Earlier Management
Big Data in creepy hook-up with big-game whales
Open ... and Shut My son has a problem. One might even say an addiction. No, it's not to pornography, alcohol or drugs. It's to a massively multiplayer game, one that he can't seem to stop playing, in large part because the game's developer is crunching massive quantities of Big Data to learn exactly what will keep him on the hook.
Big Data, that …
Revealed: The gift that keeps on giving to Oracle ... is dying
Open ... and Shut Even as traditional enterprise IT vendors come under pressure from modern cloud and open-source applications, these old-school businesses have one strategy that is the gift that keeps on giving: Enterprise licence agreements.
Not only do ELAs help to shield vendors from pricing pressure from open-source alternatives, they also …
BYOD: A bigger headache for IT bosses than Windows Metro?
Nothing elicits passionate debate quite like the suggestion that consumer technology is dictating workplace IT - with the exception of arguments over the Windows 8 Metro desktop, perhaps.
The debate on the consumerisation of IT is packed with business, legal and human resources headaches. Individual prejudices and experience …
Why IT chiefs are irrelevant to Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy
Further evidence has emerged of the irrelevance of Windows 8 to enterprise IT – and of the irrelevance of this irrelevance.
A Forrester survey of IT hardware decision makers has found Windows 8 is less popular than its predecessor Windows 7 at the same stage in their launch cycles.
Just a quarter of firms expect to roll out …
Big Data CIOs: don't look for aliens that aren't there
CIOs have been urged to pull their collective fingers out when it comes to Big Data projects, with experts warning that excessive planning can delay initiatives to the point where the intelligence they generate is useless to the business.
Speaking at IDC’s Asia Pacific Business Analytics Conference 2012 in Hong Kong, emerging …
Big Data and analytics: Reg survey crunches the numbers
Every IT professional understands that relational databases play an important role in most organisations. Indeed, the previous article in this series highlighted that such repositories are used to hold business critical data in many organisations. Such “traditional platforms” are not only widely deployed, they are also well …
So you want an office of Apple Macs - here's a survival guide
Apple Macs are ready for the enterprise. Unsurprisingly, they can already be found in organisations of all sizes. The five sigma announcement by CERN of the Higgs boson bordered on an Apple advertisement. IBM has more than 10,000 Macbooks deployed. My own SME clients have heterogeneous networks, some are even Mac only.
With so …
IT ran its Melbourne Cup well before race day
The first Tuesday in November is a special day for Australians, as 'The race that stops a nation', the Melbourne Cup, makes a once-a-year flutter all-but-compulsory.
The workload faced by betting agencies therefore soars on the day, as punters flock to betting shops and hit the web to back their preferred beasts.
For Tabcorp, a …
Big Data lets CIOs go all CSI
APAC IT leaders have been urged to begin their Big Data planning now to ensure they have the right technology, skills and processes in place to tap the business benefits of a market set to be worth over $1.7bn by 2016.
Speaking at the MIG Data Centre Summit 2012 in Hong Kong on Wednesday, IT practitioners warned that harnessing …
Forgetting Microsoft: How Steve Ballmer's Surface could win
Open ... and Shut In a Windows world we bought the product. In Google's world we are the product. Judging from market share trends, we apparently don't mind being bought and sold. At least, so long as the price is right.
Yes, Apple gets all the news (and profits), but it's Google Android that is set to displace Microsoft Windows by 2016, …
Brace yourselves, IT suppliers: You'll be squeezed HARDER next year
IT law specialist Clare Murray of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that cost-cutting requirements and the changing needs of organisations are behind a rise in the number of IT outsourcing contract renegotiations. She said she expects the trend to continue.
"Customers are under pressure to cut costs and are …
Gartner spells out magic behind quadrants
Analyst group Gartner has detailed how it prepares its sometimes-controversial magic quadrants, revealing that a two-hour demo is sometimes part of the research process.
Gartner already offers a detailed explanation of how it compiles its Magic Quadrants here.
But in an exchange with governance, risk management and compliance …
Incompatible IT systems blamed for bank sale collapse
Royal Bank of Scotland's $1.7bn sale of 318 branches to Santander has gone titsup.
The Spanish bank pulled out, largely "because of problems over integrating the two banks' IT systems", The BBC reports.
The Telegraph has a teeny bit more detail, reporting a "series of IT problems that have resulted from a lack of compatibility …
The Big Data revolution: Big Bang or loud noise?
Analysis Anyone currently employed in any area of the IT business will be aware, however reluctantly, of the considerable amount of effort being put into marketing ‘Big Data’. Well brace yourselves, there's more of this to come.
During August and September of 2012 Freeform Dynamics surveyed 502 IT professional readers of The Register to …
Google trains Army's information Top Guns in data skills
The US Navy may have its Top Gun training school, but now the Army is sending its best of the best at systems management to a similar program at Google, to get training in industrial management tactics, techniques, and procedures.
Just like its flashier aviation counterpart, places at the Google program had to be earned …
BYOD cheers up staff, boosts productivity - and IT bosses hate it
Costs, security headaches and battles to get different technologies working with each other are stalling Bring-Your-Own-Device schemes in UK offices, according to new figures.
In an Insight poll of 232 IT managers in Blighty, 79 per cent said they aren't implementing strategies to allow employees to buy their own kit for both …
BYOD trend could kill off role of CIO – SCC
The traditional role of the CIO is under threat as the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) phenomenon crosses into the mainstream.
But the channel is set to feel the impact too, or so says reseller-cum-integrator SCC, whose CTO today delivered a keynote on 'Architecting Choice' to the CIO Connect Conference in London, identifying BYOD …
Why Oracle must kiss goodbye to its database past
Open ... and Shut A few years back Apple opted to drop the "Computer" from its corporate name, and instead became "Apple Inc." Last week, Oracle made a similar move, quietly stopping its decades old practice of reporting database revenues. Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison was quick to point out on Oracle's earnings call that for its database …
Man City drags Big Data into Big Football
Open ... and Shut Football is the world's most popular sport by a crushing margin. Yet for all the money and attention it gets, the beautiful game has remained doggedly anti-technology, eschewing video replays or goal-line technology despite the prevalence of such tools in other sports. One club, however, is opting to make technology a central …
'People will give you their data if you don't do nobbish things with it!'
Businesses stand to benefit if they grant consumers more control over how their personal data is used, a policy think-tank has said.
Demos said that consumers are suffering a "crisis of confidence" in relation to information sharing, and that businesses stand to enjoy a "significant advantage" over others if they have "open, …
CrimTrac seeks new CIO after incumbent joins Gartner
CrimTrac, Australia's agency charged with facilitating intelligence-sharing between States, Territories and the Commonwealth, is looking for a new CIO after incumbent Darin Brumby joined analyst firm Gartner.
Brumby's LinkedIn profile reveals the move, as does the fact that CrimTrac has advertised for his replacement. Gartner …
IT biz bosses are 'BIGGEST job cutters' in the US
Not only does automation help companies reduce their payrolls, the relentless competition among IT and telecom equipment and service suppliers - and the drive to ever-higher profit levels - is causing them to shed workers instead of adding them.
So says the headhunters and employment analysts at consultancy biz Challenger, Gray …
Capita ITS ditches UK job cuts, offshoring dream
Capita IT Services has finally shelved its plans to offshore jobs and make compulsory redundancies in 2013.
In August just 84 unionised workers at the reseller-cum-integrator threatened industrial action over moves to send part of the service desk to India and push through job cuts across the wider organisation.
Then last month …
HP throws an extra 2,000 staff onto chopping block
HP has added an extra two thousand workers to its mass redundancy programme, it confirmed today.
Back in May the troubled US tech titan threatened to axe 27,000 jobs by the end of fiscal 2014 to cut overheads and use some of the savings to invest in R&D. However, in a 10Q form filed today with US financial watchdog SEC, HP …
Germany leads global enterprise social push
German firms were hailed as the surprise global leaders in social business, according to a panel of industry experts who emphasised the importance of process, measurement and cultural fit in enterprise social programs.
IBM’s VP of social business evangelism, Sandy Carter, told attendees at the Social Media Matters conference in …
Beyond the relational database
Tech Panel The ‘Big Data’ Bandwagon is now in full flow and IT professionals are already being swamped with marketing explaining why they cannot afford to leave information unmined.
Once again, we are being bombarded with terms and messages that are ambiguous at best, meaningless at worst and simply confusing most of the time. So in true …
Titans of tech: Why I'll never trust 'em
Sysadmin blog I am responsible for making decisions regarding the purchase of computer hardware, software and services. I advise others regarding the tactical and strategic implementations of technologies and IT-related services. The financial security and stability of my own company, the companies of my clients and all the associated …
CIOs urged to take BYOD pleas with pinch of salt
When it comes to implementing mobile technologies inside and outside of the company, plan, plan and then plan some more, but don’t listen too hard to your customers or users, a panel of top IT leaders has advised.
Speaking at the CIO Executive Summit 2012 in Hong Kong this week, CIOs from a variety of industries explained that …
Microsoft hires 1,000 more workers in China
Microsoft will hire 1,000 extra employees in China over the next year, adding to the 4,500 it already has in the country.
The new staff will be added to the R&D, sales, marketing and services departments, Ralph Haupter CEO for Microsoft's Greater China business told reporters in Beijing.
The Windows maker is trying to get its …
Ballmer predicts 400 MILLION Win 8 Surface and Lumia fumblers
Steve Ballmer's back in the numbers game, this time predicting sales of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 kit to draw in application developers.
Ballmer is reported to have claimed at the event that "close" to 400 million Windows phones and tablets will be running Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.
He didn't say when, though. …
CIOs' most likely job move is a sideways shift
CIOs have a great opportunity to boss innovation in their organisation, but they’re not valued as strategic advisors by their CEOs, most of whom think they’ll be out of the door soon, according to analysts and IT leaders.
Gartner analyst Terick Chiu used a keynote at the CIO Executive Summit 2012 in Hong Kong on Wednesday to …
'Google's crap for business' - CIOs give ad giant dose of reality
UK CIOs don't consider Google a valuable enterprise supplier, according to a new survey.
Of the heads of IT of large British firms surveyed by bean counters at the Corporate IT Forum, more than half saw the Chocolate Factory as a company suitable for ordinary punters. Just five per cent think that it's a credible supplier to …
BYOD turns sysadmins into heroes
Bring Your Own Device programmes can help to keep staff happy and turn IT bods into "heroes" but the hard RoI from spikes in productivity is unproven, according to Intel’s IT manager for China.
Liam Keating told media at Chipzilla’s Cloud Summit event in Bangkok this week that Intel has around 29,000 employee handsets to manage …
Yang, bam, thank you ma'am: Lenovo supremo wallops rival biz
Chinese PC juggernaut Lenovo showed no signs of the wheels coming off its sales: its fiscal Q1 turnover jumped more than a third and profit growth wasn't far behind.
Turnover during the three months ended 30 June was up 35 per cent year-on-year to $8bn, and net income leapt 30 per cent to $141m. Operating profit climbed to $183m …
APAC CIOs told to take the gloves off
Asia Pacific CIOs had better brush up their combat skills because they’ll need to “hyper compete” in 2013 if they want to attract the best staff and innovate their way to success, according to analyst IDC.
Speaking at the Asia Pacific Summit 2012, IDC group vice president Sandra Ng argued that the region is the most competitive …
Unstoppable JBoss 'mafia' has big biz tech in its crosshairs
Open ... and Shut PayPal was the first Silicon Valley titan to get its own self-styled "mafia": a cadre of successful executives who left to create a range of great businesses like LinkedIn, Tesla and YouTube.
Google now has its own "mafia", albeit one stronger in management expertise than product prowess, and no doubt Facebook, Twitter, Square, …
Suppliers underwhelmed by UK's G-Cloud services catalogue
The number of tech companies lining up to join the government's G-Cloud service has dropped by nearly half with just over two weeks to go before new applications can be submitted.
Existing suppliers, meanwhile, have left the government's directory of ICT services in the sky.
The government on Tuesday blogged that there had been …
Samsung to probe claims of underage workers, abuse at supplier
Samsung has said that it will probe allegations that one of its suppliers employs underage workers. The South Korean company's investigators are slated to arrive in China today.
The New York-based China Labour Watch (CLW) released a report (PDF) earlier this week claiming that in three investigations during June and July, it …
Banking IT cowboys 'need whipping into shape by watchdog'
The technology underpinning the UK's financial services sector needs urgent investment if regulators are to be able to spot potential abuses and prevent future financial crises, an influential report has claimed.
Intellect, the trade association for the UK technology sector, said in its report (62-page/5MB PDF) that banks should …
Microsoft Surface slate: Acer, resellers predict a riot
Microsoft has scored two own goals by getting into the hardware game with Surface, the software giant's design for a laptop that thinks it's a tablet: long-standing PC manufacturers are alienated, and there is growing disquiet in the channel over Redmond's decision to sell the lap slab direct.
The Pegatron-built Surface slate …
Tesco helps high flyers avoid actual shops
UK grocery giant Tesco has devised a new way to ensure people don't actually have to enter its many stores – by setting up a glowing virtual shop slab at the airport.
Woman uses Tesco virtual shop
Customers making their way through London Gatwick's Airport can now distract themselves from bickering and boozy fellow passengers …
Scribe's mobe, MacBook pwned after hacker 'fast-talked Apple support'
Tech journo Mat Honan has told how he helplessly watched a hacker remotely erase and lock his iPhone, iPad and MacBook after his iCloud account was hijacked. It's a cautionary tale against relying too heavily on one cloud platform.
But the kicker?
It's alleged that the miscreant sweet-talked an Apple support staffer and …
