Computer Weekly articles from February 2003

Computer Weekly archives from February 2003

letters.
February 6, 2003... Enforce without fear or favour From Alex Shaw So Richard Thomas, the new information commissioner, wants to persuade data users to comply with the Data Protection Act rather than prosecute them, even though contravening the Act is a...

inside the bcs.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... n Full papers from nearly 30 conferences, seminars and workshops are now available online free of charge via the BCS Electronic Workshops in Computing service. "Workshops often report important results and bring together an influential...

Keeping in touch from a distance.
February 6, 2003... VoIP keeps a new off-campus facility in touch with the rest of Swansea Institute at a reasonable cost Swansea Institute is using voice over IP to ensure that staff working in the new music technology and drama facilities will be able to...

A voice in court for the vulnerable.
February 6, 2003... E-learning programme gives thousands essential training on new legislation to protect witnesses The Crown Prosecution Service is using e-learning to ensure that vulnerable witnesses and victims of sexual offences are treated in an...

Insurance firm's four-year .net policy pays out.(Willis )
February 6, 2003... Karl Cushing Global insurance broker Willis is starting to see the rewards of its four-year, multimillion-pound move to standardise its systems around Microsoft .net. The company chose to standardise on Microsoft's web services...

Linklaters merger prompts switch to Office 2000 and AD.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Karl Cushing Global law firm Linklaters has embarked on a major IT standardisation project. The firm is upgrading from Microsoft NT4 and Office 97 to Exchange 2000, Office 2000 and Active Directory supported by systems management...

Retail e-marketplace saves its members [pounds sterling]426m in two years.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Daniel Thomas The World-Wide Retail Exchange has saved its members more than $700m (pound sterling426m) since its launch in March 2000, the online business-to-business exchange for retailers and wholesalers revealed last week. ...

EDS hopes for central role in NHS overhaul.
February 6, 2003... Nick Huber EDS has outlined its ambitions to be at the centre of the government's multibillion-pound investment strategy to overhaul the NHS IT infrastructure. The targeting of the lucrative NHS market by the IT services giant...

Document deal to save bank [pounds sterling]19m.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Karl Cushing Lloyds TSB aims to save pound sterling19m over five years by outsourcing control of document production for its marketing operations to Xerox Business Services. Xerox will provide staff, procurement software and management...

Clothing store slashes its supply chain length.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Daniel Thomas Low-cost clothing retailer New Look has cut its average supply chain length - from product design to store delivery - to six weeks since implementing a merchandising management system. The company, which has 500 stores...

High price to pay for low-cost inkjets.
February 6, 2003... eric doyle tech talk Forget the consumables: who is going to be able to read the printing in years to come? Printers are often taken for granted. They are a necessity but are also viewed as a money pit. What you save on the...

Microsoft ruling steers future of online ID systems.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Karl Cushing The European Commission's ruling that Microsoft must make "substantial changes'' to its .net Passport system to safeguard users' privacy will have major implications for the future of online authentication and identity...

NHS courts [pounds sterling]5bn IT disaster by following the Libra route.
February 6, 2003... The National Health Service is about to embark on its largest-ever IT investment. About pound sterling5bn will be spent over five years. Senior NHS officials are confident of success, but then so were civil servants when they planned the Libra...

Paybox blow to m-payment market.
February 6, 2003... Daniel Thomas The future of mobile payments services looks increasingly uncertain following m-payments provider Paybox's abrupt exit from the UK market, analysts have warned. Mobile payments were supposed to revolutionise the...

Dilbertis personae: who's who in Dilbert's world.
February 6, 2003... Dilbert joins the ranks of Computer Weekly contributors this issue, so we thought we'd give over this week's Downtime page to introduce you to the world's favourite technology nerd and the characters that inhabit his universe. Since its...

Slammer was the fastest worm yet.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Karl Cushing and Mike Simons Experts have estimated that last week's Slammer worm attack cost users pound sterling600m. Within 10 minutes of the start of the attack the majority of the estimated 75,000 machines that were hit had been...

Warning over ID cards.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Bill Goodwin The government's proposals for a national electronic identity card are overly complex and risk failing to win acceptance from the UK public, it was claimed this week. Ubizen, a key IT supplier in Belgium's electronic ID...

Profiling technique optimises shops' CRM.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Daniel Thomas Increasing numbers of UK retailers are adopting a new customer profiling technique which is designed to allow them to exploit their large CRM investments in a more effective way. Analyst firm Forrester Research recently...

Doctors still in the dark about NHS IT strategy.
February 6, 2003... James Rogers Only one in three doctors believe the government's pound sterling5bn investment in NHS IT will deliver a significant improvement in patient care, a Computer Weekly-commissioned survey has found. Only 27% of more than 1,000...

New system to deliver EU farming subsidies.(Rural Payments Agency signed contract with Accenture )(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Mike Simons The Rural Payments Agency has signed a pound sterling35m, seven-year contract with Accenture to develop new online business processes to deliver Common Agricultural Policy payments to farmers and traders. The RPA, part of...

Act now on E-Skills UK.
February 6, 2003... Our industry's national training organisation is vital to UK business. It must not be dismantled In April last year, Computer Weekly wrote of its fears that employers could withdraw their support for government-backed IT training...

M&S signs up troubled telco.(Marks and Spencer )(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Daniel Thomas High street retailer Marks & Spencer has contracted Cable & Wireless to host its new internal datacentre, despite growing fears about the troubled telecoms firm's financial wellbeing. Analysts have advised C&W customers...

Microsoft support warning.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Cliff Saran Analysts have urged users to take extra care when buying extended support for software from Microsoft following a week in which the software giant changed its stated support policy on two operating systems. With Windows NT...

Flagship IT skills body set for April relaunch.
February 6, 2003... Bill Goodwin The public/private sector partnership responsible for IT training in the UK said it was confident it would win funding to become one of the government's new employer-led training organisations within a matter of months,...

E-envoy to lead source code unit.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Mike Simons E-envoy Andrew Pinder is to lead a government "information assurance" unit that will check the security of software used by government departments. In his first move as central sponsor for information assurance, Pinder...

Over half of IT chiefs say NHS plan will not deliver.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Daniel Thomas The government's investment plan to overhaul NHS IT will not deliver results, according to 58% of the IT managers responding to this week's Computer Weekly/ Harvey Nash Big Question poll. "Government IT projects rarely seem...

Users say IT plan is just more 'dinosaur thinking'.
February 6, 2003... NHS: As the government embarks on a pound sterling5bn spending initiative to overhaul IT in the health service, we launch a campaign to ensure the money is not squandered Computer Weekly's campaign to monitor how the NHS spends its pound...

Industry sticks by E-Skills UK.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Bill Goodwin E-skills UK, the public/private sector partnership responsible for tackling IT skills shortages in the UK has shrugged off concerns that delays in the government's training reforms will jeopardise support from employers. ...

Doctors attack health IT codes.
February 6, 2003... NHS IT: Government's pound sterling5bn IT programme runs into trouble as key medical coding scheme comes under fire and doctors complain they have not been consulted Tony Collins Clinicians have strongly criticised a medical coding...

in briefa.
February 6, 2003... Support for 'Son of Star Wars' radar upgrades The House of Commons defence committee has backed the upgrade of computers and software at the Fylingdales and Menwith Hill early warning radar stations in North Yorkshire for the US' "Son of...

dpm's diary; c p bound.
February 6, 2003... Monday "Old local government IT managers don't diea" offered Mavis "athey just get a job working for Asslic." "Thank you, but I am not ready to retire just yet." "But if you don't hurry up there won't be any pension top-up...

How does your budget; stack up?
February 6, 2003... IT spending is still rising in the UK, though slower than in recent years. But the pattern of spending is changing. Does your budget reflect the national trends? Karl Schneider reports If you've recently met any senior executives from an IT...

Job seekers need to get smart in a tough market.(Industry Overview)
February 6, 2003... There is no prospect of a major rise in demand for IT skills, and job hunters must work hard to present themselves to employers in the best possible light, recruitment experts told a a packed BCS meeting last month, writes John Kavanagh. ...

Fast track to internet gains.
February 6, 2003... Two pioneering companies, Halifax and Amtrak have shown how to avoid the risks of transitioning business to the internet while still maximising the opportunities, writes Julia Vowler The Halifax had a clear idea of the business...

Plans,what plans? say medics.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2003... Only two in 100 doctors say they have been adequately consulted over NHS plans for national electronic booking systems and patient records, according to a survey of more than 1,000 doctors. The survey, conducted for Computer Weekly by...

A vision of technology to come.
February 6, 2003... IT budgets for 2003 are tight so it is worth making a careful evaluation of the raft of new software and hardware due on the market this year before you build a case for upgrading, writes Danny Bradbury With the second month of 2003 upon...

letters.
February 13, 2003... NHS should learn from the net From Alex Schlup It is easy to lambast the public sector and its inability to deliver large-scale IT projects (Computer Weekly, 6 February). The real problem is that very large IT projects are almost...

How to break the coding ceiling?(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... I am 40 and have 18 years of programming experience in the industrial IT sector - with small firms that won't fund training. I feel I need to upgrade my skills and perhaps move into management. I am prepared to pay for an advanced computing...

inside the bcs.
February 13, 2003... n Risk management and personal or "soft" skills are the topics for four weekly sessions being run by the BCS Project Management Specialist Group. The spring school on soft skills will take place in Bristol, starting on 3 March. It costs pound...

Make CVs short and to the point.
February 13, 2003... david taylor inside track A concise, memorable resume is essential to get you your perfect job The new year is a time to think about your career, and, so far, this year has seen an increasing shortage of jobs. But the jobs are out...

Rules for a successful project.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... david rippon groundswell I have recently been involved in preparing the response of the BCS to the Home Office consultation paper on entitlement cards and identity fraud. The consultation paper proposed a solution which broke just...

Directors must take IT responsibilities on board.
February 13, 2003... paul williams opinion Board members need to learn more about IT to fulfil their corporate governance duties All board directors now understand their responsibilities for corporate governance. They can hardly fail to do so...

Want to see the future of storage? Look to Linux.
February 13, 2003... phil payne opinion Fashion can deceive, but backing Linux is looking a cosy fit Fashion often seems to rule the IT world, sometimes beneficially. It used to be said that you couldn't get fired for buying IBM. Then the trend became...

One chip answer to integrated circuits.
February 13, 2003... Asic puts multi-functionality on a single chip, writes Nick Langley What is it? An Application Specific Integrated Circuit (Asic), which puts the functionality that would otherwise be provided by a number of different components on a...

Schools link up to share content.
February 13, 2003... Broadband connectivity is allowing the region's pupils and teachers to plug into a community of learning Schoolchildren in the East Midlands are using broadband connectivity to share online content with pupils from other schools and to do...

Police data out of date.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... The Home Office has admitted that the controversial Police National Computer is still dogged by out-of-date information although it says it is attempting to resolve the situation. Figures obtained by the BBC revealed some police forces are...

Charity pushes for user-friendly forms.
February 13, 2003... Guide promotes good practice in creating forms that blind and partially-sighted internet users can access The Royal National Institute of the Blind is to release a guide to help companies make their websites more user-friendly for blind and...

aand a further [pounds sterling]2m with web licence help.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Antony Adshead In addition to savings from a new Novell infrastructure, Surrey Council expects to save up to pound sterling2m a year by encouraging users to resolve queries and fill in forms online. The council plans to encourage staff...

Surrey to save [pounds sterling]1.6m a year with Novella.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Antony Adshead Surrey County Council is to embark on a pound sterling1m standardisation on Novell infrastructure which will see it save pound sterling1.6m a year. John Edwards, head of technical services at Surrey Council, said the...

EMC boost for storage efficiency.(Symmetrix DMX series of data storage devices)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... James Rogers Experts have welcomed a new range of products from storage giant EMC as offering improved performance and scalability for users of Symmetrix systems. The Symmetrix storage systems feature the Direct Matrix (DMX)...

HP source supplies filling for Bread base.
February 13, 2003... In 1971, schmaltzy pop group Bread sang, "If a picture paints a thousand wordsa" but the latest scientific research proves otherwise. At a press event in Singapore, Hewlett-Packard claimed that an A4 inkjet, full-colour image uses the same...

Let users make their own upgrade decisions.(running unsupported applications instead of upgrading)
February 13, 2003... cliff saran opinion I doubt many IT managers look forward to new releases of software. Along with the pain of having to assess whether the changes or improvements merit an upgrade, they have to contend with a software time-bomb. ...

Analysts back 802.11a despite imminent 11g.
February 13, 2003... Now the Wi-fi Alliance has ratified the first tranche of 802.11a wireless products, analysts have said it may be time for businesses to look more seriously at this technology, writes Antony Adshead. While plans for third-generation...

Half of top 50 UK retailers are breaking online trading laws.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Daniel Thomas Almost half of the UK's top 50 retailers are trading online illegally, flouting laws such as the E-Commerce Regulations, the Data Protection Act and distance selling legislation, new research has revealed. Unless online...

Financial firms start using digital certificates.
February 13, 2003... Nick Huber A fledgling digital certificate service for the life assurance and pensions industry has signed-up its 1,000th customer, and it is now being rolled out to all of the UK's financial advisers. The milestone was a welcome boost...

Appeal for old computers.(Charity Computer Aid International )(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Karl Cushing Charity Computer Aid International plans to increase the number of refurbished PCs it ships to not-for-profit organisations worldwide from 5,000 to 50,000 a year by 2006 and is appealing for more donations. "There is...

Win2000 drives expansion.(easyCar online car rental agency doubles its operation through system upgrade)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Daniel Thomas Online car rental firm easyCar is planning to expand its operation by 200% this year, after completing a systems upgrade onto Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Windows 2000 software. EasyCar, which was set up in April 2000,...

Exam board input will bring down the cost of supplier qualifications.
February 13, 2003... Supplier-based courses can be prohibitivelyexpensive for both students and IT professionals. But that will change as exam boards start to include supplier-related courses on syllabuses, writes Bill Goodwin Employers have long been...

E-mail is big storage headache.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... James Rogers IT managers are still struggling with spiralling volumes of data, according to the latest report on storage trends from Computer Weekly and consultancy Posetiv. The survey of more than 1,000 senior IT professionals...

Socitm says Oracle deal will be good for councils.(Society of IT Management )(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... James Rogers The government's new contract with Oracle for the supply of software to public sector bodies represents value for money, according to Bob Griffith, special projects secretary at the Society of IT Management. Griffith, who...

Bradford & Bingley outsources its networks to BT in [pounds sterling]140m contract.
February 13, 2003... Nick Huber Bradford & Bingley is to outsource its communications infrastructure to BT in a 10-year, [pounds sterling]140m deal. The agreement will see BT deliver a portfolio of managed voice and data services to the building society's...

Alstom expects 200% ROI from SAP roll-out.
February 13, 2003... Antony Adshead Gas turbine maker Alstom has predicted it will achieve a 200% return on its ERP investment after it recently completed the first phase of a SAP R/3 roll-out. The first phase of the project, carried out with integrator...

Visa figures show online sales boom.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Daniel Thomas European Visa cardholders spent c2.5bn (pound sterling1.7bn) online during the fourth quarter of 2002 - a 136% increase on the same period in 2001 - the credit card company has revealed. Visa EU said the figures, released...

Are you ready for Basel 2?(New Basel Capital Accord)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Question: what code of conduct is set to cost banks between pound sterling20m and pound sterling100m in compliance costs, posing huge IT and project management challenges? Answer: the New Basel Capital Accord. Basel 2 - as it is more commonly...

Lastminute's new IT chief puts web stability top of the agenda.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Daniel Thomas Systems integration and website stability will be the major IT challenges faced by Lastminute.com during 2003, the new chief technology officer at the online leisure and travel retailer said this week. Chip Steinmetz, who...

Experts cast doubt on congestion charge systems.(London implements traffic fees)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Ross Bentley Analysts have questioned whether the IT system underpinning London's congestion charging scheme will hold up when it goes live next Monday (February 17). Independent computer litigation expert Stephen Castell said, "I am...

Off-the shelf SAP speeds Arco roll-out. .(safety equipment company implements enterprise resource planning system)
February 13, 2003... Cliff Saran Safety equipment manufacturer Arco was able to implement data archiving for its ERP system in just a few days, thanks to a new service being piloted by SAP UK. The data archiving packaged service is among 35 fixed-price,...

Code conversion saves BSkyB [pounds sterling]12m.(British Sky Broadcasting Group)
February 13, 2003... Daniel Thomas Television company BSkyB has completed an pound sterling8m IT conversion project to upgrade its core airtime sales system, in a move that the broadcaster estimates has saved it pound sterling12m and two years' development...

Zurich scales back its delayed claims system.(Zurich Financial Services )
February 13, 2003... Nick Huber Fresh question marks have been raised over the IT strategy of Zurich Financial Services in the UK after further delays and u-turns on a major project at the insurance giant. A new claims system, which was supposed to have...

Training collapse hits IT staff.(Cerco Training goes bankrupt)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Bill Goodwin IT workers have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after a training company that offered them the guarantee of a job or their money back announced it could no longer afford to continue in business. Cheshire-based...

EC forms a single cyber security agency for Europe.(European Commission)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Bill Goodwin Businesses will play a key role in a c24.3bn (pound sterling16bn) cyber security agency unveiled by the European Commission this week to combat the growing threats posed by computer viruses, hacking and denial-of-service...

Fujitsu bankruptcy risk over courts IT contract.
February 13, 2003... Tony Collins The future of Fujitsu Services, one of the biggest suppliers to the UK government, was potentially at risk as losses mounted on the Libra project at the Lord Chancellor's Department, it emerged this week. The company...

Data clashes cost British Gas [pounds sterling]13m.
February 13, 2003... Five years after deregulation electricity market IT still lacks common data standards Antony Adshead About 50,000 British Gas customers have waited up to a year for electricity bills because supply companies have not developed common...

ICI loses [pounds sterling]23m over SAP failure.(supply chain management software causes loss)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Antony Adshead ICI will write off a total of pound sterling23m as a result of a failed SAP supply chain software implementation last year in its Quest flavours and fragrances division. Following its full year results, issued this week,...

IT directors say war with Iraq is unlikely to affect IT budgets.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Nick Huber Only 17% of IT bosses believe a war with Iraq would affect their IT budgets, according to the results of this week's Computer Weekly/Harvey Nash Big Question survey. With the prospect of a war against Iraq looking more...

Health department attacks Computer Weekly expose.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Tony Collins The Department of Health has attacked coverage in Computer Weekly of a "Snomed" project to introduce a medical coding system for the NHS. Last week Computer Weekly reported that some clinicians have rejected Snomed - a...

in briefa.(News Briefs)
February 13, 2003... Suzuki revs up information distribution The UK arm of motor manufacturer Suzuki hopes to save pound sterling250,000 a year by improving the distribution of information to its dealer network using a content management system from Tridion....

dpm's diary; c p bound.(Column)
February 13, 2003... Monday Spent today at a "segmentation analysis workshop" run by Dolittle and Touchup, our external auditor. It seems that since the downturn they too have discovered they are experts in electronic government or, as they put it, public...

The storage balancing act.
February 13, 2003... The latest study into how companies are coping with the storage challenge shows that ITmanagers are still struggling with spiralling volumes of data, often adopting networked storage architectures to conquer the data mountain. JAMES ROGERS...

Call for research into uses for broadband.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Antony Adshead UK broadband adoption could stall unless research is carried out into the content people want, an academic unit said this week. Jyoti Choudrie of the department of information systems and computing at Brunel University...

IT staff relying on users to discover network problems.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Antony Adshead IT directors rely on users more than on monitoring systems to find out about problems on their networks, a survey of 100 IT chiefs has found. The survey, conducted by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by supplier Network...

Fast's fear factors.(Federation Against Software Theft combats software piracy)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... According to the website of the Federation Against Software Theft, the services it offers are awareness, education, consultancy, support and certification. It might wish to add scaremongering to the list. As part of a pilot marketing...

IT chiefs must take a lead on Basel 2.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2003... Nick Huber IT directors in the banking industry need to promote the business benefits of complying with a revised code on risk management, according to a leading industry expert. The New Basel Capital Accord, dubbed Basel 2, aims to...

New awards celebrate individual IT excellence.(British Computer Society IT Excellence Awards)
February 13, 2003... The BCS has launched a major new range of IT Excellence Awards to mark the contribution of individual IT professionals, user companies and suppliers to UK business and public services, writes John Kavanagh. The BCS IT Excellence Awards...