News

Database software

April 13, 2011 13 Apr'11
Microsoft launches UK mapping service to rival Google Streetview

Starting in London, Microsoft has begun taking photographs of the UK for its street-level mapping service, Streetside.
April 12, 2011 12 Apr'11
Axed police agency to earn £5m from data sharing application

The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has agreed a deal for an information sharing application it developed to be licensed to other organisations, potentially earning the police service £5m.
April 08, 2011 08 Apr'11
Facebook has launched a project to ‘open source’ its datacentre

In the spirit of open source software, Facebook says it wants to share the innovations in one of its datacentres with the rest of the industry in its
April 04, 2011 04 Apr'11
Chivas Brothers use CommVault data deduplication to maximise disc back-up

Chivas Brothers, the Scotch Whisky company, has deployed CommVault to manage data deduplication.

March 30, 2011 30 Mar'11
SAS and Teradata establish customer council

Users of SAS and Teradata are being encouraged to join a Product Advisory Council that aims to provide customer input and validation to joint SAS and Teradata in-database products.
March 23, 2011 23 Mar'11
Budget 2011: HMRC might combine NI and income tax systems

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) could face major IT integration following the government's announcement in the budget that the income tax and national insurance contributions (NICs) systems could be brought together in an effort to reduce complexity.
March 22, 2011 22 Mar'11
Governments need new policies to cope with

Every government agency needs a "big data" policy to cope with the rising tsunami of data, to protect personal data, and to extract information on which it can act, says a report from the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology ...
March 09, 2011 09 Mar'11
CSA spends millions processing claims by hand

The Child Support Agency is spending millions processing child maintenance claims by hand because of failures in its computer systems
March 09, 2011 09 Mar'11
IT fails to curb anti-social behaviour

Information technology failures are a key reason why efforts to stamp out anti-social behaviour have failed for at least a decade....
February 24, 2011 24 Feb'11
Data warehousing technologies to evolve rapidly, says Gartner

Gartner says data warehousing technologies are turning the corner.

February 17, 2011 17 Feb'11
London Stock Exchange works with partners to resolve technology migration problems

The London Stock Exchange says some data providers have not been able to get their systems ready for the new core trading platform to which it migrated this week.
February 14, 2011 14 Feb'11
London Stock Exchange migrates to MillenniumIT platform

The London Stock Exchange is migrating trading to its MillenniumIT trading platform today in a move that will see its ailing .Net-based Tradelect system switched off.
January 26, 2011 26 Jan'11
Jaspersoft delivers open source big data reporting

Open source business intelligence provider Jaspersoft has released a set of tools for running reports over large database systems.
January 21, 2011 21 Jan'11
Organ donors preferences recorded inaccurately

The preferences of 444,031 organ donors were recorded wrongly on the Organ Donation Register (ODR) because of a software problem.
January 10, 2011 10 Jan'11
Colt to offer sub-millisecond connectivity to London Stock Exchange

Colt is enabling trading companies to connect to the London Stock Exchange datacentre in 100 microseconds, following a deal with the UK's primary trading...
January 06, 2011 06 Jan'11
Gartner: BI set to move from IT to users

IT needs to prepare for a major shift in how business intelligence is delivered and used within companies, according to analyst Gartner
January 05, 2011 05 Jan'11
UK school networks vulnerable to attack

UK schools are vulnerable to cyber attack, putting pupil, employee and administrative data at risk, according to security testing firm NGS Secure.
January 05, 2011 05 Jan'11
BCS CEO David Clarke talks about the future of the IT industry

David Clarke, CEO of the chartered institute of computing the BCS, talks to Computer Weekly about being awarded an MBE, the future of the IT profession and tackling a membership revolt against his leadership last year.
January 05, 2011 05 Jan'11
RIM reacts to Indian Blackberry data interception reports

Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM) says there will be no change to the security model of Blackberry Enterprise Server.
January 04, 2011 04 Jan'11
In depth: Cognos 10

Writing on the ComputerWeekly.com Database Notes and queries blog, Ian Murphy discusses the new version of Cognos. Cognos 10 is an upgrade to Cognos...
December 31, 2010 31 Dec'10
2010 Review: Top 10 retail IT stories

As online sales have been the only area of consistent growth in the retail sector, many players began to think seriously about their multi-channel offerings...
December 30, 2010 30 Dec'10
2010 Review: Top 10 business software stories

In Computer Weekly's review of the best of the IT year in 2010, here we look back on the top 10 business software stories for 2010. Home...
December 27, 2010 27 Dec'10
2010 Review: Top 10 cloud computing stories

The IT industry has embraced cloud computing in 2010. Businesses started pilot deployments, while the major suppliers opened new green datacentres around...
December 21, 2010 21 Dec'10
Hansard considers cloud to escape Microsoft lock-in

Whitehall techies proposed putting Hansard in the cloud to escape restrictions imposed by Microsoft's proprietary multimedia standards.
December 17, 2010 17 Dec'10
Open source body challenges €189m EC software deal

The open source lobby has challenged the €189m software contract struck by the European Commission last month.
December 17, 2010 17 Dec'10
Nokia escalates Apple patent row with 13 new infringement claims

Nokia's patent war with Apple escalated yesterday, as the Finnish-based manufacturer filed 13 more infringement claims against the technology giant.
December 15, 2010 15 Dec'10
Can Salesforce.com push enterprise on-premise databases into the cloud?

Salesforce.com wants enterprises to move data management to the cloud with its database-as-a-service.
December 14, 2010 14 Dec'10
Cornwall council to save £20m with ERP

Cornwall Council is investing in an Oracle ERP system, which it estimates will save £20m over the next five years.
December 14, 2010 14 Dec'10
Deutsche Bank selects TCS core banking system

Deutsche Bank is replacing multiple legacy systems with a banking platform from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as it updates its global transaction banking.
December 14, 2010 14 Dec'10
IT departments must use agile programming properly to reap the benefits

IT departments are failing to reap the benefits of agile programming because they are not using it in the way it was intended, it was claimed today.
December 13, 2010 13 Dec'10
Localism Bill extends move to open data

The government has put open data at the heart of its Localism Bill, which outlines plans to give more power to local councils.
December 13, 2010 13 Dec'10
European Commission IT chief tackles open source lobby over €189m contract

The European Commission (EC) IT chief has taken the open source lobby to task over a €189m (£158m) deal the EC signed last week, its largest ever software deal.
December 08, 2010 08 Dec'10
Salesforce.com debuts cloud database in competition with Oracle

Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing firm, has introduced a database-as-a-service (DbaaS) product, Database.com at its annual conference, Dreamforce, in San Francisco.
December 07, 2010 07 Dec'10
€189m European Commission sofware deal "contradicts" EU guidelines

The European Commission's (EC) largest ever software contract is in "direct contradiction" of EU guidelines, according to campaign group Free Software Foundation...
December 03, 2010 03 Dec'10
Government to launch single address database

The government plans to create a single address list for use across the public sector in a move that could significantly reduce data duplication
November 30, 2010 30 Nov'10
Wikileaks turns to cloud computing to fend off DDoS attack

Whistleblowing site Wikileaks turned to cloud computing services to help defend against a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack ...
November 29, 2010 29 Nov'10
Massive policy changes in data protection hold keys to business opportunity

This past year, 2010, will be remembered as an important year for data protection, with the highest level of regulatory activity for more than 40 years.
November 29, 2010 29 Nov'10
Lawyers warn of harmful clauses in cloud contracts

Companies should be wary of potentially harmful clauses hidden in contracts for cloud services
November 29, 2010 29 Nov'10
Chinese government hacked Google, claims Wikileaks leaked US diplomatic cables

The Chinese government hacked into Google's computer systems, a leaked US diplomatic report claims.
November 22, 2010 22 Nov'10
SAP user group calls for even greater collaboration with SAP

SAP is doing a better job of listening to and working with users, but more work has to be done in several other areas, says the UK&Ireland SAP User Group.
November 22, 2010 22 Nov'10
Analysis: UK companies fail to plug biggest data leaks – the insider threat

Most companies know they have information that is vital to their survival and that could damage the company if it fell into the wrong hands, but insider data theft is rife in the UK, a survey has revealed.
November 22, 2010 22 Nov'10
Interview: BSkyB’s head of corporate business intelligence on making BI work

Avi Marco, head of corporate business intelligence at BSkyB, speaks to Cliff Saran about BI more agile.
November 16, 2010 16 Nov'10
EMC to buy Isilon for £1.4bn

EMC has announced it will acquire the data storage firm by the end of 2010
November 09, 2010 09 Nov'10
Councils call for local government accounts to be open data

The government is considering a proposal for councils to publish their accounts and other official returns as open data after its transparency initiative...
November 09, 2010 09 Nov'10
Cabinet Office conducts governmental digital review

The Cabinet Office is reviewing the government's digital engagement strategy as part of its business plan to meet the coalition government's policies.
November 03, 2010 03 Nov'10
Has the Windows-based business desktop had its day?

Has the concept of the Windows-based business desktop become irrelevant due to the uptake of low-cost internet-connected devices and mobile apps? Cliff Saran investigates.
November 02, 2010 02 Nov'10
Oracle bolsters e-commerce with ATG acquisition

Oracle has agreed to acquire Art Technology Group, a provider of e-commerce software, for approximately $1bn.

ATG, whose customers include B&Q, Body...
November 02, 2010 02 Nov'10
Oracle copyright court battle with SAP begins

Oracle's court battle with rival SAP over unauthorised access of its customer systems by an SAP subsidiary in 2007 gets into full swing today.

Oracle...
November 01, 2010 01 Nov'10
Oracle starts court battle for $2.3bn in damages from SAP

Oracle's court battle with SAP is set to begin today in Oakland, California as it seeks at least $2.3bn in damages for unauthorised access of its systems by an SAP subsidiary. In a suit filed in 2007, Oracle alleges that SAP's now-defunct support ...
October 28, 2010 28 Oct'10
CA offers same-day mainframe support for DB/2 products

CA Technologies is offering IBM mainframe users same-day support covering 30 CA products.
October 28, 2010 28 Oct'10
Business analytics will enable tailored flight pricing, says American Airlines

Airlines will soon custom-tailor prices and passengers will feel happy to pay it, thanks to business analytics. That's the view of Rick Elieson, managing...
October 28, 2010 28 Oct'10
How Vodafone increased the value of its business intelligence

Chaos and fragmentation greeted Caroline Bellamy when she joined Vodafone UK to breathe new life into the mobile firm's business intelligence operation...
October 27, 2010 27 Oct'10
UK IT directors need product roadmap information

Survey claims the majority of UK IT directors would consider switching suppliers in return for better visibility and influence over product roadmaps.
October 27, 2010 27 Oct'10
Tidal wave of data is heading our way

Brace yourselves, this is going to get rough. The coming tidal wave of data is likely to sweep away old perceptions and practices, leaving many of us floundering...
October 26, 2010 26 Oct'10
Cloud adoption outpacing security controls, survey reveals

While Forrester Research predicts the cloud security market will grow to $1.5bn by 2015, cloud adoption is outpacing security controls, a global survey has revealed.
October 25, 2010 25 Oct'10
New Teradata products ready for 'the socialisation of data'

Data warehousing and business intelligence supplier Teradata has unveiled a slew of products in anticipation of a huge increase in the amount of data that...
October 21, 2010 21 Oct'10
The datacentre designs powering Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com, one of the largest cloud-based software providers in the world, has a unique take on datacentre infrastructure for cloud services.
October 18, 2010 18 Oct'10
London Stock Exchange clients request extra system dress rehearsal

The London Stock Exchange has added a third unplanned dress rehearsal of the launch of its new core trading platform, after its trading firm clients asked...
October 18, 2010 18 Oct'10
London Stock Exchange lets suppliers into its datacentres

The London Stock Exchange has invited suppliers of market data into its datacentre, where it already hosts the systems of trading firms, to increase the...
October 06, 2010 06 Oct'10
BA builds SOA for the long haul

From next month British Airways (BA) will begin rolling out a service-oriented architecture that will eventually enable it to migrate from its 40-year-old mainframe system built on IBM's transaction processing facility (TPF).
September 17, 2010 17 Sep'10
Thomas Cook awards IT deal to Capgemini

Thomas Cook has signed a contract with Capgemini to modernise its IT infrastructure
September 17, 2010 17 Sep'10
Oracle beats forecasts with $7.59bn quarter earnings

Oracle has reported sales of $7.59bn in the three months ending 31 August, up 50% on the same period the year before and above average analyst forecasts of $7.32bn.
September 16, 2010 16 Sep'10
Insurance comparison websites create IT headaches

The increasing use of comparison websites is causing IT performance issues for insurance companies, according to software company Macro 4.
September 02, 2010 02 Sep'10
SAS A2010 conference: Move data out of the back office

Algorithms need to be enhanced to make information more accessible by moving data out of the back office, according to SAS.
September 02, 2010 02 Sep'10
SAS A2010 analytics conference: SAS launches predictive analytics software

Analytic software supplier SAS has launched a predictive analytics service at its 2010 Analytics Conference.
August 16, 2010 16 Aug'10
MoD plans “major data cleansing” for JPA payroll system

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) plans to conduct a "major data cleansing exercise" to improve its payroll software.
August 06, 2010 06 Aug'10
Contactpoint to be disconnected today and deleted in eight weeks

The Contactpoint database of UK children is being turned off today, 10 years after the idea was introduced by the Labour government.

The database was...
August 03, 2010 03 Aug'10
CIOs drive app development to understand customers

Developing business applications is a top priority for CIOs for 2010. Forty six per cent of CIOs surveyed said they were actively developing their CRM applications. In the survey of 200 CIOs by Vodafone, data collection was the second highest ...
August 03, 2010 03 Aug'10
CIA and Google invest in high-tech crystal ball technology

The CIA and Google have joined forces to fund a start-up company that claims to have the technology to predict the future using information collected from the internet.
July 30, 2010 30 Jul'10
Oracle accused of defrauding US federal government

The US Department of Justice has filed a civil suit in a federal court against Oracle, accusing the company of defrauding the federal government by overcharging for software.
July 29, 2010 29 Jul'10
PeerIndex launches as authority ranking platform

The first platform for recognising authority on the web, PeerIndex has launched, attempting to rank web users according to their authority on different subjects rather than the number of contacts they have.
July 27, 2010 27 Jul'10
Betfair seeks IT recruits with global ambitions

Online gambling firm Betfair is looking to hire nearly 100 technology employees and graduates across different areas of expertise. The company is now looking to recruit 80 to 90 people with expertise in areas including C#, C++, SQL Server and Java, ...
July 22, 2010 22 Jul'10
Yorkshire and Clydesdale human error exacerbated by computer

Thousands of customers of the Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks face having to pay more for their mortgages after a "rounding error" was made when a system was upgraded.
July 19, 2010 19 Jul'10
BT hitches onto Arqiva wagon for utility smart meter ride

Signal distribution company Arqiva has attracted BT and security specialist Detica as partners to address communications for the UK's £10bn smart meter roll-out programme.
June 25, 2010 25 Jun'10
Oracle Q4 earnings boost investor confidence

Oracle has announced that revenues for its fourth quarter, ending 31 May, were up 39% to $9.5bn (£6.4bn) and earnings of 46 cents a share, up 24% compared with the same period a year ago.
June 18, 2010 18 Jun'10
Google faces legal action on Wi-Fi interception in US and France

Three US states and France are considering action against Google over the company's interception of private Wi-Fi data by its Street View vehicles as they collected images in 30 countries.
June 14, 2010 14 Jun'10
Westminster replaces Contactpoint with local Children's Hub

Westminster City Council has developed a Children's Hub that replaces a lot of what the cancelled child database Contactpoint would have done.
June 09, 2010 09 Jun'10
Ingres slashes database query time

Open source database supplier Ingres has launched a database project which it claims can cut the time taken to answer business queries by up to 70 times.

The...
May 25, 2010 25 May'10
Saudi Telecom to offer hosted datacentre services

UK CIOs will soon be able to buy hosted datacentre services in Saudi Arabia following Saudi Telecom's decision to enter the hosting business with technology partners Cisco, VMware and EMC
May 21, 2010 21 May'10
Nottingham Building Society boosts efficiency with data analytics

The financial services firm has improved productivity and customer service levels after rolling out a business intelligence suite as part of a £10m IT revamp.
May 21, 2010 21 May'10
Oracle beefs up database security with Secerno acquisition

Oracle has announced it has reached an agreement to acquire database security firm Secerno . "Organisations...
May 13, 2010 13 May'10
SAP to acquire Sybase for $5.8bn

German enterprise software maker SAP has agreed to acquire US database and mobility software producer Sybase for $5.8bn.
May 11, 2010 11 May'10
Pirates cost software firms $51bn, but less than expected

The world's software industry lost $51bn to piracy in 2009 as the unlicensed software rate rose to 43%, but losses were less than expected…
April 27, 2010 27 Apr'10
Interview: David Litchfield enters the realm of database forensics

Database security expert David Litchfield has arguably done more to further our understanding of the security limitations of Oracle and other databases than anyone else.
April 20, 2010 20 Apr'10
Oracle WebLogic loses guest OS

Oracle has unveiled software tools to help IT departments to implement virtualised IT infrastructures.

The Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder is designed...
April 13, 2010 13 Apr'10
Forgotten databases are a bigger risk than firms admit, says Imperva

Forgotten or unprotected databases are responsible for more data breaches than most businesses would like to admit, says security firm Imperva.
April 12, 2010 12 Apr'10
Java inventor James Gosling leaves Oracle

James Gosling, the father of Java, has announced he is leaving Oracle.
March 30, 2010 30 Mar'10
East Coast sales take fast track with data forecasting software

Rail operator East Coast Mainline has increased revenue by 1% after upgrading its revenue management technology to get a more profitable mix of sales.
March 26, 2010 26 Mar'10
Ellison sticks it to SAP as Oracle reports strong sales growth

Despite a fall in net income of 10% to $1.2bn from a year ago, Oracle has reported overall third quarter revenues for its fiscal year ending February up 17% to $6.4bn, driven by software sales.
March 18, 2010 18 Mar'10
Can GPs delay uploading patient data to Summary Care Records indefinitely?

GPs have as much time as they think reasonable to upload patient data to the Summary Care Records database, says guidance which has been issued to London's...
March 17, 2010 17 Mar'10
New rules to govern use of Police National Database

The National Policing Improvement Agency has published a code that governs the use of the Police National...
March 12, 2010 12 Mar'10
Council criticises IT security of Summary Care Records

A local authority has formally raised concerns about the lack of IT security of the Summary Care Records scheme, which is part of the £12.7bn NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
March 11, 2010 11 Mar'10
Tech billionaires’ wealth rises by $55.8bn despite recession

The world's richest technology billionaires upped their collective wealth by $55.8bn last year despite the impact of the recession.

However Bill Gates,...
March 09, 2010 09 Mar'10
DNA database records help solve less than 1% of crimes

Less than 1% of crimes are solved using the DNA records stored on the government's DNA database, a parliamentary select committee said in recommending that DNA profiles of innocent subjects should be kept for a maximum of three years
March 04, 2010 04 Mar'10
Travis Perkins stops data duplication in product database

Construction materials supplier Travis Perkins Group is using the DataFlux data quality platform to de-duplicate its product database.
February 17, 2010 17 Feb'10
Top 25 coding errors – are your software suppliers secure?

International security organisations have updated and restructured a list of 25 common programming errors that cause security vulnerabilities and expose software users to cyber attack.
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
Severn Trent Water uses Macro 4 to boost SAP performance

Severn Trent Water has deployed archiving software from Macro 4 to ensure its new SAP system runs smoothly.
February 02, 2010 02 Feb'10
In-memory databases beat administrators on optimisation

IT directors and chief information officers should use new technology rather than skilled database administrators to boost the performance of their data...
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 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.