News

Software development tools

February 09, 2012 09 Feb'12
CIO interview: James Lomas, CIO, Comparethemarket.com

Comparethemarket.com offers online price comparison for consumers and meerkats. CIO James Lomas talks about how IT supports business growth.
February 01, 2012 01 Feb'12
What the beta of Gov.uk means for public services

The beta version of Gov.uk, the single government website, marks the official start of the Government Digital Service’s ambitious remit.
February 01, 2012 01 Feb'12
Gartner: Start rethinking your application architecture

Gartner is predicting CIOs will need to consider an entirely new model to build applications by 2015, based on platforms as a service.
February 01, 2012 01 Feb'12
Government releases beta test version of Gov.uk website

The Government Digital Service has released the latest test version of its Gov.uk website, intended to be the future of online public services.

January 30, 2012 30 Jan'12
Government inconsistency on ERP costs is 'inexcusable'

Whitehall departments are spending up to three times more than others for the use of near-identical software, Computer Weekly can reveal.
January 30, 2012 30 Jan'12
Oracle and SAP worst for government ERP cost differences

Oracle and SAP have been singled out as having the most inconsistent prices for ERP systems across government departments.
January 18, 2012 18 Jan'12
Unilever and Lufthansa Systems deploy Microsoft Azure private cloud

Unilever and Lufthansa Systems are using Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to build applications in a private cloud.
January 05, 2012 05 Jan'12
IBM buys Green Hat for cloud-based agile testing

IBM is acquiring cloud-based software testing company Green Hat to bolster its Rational product family.
December 13, 2011 13 Dec'11
Microsoft updates Windows Azure cloud platform

Microsoft has released new features of its Windows Azure cloud development platform, including open source capabilities and simplified billing and management.
December 12, 2011 12 Dec'11
Businesses take risks with faulty software

Unearthing software faults once software goes live is storing up problems for businesses.

December 08, 2011 08 Dec'11
Software application code fixes cost additional £2.23m

The average big application costs an extra £2.23m as a result of problems with the code that need to be fixed after software goes live.
December 01, 2011 01 Dec'11
Adobe issues security warning for Adobe Flex SDK

Adobe has announced a vulnerability in Adobe Flex SDK 4.5.1, earlier 4.x versions, Adobe Flex SDK 3.6 and earlier 3.x versions on the Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems.
November 10, 2011 10 Nov'11
Welcome to the new-look ComputerWeekly.com

Computer Weekly has launched its brand new website - the most important online development in the brand’s 45-year history.
May 13, 2011 13 May'11
Government website pilot points to future public sector software development

Alpha.gov.uk is a pilot for a website that could put all UK government digital services and websites on one URL
February 09, 2011 09 Feb'11
IT managers find Internet Explorer 9 fails to render websites and web applications

With the development of Internet Explorer 9.0 near completion, ComputerWeekly.com has learned that thousands of sites and applications are incompatible with the new browser and its immediate predecessor.
February 01, 2011 01 Feb'11
Aston Martin uses Siemens NX software

Iconic British sports car maker Aston Martin said it would standardise its global vehicle development on Siemens NX software for integrated computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering analysis (CAD/CAM/CAE).
December 17, 2010 17 Dec'10
Case study: European Medicines Agency and CAST

The European Medicines Agency, which is responsible for evaluating medical products across Europe, expects to cut millions of Euros from its software development costs after rolling out software to automatically identify programming errors in ...
November 19, 2010 19 Nov'10
The worst day of a CIO’s life

When real estate agency Ray White decided to develop software on Microsoft's .net platform, the project failed and the code had to be deleted. The company has since built applications using Google's App Engine.
October 11, 2010 11 Oct'10
Innovating on mission critical platforms

Victoria's Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority operates the radio networks that help to despatch Police and Ambulance to emergencies. But the mission critical nature of this service is not stopping the agency from innovating on the ...
September 22, 2010 22 Sep'10
Oracle reveals plans for Java

Oracle has announced plans for advancing the Java Platform at the JavaOne conference, which is running alongside Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco.

The...
July 20, 2010 20 Jul'10
Compuware's open Workbench to help new mainframe app coders

Compuware has introduced an open development environment for managing application development for mainframes. The product, called Compuware Workbench, is designed to tackle the growing mainframe skills crisis.
April 28, 2010 28 Apr'10
Banks turn to IT suppliers to rebuild businesses

Investment banks are investing in their businesses again following the turmoil in the finance sector, but there are signs that they may be losing their appetite for in-house development.
March 11, 2010 11 Mar'10
Faster application development can improve security

More than 80% of organisations across the EMEA region have switched to agile software development methodologies, research has shown.
February 10, 2010 10 Feb'10
Colocation vs. segmentation for test and development environments

Most organisations need a test and development environment, but what's the most cost-effective way to create and operate this facility? Our experts debate two options: colocation and segmentation.
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Tips for improving software development

Forrester Research is urging IT departments to rethink the way they develop applications to help businesses through the recession.

IT...
December 03, 2009 03 Dec'09
How to manage application development outsourcing risk

When you outsource application development, you offer sensitive information to a third party - and lose some control of your code along the way. Here's how to outsource while avoiding the downsides.
October 29, 2009 29 Oct'09
Adopting agile development methodology is a stretch, but the exercise pays off

Organizations including British Airways have learned that agile software development methodologies really do speed up software projects, at the expense of some pain as you stretch out to achieve agility.
October 26, 2009 26 Oct'09
Adobe and Salesforce.com team up to offer cloud app development tools

Salesforce.com has partnered with Adobe to provide cloud-based application development tools to businesses.
June 29, 2009 29 Jun'09
Java delays approval of Oracle’s Sun takeover

The US Department of Justice wants more time to consider Oracle's $7.4bn Sun deal before giving its approval.
June 02, 2009 02 Jun'09
Red Hat tackles Java complexity with JBoss Choice

Red Hat has unveiled its Java strategy and a platform called JBoss Choice, which it says tackles application complexity by providing a single environment for deploying different programming models for Java.
April 21, 2009 21 Apr'09
Where does Sun fit in Oracle's $35bn+ spending spree?

Oracle has secured the future of Java through its $7.4bn...
March 20, 2009 20 Mar'09
IBM/Sun: MySQL and Java should go to Eclipse

IBM is in advanced talks to buy Sun Microsystems, valued at approximately $6bn (£4.1bn). The sale raises questions over the future availability of Sun's hardware and software products, and long-term support for IT departments.
December 09, 2008 09 Dec'08
Can you make the move to open source productivity tools?

Could your business adopt open source productivity applications, and survive? Andrew Collins investigates the options.
July 23, 2008 23 Jul'08
Software development tools add a view for CIOs

New products aim to give CIOs and other managers inisghts into the state of software development projects.
June 12, 2008 12 Jun'08
Agile trading software critical to London Stock Exchange

The London Stock Exchange's decision to write its own flexible trading software has enabled it to react to changes in the stock trading sector and differentiate...
June 03, 2008 03 Jun'08
IBM breaks down the corporate walls with collaboration tools

IBM has announced 20 software development and distribution products that help companies collaborate with partners, suppliers, customers and their employees.
April 01, 2008 01 Apr'08
Second Life's role in usability testing

Usability testing is an expensive process. But what if virtual worlds could make it faster and easier? Ian Yates goes all 3D on us to explain the idea.
March 10, 2008 10 Mar'08
AstraZeneca signs £47m deal with Cognizant for data management

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has signed a £47m five-year outsourcing contract with Cognizant to provide centralised data management services for its global clinical development programmes.
March 05, 2008 05 Mar'08
Property firm Argent boosts efficiency with information-sharing portal

UK property development company Argent expects to reduce its physical storage needs by 10% through deploying a web-based information sharing portal.
March 03, 2008 03 Mar'08
IDeA deploys streamlined search platform to aid staff working on behalf of councils

The government's Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) has integrated Exalead's online search functionality into its agency-wide IT platform to streamline staff search functions.
February 27, 2008 27 Feb'08
Salesforce.com comes up for Air, supports Adobe developers

Salesforce.com has announced the availability of the Force.com Toolkit for Adobe Air and Flex, which enables the development of rich internet applications (RIAs) on the Force.com platform.
January 28, 2008 28 Jan'08
Experian to cut 200 IT jobs

UK business information group Experian is to cut at least 200 IT jobs to save £40m a year through outsourcing its product development programme to India.
January 23, 2008 23 Jan'08
Blackberry platform updated to increase productivity

RIM has enhanced its Blackberry server platform and client software with messaging, collaboration, management, security and application development improvements.
January 18, 2008 18 Jan'08
Salesforce.com unveils development as a service offering

Salesforce.com has extended its platform as a service offering with the addition of Force.com Development-as-a-Service - a new set of development tools and APIs that help enterprise developers harness the full potential of cloud computing.
January 15, 2008 15 Jan'08
Application development just a weak link without metrics

Collect the right metrics at the right time, and the speed of software development will improve its chances at keeping up with the business.
January 07, 2008 07 Jan'08
Turquoise sets technology development schedule

Stock trading venue Turquoise has its technology adoption plan in place as it targets the early summer for its launch.
December 13, 2007 13 Dec'07
IBM unveils software to ease complex systems development

IBM has unveiled software designed to take the complexity out of complex systems development and improve developer productivity.
December 11, 2007 11 Dec'07
What Visual Studio 2008 brings to client application development

For several years, Microsoft's tools for client application development, such as VSTO, have been a bit scattered. Visual Studio 2008 brings them all together.
December 07, 2007 07 Dec'07
Microsoft releases ADO.net Beta 3

Microsoft is simplifying database development in mixed IT environments with its ADO.net Entity Framework Beta 3.
November 13, 2007 13 Nov'07
Cisco works with Oracle on Data Centre 3.0

Cisco will collaborate with Oracle in the development and validation of Reliable Datagram Sockets, an acceleration protocol to further scale Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) 11g using InfiniBand.
November 08, 2007 08 Nov'07
Deutsche Bank outsources to HCL Technologies

Deutsche Bank has cut its IT costs by 30% and doubled the performance of its IT department over the past five years by using outsourcing and partnering relationships to free up staff for development.
November 02, 2007 02 Nov'07
Regional development agency puts Citrix thin clients in student homes

Edensor Technology College, a specialist secondary school based in Stoke-on-Trent, has cut its hardware and support costs by installing thin client terminals at students' homes. The initiative was funded using part of a £350,000 grant from Regional ...
October 23, 2007 23 Oct'07
Credit Suisse improves application development

Credit Suisse has adopted a platform to manage its application development more efficiently.
October 23, 2007 23 Oct'07
RSA 2007: long-term data storage presents legal risks

Companies could place themselves at risk of legal liabiliy if they take advantage of developments in data storage to store every piece of data in their organisations, Art Coviello, executive vice-president of EMC and president of RSA, has said in a ...
October 12, 2007 12 Oct'07
Oracle plans to buy BEA Systems

Oracle is planning to buy middleware provider BEA in order to accelerate the development of its own middleware products.
October 10, 2007 10 Oct'07
Google and IBM join forces to support parallel web apps coding in colleges

Google and IBM have announced an initiative to promote new software development methods that will help students and researchers to more easily produce internet-scale applications.
October 02, 2007 02 Oct'07
Nokia Siemens Networks offloads German development facilities to IBM

Nokia Siemens Networks is offloading German research and development facilities to IBM to cut costs.
September 19, 2007 19 Sep'07
Microsoft releases SP1 for embedded product development platform

Microsoft has announced availability of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for the Microsoft .net Micro Framework 2.0 embedded product development platform.
September 18, 2007 18 Sep'07
Shannon Development improves business processes with enterprise content management

Regional economic development organisation Shannon Development is automating and improving business process efficiency with an enterprise content management system.
September 03, 2007 03 Sep'07
Betfair to speed debugging

Online gambling firm Betfair is investing in automated debugging software to speed up in-house system development and control the quality of outsourced code.
August 31, 2007 31 Aug'07
Spark Ada flies into Thales development

Praxis has won a contract with Thales UK to support its aircraft management software development.
August 14, 2007 14 Aug'07
Six Sigma helps reduce software defects, improve quality

IT and software development organisations such as EMC and Motorola are deriving quality and efficiency benefits from the Six Sigma process improvement methodology.
July 31, 2007 31 Jul'07
Where is Business 2.0? Part 2: Internal applications

The second part of this Web 2.0 feature focuses on internal corporate uses, what's to be afraid of by adopting such applications, and whether or not any of it actually matters.
July 30, 2007 30 Jul'07
Where is Business 2.0? Part 1: External applications

There's more to Web 2.0 than students ranting in the blogosphere. In this feature on Business 2.0, Andrew Collins takes a look at how Australian businesses are using Web 2.0 principles and philosophies externally.
June 28, 2007 28 Jun'07
Betfair sets up software-development centre in Romania

Online betting and gaming company Betfair has set up a new software-development centre in Romania to take advantage of skills as well as low costs.
June 18, 2007 18 Jun'07
Microsoft releases tool to ease software development

Microsoft has announced the availability of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server - Project Server 2007 Connector (PS-TFS Connector) to ease software development.
June 10, 2007 10 Jun'07
Coldfusion offers a short curve to web development

Framework integrates with dominant Adobe tools
June 10, 2007 10 Jun'07
Agile methods speed IT merger at Alliance Boots

Agile development techniques have allowed Alliance Pharmacy to roll out an integrated electronic point of sale system within six months of its merger with Boots the Chemist.
May 30, 2007 30 May'07
Apps development and project management market reaches £3.8bn

The worldwide application development (AD) and project and portfolio management (PPM) software market reached £3.8bn in 2006, a 7.2% over 2005 sales, said analyst Gartner.
May 17, 2007 17 May'07
Combilift reduces development time with SolidWorks design system

Forklift truck manufacturer Combilift is using SolidWorks 3D CAD and Cosmos analysis software to help reduce product development time by 40%.
May 11, 2007 11 May'07
HFG drills into IFS's sector knowledge

Industrial development firm Heerema Fabrication Group (HFG) has signed a £3m contract to use enterprise resource planning software from IFS Applications, primarily because of its sector-specific knowledge and strength in supporting projects.
April 23, 2007 23 Apr'07
Vodafone consolidates to reduce spend on app development by 25%

Vodafone expects to reduce its annual £560m spending on application development and maintenance by 25% from next year, under its outsourcing contract with EDS and IBM.
April 23, 2007 23 Apr'07
Tesco standardises IT for global expansion

Retailer to centralise IT development across stores worldwide
April 09, 2007 09 Apr'07
IBM joins Honda racing team for Formula 1 car development

The Honda Racing Formula 1 Team is to work with IBM on the development and production of its 2008 Formula 1 car, leaning in particular on IBM's project management capabilities to track the project.
March 29, 2007 29 Mar'07
Cosmos and Monarch use Empirix for web test flight

Cosmos Holidays and Monarch Airlines are using a web applications testing product from Empirix to ensure applications run smoothly in the development stage before being launched to the public.
March 29, 2007 29 Mar'07
SAP leading light Agassi quits

SAP executive board member and product development head Shai Agassi is leaving the company at the end of the month.
March 19, 2007 19 Mar'07
Adobe's Apollo available in beta

Adobe has made available its Apollo web development solution in beta.
March 15, 2007 15 Mar'07
Java's future is mobility and usability, says Gosling

James Gosling, father of Java and chief scientist in Sun Microsystems' client group, has set out the challenges facing the Java programming language in an exclusive podcast interview with Computer Weekly.
March 07, 2007 07 Mar'07
Housing association uses document management to drive development

Housing association Notting Hill Housing is using software from CTSpace to improve efficiencies and drive better collaboration on its property development programme.
January 05, 2007 05 Jan'07
Ajax is squeezed as Adobe builds up rival Flex toolset

Forrester Research is predicting a shake-up in the market for rich internet application development tools as Ajax battles with Adobe’s rival Flex toolset.
December 13, 2006 13 Dec'06
Sun updates Java Standard Edition

Sun Microsystems has launched version six of its Java Standard Edition platform, which supports the integration of Java technology with other programming languages
December 12, 2006 12 Dec'06
Sun adds Java integration to version 6 of Java Standard Edition

Sun Microsystems has launched version six of its Java Standard Edition platform, which supports the integration of Java technology with other programming languages.
December 11, 2006 11 Dec'06
Hot Skills: Make the web development world your oyster with Perl

Perl is an easy-to-learn language for just about everything
November 22, 2006 22 Nov'06
Prepare for Windows Vista development with .net 3.0

Microsoft updates development platform for Vista
November 10, 2006 10 Nov'06
Betfair reaps benefits of agile software development

Agile software development methods are now being used in about 25% of IT projects at Betfair, as the online gambling company seeks competitive advantage by bringing products to market more quickly.
November 07, 2006 07 Nov'06
Two-factor technology opens new e-markets

UK businesses should soon be able to conduct trade electronically with their counterparts in Macedonia and with other states that have until now been deemed too great an e-commerce risk, thanks to an initiative between security techology firm ...
November 06, 2006 06 Nov'06
Betfair claims competitive advantage from agile development

Online gambling company Betfair has argued that using agile development to launch new products has given it a competitive advantage over its rivals.
November 02, 2006 02 Nov'06
European ERP firms go bust

Java-based enterprise resource planning software companies Semiramis Software of Germany and Semiramis Software of Austria have filed for bankruptcy.
October 23, 2006 23 Oct'06
Customisation made easy for Salesforce CRM users

Salesforce.com has signalled a major change in strategy with the announcement of application development tools that will help users to hone and customise its on-demand customer relationship management applications.
October 10, 2006 10 Oct'06
SAP to boost openness with addition of Java EE

SAP's pledge to incorporate the newest version of the Java platform in a technical preview of the next version of SAP Netweaver should be good news for users, according to analyst firm Gartner.
October 02, 2006 02 Oct'06
SAP achieves Java EE5 compatibility

SAP has announced that its NetWeaver platform has compatibility with Java Enterprise Edition 5, allowing users to develop robust Java applications based on the platform.
September 04, 2006 04 Sep'06
Hallam cuts build time with eScript

Hallam Land Management has shaved a third off development time for a web-based workflow application by using a modular framework.
August 22, 2006 22 Aug'06
CfH “to learn” from nurse disquiet over IT programme

Connecting for Health, the organisation in charge of the NHS’s £12.4bn National Programme for IT, has pledged to learn from a survey that showed nurses losing faith in IT developments.
July 31, 2006 31 Jul'06
NEC develops multiprocessor virtualisation technology

NEC Corporation has announced that it has succeeded in the development of multiprocessor virtualisation technology.
July 24, 2006 24 Jul'06
LCH.Clearnet to write off £32m in clearing project development costs

Clearing house LCH.Clearnet has abandoned its Generic Clearing Systems project to build a single integrated IT platform, after the firm’s latest internal review of the programme concluded that it was not technologically or economically viable to ...
July 17, 2006 17 Jul'06
UK hurtles towards software skills crisis

Levels of students applying to study computer science have halved in five years, according to the “Developing the Future” report, which examines the state of the UK software development industry.
July 10, 2006 10 Jul'06
Collaboration from ashes of Kinnect

The closure of the Kinnect electronic trading platform in January has enabled new developments in the relationship between Lloyd's of London's back-office and RI3K, a commercial electronic trading hub serving the market.
July 04, 2006 04 Jul'06
Thomas Cook signs IBM to integrate worldwide IT platform

Thomas Cook has signed a deal with IBM to manage the development of a new IT platform for its huge travel operation.
June 27, 2006 27 Jun'06
Microsoft axes WinFS data storage and management system

Microsoft has axed its WinFS data storage and management system, under development since 2003.
June 23, 2006 23 Jun'06
IBM unveils new Java security tools

IBM has released two free security tools to enable software developers to enhance automatic data encryption and increase security in Java applications.