting the effect of the Agency Workers Regulations.  Continue Reading

• Whitespace offers new generation of Orwellian technology

  Personally, I'm obsessed with the continuing story of White Space, the invention that uses unused parts of the TV spectrum to create a new form of Wi-Fi. The upshot is that large parts of the Britain - unreachable parts of the countryside, can now ...  Continue Reading

• Amazon the latest to mount a tablet attack

  One of the interesting recent developments in the tablet market is the way that, just as some of the most well known names in IT raise up their hands and pull out or express difficulties competing with Apple, other new entrants come into the market.  Continue Reading

• Business attacks on Miliband speech miss the point

  It's amazing how quickly the pro-business lobby came out against Labour leader Ed speech attacking predatory businesses and asset strippers.  Continue Reading

• Reporting burdens for small businesses could be eased

  Proposals to simplify the financial and corporate reporting requirements for small businesses are the subject of a Discussion Paper published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Financial Reporting Council.  Continue Reading

• Does the Web makes us all more angry and abusive?

  Should we be surprised by a US poll that shows 56% of people in their teens and early 20s have been the target of online taunting, harassment or bullying? I'm not.  Continue Reading

• CERN software has 600 million proton collisions and 40,000 bugs

  Britain's technology is playing its part in the Large Hadron Collider Project. Just look at the efforts of UK based American testing outfit Coverity.  Continue Reading

• Colt ships a datacentre to Iceland. Hope they got cash upfront

  Data centre retailer Colt, which claims to have pioneered the home delivery service for data centres, has shipped a big order to an address with a questionable credit record. Is Colt's unconfined joy over this deal (they even put out a press release...  Continue Reading

• Managing employee's behaviour outside work

  With the August riots and disturbances (hopefully) well and truly behind us, some employers may be faced with staff who have acted inappropriately outside the workplace. How should they be handled?  Continue Reading

• Blame for NHS's £12 billion IT disaster identified

  No evidence of corruption has been found in the NHS IT cock up that has cost the UK taxpayer £12.8 billion.  Continue Reading

• Any new energy management vendors worth a punt?

  Energy management systems are a £7bn market already. It was our taxes that created this market, so we might as well get involved, if only to get our investment back. So who are the runners and riders in the race for supremacy in this market?  Continue Reading

• Employers can be liable for discrimination claims

  As funny as it may sound, an employee calling someone (of Polish descent) 'Borat' can land the employer in hot water.  Continue Reading

• Salesforce can't live with the channel and can't live without it

  Analyst Tiffani Bova, Gartner's VP of worldwide sales and channel strategies, says that the channel will play a huge part in the delivery of cloud services, despite what Salesforce.com's CEO Marc Benioff may say.  Continue Reading

• HP keeps the strategy, replaces the man who thought it up

  Farewell then, Leo Apotheker. You were the CEO at HP who introduced a software-based strategy on 18 August by simultaneously announcing plans to acquire Autonomy and (with the full authorisation of the board) to look at a strategic options for the ...  Continue Reading

• Data centre security: how safe is your data?

  The business benefits of virtualisation and cloud computing are apparent but for many companies the main obstacle is perceived issues in the data centre.  Continue Reading

• HMRC revises its view of VAT under salary sacrifice arrangements

  Readers may recall recent column where it was mentioned that as a result of a European judgment, the VAT element of the Cycle to Work Scheme needs to be recovered from employees.  Continue Reading

• All change for mobile device management

  Costis Papadimitrakopoulos, CEO at Globo, examines how the mobile landscape has changed over the last 10 years, the challenges that this has created for mobile device management and the opportunities that lie therein for the channel.  Continue Reading

• Red Hat: on track to become a billion dollar open source software company

  Amid all the reports about Red Hat's very strong performance in the second quarter ending 31 August, only one site seems to have picked up on an intriguing comment made by the vendor's CEO Jim Whitehurst in the statement accompanying the results ...  Continue Reading

• Strategy, schmategy: could there be more disruption at HP?

  So the biggest technology story doing the rounds today (22 September) is that the board of HP have had a meeting to discuss whether they should get rid of CEO Leo Apotheker, the man they appointed to run the company less than a year ago.  Continue Reading

• BT says it DID deliver a £12bn IT system to the NHS. But they were out

  The ill-fated £11.4 billion National Programme for IT, set up in 2002, is to be "urgently dismantled" following criticism that it is not value for taxpayers' money.  Continue Reading

• Sleeping with the enemy?

  It's dangerous territory but a recent survey from Staffbay, a jobs website, found that a good number of respondents were happy to (try to) sleep their way to the top.  Continue Reading

• Is Gmail a bad advert for cloud computing?

  I'm constantly amazed as the omnipotent power of marketing in IT. Mumbo jumbo really has conquered the world. If you repeat a lie often enough, people will inevitably start to believe it and pass it on. You wanna get a solar panel, they'll say.  Continue Reading

• Can Microsoft explanation for Office 365 and Windows Live outage reassure cloud customers?

  The explanation as to why Microsoft suffered an outage of three and a half hours to its Office 365 and Windows Live services on 8 September might not be too reassuring for those people out there tempted to move to the cloud.  Continue Reading

• Time to hide your number 4 as 5 is on its way

  It looks as if Apple is going to take the wraps off iPhone 5 on 4 October according to sources that are desperate to reveal the launch schedule from the vendor.  Continue Reading

• Tableau offers business intelligence for dummies

  I missed the event, but a tip off from a former tabloid journalist told me that the Tableau's partner programme might be worth investigating Research companies Gartner and IDC both recently rated Tableau as the fastest growing business intelligence ...  Continue Reading

• National Minimum Wage and guidance for interns

  With increasing use of interns by businesses, both as a way of increasing work placements and of hiring low cost help, the Government (and the Courts) have become concerned at the potential for abuse.  Continue Reading

• Who else thinks resellers can thrive in the cloud era?

  I'm a bit confused by the Channel Transformation Alliance, the body which has been set up to promote and further the spread of cloud computing and managed services in the channel. It's not that I don't think it's a good idea.  Continue Reading

• If PSG is not for sale why did Leo say it might be?

  You have to wonder why the prospect of a sale of Hewlett-Packard's Personal Systems Group was even raised if ever since it was mentioned the vendor has done all it can to quash sales talk.  Continue Reading

• Anti-social CRM concept gaining traction on Topman site

  Social CRM (Customer relationship management) has produced mixed results for retail giant Arcadia after angry consumer complaints against its Top man brand were made public by its social CRM systems.  Continue Reading

• Don't stash your cash in Switzerland

  If you're an individual or a business with monies that you secreted away in Switzerland then you should be aware that HMRC now have an agreement in place with Swiss authorities that will see you paying more tax and which removes some of the Swiss ...  Continue Reading

• What if Samsung's Kubrick Defence had succeeded?

  Samsung's attempts to use 2001: A Space Odyssey in its defence against Apple in a German court have come to naught.  Continue Reading

• How Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made me feel small - then big again

  At a Billy Graham-style rally in London last week, Marc Benioff told his converts to reject their government and follow him into the cloud. It was all very humbling. They can make you feel very small, these charismatic CEOs of billion dollar ...  Continue Reading

• VAT 'amnesty' to end soon

  A window of opportunity for anyone outside of VAT regime, that should be registered and inside, closes soon. As reported by BusinessMan on 16 June, HMRC has been running a campaign that aims to capture those who should be registered for VAT but who ...  Continue Reading

• Nine out of ten city CIOs on course for prosecution by FSA

  Over 90 per cent of city firms could face prosecution in November for failing to comply with new FSA regulations on call recording, according to one study.  Continue Reading

• Resellers should try and get closer to their vendors says channel boss

  Resellers often complain that they don't get the support they want from the people who supply them with kit. But is it their own fault? We asked some top vendors for their advice.  Continue Reading

• The new domain - it's not an e.xxxellent idea for all

  With the launch of the new .xxx top level domain on September 7, businesses - and individuals for that matter - need to be awake to the fact that they may want to protect their brands and names from abuse by cyber squatters.  Continue Reading

• Younger people lagging behind with pension provision

  According to Government research, young workers are nearly four times less likely than their older counterparts to be saving in their employer's pension scheme.  Continue Reading

• A badly made sausage

  Over a conversation with Piers Linney, co-CEO of cloud channel cloud specialist Outsourcery, about his firms involvement with the cycling competition the Tour of Britain the positives of the sport came up.  Continue Reading

• To expense or not to expense

  According to expense management firm Concur, around 20 per cent of small firms don't really know what they're paying staff in expenses. Further, they also aren't sure of how to claim tax relief on expenses which, in simple terms, means that they're ...  Continue Reading

• Tech Entrepreneurs Week - how you could win fifty grand for your start up

  Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is to be the head of the Head of Jury in December's Tech Entrepreneurs Week. He's giving a speech too. But that's not why I'll be on the edge of my seat. I won't listen to a word of his speech.  Continue Reading

• The Apprentice

  The Government has announced a package of measures that cut red tape for employers that may help get more apprentices into the workplace, Under the measures, employers that contract directly with the Government will benefit from simpler payments, ...  Continue Reading

• VMWorld Europe award fame beckons

  The channel quite rightly revels in awards, they show the world just how good the quality is out there in reseller land, and so for those with a virtualisation expertise now is the time to dust down those entry writing skills.  Continue Reading

• Small firms are relieved

  Recently issued figures from the Government have shown that a good number of small businesses are benefitting from Small Business Rate Relief that was doubled last October and which continues until September 2012.  Continue Reading

• Omnisense geopositions everything - can pinpoint a randy cow with military precision

  It's one of the tragedies of the modern technological age. Each new invention is ruined by somebody trying to turn it into a marketing tool. There are other ways of monetizing scientific breakthroughs.  Continue Reading

• Mind the gap

  For the first time since records began it appears that female junior executives are earning as much as their male counterparts.  Continue Reading

• PCs in retreat as market prepares for tablet invasion

  Poor old PC. Things are not looking good. After all the furore surrounding HP's decision to retreat from the PC arena.  Continue Reading

• Why make a mobile app? You won't get rich but you might impress

  Keep quiet about this -it's an industry secret - but some IT companies can be a bit dull to work for. But how do you move up the ladder? If your current job leaves you creatively unfulfilled, and you want something impressive to put on your Linkedin...  Continue Reading

• Accounting records - guidance for directors

  Lawyers Herbert Smith are reporting that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales have issued "Guidance for directors on accounting records under the Companies Act 2006".  Continue Reading

• Act now to block .XXX domain threat, say lawyers

  Last month Network Noise reported a rush of interest among business owners in buying up their trademarks in the .XXX domain, a new extension designed for the use of the adult services industry. However, with the ‘sunrise' phase of domain ...  Continue Reading

• Why did Yahoo's CEO get the boot by phone?

  So Yahoo has fired CEO Carol Bartz. Whatever the reasons for her sacking, I'm intrigued by the way Yahoo chose to fire her. In an email to Yahoo employees, Bartz wrote: "I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's ...  Continue Reading

• Fisher heads to China to run, cycle and swim for GB

  The channel is full of talent and people with passions and hidden depths so it is perhaps not as surprising as it might at first seem to be highlighting the triathlete credentials of License Dashboard sales and marketing director Matt Fisher.  Continue Reading

• BT and Heineken team up to enable drunk tweeting!

  As if the legless needed any more encouragement to spill their (mental and physical) guts, BT and Heineken have just announced plans to supply a new wireless internet service, the Heineken Hub, to 100 London boozers, and 200 more across the UK by ...  Continue Reading

• Consultation launched into disability employment services

  Around 50% of disabled people are out of work and for a number of reasons, those that are employed often work far below their potential. To combat this, the Government has launched a consultation into employment services for disabled people.  Continue Reading

• Global services sector takes a big hit in Q2

  Ouch. Things aren't looking great in the services sector right now. Ovum has revealed that the value of global IT services sales in the second quarter of 2011 was 40% (yes, that's right, 40%) down on the same quarter in 2010.  Continue Reading

• If you see Hans, help him out

  This Friday a (possibly slightly unhinged) Swede named Hans Eriksson will take to the streets of London to conduct a 24-hour experiment in video streaming and social media engagement.  Continue Reading

• Clink for fake BT engineer

  To Worcestershire, this autumnal Monday morning, where a nasty piece of work named Hashim Ali has been locked up after fronting a chip and pin scam while dressed as a BT engineer.  Continue Reading

• PR Masterclass: the 10 phone calls every PR must make

  In the latest instalment of his PR Master Class, Gavin Bird, CEO of Condescentii Digital, reminds us that this is a people business. Journalists, bless them, couldn't function without PR. That's why they sit by their phones all day, waiting for you ...  Continue Reading

• HMRC offers firms online Olympics advice

  Small and medium-sized companies hoping to win Olympics contracts can take advantage of the results of an HMRC online advice seminar that ran at the end of July which can now be downloaded free of charge.  Continue Reading

• Where MeeGo now if Intel shifts to Android and Windows Phone 7?

  I confess to knowing very little about MeeGo apart from the fact it used to be Intel and Nokia's next generation OS for smartphones and tablets.  Continue Reading

• Five minute interview: Mike Dowling, Scriptlogic Corporation

  Today MicroScope puts its questions to Mike Dowling, EMEA channel manager at Quest Software subsidiary ScriptLogic Corporation. What is the best/worst advice you have received and from whom? I have received a lot of great advice from people that I ...  Continue Reading

• Social media. RIP?

  Are social media sites Research firm Gartner thinks that it could be so. In a survey of some 6,296 people in 11 developed countries, Gartner found that almost 25 per cent of respondents use their favourite social media website less than they did ...  Continue Reading

• Will you end up being the Norman Wisdom of the cloud?

  Panic can set in when a cloud service is over subscribed. In their desperation to keep the plates spinning, the staff and systems will bumble all over the place, like a team of Norman Pipkins, the comic creation of Norman Wisdom. Are you about to ...  Continue Reading

• Why is HP "pleasantly surprised" people will pay £89 for a TouchPad?

  Let's play a game of spot the link: 1) HP says it is going to discontinue making the TouchPad and slashes the price by £260 for a 16GB model from £349 to £89 and cuts the 32GB model price from £429 to £115 (a reduction ...  Continue Reading

• Businesses leave physical security to chance

  With the August riots behind us some are still wondering just what they have to do to keep their businesses safe and out of harm's way. Well according to NGS Meridian, some firms just don't pay enough attention to their security and they offer the ...  Continue Reading

• BT Tower to lose Peter Duncan's dishes

  Sad news from London, where BT is in the process of taking down the 31 dish-shaped aerials from the BT Tower, before they become unsafe and a hazard to people on the ground. The telco received approval from its local council back in March, and has ...  Continue Reading

• If you don't get cloud right first time, you're mullered

  Craig Beddis, the regional software vice president at UC4 Software, says if you don't get your cloud supplier right first time, it'll be ruinously expensive to change. Investing in cloud services is not a new thing but what's on offer is getting ...  Continue Reading

• The best (and worst) of the web? It's all there on transfer deadline day

  It's that time of year again when the (male) population gets an illuminating insight into the positive and destructive effects of the Web: transfer deadline day.  Continue Reading

• Five minute interview: Scott Morrison, Layer 7 Technologies

  This week, MicroScope puts its questions to Scott Morrison, CTO and chief architect at API security and governance specialist Layer 7 Technologies. What is the best/worst advice you have received and from whom? Best: having children is a leap of ...  Continue Reading

• Window shopping for clouds

  As a partner and a senior manager at Deloittes technology Consulting Practice, John Winstanley (left) and Bhavesh Morar spend all their time talking to big corporations who want advice on cloud computing.  Continue Reading

• Can unified comms save your marriage? Maybe, maybe not

  At first glance, I have to admit there's something very worrying in research from Avaya that shows a tenth of decision makers in British and German SMEs blaming overwork for the break-up of their marriages.  Continue Reading

• New Agency Worker Regulations give temps more power

  With the introduction of the Agency Worker Regulations 2010 just over a month away, the Government has now published the Agency Workers (Amendment) Regulations 2011 which makes a few changes to the rulebook.  Continue Reading

• Is a PSG spin off the best route to HP's post-PC future?

  This morning when I went into the garage to let my dog out, my nostrils were assaulted by a terrible smell. My dog wasn't to blame, however, the culprit being another dog who has been on an extended sleepover at our house for the last few days (you ...  Continue Reading

• Quitting the premises? Don't leave the builders behind

  Apart from employees, the second largest fixed cost businesses tend to face relates to their premises. That's why it's all the more important that businesses understand and abide by break clauses that give them a valuable 'get-out' on their leased ...  Continue Reading

• Proceeds of crime? Not.

  What should employers do with staff on remand pending criminal proceedings? The employee can't work - should they be paid?  Continue Reading

• Onyx takes MicroScope's future in its hands

  It's rare that MicroScope covers a contract win, as any PR with half a brain (and some of the ones with no brain whatsoever) well knows. But when it's our own IT at stake we're more inclined to take an interest.  Continue Reading

• Reasonable Excuses?

  There is a general understanding that there is no excuse for ignorance of the law. HMRC know this. However, is there such a thing as a 'reasonable excuse' when appealing late payment (of tax) and filing penalties which are prescribed by the law?  Continue Reading

• What to do when the service provider says gerroff my cloud?

  Hey, hey, you, you, get off a cloud! Not my words, but the words of a service provider that decides you are surplus to their requirements, for whatever reason.  Continue Reading

• Apple has to prepare for a future without Steve Jobs

  Steve Jobs has got a lot of things right in his time at Apple (and a couple of things wrong) but it's measure of how successful he - and his company - has become, especially since his return in 1996 which brought Apple back from the dead, that the ...  Continue Reading

• Are you a director?

  There are instances of people who although not officially a director act is if they are a director. The law understands this and allows for them to be made liable for any malfeasance and a recent case - Re Mumtaz Properties Ltd; Wetton v Ahmed - ...  Continue Reading

• SMEs now have (slightly) easier access to new funds

  The Government has brought two deregulatory amendments to the EU Prospectus Directive into effect a year early which may help small businesses access equity finance more easily.  Continue Reading

• TouchPad hunters fell retail sites Lulzsec style

  Web performance firm Site Confidence has shared some insight into the impact of this week's HP TouchPad fire sale on the UK e-tail community.  Continue Reading

• Cloud computing's hidden costs part 6 - can we get some SLAs round here?

  There's an awful lot that can go wrong with service level agreements (SLAs) on cloud-based services says Craig Beddis, Regional SVP at UC4 Software. Services in the cloud are not available when there is an outage.  Continue Reading

• Post-PC or PC Plus? The result is still the same

  Are we in a post-PC age or a PC plus age? Lots of people have been saying the golden age of the PC is over, a perception reinforced by HP's abrupt decision to get out of the PC business as soon as it can.  Continue Reading

• Sick records skipped by employers, says DWP

  According to a recent survey from the Department of Work and Pensions employee sickness at work isn't being recorded correctly, if at all. In fact some 21 per cent of employers haven't got any form of process for recording sickness absence - more so...  Continue Reading

• Capital allowances loophole ended

  The Government has bought forward the closure of a loophole which previously had allowed businesses to accelerate capital allowances claims for plant and machinery and thereby obtain advantageous early tax relief.  Continue Reading