Robert Jaques

The Internet is a dead loss when it comes to finding and recruiting staff: only five per cent of UK HR managers used online recruitment sites in 2003, IT services firm Parity claims. According to its research, the Internet has failed to win over UK firms as an effective recruitment tool. The poll, albeit from a relatively small …

UK firms have been warned to prepare for impending changes to national law that will give the police powers to deny staff access to offices and mission critical data in the event of a major incident. Under proposed amendments to the Civil Contingencies Bill, the police will be able to evacuate danger areas should a " …

Demand for Wireless local area network (WLAN) technology is exploding with the latest research indicating that over 80 per cent of firms currently using wireless kit will expand their deployments in the first six months of 2004. The biggest reason for these expansion plans is employee productivity improvements, according to the …

3Com today unveiled its highest-performance enterprise LAN switch to date. The 3Com Switch 7700R, designed for enterprise campus network backbones, ships with Quality of Service and bandwidth management functionality designed to support to support "many thousands of users" and converged voice/video/data applications. Part of …

Sales of data networking equipment across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) remained steady during 2003, clocking up total revenues $6.4 billion. According to the latest market research from In-Stat/MDR, the EMEA market for mature networking kit such as LAN switches and enterprise routers is only ticking over slowly, …

Utility computing companies are facing "life and death" choices as they struggle to adapt in a market sector undergoing seismic changes. IDC warns that existing suppliers of utility computing must adapt or die as demand shifts away from the large enterprises - which have previously been the main customers of utility IT services …

A UK industry group has slammed "untrue and misleading" warnings from an "opportunistic" ebusiness firm that claims it is now illegal for British business to transmit invoices by email. The row erupted after electronic invoicing outfit Global Invoice Corporation sent out a starkly worded statement claiming that: "From January 1 …

EMEA enterprise telephony market bucks downturn After a spell in the market doldrums the EMEA enterprise telephony sector has returned to positive sales growth, with year-on-year increases in the third quarter of 2003 reaching almost 5 per cent. According to Canalys, EMEA beat the global average which saw slightly more modest …

The Government's legal attempt to crack down on email spam and unwanted phone calls has been condemned as a recipe for disaster that will hit law abiding UK businesses much harder than the spammers it is trying to stop. According to hi-tech industries' trade association Intellect, the increased costs of managing and storing …

UK businesses are drowning beneath a rising tide of computer crime, says Microsoft which is coming to the rescue with new chums the National High Tech Crime Unit, Business Watch and the British Chambers of Commerce. Almost half of UK small firms suffer at least one malicious security breach every year, ranging from major …

Cisco Systems has refreshed its carrier-class 12000 series routers by doubling core network capacity to 40 Gbps and adding revamped supporting products, including line cards, software, and hardware modules. Among the most prominent product additions are the 40 (Gbps) per slot Cisco 12800 router and accompanying higher density …

Intellect, the hi-tech industries’ trade association, has welcomed the Government’s proposals to improve the R&D tax credits system, in its response to Chancellor Gordon Brown's Pre-Budget report. Tom Wills-Sandford, Intellect campaigns director said: “The steps announced today will provide increased incentives to multi- …

High-tech innovation in the UK is haemorrhaging offshore and only the Government offering improved tax breaks to support Britain as a research and development base can stem the tide. This stark warning came from trade association Intellect which warned today in its Pre-Budget report that the nation will no longer be able …

Microsoft Business Solutions today released to manufacturing final code for its latest customer relationship management (CRM) software. Version 1.2 of Microsoft CRM offers sales, marketing and customer service modules and is commercially available in 47 geographies from January 2004. The previous release, Microsoft CRM 1.0, was …

BT is to be the first UK provider to offer Siebel Systems' CRM OnDemand as a hosted service for small and medium-sized firms. The service can be set up as a stand-alone installation or integrated with existing on-site deployments of Siebel's customer relatinoship management software. It is billed on a per licence per user per …

Vodafone UK has assembled a package flogging the latest BlackBerry 7230 wireless handheld to small companies and individuals. Previously the Research in Motion (RIM) mobile email device was offered only to companies that integrated RIM's back end software with groupware applications to enable the pushing of email to handhelds …

The future iss burning bright for the ICT manufacturing and services across the European Union as the continent enjoys a "broadband revolution" and takes up global leadership in the mobile sector. This upbeat assessment came from the European Network of Training Organisations Conference 2003 in Brussels this week. At the event …

BT has rolled out a package that it says will enable UK firms to get an office network up and running in less than 60 minutes. The telco's "Office in an Hour" bundle uses 802.11b wireless kit to link up to 10 PCs together in a peer to peer local area network that allows firms to share files and peripherals, such as printers and …

BriefingFor the majority of enterprise corporates Wide Area Network (WAN) infrastructures will form one of their biggest operational expenses in terms of total cost of networking ownership. Given this fact, selecting the most appropriate wide area solution - or indeed combination of solutions - is a choice that firms cannot afford to …

The Department of Trade and Industry yesterday brought all the Government's information services for UK small and medium-sized businesses under the umbrella of a single website. Business Link, the DTI-backed business advice service, fronts the site. Trade and industry Minister Jacqui Smith. said the site was created to help the …

Just when it appeared that the SCO-Novell-SuSE ménage a trois couldn't get any more messy, Tarantella- the company formerly known as SCO - has unveiled platform support for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server in its remote application access offering. Tarantella, named after its flagship web-based remote access product, came into …

Light at end of the tunnel glows for network equipment vendors But it's not burning bright The enterprise and carrier networking sectors are at last heading for an upturn. But so very slowly, according to two new Gartnerr studies Worldwide Ethernet switch port shipments, according to the market watcher's preliminary number …

Companies that take the plunge with widespread Wireless LAN deployments can expect to enjoy "significant productivity gains and increasing financial returns". According to the 2003 Wireless LAN Benefits Study conducted by NOP - but commissioned by Cisco - WLANs will create a nirvana of increased employee productivity, …

The Inland Revenue yesterday promised that small employers in the UK - all one and a half million of them - can get up to £825 tax-free if they send in their employer end of year tax returns online. The sweetener marks the opening salvo in a battle the taxman will wage over the next three weeks to raise awareness of regulation …

The Government yesterday kicked off a programme to help UK firms get their hands on a share of €17.5 billion earmarked by the European Union has for research and development projects. Dubbed somewhat cryptically FP6UK - Framework Programme 6 UK - the scheme is designed to help UK companies get a share of the EU's currently …