The most recent Analysis from Incisive Media

Find a suitable substitution for Photoimpression 4

Ken McMahon — 2009-11-09T09:30:00.000Z

Ken McMahon, Personal Computer World, Monday 9 November 2009 at 09:30:00

Upgrade your current image-editing program or try an alternative

Q I am an 80-year-old retired geologist who, many years ago, worked in West Africa, where I became a surrogate mother to two tiny monkeys I rescued from the wild dogs that killed their mother.

I am now writing stories for my granddaughters about all the shenanigans the two got up to.

Since the stories are for little ones, they will need plenty of pictures and I have been composing these from the very large number of photos I have of that time.

To make these composites look natural I also used an old Arcsoft Photoimpression 4 program, which had facilities to smear, blur and smooth the edges of the pasted bits.

Unfortunately, I lost my old Windows XP laptop and now have one loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium.

While trawling through various Arcsoft products looking for another Photoimpression 4 download, I found that it is no longer in stock.

Not only that, but it would not have been compatible with Vista.

So I am stuck and am desperately looking for a replacement for Photoimpression 4.

Do you have, or perhaps know of, such a program with these functions?

Is there perhaps an Arcsoft one I have not located yet? Are these functions perhaps available in some part of Vista that I have yet to find?

J du Bois

A You can upgrade to Arcsoft Photoimpression 6.5 Gold, the latest version of the software, for $19.99.

We’re not sure how similar this new version is to the old version 4 that you’re used to.

It is, however, compatible with Windows Vista.

The website has details of all the system requirements and you can also download a trial version to check it out before purchasing.

If Photoimpression 6.5 Gold doesn’t have the blur and smear tools you’re looking for, we’d suggest Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.

This has excellent filters for blurring, as well as a smudge tool that can be used to selectively smudge parts of an image.

It also has the best tools of any consumer photo-editing program for making selections and creating montages something it sounds like you do a great deal.

You can find details and a trial download on the Adobe website.

Part of the union - Aviva's CFO Patrick Regan

Kevin Reed — 2009-11-06T11:30:00.000Z

Kevin Reed, Accountancy Age, Friday 6 November 2009 at 11:30:00

With a secondary listing on Wall Street and moving its European HQ to Ireland, Aviva's new CFO has a lot on his plate

The UK’s biggest insurer Aviva has appointed Patrick Regan as CFO, taking over from Philip Scott. Scott has spent 36 years at the firm, taking a big role in the flotation of what was then Norwich Union in 1997.

What’s happened?

It’s more a question of what hasn’t happened for the insurance giant in recent weeks and months, and Regan comes into the business at an exciting time. The former CFO and COO of insurance broker Willis, Regan will be busy on several fronts.

While some headlines in the past week have focused on chief executive Andrew Moss’ private life, that should not distract from two major pieces of business undertaken by the insurer.

It has taken a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange and restructured its European business. While some reports suggest analysts think it was unnecessary, announcement of the listing boosted Aviva’s shares and the strategy has broadly been welcomed.

Aviva took the listing to make it easier for US investors, particularly as a big proportion of shareholdings are from the US (currently around 20%).

While UK companies have shied away from US listings in recent years due to concerns over regulation (in particular Sarbox), Aviva have taken the leap. With an ongoing global finance programme underway, and meeting US internal controls regulation, this should focus Regan’s mind immediately.

“Aviva has completed preparations for listing… This enhances Aviva’s financial processes, controls and risk management frameworks, bringing it Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and broader risk management benefits for the group,” said Aviva in a statement to the markets.

The restructuring has seen the insurer base its European HQ in Ireland.

This might seem like a kick in the teeth to the UK, but its UK operations are effectively separate from its European business. It is, of course, something for the government to bear in mind favourable tax jurisdictions can help attract major business.

European chief executive Andrea Moneta tried to play down that tax was a big reason for its choice of Ireland. “If we make more business in a country with a lower tax rate, we may have some tax benefits,” reported the Telegraph. “This is absolutely not the primary reason.”

What’s going to happen?

Regan’s focus for the group is summed up nicely by his new boss Moss. His track record of improving reporting and financial performance, and his global experience are key for the group going forward.

“He brings a global perspective and a disciplined and strategic approach. These are key qualities as we seek to realise Aviva’s full potential and establish ourselves as a global group,” said Moss.

Regan will need all his experience from Grant Thornton, GE Capital Bank, Axa, RSA and Willis, as his new shook-up employer drives forward.

HP revamps infrastructure strategy in response to uncertain demand

Martin Courtney — 2009-11-05T12:13:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 12:13:00

Changes designed to appeal to cash-strapped buyers

HP has reshuffled its server, storage, networking and datacentre management product portfolio in a bid to make them more attractive to corporate buyers who continue to deal with uncertain IT infrastructure budgets.

The company has conducted research that it says shows more than 90 per cent of companies feel business buying cycles will be unpredictable over the next few years, meaning all hardware and software vendors, HP included, need to find new approaches to selling.

Research company Gartner this week published a report saying that 2009 represents the worst year ever for the IT industry, with end-user spending down 6.9 per cent compared with 2008.

Gartner is more optimistic about 2010 in as much as there will be no further fall in spending, but it says the overall market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels until 2012.

“For more than 50 per cent of CIOs, the IT budget will be zero per cent or less in growth terms, and will only slowly improve in 2011,” wrote Gartner senior vice president Peter Sondergaard in a research note.

HP's newly named "converged infrastructure" is an expansion of its former adaptive infrastructure architecture, which now encompasses physical and virtual server and storage network hardware, management software, and applications designed to help datacentres monitor and control energy use in real time.

HP also released a new version of its Neoview Advantage data warehouse platform.

"This really builds on the Opsware acquisition [in 2007] by adding in a lower layer of management software to monitor and report on the resources being consumed [within the datacentre]," said Nathaniel Martinez, programme director at research company IDC.

"I am a bit dubious about any company saying they will offer bundles - it is not the right time for that. Most end-users right now are having infrastructure upgrades dictated by purchasing policy, and people want as much modularity as possible to be able to compare prices."

A consolidation of offerings may help push more customers towards HP’s vast services portfolio acquired from EDS, however. The company has set up converged infrastructure consulting services to push the product set, while its Enterprise Services division offers outsourcing options around the same technologies.

"I believe business processes are key to enterprises, and HP is not pushing these yet. No doubt they will come into play later with the [integration of] the EDS acquisition and local domesticities," said Martinez.

HP rival IBM has successfully integrated hardware and software sales with service and business process offerings in recent years, while Dell indicated similar intentions last month with the acquisition of services and business solutions specialist Perot Systems in a $3.9bn (£2.4bn) deal.

Like other IT vendors, HP has seen its profits fall due to a global slowdown in IT spending. Net revenue for the third quarter of 2009 was $27.5bn (£16.7bn), down two per cent year on year, with profits down 14 per cent to $2.2bn (£1.3bn). Earnings for the second quarter of 2009 saw profit falling 17 per cent compared with the same period in 2008.

HP has cut staff numbers in the UK and elsewhere in recent years, having announced a year ago that it would shelve 3,378 UK jobs in two years following the EDS acquisition, with a total of 24,000 jobs being axed globally.

Exploring the cloud's potential

Dave Bailey — 2009-11-05T07:45:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, Computing, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 07:45:00

Intel CTO Justin Rattner and SAP head of research Lutz Heuser explain how their firms are collaborating to make the cloud truly fit for enterprise purposes

The next generation of cloud computing services and platforms will look very different, and hardware giant Intel and business software firm SAP recently launched a collaborative research facility in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter business and science park to discover how best to provide them.

Computing talked to Intel’s chief technology officer (CTO) Justin Rattner and SAP’s head of research Lutz Heuser about their aims.

What does this collaboration mean for Intel and SAP?

JR: The co-lab represents a new approach to research, with companies such as Intel and SAP demonstrating a high level of mutual trust and helping to leverage one another’s investment. The joint effort will mean better results more quickly for our companies and the industry at large.

In addition, sustainability is a key concern for us. One thing we’re learning from the consumer cloud is that energy is an important consideration, and that a lot of effort is required to make these cloud systems energy efficient, because operating costs are increasingly the main costs.

It is no coincidence that datacentres such as those of Google or Microsoft have sprung up in cooler climates – both are situated on the Columbia river in the US, and use the water as a cooling mechanism.

What do you think are the biggest issues for companies considering rolling out cloud services?

LH: They have to trust the service. If I know that my enterprise’s data is being handled correctly, I don’t care where the data is physically located. However, the trust is not there yet, so we have to work on that.

n addition, we have to make it easy for the chief executive to allow the IT leaders to adopt a solution such as this. Ultimately, companies want to lower their total costs, and the solution should run as smoothly as if it were in-house – it will make life easier, not more complex.

Will Intel concentrate primarily on the hardware aspects of the proj ect, with SAP taking responsibility for the software?

JR: Intel is much more software focused than you would imagine, and increasingly what we do at the hardware level is driven by what we understand at the software level.

Much of our work with SAP will be around software and services, and the understanding we get from this will influence our hardware designs.

We have not seen the first generation of truly cloud-optimised hardware yet. We don’t know what servers designed specifically for these large cloud datacentres will look like; certainly different from traditional enterprise servers.

Look at Google – it tore out the bits it didn’t need from the server motherboards before setting up its cloud centres. So it doesn’t take a genius to realise that a cloud service probably has an optimum hardware architecture that we have yet to identify. We are starting to think about this.

How will you determine whether or not this partnership has been a success and what do you expect the practical results to be?

LH: Our initial joint venture started three or four years ago and we already have some results in the pipeline that we can’t announce yet – these will be around internet infrastructures and sustainable IT.

We are figuring out where the sweet spots are, and who the early adopters are likely to be – these companies will take the cloud infrastructure as part of their business model and drive them further.

We believe there will be a lot of new players in this arena offering services akin to iTunes and Facebook in the enterprise market. In five years there will be successful examples of this because we will have the new infrastructure.

PDA deployment pays off for debt collection firm

Tom Young — 2009-11-05T07:45:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 07:45:00

Bristow & Sutor has seen a significant rise in productivity since it equipped its bailiffs with GPS-enabled PDAs

Bristow & Sutor, a firm based in the West Midlands that collects payments on behalf of local authorities, has rolled out personal digital assistants (PDAs) to more than 150 bailiffs in an effort to improve their time management and make it easier for them to collect payments.

Previously, bailiffs would begin their day in the office, where they would be assigned a number of case files for the day – usually about 30.

They would be provided with hard copies of maps and would then have to try to work out the most efficient route between cases.

Each local authority has slightly different guidelines for extracting payment, so a bailiff would be required to carry a crib sheet ensuring he was following the correct protocol and method of calculating the fee owed – all of which had to be done on the spot.

When it came to extracting payment from people, bailiffs had to ring the payment through to a processing team at the firm’s headquarters in Redditch, and then wait for a return call to confirm clearance. The new PDAs have made things easier.

The bailiffs can have their cases stored on the devices and electronically added, removed and updated. The devices also contain a satellite navigation system that plots the best route between cases and instructs them in the same way as a sat nav.

They also calculate fees and provide the individual authority guidelines for that particular case.

In addition, they have an in-built card-payment machine, so bailiffs can extract payment without ringing back to the office, saving time and staff back at the company’s headquarters.

The system means that the firm can provide evidence of a visit should a member of the public falsely claim a bailiff had not called on them. “It gives us GPS data and a time stamp to check that the bailiffs are where they say they are,” said Bristow & Sutor managing director Andy Rose.

And when it comes to giving feedback on contracts, the system offers greater accountability and security, which helps with compliance. Electronic tick-box forms have replaced hand-written notes, which had proved difficult to read in the past.

The devices also transmit automated real-time alerts to the office base. Should no activity occur after a certain amount of time, an alert is issued that a worker could be in danger.

The firm also operates a client web service so that customers can view the progress of their particular cases online.

Bristow & Sutor operates its own in-house IT system, which made the switch to PDAs much easier, but it did need help from vendor Cognito to help with the external units.

Many of the bailiffs did not have experience of using mobile technology and there was some resistance to the devices.

But now almost all have been persuaded of the benefits and Rose estimated the firm is now turning over between nine and 10 per cent more cases than before it introduced the technology, giving a full return on investment within three years.

The changes in work patterns also mean that Bristow & Sutor can recruit labour in local areas, as well as those who live near its head office.

“This kind of technology is definitely becoming more affordable and suitable for smaller businesses,” said Ovum analyst Tim Renowden. “The price of devices will continue to fall too, but customised software will always be an expense.”

Multifunction handhelds to help police with their inquiries

Devices that perform more than one IT function are becoming increasingly common. The Association of Chief Police Officers is currently tendering for devices that can read credit and debit cards, passport chips and fingerprints, as well as contain a camera capable of capturing someone’s face to run through facial recognition technology.

Such bespoke mobile technology is not cheap – the tender is for 150 devices at £800,000 – but they do allow officers to perform a number of functions at once.

“The more functions a device has on it the better,” said project manager Dave Gunning. “They won’t necessarily all be used, but at least the capability is there.”

The police will use the devices in air and sea ports to check the identity of those coming in and going out.

Staff thrive on variety at C4

Angelica Mari — 2009-11-05T07:45:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 07:45:00

Channel 4 CIO Kevin Gallagher tells Computing how the convergence of TV and web services is opening up new opportunities for IT professionals

Channel 4 (C4) is to revamp its IT skills development strategy in light of the convergence of TV and web services and the rise of commodity IT outsourcing. The broadcaster will also introduce formal succession planning next year as a means of retaining the right staff.

C4’s chief information officer (CIO), Kevin Gallagher, told Computing that the broadcaster’s 60-strong IT team is small enough to allow considerable movement between departments and that this was a way of maximising staff skills.

“As we move to a more converged world, we expect people to move across departments instead of them just being a broadcaster or working in IT,” he said. “For example, we want to use people with traditional commissioning or TV backgrounds to commission web material. It is a different world, but some of the skills and creativity are similar and we want to harness that.”

C4 IT staff largely work on business-critical projects, while commodity IT is outsourced to partners such as Computacenter and Indian supplier NIIT. This means staff often work across business lines and are involved in shaping and managing third-party agreements and business processes, such as those underpinning the station’s recent contract with YouTube (see below).

Having a small team helps when it comes to competency mapping for IT, and the formal succession planning to be introduced next year should help the broadcaster retain its top staff.

“In a lot of flat organisations, people tend to move, but we are keen to retain the right people, see them moving around the organisation and have them become general managers rather than subject-matter experts,” said Gallagher.

Despite the current lack of a structured development programme, C4 has maintained its technical training budget – about £1,000 per employee – even in a challenging economic climate.

The broadcaster has reinstated its IT graduate programme after suspending it for financial reasons for a few years, and has just recruited a computer science graduate into a senior position. “What we can promise [the graduate] is that he will have a lot of business contact. Many systems don’t have a huge number of users, so the interaction between them and the developers is quite close,” said Gallagher.

YouTube deal puts IT centre stage

Under a deal signed with YouTube last month, C4 will make full-length content available through the video sharing web site shortly after shows have aired on TV from 2010.

The move is part of the channel’s strategy to work with third parties to get its content out to as wide an audience as possible, said C4 chief information officer Kevin Gallagher.

“This deal means there is a lot of work in IT to support the business development team in any technical issues that may appear and ensure we deliver from a contractual point of view,” he said.

IT work behind the scenes of the C4/YouTube deal includes the provision of metadata in XML format to YouTube for each show, which includes information on synopsis, cast and breaks for insertion of advertising.

Workflows co-ordinated by IT also include the re-formatting of video content for the web.

“Adding a new platform gets easier each time. And we now have a good suite of systems that lets us add new channels quickly,” said Gallagher.

Online projects planned for next year will see further alignment of web sites around programmes, and more use of social networking.

IBM White Paper download

Read more about social networking and the CIO, and how to use Web 2.0 platforms as business tools

UK Industry Awards 2009: Innovative project of the year

Computing staff — 2009-11-04T14:56:00.000Z

Computing staff, Computing, Wednesday 4 November 2009 at 14:56:00

We profile the finalists in the biggest UK IT industry awards night

Innovation is one of the most important themes of the UK IT Industry Awards, so it is fitting that the Innovative Project of the Year award, sponsored by Konica Minolta, has turned out to be one of the most hotly contested.

This year’s finalists prove that IT innovation remains central to those organisations whose success relies on technology.

The winners will be announced at the prizegiving party, to be held at Battersea Evolution in London on Thursday 12 November 2009.

To view the full list of finalists for each award, and to book your table at what will be the biggest night of the UK IT calendar, visit our web site at www.computing.co.uk/awards.

Flintshire County Council - Virtualisation

Flintshire County Council has built a virtualised, twin-centre IT infrastructure, that uses the minimum possible hardware resources to provide the right level of support to the council’s business systems at any given time. When workload grows or new requirements emerge, Flintshire can expand existing virtual servers or fire up new ones. The automatic shutdown of unused resources, combined with innovative datacentre cooling methods, has reduced energy costs and carbon emissions.

National Grid - Planning for Success

National Grid has an aggressive programme to upgrade Britain’s power network, and has designed pioneering software, unavailable on the market, to improve long-term planning of work on the electricity transmission system. “Optimiser” will allow delivery of increased volumes of work with the same resources and reduce contractor costs associated with delays by at least 10 per cent by managing complex data and business processes through a single software tool.

Glasgow School of Art Digital Design Studio - Venus: Virtual exploration of underwater sites

The Venus project aims to provide accurate 3D reconstructions of underwater archaeological sites, providing virtual access to sites that are otherwise out of reach to all but a few specially trained archaeologists. By recreating the sites as interactive computer-generated virtual environments, experts and the general public can study these important pieces of cultural heritage in a safe and cost-effective environment. For example, an underwater dive simulator provides the ability to dive down to accurate 3D simulations of deep sea underwater wrecks.

HR Wallingford - OpenWEB integrated environmental modelling

To understand how pressures such as climate change affect the environment requires modelling of not just physical, chemical and biological parameters, but how these parameters interact to affect the whole system. OpenWEB is an HR Wallingford initiative researching and implementing integrated computer modelling approaches with a community of users working together to make simulation of environmental systems a reality.

GHL Insurance Services/IT-Freedom - ICE Claims

In 2008, GHL Insurance Services decided to radically improve its claims service and searched the market for solutions to automate manual processes and drive cost out of the business. In August 2008, a joint project team was set the objective of installing ICE Claims to help the firm to realise the benefits from January 2009.

BT Innovate & Design - Risky Starts

Risky Starts is a co-operative effort between Openreach, BT’s communication provider customers, and BT Innovate & Design. The problem involved the re-use of previously connected lines that are at risk of early life failure (ELF). The solution was to identify lines with a high risk of failing and ensuring any necessary engineering work was completed prior to service being provided to those lines. The result was a reduction from 12 per cent to four per cent in the level of ELFs.

Mouchel Group - Maps@mouchel

Maps@mouchel is an innovative system that incorporates central data storage and management, harnesses the latest in web portal and geographic information systems, supports open standards for specialist users of geospatial technologies, and helps protect Mouchel from intellectual property infringement risks.

Teliris - Teliris 6G

Teliris developed its 6G telepresence platform to dramatically reduce bandwidth and related costs. The standards-based client-server software takes telepresence from the heavy, hardware-reliant, high-bandwidth systems typical of other vendors to a lightweight, agile solution that uses general-purpose networks.

Defra/IBM - Energy efficiency research project

IT could eliminate 15 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, but IT is itself a costly energy consumer. IBM worked with the government to study the energy efficiency of different IT environments. An innovative, structured approach was developed that enables IT departments and decision-makers to make more informed decisions and drive excess energy consumption out of distributed IT.

Siemens IT Solutions and Services - Media Community Cloud

This proof-of-concept project was built to demonstrate innovative use of cloud computing technology, enabling Siemens to deliver new services to its media sector customers. The project addressed the challenges that media firms face as their business models are disrupted by the advent of convergence and the digital age.

Ringing the changes - Nokia's new CFO

Santhie Goundar — 2009-11-03T11:25:00.000Z

Santhie Goundar, Accountancy Age, Tuesday 3 November 2009 at 11:25:00

Nokia surprised everyone by appointing a virtual unknown to the high-profile CFO role, so who is he?

Mobile phone conglomerate Nokia has appointed a new CFO in a surprise board reshuffle. Current CFO Rick Simonson is leaving to head up the devices unit, while global head of sales Timo Ihamuotila will take his place in charge of the finances.

What’s happened?

The news came straight after Nokia announced an unexpected third-quarter loss, which hasn’t happened since 1998. The Q3 loss of $836m (£512m) was blamed on a write-down of the Nokia Siemens Network investment and declining sales of its mobile phones, particularly smartphones where other players, such as the iPhone the patents for which Nokia is sueing Apple over are rapidly eating away at the Finnish firm’s market share.

A spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that “job rotations” like Ihamuotila’s were quite common among Nokia’s executives, but was mysteriously silent on when, or why, the change was decided.

Despite being global head of sales for a huge brand, very little is known about Ihamuotila. One thing is for certain: with investors closely scrutinising the company on the back of their dismal results, the publicity-shy Finn is bound to be thrust quite roughly into the limelight.

Ihamuotila, a graduate of the Helsinki School of Economics, left his role as an analyst in a Finnish bank to join Nokia in 1993 as a manager of dealing and risk management. After working elsewhere for three years, he rejoined Nokia in 1999 and has now spent the past ten years in a series of roles, including being appointed corporate treasurer from 2000 until 2004. He has been on the Nokia Group executive board since 2007, yet press attention has been scarce until now.

Nokia’s CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, said: “Timo Ihamuotila’s expertise from leading a diverse range of business areas will be a tremendous asset in his position as CFO.”

One wonders how the outgoing head of sales and former corporate finance director proposes to turn the company’s fortunes around.

What happens next?

Ihamuotila is no stranger to finance. As well as being appointed corporate treasurer, he also worked as senior vice president at Nokia’s CDMA business unit in California, where his Nokia website biography describes him as being “responsible for the financial results and the overall strategic direction of Nokia’s global CDMA operations”. In theory, then, his new role shouldn’t be too far from his previous experiences.

The job change will be happening on 1 November. Analysts have indicated that Simonson is just what the mobile phone business unit needs to shake things up. Indeed, Nokia’s last two chief executives had plotted their career paths as CFOs before becoming CEOs via a move to the mobile phone business. It will be interesting to see if the little-known, tennis-loving Ihamuotila is looking to follow a similar path.

Opening up the Windows with new Microsoft OS

Fleur Doidge — 2009-10-30T17:16:00.000Z

Fleur Doidge, CRN, Friday 30 October 2009 at 17:16:00

Will Microsoft’s latest client OS prove a breath of fresh air for the licensing market? One VAR has completed one of the first deployments of Windows 7

One of the first things users are likely to notice about Microsoft’s latest client operating system, Windows 7, is that finally it is possible to have several application windows open side by side and even resize them or make them transparent. Users can therefore easily refer to one window while working on another without having to work from memory or click between them to compare, as in previous OSes.

This feature — dubbed Snap and offering functionality that rival Apple has had in its OSes for more than a decade — might seem a little thing but, according to Richard Gibbons, software manager at VAR Bechtle, it is the little things that count when it comes to user productivity.

“With Windows 7, we are finding that from a user perspective it is the small things that are making the biggest difference. And that Snap feature, comparing two windows together and where you can move one to the left and one to the right, people love that,” he says.

Bechtle is a Gold Microsoft partner and German VAR with offices around Europe, including the UK, has completed one of the first reseller deployments of Windows 7, at Dean Close School in Cheltenham. The rollout began in July, with just 20 machines, as primarily an upgrade from XP although the school did have a few machines on Vista and is continuing in stages.

“When that had bedded in a couple of weeks later, it went up to 71 machines, and a little while after that, to 100 machines. We are expecting it to be pretty much on all machines that the school uses by Christmas,” says Gibbons.

“It is hard to put an exact figure on the final number, but it will be about 500 school PCs and then however many student-owned laptops.”

‘Much better than Vista’

Dean Close, a private day and boarding school with a reputation for technological innovation, has about 1,000 pupils aged from three to 18.

Gibbons says Bechtle engineers have been working with Windows 7 since February, assessing its benefits on various machines, and Dean Close’s IT staff have also been familiarising themselves with the OS on their own computers at home.

“Compared with Vista when it was initially released, this was much better. The worries about drivers and application compatibility that Vista gave us are completely gone in Windows 7,” he says.

“We knew it was basically all going to work. And the upgrade process was much quicker.”

The reseller has deployed Windows 7 in conjunction with Windows Server

2008 R2, which it sees as critical to reaping the benefits. Key for the school was enhanced access and security features, increased productivity and a more intuitive interface.

Productivity, access and security, especially around remote and home computer use by students and staff, have become larger challenges. The school also expects cost savings.

Nyall Monkton, IT manager at Dean Close School, says: “Microsoft licensing for education, the Schools Agreement, made it possible for us to afford Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but that is not the only saving we will see.”

Windows 7 includes a feature called DirectAccess that means the school will rely less on the Citrix servers it currently uses to manage its information. “In the future, we will not need to maintain Citrix, potentially saving £15,000 to £25,000 [per annum],” says Monkton.

Gibbons says DirectAccess means users no longer need struggle with Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) when accessing the school network remotely. Wireless working should also be much easier, with all mobile computing done in one spot.

The taskbar has been revamped to reduce desktop clutter and make it easier to launch programs and switch windows.

Gibbons says the roll-out had been smooth so far, except for on a few laptops. Windows 7 is expected to get a huge groundswell of support, boosting opportunities for resellers in the wake of Vista’s disappointments.

“Features such as BitLocker and DirectAccess and the services around them will make for a big opportunity, such as the installs of Server 2008 R2 and configuring DirectAccess,” says Gibbons.

“Customers will prefer to have an experienced services partner to do it for them. And we are expecting to see increased use of Hyper-V as well.”

Software Assurance partners can also offer Microsoft’s desktop optimisation package, opening up opportunities in desktop virtualisation and similar. It was also much less resource-hungry than Vista, meaning customers would not baulk at a purchase that entailed a hardware upgrade as well.

“You can sell more licences or enjoy the services element,” says Gibbons.

Jens Butler, principal analyst at Ovum, says getting in at the start was a good tactic with Windows 7.

“According to the 22 October launch marketing blitz, there has never been a better time to be a PC,” he says.

“It may also never be a better time to be a systems integrator, given that this launch fits into the timing of PC upgrade cycles, and the ageing and retirement of Windows XP with the ending of official Microsoft support in April.”

He says that Ovum expects Windows 7 to attract “significant” interest from customers in 2010, which will have kickbacks for channel companies generally, as well as hardware and software vendors.

Organisations that have stuck with XP until now may take advantage of the opportunity to do some serious housekeeping around their IT systems, including a Windows 7 upgrade.

“One has to give Microsoft credit,” says Butler. “This version of the Windows platform has had far more engagement with stakeholders than previous versions, with users — consumer and enterprise — and partners having substantial input, with specific demands for security, reliability and speed being the development cornerstones.

“Microsoft has also driven through its shortest beta testing cycle ever. Being cynical, one might say it needed to be.”

The vendor was promoting the new OS with messaging about simplicity, choice and value. That might well resonate with the market and give Redmond a chance to rebuild some of the trust customers lost in its products as a result of Vista.

Green shoots of recovery

However, despite Vista, enterprise uptake and migration programmes around Windows 7 should start to appear in the first half of 2010 and accelerate as the green shoots of economic recovery take deeper root especially when XP support is phased out by resellers, adds Butler.

Simon Aldous, SMB and distribution director at Microsoft, says he expects a lot of interest in Windows 7 from the VAR community.

“There are three strong areas that we are pushing that are resonating with resellers: productivity; security; and control,” says Aldous. “[That is alongside] streamlining

of cost and pretty much any customer entity has interests, challenges or opportunities that are aligned there.”

According to Microsoft, partners had a closer role in developing Windows 7, resulting in improved PC performance and compatibility with software and hardware across the Windows ecosystem.

About 50,000 developers have enrolled in the Windows Ecosystem Readiness Program to build product around Windows 7.

Bechtle employs 4,400 people and has about 56,000 customers across the public and private sectors. It offers various IT infrastructure solutions and products, as well having more than 50 in-house locations at German, Austrian and Swiss customer sites.

It also has 13 competence centres for security, storage, CAD, and enterprise computing, offering tailored solutions and managed services.

Bechtle orders up OrderWork

www.channelweb.co.uk/2205463

A foreseeable future with Intel

Fleur Doidge — 2009-10-30T17:04:00.000Z

Fleur Doidge, CRN, Friday 30 October 2009 at 17:04:00

Intel promoted a view of itself as in tune with the daily needs of the end user-facing channel at its UK partner forum this year.

All Intel eyes were trained firmly on the future at this year’s partner conference, held in Northamptonshire. The slogan being bandied around was ‘Sponsors of Tomorrow’, reflecting Intel’s latest global marketing campaign, which posits that advances in the digital age are basically all due to silicon for example, in micro-processors.

So it was no surprise that Intel launched its partner day with a talk by Global Futures and Foresight (GFF) chief executive David A Smith.

Smith listed and described various phenomena informing change in the 21st century, including global warming and the environmental challenges, Moore’s Law-based advances in IT, mass migration, and slowing birth rates.

The conference was officially opened by Chrissie Harrison, channel manager for UK and Ireland at Intel, who noted that the channel had taken a big hit from Q3 of 2008 onwards, but that things have started to look up.

“Also, there has been an increase in innovation and creativity in new products coming to market. So are you a shrinking market, the reseller channel? The answer is no, definitely not,” she said. “Forty per cent of Intel’s total UK revenue is still via the channel, and in fact it has always been around that level.”

Intel hoped that resellers would look at the new technologies appearing and use them to build solution and services opportunities for themselves. Hardware and software would never sell themselves without local support.

Help with marketing

Tim Black, director of SMB and channel business at Intel, said the chipmaker is challenging the view that it does more with its vendor partners than with channel partner when it came to marketing.

“We want to make sure we make it much easier to lift that content and syndicate that to allow you, the channel, to use that in your own marketing campaigns and the like,” he said.

The channel is not homogeneous, and Intel’s initiatives would reflect that. Also, the chipmaker is developing and releasing various tools that could help the channel sell, such as online return on investment (RoI) calculators.

“And we are challenging ourselves to deliver training in a way that meets your needs,” said Black.

Intel’s continuing investments in R&D meant opportunities would continue to arise. The company had spent $7 billion (£4.3bn) in two years to fund deployment of 32nm manufacturing facilities for products that do more with less. Five years ago, Intel would have been using that money to make transistors smaller, faster and cooler, but today transistors were also being developed that incorporated manageability and security features.

“The big benefit is that we are taking the x86, if you like, into adjacent markets, which will open some opportunities for you,” said Black.

New tech opens new verticals

Healthcare is an example of a vertical now sprouting high-tech opportunities for solution providers. Others included the energy, utilities, transport and digital signage markets.

Black said that Intel saw all of the above as likely to prove particularly lucrative.

“[With digital signage,] really nobody is out there today in a volume space delivering [certain] solutions to market,” he said.

Advances in Intel processors would continue to develop over the next few years in ways that encouraged the parallel development of technological trends, such as virtualisation and consolidation.

“The Intel Atom processor today is about 80 per cent consumer and 20 per cent business use. There is a business opportunity around taking netbook architecture and so on as a kind of companion device in the business market,” said Black.

Meanwhile, other developments would offer improved business productivity to users such as ultra-low voltage (ULV) processing, which should foster advances in form factor and battery life.

Escape to the country for Channel Conference

www.channelweb.co.uk/2250539

Tariff proposals threaten to dampen firms' renewables ambitions

James Murray — 2009-10-30T14:42:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Friday 30 October 2009 at 14:42:00

Industry warns that the government's Clean Energy Cashback scheme does little to boost the economic case for onsite renewable energy

The economic viability of plans to increase installations of renewable energy technologies at commercial properties are hanging in the balance, as the government prepares to rubberstamp a package of incentives that critics say is insufficient to kick start interest in technologies such as small-scale wind turbines or rooftop solar panels.

Under the government's proposed Clean Energy Cashback feed in tariff (FIT) scheme, businesses or households investing in onsite renewable energy technologies capable of generating up to 5MW of power are to be paid by their energy provider for the energy produced at an above market rate set by the government.

The scheme, which is to come into effect from next April, initially sparked considerable excitement within the renewables industry. Many observers compared the government's decision to drop its long-standing opposition to FIT mechanisms and introduce an incentive scheme with steps taken by the German government that have helped to make that country one of the world's leading generators of renewable energy. Experts predicted that, just as happened in Germany, businesses keen to cut carbon emissions and generate an additional revenue stream would rush to erect wind turbines in their car parks or put solar panels on their warehouse roofs.

However, fears are now mounting that the government is poised to set the tariffs at a level so low that it will lead to only a marginal increase in the installation of domestic renewable energy technologies and provide next to no boost to businesses' plans to install large-scale renewable energy systems.

According to figures contained in the Department of Energy and Climate Change's official consultation document, larger scale onsite projects such as those likely to be implemented by businesses will receive tariffs considerably lower than those on offer for domestic installations.

For example, solar PV installations with a capacity of between 4kW and 10kW will receive payments of 31 pence per kWh (p/kWh), while larger installations generating between 100kW and 5MW, such as those installed on office buildings or factories, will receive just 26p/kWh. Similarly, a household installing a micro wind turbine with a capacity of less than 1.5kW will receive 30.5p/kWh, but a company looking to install two large wind turbines on an industrial estate with sufficient capacity to power hundreds of local homes will enjoy incentives of just 4.5p/kWh.

"The proposed tariffs are poor for domestic, but they are truly awful for larger scale installations, and are particularly bad for community-scale wind projects," says Dave Timms, UK climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, adding that the environmental group believes the proposed tariffs are too low for almost every technology at every scale. "Basically, the government has set itself a ridiculously unambitious target of generating just two per cent of UK electricity from onsite renewables by 2020 and worked its way backwards to get the tariffs to hit that target."

He adds that the most cost-effective way to meet even that unambitious target would be to target larger installations such as community-scale wind or biomass projects. But the government has positioned the Clean Energy Cash Back scheme as a primarily domestic initiative designed to help households generate money from renewable energy, and as a result the tariffs have been tailored accordingly, effectively excluding businesses from the scheme.

The prospects for businesses interested in installing renewable energy technologies look even worse when you consider the return on investment (ROI) that the government's feed in tariff promises.

According to the government's own consultation, the feed in tariffs should provide a ROI of between five and eight per cent, although PV is singled out for ROI of less than four per cent on the ground it is "tried and tested" in the UK.

However, according to a government-commissioned study into feed in tariffs undertaken earlier this year by energy consultancy Poyry/Element Energy, ROIs would have to range from three to 20 per cent to attract interest from households, six to 15 per cent to drive investment from commercial firms and eight to 14 per cent to encourage commercial investors to back renewable energy projects.

The report states unequivocally that even the most generous tariffs proposed by the government will fail to spark interest in the kind of larger scale installations that would prove most effective at curbing carbon emissions.

"Setting tariffs to provide an eight per cent rate of return for all technologies encourages uptake of small-scale, higher cost technologies but does not stimulate deployment of large-scale systems," it concludes. "This is because there is a significant proportion of domestic investors who are willing to accept returns of eight per cent or less, but the majority of large-scale investors have hurdle rates above eight per cent."

The government's justification for ROI rates of five to eight per cent appears to be based on comments attributed to the German MP Hans-Josef Fell in which he said return on investments should be set at five to seven per cent as "significantly higher returns were not desired because the extra costs to be passed on would push up the price of power too far".

However, many within the renewable energy industry are adamant that Fell's comments have been wilfully misinterpreted, arguing that the German renewable energy market is now significantly more mature than the UK and as a result it can cope with potentially lower tariffs.

Moreover, the experience on the ground in Germany is that projects routinely breach the seven per cent ROI mark. Speaking following a fact-finding trip to Germany earlier this week, the Labour back bench MP Alan Simpson who has campai gned for the introduction of a feed in tariff and was recently appointed as Ed Miliband's Clean Energy Cashback adviser, said many German projects were clearly enjoying rates of return in excess of 10 per cent.

He also dismissed objections within Whitehall that higher feed in tariffs were unfeasible as they would lead to higher energy bills, arguing that any increases would be minimal, that the government was already poised to announce a levy on energy bills to help pay for carbon capture and storage projects, and that feed in tariffs presented an equitable means of boosting renewable energy capacity as any money raised through increased energy bills is redistributed to those businesses, individuals and communities that are generating energy.

According to Timms, without an overhaul of the proposed tariffs many businesses will simply continue to ignore the potential for onsite renewable energy systems. "Some householders will be interested in an ROI of eight per cent of less because they are committed to fighting climate change and want to cut their emissions, and likewise some businesses will continue to invest in renewables to drive their climate change agenda," he observes. "But if you talk to businesses most of them admit they will not get out of bed for an ROI of less than 10 per cent."

These fears are already being realised, according to Paul Donnelly, CSR manager at storage group Big Yellow. He says that just prior to the release of the consultation the company was approached by a number of solar energy firms proposing deals whereby they would rent space on the roof of Big Yellow's warehouses and then sell solar energy back to the company. But since the tariffs were proposed, he says, the phone has gone quiet.

"That option may still exist, but its viability is hugely diminished with the tariffs at the proposed level," he says. "We were being approached by companies that were expecting tariffs of 50p/kWh, but when the tariffs were announced many of them simply disappeared because they don't think they can make projects pay at the rates being proposed."

Those businesses keen to bolster their onsite renewable energy capacity are now being urged to lend their voice to a growing campaign calling on the government to increase the proposed tariffs. The We Support Solar campaign is backed by leading industry players such as Solar Century, Sharp, and the Federation of Master Builders, as well as a raft of businesses, housing associations, and green NGOs, and is calling for an increase in the proposed tariffs for solar PV of 10p/kWh.

Simpson urged firms to sign up to the campaign, warning that there was just a month left to ensure the UK gets a feed in tariff that genuinely drives an increase in renewable energy capacity and lay the foundations for a more decentralised and sustainable energy system.

It is a call echoed by Seb Berry of the UK PV Association, who warns that businesses interested in curbing their carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy could see their chances of success crushed without them even realising. "There's a concern that large numbers of businesses and public sector organisations that would like to deploy renewable energy systems in the future simply did not know about the feed in taariff consultation," he said. "But the government's final decision will have a huge impact on whether or not they will be able to move forward with their plans - it is in their interests to get involved now and call for better tariffs."

The link between databases and developers

Mark Whitehorn — 2009-10-30T09:30:00.000Z

Mark Whitehorn, Personal Computer World, Friday 30 October 2009 at 09:30:00

Delve into the link between database designers and application developers

Earlier this year I talked about stored procedures.

These are encapsulated blocks of code, frequently queries written in SQL, typically written by a database designer (DBD) and stored on a database server.

Application developers can then write applications that call these stored procedures.

The demarcation of developer roles described above neatly explains why we have stored procedures in our armoury.

The DBD knows about databases and how to query them, and the app developer knows how to write applications, but they needn’t necessarily share any common ground.

It is, of course, possible to develop a skill set that crosses these boundaries; people do, and you do see job descriptions that call for both, but many people specialise in one or the other.

Stored procedures provide a mechanism for database and app developers to communicate.

To illustrate this with a real-world example, let’s look at a stored procedure I’ve been working on.

The requirement was for a simple user interface that lets users type a year into a box, click a button and have returned to them the data pertaining to that year from a database.

Starting at the database end, first the DBD builds a straightforward SQL query to search for a sample date and return the necessary data.

Once it works as it should, the sample date is replaced by a variable called, say, ‘@year’ which holds a string of four characters.

Using a variable means that a parameter can be passed to the stored procedure from an application.

The query is then saved as a stored procedure and given a name, in this case ‘GetLocationsForYear’.

In order to start work on the application, the app developer needs to know only the name of the stored procedure and what sort of data it is expecting: here it’s a four-digit string equating to a year.

Code can then be written using whatever naming conventions the app developer deems appropriate, like this:

GetLocationsForYear(UserDate)

where ‘UserDate’ is a variable to hold the parameter typed in by the user.

The line of code above calls the stored procedure and sends it the parameter entered by the user, for example, ‘2006’.

This is used in place of the ‘@year’ variable in the query and the data for 2006 is returned to the user interface.

This process keeps the necessary communication between developers to a minimum of the stored procedure’s name and the data type expected by its variable or variables (a stored procedure can handle multiple variables).

These are the only constraints on code the app developer can build.

If you’re an Access developer moving into the SQL Server arena, you already have the database and SQL skills necessary to write stored procedures for use within an enterprise.

Large organisations usually employ application developers: you simply hand over the completed stored procedure and associated information as described above, and the job’s done.

Lookup hiccough

Recently I was asked to unravel an Access 2003 problem that centred around the use of the Lookup data type.

I wrote about the issue a while ago here but haven’t investigated it in Access 2007.

I did so and, I am sad to report, the situation has not improved. I feel it’s worth revisiting as the problem is still out there causing grief to the many users of Access, whether they work in large organisations or are home-based enthusiasts.

Imagine the scene: you have two tables, Colour containing data about the colour we use and Product for products that are painted.

Each product can only have one colour applied, so there is a one-to-one join between the two tables.

ColourID is a foreign key in Product and it points to the primary key field in the Colour table, also called ColourID.

Inspecting the Product table shows the foreign key column to be full of numbers not readily interpretable as colours.

Microsoft might ask at this point ‘Why not use the Lookup wizard to render these unfriendly numbers into recognisable words?’

I’ll be telling you why not in a moment but let’s go with the flow for now.

Open the Product table in Design mode and, in the Data Type column, click the popdown list alongside the ColourID field (the foreign key field).

The last item on the list is ‘Lookup Wizard… ‘. In its first step, select ‘I want the lookup column to look up the values in a table or query’, that is, you want it to display the colour names from the Colour table.

You select the table and the column in the next steps, add a sort order if required and then you’re shown the values you’ll see.

They look fine, and are much better than those old numbers. In the last step, type in text for use as the column label.

Inspect the table in Datasheet view and there are lovely colours displayed in the ColourID column.

Now let’s query the Product table for all the products painted mauve. Write a query with the Query Design tool (on the Create tab in the Other group poor queries, the heart of data extraction and relegated to Other…) or in SQL, the code being:

SELECT Product, ColourID

FROM Product

WHERE ColourID=”mauve”;

Click View or Run and all you get is an error message: ‘Data type mismatch in criteria expression’. This is the ‘why not’ referred to earlier.

What’s required here is the numeric ID for the colour, like this:

SELECT Product, ColourID

FROM Product

WHERE ColourID=2;

Despite looking like text strings, the ColourID column contains numbers. The numbers are those used as primary key values in the ColourID column in the Colour table.

That’s what Access ‘sees’ when it queries the column and so you are left with a situation where a Lookup has been used to improve user-friendliness of the Product table but has the effect of leaving anyone who wants to query the table with a much higher workload.

An understanding of primary and foreign keys is required, plus knowledge of how a Lookup behaves.

This is the problem I was asked about by corporate users who had no knowledge of how the database had been constructed queries didn’t run properly and sorting didn’t work as expected either.

When an alphabetical sort of the column was requested, results appeared to be random, because they were being sorted by primary key value and not text string.

My advice has to be, don’t use lookup fields.

They do, of course, ‘contravene’ the relational model, which states that the table design should be entirely separate from the mechanisms that interrogate, manipulate and display that data.

Should you care about this? Well, it depends. If you believe the model is an abstract bit of theory that has no bearing on the real world then of course you shouldn’t.

But this case actually illustrates why the theory is worth obeying.

When we (or rather, the designers of Access) break it, something in the real world (in this case querying) breaks.

DBCJune09.mdb on this month’s cover disc contains a Product table with a normal foreign key field and a ProductLookup table with a Lookup.

We live in testing times

Recently, I solved a problem for a reader (Toby) who wanted times to be rounded to the nearest half an hour.

So anything between 11.15 and 11.44 inclusive becomes 11.30, 11.45 to 12.14 becomes 12pm and so on.

All Toby’s times were between 8.30am and 6pm, so we didn’t have to worry about times around midnight.

My solution worked but I felt it was over-complicated and asked if any readers could find a neater way to do it, and several did.

All of them were based around the premise that Access stores times as a fraction of a day.

So, for example, 6am is stored as .25 which is 6/24 of a day. If we multiply the time by 48 we convert the fraction into the number of half-hour units.

We can then use the Round function to round that number to the nearest integer, which is essentially the nearest whole half-hour.

Finally we divide by 48, which converts the number of half-hours back to a fraction of a day.

Here are three of the solutions:

UPDATE Production SET Production.RoundedTime = Round([EndTime]*48)/48

= Format(Round([EndTime]*48,0)/48,”Short Time”)

= [EndTime]*0+Int( [EndTime]*48+0.5 ) / 48

The first shows the complete SQL, the remainder just the variation in the use of functions.

Many thanks to all who replied, especially John McClenahan, Mike Woods and Andrew Kaye.

The top two work fine for almost all cases but not a quarter past the hour.

The third one works fine as far as my testing showed.

Pensions agency rewrites system delivery rule book

Tom Young — 2009-10-29T07:15:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Thursday 29 October 2009 at 07:15:00

In a move that could spark a revolution in government IT procurement, the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority is to harness existing private sector technology to administer a new pension scheme

A government agency tasked with setting up a new state pensions system, the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (Pada), has adopted a revolutionary approach that could be duplicated across the public sector as project managers with tight budgets look to increase efficiency.

The agency was established to deliver a state pension scheme to those who were not covered by existing employer’s schemes.

The aim is to provide the seven million people in the UK who are not saving enough to generate an adequate pension with an opportunity to do so.

The tool will be web-based and available to all employers, particularly those working for smaller companies that are less attractive to existing pension providers.

Recent reforms mean that all employers must offer a qualifying workplace pension scheme to their workers and that all eligible workers must be automatically enrolled into this chosen scheme.

Crucially, instead of constructing an IT system from scratch, Pada has decided to co-opt existing systems, according to business delivery director Simon Richards.

“Personal accounts are often characterised as an IT project – but we aren’t. We’re procuring and co-ordinating a set of business services,” he said.

Put simply, this means that rather than buying a new IT system, Pada will use the technology – and business processes – of existing firms.

The sector has an established supply chain with a number of different businesses offering services such as fund administration and investment management.

Pada’s market research suggested it would be more cost effective to stitch together offerings from a number of these businesses rather than building one holistic system from scratch.

“We’re procuring the services of businesses that are a well-established part of the market, as well as the existing technology that supports their interfaces,” said Richards. “We want to find a bidder who has the smallest possible technical journey to go on.”

A winning supplier will provide a front end similar to their own but with Personal Accounts branding.

The provision of information will generally be through electronic channels, including the internet, email, SMS, telephone, and future digital platforms.

The bidding process began this time last year and the agency will award contracts early next year. Commercial activity will begin in spring 2011 with a slow rollout to ensure that the stitched-together technology infrastructure is capable of handling the expected volumes of traffic.

Automatic enrolment in the scheme for all workers will come about towards the end of 2012.

One of the business services purchased will be the administration of the pension records. These will be held in the UK but can be accessed by parts of the company that are not resident in the UK.

When rollout is complete, Pada will hand over administration of the scheme to a trustee

corporation.

Richards said that Pada is opting for this model not because of failings in traditional “build from scratch” government IT schemes but simply because that was the best option on the table.

“We were clear that our objectives weren’t going to be served by developing IT for its own sake,” he said.

The success or failure of the scheme will be used as evidence in the ongoing debate on the role of the private sector in delivering frontline public services an option the Conservatives say could save the public purse millions.

A report from the CBI issued this week (see below) said that schemes that co-opt the private sector are vital if public finances are going to be restored to order.

“Outsourcing such services allows public sector organisations to partner with specialist providers. They will be skilled in project management, and have a proven IT infrastructure and an ability to innovate that comes from real knowledge and a passion for improvement,” says the CBI report.

CBI urges government to tap into private sector IT

A recent CBI report highlights how private sector technology can help the public sector save money.

Glasgow City Council has worked with Serco to overhaul its internal systems and processes, saving £1.7m.

Wakefield Metropolitan District Council has introduced a flexible working solution known as Worksmart, saving £1.6m.

In the NHS, better use of innovations such as telecare technology could prevent 70,000 older people entering residential care every year.

Outsourcing back-office and IT functions, using collaborative procurement and introducing shared services for IT could save billions. The London boroughs of Hounslow and Bromley have established a shared services partnership with private sector partner Liberata, which has already improved the benefit processing time in Bromley from 144 days to 27.

Betfair goes on global talent trek

Angelica Mari — 2009-10-29T07:15:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Thursday 29 October 2009 at 07:15:00

The online gaming company’s CTO, Tony McAlister, tells Computing how he plans to nurture IT talent both at home and abroad

Since starting at Betfair as chief technology officer 10 months ago, Tony McAlister has spearheaded a radical change in how the online gambling firm sources and manages its IT talent.

His initial brief was to support the company’s international growth and make the organisation, which now employs more than 600 technology staff, a “destination workplace”.

To that end, one of McAlister’s first tasks was a review of the IT skills needed by the business, which determined whether they would be recruited locally or abroad.

“We have very strong gaming exchange development skills here and I see London as a centre of excellence – I can’t find these skills of this standard anywhere else. But unfortunately, I am having to look around the globe for skills in areas such as web development,” McAlister told Computing. “Some of the best web talent is in California. I plan to bring some of these staff back to London but also build a development centre there,” he said.

“Web is one area in which I am having trouble finding talent, so if you are reading this and have those skills, send me your résumé – I am hiring,” he added.

Betfair is also looking at the US for web user experience skills, Asia for mobile-based technology and China for quality assurance. The firm is also expanding its offshore centre in Romania and will look into India for “commodity” IT.

As a result of recent organisational changes, McAlister now has eight senior executives reporting directly to him, and is also looking to improve succession planning.

Given the reliance of the business on IT, it is crucial that staff keep up with technology changes, so the company provides computer-based tuition for certain skills as well as formal training with key suppliers such as Microsoft, Oracle, HP and Dell. Close links with suppliers are especially important given that Betfair is often an early adopter of new platforms.

Having started his career as a Cobol programmer and climbed up the ranks to management, McAlister is familiar with the dilemmas faced by technical staff having to go down the business path to succeed, so a “dual ladder” development track was introduced.

“If you take a technician who wants to enhance his career, typically the only way to do it is by moving into management. But what I have seen often is a great technician who moves into management, doesn’t like it, gets discouraged and leaves. Or they fail and the company lets them go, losing a really good employee as a result,” said McAlister.

“Under our dual ladder scheme, you can come in as a developer, for example, build on your traditional skill, then at a certain point make a choice based on what you are good at and want to pursue and then move in one direction or the other,” he said.

McAlister adds that within certain areas of the company, such as its research arm, senior IT professionals can work on high-level activities, use their technical competence and “not worry about being a person manager”.

The gender balance within the business is another area McAlister is looking to address. Currently, men represent 85 per cent of Betfair’s IT team and being a sports-led, technology gaming company just adds to the challenge.

“One of the things I am doing [to redress the gender balance] is putting females in positions of authority and visibility and promoting that inside the company as much as possible,” he said.

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New approach to ID verification aims to safeguard privacy

Nicola Brittain — 2009-10-29T07:15:00.000Z

Nicola Brittain, Computing, Thursday 29 October 2009 at 07:15:00

Could a proposed verification framework based on relationships prevent personal data falling into the wrong hands?

Government and industry are being encouraged to take part in a new electronic identity scheme that could put control of online privacy back into the hands of individual web users.

International policy body the Global Trust Council (GTC) hopes to put a universal legal framework in place that will see online identity verified using “relationships”, sidestepping the need for database-held information, and upholding the individual’s right to privacy and to retain details of their identity.

How would it work?

Service providers looking to establish an online identity would ask the user for access to organisations with which they have a relationship such as a bank or government department.

Once the organisation had responded, a witness would oversee dealings between the user and service provider.

“The organisation would only need to give a yes or no answer,” said Andre Laperriere, director general of the GTC Secretariat. “For example, the state might say that the person either is or isn’t a British citizen.”

As soon as the individual is asked to verify more relationships, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to be faked.

Benefits of the scheme

Adoption of the scheme would bring two important benefits, according to GTC. First, the individual will retain their identity, meaning that they do not have to give personal information to the state.

“To get into some countries such as the US you must surrender vital information about yourself such as the map of your eye, or your fingerprints. The minute the US government has that fingerprint, it is not yours any longer,” said Laperriere.

Second, the scheme would halt the creation of mountains of personal information and help prevent personal data going awry – such as when insurance firm Zurich lost personal information relating to 50,000 UK customers that had been stored on a backup tape.

“A high-level legal framework of this sort is the missing piece and it would allow smoother business transactions and easier dealings with the state,” said Ant Allan, research vice president at analyst Gartner.

“There are already technical models in place such as Microsoft’s Geneva or Open ID - as used by Google - but they do not yet sit within a legal framework so there is no basis of trust that would enable online financial interactions.”

GTC wants government and commerce to be involved in the scheme, and several countries including Sweden and Switzerland will launch pilots next month, with two undisclosed UK-based financial companies also carrying out internal trials.

The council will also hold a place at the Commonwealth heads of state meeting on 27-29 November.

Laperriere said there were major financial benefits to the scheme. “The relationships-based system will see reductions in trading time, eliminate the need for databases held online, and mean that there were more potential business partners for commerce – thereby cutting costs and increasing opportunities for banks and other businesses,” he said.

The GTC is looking to bring 20 member states on board by this time next year. It also plans to have established more than 200 sector-based policy initiatives in the same time frame, including areas such as e-banking, e-voting and e-commerce.

But there is still work to be done, said Allen. “Commercial institutions will need to be convinced that there are commercial benefits; without a business incentive to take up this scheme, it will not get beyond the theoretical stages,” he said.