20-26 March 2012 | computerweekly.com

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Francis Maude

hails the open data revolution

cabinet office minister tells computer weekly open public datasets are the raw materials

for a boom in innovation page 4

Nurturing IT talentJan ford talks about developing the next generation of government cios page 8

Windows 8 reviewoperating system put through its paces on samsung 7 tablet and quad-core pc page 13

Choppy waters for CIOsfinance directors foresee the demise of the cio role as it proJects shrink page 7

the week onlineHighlights from

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G-Cloud project completes its first CloudStore purchase

MWC 2012: Huawei, Samsung and Panasonic

Sony wants to take over your home: The Xperia range

City University London reveals scholarship winner

Microsoft Trustworthy Computing: what next?

Businesses face existential threat from hackers

Justice ministry aims for saving on annual ERP costs

Laptop remains top mobile enterprise device

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moSt popular

> Mobile apps storesIn the three and a half years since the launch of Apple’s App Store, the mobile world has become an app-centric one. The confluence of App Store and iPhone 3G provided the catalyst for a trend which simultaneously drove the creation of a mass consumer smartphone market, revitalised and enervated content developer space and effected a fundamental change in the mobile content value chain.

> BMC mainframe survey 2011Big businesses plan to grow their mainframe computer capacity despite the downturn according to this survey of 1,347 large mainframe users worldwide. Over 60% of businesses plan to grow their mainframe computing power, up from 56% in 2010. The trend has been driven by a need for many large businesses to process greater volumes of data, despite pressure to keep IT costs under control.

> Gartner: Best practices in virtualisationMany organisations are virtualising their IT infrastructures to save costs and improve efficiency. However, IT managers must understand virtualisation projects require different investments in cost, time and effort. Gartner advises a workload strategy that divides the infrastructure into thirds and approaches each third incremen-tally, targeting the easiest systems to convert first.

video

> CW500: Harvey Lewis on the challenges of tackling big dataIn this CW500 Club video, Harvey Lewis, research director at consultancy Deloitte, talks to Computer Weekly editor in chief Bryan Glick about the challenges of tackling big data.

opinion bloGS

> Matt Scott: The New Sony Xperia SolaMy initial reaction to the new Sola was one of confusion, given that Sony only just announced a number of new handsets. I was worried Sony was having an identity crisis, turning into Nokia, thinking that quantity triumphs over quality. However, after delving a little deeper, I discovered the Sola actually offers something new, something different. Something that intrigued me.

> Mike Lynch: Declining university STEM courses – getting to the root of the problemThe reduction of STEM subject university degree courses is a worrying trend that will undoubtedly have an impact on the UK IT industry. The problem, of course, begins before university, and that is where it needs to be addressed. In the last few years, the way ICT has been taught in schools has stilted the imaginations of the young by boring them.

> Bryan Glick: Donate your PCs to Computer Aid - 200,000 so far, 50,000 more needed nowIT charity Computer Aid International has celebrated a significant milestone - the delivery of its 200,000th PC to worthy causes in the developing world. I have no problem in giving it a shameless plug - I’m a big fan of Computer Aid, I’ve worked with them for a number of years and I’m proud to say that two publications I’ve edited have made important contributions to the cause.

> Warwick Ashford: Sony’s Jackson hack – a common security failing?The reported theft of Michael Jackson’s 50,000-track back catalogue from Sony Music by two UK hackers illustrates several interesting points. First, organisations with valuable intellectual property stored in their computer systems are not yet automatically detecting hacker intrusions. Second, the theft illustrates that digital assets can now have an equal or greater value than physical assets.

video

> CW500: Mike Ferguson on the difficulties of managing big dataManaging and making sense of huge volumes of unstructured information is a growing issue for IT leaders and emerging as a key trend in 2012.

> CW500: Hannelie Gilmour on meeting the challenge of big dataHannelie Gilmour, chief architect at Standard Life, talks about how the financial services group is meeting the challenge of big data.

> Collaborating on IT best practicesIn an age where operational efficiency is becoming increasingly important, it makes business sense for similar organisations to speak to each other and take a more collaborative approach when it comes to their using IT. They can become more efficient, solve common problems and at the same time yield greater influence when it comes to working with IT vendors.

> Can Raspberry Pi transform the sorry state of IT education?Is the $25 Raspberry Pi – a basic computer on a single printed circuit board – capable of transforming the sorry state of IT education in our schools? The explicit aim of the Raspberry Pi is to re-popularise programming in the UK in the way that the Sinclair Spectrum and BBC Micro did in the 1980s.

2 | 20-26 MARCH 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

the week in IT

3 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Financial ServiceS

Lloyds Banking Group cuts another 593 IT jobsLloyds Banking Group is cutting 593 IT jobs, most of which will be off-shored to India. The move affects IT staff across Lloyds TSB and HBOS, the two arms of the group merged at the height of the recession in 2008. The Lloyds Trade Union revealed the bank has informed it of 10 separate reorganisations across the group, re-sulting in more than 1,800 job losses across several functions. Some 308 permanent IT jobs are being out-sourced to India, along with 205 roles currently filled by UK contractors.

HackerS & cybercrime prevention

BBC cyber attacks highlight difficulty of attributionThe BBC has revealed it is was tar-geted by sophisticated cyber attacks following a campaign by the Iranian government against the BBC Persian service. However, the BBC stopped short of accusing Tehran of ordering the attacks. Some parts of the BBC were unable to access e-mail and other internet services on 1 March as the result of what is believed to have been a distributed denial-of-service attack, the BBC said.

riSk management

Microsoft urges businesses apply critical RDP patchMicrosoft is urging organisations to apply the single critical update in this month’s Patch Tuesday release as soon as possible. The critical bul-letin, one of six security bulletins issued as part of Microsoft’s monthly security updates for March, address-es two vulnerabilities in the Remote Desktop Protocol.

cloud computing ServiceS

GlaxoSmithKline adopts digital service in the cloudPharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmith-Kline (GSK) is standardising how it engages online with consumers and healthcare professionals through a cloud-based platform. The company has signed a contract with Infosys and marketing expert Fabric World-wide to combine technology and marketing expertise.

legiSlation & regulation

Yahoo to sue Facebook over patent disputeYahoo has opened up a new battle-front in tech sector litigation wars by filing a lawsuit against Facebook for infringing 10 patents ahead of the so-cial network’s planned public listing. As one of the first patent cases related to social media, the case will test the enforceability of patents on computer code in a US court.

government & public Sector

Government SME panel chairman Mark Taylor resignsThe co-chair of the New Suppliers to Government panel, Mark Taylor, has quit over scepticism around Cabinet Office figures claiming the amount of government business going to SMEs has doubled. Taylor, who is also CEO of small open source company Sirius, praised Cabinet Office minister Fran-cis Maude for his sincerity in trying to increase the SME market in the public sector. But he said he resigned because he didn’t want to be remem-bered as “the guy always complain-ing about government.”

tranSport & travel induStry

London Underground Wi-Fi connectivity due in months London Underground passengers will be able to tap into Wi-Fi net-works at 80 of the 217 tube stations within a few months and 127 stations by the end of the year. However it remains unclear when or whether the Wi-Fi coverage provided by Virgin Media will be extended to the whole of the London Underground network.

e-commerce tecHnology

Survey reveals tablet users’ high expectations of e-commerceTablet computer users have high expectations for web experiences and a third are less likely to make purchases online from companies that do not meet those expectations, a survey has revealed. Tablet users expect websites and transactions to work flawlessly, according to a world-wide survey of 2,000 tablet users by technology performance company Compuware.

mobile networkS

Nato signs £39m BT communications network dealNato has signed a €47m (£39m) deal with BT for a communications net-work. The five-year deal with Nato’s Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), responsible for delivering technology in support of Nato’s global operations, will connect more than 70 locations.

buSineSS applicationS

Sky goes nearshore for agile CRM management developmentSky has outsourced the development and support of its customer relation-ship management (CRM) systems and operations to harness on-site and nearshore services after a two year extension of its current agreement. The television and home commu-nications provider has contracted Comet Global Consultancy (CGC) to support communications with its 10.5 million UK customers.

HMRC renegotiates £200m savingThe government will claw back £200m in spending with IT supplier Capgemini over the next five years.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the savings relate to HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC’s) Aspire contract with Capgemini, which provides IT services such as desktops, laptops and tax and credit systems, including online VAT filing.

Under the new deal HMRC will spend less per unit of IT services and will have more control in running open IT competitions to include a greater number of small businesses, said the Cabinet Office.

Speaking at the annual procurement conference, Procurex, in Birmingham, Maude added that overall spending on goods and services across central government had fallen by £8bn since 2009.

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“If there were another £3bn going to SMEs, I feel I would have noticed it”

Mark Taylor, Ex-chairman of New Suppliers to Government panel

government & public Sector

Flexible working environments

Germany

Source: Citrix - Vanson Bourne

48%

Organisations providing flexible work environments for workers by country

US 45%

Canada 44%

Australia 40%

Brazil 37%

Japan 36%

UK 36%

Netherlands 33%

India 31%

China 28%

France 28%

interview

4 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

The Cabinet Office minister tells Kathleen Hall about the role of data in the economy but why not all public data is free

Open data will drive the next industrial revolu-tion, according to Cabinet Office minister Francis

Maude: “Around 200 years ago, en-trepreneurs were taking raw materi-als and turning them into products in ways people had never thought of before, now we are seeing the use of raw material in the form of open data to create products and services peo-ple haven’t thought of.”

Transparency, accountability and citizen choice has been the govern-ment’s mantra for open data since first making public sector datasets available. But there is also hope that, by doing so, it will help boost eco-nomic growth, with small businesses in particular taking the data and cre-ating things like apps.

“We’re bringing attention to some of the innovation being driven through the opening-up of data,” says Maude.

Other moves include revamping its public sector dataset site, data.gov.uk, to make it easier to navigate, search datasets and enable users to better en-gage with each other.

“We also need to also look at the Office for National Statistics website, which is a rich source of data but is actually very difficult to use and that is something which will be dramati-cally changed.” Maude said it wouldn’t take millions of pounds to make these changes, as the govern-ment could use SMEs at a fraction of the cost.

But while open data campaigners have praised the Cabinet Office’s drive, some have criticised depart-ments for continuing to lock down key datasets – particularly the Ord-nance Survey (OS). Does Maude have any plans to open up the OS Address Point database – the department’s na-tional address dataset which compa-nies have to pay between £16,562 to

“We don’t want officials to pull punches in their advice because of fear that, in two years’ time,

that advice could be released”

Francis Maude,

Cabinet Office minister

“We are seeing the use of raw material in open data to create products and services people haven’t thought of”

government & public sector

£132,599 to access?“We think it’s really important that

we should have a single address reg-ister, it is astonishing that, up to now, there have been three – the Ordnance Survey’s, one in local government and the Royal Mail – all of which come together once for the census. We think this is a fundamental piece of data that needs to be in one place, easily available but not necessarily for free,” he said.

“It’s not cheap to have and keep updated on a real-time basis. It’s something essential in the world of open data and for developers who want to use different sources of geo-spatial data to create more products,” he said.

“As the Royal Mail becomes more privatised, we will make sure this is something that is perfected for the fu-

ture,” he added.“In the Cabinet Office, No 10 and

the Treasury, we have been vigorous in promoting open data but have found it heartening how many other departments are on board.

“When I urge colleagues and offi-cials to go further, yes we are trail-blazers, but we are often pushing at an open door. The Home Office crime map app has created something which is world-leading.”

FoI Act reformMaude’s promotion of the govern-ment’s open data agenda at a seminar hosted by Digital Birmingham comes the same day as the Justice Select Committee holds its third evidence session into proposed reform of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

Reforms could lead to the intro-duction of a fee for individuals to make FOI requests to cut the amount of paperwork involved. Critics have claimed this would lead to less pub-lic sector transparency. But Maude says there is no contradiction be-tween the push to open up more data and the proposals to review FOI.

“What we are doing is releasing

data and creating the right to data so the public can demand access to it. Government should be more willing to release data on the basis of which policy decisions are made.”

The danger of the current situation under the FOI Act is that it could lead to a culture where ministerial advice is given in an informal, un-structured way, he said.

“What needs to be revised is that we don’t want officials to pull punches in their advice because of fear that in two years’ time that ad-vice could be released because they weren’t confident it was given in a confidential space.” ■

Francis Maude hails open data as the fuel of the new industrial revolution

more online› How serious is the government about open data?

› Public-funded bodies must open data, says transparency chief

› Students win government open data competition

case study

Law firm replaces SAN for growth and offsite business continuity

5 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Stevens & Bolton's head of IT David Thomas tells Cliff Saran of the issues of implementing a brand new infrastructure

Law firm Stevens & Bolton has extended a Dell Compel-lent storage area network (SAN) into the cloud for pur-

poses of offsite business continuity.The law firm recently purchased a

Dell Compellent replication licence for its SAN, which will enable it to use cloud disaster recovery, connect-ing through a 20Mbps vLAN to a re-silient datacentre operated by IT ser-vices firm, Atlanta Technology.

The cloud project is the latest de-velopment in a refresh programme covering virtualisation, a VMware upgrade and a Windows desktop and server upgrade. The project began four years ago when David Thomas, head of IT, joined the law firm.

Thomas was hired to implement an IT infrastructure that took into ac-count the long-term scalability re-quirements of the business. His first task was to replace an HP MSA SAN, that had reached its support end of life and which had not been engi-neered for the kind of resilience the law firm required.

“When I joined the firm, the envi-ronment was very reactive and the team was fire-fighting. Only 20% of the environment was virtualised,” said Thomas.

The environment comprised Win-dows XP desktop PCs with CRT monitors; and a mix of Windows 2000 and 2003 server operating sys-tems, built around an HP SAN. The IT supported key legal systems, such as the Interwoven document manage-ment system, which holds almost 5.5 million Word and PDF documents.

Thomas said the HP SAN had not been set up with redundant control-lers or network paths, so it represent-ed a single point of failure on the net-work. Initially he assessed whether the existing HP SAN could be hard-ened to make the environment more resilient, but realised it would not meet the needs of the business for re-silient data paths and controllers to eliminate any single point of failure.

It was unsuitable for the firm’s me-dium and long-term server require-ments and required considerable in-vestment for high availability. He decided to buy a Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN.

“We took snapshots of the server drives on the old SAN and created new virtual servers” David Thomas Stevens & Bolton

storage hardware

“The SAN is paramount to our net-work. Previously we installed the server operating systems on the local server disk drives, but we now hold the server operating system files on the SAN. So if we lose the SAN we not only lose access to our data, we would also suffer server outages.”

Migrating SANsThe migration from HP to Dell stor-age hardware was relatively easy as the SAN being replaced had not been optimally set up, Thomas ex-plained. The law firm hired Atlanta to help migrate and implement the new Dell SAN.

Thomas said: “We took snapshots of the server drives on the old SAN and created new virtual servers, then restored those servers on the new Dell Compellent SAN.”

After taking the snapshot, Thomas copied the virtual machine images onto the new environment. This in-volved moving existing virtual ma-chines on a VMware 3.x environment to VMware 4.0 on the new environ-ment. He said: “The migration took eight weeks. Key systems such as Mi-crosoft Exchange and our document management system were switched-over out of office hours.”

As part of the SAN migration, Thomas decided to run iSCSI, the lo-cation-independent data storage and retrieval protocol built on IP net-working. He said: “We spent a fair amount of time configuring core Cisco switches. We had to set up iSCSI on the core Cisco 3750 switch-es that were introduced three year ago and build resilience.”

Performance boostStevens & Bolton uses three VMware hosts (physical servers), on the Dell-Compellent SAN. In spite of warn-ings from some suppliers that any performance-related issues would not be supported in a virtualised en-vironment, the company is running to 25 virtual servers.

Thomas said the firm has virtual-ised about 95% of its physical servers into the virtual environment on Com-pellent: “I am quite sceptical about putting all eggs in one basket, but I was really impressed with how well Compellent fared with performance.”

The performance was improved with a Cisco core network, which was optimised by Atlanta and com-bined with an increase in the number of hard drives used for a boost to par-allel speed, he said.

Upgrade plansHaving upgraded the practice man-agement and document management systems, which was completed last year, and migrated 70% of its servers to Windows Server 2008 R2, the com-pany is now planning a PC refresh. This will involve moving desktop PCs onto Windows 7 and upgrading to Exchange Server 2010.

Thomas is not betting on the avail-ability and stability of Windows 8, when it ships. He said: “We have downloaded Windows 8 and it looks very sexy and new. We would like to purchase Windows 8 licences and in-stall Windows 7. ”

Thomas also believes the upgrade to Windows 7 will be a traditional upgrade, rather than migrating desk-top users onto a virtual desktop infra-structure (VDI): “We will look at VDI in 2013/14.”

Easier administrationThe IT team at Stevens & Bolton comprises just five staff, who provide support for the whole business. Ac-cording to Thomas, the Dell Compel-lent management tool requires a very basic knowledge to get by.

He said any member of the team can provision hard drive space from Compellent and build a new server. The web-based management tool simplifies the SAN technology, mak-ing it easier for his small multi-skilled IT admin team to work with it. Web interface IT teams have re-mote access to their systems, allow-ing them to manage or make adjust-ments wherever they are. ■

This is an edited excerpt of the article. click here to read the full case study online

more online› Podcast: Midrange storage SAN market analysis

› SMB SAN solutions: Storage networking options

› Free SAN sizing template and useful guidelines

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news analysis

CIO role headed for choppy waters with shift towards finance, say CFOs

7 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Expert panel predicts end of big-bang IT projects as survey casts doubt on the future of the CIO role, writes Cliff Saran

B ig-bang, long-term, stra-tegic, transformational IT projects no longer make sense, according to IT and

finance chiefs.In a recent roundtable discussion

of CIOs and CFOs hosted by IT ser-vices company Getronics, experts agreed that smaller, cheaper projects with well-defined scope can generate value quickly.

Karl Howarth, chief financial offic-er at ferry operator P&O, said: “The days of long-term IT projects have ended. They were not particularly successful and, by the time they were implemented, it was time to change.”

“The chance of failure in a big pro-ject is high so you have to split it up,” said Lukas Oberhuber, chief technol-ogy officer at business insurance company Simply Business.

Patricio Colombo, head of IT and systems at Jamie Oliver Ltd, agreed: “We do not have any legacy. Instead IT focuses on short, measurable pro-jects with quick delivery times.

“Our CRM project is divided into phases. We are not prepared for a big-bang approach.”

It is a similar story at Checkatrade, a website for vetting and recom-mending tradesmen such as plumb-ers and builders. The site started in 1998 after severe floods in Selsey, to protect the public from rogue traders, and now has 7,000 vetted traders.

Claire Hossell, chief financial offic-er at Checkatrade, said: “We run short-term projects with continuous improvements. IT is at the heart of the business. The system was devel-oped externally, but is now fully in-house. We used to outsource but came to the point when the system was so important to the business that we brought it back in-house.”

CIOs must adaptA study conducted by market re-searcher LoudHouse said CFOs believe the days of the CIO are num-bered. The role of the CIO will cease to exist in five years’ time, according to the study conducted for Getronics.

The survey of 203 key financial de-cision-makers, in companies of 1,000 employees or more, found almost one in five CFOs (17%) believe the role of

“The days of long-term IT projects have ended”

Karl Howarth,

chief financial officer at P&O

“The role of the CIO has often been a point of contention within many organisations since its very inception”

IT STraTegy

more online› Tech trends shaping the future IT organisation and the CIO role

› Workforce of the future puts CIOs in the hot seat

› The IT roles needed for the IT organisation of the future

the CIO is in jeopardy. A further 43% of financial decision-makers said the role will merge with finance and 31% believe CIOs will come from a non-technical background. Some 38% of CFOs and financial directors believe CIOs do not have a good level of finan-cial understanding.

Change to IT teamsThe requirement for IT teams to evolve is keenly felt by CFOs. In the study, 64% said the maintenance of IT infrastructure will be of concern. Large IT teams and legacy systems drive high expenditure in businesses and many seek to address this.

Interestingly, 48% are worried about spending on outsourced con-sultancies. This represents another shift in thinking about infrastructure

– the consultancy needs to come from the CIO, being closer to finan-cial concerns, while the functionality of the IT service can reside externally.

Expenditure on software licences and hardware are of less concern (47% and 44% respectively), repre-senting a conscious decision to move away from these infrastructure needs. Meanwhile, only 20% of respondents were concerned about hosted servic-es, which could represent a move to-wards this regime.

The same percentage also ac-knowledged that staff resourcing was a concern, suggesting finance teams are very clear about the issues of in-house IT team resources.

Surprisingly, 40% also believed their CIOs need a greater under-standing of the IT function itself.

Compounding this lack of under-standing of both roles, more than half (56%) of the CFOs surveyed be-lieved a lack of integration between finance and IT limits the impact on cost savings achievable from IT pro-jects in their business.

“The role of the CIO has often been a point of contention within many or-ganisations since its very inception,” said Mark Cook, CEO, Getronics UK.

“Only by freeing up CIOs from the day-to-day burden of managing assets will organisations be able to truly re-alise the value that a CIO can bring to their business.” ■

interview

Nurturing the next generation of in-house government IT talent

8 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Ministry of Justice head of ICT strategy Jan Ford tells Kathleen Hall about the Technology in Business fast-track scheme

Jan Ford’s IT career spans more than three decades, during which she has held positions at Pricewater-

houseCoopers and Fujitsu. In her current role, as head of ICT strategy, planning and operations at the Ministry of Justice, Ford is oversee-ing the government’s Technology in Business (TiB) fast stream skills development programme.

“IT in government has a bad repu-tation for spending too much and de-livering too little,” says Ford. “It’s clear at the senior level we do have issues around capability. We don’t have many home-grown CIOs. The depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding do matter as there’s a cost attached to having to recruit and wastage involved through churn.”

The TiB project will play a key role in boosting IT capability and improv-ing leadership continuity, she says.

At the moment the Ministry of Jus-tice (MoJ) has 13 graduates in its pro-gramme, with a total of 60 across gov-ernment. “One of the targets we have been set is to increase that intake,” she says. There are more than 30 graduates planned for next year’s in-take, with the target set in the ICT Strategy Implementation Plan to av-erage 20 per year by September 2014.

“The ones working at the end of the programme are working on some very big jobs. Two are working on the key parts of delivering the govern-ment IT strategy. They are really get-ting front-line business experience,” says Ford. “Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t say, ‘We could real-ly do with a TiB-er for that’.”

“I love working with people who you know in a few years you’ll be working for” Jan Ford, head of ICT strategy at the Ministry of Justice

“We are looking for people who are business-savvy and prepared to challenge conventional wisdom”

government & public sector

The programme takes a more col-laborative approach between depart-ments. “There’s a lot of linkage to home departments, we are trying to encourage exchange between depart-ments so they get a broader range of experience,” says Ford.

The new scheme will also focus on building skills in IT leadership. But graduation doesn’t necessarily guar-antee a job in government, she says: “They will still have to compete. But there is a hope that these graduates will go on to become the next CTOs and CIOs in government.”

There are around 100 applicants for every place, which is a massive demand for a small number of places, says Ford.

“We don’t specify that they have to have done an IT degree but we do ask

that they have a 2:1. This is about finding talented people and leaders for the future. The majority don’t have an IT degree. We are looking for people who are business-savvy and people who are prepared to challenge conventional wisdom. It’s important to remember that government is not building technology, it is using it.”

External staffing is set to reduce by 15%, which puts more pressure on the need to build in-house expertise.

But the training is not expected to create government job-for-life posi-tions. “If we do produce capable peo-ple of a high standard, then it’s al-most inevitable some will work in the private sector,” she says.

Matching skills to roles“There’s an interesting dynamic in what the government should retain, as opposed to outsourcing. Things like management, assurance and gov-ernance should always be retained in government, but we ought to out-source the roles where we don’t get added value or a unique capability.”

However, when it comes to digital skills where agility and speed are

critical, Ford believes capabilities are starting to come in-house. “I think the cloud and app store will make a massive difference there. There’s a key difference between shifting the monolithic way of procuring assets to a measured consumption of services. It’s a bit like moving from a Michel-angelo sculpture to building things using Lego blocks.”

Getting the younger generation in-terested in IT has also been part of Ford’s long-term plans. “We’ve been trying to go out and inspire the next intake for 5-10 years’ time. We’ve done pilots with sixth form groups talking about coming in to do IT and working in government.”

Whitehall is also running two-month work placements for universi-ty students. “For the first time we are taking interns, these are proper posi-tions and we are paying them a prop-er wage and attracting them from di-verse groups.”

The current generation are far more IT literate than previous ones, says Ford. She believes this is a great time to be re-skilling the IT workforce.

“I think this is one of the most in-teresting periods since I first began in IT in the 1970s. Then there was al-ways the issue that IT people should have more business skills and vice versa. But now there is a big change in the pace at which that is finally happening,” she says.

“I do hope our graduates will go on to become government CIOs. I love working with people who you know in a few years you’ll be work-ing for. They don’t know limits and always ask ‘why not?’ questions. Working with bright talented peo-ple is very motivating.” ■

more online› More than half of government projects behind schedule

› We must do more to develop IT talent, say industry figures

› The IT Apprentice: How technol-ogy internships bring niche skills

community

Can Raspberry Pi transform the state of IT education?

Give someone a brighter future by donating PCs

9 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Is the $25 Raspberry Pi – a basic computer on a single printed cir-cuit board – capable of transform-ing the sorry state of IT education

in our schools?Produced in Cambridge, the ex-

plicit aim of the Raspberry Pi is to re-popularise programming in the UK in the way that the Sinclair Spectrum and BBC Micro did in the 1980s. The initial production run of 10,000 units sold out in minutes as early adopters fought to get themselves a piece of the Pi. Such was the demand that the Raspberry’s website crashed as the Pi proved momentarily more popular than Lady Gaga.

Geek demand is clearly extremely high, but are mainstream schools re-ally equipped to make effective use of this opportunity? Is the arrival of a box of printed circuit boards really going to make a difference?

Lessons from the early yearsLaunched to coincide with the Department of Industry’s “Year of Computing” the BBC Micro comput-er found its way onto desks in 75% of UK schools in the 1980s.

The BBC Micro is still remembered fondly by many silver-haired geeks, now in their fifties, as having sparked their computing careers. The com-puter’s launch was part of the BBC’s “Computer Literacy Project” and was

accompanied by an educational TV series, imaginatively called, “The Computer Programme”. The first 10-episode series was broadcast ter-restrially in 1982 and was repro-duced in various formats and names until 1987.

This sustained promotion of com-puter education produced a genera-tion of coders that, among other things, built the world’s most suc-cessful computer games industry here in the UK. Over the past dec-ade, Britain has fallen to sixth place

So far, the majority of school orders for the Raspberry Pi have come from the UK’s most privileged schools

BRyan GlicK leader Tony RoBeRTS opinion

in that particular league table and universities report a continuing de-cline in the skill levels of UK appli-cants to computer science degrees. Teaching of IT in our schools is now woefully inadequate, according to the Royal Society.

Lack of digital visionThe current school IT curriculum aims no higher than producing drones proficient in using Microsoft Office. However, there are an in-creasing number of exciting not-for-profit initiatives underway that aim much higher.

Apps for Good and the <GoTo> Foundation are great examples of initiatives that enable young people to build mobile phone apps to solve problems they see in the communi-ty and actively shape the digital world they live in.

The Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects use open software and open hardware as platforms to ena-ble learners to be producers of new information and communication products and services, future digital entrepreneurs and employers.

Initiatives such as these provide a real opportunity to reorientate com-puter education to empower learners to go beyond being passive consum-ers of shrink-wrapped products and become active producers of new in-formation and communications tech-nologies.

But this possibility is jeopardised by the absence of any integrated or coherent programme of support. Without this, determining who gets to benefit from these new initiatives will be, at best a postcode lottery, and at worst end up merely afford-ing new privileges to the already ad-vantaged. So far, the majority of school orders for the Raspberry Pi have come from the UK’s most privi-leged schools.

It is very early days, but so far these initiatives have been geek-led and geek-fed. The kind of national programme of educational support that was the backbone of the BBC Micro success is conspicuous by its absence. Coordination with govern-ment and the teaching profession is needed. ■

Tony roberts is the founder and former cEO of computer aid International

The IT charity computer aid Interna-tional has celebrated a significant milestone – the delivery of its 200,000th Pc to worthy causes in

the developing world. computer Weekly is a supporter, and provides a lot of free promo-tion for the charity’s events.

This isn’t about doing our bit for “charidee” – it’s about a small UK charity, with limited resources, proving what a huge contribution technology can make to education, health-care, food security and economic develop-ment in countries less financially privileged than our own.

The 200,000 donated Pcs are being used to support eradicating poverty, enriching edu-cation and improving health and medical care in the developing world. Much as technology has become essential to the business suc-cess of western companies, IT has become essential to international development.

There’s an old cliché that says: give some-one a fish and you feed them for a day; give them a fishing rod and you feed them for life. It’s now true to say that if you give them access to a computer too, they’ll know where the fish are, what bait to use, when to fish, and which market will give them the best price. and then you don’t just ensure someone has food on the table – you ensure the growth of their income, the stability of their family, an education for their children, and the long-term development of their community.

computer aid, like every charity, needs cash to do its good work. Uniquely, it also needs your desktop and laptop computers. Every Pc you would otherwise dispose of can be reused for a great cause. computer aid needs 50,000 computers in the next 12 months. That’s where you come in.

Windows 7 upgrades are going to be one of the biggest initiatives for many IT leaders this year – that, presumably, means a lot of Pc refreshes. and that means a lot of equip-ment that could go through computer aid to do great things in developing countries.

To find out more about donating Pcs to computer aid, e-mail enquiries@compute-raid.org or visit the computer aid website. Do it now. ■

editor’s blogcomputerweekly.com/editor

› This is an edited version. Click here to read the full article online

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buyer’s guide

11 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Research from Quocirca and Oracle last year showed companies’ acceptance of cloud is mixed.

Surveys were conducted in Febru-ary 2011 and again in November. Some 28% of respondents in the first cycle of the research felt that cloud either had no part in their organisa-tion’s future, or that it was just a pass-ing fad (see graph on page 12).

By the second cycle, this figure had dropped to 21% – still a sizable number, but those seeing cloud as a game-changer had also grown from 14% to 22%.

The public cloud approach uses cloud built on equipment that the or-ganisation owns and runs. The pri-vate cloud option runs cloud-based services on dedicated hosted envi-

This leads to the oft-repeated worry of those considering cloud – security. As cloud computing is built on a platform of virtualisation, the ac-tual place where data is stored or is in motion at any one time, is difficult to pin down.

Whereas this was a major issue in the past, it does not seem to be so any longer. A more coherent acceptance of the need for security of any data or information asset is becoming appar-ent; one that ensures the security of data and information, even when it has left what used to be seen as the protected confines of an organisa-tion’s network.

The first question that must be ad-dressed concerns whether a particu-lar application should be put into the

“A little pre-planning ensures the move to private cloud can be carried out with little adverse impact on the business”

How to decide your cloud strategyClive Longbottom sets out the issues that must be addressed by companies moving their applications to private cloud

cloud or not. The cloud is not a universal pana-

cea – it is very good for lots of differ-ent workloads, but it is not right for all. Reasons for not putting an appli-cation into a cloud may range from the technical (the application does not understand a cloud platform); through the financial (the applica-tion is licensed on a physical core basis and the vendor is not interest-ed in dealing with virtual cores); to the visceral (the application is per-ceived as being too mission-critical for cloud at this stage).

However, the key is to ensure that any direction chosen now does not stop any of these choices from being changed as time goes on and as cloud and the remaining applications ma-

ronments (private clouds), using functions provided from systems and software owned and run by a third party for general shared use (public cloud) or a hybrid version of these two cloud models.

The largest proportion of respond-ents planned to implement private clouds only, with nearly 50% saying they would take a pure private cloud approach, whether on their own equipment in their own datacentre facility, or using co-location facilities. However, this brings up a range of is-sues that must be addressed by any-one looking to move to cloud.

PerformanceThe further the data resides from the point where it has to get to, the longer it takes to get there. Deci-sions must be made as to what data resides where, whether the busi-ness logic is best held with the data and what tools – such as caching, packet shaping and other WAN acceleration technologies – are needed to ensure users get a fully responsive experience.

»

CW Buyer’s guideprivate Cloud

part 2 of 3

?

buyer’s guide

The network is the weakest link in the cloud as, without network access, staff cannot connect to databases, e-mail or other applications, writes Antony Savvas.

While the cloud can store company data and deliver applications without the overheads of dedicated in-house servers and other hardware, the third party hosting the data or applications is not usually responsible for the network links from the customer to its facilities.

Companies must plan how they connect their corporate networks to third-party cloud providers to ensure they have enough affordable and reliable bandwidth to serve their users’ needs.

They must consider cost, service level agreements, security, network back up/fail-over to the cloud provider, network management and any specialist “network to the cloud” service offerings on the market. The Cisco Cloud Index predicts that over half of computing workloads in datacentres will be cloud-based by 2014. The Index also predicts global cloud traffic will grow over 12 times by 2015, to a mammoth 1.6 zettabytes per year.

Dr Graham Oakes is a consultant and author of Project Reviews, Assurance and Governance. Over the last 20

years he has worked on IT and networking projects for the likes of Sony Computer Entertainment, Vodafone, the Open University, Oxfam and the Council of Europe. He said: “Moving applications into the cloud clearly has an impact on network utilisation. But before buying more bandwidth, you have to do a couple of other things.”

Oakes urges organisations to understand the traffic patterns associated with each application. Some applications are “surprisingly frugal” on the network, he said, while some are “surprisingly chatty”. Making decisions based on data, not assumptions, is the key.

He recommends network managers keep track of data latency, or delay.

Often it is not the amount of data being transferred that matters, it is the amount of time users have to wait while applications render web pages or are fully loaded onto desktops. High latency means data packets must rely on multiple round trip journeys across many network portions that comprise an enterprise’s cloud operating environment.

This is an edited excerpt. click here to read the full article online

Preparing your network for cloud applicationsture. Many suppliers are now provid-ing applications and tools that make this far easier, for example from VM-ware with its vMotion; CA with its 3Tera acquisition; and Novell with its PlateSpin acquisition. All offer a means to move an application from a physical situation to a virtual one.

However, such a move be seen as nothing more than a single step on the road to cloud – existing applica-tion approaches should also be re-viewed to ensure that the cloud is used to its optimum capabilities.

Flexibility and agilityCloud computing offers a more flexible and responsive platform for computing. The basic tenet of a cloud environment is that it should be elastic – that it can provision and de-provision resources to support workloads as necessary.

Large monolithic applications are not very good at managing elas-ticity. What is required is to break applications down into functional services that can be brought togeth-er as required to facilitate a busi-ness process.

This approach lowers functional redundancy (for example, multiple billing engines in various different applications) and allows cloud-based systems to manage resources at a very granular level, ensuring utilisation levels of resources are maximised.

While looking at tools that will en-able existing systems to be migrated to a private cloud, it pays to look at the existing systems management software as well. Too many early tools were based on the premise that organisations already had the physi-cal side of things sorted out and man-aging the virtual side of things could be carried out as a separate task.

Unfortunately, cloud computing – even when highly virtualised – de-pends on the physical equipment un-derpinning it. It is critical to ensure systems management tools can man-age both physical and logical con-structs and understand the contextu-al linkages between them. IBM, CA and BMC have been making strong moves to ensure their tools now cross the physical/virtual barrier.

The public cloudPublic cloud should not be over-looked. Although most organisations are not looking at using the public cloud, it does not make commercial sense to block it off completely.

Already, through ensuring that only certain data is sent through to a public cloud, functions such as geo-analysis of customers can be carried out for free using Google Maps/Earth or Bing Maps, just using postcode data. Also other functions are becom-ing more easily available from free or low-cost cloud sources.

This does bring a requirement for integrating different cloud functions, and the buyer must decide how this should be carried out. Will their or-ganisation carry out all the integra-tion themselves, look to a single prime contractor who can act as the cloud aggregator and deal with the integration on the organisation’s be-half, or look to deal with integration on a case-by-case basis? We are see-ing the emergence of the cloud aggre-gator, but will organisations be will-ing to put all their eggs into the one remote and virtual basket?

Cloud is already becoming impor-tant, and woe betide the organisation that decides to pay no attention to it. However, those who attempt to move to cloud without sufficient planning will also fare badly.

A little pre-planning can ensure the move to a private cloud can be carried out with little adverse impact on the business, yet will provide a solid, flexible and more effective platform for the future. ■

clive Longbottom is founder of Quocirca

12 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

more online› Can a private cloud drive energy efficiency in datacentres?

› Ensuring private cloud performance assurance

› Addressing private cloud computing security issues

»

review

13 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

W indows 7 was an easy upgrade decision when it appeared in October 2009. It was unequivo-

cally better than Windows Vista: faster, more reliable, more pleasant to use, with useful new features such as the ability to launch applications from the taskbar.

Windows 8, for which Microsoft has just released a public beta called Consumer Preview, is a different proposition, and businesses will be more cautious.

Windows regenerationWindows 8 is not just an upgrade, but a radical remake of Microsoft’s venerable operating system. Speak-ing at the launch of the beta in Bar-celona earlier this month, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky called it a “generational change” – the biggest since Windows 95.

The contentious new Start menu is key to understanding Microsoft’s

Windows 8 on tabletsMicrosoft has set out to make Win-dows 8 excellent for use on a tablet, recognising that the classic Windows user interface can never be made to work well with touch operation.

A side effect of its radical solution is that Windows 8 has a split person-ality, and switching between Metro and desktop can be jarring. More seri-ously, it raises usability issues. Metro apps do not appear on the desktop taskbar, for example, so users may not realise they are open and run-ning. Equally, if you look at the list of running apps on the Metro side, the desktop appears as a single app, dis-guising the fact that many applica-tions may be running there.

Communication between Metro apps and desktop apps is limited. For example, you cannot drag and drop an image file from desktop Explorer to the Metro photo viewer.

Optimum hardware for a Win-dows 8 tablet includes a screen with

How does Windows 8 perform?Tim Anderson test drives Windows 8 Consumer Preview on a Samsung 7 tablet and a quad-core desktop PC

1366 x 768 resolution, which is an unusual size for today’s devices. The reason is that this gives room for a feature called Snap, where one ap-plication runs side-by-side with an-other in 25%/75% view. This is Mi-crosoft’s answer to the annoyance of a system designed essentially to run all apps full screen, as in Apple’s iPad or Android tablets.

Snap works well on the right hard-ware (though this excludes most dis-plays available today), and in general,

goals. The new Windows has two modes of operation. One, sometimes called Metro-style, or the Immersive UI (user interface), is designed pri-marily for tablets and touch control, though Microsoft claims that it is equally easy to use with mouse and keyboard.

The Start menu is on the Metro side, and features large chunky but-tons, borrowing from the Windows Phone 7 user interface, and including the same Live Tile concept which al-lows applications to show updates and notifications within the buttons themselves.

The other mode in Windows 8 is the old familiar desktop, with some light updates since Windows 7. Conceptually, Metro is the primary user interface and the desktop is an application within it, which is a possible rationale for Microsoft resisting appeals to bring back the old Start menu as a compatibility option.

»

Semantic Zoom allows navigation through large content collections and

lets apps present content in a more tactile, visual and informative way

Microsoft has come up with a tablet operating system that is a delight to use

review

Microsoft has come up with a tablet op-erating system that is a delight to use.

Users have to learn a few simple swipe gestures. Swipe from the left to switch apps, or from the right to raise the “Charms” menu, including stand-ard actions such as Search and Share, and buttons for the Start menu or Set-tings, including shutdown. Swipe from top or bottom to raise applica-tion menus, such as the tabs list and address bar in Internet Explorer. Flick up or down to scroll.

These actions only takes minutes to learn, and using Windows 8 on a Samsung Series 7 Slate, which is an Intel Core i5 tablet with the right kind of screen, bears out Microsoft’s claim that Windows 8 is fast and fluid.

Mouse-friendly featuresWhat if you are using Windows 8 with keyboard and mouse? The Consumer Preview has new mouse-friendly features compared to the earlier Developer Preview.

The four corners of the screen act as hot areas for the Start menu (bot-tom left), app switching (top left) and raising the Charms menu (top and bottom right). Right click in an appli-cation is meant to bring up applica-tion menus, though if there is a con-text menu that takes priority which can be a problem.

There is also a kind of secret power users menu in the Consumer Preview. Right click in the bottom left corner and you get a menu offer-ing popular administration tools. This is useful, but odd, and it would

not be surprising if it disappears from the final release.

Developer capabilitiesMetro is not just a user interface. The Metro side of Windows 8 runs on a new Windows Runtime (WinRT) which has several distinc-tive characteristics.

WinRT is designed to be secure, and apps are sandboxed from one an-other and from the operating system. Inter-app communication is allowed, but only through a specific channel called Contracts, where, for example, one app can act as a file picker or contract picker for another app. Other contracts are for media play-back, printing, searching and set-tings, and file association. Applica-tion code only has access to a safe subset of the Windows API.

Another key feature of WinRT is that many API calls are asynchro-nous. The reason for this is to ensure a responsive user interface. Microsoft

has added features to the languages supported by WinRT – C++, C#, Visu-al Basic and JavaScript – to simplify using asynchronous calls. Judging by the performance of the preview apps created for Metro both by Microsoft and by third parties, this strategy has been successful. You will need the new Visual Studio 11, now also in beta, to develop for WinRT.

It is worth emphasising that WinRT apps are not capable of eve-rything a desktop app can do. The data model is that of a rich internet app, where local storage is used for caching data from web services. There is currently no SQL Server database driver on the Metro side of Windows 8, for example.

Shopping for appsMetro apps are installed from Microsoft’s online store, which is also used for content such as videos and music. Windows 8 on Intel also supports traditional application

14 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Left: Snap feature allows one app to run alongside another

Left: Power users menu offers easy access to admin tools

Right: Visual Studio 11 is

needed to develop for

WinRT

»

»

Above: Metro apps can be downloaded from Microsoft’s online app store

Background: Windows 8 desktop mode

The Consumer Preview has new mouse-friendly features

review

15 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

installs from set-up applications, but this route will apparently be blocked when Windows 8 is running on ARM devices. Microsoft has said that businesses will be able to side-load apps, but the mechanism for this is not yet clear.

Windows on ARM (WOA) is differ-ent in character from Windows on Intel. WOA should be more secure, since desktop apps cannot be in-stalled by users. The desktop will be present, but mainly for essential utili-ties and for Microsoft Office. It is probable that a WOA machine can-not be domain-joined, though Micro-soft has more to clarify about WOA manageability.

Desktop functionalityIt is all very well being great for tablets, but since Metro is a new plat-form, business users will spend most of their time running legacy apps on the desktop. Even Microsoft is in this position. Some essential apps in

Windows 8 – Control Panel and on-line Help – are desktop apps. Office 15 also remains a desktop application suite, though details of this have not yet been revealed.

Although the desktop user interface is not greatly changed, some key utili-ties have undergone significant chang-es. An updated task manager shows information in a clear Metro-style lay-out with richer graphics than before. Explorer has an Office-style ribbon in-terface which makes its features more visible. Since you can minimise the ribbon, and right-click context menus work as before, this feature is an easy one for users migrating. The Copy dia-logue has been reworked, with a new graphical progress meter.

Storage Spaces is a new approach to managing disk drives which has come to the Windows 8 client, as well as Server 8 which enables users to pool multiple drives and then cre-ate resilient disk volumes on that pool. The value of Storage Spaces to

business users is perhaps less than for home users who do not always have the benefit of network storage. This is a strong feature, but like Hyper-V, not one that will affect the typical office worker.

Business potentialTablets undoubtedly have a role in business, the extent of which is open to debate. Where there is an excellent onscreen keyboard, as there is both on the iPad and in Windows 8, a tablet is suitable for moderate amounts of text input as well as being convenient, light and with long-lasting battery life for content consumption. Windows on ARM devices should make particu-larly good tablets, since ARM systems are highly power efficient.

If Microsoft can build a strong app ecosystem and persuade hardware manufacturers to come up with well-designed and competitively priced hardware, it has what it takes to com-pete successfully against Apple iPad

and Google Android. However, users will find that Metro sometimes gets in the way, and without new touch-capable hardware, the day-to-day benefits for desktop users may be rather small.

The downside of the Windows 8 dual-mode approach is that Metro is best with touch, and desktop best with mouse and keyboard, so you always have to compromise. ■

»

more online› Windows 8: A first look at new features for business users

› Windows 8 Server preview

› Windows 8: Make or break for Microsoft?

› Download the preview here

Below: Metro apps (left), PDF reader bundled with the OS (centre), Start menu in Metro mode (right)

Above: SmartScreen

blocks any apps not

recognised (left), Hyper-V

manager (right)

case study: Eat

16 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Consumers expect Wi-Fi. Rene Batsford, head of information and communi-cation technology at Eat, believes free Wi-Fi is the way to go for retail.

“People now expect free Wi-Fi, so the majority of our stores already have it,” he says. Eat plans to roll out free Wi-Fi to all its stores within the next two to three months, in time for the Olympics.

Other in-store changes include a makeover of the food retailer’s music selection. Eat uses customer surveys, together with insight and feedback from social media platforms such as Twitter, to determine music preferences. Batsford says Eat is planning to change the music at different times during the day to see if this improves sales.

Other future projects include the introduction of a smart customer interface. Once logged in to the free Wi-Fi, the system would recognise the user’s account, providing real-time data on calories based on Eat’s produce. Batsford says that is all about “enhancing the customer experience”.

Technology’s impact on retail

Eat is a familiar sight in London. But there is more to sandwich-making than bread and butter. Sophisti-

cated back-end IT and front-of-store systems are feeding the company’s growth strategy.

An IT team of just 11 people is re-sponsible for the day-to-day running of Eat. This includes collecting data throughout the day from its 90+ stores and batch processing data where necessary, covering a typical spectrum of data types such as trans-actions and back-office processes.

All businesses in London will be af-fected by the 2012 Olympic Games, and one of the challenges facing retail-ers, such as Eat, is that they will need to ensure they have staff in place to meet increased demand.

Rene Batsford, Eat’s head of infor-mation and communication technol-ogy, believes the key to Eat’s prepara-tion lies in the flexibility of its IT solutions and services.

Batsford says that for home work-ers, QlikView, a business intelligence (BI) tool Eat recently deployed, “will help enormously in terms of collabo-ration between users who are either in the office or at home”.

Real-time analyticsQlikView enables Eat’s staff to make real-time business decisions by exploring and improving their understanding of product, store and staff performance, as well as con-sumer purchasing behaviour. “La-bour optimisation will be utilised during the Olympics to deal with higher demand in some areas and possibly the introduction of kiosks,” says Batsford.

their superior security, despite most people presuming iPads are safe,” says Batsford. “Tablets are a good mo-bile solution, particularly for those employees who work in the field. QlikView has been optimised for mo-bile, so both these technologies are a perfect fit and allow area managers greater access and flexibility to a more powerful BI solution.”

Eat will supply staff with one de-vice, so it is keen to work with either tablets that come with additional keyboards or laptops.

CollaborationThe company is currently developing a common reporting system, under-pinning everything from warehous-ing to the point of sale. QlikView will provide a common database infrastructure that ties all areas of the business together.

According to Batsford, the report-ing system adds a new dimension to looking at data within social busi-ness. QlikView has enabled Eat to in-teract via its new, improved mobile experience. He said the product al-lows staff to initiate a meeting through QlikView, whether people are in the office or the field, and in-

Eat tackles Olympic challenge with BIRene Batsford, head of IT at food retailer Eat, tells Matt Scott how it is using technology to meet customer demands

stantly interact with the dashboard and its data, recording notations.

“[We can] streamline the experi-ence of accessing information, engage staff and empower them so they can enhance their decision-making while improving their insight,” he says.

Collaboration goes further. For in-stance, Eat is using Google Docs and Maps for processes such as place-ment of new stores. Data from other stores is used to plot a catchment area. Additionally, Eat can factor in the catchment area and popularity of competitors in certain areas. ■

Area managers will be equipped with Windows tablets, which can then be synchronised with other de-vices across the business, even the tills at the point of sale. The area managers are responsible for a num-ber of outlets and their performance. They are tasked with ensuring that Eat provides the best customer expe-rience while also ensuring optimum business performance.

“Windows tablets were chosen for

more online› Review: QlikTech’s QlikView business intelligence platform

› QlikView BI expedites decision making at Canon

› Business intelligence and collaboration lead SaaS trends

› Computer Weekly buyer’s guide: business intelligence

“Labour optimisation

will be utilised during the Olympics”

Rene Batsford, Eat

17 | 20-26 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

A new take on The Birdie SongTwitter has added another string to its ever impressive bow of usefulness – it can now practically write Down-time entries.

The hashtag #ComputingSongs was trending in London earlier this month and included a number of excellent tweets. Here’s a selection of the best:■ Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes –

iPad the time of my life;■ Wham – Back me up before you

go-go;■ N.W.A – Outlook Express yourself;■ Elton John – Don’t you go breaking

my Hard-Drive;■ Meatloaf – A highway to HTML;■ Stevie Wonder – I just called to say

I love U-SB;■ Jay-Z – Got 99 browsers

and Internet Explorer isn’t 1.

If you think you can do better, feel free to share your suggestions.

Vince Cable avatar will stick a bullet in your assThe trend to make business applica-tions easier to use through what is known as Gamification could have the side effect of public services being delivered at gunpoint.

Applying for a government loan online has never been so risky. Downtime was trying to get a business loan last week and was surprised to see the cursor transform into an Uzi. When the application was ready to go, we had to put a bullet through the head of the avatar pointing us in the right direction.

Downtime thought it was great – until the application was rejected and an avatar of Vince Cable

appeared and put a cap in our ass.Just a straightforward “no” would

have sufficed.

Hopelessly devoted to Apple (see what we did there?)A stream of fanboi refugees wind-ing down Regent Street, equipped with sleeping bags for a rough night on the pavement, can mean only one thing: a new Apple prod-uct is about to hit the shelves.

This time, of course, it was the new iPad – complete with the magical properties of retina display, quad-core graphics, a five-megapixel cam-era and an... errr... no, that’s it. Truly a life-changing purchase – well, at least until the next one is released.

Downtime thinks that in 100,000 years’ time, archaeologists will be baffled by these large, flat paper-weights found in landfills across the globe. They’ll probably assume they were religious devices intended to provide divine communion with the great Apple God.

Which wouldn’t be far off, given the reverent devotion of some Apple fanatics.

Burglar recorded on SkypeBurglary rule 101: Always check there are no computing devices in the room before liberating any goods, be-cause someone may just be watching.

That’s the painful and embarrass-ing lesson learned by would-be Sunderland burglar, Ricky Elliott, when he broke into student Effrosy-ni Leventi’s bedroom while she was in the kitchen.

While Elliott was searching the room for goods to steal, he was being watched by Leventi’s friend Asterios Kokkinis, who was waiting for her to return to their Skype video call.

Realising he was witnessing a bur-glary, Kokkinis started capturing images of Elliot in action – until he

decided to steal the laptop being used for the Skype call.

Elliot, who had 142 previous con-victions, was arrested soon after-wards and later jailed for 29 months as Kokkinis was able to send Leventi the captured images, which she took to the police as evidence. ■

Read more on the Downtime blogcomputerweekly.com/downtime

heard something amusing or exasperating on the industry grapevine? E-mail cw-downtime@computerweekly.com

Were your parents this tough?American teen Michael Bell Jr will no doubt be concentrating a lot harder in school now.

After returning home one evening with his report card, which contained three F grades, Michael’s parents decided a punishment was in order.

Usually smartphones, laptops or internet privileges are taken away, but not in this case, oh no. Bell Jr was forced to stand on a street corner in Miami wearing a sandwich board.

The board declared that he was the “class clown” and read, “Hey, I want to be a class clown. Is it wrong?”

It continued on the back, “I’m in the 7th grade and got 3 F’s. Blow your horn if there’s something wrong with that.”

And as if that were not punishment enough, a video has also been uploaded to YouTube.

Downtime is considering contacting the Bell residence to see if Michael is available to offer us some free on-street advertising.

downtime

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• Management Challenges of Mobile Devices

• Social Networking’s Impact on IT Operations

• Network Management: Tools, Trends and Best Practises

• Cloud Computing and its Impact on I&O

• How to Obtain Real Value from ITIL

• Cost Optimization, Business Value

Re-invent IT Infrastructure and Operations to Deliver Business ValueEARLY BIRD SAVINGS Register by 13 April 2012 and save €300

Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit 201212 – 13 June | Frankfurt, Germany gartner.com/eu/iom