Computer Weekly articles from June 2008

Computer Weekly archives from June 2008

Management.
June 10, 2008... The challenge facing any software development manager is how to balance the natural tension that exists between time, cost and quality. On top of this, programmes also have to balance the three organisational elements of corporate strategy,...

News.(Adobe Systems Inc.)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Adobe Systems has introduced Acrobat.com, a free suite of browser-based and hosted office productivity tools. Now available as a public beta, the tools are designed to aid communication, collaboration and productivity. Just as Adobe...

News.(views of head of IS procurement at pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, Mark Turner)(Interview)
June 10, 2008... Mark Turner, head of IS procurement at pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, described the challenges he faced in managing service-effect contracts at last week's Gartner' Outsourcing & IT Services Summit in London. A year ago AstraZeneca...

News.(increased incidence of online fraud cases)
June 10, 2008... Ian Grant ian.grant@rbi.co.uk Travel brands have become the latest high-profile targets of "brandjackers" and online scam artists. In its Spring report, analyst firm MarkMonitor found brandjackers using fraudulent airline voucher...

News.(Britannia Building Society)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Britannia Building Society is improving its human resources processes with SAP self-service technology. Britannia Building Society has recently gone live with its employee self-service platform, building on previous SAP human resources and...

News.(computing students number dropped)
June 10, 2008... Warwick Ashford warwick.ashford@rbi.co.uk The number of computing students in universities and colleges has dropped almost 50% since 2001 to below 1996 levels, prompting fears that IT departments are on the verge of a new skills...

News.(photo of Chinook ZD576 )(Image)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... This photo of Chinook ZD576 is the copyright of Robin Crorie who has given kind permission for it to be used by Computer Weekly in connection with our Campaign for Justice. It must not be copied, shared, circulated, used or reused without the...

News.(chemical company Ciba cuts IT cost by outsourcing)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Global chemical company Ciba has cut its IT costs by over $15m a year after moving away from producing all IT services internally to using a number of sources. The savings from the Ciba's first foray into outsourcing - which took 24 months...

News.(City of London's crime unit builds national e-crime reporting centre)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Ian Grant ian.grant@rbi.co.uk The City of London's economic crime unit is preparing a pilot project to collect, match, assess and report e-crimes. If successful, the pilot could lead the way to a national e-crime reporting centre. ...

News.(house-building companies in UK take benefits of IT)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... UK house-building companies have begun to tap into the benefits of IT, but many firms still have some way to go according to an industry survey. The Vanson Bourne survey of 100 companies revealed that although 71% said IT was key to their...

News.(Credit Suisse creates DynamicOps LLC to market its Virtual Resource Manager)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Credit Suisse has launched an independent company to market its Virtual Resource Manager (VRM) virtual machine management application. The company, DynamicOps LLC, is funded by Credit Suisse's Next II venture group and is located in...

News.(Royal School for the Deaf and Communication Disorders' new back-up system)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The Royal School for the Deaf and Communication Disorders in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire is securing its data with a new back-up system from Yosemite. Seven Dell servers run the entire school's applications and store the working data, but the...

News.(IBM: 20 software development and distribution products )
June 10, 2008... IBM has announced 20 software development and distribution products that help companies collaborate with partners, suppliers, customers and their employees. The new offerings use IBM's Jazz collaborative technology to help geographically...

News.(trends in software procurement)
June 10, 2008... Nearly two-thirds (63%) of IT directors are concerned that software procurement is becoming increasingly complex, a UK survey shows. The survey of 200 IT directors, which was commissioned by Microsoft, reveals that 65% of IT said that...

News.(class action suit against Bank of New York Mellon and People's United Bank)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Customers have begun a class action suit against two US banks after data on as many as 125,000 customers went missing. The suit claims that the banks gave an unencrypted tape containing personal details to a storage firm, which allegedly...

News.(Microsoft has released Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Microsoft has released Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, its new ERP product. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 offers new multi-site and shared services capabilities, enabling customers to manage complex financial and supply chain processes more...

News.(UK needs highly skilled migrant workers)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The UK must attract more highly skilled migrant workers to support the knowledge economy, says the Work Foundation. In a report, the foundation says the UK will need to attract highly skilled workers from the European Union and outside it...

News.(online phishing fraudsters case)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Miss Scarborough has become the latest victim of online phishing fraudsters, with the the beauty contest winner having had [pounds sterling]10,000 stolen from her bank account. Jade Saunders, a 20-year-old student, was crowned Miss...

News.(Ministry of Defence signs a Private Finance Initiative contract )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The Ministry of Defence has signed a military flying training Private Finance Initiative contract that could cost up to [pounds sterling]6bn. The MOD says navy, RAF and army flying training "will be completely transformed", thanks to the...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Loyalty Management Group (LMG), the [pounds sterling]200m database company that owns the Nectar and Air Miles customer loyalty schemes, has saved [pounds sterling]150,000 by using data quality software to cleanse its mailing list, which is the...

News.(Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to use records management software )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) expects to save [pounds sterling]250,000 a year by implementing records management software. RICS, which regulates 12,000 surveyor firms across the UK and helps set and maintain standards...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Tendring District Council is using its sewer system to improve its communications network. H2O Networks, a provider of fibre optic networks via the UK's sewer system, has completed the roll-out of a communications infrastructure at...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Silverjet's 13 IT staff are looking for work after the business-class airline ceased operations last week. IT director George Henderson and other executives were made redundant three weeks ago as chief executive Lawrence Hunt tried to save...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The fear of technology not working is the biggest fear for British small businesses, with electronic crime not causing much concern. Research covering almost 600 firms employing fewer than 50 people showed that attitudes to operational...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... UK consumers who buy goods online have been given added protection by recent changes to trade legislation, but the new laws will make things more difficult for online retailers and auction sites. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... More than two thirds of web-based malware is now found on legitimate web sites, according to a report by security supplier Scansafe, an increase of 407% compared with May 2007. Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at Scansafe, said...

News.
June 10, 2008... IT directors should be prepared for two years of business disruption when they outsource IT services. This warning comes from Michael Paravicini, chief information technology officer at Zurich Financial Services, who has spent the last...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... SOA runtime governance software provider AmberPoint is reducing business transaction errors in its SOA management offering across distributed applications, services and infrastructure. AmberPoint has extended the reach of its SOA runtime...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... E-mail is the preferred communication medium of two-thirds of people, despite spam, viruses and other online threats, new communication channels and Web 2.0 applications, according to research from Ipsos. Ipsos, commissioned by Habeas, a...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Logica is building an intelligent wireless cargo system for secure freight transportation in Europe with European Commission funding. Logica has begun work on European interdisciplinary Research on Intelligent Cargo for Efficient Safe and...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... A mobile phone tracking service is being launched in the UK this week, reports The Daily Telegraph. The service allows friends and family to find out where you are, but only if you want them to. The technology delivers a map to the...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... More than half of the top 100 US websites provide poor performance to users, according to a survey from web testing firm Pingdom. Pingdom used the Yslow performance analysis tool from Yahoo to measure the sites and found that 54 out of a...

News.
June 10, 2008... IT supplier Qinetiq is suing the National Policing Improvement Agency for more than [pounds sterling]5m after the NPIA cancelled a UK-wide web portal designed to help the public to report incidents and hate crimes online. The website,...

Business & Technology.(University of York's Neuroimaging Centre invests in Apple technology)
June 10, 2008... The University of York's Neuroimaging Centre has made a [pounds sterling]300,000 investment in Apple technology, including the OSX operating system. Jobs which once took days now take minutes, improving productivity and lowering costs. A review...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Rebecca Thomson rebecca.thomson@rbi.co.uk IT workers are increasingly suffering repetitive strain injury (RSI) because of mobile working, according to a survey by Microsoft. Microsoft found RSI cases have increased 30% in the past...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The UK needs to attract more highly-skilled immigrants with strong IT skills if it is to survive in a global economy, a report from research company the Work Foundation has found. An ageing workforce, an increasing demand for skills, and a...

Management.(Apache Derby, Java relational database management system)
June 10, 2008... What is it? Apache Derby is a Java relational database management system that can be embedded in Java programs and used for online transaction processing. IBM no longer supports the Cloudscape database it acquired along with Informix. But...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... John-Paul Kamath john-paul.kamath@rbi.co.uk BT is aiming to reduce the power consumption of its 74 datacentres worldwide as a key part of meeting its objective of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2020. Dave Needham, BT's...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The recession is the perfect time for CIOs to rewrite budget proposals to take in green issues to win over company boards, says former CIO Chris Billimore. Billimore, a director at IT specialist financial investment firm CIO Plus, told the...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Datacentres that automatically measure and cool specific hot spots and computer monitors that use zero watts of power in standby mode were among the technologies unveiled by Fujistu Labs at its conference in London. Dr Kazuo Murano,...

News.(IT procurement departments)
June 10, 2008... Buying IT products and services is far too important to be left solely to the IT procurement department, analyst Gartner has said. Speaking at the firm's Outsourcing and IT Services Summit 2008 in London, analyst Andy Kyte said that some...

News.(Bill Gates share his views about Microsoft and its history)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... John-Paul Kamath john-paul.kamath@rbi.co.uk Bill Gates reflected on Microsoft's 33-year history and shared his predictions for the future in his final public speech as Microsoft chairman. Gates, who is due to step down as chairman...

News.(IBM introduces based application services)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... IBM has announced the launch of business grade Open Document Format (ODF)-based application services. The general availability of Lotus Symphony 1.0 for businesses gives them fully supported tools for creating and sharing documents,...

News.(recession leads to reduce budgets)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... CIOs will have difficulty meeting business expectations because fears of a recession are leading to reduced budgets, according to to market analyst Gartner's updated global survey of CIOs presented at the IT Directors' Forum this week. As...

Networks.(IT jobs forecasts)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... IT jobs will not be among those affected by the 1,800 job cuts announced Norwich Union Insurance today (6 June). Job cuts of between 1,500 and 1,800 staff will take place by 2010 in NUI Operations division and effect staff in customer...

News.(looking for two leaders )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The failing NHS's National Programme for IT is looking for two leaders to run the programme at [pounds sterling]200,000 a head. Richard Granger, director general for the programme left the job in January. And Connecting for Health, the body...

News.(police forces in UK should standardise contact centre technology)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The UK's 45 police forces should standardise contact centre technology, a report from the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has said. The NPIA, which is responsible for rolling out technology to support the UK's forces, said that...

News.(Norwich Union with new Platespin software )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... UK insurer Norwich Union has rolled out software to help reduce the number of physical servers it needs for processing data. Steve Houghton, infrastructure solutions architect at Norwich Union, said that having 2,500 physical machines...

News.(SAP faces recruitment problems)
June 10, 2008... Software company SAP is facing recruitment problems as the skills shortage starts to spread to emerging markets. SAP's problems reflect a wider IT "talent crunch" that is impacting employers across all sectors, the company says. The...

News.(super-fast fibre connections at Bournemouth)
June 10, 2008... "It takes time to get used to the smell, and it can be quite claustrophobic, but after a while it becomes like any other day at the office." This is Lee Roberts, a field engineer with H2O networks, the company that will deliver super-fast...

News.(Kaspersky Lab warns against blackmailing virus, Virus.Win32.Gpcode.ak )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Security software firm Kaspersky Lab has reported a new and dangerous blackmailing virus. Kaspersky Lab is alerting users about a new variant of Gpcode, a dangerous encryptor virus. The Virus.Win32.Gpcode.ak malware encrypts users'...

News.(Boots outsourcing contract for IT products and services)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Boots will use up to six suppliers competing to supply its IT products and services over the next year. The pharmaceutical retail company previously used two outsourcers. Speaking at Gartner's Outsourcing and IT Services Summit 2008,...

News.(Broadcom CIO charged with selling drugs)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The co-founder and former chief financial officer of wireless chip manufacturer Broadcom have been charged with selling drugs. The US Department of Justice said that over a nine-year period, Henry T. Nicholas III, a co-founder and former...

News.(Facebook to consider switching banks )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Facebook users would consider switching banks to obtain Web 2.0 banking services. Research among 1,000 Facebook social networking users revealed that 25% of them would switch banks if they were offered Web 2.0 banking services. The...

News.(Faster Payments Service for telephone and internet payments)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... From today (6 June), standing orders can be paid through the new Faster Payments Service, said UK payments body Apacs. Following the introduction of the new service for telephone and internet payments at the end of May, standing orders will...

News.(Findel Direct selects IBM for single source of master data)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... UK online retailer Findel Direct has selected IBM to create a single source of master data on all its products as part of its drive to improve customer service. Following the acquisition of several online businesses and brands, Findel...

News.(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Rebecca Thomson rebecca.thomson@rbi.co.uk City and Hackney Teaching Primary Care Trust (CHTPCT) has encrypted its laptops, desktops and memory sticks in the wake of a security blunder that led to the loss of personal details of 160,000...

News.(Webfocus business intelligence platform for field workers analysis)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Information Builders is extending its Webfocus business intelligence platform to provide predictive analysis for field workers. Webfocus with open source predictive modelling will make real-time decisions simple, said the firm. ...

News.(deployment of a wireless broadband Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is completed by Greater Manchester Police)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Greater Manchester Police has completed the deployment of a wireless broadband Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera network around the city. Manchester is thought to be the first city outside London to benefit from a network of...

News.(Microsoft to issue seven security patches )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Microsoft will issue seven security patches next Tuesday (10 June) as part of its monthly patching cycle. Three of the patches are deemed as "critical" by Redmond, with three described as "important", along with another tackling a...

News.(Nestle's Swiss Nespresso contact centre setup by Nortel)
June 10, 2008... Nortel has speeded up response times at Nestle's Swiss Nespresso contact centre, with an automated system that has cut operating costs. With the self-service voice capabilities, coffee provider Nespresso is able to reduce customer waiting...

News.(Office of Communications (United Kingdom) publishes new rules for broadband line speeds )
June 10, 2008... A new code of practice to ensure that ISPs offer greater clarity over customers' broadband line speeds was published today by comms regulator Ofcom. Some 32 ISPs, covering more than 90% of broadband customers, have already agreed "to...

News.(office workers want their employers to become greener)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Office workers are demanding that their employers become greener, with 90% wanting more IT recycling and the introduction of environmentally friendly office processes, according to a survey from Brother. But employers are not keeping pace...

News.(Oracle Corp merge AquaLogic and WebLogic)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... The BEA Systems AquaLogic service oriented architecture (SOA) business is being broken up by new owner Oracle, reports The Register. The Register reports that BEA owner Oracle is merging the AquaLogic and WebLogic professional service...

News.(SAP's new maintenance contracts for enterprise resource planning software)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Cliff Saran cliff.saran@rbi.co.uk Businesses may have to fork out 22% of the software licence cost for new maintenance contracts when they buy SAP's ERP software or run its Business Objects reporting tools. SAP announced last...

News.(spam levels increases says MessageLabs )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Spam levels are back on the rise, says security software firm MessageLabs. The MessageLabs Intelligence Report for May says spam levels are back on the increase with levels reaching 76.8% of all e-mails in May, levels not experienced since...

News.(acquisition of Borsa Italiana by the London Stock Exchange is settled)
June 10, 2008... Last year's [pounds sterling]1.63bn acquisition of Borsa Italiana by the London Stock Exchange gives it a clearing and settlement platform that will allow it to offer clearing services directly for UK trades for the first time. The London...

News.(website hosting services outsourced by Ann Summers)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Ann Summers, the lingerie and accessories chain, has outsourced its website hosting and management to Claranet to gain service levels of 99.9% uptime, better security and scalability, and relegate network failure points. Besides serving as...

News.(Sun Microsystems to launch high-performance servers )(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Sun Microsystems plans to launch a range of high-performance servers that rely on energy-efficient solid-state disc (SSD) drives. Sun is already shipping Solaris ZFS software optimised for SSD technologies through the OpenSolaris community,...

News.(councils access people's private phone and e-mail records to combat terrorism)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Councils have used a law designed to combat terrorism to access more than 900 people's private phone and e-mail records, reports The Daily Telegraph. Councils have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to investigate...

News.(Trainline.com is to introduce a smartcard ticketing system)
June 10, 2008... TheTrainline.com is to introduce a smartcard ticketing system, which it expects to account for up to 50% of rail ticket sales by 2012, reducing the need for paper tickets. Trainline Smart uses ITSO technology, the government-defined...

News.(website management a survey)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... UK marketing communications and IT managers "are shirking their responsibility for website management", says global information management firm SDL Tridion. SDL commissioned a survey of 200 senior IT and marcomms staff in the UK and the...

News.(female information technology professionals' view about sexism in the workplace)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... A study has found 90% of female IT professionals believe the industry is biased against them. According to the research from IT recruitment firm InterQuest, one in three women have experienced sexism in the workplace. However, 70% of men...

News.(Institution of Engineering and Technology innovates robotic fish)(Brief article)
June 10, 2008... Biologically inspired robotic fish, which swim around a tank and avoid objects, are the subject of an entry into the IT category of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) 2008 Innovation Awards. The robotic fish, built by...

Features.(Microsoft)(Company overview)
June 17, 2008... At the end of June, Bill Gates will finally stop doing the job he loves in order to concentrate on his philanthropic foundation. It is the end of an era that started with Microsoft Basic in 1975, continued with MS DOS in 1981, and exploded...

News.(trends in webserver attacks )(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... A fresh round of attacks aimed at hiding malicious code on legitimate websites this week has prompted warnings to companies to check the vulnerability of their webservers. The proportion of attacks carried out by injecting code based on...

News.(trends in information technology worker's salary)
June 17, 2008... IT salary increases are at the highest rate in three years and the rate of redundancies is lower than in other sectors, according to research from salary survey firm Celre. Analysts say this is driven by the fact that in contrast to other...

News.(National Archives releases Ministry of Defense's files on unidentified flying object sightings)(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... The National Archives sparked UFO mania after releasing previously secret Ministry of Defence files on suspected sightings. The National Archives' files contained details of alleged alien abductions, sightings of flying saucers and crop...

News.(British Computer Society)(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... The British Computer Society (BCS) has introduced two new categories for this year's BCS IT Industry Awards to recognise the growing importance of green technology and IT research. The Green Organisation of the Year award will, for the...

News.(British Retail Consortium)(Survey)(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... Consumer spending on new technology is likely to plummet as consumers' confidence in the economy plunges to record lows, the British Retail Consortium - the retailers' trade body - said today. British Retail Consortium (BRC) director...

News.(United States. Secret Service)(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... Evidence from the Metropolitan Police's computer crime unit has helped to convict Robert Matthew Bentley (21) for infecting a company's network of computers in Europe with "adware" that cost thousands of pounds to detect and repair. ...

News.(Bracknell Forest Borough Council saves on computer hardware costs)(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... Bracknell Forest Borough Council is saving [pounds sterling]85,000 on computer hardware costs with a thin client application and patching distribution system from Citrix. Bracknell is using the XenApp platform from Citrix, which enables...

News.(Citrix Systems Inc.)
June 17, 2008... Citrix has used its annual Citrix iForum user conference in Edinburgh to outline how it will turn datacentres into more efficient application delivery centres for end-users. Entering the conference stage to an extended piece by his...

News.(Survey)(Brief article)
June 17, 2008... They also fear cybercrime three times more than burglary, said market reseachers Ipsos, who surveyed 1,000 US citizens for anti-malware supplier AVG Technologies. Ipsos found that 57% said that they thought they were more likely be the...