Opinion

Opinion

• Companies buy a piece of the outsourcing action

  Companies seem increasingly keen to buy a piece of their offshore outsourcing suppliers.  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Friends Reunited for professionals

  Having access to a network of professionals may prove to be invaluable for business, says Simon Moores  Continue Reading

• Newham Linux trial: We made right choice for the people we serve

  "Disgust at your lack of critical analysis"..."Cost the taxpayer millions"..."This fiasco should cost you your job"..."Made...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Unite to beat the bad guys

  Work with your users to protect corporate systems, says Stuart Okin  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Class of 2004

  Knowing what you want and where you want to be in the IT world will be an advantage to your career, advises Colin Beveridge  Continue Reading

• Business needs open standards for applications

  Push suppliers to provide greater interoperability, says Graham Bird  Continue Reading

• Inquiry is vital for NHSsuccess

  We hope officials at the Department of Health will be delighted to hear that public spending watchdog the National Audit Office...  Continue Reading

• Involve key users when choosing a supplier

  One of the critical stages of effective supplier management is selecting a supplier. A good supplier can be selected in a number...  Continue Reading

• Your shout! On legal rights when buying from suppliers

  In response to Bill Goodwin's report on how IT directors are given rights in court when buying a service from an IT supplier (Computer Weekly, 17 August)  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: What are your systems made of?

  Further laws in IT disposal put a burden on IT directors, says Tony Grzesik  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Keep it clean

  If private sector staff lose their jobs for accessing pornography at work why should civil servants staff not face the same...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Too many questions asked

  Crime prevention is being used as the excuse to obtain personal information before providing basic services. Simon Moores asks...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The thin red line

  As the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you - and technology is increasingly making...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day Beer is good for you

  I've been on the Beer all week and I feel great, indeed thoroughly refreshed because the Beer I've been imbibing is not a...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Don't create a monster

  Bolt-on security products can prove difficult to control, says Gerry Carroll  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Damned if you do and damned if you don't

  Updating software is an arduous task often resulting in getting something no better than the last version, says Simon Moores.  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Countdown to zero-day

  The time between the attack and the patch is critical, writes Bart Vansevenant  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Take a deep breath

  ... And then step back from the ID card precipice before you do something we will all regret, Simon Moores urges the government  Continue Reading

• Next move: What courses are best for IT support?

  I have a business degree taken in Denmark but have been working in the UK for the past four years, mainly doing customer service....  Continue Reading

• Microsoft tightens up

  On the matter of security, Microsoft comes in for more flak than most, but the imminent roll-out of Windows XP Service Pack 2 is...  Continue Reading

• The risk is real, so be prepared

  We live in a society that seems to increasingly abhor the idea that there should be any risk. As health and safety officers...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day IT downtime is a crisis

  Educate the board in the importance of IT continuity to reduce the business' exposure to risk, says Russell Flower  Continue Reading

• Your shout! On how to stop the deluge of spam e-mail

  In response to Peter Kidson (Letters, 10 August), who said he has completely eradicated spam with a program that uses a combination of whitelists and blacklists.  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day Follow that herd!

  You may suspect that the unceasing evolution of the Windows operating system has more to do with Microsoft making sure the bucks...  Continue Reading

• Strategy Clinic: The cure for the annual holiday headache

  My IT team of 15 is unable to meet its workload without using contractors. Most of the staff take holiday during the school...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day Tin men eat their words

  They swore they would never make Linux servers, but the tin makers are changing their tune now that the open-source OS is taking...  Continue Reading

• Bad data eats IT budgets

  Effective data integration is vital for business success  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The world turned upside down

  The dark side of the internet is an affront to decency and a risk to employers, writes Simon Moores  Continue Reading

• Look after staff or pay the price

  The steady stream of encouraging news on the jobs and pay front shows that the long-awaited recovery in the IT industry is a lot...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Joined-up thinking

  Aligning technology with business strategy and adopting a problem-solving discipline will make an organisation more successful,...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Qualifications cut risk

  Educated staff reduce exposure to corporate liability, writes Richard Starnes  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Carts and horses

  The government's push for the next phase of e-government targets is adding to the pressures already crippling local councils,...  Continue Reading

• We can all profit by Murphy's law

  The notion that there is a golden state of IT management where nothing ever goes wrong is a beguiling one. It always seems that...  Continue Reading

• Personal storage advances add to security risks

  Soon, most PC users could have a personal terabyte of storage they can leave at home, in the office or chuck in the boot of a...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The real price of progress

  Mobile gadgets offer a wealth of functions, but be warned, even if you find you can't use them, you will be charged, says Simon...  Continue Reading

• Customer will be king

  Microsoft cost cuts reflect changing balance of power  Continue Reading

• Thought for day: Spot e-marketing pitfalls

  IT directors should take heed of EU anti-spam ruling, says Gillian Cameron  Continue Reading

• Your shout: Individuals and politics cripple IT projects

  It never ceases to amaze me how many people believe that the campaign to improve IT projects in the public sector means making...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Can you see what IT is?

  Businesses need to look beyond the whiteboard draft and develop systems that will work, not ones that might work, says Colin...  Continue Reading

• Calculate true outsourcing gains

  Initial hype may hide the long-term costs and risks  Continue Reading

• What is the business case for going mobile?

  Some of you may have read that most companies have deployed mobile technology for the benefit of their workforce.  Continue Reading

• Your shout! On IT systems and civil service job reductions

  In response to Colin Beveridge's Thought for the Day (computerweekly.com) on the chancellor of the exchequer's plans, announced in the Spending Review, to reduce civil service headcount by 100,000 through the use of IT systems  Continue Reading

• Argument won, time for action

  For many months the need for openness and honesty has been trumpeted by Computer Weekly in its campaign to shake up government...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: A bad case of the DDs

  Trying to calculate how much time you and your team wastes thanks to the introduction of technology that is meant to make...  Continue Reading

• BT pushes ahead with public voice over IP service in UK

  BT Group has launched BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger to give consumers telephone, e-mail, text and instant messaging and...  Continue Reading

• A virtual business model for the real world

  Running enterprise software over a Wan or the internet can be expensive and less than satisfactory. Could an innovative new...  Continue Reading

• Productivity revolution still to come

  Book profile: Jan De Sutter, The Power of IT, Survival Guide for the CIO  Continue Reading

• Don't get lumbered with HR's job

  IT is key to implementing flexible working. Your input is vital, but IT directors should not have to make policy decisions  Continue Reading

• IT directors must be ready to drop projects as business needs change

  Beware of "scope creep" as project goals evolve  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Is there an R in the month?

  The British should look across the channel for tips on project management rather than the Far East, says Colin Beveridge  Continue Reading

• Mobile kit can give ROI

  Productivity gains drive growth in mobility  Continue Reading

• Buy servers only if you really need them

  Get out of the habit of buying a server for each new application and consolidate  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: E-government - read the small print first

  Whitehall needs to meet e-government projects and deliver on their promises of cost savings and efficiency, says Simon Moores  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: It's time to open the door

  Whitehall must end secrecy on government projects, says Richard Bacon  Continue Reading

• Currency, competition, IT focus shift impact

  The weakening US dollar, strengthening competition in global outsourcing and a major shift of IT focus from operations cost...  Continue Reading

• Salute the bold IT adventurers

  The IT industry has something of a split personality.  Continue Reading

• Strategy Clinic: How can I curb board's blue-sky fantasies?

  Board members keep coming to me with ideas for systems and technologies they have seen in the media. I feel they think I am being...  Continue Reading

• Your shout! On how no employee can be indispensable

  With regard to the Strategy Clinic "No one has the skills to be my replacement" (Computer Weekly, 29 June), where an IT manager was having trouble finding a competent replacement for when he retired  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Howard's way

  Less talk and more doing is needed to establish a worldwide secure internet effort, says Simon Moores.  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Gordon's magic IT wand

  Gordon Brown's ambition to save the government billions of pounds "through new technology" is more like fiction than fact, says...  Continue Reading

• Grid is more than just a buzzword

  In less than 18 months grid computing has achieved major success and demonstrated its ability within e-science, across...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The battle of open source and security

  Microsoft's fight between security and open source continues, but will it win the vital battle of winning public support, asks...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: If at first you don't succeed, pretend you did

  Microsoft's decision to declare competitive advantage in its Trustworthy Computing initiative requires an ability to believe that...  Continue Reading

• Raising the esteem of IT

  Communicate to win the respect of the business, says Margaret Smith  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The IT fixture list

  Get ahead in business and create a fixture list to improve the quality of IT management reporting, says Colin Beveridge.  Continue Reading

• Secrecy culture must be stopped

  Machiavelli once wrote that misjudgements and wrong turns are like tuberculosis: hard to detect and easy to cure in the...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Look at the bigger picture

  Mundane problems can stifle creative IT development, says Richard Harrison  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Linux access rights expose CIOs

  Sarbanes-Oxley affects open source back-end systems, says Neil Chaney  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Crackdown on copyright

  EU directive creates legal dilemma for IT directors, says Frank Coggrave  Continue Reading

• Integrate data for business gain

  Staff spend too long tracking relevant data, says Chris Harding  Continue Reading

• Your shout! On whether spammers own the internet

  In response to Simon Moores' Thought for the Day (computerweekly.com), who suggested that the internet is becoming overrun by spam and is inherently insecure  Continue Reading

• The government listens at last

  Nobody in their right mind would think a Hansard report on the day's proceedings in Parliament was an exciting, page-turning...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: IT training military style

  Fieldcraft is about achieving objectives by combining separately learned skills. Great results can be achieved if these...  Continue Reading

• Application and network performance can be improved by analysing monitored data

  Declutter your network now to gain future business advantage, says Ivor Kendall  Continue Reading

• Rationalisation today brings value tomorrow

  The corporate it forum  Continue Reading

• Upgrades are biggest IT challenge

  IT Directors' Forum  Continue Reading

• Why do you want to do this IT project?

  It is important to establish the business benefits that will result from an IT implementation.  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Police must get facts right

  Soham inquiry highlights data-sharing problems, says Adrian McKeon  Continue Reading

• Revenue cannot afford a failure

  This week will see the largest ever transfer of IT staff, systems and intellectual property in the public sector.  Continue Reading

• Users want Windows they can see through

  It should be possible to write a new operating system for £165m - or at least to debug one. However, that is how much Microsoft...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Daylight robbery

  The internet is already dominated by spammers and organised crime - how long before it becomes unviable for business use, asks...  Continue Reading

• PeopleSoft's and SAP's plans for the enterprise

  What to expect from two ERP leaders  Continue Reading

• Your shout! On finding the impetus to start training

  In response to Antony Savvas' article (Computer Weekly, 15 June) where he reported on a survey which found that the number of job adverts asking for Linux has risen by 50%  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day : Is that a USB in your pocket?

  A single USB stick can hold a wealth of data, but have companies realised the security risk these pose, asks Colin Beveridge.  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Welcome to the world of the Matrix

  The internet has helped advance science and technology but its darker side is rapidly becoming insecure and highly intrusive,...  Continue Reading

• Building the basis for partnership success

  The user organisation and the supplier must share information so that both parties to an outsourcing contract become one team...  Continue Reading

• How to organise your application portfolio

  How can IT managers tell the difference between projects and enhancements? And how can IT departments decide which upgrades will...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Seize the chance to lead

  IT directors are uniquely placed to benefit business, says Michael Gough.  Continue Reading

• Your Shout! On new rules to force disclosure of IT failures

  In response to news that governance regulations could force companies to reveal the details of failed IT projects (computerweekly.com, 28 May)  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Protecting man's best friend

  The latest virus attacks mobile phones. Isn't it time we think of phone security to avoid potential threats in the future, asks...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Bust or boom

  IT lessons can be learned from the housing market boom, says Colin Beveridge  Continue Reading

• Public bodies must act now on FOI rules

  IT directors in the public sector need to tackle the huge legacy of paper and electronic records in their organisations now if...  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The long SP2 wait

  Simon Moores is beginning to get nervous about the imminent arrival of Microsoft's Windows XP SP2 and its compatibility problems.  Continue Reading

• It is time for software suppliers to take charge of patch management

  Users should not have to bear the security burden  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The perils of outsourcing

  Government must guarantee public services' security, says Kerry Davies  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Focus on the business

  Service level agreements must not be technology-led if you are to get the best from them, says Philip Yarnall  Continue Reading

• Staff motivation that really pays

  Does your IT team feel underpaid? It looks as if they might have every reason to feel that way, at least in comparison with...  Continue Reading

• Challenging projects keep IT staff motivated at Hampshire Council

  Salaries are not the only way to retain key people.  Continue Reading

• First-class idea for productivity

  Website makes a case for mobile working but has surprises  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: The fast pace of mobile

  Is the pace of emerging mobile technology going too fast, even for its hardened users? asks Simon Moores  Continue Reading