6-12 March 2012 | computerweekly.com

Windows 8: Tablet meets desktopCan MiCrosoft’s latest operating systeM raise its presenCe in the Mobile Market? page 4

Transformational ITCabinet offiCe perManent seCretary ian WatMore

on eMbraCing neW teChnologies page 7

New demands on technologyit leaders tell CoMputer Weekly hoW their it priorities

have been shaped by the doWntursn page 16

the week onlineHighlights from

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The Pirate Bay faces UK ban after High Court ruling

Government names G-Cloud suppliers

Google bypassed IE too, says Microsoft

CIO interview: John Harris, Corporate IT Forum chair

HP CIO Randy Mott leaves in management restructure

Survey reveals flexible working technology shortfall

How will the CloudStore affect government IT?

Mobile malware on the rise, says McAfee

Technology ‘geeks’ the most productive employees

Salesforce.com revenues jump almost 40%

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moSt popular

> Getting cloud computing rightWhat is cloud computing, and why should you adopt it? How do you develop the right strategy and choose the right partner? All these questions and more are answered in this white paper. Discover the most important considerations to keep in mind as you evaluate cloud providers, and what questions to ask.

> The cloud: Time for deliveryFor each of these two models – “inside-out” and “outside-in” – the business requirement is different, the area of use (front office or back office) is different and above all the technology is different too. Blurring of the lines between these two very different models lies at the heart of “cloud confusion” and is frequently reinforced by technology vendors pushing their products rather than business solutions.

> Infrastructure 3.0: Less is moreMost of today’s IT budgets are currently being spent maintaining and managing existing infrastruc-tures. Yet as overall costs continue to be pushed higher by power, cooling, real estate and computing demands, many companies have started to explore the benefits of virtualisation.

> UK government into the cloudCloudStore, the government’s new online app store, aims to grow the use of cloud computing and cut the costs of public sector IT.

photo Story

> Top 10 budget smartphones for SMEsThis photo story looks at what options IT managers have when equipping their small business with smartphones on a budget. While BlackBerry is usually the choice for any business, it’s good to look around at what alternatives offer and whether a BlackBerry is the best choice.

opinion bloGS

> Faisal Alani: HTC One X: Quad-core monster phoneHTC have unveiled the HTC One X, alongside the HTC One S and V. The One X is the first quad-core phone to be announced at Mobile World Congress and looks to be the most powerful smartphone on the planet. The One X comes equipped with the Tegra 3 quad-core 1.5GHz processor backed up by 1GB of RAM.

> Karl Flinders: Has IT outsourcing created the UK skills shortfall?A colleague interviewed John Harris, chairman of IT user group The Corporate IT Forum and chief architect and vice-president of global IT strategy at GlaxoSmithKline, and got his views of the UK skills shortage. He is of the opinion that years of outsourcing commodity IT skills is contributing to a lack of grass-roots IT talent today, because the talent pipeline is not being fed at the bottom end.

> Adrian Bridgwater: How do we manage mobiles outnumbering PCs in the enterprise?The mobility revolution will not be televised. That’s because it’s all happening in the datacentre as mobile applications are being “managed” to a higher degree than ever before. It’s an inconvenient truth, but vendors of all shapes and sizes have been slapping the “mobile application management” handle around with feverish fervour since the turn of the millennium, if not before.

> Nick Wilson: How can the UK enhance superior technology skills in the workforce?The UK’s ICT sector contributes £81bn to the UK’s economy. The sector is the largest in Europe and employs over a million people who contribute 10% of GDP, according to UK Trade and Investment. On the surface the technology sector looks very secure - after all, the internet alone is worth £100bn a year to the UK economy. It is clear the UK is in an enviable position, but it is not a secure position.

analySiS

> IT priorities in the downturnCIOs are using technology to grow their organisations’ bottom line in the toughest economic conditions for decades. In a series of CW interviews, IT leaders reveal how their IT priorities have been shaped by the downturn.

> What skills will the new govern-ment CIO leadership team need?As Andy Nelson takes the position of government CIO, Computer Weekly asks what qualities the leadership team will need in implementating the government’s ICT strategy.

> Identity management: Stay one step ahead of the cyber criminalsThe increase in high-profile cyber attacks has demonstrated how basic security perimeters have been breached, often exposing our personal data and business assets. Identity management – which can bring a more sophisticated trust process for businesses and individuals alike – is part of the solution.

> A place for cloud-based office productivity toolsThere has been considerable coverage of cloud-based productivity tools and their use in business. Google Apps has claimed many column inches as it seeks to challenge the very well-estab-lished Microsoft Office suite. And since the launch of Office 365, Microsoft itself has trumpeted its web-based office capability.

2 | 6-12 MARCH 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

the week in IT

3 | 6-12 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Mobile apps & software

Barclays Bank reports surge in demand for mobile payment appOver 120,000 people downloaded Barclays Bank’s Pingit mobile bank-ing application within five days of its release. Following heavy demand, Barclays reduced the minimum age for users, from 18 to 16. Barclays said the reduction of the minimum age was in reaction to younger people calling for access on blogs, app re-view sites and social media.

risk ManageMent

Security panel urges enterprises to ban employee smartphone useEnterprises should not allow employ-ees to use their own smartphones for work, a panel of IT security prac-titioners told attendees at the RSA Conference 2012 in San Francisco. At present, the only way to ensure sensitive corporate data is not lost is to provide employees with devices owned and controlled by the enter-prise, the panel said.

governMent & public sector

DWP invites bids for identity assurance servicesThe Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has tendered for a £25m identity assurance (IDA) framework to create a marketplace of providers. The initial DWP ser-vices will be required to provide identity assurance for approximate-ly 21 million claimants and support the roll-out of universal credit. The framework agreement will be for 18 months with the option to extend for a further 12 months.

cloud coMputing services

Microsoft cloud platform suffers global outageMicrosoft’s Azure cloud platform has experienced an outage, affecting customers across the world, includ-ing the UK government’s newly re-leased CloudStore. The service went down at 1:45am on 29 February, with Microsoft saying the root cause of the incident had been traced back to “cert issues”.

jobs & recruitMent

Intra-company transfer migrant IT worker numbers increaseThe number of overseas workers entering the UK on intra-company transfers (ICTs) has increased since the government introduced its cap on immigration when the coalition came to power in 2010, with incoming IT staff forming a significant proportion. The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) said it will keep an eye on the use of ICTs among Indian IT compa-nies, which many say abuse a statu-tory loophole.

governMent & public sector

Local authorities could save £500m with improved websitesCouncils across the UK could save £500m with modest investment in their websites, according to public sector IT body Socitm. The study found a slight improvement in the number of councils achieving a four-star rating (5% of councils), but Socitm’s report said council websites remain insufficiently focused on areas of most interest to users.  

jobs & recruitMent

IT departments impose staff hiring freeze or reduce numbersOver half of the companies surveyed by Computer Weekly/TechTarget revealed their IT department is either under a hiring freeze or reducing in size. In the CIO/IT salary and career survey, conducted in November 2011, 26% of respondents said their IT department is shrinking by attri-tion and 26% said the department is under a staff freeze.

governMent & public sector

National Audit Office says Child Maintenance IT costs doubledThe forecast costs of the IT systems underpinning the Child Mainte-nance and Enforcement Commis-sion (CMEC) have nearly doubled to £275m, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). But plans by the CMEC to reduce its spending are high risk as they rely heavily on the introduction of a child maintenance scheme and associated IT system, said the NAO.

governMent & public sector

Post Office tenders for kit to enter government IDA schemeThe Post Office is tendering for hard-ware and software which will enable it to become a provider of the govern-ment’s proposed Identity Assurance (IDA) services. IDA is a key part of the government’s move to “digital by default” public services, and will require citizens to electronically verify who they are to access public services online.

Mobile networks

London borough gets 4G LTE connectivityNetwork provider UK Broadband has partnered with Huawei to switch on its first 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) system in the London Borough of Southwark. The move is the first commercial deployment of LTE in the UK. UK Broadband said it was using Huawei’s Time Division Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) base sta-tions to build its network. However, 4G-enabled handsets are yet to be deployed in the UK.

Ministry of Justice signs up to PSNThe Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has become the first government department to sign up for the early deployment of a public services network (PSN), in a deal with BT that is expected to save the department £8m per year by 2015.

The PSN, designed to become a “network of networks” across government, will be used across the MoJ’s courts and tribunals and take out around 30% of data and telephone service costs. The deal was signed ahead of the PSN framework agreement, with the roll-out expected to be complete by 2013.

The deal includes the use of BT’s 21st century network capability and Siemens IP telephony. “We are buying a PSN-compliant service ahead of time,” said Philip French, chief technology officer at the MoJ, speaking at a PSN conference organised by BT.

The core network will run at security Impact Level 2 (IL2), with an encryption overlay for more sensitive data marked at IL3.

“Adherence to sound basic principles is what security should be about, not who may or may not be carrying out the attacks”

David Litchfield, Accuvant

rsa conference 2012

Facebook 65%

YouTube 50%

Windows Live 14%

Percentage of all UK internet users using these sites in the past month

23%Twitter

13%LinkedIn

12%Google+

Spotify 10%Source: Yougov

news analysis

Windows 8: tablet meets desktop

4 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Can Microsoft's latest offering bridge the mobile and PC divide and deliver a much-needed boost? Cliff Saran reports

The most hotly anticipated announcement at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona last week was not

the next big thing from Apple – that is due to happen this week – but Micro-soft’s big push into the tablet market.

The company that has made bil-lions providing the Windows operat-ing system for desktop and laptop computers is entering the next era in its long and largely successful histo-ry. At MWC, it unveiled the Win-dows 8 Consumer Preview for users to download and try out.

This is not simply yet another ver-sion of Windows – Microsoft must adapt to the consumerisation of IT and it is pinning its hopes on Windows 8.

“Windows 8 is a critical part of Microsoft’s history. The operating system can potentially unify its fortunes,” said Richard Edwards, principal analyst at Ovum.

According to Edwards, Microsoft’s success came about due to consumer pressure. When IBM attempted to es-tablish OS/2 in the early 1990s, home PC users put pressure on businesses to adopt Windows instead.

“Windows was Microsoft’s route into the enterprise,” he said. “Now Microsoft is pinning its hopes on users who want the power of a PC with the flexibility of a tablet device.”

Fully functioning OSThe Windows 8 Consumer Preview appears to take the same approach as mobile platforms such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Apps are avail-able in the Windows Store, with Mi-crosoft clearly hoping to emulate the success of Apple’s AppStore and the Android Marketplace. Users also need a Microsoft Live account to access cloud-based services such as cloud storage, e-mail, calendar and contacts.

The Metro touch-based user inter-face shows that Microsoft is taking

the tablet market seriously, while under the covers there is built-in support for low-powered hardware.

Windows 8 supports the ARM Cortex-A9 processor. Graphics chip maker Nvidia has integrated a graph-ics processor in its Tegra3 quad-core mobile processor.

Yet, while it borrows from tablet trends, unlike iOS or Android, Windows 8 will be a fully fledged operating system, capable of running sophisticated client applications.

According to Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Win-dows Live division at Microsoft, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview deliv-ers a “no-compromises approach to using your PC”.

Bridging the gapOke Okaro, general manager and head of mobile at Bloomberg, said the new Microsoft offering is impres-sive, with its attempt to give users an optimal tablet and PC experience on one device.

“In the two years since the iPad’s launch, growth in the PC market has slowed. Windows 8 is trying to bridge the touch-based tablet world and the traditional PC world,” he added.

Okaro said Windows 8 has the potential as a new platform for Bloomberg’s news and television

service. “Our goal is to deliver essen-tial news and information that busi-ness executives need to make better informed decisions. We need to be on the device platforms with an experi-ence that is optimal, as long as there is a critical mass on that platform.”

He recognised that as Windows has a very large installed base, and traditionally there is a rapid uptake, the new operating system will gain critical mass quickly.

In addition, Okaro said Windows 8 is a game-changer for traditional web browsing. “[Windows 8] will provide Bloomberg and many other compa-nies [with an opportunity] to start the redefinition of the web experience as a result of the desktop PC and tablet worlds merging.”

Mobile pushWhen it was launched in 2009, Windows 7 was a big step forward for Microsoft and a huge improvement over its predecessor, Windows Vista. It was the last version before Apple convinced everyone to buy an iPad.

Three years on, Microsoft desper-ately needs to regain control over client-side computing. It is no longer about the desktop and laptop. Smartphones are almost ubiquitous and tablets have established a new form of client-side computing.

Craig Cartier, an analyst for ICT practice at global consultancy Frost & Sullivan, said: “Windows needs a foothold in the mobile space if it is to continue to be one of the world’s premiere technology brands, and it is desperately grasping for one.”

Cartier pointed out that while Microsoft dominates market share in PC operating systems, it has struggled in the smartphone sphere, never surpassing low single-digit share in the mass-market smartphone era.

He added that Microsoft’s partner-ship with Nokia has potential, but has yet to reap any benefits. ■

Windows 8 is trying to link the touch-based tablet world and the traditional PC world

Operating systems sOftware

Main features of Windows 8n Cloud-based PC services through a Microsoft Live account.n Metro touch-optimised user interface.n Support for tablets, ARM-chip and low-powered devices.n Claimed to reduce battery drain.n Keyboard, mouse and touch support merges tablets and desktop computing.

more online› Microsoft sales up, profits down

› CES 2012: Intel demos Windows 8 touchscreen ultrabooks

› What Windows 8 on ARM means for tablets and desktops

news analysis

Public sector IT chiefs prioritise PSN infrastructure over CloudStore apps

5 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

But do government IT managers really need the network before they can run cloud services? Kathleen Hall reports

The public services network (PSN) is designed to act as a “network of networks” to enable the delivery of

government services from any pro-vider or location, while the recently launched CloudStore is intended to act as a portal for buying on-demand IT services for the public sector. Both the PSN and cloud were flagged as key ways to cut IT costs in the gov-ernment’s ICT implementation plan.

But some local authority IT heads have said that a PSN infrastructure will be the priority ahead of Cloud-Store deployments.

Tom Baker, CIO of Sunderland City Council, said: “We need the PSN first. If there’s a service in the cloud store for data requiring high security at impact level 3, for example, we need a secure network to be able to access it. I see the PSN and G-Cloud as part of the same strategy.”

Jeff Wallbank, Kent PSN partner-ship development manager, has been trialling a regional network to con-nect with central services at Hamp-shire County Council. He said: “We are concentrating our efforts on the PSN, as we feel the CloudStore is not secure enough at the moment. When the services become more stable, we will investigate.”

Infrastructure for applicationsWallbank said getting the infrastruc-ture in place is a necessary first step to securely support applications: “Once you put the network in place people start to work together, then you can put regional datacentres in place and build applications based on that shared infrastructure, then start to look at shared resources and putting things like cloud services in first. Basic infrastructure can start that cultural change.”

Baker said Sunderland expected to procure services through the PSN once the national framework agree-ment was up. This will lead to more local authorities rolling out PSNs, as it will reduce the time it takes for re-gional collaboration, he said.

“The challenge for many local councils is that they are often locked into multi-year contracts. The onus is on people like BT and Cable & Wire-

Warwickshire County Council is already piloting a cloud e-mail service

government & public sector

less to facilitate access to the PSN through existing contracts,” he said.

Baker said the CloudStore did not contain much for local authorities be-yond generic services, but added that he expected to start seeing areas of the public sector using cloud services on a PSN by the end of the year.

Local authorities are far ahead of central government in deploying the PSN, said Tola Sargent, analyst at TechMarketView: “The move to the PSN has predominantly been local government to date, that’s partly about being more nimble, but also because the benefits of collabo-ration are clearer for local govern-ment than central.”

Sargent said the PSN will act as an enabler for new ways of working, which will lead to greater workforce flexibility and the use of cloud appli-cations on the network.

“It’s fair to say that the PSN is one of the key foundations for govern-ment ICT strategy, as it will entail higher bandwidth, more reliable net-works and cheaper costs, all of which

will help support things like the move to the cloud,” she said.

“Once the PSN framework is an-nounced, more central government departments will get on board.”

Communicating the modelMartin Ferguson, head of policy at public sector IT body Socitm, said communicating what the PSN is to non-technical decision-makers will be key: “For technology to receive the investment it deserves, it needs to tell a story, that it can reduce costs but in a secure way.

“Collaboration in social care and health are key as they are big spend-ing areas. IT bodies must get the mes-sage across of the real, tangible bene-fits to people.”

The PSN and CloudStore are com-plementary technologies. Both have the potential to cut costs across the public sector and introduce greater benefits of flexibility.

Some councils will feel more com-fortable deploying a secure network before using applications to support

secure information. This may be par-ticularly true for rural areas lacking connectivity, as the move to cloud will require robust and reliable net-works to access services.

But the PSN is not necessarily a prerequisite for the cloud. For exam-ple, Warwickshire County Council is already piloting a cloud e-mail ser-vice. As such the PSN and cloud should not be viewed as competing technologies, but part of a shift in the way government uses technology to change the way it works. ■

more online› Warwickshire County Council’s move to the cloud

› Government tenders public services network framework

› How will the CloudStore impact government IT?

www.ftconferences.com/cio

interview

Transforming public sector IT with the next generation of technology

7 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Cabinet Office permanent secretary Ian Watmore tells Kathleen Hall about creating the environment for government IT

Ian Watmore is closely acquaint-ed with public sector IT – he was appointed the first ever government CIO in 2004, after

working as UK managing director at Accenture. Since then he has held various IT and managerial roles in the civil service – as well as a brief stint as chief executive of the Football Association. Today, he retains a huge influence over government IT policy.

Watmore now occupies one of the highest operational roles in White-hall, following his promotion in Oc-tober 2011 from chief operating offic-er of the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) to permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office – a role whose previous incumbent, Jeremy Hey-wood, stepped up to succeed Sir Gus O’Donnell as Cabinet secretary.

Watmore’s position in transform-ing government IT is to help direct change rather than work at the coalface, he says.

“I can create space for the people who really know what they are talk-ing about to do the right things. I am not that person today, I am not the sort of person who is 100% up to date with the skillsets we need to work in this environment. I was once but I’m not anymore and I recognise that,” he says.

But IT is very much at the heart of the government’s agenda. “If you look at the overall government priori-ty set – to make savings, increase growth and to reach more people to enable social mobility – then IT can contribute to all three of those areas and give us a chance to succeed,” says Watmore.

He cites Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service; Tim Kelsey, government ad-viser on transparency and Open Data; and Liam Maxwell, director of ICT futures, as the people who are lead-ing those changes today.

“I also think you can’t understate the contribution of [Cabinet Office

Watmore: “Getting departments to move quickly and effectively is a challenge”

it leadership

more online› CIO interview: Vince Groome, director of IT solutions at HMRC

› CIO interview: Denise Mc-Donagh, director of Home Office IT

› CIO interview: Jan Ford, head of ICT at the Ministry of Justice

minister] Francis Maude, he really gets this stuff. He’s a bit like me – of an era where we will never be the hands-on experts any more but he understands it and is giving ministe-rial space and clout.”

Having a UK economy that has at its heart a thriving digital and IT economy is key to growth, says Wat-more. Part of that will come from changing the way IT contracts are let: “Government is just one player in the marketplace, but if it lets larger num-ber of contracts for a smaller time, that tends to lend itself to the SME market. By definition that tends to help domestic businesses without bias in competitive terms. British businesses benefit most from that.”

Over the last 10 years IT has gone through a significant change, which will help the government implement its strategy.

“It is quite clear there is a new and emerging way of doing IT in 2012 that wasn’t available in 2002. Agile, digital – the internet now is a hugely stable, massively pervasive thing which even 10 years ago it wasn’t. It’s remarkable how much has changed in that decade with the web and peo-

ple forget that. Now we have a web-based environment where we can do things that reach people at scale,” says Watmore.

There is also a realisation that com-mercial regimes of the past haven’t worked well: “I don’t think people look on the big IT outsourcing con-tracts as a success, so there is a desire to change.”

The new leadership teamWatmore recently appointed Andy Nelson, CIO at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), as government CIO, with a deputy CIO to be announced, after the departures of government CIO Joe Harley and deputy Bill McCluggage.

He believes Nelson’s part-time role of government CIO, combined with his position as CIO at the MoJ will not detract from his work.

“Joe Harley managed it and he had a much bigger job [sharing his role with that of CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions]. It’s probably harder for someone to do if they are new to a government CIO role. But Andy has done the MoJ position for four years, so it will be much easier for him to bridge.”

As the government moves into the implementation stage of its IT strate-gy, Watmore says the leadership will need to achieve continuity by build-ing cross-departmental buy-in, as well as driving change by moving to digital ways of working and breaking contracts into smaller parts.

“The focus will also be on opening our interfaces and data up and rely-ing on third-parties to take what we have and turn it into first-class servic-es,” he says.

One challenge will be getting the pace right in moving from old to new technologies, especially in areas such as the cloud and the Public Services Network (PSN).

“You have to move quickly so peo-ple believe you are not being slug-gish, but if you move too quickly, you run the risk of bringing down nation-al services,” says Watmore.

“We have to provide very high-quality, demanding services every day around the clock, while develop-ing transformative IT models. Getting departments to move there quickly and effectively is a challenge when we have such a big legacy base, be-cause they need to keep supplying those services,” he says.

“My general thesis in government computing and most big organisa-tions is that it’s best to try new ways on a relatively small scale, then ac-celerate through to implementation – where you start slow and get it right before going steeply into the roll-out mode. That’s the kind of model we’ve adopted with universal credit, for example.” ■

This is an edited excerpt of the article. click here to read the full interview online

case study

Events firm boosts client confidence in security with move to Office 365

8 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Migrating its users to hosted applications saved hospitality firm iLuka thousands in licensing fees, writes Karl Flinders

Events and hospitality firm iLuka has moved its IT into the cloud to improve secu-rity and saved thousands of

pounds in Microsoft licensing fees in the process.

ILuka specialises in managing the advertising campaigns of large multi-national firms at the Summer and Winter Olympics every two years. It organises activity for the major spon-sors such as hotels and travel.

The small UK-based firm decided to move from an on-premise Micro-soft infrastructure to a cloud-based infrastructure using Microsoft Office 365, when it became clear that its large multinational clients wanted a higher level of security.

The Microsoft Office 365 suite is a hosted, online version of the tradi-tional installed version of Microsoft Office software. This online service is subscription-based and includes Of-fice, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Microsoft Office Web Apps.

Tim Chapman, IT director at iLuka, said it decided to move to Office 365 to reduce risks by taking advantage of Microsoft’s high-level security: “Our clients were not comfortable about our datacentre security and wanted enterprise-level protection.”

The company realised sizeable cost savings as a result of the migra-tion. The firm, which has a small number of core permanent staff, will recruit hundreds more for a month-long period during the Olympics.

During the Olympics in London this year, its office-based staff will grow from 50 to about 600. These users need e-mail and applications such as Word and Excel.

cloud computing services

Licensing feesFor every Olympic event since the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lilleham-mer, Norway, iLuka has been buying year-long licences for Microsoft Ex-change, even though they were only needed for a matter of weeks.

“That was very expensive. We tried to see if it was possible to rent licences but Microsoft could not ena-ble it at that time,” said Chapman.

Now that iLuka has moved to Of-fice 365 it simply goes into the mem-bership portal and adds the number of users needed for the time period required. It used to pay about £700 for every new user with a year li-cence, but now it costs £15.75 per user per month. The firm can now add 1,000 new users for a month at a cost of £15,750 compared to

£700,000 in the past.The company has also decommis-

sioned six of its seven Exchange serv-ers as a result of the migration.

Chapman said the switch from on-premise software to Office 365 was a bigger than expected project: “It is not something you would take light-ly. To move to the cloud is easy if you are a green-field site but when you move from on-premise you have to co-exist and this is not easy.”

He said the cloud and on-premise infrastructures had to co-exist for about four months.

The company is now committed to the cloud and intends to assess what else it can be used for. Chapman said that, although the cost savings are great, they are not the main driver. Access to the latest technologies with

enterprise-class security and unlimit-ed storage capacity and back-up are examples of the technology benefits that a small firm might not otherwise have access to.

“We are an SME but our clients are global giants. To match their expecta-tions, we have to find ground where everyone is comfortable,” he said.

It is not just SMEs that benefit. In August, Indian giant Tata Steel moved two legacy e-mail systems to Microsoft Office 365 system across its European business.

This was the company’s first major shift into the cloud and is one of the biggest deployments of Micro-soft Office 365 in Europe. System in-tegrator Capgemini supported the migration from on-premise software to Office 365. ■

more online› Tata Steel migrates to Microsoft Office 365

› How to use ERP to manage growth and fix legacy issues

› Gallery: How Microsoft Office 365 compares to Google Apps

Microsoft is targeting small businesses with little or no IT experience for its Office 365 suite. This makes sense, given that in the UK, most economic growth is expected from small businesses. And unlike in larger organisa-tions, IT is often an expensive barrier to a small company. So through Office 365, Microsoft promises to help small businesses by reducing the cost of IT.

The advantage of the Office 365 suite is that the cloud

service is provided by Microsoft and eliminates client’s IT maintenance, such as patching, and infrastructure support costs. For users, the advantage is the ability to access Office 365 offerings using any device, anywhere.

IT administrators access the Microsoft Office 365 suite from a web-based portal to set up new user accounts, control access to features and see the status of all Office 365 services and tools.

Microsoft Office 365: the benefits to SMEs

community

Do organisations really want SaaS office tools?

Developing ID services for the digital age

9 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Over the course of many months there has been considerable coverage of cloud-based office produc-

tivity tools and their potential use in modern businesses.

In particular, Google Apps has claimed a lot of column inches as it seeks to challenge Microsoft’s Office suite. And since the launch of Office 365, Microsoft itself has trumpeted its web-based office capability.

But what do people working in businesses consider the role to be for such tools?

At the heart of the matter is the question of whether cloud solutions are considered a viable alternative to the on-site solutions entrenched in most routine business operations.

Recent research carried out by Freeform Dynamics suggested few organisations are ready to adopt a cloud-only approach to office pro-ductivity. Most respondents indicate that web-based office solutions are best thought of as complementary to, rather than a direct replacement for, desktop tools.

The importance of office tools in running daily business operations is very easy to overlook. They are so widely used to have become almost invisible, except when they do not work or are unavailable.

But a quick check of the functional-ity we are discussing – e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, presenta-tions, document collaboration, calen-dar sharing – illustrates how deeply these tools are now used in routine operations. These tools are often the glue that holds business processes to-gether, and are being augmented with newer functionality such as IP teleph-ony, audio/web/videoconferencing and instant messaging.

Although some respondents report a measure of dissatisfaction with current offerings, most say existing solutions are largely effective, even if they recognise that more potential could be realised.

Few organisations believe web applications can directly replace desktop office tools

Bryan Glick leader tony lock opinion

So if many organisations do not see major problems with the current of-fice productivity solutions, why would they consider looking at soft-ware-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud offerings? Clearly the attraction of making cost savings generates con-siderable interest, but other factors, such as allowing staff to do new things or work more easily and im-proving levels of service and reliabili-ty, are also recognised as potential benefits with SaaS office solutions.

But there is also an acknowledge-ment of migration-related challenges. These are perceived to be similar in magnitude to those you would expect when switching to an alternative on-premise suite, with the potential bar-riers of integration with other busi-ness systems high on the list.

Of course SaaS doesn’t always mean browser-based tools, and con-versely, browser-based access is not unique to SaaS. Hosted e-mail is often accessed via a local client, for example, and on-premise e-mail serv-ers can be accessed remotely via a web interface. But it has become pop-ular in some circles to speculate that pure web-based tools, running only in a browser against a SaaS back-end, will replace desktop tools, including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software.

From the research, few organisa-tions believe that web applications can be thought of as a direct replace-ment for desktop office tools; indeed, three times as many see no role for such solutions at all. And given that an online survey such as this is likely to disproportionately attract those with an interest in SaaS, even these low numbers may well be overstating the readiness of the market as a whole to adopt web-only office solutions.

The awareness that SaaS office tools exist is widespread and organi-sations can see them playing a role going forward if they can overcome integration, migration and data gov-ernance challenges. But, as ever, the new solutions need to be assessed in the light of the needs of the business as a whole – its operational require-ments, governance/legislative restric-tions, and the readiness of organisa-tions to manage change. ■

Tony Lock is programme director of Freeform Dynamics

An important plan is coming togeth-er, and it’s going to affect us all.

It’s the start of the roll out of Identity assurance (IDa), the gov-

ernment’s programme for securely verifying that we are who we say we are when access-ing online public services.

The Department for Work and Pensions has issued a tender to purchase an IDa sys-tem that will support the introduction of its flagship welfare reform, Universal credit. The tender will establish a framework for use by every other public sector organisation, which promises to revolutionise the digital delivery of government services.

commercial organisations are already gearing up to offer IDa services. The Post Office has tendered for an IT partner; banks, credit agencies, perhaps even supermarkets and social media firms will be looking at the opportunities that IDa presents.

The concept has been around for ages, but it’s been a rocky road to get this far, punctuated by the costly and ill-advised fail-ure that was Labour’s ID cards.

The idea, at its most simple, is not dissimi-lar to the way debit cards work – a bank veri-fies your identity and establishes a trusted relationship with you. When you need to prove your identity for some form of elec-tronic transaction elsewhere – such as a benefits claim – the bank is able to digitally confirm you are who you say you are, much as they would confirm you have the funds to make a debit card purchase.

If IDa establishes a proven and secure mechanism to confirm to government that we are who we say we are online, then surely every commercial organisation would want to take advantage of that same authorisation service. The government wants to create a whole new marketplace of identity assur-ance providers.

It is not without its challenges, not least of which is simply that it hasn’t been done before. But to meet an obvious need – prov-ing our online identity – which is so essential to the future of a digital economy in the inter-net age, IDa is a plan for its time and one that could prove to be hugely significant. ■

editor’s blogcomputerweekly.com/editor

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buyer’s guide

11 | 6-12 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

For the past 10 years there has been up-and-down interest in internet protocol version 6 (IPv6). During that time, a

variety of sources have developed myths and scare tactics to get organi-sations to move to IPv6, creating fear, uncertainty and doubt about this “new” technology.

Today, there are very few IPv6 net-works and hosts, and the amount of information available to infrastruc-ture and operations (I&O) managers on how to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is scarce. But don’t let that deter you. The inevitable transition to IPv6 is actually a good thing.

Your goal is to get started on your quest to use IPv6 as a foundation for a richer and stronger set of infra-structure services.

Business benefitsIPv6 can support a new set of cus-tomers. There is a large, untapped customer base in Asia that connects with IPv6-only devices and can only communicate with IPv6 hosts.

Just 43% of the world’s population currently accesses the internet; in Asia, the penetration rate is just 20%. So in Asia alone, your business could tap into another three billion custom-ers as they are rapidly coming online.

Another opportunity is in the pos-sibility of a new revenue stream from digital services. Whether your busi-ness manufactures cars or provides a service, companies are moving to customised experiences.

To enable this type of personalisa-tion, applications will have to move beyond the network address transla-tion (NAT) world that currently exists in every network environment. IPv6

With IPv6, DHCP is largely unneces-sary because of stateless auto-configu-ration. Routers give the host the upper 64 bits of an IPv6 address, and hosts generate the lower 64 bits themselves to form a complete address. Typically, the host puts in its media access con-trol (MAC) addresses. Not only does this make addressing easier to manage, but also creates unique IP addresses for a device. Customised experiences can be created for that device and support these business benefits.

Selling IPv6 to the CEODespite the risks associated with not addressing IPv6, IPv4 exhaustion is

The value of IPv6 to the enterpriseIPv6 can support a new set of customers and offers revenue opportunities in digital services, writes Andre Kindness

not resonating as a reason to switch. In fact, one infrastructure manager

recently asked, “Other than the in-ternet not working, what’s the busi-ness value? How do I sell this com-pared to virtualisation?”. The answer? It’s about remaining rele-vant and competitive. Technology that enables the real-time, dynamic flow of information is critical for top- and bottom-line growth. ■

This article is an extract from Opening New Doors With IPv6 (Forrester, February 2011) by andre Kindness, a senior analyst at Forrester serving IT infrastructure and operations professionals. read his blog here.

removes the NAT barrier. Unique ser-vices generated for a user will require knowing that user and drawing on high-speed distributed computing by allowing flexible patterns of host-to-host communications.

Third is the chance of deploying re-al-time exchange of information through multi-modal collaboration. Employees are increasingly becoming empowered, and firms need to enable collaboration among their customers, suppliers and internal personnel.

Empowered employees are equipped with the mobile, video, so-cial and cloud technologies needed to directly interface with and support customers. The next generation of SIP-based interpersonal communica-tions applications – including voice over IP (VoIP) and innovative forms of messaging, presence and virtual room videoconferencing system (VRVS) – makes effective use of cen-tral servers to allow users to locate each other, then connects the users directly together for host-to-host communication. This type of com-munication breaks when either user is placed behind a NAT device.

Improved securityThe new protocol offers technical benefits beyond just increased IP ad-dresses. IPv6 requires the use of IPsec. Some have said that we have IPsec with IPv4 working today. However, the widespread use of network ad-dress translation in conjunction with IPv4 requires workarounds. Worka-rounds equate to waste, whether that be implementation errors, manual configurations, or extra hand-holding. IPv6 offers security embedded in the nature of the protocol, increasing the efficiency of the infrastructure.

A second benefit of IPv6 is its plug-and-play capabilities, which include auto-configuration and Anycast ad-dress support. The result is the ability to deploy large numbers of simple IP-enabled devices without the need for configuration.

Simpler networkingIPv6 also offers features that elimi-nate the need for old capabilities.

With IPv4, you need a DHCP server to dole out IP addresses. This works very well if there is a single DHCP server, but not so well when there are multiple servers and they supply conflicting information. It can also be hard to get a system to have the same address across reboots with DHCP.

CW Buyer’s guideipv6 migration

part 3 of 3

more online› Understanding IPv6 security issues, threats, defences

› Ovum: IPv6 transition – why the rush?

› First reports of IPV6 DDoS attacks raise security fears

The difference between IPv4 and IPv6The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) created a new version of internet protocol and addressed IPv4 limitations. To applications and users, the protocols seem very similar, but that is simply not true. Yes, they may act the same and don’t require a change to IPv4 infrastructure to keep running IPv4; however, they’re like two complete strangers from different countries passing each other on a busy city street. To understand why they will never speak to or understand each other, you need to look at the technical specifications:n An IPv4 address consists of four bytes (32 bits). The full range of IP addresses is from 0.0.0.0 through 255.255.255.255. That represents a total of 4.2x109 possible IP addresses.n IP addresses change significantly with IPv6. IPv6 addresses are 16 bytes (128 bits) long rather than four bytes (32 bits). IPv6 addresses are generally written in the following, more complex form: E3D7:0000:0000:0000:51F 4:9BC8:C0A8:6420 or E3D7::51F4:9BC8:C0A8:6420 or E3D7::51F4:9BC8:192.168.100.32. Due to the increased number of bits, IPv6 essentially offers each person today 5x1028 addresses.n The sheer size difference in and of itself hampers the two devices from speaking to each other, since the address is so long and IPv4 applications don’t have big enough reading glasses to see a full IPv6 address.

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buyer’s guide

12 | 6-12 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

IPv6 has been a hot topic in the networking industry for over a year now, and as the changeover progresses, it is still a priority

for companies. There are two main issues for IT

departments. The first is licensing. Some Cisco network devices will need an IOS (the Cisco Internetwork Operating System) licence upgrade to gain access to IPv6 features, which can raise the cost of a device considerably.

The second issue is performance. Some hardware-based forwarding platforms do not support IPv6 in hardware, leading to very poor IPv6 performance.

Network assessmentsIt is also highly advisable for compa-nies to conduct a thorough network assessment through an independ-ent third party to determine which equipment doesn’t need upgrading, which should be upgraded and which should be disposed of. The assessment would include an analy-sis of long-range planning that best reflects your organisation’s business needs, budget parameters, network capabilities and equipment support strategies.

A network audit from a reputable third party, one with no supplier bias, can help create a blueprint that pinpoints your challenges and ad-dresses current operations while pro-viding recommendations for future moves. This audit can determine over what time period the upgrade needs to happen – whether it’s in three months, six months or a year – and remove time pressures.

Disposing of old equipmentIf businesses need to upgrade to IPv6 and some of the equipment cannot be upgraded, it is worth remember-ing that there are still companies that might not need IPv6, but still need to maintain existing equipment.

By selling the technology they no longer need to an independent reseller, businesses can not only make some money, but also enable another company to replace older

Device compatibility with IPv6When we discuss IPv6 support in switches, we are discussing L3 switches. Switching functionality is performed via MAC address, and as such, any switch model will be able to switch IPv6 packets in hardware. Routing functionality is where IPv6 support comes into play.

All Catalyst 3560/3750 switches have hardware support for IPv6 for-warding, and starting in IOS version 12.2(50) SE, all IOS versions for these switches now support IPv6, includ-ing IPBASE.

In the Catalyst 4500 line, IPv6 for-warding in hardware is found on the WS-X45-Sup6-E and WS-X45-SU-P6L-E supervisors, and like Cisco’s other current L3 switching platforms, IPv6 features are found in IPBASE. Beware, though, as older supervisors do not provide hardware forwarding of IPv6 data, resulting in very poor IPv6 performance.

The Catalyst 4900M and Catalyst 4948E switches are IPv6-capable platforms. Both of these switches support IPv6 in all IOS images, so there is no need for an additional IOS licence. Like the 4500, though, the older WS-C4948 and WS-C4948-

Resist the pressure to upgrade immediately as the majority of network gear has had IPv6 capability for years

How to upgrade to IPv6Glenn Fassett looks at the licensing and hardware considerations in the switch to IPv6

10GE switches do not provide IPv6 forwarding in hardware.

Starting in IOS version 12.2(33)SXI, Cisco added IPv6 features to all IOS versions, including IPBASE and IP Services. The Catalyst 6500, with its large amount of hardware forwarding resources, is very well-suited for demanding IPv4 and IPv6 environments, especially when deployed with a Sup720-3BXL or VS-S720-10G-3CXL. However, the still popular Sup2 does not support IPv6 in hardware, making it completely unsuitable for an IPv6 deployment. ■

Glenn Fassett is general manager, international, at Network hardware resale

parts that companies such as Cisco no longer provide.

No need to upgradeNetwork equipment manufacturers have seen this as an opportunity to push businesses towards immediate and costly upgrades, even if they are not really necessary.

It is important that companies resist this pressure as the majority of net-work gear has had IPv6 capability for years. For example, many existing Layer 3 (L3) network switches from Cisco support IPv6 in hardware and don’t require additional IOS licensing.

However, some equipment will not provide hardware forwarding of IPv6 data and would result in poor IPv6 performance. Below is a list of devices that support IPv6 in hard-ware and do not require additional IOS licensing for this support.

CW Buyer’s guideipv6 migration

part 3 of 3

more online› Tips for small companies on IPv6 migration

› How to prepare your organisation for IPv6

› IPv6 Action Plan

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government IT

14 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

As Ministry of Justice CIO Andy Nelson takes up the position of government CIO and a new deputy is about

to be appointed, the qualities the next CIO leadership team will need will come under scrutiny.

The ICT implementation plan was an ambitious document with a de-tailed list of targets and milestones. But the new government IT leader-ship will need more than a mission statement if it is to break old models of IT and bring in new ways of work-ing, such as cloud, open source, the public services network, agile meth-odologies and widening its supplier base beyond a handful of system inte-grators to include more SMEs – all of which stand to save the public sector billions of pounds in IT costs.

Whitehall insiders point out that around half of government CIOs lack the skills to do transformative IT, with many preoccupied with the task of trying to keep the lights on against

The deputy will shoulder the bur-den of implementing that task and will drive the mechanisms which need to be put in place.

“Most important will be looking at IT through a different lens, as the new economics of IT will require a new approach to implementation. It’s not just about understanding how large enterprises work, but how to re-duce costs and use rapid implemen-tation tools provided by the cloud,” says McCluggage.

Determining the role of enterprise architects in this new model will also be a key challenge: “Enterprise archi-tects classically looked at very stable mechanisms and approaches that took a fairly long time [to deploy]. Now with modern cloud services SMEs can deliver solutions in days rather than weeks or months. The question is how enterprise architects will handle that as businesses will expect them to have [services availa-ble] in weeks rather than months.”

What next for government IT chiefs?As Andy Nelson steps up as government CIO, Kathleen Hall looks at what qualities the leadership team needs

Good cop, bad copAlan Mather, former chief executive of the e-delivery team at the Cabinet Office and partner at government con-sultancy Rainmaker Solutions, has ex-tensive experience of driving change in government, including the incep-tion of the Government Gateway.

He believes Nelson will take a statesman-like role as CIO as he con-tinues his day job heading IT at the Ministry of Justice, while the depu-ty’s job will be that of enforcer.

“Andy Nelson will provide the vi-sion, medium-term action plans, set up key areas of policy, and bring to-gether those inside and outside of government so it knows what can be done and what can’t,” he says.

The deputy needs to drive the real changes and ensure the active co-op-eration of the CIOs around govern-ment, he says. “They need a set of controls to allow some people to go off and do clever things at the edges of what is possible, as well as stop-

a background of unprecedented pub-lic sector spending cuts, rather than pushing through change.

Bill McCluggage, former deputy CIO, has been praised for his work in championing the new models of working. He believes the appoint-ment of Nelson signals a positive move: “He has intimate knowledge of the agenda as well as the experience of putting in place change in his own department,” says McCluggage.

“He gets the stuff going on and will be a good driver of the strategy.”

But the main task ahead will in-volve gaining traction across govern-ment, he says.

“Some of this will occur through the CIO delivery board but will also require building bridges into the wider CIO community, health envi-ronment, and policing and local gov-ernment environment. We should not underestimate the size of the change agenda in those environ-ments,” he says. »

government IT

ping people from regressing to what they know best. They need to support CIOs with a slick process for showing them how to do things differently,” he says,

Steve Tuppen, director at manage-ment consultancy Compass, says Nelson’s part-time position, along-side his job as CIO at the Ministry of Justice, places him in good stead to drive change, as it means strategy is happening at a departmental level rather than simply being dictated by the centre.

“Nelson being in a part-time role is helpful, as it means he is not in an ivory tower and has responsibility for the delivery of IT services within an important department. His role as CIO will be much more around gov-ernance and structure,” he says.

“Driving through change doesn’t need to be totally consensual – but something based on strong govern-ance and well defined standards.”

Departmental culture shiftMost of the CIOs in place today have grown up with big system integrator-

“The government should be getting people with industry experience for a new breed of CIO”

led IT projects, and not all of those are able to make the switch to trans-forming IT, says Mather.

“A model I’ve wondered about in the past is if there are two CIOs in a department. You need one to run down the legacy and another to put in place all of the new stuff. The one with the legacy protects it and makes sure it doesn’t break, the one with the new tries out lots of things and even-tually replaces everything in legacy,” he says.

Joe Dignan, public sector analyst at Ovum, believes a change in culture is key: “The technical part is not that difficult, what’s required is a sort of universal intelligence, where people can really see across departmental barriers. That requires a cultural transformation and an understanding of psychology to get technology to work in the way it needs to.”

One solution could be to realign the gender balance, he says. “They need to bring in more women as CIOs – the situation at the moment is in no way representative. If you’re doing something as important as informa-

tion management you need more women in IT and in high positions to create a better balance.”

This could help departments move away from a “boys’ toys” mentality, where the technology is treated as being more important than the thing it is enabling. “Bringing in more emo-tional intelligence so the technology is understood in how it is used as op-posed to what it is, is a necessary step,” says Dignan.

The small business viewKey to the new model is opening up the market to include more SMEs. Ian Watmore, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, told Computer Week-ly the new strategy has the potential to stimulate economic growth by creating smaller IT contacts tendered by SMEs. “If government lets larger numbers of contracts for a smaller time, that tends to lend itself to the SME market, and by definition that tends to help domestic businesses without having a bias in competitive terms,” he said.

But Mark Taylor, CEO of small open source company Sirius, ap-pointed by the Cabinet Office to lead its New Suppliers to Government working group, says the next CIO leadership must do more to open up the marketplace and work with other areas of government, such as the pro-curement team, to bring change.

“Some two years into the govern-ment’s term and so far not an enor-mous amount of progress has been made in terms of improving the num-ber of SMEs doing business with gov-ernment,” he says.

The government still has little con-cept of how to deal with SMEs, he says. His company was recently con-tacted by a public sector organisation requiring a Linux refresh, which asked it to complete a 200-plus page booklet – a prohibitive procedure for time- and cash-poor SMEs.

The uptake of open source has also lagged, says Taylor: “In open source the progress has been disappointing, and that’s not for lack of good ideas. For example, the CloudStore launch was a terrific move, but the imple-mentation was done using proprie-tary technology.

“The government has good ideas and policy – but an enforcer is called for to be an authority to bring some of these programmes home,” he says.

Kate Craig-Wood, CEO of SME hosting company Memset, was re-cently awarded a place on the gov-ernment’s G-Cloud framework. From her experience of dealing with gov-ernment, she believes most CIOs still have a long way to go in understand-ing cloud technologies.

“The government should be going

out to market and getting people with industry experience for a new breed of CIO. So it is backed up by a small core of people understanding tech-nology,” she says.

“To be perfectly frank, I don’t think we can train people up, as few under-stand the technology deeply. I don’t think you can take an old school CIO and train them, so they should per-haps inject life by bringing in skills from outside.”

There is undoubtedly a group of IT heads in government leading the charge for change, such as Liam Max-well, director of ICT Futures at the Cabinet Office, reported to be a major force in disrupting the traditional models of IT and preventing CIOs from regressing back to large out-sourced contracts.

Chris Chant, programme director of the G-Cloud, is also doing much to demonstrate new ways of working with the recent release of the Cloud-Store. Mike Bracken, director of digi-tal, is operating outside of the tradi-tional structures, in a relatively small team of talent to transform services to digital models.

However, if the strategy is to suc-ceed, the Cabinet Office will need to see greater buy-in from CIOs across government at large. Part of this will come from the work of early adopters spearheading change, such as Denise McDonagh, head of IT at the Home Office, which will help demonstrate the benefits of new IT models to other departments.

But if change is to happen at a rea-sonable pace, then it will be up to the CIO leadership to crack the whip to get departments moving in the right direction.

This may come from bringing in more external CIOs, who get what needs to happen, or a more support-ive model such as that described by Mather, where departments have dedicated IT innovation heads cham-pioning the new technologies.

Whatever form this takes it will be of benefit to the entire public sector and tax payer to have a strong CIO leadership team pushing through the change programme, which could save billions of pounds. ■

15 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

»

more online› Government CIOs should have more power, says Cabinet Office

› MPs urge government to address IT supplier oligopoly

› CIO interview: Chris Chant, UK government director of G-Cloud

Government CIO, Andy Nelson: Not in an ivory tower

IT priorities 2012

16 | 6-12 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

C IOs are turning to technol-ogy to help their organisa-tions strengthen the bot-tom line as they grapple

with some of the toughest economic conditions seen for decades.

In interviews with Computer Weekly, IT leaders have revealed how their IT priorities have been shaped by the downturn. While many are cutting costs, others are using the downturn to invest in technology that will help their business to grow.

The interviews accompany research by Computer Weekly and its publisher TechTarget, which reveals that 29% of UK businesses plan to expand their IT to grow their business despite the tough economic conditions. The sur-vey had responses from more than 200 UK senior IT professionals, and in excess of 2,600 worldwide.

Windows 7, server virtualisation, business analytics and data protec-tion are at the top of organisations’ priority lists this year in the UK, the research reveals.

IT budgetsUK IT budgets have been hit uneven-ly by the downturn, where 38% of organisations expect to spend more on IT this year, while 32% are facing cutbacks.

CIOs in the public sector and chari-ties which rely on government fund-ing and donations from the public are facing the most severe cutbacks in their spending. They are looking to use IT in innovative ways to help their organisations reduce overheads.

West Midlands Police, which faces phased budget cuts of £126m, is look-ing to shared IT services and partner-ships with suppliers to help run its IT services more efficiently.

“We are looking at key opportuni-ties where ICT can add return on in-vestment and deliver a value propo-sition to the organisation,” says CIO Chris Price.

Children’s charity St Christopher’s has delayed some IT projects, fol-lowing a cut in its income from local authorities. IT manager Dave Glan-ville is concentrating on projects that will bring a quick return, such as server virtualisation.

St Christopher’s has become more agile and is focusing on short-er-term projects. “The effect on IT is that we also have to be quick and agile,” he says.

Other organisations are stepping up their spending on technology as they look for ways to boost their turnover during difficult trading conditions.

High street retailer John Lewis, which posted record sales in January, is investing in a state-of-the-art elec-tronic point-of-sale (EPOS) system, an updated website, and has longer-

consolidation. It offers a way for businesses to cut their infrastructure costs and gain a rapid return on in-vestment.

Nearly 60% of the UK organisa-tions surveyed by Computer Weekly and TechTarget are planning server virtualisation projects this year.

Glanville of St Christopher’s says virtualisation will pay for itself rapid-ly by reducing energy costs, and will also make software testing easier.

“We want to be able to test stuff in a much more flexible test environ-ment, which virtualisation will give us,” he says.

Virtualisation is key to helping su-permarket Sainsbury’s meet its plans to double in size by 2020, without

How IT leaders plan to spend their 2012 budgetFollowing on from research that identified the top areas for IT investment this year, Bill Goodwin speaks to a selection of CIOs to find out where their IT priorities lie this year

doubling its IT footprint, according to the supermarket’s IT director, Rob Fraser.

“With so much we want to do over the next five years, it makes sense to invest in a large virtualisation sys-tem. That gives headroom for all sorts of things we haven’t even thought about yet,” he says.

Mobile computingThe growing use of consumer devices at work, and the associated bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives, has made mobile computing a prior-ity for organisations this year.

Around 30% of UK IT professionals surveyed by Computer Weekly and TechTarget plan to introduce tablets

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term plans for data analytics. “We are increasing our investment in technol-ogy and we are recruiting 50 new IT partners,” says CIO Paul Coby.

Channel 4 is another organisation that is stepping up its IT spending, as it gears up for the Paralympics and the launch of the YouView set-top box.

CIO Kevin Gallagher says investing in IT will give the broadcaster a com-petitive advantage in 2012. “We have an opportunity to get good value be-cause other people will not be invest-ing,” he says.

Server virtualisationServer virtualisation has been a pri-ority for businesses for the past few years, driven partly by datacentre »

IT priorities 2012this year, and a similar proportion are planning smartphone roll-outs.

In West Midlands Police, Price says mobile devices will help officers to spend more time on the beat and less time on paperwork. When some-one calls to report a crime, that infor-mation could be sent on a mobile de-vice to the officer visiting the crime scene, he says.

“Potentially, the officer could press a button and produce a witness state-ment for someone to sign, there and then,” says Price.

John Lewis is testing tablet com-puters in its stores to allow sales as-sistants to check what items are in stock while they are with a customer. “They have JohnLewis.com on their pad, so that enables us to show the whole range,” says Coby.

And Hampshire County Council is banking on mobile technology to bring big savings in office costs.

The council’s “Workstyle” pro-gramme will make it possible for people to work on the move, from home, from drop-in points and from partner organisations, says CIO Jos Creese.

The project aims to generate £2m in annual revenue savings by using council buildings more efficiently.

Business analyticsBusiness intelligence, analytics and data warehousing is a high priority for 35.8% of UK IT professionals and a medium priority for 56.6%, accord-ing to the research.

It offers the prospect for businesses to generate new revenue streams from data they already hold.

“It is one of the things that just about everybody is talking about,” says Ovum analyst Roy Illsley.

Channel 4’s Gallagher says analytics technology will help the broadcaster build stronger links with its audience. He plans to develop the Channel 4 website, adding registration content that will allow the broadcaster to analyse viewers’ preferences.

“We are doing more work on ana-lytics to understand user behaviour so that we have more to offer to ad-vertisers,” he says.

Coby is evaluating a project to build a customer knowledge data-base, covering the John Lewis depart-ment store and the Waitrose super-

The prospects for IT look encouraging, with most organisations viewing technology as a potential solution to tough trading conditions

market. “It will give us a better understanding of what our customers want, and the ability to personalise their needs,” he says.

On a smaller scale, Ali Jaffri, ICT manager at housing association Gallions Housing, is investing in a database that will help the associa-tion manage its relationships with suppliers.

Jaffri, whose IT budget for 2012 has been cut from £250,000 to £150,000 this year, believes the project could reduce purchasing costs by a third.

“We have a very small database at the moment to do purchase ordering, but we are going to streamline pur-chasing and have a single supplier list so we can ask suppliers for more discounts,” he says.

Windows 7Microsoft’s announcement that it will end support for Windows XP is a powerful incentive for companies to upgrade to Windows 7 this year.

Some 60% of UK professionals, are planning Windows 7 projects this year, the survey reveals.

“Windows 7 is very much on our minds,” says Price at West Midlands Police. “At this point, we are looking at a Citrix-based introduction.”

Running Windows 7 on a thin client makes it easier and less expensive to manage IT infrastructure, and to provide mobile access to company systems.

Some 27% of the UK IT profes-sionals questioned are planning simi-lar thin client projects this year.

Cloud computingCloud computing has yet to take off in the way it was expected to. Nevertheless, some 16% of IT pro-fessionals plan to invest in private clouds this year.

And 12% are planning to integrate external cloud with their internal systems, according to our research.

For cash-strapped businesses, cloud computing, particularly soft-ware-as-a-service (SaaS), is the best strategy to reduce IT costs, according to Richard Hall, an expert in compa-ny restructuring.

“Most enterprises are looking at a mixture of infrastructure-as-a-service [IaaS], blended with the existing IT, as a hybrid. But ideally, we are look-

ing to large shifts to SaaS,” he says.Creese at Hampshire County Coun-

cil also sees cloud computing as key to keeping IT costs down, and has consolidated much of the local au-thority’s estate already.

For others, cloud is a lower priori-ty. West Midlands Police, for exam-ple, has a large number of legacy IT systems that would be impractical to transfer to the cloud.

“When you move from quite a heavy investment in legacy systems, you don’t change it all overnight,” says Price.

Fraser also intends to keep Sains-bury’s IT out of the cloud. “The cloud is very present in the news at the moment. We do take some things as services, but when we take them we often buy the complete service,” he says.

Spending rising slowlyTaken overall, businesses are spend-ing on IT again, though they are still cautious and are focusing on projects that will bring a quick return.

“It’s a case of you can’t run an eight-year-old operating system for ever and a day. You have to make an invest-ment,” says Ovum’s Illsley. “There is a bit of a sense we have cut too much – now we have to get it back.”

For some organisations, such as Channel 4 and John Lewis, investing in IT is a way to help grow the busi-ness when new revenue is hard to come by.

Data analytics, in particular, can help businesses build better links with their existing customers, and help them understand what their customers are looking for.

The economic climate in Europe continues to look challenging, with a high level of uncertainty in the Eurozone.

But the prospects for IT look en-couraging, with most organisations viewing technology as a potential so-lution to tough trading conditions, rather than an area for wholesale cost-cutting. ■

17 | 6-12 March 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

more online› UK IT budgets under pressure in 2012

› Virtualisation, cloud, compliance are top priorities in Europe

› IT professionals prioritise Win 7 but cloud takes a back seat

Areas in which budgets will increase

Source: Computer Weekly/TechTarget

Companies increasing IT spend (%)

Source: Computer Weekly/TechTarget

»

18 | 6-12 march 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Buffalo USB Hub proves customer is always rightWe’ve all done it, trying to force something into a slot the wrong way or, if you’re extra-committed, a com-pletely different shaped slot.

Downtime thinks this is just fur-ther proof we have evolved from sim-ians. Because, just as an ape would, when it doesn’t fit we lose our tem-per, more often than not breaking something in the process.

Well the new Buffalo USB Hub is here to stop you breaking stuff, you ruffian.

It takes USB cords even if you try and shove them in the wrong way up. Clever, huh?

It’s about to go on sale in Japan for a little over £10 and, as yet, there is no word on when it will be released worldwide. So in the meantime, sit on your hands and try not to break any other cables and ports.

Attention: Possible new IT training processThere has been a lot of debate over how IT should be taught in schools, with many pupils and students not

being taught

the skills they will need in the fu-ture workplace.

Downtime has seen something that could solve this problem.

For this to work, all we need to do is start teaching them as young as we can, while their brains are develop-

ing rapidly, and employ an

interesting teacher to lead by exam-ple (rather than some bland, mono-toned Excel expert). The idea was born after seeing this video.

So, in summary, Puggles chews on his bone and the baby decided to copy him, shadowing his moves almost perfectly while constantly observing to make sure he was doing it correctly.

All we need to do now then is train dogs to become proficient in IT. Any volunteers?

Fewer people listen to God’s messenger than Demba BaAt last the true extent of the reach of the Catholic Church could soon be easily measurable. News that the Pope has joined Twitter will have statisticians on red alert.

While Pope Benedict XVI will surely get more followers than @computerweekly’s pathetic 10,900, will he be able to compete with the likes of Lady Gaga (20 million), Justin Bieber (18 million), Katy Perry (12.5 million), Shakira (14.2 million) and President Obama (12.7 million)?

With 46,317 followers, at the time of writing, he has a long way to go. Newcastle United’s Demba Ba has 79,000, so the number of true believers in the Geordie religion is larger than the number in the Catholic Church.

With an estimated 1.181 billion alleged Catholics at the end of 2009 you would expect a few more. ■

heard something amusing or exasperating on the industry grapevine? E-mail cw-downtime@computerweekly.com

The surgeon is ready to see you for your FacetimeIf you ever needed proof that the human race is doomed, look no further than a report from US predator of the insecure plastic surgeon Robert K. Sigal that more people are paying to have their faces hacked off as a result of using Facetime on their iPhones.

In a post of his cosmetic surgery website, Sigal is quoted as saying: “Patients come in with their iPhones and show me how they look on [Apple’s video calling application] FaceTime.

“The angle at which the phone is held, with the caller looking downward into the camera, really captures any heaviness, fullness and sagging of the face and neck. People say ‘I never knew I looked like that! I need to do something!’ I’ve started calling it the ‘FaceTime Facelift’ effect. And we’ve developed procedures to specifically address it.”

While it says something about an individual if their own phone is making them insecure, if true this is surely a worrying development. Downtime thinks it would be less expensive and painful for Facetime users to smash their iPhones and do an old-fashioned face-to-face meet instead. Failing that, perhaps they should all be advised to wear gorilla masks instead.

downtime

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Supporting emerging Future Internet services for multiple applications

The FP7 FI-WARE EU project will deliver a novel service infrastructure, building upon elements (called Generic Enablers – GEs) which offer reusable and commonly shared functions making it easier to develop Future Internet Applications in multiple sectors. FI-WARE is the cornerstone of the Future Internet PPP (FI-PPP) program, a joint action by European Industry and the European Commission. FI-WARE’s First Open Call will allow the incorporation of new partners that can contribute or develop the following GEs for their integration as part of FI-WARE. They also need to provide support to FI-PPP use case projects validating conceptual prototypes developed on top of FI-WARE: • Middleware for efficient and QoS/Security-aware invocation of

services and exchange of messages; • Definition and Simulation for Business Models and Business

Elements. Submitters to this Open Call should be legal entities that are established in an EU Member State, or FP7 Associated State.

Call identifier: FI-WARE: Open Call 1 for additional beneficiaries

Call open: The call opens on 31st January 2012

Call deadline: The call closes on 25th April 2012 at 17h00 (Brussels time)

Duration: July 2012 to April 2014

EC funding: up to 2 Million Euro

Language: English

Website: http://www.fi-ware.eu/open-call/

E-mail: fiware-opencall-help@lists.fi-ware.eu