News

Business applications

January 27, 2010 27 Jan'10
SAP upbeat about 2010 depite 2009 declines

Enterprise software maker SAP has announced drops in income for both the final quarter of 2009 and the year as a whole following reduced corporate spending...
January 26, 2010 26 Jan'10
Election 2010: CIOs must prepare for government IT shake-up

CIOs need to start preparing for a possible change or shake-up of government as this year's election approaches, according to former US state CIO John Kost.
January 26, 2010 26 Jan'10
Sage cuts debt as trading meets expectations

British software supplier Sage cut its net debt by £47m to £392m in the three months to the end of December, as trading remained in line with previously...
January 26, 2010 26 Jan'10
Co-op sells its Epos technology to competitors

The Co-operative is selling its retail technology to competitors after the system proved a success in 3,000 stores in the UK.

The InControl-Evolution...

January 25, 2010 25 Jan'10
Firefox 3.6 even faster than 3.5, claims Mozilla

Mozilla has updated its free open source Firefox browser to version 3.6, which it claims is the fastest yet in processing JavaScript.
January 22, 2010 22 Jan'10
Microsoft patch combats security flaws in Internet Explorer

Microsoft has released a patch to address critical security flaws in Internet Explorer.

A remote-code exploit in Internet Explorer was used by hackers...
January 21, 2010 21 Jan'10
Oracle readies strategy plan as EU approves Sun acquisition

The European Commission has approved Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems, following an investigation into the MySQL database owned by Sun.

The...
January 21, 2010 21 Jan'10
“Make or break” for London Stock Exchange IT

The London Stock Exchange faces a year of IT challenges. How it meets these challenges will determine whether it becomes one of the world's top five trading...
January 21, 2010 21 Jan'10
Microsoft rushes out Google hack security update

Microsoft is to issue an emergency security patch for its Internet Explorer browser to fix the flaws blamed for the recent China-based hacker attacks on Google and at least 20 other companies.
January 20, 2010 20 Jan'10
MoD awards $890m DII contract to Atlas consortium

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded the Atlas Consortium, led by HP, an $890m contract as part of the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) programme.

January 20, 2010 20 Jan'10
Online consumers seek out stronger security

Online service providers will have to improve their authentication measures or lose out to competitors, an international survey has concluded.

Most...
January 19, 2010 19 Jan'10
Kraft keeps systems integrators waiting over Cadbury

Systems integrators will have to be patient a little while longer while US food maker Kraft fends off chocolate makers Ferrero and Hershey to complete its £11.9bn acquisition of UK sweets maker Cadbury.
January 19, 2010 19 Jan'10
UK is short on software testing skills

The combination of a shortage of software testers in the UK and businesses' reluctance to spend money on testing is causing financial and reputational...
January 19, 2010 19 Jan'10
Study shows wider use of business intelligence in corporate strategy

Oracle's second study of enterprise performance management has shown that companies are making more use of business intelligence to help drive their strategy.

Conducted...
January 15, 2010 15 Jan'10
Illegal downloads at work put companies at risk, says FAST IiS

Company directors who allow staff to download software illegally are putting themselves and the company at risk of legal liability, software piracy watchdog...
January 15, 2010 15 Jan'10
SAP bows to pressure over enterprise support

Enterprise software maker SAP has bowed to customer pressure and scrapped a controversial plan to move all customers to enterprise support contracts priced at 22% a year by 2015.
January 15, 2010 15 Jan'10
McAfee fingers Internet Explorer in Google China hack

Blame for the China-based cyber attack on Google, Adobe and at least 20 other companies has shifted from Adobe's
January 14, 2010 14 Jan'10
PCs climb out of recession

Businesses and consumers appear to be buying more PCs, according to Gartner's latest research on PC shipments.
January 14, 2010 14 Jan'10
Panasonic to put 300,000 users in IBM's cloud

Consumer electronics manufacturer Panasonic has become the largest user of cloud computing services.
January 14, 2010 14 Jan'10
Commitment to IT will pay off for Santander

As Banco Santander's plan to integrate its banking acquisitions enters a new phase with the re-branding of its outlets under the Santander name, the company's decision to put IT at the core of the strategy will reap benefits.
January 13, 2010 13 Jan'10
VMware buys Zimbra from Yahoo

VMware is acquiring e-mail collaboration company Zimbra in a bid to extend its portfolio of datacentre, desktop, application development and core IT services for cloud computing.
January 12, 2010 12 Jan'10
Google extends Apps with shared enterprise storage

Google has extended its Apps Premier Edition cloud-based office productivity suite, with tools and services to aid online collaboration.
January 12, 2010 12 Jan'10
Novell brings Brainshare Europe to Amsterdam

Novell Brainshare is set to return to Europe. The event, which last ran five years ago, is taking place in Amsterdam from 18-21 May 2010
January 12, 2010 12 Jan'10
Microsoft apologises for ongoing problems with volume licensing site

Microsoft has apologised for the problems experienced by users trying to access its new volume licensing site.
January 12, 2010 12 Jan'10
Oracle patches vulnerabilities in 17 enterprise products

Oracle is due to release a suite of critical patch updates which it says fixes 25 security issues in its products.
January 12, 2010 12 Jan'10
Datacentres need to do more with less, but lack skills

Businesses are running more datacentre applications with fewer staff and less budget.
January 11, 2010 11 Jan'10
Walmart’s strong IT will be key in strategic shift

US retail giant Walmart plans to use its IT expertise to procure products directly from a larger number of suppliers.

Walmart, which owns Asda, buys...
January 11, 2010 11 Jan'10
Rogue anti-virus software targets Google Groups

Google discussion groups are being hit by messages linking to rogue anti-virus software, security firm Webroot has warned.

The attacks have gained...
January 11, 2010 11 Jan'10
Santander begins key phase of UK standardisation

Santander has begun rebranding its UK outlets after integrating Abbey and Bradford & Bingley (B&B) to its in-house developed core trading platform, Partenon....
January 09, 2010 09 Jan'10
IT will be key to retailers' survival in 2010, says Ovum

Retail CIOs are expected to use their IT budgets to reduce costs and build stronger relationships with their customers this year
January 09, 2010 09 Jan'10
PDF files and Adobe Reader should be security priority for 2010, says Qualys

The frequency and severity of security flaws in Adobe's...
January 08, 2010 08 Jan'10
Microsoft issues patch to remove i4i custom tags

Microsoft has released a 12.3Mbyte patch for Office 2007, to comply with a US court order banning the use of custom tagging after 10 January 2010.
January 08, 2010 08 Jan'10
Researchers predict 1,024-bit encrytion will be obsolete within five years

A team of researchers sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) have cracked RSA...
January 08, 2010 08 Jan'10
Microsoft eases into 2010 with light Patch Tuesday

Microsoft's first security update for 2010 is expected to be the lightest in years with only one bulletin planned.
January 08, 2010 08 Jan'10
Adobe releases critical security patches for Illustrator

Adobe has released security updates for critical vulnerabilities in Adobe...
January 07, 2010 07 Jan'10
M&S rolls out smart forecasting system

Marks and Spencer is to roll out a "smart" system of inventory management that will help it to manage and forecast demand at individual stores for the...
January 07, 2010 07 Jan'10
BMC bolsters cloud toolset with Phurnace acquisition

BMC Software has acquired Phurnace Software, which develops automation software to manage cloud services.
January 07, 2010 07 Jan'10
SaaS security provider Webroot joins EuroCloud

Webroot is the latest supplier to join EuroCloud, a new regional cloud services business community.
January 07, 2010 07 Jan'10
Three ways you can be caught out by a software audit

Forrester Research has warned that IT departments need to take extra care with software audits, as suppliers stamp down on licensing discrepancies.

In...
January 07, 2010 07 Jan'10
CES: Steve Ballmer on why the PC is still a smart bet

The PC is still the best smart device, at least according to Microsoft chairman, Steve Ballmer, which means there is still money to be made in the PC business,...
January 06, 2010 06 Jan'10
Y2K bug hits businesses a decade late

The millennium bug has hit a decade late as businesses struggle with software that cannot handle the changeover to 1 January 2010.
January 06, 2010 06 Jan'10
Microsoft includes advertisting-based Office on upcoming PCs

Microsoft is to introduce a basic, advertising-based Office 2010 on all new PCs.

The company is releasing Office Starter 2010, which includes reduced...
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Security to focus on cloud and virtualisation in 2010

Cloud computing and virtualisation will be the biggest areas of development in security during 2010, according to industry experts.
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
MS Office 2010 US prices revealed

Microsoft has revealed the US pricing for Office 2010 ,...
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Thousands sign petition to protect MySQL from Oracle

More than 18,000 people have signed an online petition to protect the future development of open source database MySQL, which is owned by Sun Microsystems....
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Google could launch Android phone today

Google is expected to launch its own-brand Android mobile phone later today, ahead of the opening...
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Hackers yet to succeed in $250,000 encryption challenge

Hackers have yet to claim the $250,000 prize offered by Israel-based data encryption firm Gold Lock.
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Google Chrome overtakes Safari in browser market

Google's Chrome web browser has overtaken Apple's Safari to become the world's third most popular browser after Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
January 04, 2010 04 Jan'10
Conservative manifesto would revamp NHS IT

The Conservative Party has published a draft manifesto for the NHS, which could have a material impact on the NHS National Programme for IT.
January 04, 2010 04 Jan'10
Amazon UK tops customer satisfaction chart

A survey of more than 10,000 online shoppers has revealed that Amazon UK's website ranks highest for customer satisfaction.
December 21, 2009 21 Dec'09
London Stock Exchange takes control of Turquoise

The London Stock Exchange is taking over competitor Turquoise and the platform is set to be migrated...
December 21, 2009 21 Dec'09
Six tips for smooth SAP upgrades

If your 2010 will include uprades to an SAP implementation across more than one nation, this list of six best upgrade practices may make the year more pleasant.
December 18, 2009 18 Dec'09
Oracle boosts software and services revenue with SAP business

Oracle has increased its software licence and product support revenue by 14% to $3.9bn for the second quarter of 2009, at the expense of SAP.
December 16, 2009 16 Dec'09
Barclays takes desktop management back in-house

High-street bank Barclays is calling time on its desktop management contract with Getronics six months earlier than planned to take the function back in-house.
December 16, 2009 16 Dec'09
Paper better than computers for patient records, say UCL researchers

Paper may be a more efficient medium than computers for delivering essential patient information to doctors, researchers have found.

Researchers at...
December 15, 2009 15 Dec'09
Los Angeles switches to Google cloud services to cut costs

The City of Los Angeles will use Google Apps and GMail for its office productivity software in a bid to cut costs. The cloud-based service will be supported...
December 14, 2009 14 Dec'09
Hackers block Microsoft Cofee law enforcement software

Hackers have released software designed to attack a Microsoft tool used by law enforcement agencies.
December 11, 2009 11 Dec'09
One in three report problems upgrading to Windows 7

Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system has had a better reception than its Vista predecessor, but complaints about bugs are rolling in.
December 11, 2009 11 Dec'09
Oracle accuses EC of manipulating data to block Sun deal

Oracle has accused European competition authorities of cherry-picking comments from a market survey to support objections to the firm's planned acquisition...
December 10, 2009 10 Dec'09
SAP lays out a five-year enterprise software plan

SAP executives have outlined the enterprise software company's product and technology vision for the next five years.

The plan features...
December 09, 2009 09 Dec'09
Microsoft issues six security patches

Microsoft has issued six security bulletins for December, bringing the total for 2009 to 74, compared with 77 in 2008, 69 in 2007 and 78 in 2006.

Of...
December 09, 2009 09 Dec'09
IBM sees no competition issues with Oracle's Sun takeover

Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems does not raise any significant antitrust issues, according to Oracle rival IBM.

Despite objections...
December 08, 2009 08 Dec'09
Salesforce.com unveils 10-year sales cloud strategy

Salesforce.com has set out a 10-year strategy for its cloud-based customer relationship management service, which it hopes will link the consumer web...
December 08, 2009 08 Dec'09
Criminals outwit Captcha website security systems

Criminal gangs are using sophisticated software to outwit the Captcha systems used by webmail, microblogging and social networking services to protect their sites against hackers and spammers.
December 08, 2009 08 Dec'09
Kaspersky Lab plans to shake up corporate security

Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab aims to become a major security supplier to small, medium and large business by 2014.
December 08, 2009 08 Dec'09
EC to approve Microsoft IE deal soon

The European Commission is set to give formal approval in the third week of December to a settlement with Microsoft to end the latest European antitrust case against the software firm.
December 07, 2009 07 Dec'09
Video: ComputerWeekly Geekly IT News Round up - 7 December

Welcome to this week's Computer Geekly Weekly IT news round-up video. This video picks the must know tech stories from the past week and serves them up with a twist.
December 04, 2009 04 Dec'09
Linux is only bright spot as Novell reports loss

Sales of Linux products provided the only area of growth for Novell in its fiscal year ending 31 October 2009, as the vendor reported a decline in revenues....
December 03, 2009 03 Dec'09
Microsoft anti-pirate technology sparks 630% rise in fake code detection

Anti-counterfeiting technology has prompted a six-fold rise in the number of consumers who have reported buying faked Microsoft software, the software firm...
December 03, 2009 03 Dec'09
Sage boss warns it’s too early to talk of recovery

Sage has warned that it is yet to see signs of recovery as it unveiled results that were helped by a weak pound and a programme of corporate cost-cutting.
December 02, 2009 02 Dec'09
Prevx apologises to Microsoft over 'black screen of death'

Security software supplier Prevx has apologised to Microsoft for a blog that linked the software giant's recent security updates with users experiencing system crashes.
December 02, 2009 02 Dec'09
IBM's Guardium acquisition misses the mark, says Imperva

IBM may be missing the mark in its planned acquisition of database security and monitoring firm Guardium, says data security firm Imperva.
December 01, 2009 01 Dec'09
Make your ERP roll-out succeed

The history of enterprise resource planning (ERP) roll-outs is far from flawless and business has been quick to blame failures on the technology.
November 30, 2009 30 Nov'09
Dell releases experimental Chrome OS for netbooks

Engineers at PC maker Dell have released an unofficial version of Google's Chrome operating system
November 27, 2009 27 Nov'09
EU and Oracle to meet soon on Sun deal

Oracle is to meet European Union regulators on 10 December in an attempt to win approval of the planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, according to reports.
November 27, 2009 27 Nov'09
Interview: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels on why CIOs love clouds

Chief information officers are more comfortable with the idea of cloud computing than they were six months ago.
November 26, 2009 26 Nov'09
IT doesn't understand why legacy data must be destroyed

Many IT departments are leaving their companies exposed to unnecessary cost and legal risk by not complying with data retention policies laid down by the business.
November 26, 2009 26 Nov'09
The IT Blog Awards 2009 winners

Did Stephen Fry win Twitter user of the year? Who’s the 2009 blogger of the year? All these questions have been answered.
November 25, 2009 25 Nov'09
In bed with SAP – the future for enterprise software?

Enterprise software companies are not traditionally open to negotiation with user groups, but SAP is beginning to forge new links with its end-users.

SAP...
November 25, 2009 25 Nov'09
Durex maker gets satisfaction with SAP

SSL International, the UK-headquartered manufacturer of Durex and Scholl footcare products, has completed 75% of its global SAP roll out.
November 25, 2009 25 Nov'09
UK national ID cards database goes live

The database that underpins the UK's controversial ID card scheme is up and running, according to the government's identity commissioner Joseph Pilling.
November 24, 2009 24 Nov'09
SAP user groups make "great progress" in working with SAP

SAP customers have made great progress over the past year in working with the software company to meet concerns over maintenance and pricing, says the SAP...
November 24, 2009 24 Nov'09
SAP at odds with user group over prices

SAP is imposing maintenance increases on some users that are greater those agreed with the SAP user group executive network (Sugen), says Ray Wang, partner at consultancy Altimeter Group.
November 23, 2009 23 Nov'09
SAP vows to get closer to its users

SAP UK has vowed to work more closely with the SAP User Group as it seeks to improve its understanding of the needs of businesses.

Tim...
November 23, 2009 23 Nov'09
Tesco bank gets its core system

Tesco Bank has chosen an off-the-shelf core banking system from Fiserv as it moves towards being a full-service retail bank.
November 20, 2009 20 Nov'09
EU delays Sun/Oracle decision

The EU has pushed back its deadline for reviewing the Sun merger after granting a request from Oracle for more time
November 19, 2009 19 Nov'09
Inside Chrome OS - Google reveals design objectives of cloud operating system

Google has unveiled the design plans for Chrome OS, its operating system for cloud computing. Chrome OS is an evolution of the Chrome web browser,...
November 19, 2009 19 Nov'09
What Microsoft Azure means to corporate IT

After years of planning, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie has delivered the foundation for Microsoft's future - a technology that allows Windows applications to run either in the cloud or in-house.
November 19, 2009 19 Nov'09
MS Office 2010 beta goes public

Microsoft Office 2010 beta is available for public download, with the final version due for release in the first half of 2010.
November 19, 2009 19 Nov'09
Ted Baker expands with QuickAssortment

Ted Baker, “the fastest growing leading life style brand”, is going to expand its business with a new planning process.
November 19, 2009 19 Nov'09
HP helps users back-up laptop data

Hewlett-Packard has released a tool designed to simplify the back-up and recovery of data from laptop PCs.

With a growing volume of...
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
SAP system helps Burberry save £50m

Fashion retailer Burberry reported savings of £50m last year as it began to reap the benefits of its SAP-based supply chain system.

Burberry...
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
Weitz outlines Microsoft plans to rival Google's search dominance

Microsoft's director of search Stefan Weitz has outlined how the company hopes to rival Google in the web search market.
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
Google to reveal Chrome operating system

Google has arranged an event at its headquarters in California which could reveal more details about the operating system it hopes will challenge Microsoft's dominance.
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
Aviva software fields thousands of HR enquiries

Software used by Aviva to provide immediate answers to HR inquiries has helped the insurance giant answer thousands of questions from staff during its global rebranding excercise.
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
Microsoft launches Azure to merge cloud and Windows computing

Microsoft has released Windows Azure, its cloud computing platform for running .net web services.
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
Microsoft to reveal Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft is expected to reveal some of the details of its next internet browser.
November 17, 2009 17 Nov'09
Cloud computing unfamiliar territory for IT heads

IT heads not in the cloud Over half of European IT heads within businesses do not understand cloud computing, although the method of delivering IT is about the biggest hype in the IT industry.
November 17, 2009 17 Nov'09
Adobe releases Flash 10.1 and Air 2 betas

Adobe Air 2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 software are now available as beta downloads from Adobe Labs for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.
November 17, 2009 17 Nov'09
IBM launches cloud-based business analytics service

IBM has announced a cloud-based business analytics service to challenge more established cloud computing players such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft.