Earlier Management
1 in 7 WinXP-using biz bods DON'T KNOW Microsoft is pulling the plug
A large number of Microsoft customers are in for a rude awakening on 8 April 2014.
With less than 400 days to go, 15 per cent of those running Windows XP are still unaware that that’s the date Microsoft finally turns off all support for its legacy PC operating system, according to a recent survey.
After 8 April next year, …
IT sector needs to keep getting greener: Alcatel-Lucent study
The IT industry needs to work on efficiency to curb its unrelenting demand for electricity – and even if it does, by 2020 it will be responsible for four per cent of the world's greenhouse gas output, according to an Alcatel-Lucent-funded study.
The assessment, conducted by BIO Intelligence Services, suggests that the four per …
Amazon accused of knocking off AWS customers' products
Exclusive The torrential growth of Amazon Web Services' cloud is coming at the expense of the web giant's customers, some of its partners contend – and they're not happy about the tactics being used by the company.
For several months, Amazon has been encroaching onto the turf of other companies, typically by producing knockoffs of …
US economy defies Fiscal Cliff, creates plenty of IT services jobs
The US federal government's budget crisis at the end of 2012 did mess with America's economy and the jobs market in particular. But according to the latest employment report from the Department of Labor, companies were a tad more resilient in the face of the Fiscal Cliff than many had expected.
As El Reg reported a month ago, …
IBM moves Power Systems manufacturing from Minnesota to Mexico
It is the end of an era – the minicomputer era to be precise – for the IBMers who work in the company's sprawling Rochester, Minnesota facility. Their jobs are moving to Mexico.
Big Blue had a meeting with the approximately 2,800 employees in the facility on Tuesday afternoon and told them it would cease manufacturing operations …
'Mainframe blowout' knackered millions of RBS, NatWest accounts
A hardware fault in one of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group's mainframes prevented millions of customers from accessing their accounts last night.
A spokesman said an unspecified system failure was to blame after folks were unable to log into online banking, use cash machines or make payments at the tills for three hours on …
New UK.gov cyber-security standard puts MANAGERS in firing line
The UK government is seeking to hear from businesses that would be interested in submitting evidence to help form a new "organisational standard" for cyber security.
The Cyber Security and Resilience Team within the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS) has asked businesses to detail initial interest in …
RBS and NatWest FAIL downs services across UK
Updated Thirsty NatWest and RBS customers across the UK are finding it difficult to get the last round in tonight, as the banks' systems have failed.
The megabork, which began at around 9:30pm, has taken down cash machines, online banking and telephone banking for the majority of its customers across the UK.
"We are aware of the …
Microsoft about-face: Office 2013 license IS transferable now
Updated In a reversal of its previously announced policy, Microsoft says it is altering the terms of the retail Office 2013 license to remove the clause that permanently tied each installation of the suite to a single PC.
"Based on customer feedback we have changed the Office 2013 retail license agreement to allow customers to transfer …
Corporates! Bring in all-purpose filler for IT skills gap, thunders Steelie Neelie
Brussels' unelected digital czar warned on Monday that the European Union's competitive strength in the media and technology markets could be weakened if people fail to continue to develop the right IT skills.
Neelie Kroes said that a coalition funded by the European Commission to the tune of €1m had been created to address that …
Amazon CTO: Big Data? An unfortunate, 'catchy phrase'
Technology Frontiers “I love that the world is data intensive... unfortunately, it’s called 'Big Data',” says Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels, who went on to describe BD as "a nice catchy phrase".
Did the CTO of a company in the top tier of those generating and storing billions of objects through retail sales and cloud service just …
Don't believe the IT hype: Ye cannae change the laws of physics
It's fun to be on the receiving end of IT advertising. The vendor's ads start by promising to solve your business problems better than the competition can, and then the superlatives begin to snowball until an answer to global warming and a solution for war in Iraq are both in there among the plug-ins you can buy to make your …
World spent $3.6 TREEELLION on ICT in 2012 - analyst
International Data Corporation (IDC) said that the figure included what businesses had spent on telecoms services and that total expenditure on hardware, software and IT services alone had topped $2 trillion on its own. The latter figure represented a 5.9 per cent increase from the total IT expenditure in 2011 and was recorded …
Big Blue to embiggen itself even more on your big data
IBM hosted its annual Investor Briefing at the Almaden Research Center in Silicon Valley on Thursday, and the top brass of the company spent many hours trying to prove to Wall Street that Big Blue was not going to have another near-death experience as the IT industry goes through another gut-wrenching transformation.
Having …
Intel beckons SMBs aboard Big Data bandwagon
Cutting edge Big Data projects might seem the sole preserve of big name multinationals and government organisations but the democratisation of these next gen analytics capabilities is coming soon to an SMB near you, according to Intel.
Speaking at the APAC launch of the Intel Distribution for Apache Hadoop, Chipzilla’s global …
Hey, software snobs: Hardware love can set your code free
Comment In computing there are many, many different ways to run down other people’s work, not the least of which is: “OK, so they removed the bottleneck, but only by throwing faster hardware at it.”
The implication is that tackling an issue just with software is intrinsically better. When did you ever hear anyone say: “OK, so they …
Survey: Bosses are DESPERATE and GAGGING for Linux skills
Demand for IT professionals with Linux skills is stronger than ever, but a new worldwide survey of more than 850 hiring managers and 2,600 Linux professionals indicates that companies are having a hard time finding qualified hires.
Among the findings of the survey, which was conducted by careers website Dice and the Linux …
I used to be an Oracle DBA ... but now I'm a Big Data guru
As the demand for Oracle skills fades along with VB and as even Java loses its shine, the smart developer is looking at what will pay the bills for the next decade.
As an ITpro you have to bet your career every few years and Big Data is too obvious an opportunity to pass up. The problem being that it’s not a single product that …
Next HP CEO is already working at HP, says Meg Whitman
HP CEO Meg Whitman says her eventual successor will be recruited from within the company and not externally as has been the case with the previous batch of bigwigs.
Ever since it hauled in Carly Fiorina from Lucent, who was replaced by Mark Hurd, then Leo Apotheker and Whitman, onlookers criticised HP's board for bypassing …
Bill Gates: Windows Phone strategy was 'a mistake'
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates may be devoting more time to running his philanthropic foundation than to day-to-day operations in Redmond these days, but that doesn't mean he's satisfied with how things are going at the company he founded, particularly where mobility is concerned.
In an interview with CBS This Morning's Charlie …
What do YOU look for in a tech CEO: Smart, sales savvy, his own hair?
Channel player would like to meet tech CEO with solid sales background, understanding of the IT distribution channel, and no commitment issues. Relaxed attitude to rebates an advantage. Smokers, short-arses and visionaries need not apply.
Is that too much to ask? Many industry veterans might tell you it is.
Most channel players …
Australia cuts Microsoft bill by AU$100m
Australia has reduced the amount of money it pays for Microsoft products by AU$100m (£66m, $103m), according to the nation's Chief Technology Officer John Sheridan.
Speaking yesterday at the Kickstart conference, Sheridan explained that consolidating contracts from 42 to one and working through a single reseller has enabled the …
Big Data: Why it's not always that big nor even that clever
You may not realize it, but data is far and away the most critical element in any computer system. Data is all-important. It’s the center of the universe.
A managing director at JPMorgan Chase was quoted as calling data “the lifeblood of the company.” A major tech conference held recently (with data as its primary focus) …
Data scientists: Do they even exist?
Open ... and Shut Big Data is all the rage. Now if only someone had to clue what to do with it.
According to a new survey of senior executives by Big data consultantancy NewVantage, Big Data is "top of mind for leading industry executives," but these same executives struggle to find the right people to analyse their data. In fact, while 70 per …
Is social networking good for anything more than cat pics?
Sysadmin blog LinkedIn made money in 2012. By all accounts it has done better than it had the year before, and as a result its stock price has soared. Despite this, I have some serious questions about the service, even as my fellow technorati fall all over themselves to heap praise upon the company.
I get why LinkedIn is attractive to certain …
Don't get 2e2'd: How to survive when your IT supplier goes titsup
Analysis I used to know a finance director who had a favourite mantra: “Minimise fixed costs.”
The concept's a simple one: by all means use permanent staff to deal with the aspects of your business that don't change much, but where your revenue streams go up and down, think of ways of allowing the cost of servicing those revenue streams …
BYOD is a PITA: Employee devices cost firms £61 a month
Companies are paying £61 a month for every device their workers bring into the office, but less than half of IT departments have any say in mobile strategy these days.
The numbers come from biz Wi-Fi flogger iPass, which discovered that only 48 per cent of IT departments are still in control of the spending on mobile devices, …
The business mullet: Cool or tool?
Open ... and Shut Silicon Valley is notoriously casual in its dress and business demeanor. In a culture that celebrates every day as Casual Friday, it's hard to get the tech crowd to dress up.
Which is why it's so painful when techie types try to dress up. Maybe they need to pitch a VC. Maybe they have an important sales meeting with a potential …
About to outsource your IT? Read this first
Whenever a major service provider runs into financial difficulties it is undoubtedly an extremely unsettling period, not least for the workforce, customers and management.
Tough decisions need to be made in very tight timeframes which often don't allow much time for strategic planning. Financial distress is one of the ever- …
Lawyer: 2e2 customers should act quickly as liquidation looms
Any 2e2 customers that clung on in the hope a buyer could be found for fallen channel giant must act now to minimise disruption to service, a law firm has warned.
More than a week has passed since 2e2's 10 UK subsidiaries were placed in the hands of FTI Consulting, and the administrator seems to have run out of potential buyers …
Big Data versus small data: Unpicking the paradox
NoSQL and Big Data crashed into the ordered world of relational architectures a few years back, thanks to services like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
But while concepts such as key value stores and content-specific stores have certainly enriched our environments, the downside to their arrival is that it has created quite a bit …
2e2 for you: Should zombies be allowed to run NHS IT?
The 2e2 Group finally called in the administrators to its UK ops* late on Monday 28 January, 2013, a month or two after main senior directors were released and replaced on the instructions of owners Hutton Collins.
The IT services firm had recently re-stated a year’s accounts, was rumoured to have been in breach of banking …
Analyst says vendors offer pretend reference customers
Gartner senior research analyst Jarod Greene has alleged vendors sometimes suggest he call reference customers that may not exist.
In a blog post, Greene offers the following three examples of odd things that happen when he asks for customer references:
”I’ve been sent emails from Analyst Relations people that brag about recent …
Microsoft Dell deal would restore PC makers' confidence
Analysis The PC business could experience not one but two seismic events on Monday.
First, the world’s third biggest PC maker is expected to announce a $20bn leveraged buyout, taking it off the stock market and putting it back into private hands.
Twenty-five years after Dell floated, the PC maker’s management would no longer be …
I watched Excel meet 1-2-3, and beat it fair and square
I remember Lotus 1-2-3 very well. It really was as widely used as all the history-of-Lotus stories claim it was. In fact, back around, say, 1984, when almost no software package had a monopoly, Lotus already had its particular niche locked up tightly.
That’s right: WordPerfect was still a serious competitor to Microsoft Word …
Java open-source frameworks 'pose risk' to biz - report
Open-source programming frameworks revolutionised Java development during the last decade, but not enough people know how to use them properly.
That’s according to the CRASH Special Report by CAST that sampled 496 applications with 152 million lines of code and found most apps had been misconfigured. This increased the degree of …
Help us out here: What's the POINT of Microsoft Office 2013?
Analysis It was Verity Stob who identified the key challenge for Microsoft Office upgrades: "Name just ONE feature introduced into Word in the 21st century that the weak-willed upgrader regularly uses," asked the antiquarian.
Fourteen revisions since the first Office that it may not be easy, because spell checking, grammar checking, …
Why did your outsourced IT fall over? Cos you weren't on Twitter
The days of signing off an IT contract then kicking back and scoffing peanuts for the next three years are over.
Executives will have to constantly monitor their outsourcers - even if it means using social networks - if they want to get value for money, according to Gartner analysts in a startling report for 2013.
Companies …
My top tip for Microsoft: Stop charging for Windows Phone 8
Open ... and Shut While Microsoft posted solid numbers for Windows 8, anyone paying attention to Intel's quarterly report can see that the writing is on the wall for desktop computing. Perhaps surprisingly, this is also true of the enterprise, generally not an early mover on technology trends. According to a new Appcelerator survey of enterprise …
Tech titans sell yesterday's idea wrapped in tomorrow's dream
Open ... and Shut News flash: Oracle and SAP are both "cloud washers" who pretend to have sexy, cool technology, but actually are encumbered by legacy systems.
This is the charge that cloud consultant David Linthicum and Deal Architect founder Vinnie Mirchandani level against the two giants, but one wonders why they bother. It's standard …
Microsoftie's tell-all on 'rival-flinging' Ballmer: The politics of disbelief
Analysis A former Microsoft executive has sketched an unflattering portrait of Steve Ballmer that depicts him as a cut-throat Machiavellian schemer, and claimed in his new book that the top man at Redmond has forced out rivals who challenged his authority.
Joachim Kempin, a former head of Microsoft's OEM business, claims chief executive …
Speaking in Tech: 'VCs hate open source because the path to money is longer'
Podcast speaking_in_tech Greg Knieriemen podcast enterprise
This week's enterprise techcast has Neanderthal babies, bets with vice presidents, arguing about taxes ... and even mixes in the odd bit of tech. It doesn't have any guests either, but it hardly needs those, as we have the full complement of the Speaking In Tech crew this …
