Opinion

Opinion

• Exinda threatens to give the Cloud a right stuffing

  Adam Davison  Continue Reading

• Negligence and dismissals

  In most cases, serious negligence could be grounds for gross misconduct. But what happens if an employee has a lucky escape and nothing results from the negligence? Will a dismissal be unfair?  Continue Reading

• Olympic Workforce?

  With the Olympics less than a year away, employers should start thinking about writing a specific Olympics policy to deal with requests for leave as well as any unauthorised absences.  Continue Reading

• More personal liability for directors

  Pre-pack sales of failed businesses are a major irritant to all concerned, not least because of the appearance that the failed business can "dump" its debt and the buyers can start the same business all over again, debt-free, under a new company.  Continue Reading

• iOS5 and iCloud upgrade is a painful process

  There was a lot of hype around iCloud and the launch of iOS5 yesterday. They were bringing lots of wonderful features for Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users, far too many for me to list here.  Continue Reading

• How would you spin the Blackberry downtime?

  It's tragic how fate is treating RIM. Blackberry was the standard bearer for mobile computing and now these difficulties threaten to destroy RIM. Even distinguished figures such as Piers Morgan are taking to twitter to condemn the service.  Continue Reading

• New bill will strengthen consumer rights

  The Government has announced that it's producing a new Consumer Bill of Rights to 'streamline confusing and overlapping legislation and regulation' and provide stronger consumer protection.  Continue Reading

• "Frustrated" IT professionals keen to switch jobs

  "Frustrated", "Numb", "Unchallenged" and "Underpaid". Those are the words used by IT professionals in Ireland when asked to describe how their job made them feel. Do their UK equivalents feel the same? ...  Continue Reading

• Blackberry outages send message on back-up strategy

  If I was RIM, I might be asking some hard questions of my IT network provider (assuming I had one) in the wake of the much-publicised outages at the Blackberry-maker.  Continue Reading

• Have we got the measure of LTE yet?

  Sometimes you know something's not right just by the name. LTE. Long term evolution. As opposed to what? Short term evolution? By nature, isn't evolution supposed to be long term anyway? You don't hear many complaining how they're hacked off with ...  Continue Reading

• Penalty warning for paper tax returns

  With the 31 October deadline for paper tax returns very close, HMRC is urging taxpayers to get their paper tax return in on time, or face a penalty.  Continue Reading

• Energy back as part of the channel pitch

  Energy seems to be growing in popularity as a buzz word again as more customers look to get their data centres running as efficiently as possible.  Continue Reading

• Just how helpful are these online communities?

  One of the best reasons for buying a Mac rather than a PC is that you get a half decent film editing suite and the nice Apple people will train you in how to use it. Superb! A one to one session with an Apple trainer is worth any number of glib ...  Continue Reading

• This new generation has got no standards!

  Many in the industry felt Britain's mobile operators over paid for their 3G licenses on 2000, writes Nick Booth. At £5 billion each in the UK, the general consensus was that Vodafone and Orange would have some serious renegotiation to conduct.  Continue Reading

• Teneo gets into African education sector

  While many channel players fundraise for health causes or local charity projects, infrastructure reseller Teneo is spreading its wings and teaming up with charity Plan UK to fund construction of apre-school facility in Ghana.  Continue Reading

• Employees get more help to quit smoking and get active

  Employee illness costs employers - and the country - a small fortune and to try to combat this, the Government is working with businesses through the 'Public Health Responsibility Deal' to help make the population healthier. So far, 285 ...  Continue Reading

• Cloud? Don't talk to me about cloud!

  The BBC will be forced to run endless repeats because of the cuts, so were told. Good. I'd love to see a repeat of a documentary from the '90s about a charming man called Alan Sugar. Particularly the bit where a member of staff asks about email.  Continue Reading

• Best value for government contracts? What about everyone else?

  Interesting to see Lord Digby Jones, former head of the CBI, calling on the government to change its procurement strategy and use "best value" rather than" best price" as the yardstick for contracts.  Continue Reading

• Buying a house could trip you up

  In September HMRC launched a joint venture with the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Building Societies Association. For a fee of £14, mortgage lenders can apply to HMRC with borrowers details for cross checking against income tax and ...  Continue Reading

• Cloud of misconception still haunts the channel

  Microsoft's SMB cloud supremo has strongly defended the channel against critics who say utility computing will bypass the reseller. Cloud services suffer from an image problem at the moment, he argued, and the misconceptions do nobody any good.  Continue Reading

• New IP guidance for businesses

  A new guide for businesses to make sure they don't fall foul of intellectual property laws has been launched by the Intellectual Property Office.  Continue Reading

• Jobs' genius was to force the industry to innovate

  On Tuesday this week the Apple faithful gathered in California to watch what they thought would be the unveiling of the much-anticipated iPhone 5. But they were to be disappointed.  Continue Reading

• Steve Jobs: the first business superstar?

  If you want to gain a sense of Steve Jobs' achievements, you only need to look at the reaction to his death.  Continue Reading

• Revised shortage occupation list

  The Migration Advisory Committee has advised the Government that the Shortage Occupation List should be revised to restrict migrants from outside the European Economic Area to a smaller proportion of occupations within the UK labour market.  Continue Reading

• Why can't some VARs get support from their partners?

  Whenever you chair a round table between an IT vendor and its channel partners, the same issues are raised time and again. Whatever happened to the co-op funding you promised us? Why are we always the last to know about changes?  Continue Reading

• Oracle OpenWorld not so open to Salesforce.com CEO

  Doesn't look like Oracle's OpenWorld event in San Francisco is all that open after all. What else are we to think of the bizarre story that Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff has had his keynote speech, due to be presented at the event today (5 October...  Continue Reading

• 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