The most recent Analysis from Incisive Media

We are all in this together

Martin Atherton — 2009-07-13T22:36:00.000Z

Martin Atherton, Financial Director, Monday 13 July 2009 at 22:36:00

To achieve effective business-IT alignment, senior decision-makers must first suppress their territorial instincts

Can we please everyone when it comes to IT? Most businesses, regardless of their size, will have an opinion on that question. Where IT is seen as a partner or business enabler, the answer is “yes” or “probably”, with caveats. It’s “no” or “never” where IT is seen as a cost to be controlled and does not have opportunities to support the business in the right places.

However, when seeking the right balance between business performance and financial harmony in relation to IT, the size of the business concerned is a critical factor. This is not because of requirements or degrees of sophistication the latest IT developments are removing the link between IT strategy and size of business but because individual decisions count for relatively so much more in smaller businesses. There is also less insulation between individual departments and business leaders, and financial controllers are in much closer proximity to one another.

Before we address how these relationships might impact the way IT is harnessed today, let us briefly review the opportunities that businesses have to exploit it more effectively.

Organisations seeking to improve IT’s contribution to the business will likely find their own opportunities in each of the imperatives highlighted. Here are a few examples:

Three ways of optimising IT:

Server virtualisation
Desktop management
Systems management

Three ways of optimising the way IT is used:

Application training
Power and waste management
Implementing basic IT governance

Three ways of enabling business efficiency:

Get people better connected
Make smarter use of the web
Unlock the value in your information assets

The items above need no further explanation to IT managers, but driving the top line is another matter, perhaps. When cost reduction becomes a major focal point, there is the danger of losing sight of what really matters. Businesses can cut costs and make efficiency savings, but without effective sales and marketing activity they cannot flourish.

Fortunately, this side of business is a prime candidate for improvement through more effective use of IT. It is communication- and time-sensitive, repetitive and formulaic. It can benefit from improvements in all the areas outlined above as well as being a target area in its own right.

For example, IT could drive better operational consistency through user training or exploring unified communications. Driving efficiencies here could involve revamping the company web site, implementing basic business intelligence performance metrics, or “closing the loop” around customer relationship management by building a single view of the customer across product development, marketing and sales.

Most businesses will already have a pretty good idea where they could make some IT-supported improvements to their business. The question is, can they, and does the economic climate and the close-knit environment of small businesses lend itself to making the most from IT?

The first thing to acknowledge is that the right balance between all these elements will not be achieved by accident. During planning, disproportionate representation of one area leadership or ownership, operations, finance or IT over another is likely to create a skew in how IT is perceived and used by the business. The chances are that this dynamic is already established in your organisation. The important question is: can improvements be made for the good of the business instead of being beholden to a particular influencer in the business?

Again, the answer could be “yes, with a few caveats”. The caveats are not technical, but they do involve each stakeholder acknowledging the others’ priorities and goals. The finance director wants to control costs, the operations director wants a slick and efficient business, the owner wants to turn a profit.

As we have already discussed, there are opportunities for IT to make a positive impact across all these domains. Hence, the common goal the good health of the business is the focal point to bring different stakeholders together to prioritise what’s best for the business, instead of taking a course of action that only suits one particular stakeholder’s view.

In the current economic climate - a phrase you must be heartily sick of by now no business can afford to avoid this critical, and possibly difficult, conversation.

Interview: Bell Labs security chief Carlos Solari

David Neal — 2009-07-13T11:40:00.000Z

David Neal, V3.co.uk, Monday 13 July 2009 at 11:40:00

The former FBI and White House CIO shares his views on security hot topics, including the recent government cyber attacks

Carlos Solari is the sort of security-aware chief information officer (CIO) that beleaguered firms dream of hiring. His CV includes 13 years in the US army, six years at the FBI and three years as CIO at the White House, where he was responsible for the implementation of a complete computing modernisation programme. This hardly needs any extra scrutiny, and it is unlikely that any prospective employer has ever contacted one of his referees 'just in case'.

Solari has seen, considered and dealt with it all, and there isn't a single threat for which he has not been prepared or overseen a response. He 'gets' security.

Solari paid special attention to security while at the White House, as this was a key part of the systems overhaul. Although he is reluctant to comment on any particular incident affecting the US government while he held his position, Solari does have some views on the more recent attacks on its sites.

Distributed denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, apparently emanating from North Korea, have used a botnet to take down government sites in both the US and South Korea. While the current attacks merely limit access to sites, Solari explained, they show the potential for more advanced attacks.

"A distributed DoS attack to prevent web access is not in itself that serious, particularly when the sites are informational. However, it is certainly interesting to observe the rise of cyber attacks motivated by political or international tensions," he said.

"The bigger issue comes when this same form of attack targets e-commerce and transactional web sites, creating real disruption. We've already seen these incidents occurring, and this is an alarming trend. The 'softness' of these web sites, i.e. their vulnerability to these basic threats, raises the question of what impact more sophisticated forms of attack might have.

"The main point to take away from the recent attacks is that we need to take warning, start finding answers and provide better protection, as we don't want to find ourselves in a situation where we remain vulnerable, and a more sophisticated attack takes place. This is particularly important with the advent of Web 2.0, which has brought with it even greater reliance on the web for everything we do."

Solari has spent 25 years in government and private industry positions gathering a wealth of experience in security. He is now putting that experience to work as vice president of quality assurance, security and reliability at research and development organisation Bell Labs.

Solari explained that it is his previous experience that makes him so well suited to this new role, because it is both practical and theoretical. Years dealing with security issues has given him the ability to spot current and future threats, and design solutions to counter them.

"Primarily it's about having the practical and operational experience of dealing with real-world security threats, and being able to use this experience to aid the development of new security technologies," he said.

"Given [Bell Labs owner] Alcatel-Lucent's focus on convergence, it also helps that I've had the benefit of working in a converged IT and telecoms environment. Finally, there is a clear overlap between government and commercial concerns. Thanks to my past experiences, I'm ideally placed to translate my knowledge of government security environments into the commercial world."

Although Solari is moving deeper into research, he believes that he will thrive in this environment, and that it is through study that security issues can be analysed and countered.

"Security issues are not theoretical. They are real and they have real consequences. Only when removed from operational environments, including businesses and governments, can security incidents be considered purely in terms of theoretical potential," he said.

"Security incidents are motivated by many factors, and not just the obvious motivation of money. Incidents can span the entire spectrum, including financially motivated crime, but also deriving from political tensions and many other forms. So, as we design the security, we must consider the risk from many forms."

Solari believes that the scope of different networked systems and IT infrastructures makes it almost impossible to cope with issues on an ad-hoc or one-size-fits-all basis. Instead, he suggests that the 'detect and respond' capabilities offered by most security vendors should be replaced with systems that truly understand the networks involved.

"Networks are not isolated islands. They are interconnected and involve interdependent activities, and we may not always know in advance how networks, for example between two partnering organisations, are going to connect," he explained.

"The lesson to learn is that security solutions built solely on detect and respond capabilities are not enough. These capabilities can never overcome inherent vulnerabilities in systems."

Solari predicts that, rather than seeing new emerging threats affecting enterprises, perennial favourites will continue to be problematic. However, he expects these current exploits and security threats to "species jump" as new technologies continue to gather favour.

"Security threats don't really go away, a case in point being the resurgence of distributed DoS attacks. Currently, there are concerns regarding the complexity of convergence, and the potential opportunities it creates for exploitation," he said.

"Convergence may mean reduced redundancies, i.e. your phone, your internet, your television, all on the same data network access line. This could lead to 'species jumping', where existing security threats are able to exploit these new avenues.

"All in all, greater reliance on data networks, fuelled also by the growing dependence on wireless broadband, will require a commensurate level of increased protection. The challenge is being able to reach that appropriate level."

Solari has recently published Security in a Web 2.0+ World, in which he discusses the vulnerabilities presented by new technologies.

Digital Britain opts for the slow lane

Archana Venkatraman — 2009-07-13T09:30:00.000Z

Archana Venkatraman, Information World Review, Monday 13 July 2009 at 09:30:00

Despite its blaring horns and streamers, the government’s report to put the UK on the digital map has left the industry frustrated in the side roads

The main highlights of the government’s flagship report, Digital Britain, include an annual tax of £6 on fixed telephone lines to pay for faster broadband, an examination of extending license fees beyond the BBC and a call for UK ISPs to cut illegal file-sharing on their networks by 70%.

When Lord Carter published the interim report in January, the information industry gave it a mixed reaction, but agreed on three things: the UK needs a long-term commitment to the preservation of content and creativity; it must continue to lead the sector; and, most important of all, it must deliver digital literacy for all.

But the key focus of the final report was on providing universal broadband access with a 2Mb connection speed by 2012. For the info pros, the report was a classic case of too little, too late. Because the final report failed to address their main concerns, the industry is now questioning the government’s plans.

disappointing

Dhana Doobay, communications partner at law firm Ashurst, said: “Disappointingly, the final Digital Britain report does not go much further in developing the broad ideas set out in January’s interim report.

“The inclusion of a 50p levy on fixed lines along with the confirmation of allocation of the digital switchover surplus, go some way towards answering the key question of who foots the bill for the universal broadband and next generation networks. Overall though, there still seems to be a significant funding gap, which will no doubt need to be further plugged by industry and consumers.”

Richard Heap, head of telecoms at BDO Stoy Hayward, said: “Despite being widely criticised in January for only committing to a broadband network speed of 2Mb per second by 2012, the government has gone ahead with plans to provide outdated technology at a speed akin to a snail’s pace. This is even more frustrating when countries like South Korea are committing to universal speeds of up to 1Gb per second by 2012 – 500 times faster.”

exemplar project

“We believe that the government should consider investing some of the £25m into innovation projects such as Quintain Estates’ Wembley City scheme in London, which has installed a high-speed fibre-optic technology to a residential development. They are promising speeds of up to 100Mb per second.”

The industry had wished for an all-inclusive digital society in February. Experts reiterated that what is needed is a wider education campaign highlighting the benefits of a “connected Britain” and a more widespread network of connected terminals in public locations such as schools, libraries, supermarkets, doctors’ surgeries and the like.

Heap continued: “The £300m pledge of a home access scheme for children is a positive one – but most of those who claim they can’t afford the internet are the elderly and the report fails to establish a firm strategy to help pensioners.”

British Library chief executive Dame Lynne Brindley urged the government to address three needs of digital research and education – to digitise the ‘goldmine’ of content held by national institutions, to update UK’s IP regime to suit the 21st century and to urgently develop digital literacy skills for all. However, she welcomed such government proposals as addressing issues of “orphan works”, digitisation of historic content and investing in infrastructure to improve digital literacy skills.

brief footnote

Rod Kirwan, TMT partner at Denton Wilde Sapte, said: “The risk is that the Digital Britain goals (laudable as they may be) will be lost in a sea of paper. Depending on the political will of the next government, Digital Britain could turn out to be little more than a brief footnote to Brown’s Britain.”

Meanwhile, the regional internet registry for Europe and beyond, RIPE NCC, called for a dramatic increase in the number of available IP addresses. Axel Pawlik, its managing director, said: “The IP addresses most widely in use, IP version 4, are set to run out by 2011. To connect all computers to high speed internet, the new generation of IP addresses – known as IPv6 – must be rolled out.”

The future is multi-sourcing

IWR News Desk — 2009-07-13T09:15:00.000Z

IWR News Desk, Information World Review, Monday 13 July 2009 at 09:15:00

A PA Consulting survey suggested that most businesses were considering restructuring their outsourcing arrangements in the current economic conditions and looking at multi-sourcing for its cost-efficiency and diversified risk

Experts predict a strong trend over the next three to five years towards multi-sourcing as enterprises look to spread risk and cut costs. But they warn that multi-sourcing can be damaging if professionals don’t take into account its challenges.

A survey by PA Consulting suggested almost three-quarters of businesses were considering restructuring their outsourcing arrangements in the current economic conditions and looking at multi-sourcing for its cost-efficiency and diversified risk. Graham Beck, a senior sourcing advisor at the company, said: “We advise caution. Businesses and professionals do not realise that multi-sourcing requires special capabilities.”

Its survey revealed that businesses lack the necessary capabilities, skills and resources to efficiently manage a multiple outsourcing model. It found modest maturity in the governance model for outsourced services, while over 30% did not know the cost of retained governance organisation and many do not bring in new forms of innovation. “If organisations fail to manage single sourcing efficiently, there are serious questions to be asked about their evolution to complex outsourcing model,” warned Jonathan Cooper-Bagnall, a member of PA’s management group.

While outsourcing increases cost efficiency and allows companies to use expert services, companies must take into account compliance with the legislation and security issues.

Experts say outsourcing is one of several business models that institutions can use singly or in combination to reduce down-time. They advise companies to have full understanding of legality, risks and service level agreements. Lesica warned: “There are far greater security and compliance requirements today. Outsourcing and offshoring now require security assessment, audits and implementation of stringent and comprehensive security measures.”

Do you want to know a secret?

Archana Venkatraman — 2009-07-13T09:15:00.000Z

Archana Venkatraman, Information World Review, Monday 13 July 2009 at 09:15:00

The Freedom of Information Act hit the limelight with the revelations over MPs’ expenses, but how well is the Act being used, and what would make it work even better

The MPs’ expenses row will remain long in the memory for many reasons. But info pros will remember it as the best example of the power of Freedom of Information (FoI). The Act has helped expose the darkest corners, from water-boarding to torture to cynical abuse of the system by ministers.

Confirming their commitment to the FoI Act, experts say it is one resource that empowers not only info pros but ordinary citizens too. But they add that it has not been used as much as it could have been, and is sometimes employed for purposes for which it was not intended.

According to Professor Derek Law, head of the information resources directorate at the University of Strathclyde, the Act is used all too often for commercial fishing by consultants who repackage and sell the information. He tells how one marketing company used the Act to ask all universities for details of their IT spend on software over a five year period, indicating types of software.

Law said, “The government continues to conceal vast amounts of information by hiving off activity to commercial or quasi-commercial bodies, which are exempt. And it has ultimate power – with Tony Blair, for example, choking off the BAE enquiry once the Saudis complained.”

He says the Act is different in England and Scotland. The countries have different commissioners, with the Scottish the most “rabid”, wanting to open up the activities the government has hived off. Illustrating the and power of the Act in holding the government to account, Law said: “In Scotland MSP expenses claims dropped by 40% once they were made public.”

people power

Freedom of information forms part of the growing power of the citizen. From mobile phone footage of police beating demonstrators, to flash mobbing, to using email in Tehran to gather crowds – all show the power of information on the internet. Pictures and stories banned in the UK are published on global websites. Law said: “The oil companies can stop the Guardian but not the web.”

ICO research into the benefits of access showed marked increases in FoI applications from 2004 to 2008, clearly attributable to the impact of the Act. The percentage of those agreeing that freedom of information “increases knowledge of what public authorities do” has risen from 54% in 2004 to 84% in 2008, and those agreeing that it “increases confidence in public authorities” has gone from 51% to 75%. These figures are further matched by attitudes within public authorities themselves where 91% now say the Act is needed and 81% say it improves trust.

The legislation has been operational for over four years. It has also introduced the legal Right to Know, a presumption of disclosure and other measures to improve public sector transparency.

The ICO website says the national media reports disclosures made under the Act almost every day. “The surprise is no longer the nature and extent of disclosure. What is astonishing is how much was previously treated as secret”.

While experts agree that the Act is a vital step towards much-needed greater openness and accountability, practical impediments hamper its use.

The FoI Act has created a lot of work for information professionals as relevant data is typically stored in different formats and separate databases. Simon Price, European director at information management software company Recommind, said: “With the large number of requests being made, particularly of central government departments, and the requirement of public authorities to respond within 20 days, many organisations have had to take on dedicated FOIA officers.

He added: “Maintaining this silo approach to information management seems counter-productive. A centralised and secure government database with effective search capabilities would make responding to requests far easier, quicker and more cost effective.”

speed it up

As public requests are often not very specific, locating the data could be greatly speeded by sophisticated concept search facilities which don’t rely on just a keyword. Experts suggest this could realise significant cost savings and free up information professionals’ time to deal with more requests or other equally important tasks. This, they say, will encourage more info pros to make use of the Act.

The ICO has been able to remedy the situation by refreshing existing guidance as well as producing new. Its website is the primary vehicle for disseminating guidance, which it promotes through media relations, e-newsletter and direct communications.

“In addition, the government should take this one step further and create a publicly accessible online database – like that of the online archives now under consultation – for non-sensitive information. This would allow individuals to access the data themselves without having to log a request, increasing the efficiency of the system while empowering citizens with the tools to meet their information needs,” said Price.

In its strategy about freedom of information, the ICO shares its vision of a society where information rights and responsibilities are respected. It wants people to be aware of their rights to access official information and be confident using them.

Finally, the experts urge a culture of open government which can be promoted by extensive use of FoI. “Whether it is the Act or the web, we still have to drag information out of cynical and manipulative politicians and officials. We have more powerful tools than ever to do this, but what we need is a presumption that all acts of government are public, not one that they are secret but will be admitted if found out,” concluded Law.

Phorm shows its sensitive side

Archana Venkatraman — 2009-07-13T09:15:00.000Z

Archana Venkatraman, Information World Review, Monday 13 July 2009 at 09:15:00

On 19 June 2009, speaking to IWR, Nick Barnett, Phorm’s UK managing director, attempts to reassure users that the the company’s behaviour-based advertising system offers no threat to their privacy

IWR How does Phorm comply with data protection laws and other UK and EU legislations?

NB Arguably the data protection legislation doesn’t apply to our system because it does not store any personal data. Furthermore, before the technology analyses the web page being visited it excludes information that might be considered personal such as names, email and IP addresses, and information input into form fields.

That said, all users will be able to decide if they want to participate in the system based on unmissable notice and a clear, ongoing choice.

IWR How would you reassure consumers about privacy concerns over behaviour-based advertising techniques?

NB Research by Populus shows that 82% of consumers expressing a preference said they liked our consumer proposition, Webwise, after hearing how it works and that they’ll be able to choose to use it as and when they want.

Webwise will set new standards for online privacy and offer personalised content and relevant advertising with the added benefit of built-in anti-phishing capability. Phorm’s technology does not store any personal data, browsing histories or IP addresses.

We’re confident that people will want to use Webwise and benefit from a more personalised and interesting, as well as safer, internet experience.

IWR Could you tell us about your latest launch: Webwise Discover?

NB We believe Webwise Discover is the ultimate recommendation engine for consumers and a powerful page view engine for websites. The widget will allow visitors to any website to automatically find content within that site based on their interests from across the web. Neither users nor websites will have to do anything other than participate, with no need to set preferences or categories manually.

For example, a user arriving on a news site will automatically be presented with articles on their favourite sports team or celebrity. Users following the Middle East peace process will be shown the latest headlines from within that site. Those on a shopping site who have been browsing the web for a particular camera will be automatically presented on arrival with relevant reviews or auctions likely to be of interest to them.

In this way, Webwise Discover acts as a personalised content index on any page of any participating web publisher. It automatically guides users to relevant information within the site, whether it be news, music, product reviews or any type of content. In other words it can help a website engage with its audience by unearthing valuable and relevant content which too often simply goes unexplored.

It will be offered free to our ISP partners’ customers who choose to enable the service. It will also be freely available to all websites, large or small, without the need for an advertising relationship.

The widget sits on top of our innovative system which essentially acts as a recommendation platform for either personalised content and/or relevant advertising. With its greater accuracy, Phorm’s technology will enable online publishers to earn greater yields from their advertising inventory than they can generate today, which will allow them to invest in more and better content.

IWR Phorm does not identify people through their personal information, but issues a random 24-digit number to users who choose to participate. Is it possible to track back personal information through the number? And can hackers route back to personal identities if they steal the number?

NB No. The 24-digit number is entirely random and not based on identity. It is simply a commonly used way to distinguish between one browser and the millions of others on the internet.

Furthermore, the limited amount of data which is stored with the random number has been carefully chosen not to allow the identification of any individual. This is why we don’t store personal data which could be used to determine identity.

IWR How would you respond to privacy campaigners who are demanding an “opt in” service rather than an “opt out” service?

NB We’re going one better than simple opt in or opt out. All users will be able to decide if they want to participate in the system based on unmissable notice and a clear, ongoing choice. Not only is this an industry leading approach, but it is a more meaningful way to let users choose whether they want to take part or not.

IWR How does Phorm protect privacy (financial, religious and sexual matters) and yet offer effective services to both businesses and consumers?

NB We built our technology from the ground up with privacy in mind and have taken a “data minimisation by design” approach.

Our system works by matching user interests to advertiser defined categories or “channels”, such as sport or travel. We don’t allow any channels on sensitive topics, such as adult, medical conditions or alcohol, for example, to be created in the system. This means that we will not create interest based profiles relating to these subjects.

To explain in more detail, the profiling process works by producing a summary of the top 10 keywords that appear on the page being visited, having first excluded potentially personal data. This summary is then compared to the advertiser channels and only the fact that a match has been made is recorded. The raw data used to make the match is deleted in real time - by the time the page loads. So only the channel match, random number and a time stamp are retained.

Channels are effectively the system’s instructions – that is, the type of interests an advertiser is looking for. They comprise lists of keywords and URLs as well as how often and how recently an advertiser wants a user to have exhibited an interest; sensitive topics excluded of course.

Furthermore, users are anonymous to Phorm’s system from the outset unlike many other online advertising services, which store personal data for a minimum of nine months before they even anonymise it. And anonymisation cannot be reversed in Phorm’s case to reveal any PII (personally identifiable information) because this type of data is not kept.

Our innovative technology demonstrates that it is possible to serve the right information – content or advert – to the right user at the right time, all without storing personal data, browsing histories or IP addresses.

IWR Will you notify consumers about any change in the amount and type of information gathered in the future?

NB Yes we would, although it is worth noting how little data we will retain to achieve a high degree of content personalisation and advertising relevance.

Our innovative approach to data minimisation means we can show personalised content and relevant ads, with phishing protection always on and up-to-date, without storing the personal details.

IWR Will Phorm offer incentives to end-users to participate in the online advert system?

NB We’re confident people will want to use Webwise and enjoy its benefits.

IWR How will advertisers and ISPs benefit from your system?

NB An often overlooked aspect of our system is its potential to benefit the whole online ecosystem; advertisers, publishers, ISPs and consumers.

With our advertising system all websites – big and small – are able to charge the premiums that marketers are prepared to pay for more precisely targeted advertisements. That is any website, not just the top 10 – reported by market researcher comScore to have earned 72% of all US online revenues in 2008.

Furthermore, Phorm’s system will allow ISPs for the first time to tap into the large and fast growing online advertising market and enjoy a new revenue stream that can be invested in better services. Experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers have reported that the UK internet advertising market – worth £3.35bn in 2008 – is expected to reach 36% of all advertising by 2013. That’s almost a doubling in the share of total UK ad spending from 19.2% last year.

This is all additional money that can be spent on more of the products and content that we all enjoy today, mostly for free.

IWR What is Phorm’s future roadmap for the UK? Could we see new partnerships with more ISPs this year?

NB (As on 19 June 2009) We continue to work with our UK ISP partners – BT, Talk Talk, Virgin Media – on their plans to use our technology and are in discussions with ISPs in this country and elsewhere. While I can’t reveal any names yet, we’re confident that we’ll announce new partnerships with ISPs this year.

Angels and demons

Tim Buckley Owen — 2009-07-13T09:00:00.000Z

Tim Buckley Owen, Information World Review, Monday 13 July 2009 at 09:00:00

When it comes to opening up official information, there are some on the side of the angels and some who aren’t

Amid all the brouhaha about MPs’ expenses, it was the Telegraph that took most of the credit for the daily revelations about moats, duck houses and flipped second homes. Its leaker hero was ex-SAS officer John Wick, who now advises insurance firms on risk management and who admitted to fearing the consequences of his action.

It was thanks to Mr Wick that all the colourful details that would otherwise have been redacted came out – to the extent that MPs were reportedly warned to change their PIN numbers as a precautionary measure. But it was back room donkey work by freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke that allowed the issue its oxygen of publicity in the first place.

Heather Brooke is a journalist and a visiting fellow at the City University School of Journalism – just a step away from its Department of Information Science – where she teaches students about freedom of information and how to analyse electronic data. She’s actually no stranger to the information profession; in an address to the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) in 2006, she argued that there need be no conflict between the requirement to protect the public purse and the democratic goals of making the law accessible to all, and that it was possible to do both.

FOI? NOT US!

So Heather Brooke and John Wick are definitely on the side of the angels. And so too, unexpectedly, is the Crown Prosecution Service, which decided not to prosecute Mr Wick since his revelations were clearly in the public interest and didn’t threaten public safety.

Ranged firmly on the demons’ side are large swathes of the Commons – not just for their duck houses but also for attempting about two years ago to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act. Part of their argument rested on the spurious proposition that correspondence requested under FoI might reveal personal details, even though such documents would already be exempt from disclosure under the Data Protection Act anyway. Not for the first time, the unexpected angels in this case were their Lordships, who refused point blank to support the measure in the upper house.

One victim of the recent ministerial shake-out, though, is quite definitely an angel. Former digital engagement minister Tom Watson, who resigned from the government because of the pressure on his family, was generally regarded as a good egg where access to public sector data was concerned.

Not only did he create the Power of Information task force, he also famously ticked off his own senior civil servants for grumbling that he was blogging about meetings before they’d had time to compile the official record. It’s a shame he’s gone.

NUCLEAR OPTION

When you say you’re interested in better access to government information, people tend to assume that you mean freedom of information, and to a certain extent that’s true. But FOI activity is no more than a necessary repair job on government secrecy; a far better long-term investment for UK PLC is a presumption of openness in the first place, unless specific circumstances dictate otherwise.

That’s certainly the view of outgoing information commissioner Richard Thomas. In his valedictory speech in June, he urged Whitehall and the public sector to learn the lessons from the MPs’ expenses scandal by routinely publishing more official information without waiting to be asked.

Thomas has earned the rank of archangel during his six years in the job. In response to an FoI request, it was he who ordered the Cabinet Office to disclose two sets of Cabinet minutes relating to the Attorney General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq war.

This places justice secretary Jack Straw firmly in the role of demon king, for he responded by going for the nuclear option, overriding the Information Tribunal’s decision that the papers should be released in the public interest and invoking the government’s right of veto.

NEITHER HEAVEN NOR HELL

Hovering somewhere between heaven and hell (at the time of writing at any rate) is Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In his June statement on constitutional renewal, he promised both a progressive reduction in the Cabinet secrecy rule from 30 to 20 years and an extension of the FoI Act to catch a wider range of organisations. However, he also announced new exemptions to FoI for Cabinet papers, leading the Campaign for Freedom of Information to worry that they would end up being excluded altogether.

Why should information professionals and the information industry care? Richard Thomas suggests that people have a right to know what is done in their name and with their money, and that transparency brings greater public understanding. True – but it’s even more fundamental than that.

Bluntly, open public information is better value for money all round. Researchers are likely to have to spend less time locating and retrieving information when it’s already in the public domain than they would putting in a Freedom of Information request every time. So the costs of research activities like due diligence or risk assessment could go down.

Dealing with fewer FoI requests would reduce the Information Commissioner’s costs and those of the responding departments. It’s a win-win.

Gordon Brown has said that all his proposals will be brought before the House for debate in a standalone bill ahead of the summer recess. It remains to be seen whether MPs feel chastened enough by the expenses affair to do the right thing.

Top 10 IT thrillers

Iain Thomson and Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-11T10:28:00.000Z

Iain Thomson and Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Saturday 11 July 2009 at 10:28:00

Off-the-wall innovations that make life as easy as 1-2-3

Unless you've been living the life of a hermit for the past few weeks you'll have heard that the diamanté-gloved pop star Michael Jackson has gone to the great gig in the sky.

We try and make these top 10 lists timely so, in honour of his possibly best known track, we decided to look at the most thrilling technologies out there. In fact, Jackson inspired us to another top 10 idea which we'll do next week when he's not so warm in his coffin, since it's a tad less respectful.

A great many products and technologies are bad, really really bad. So bad, in fact, that you want to tell the vendor to beat it. Some, however, are real thrillers. Perhaps they seem a bit off the wall at first, but once they hit the market everyone loves them, whether black or white [OK, we get the point: Ed.].

To some the idea that technology can be thrilling at all may seem a little odd, but what can we say, we're geeks and make no apology for the fact.

This week, we honour the departed king of pop by counting down the best technology thrillers, essential tools and cool innovations fit for a king.

Honourable mention: Windows 7

Iain Thomson: OK, we had a bit of a row about this one. Shaun expressed the opinion (in rather salty terms) that nothing Microsoft had made should ever make it onto a list of thrilling technologies. However, I held out for the inclusion of Windows 7 because I am a little bit thrilled that it's coming out.

This isn't down to the basic technology itself, although there are some really nice features in the new operating system. What's thrilling about Windows 7 is that it isn't Vista. At last new computer buyers are going to get a halfway decent operating system rather than the three legged dog that is Vista.

So yes, Windows 7 does give me a little thrill. Sure, its coders haven't hit the Ballmer Peak as far as we can tell, but it'll be a relief to consign Vista to the dustbin of history.

Shaun Nichols: As Iain said, the most thrilling thing about Windows 7 is that it isn't Vista. Sure, Vista may have got a bad reputation that wasn't entirely deserved, but the fact is that Microsoft failed miserably with its last OS release and as a result many users are still running an OS that is closing in on its 10th birthday.

As reliable and broken-in as Windows XP has become, the old platform is really starting to show its age. If Microsoft can execute the release and deployment of Windows 7 properly. the it might just thrill a few users too.

Honourable mention: Fuel cell technology

Shaun Nichols: Perhaps this earns me a spot among the biggest nerds ever to walk the planet, but the recent advances in fuel cells have been pretty cool. Not only are they being used to power cars, but there have also been companies, such as IBM, that have looked into powering notebooks with fuel cells to achieve super-long battery life.

Yes, widespread adoption, if it ever happens, is still way off in the distance, and there are plenty of hurdles to overcome, but the potential for this technology is huge, and the impact it could potentially have is enormous.

Iain Thomson: It does seem like a bit of a dream - a laptop power supply that runs on fuel cells - but that dream is becoming reality.

Fuel cell technology does offer some major benefits, once it is fully matured. At the moment things are in the very early stages and fuel cells are bulky and relatively inefficient compared to their eventual promise. But it's a bit like comparing a Model T Ford to a Bugatti Veyron.

But thrilling? I'm not so sure. Certainly I'm thrilled at the promise, but the current implementation leaves me a little cold.

10. Robotics

Shaun Nichols: When we put this list together I was adamant that robots be on there. My only regret was that I couldn't sell Iain on placing it higher on the list.

Let's face it: robots are awesome. Without them, science fiction novels would stink, cars would cost a fortune and Tokyo would be just another crowded city.

On a more serious note, robotics are becoming more pervasive and useful every day. Aside from practical uses such as industrial production, robots are saving lives around the world in functions such as disarming bombs or performing unmanned surveillance.

There's also the potential to improve the quality of life for those with disabilities such as paralysis. Robotic suits and chairs that allow unprecedented mobility are already being developed and sold.

Iain Thomson: So maybe I was a little harsh, but the scientist in me is slightly sceptical about the promise of a robotic future.

After all, we insist on trying to make robots look like humans, whereas most robotic engineers will tell you that the human form is relatively inefficient for a variety of purposes. Bipedal gaits are hard to mimic, housing the central CPU in the relatively poorly protected cranium is dangerous, and having only two manipulating arms is just wasteful.

But it would take a harder heart than mine not to admit that there's a little thrill in seeing Honda's ASIMO making its first steps, or some of the new exoskeleton designs coming out to help the frail and the foot-soldier. Just leave off the Terminator design please.

9. Inkjet printing

Iain Thomson: Inkjet printing is one of the least appreciated fantastic technologies that surrounds our daily lives. When you think about it the technology is mindboggling. Some use piezoelectric crystals, naturally occurring crystals that change shape when electricity is supplied, to force ink through the printing nozzles.

Others vaporise the inks with an incredibly hot plate so that they spray out in an orderly fashion. The printing nozzles themselves are masterpieces of engineering; tiny apertures arranged in a precise order that would have Leonardo da Vinci tearing his hair with envy.

All of this is available to a buyer with $50 in their pockets, and the results are largely fantastic. When you think how long it took a medieval monk to copy out a single page of script, there's something wonderful about being able to print out something even better in seconds.

Before you dismiss me as a total printing geek, however, I would point out that there's also another sort of 'thrill' in inkjets: getting royally shafted. Printer ink is more expensive than cocaine and there's something very wrong about an industry that gives away an engineering marvel just so it can make money on the supplies it uses.

Shaun Nichols: Iain makes an excellent point, and I'm not just saying that because he's my boss. With inkjet printing you are able purchase an incredibly precise piece of electrical engineering for little more than the cost of its raw materials and assembly. Then you turn around and pay outrageous sums of money for little cannisters of the coloured dust that it shoots on to paper.

Then again, look at the alternatives. Laser printers are still for the most part expensive behemoths rarely seen outside offices, and the retro appeal of the old dot-matrix printers wear off pretty quick, usually after having to read several pages of the documents they create.

Better technologies may be in the works but, for the foreseeable future, inkjet printing is the way to go, rip-off inks and all.

8. Nanotechnology

Shaun Nichols: Aside from its potential use as a diabolical super-villain tool, nanotech is a very cool development. While miniaturisation of electronic components has been going on since the 1960s, nanotech takes it to a completely different level by allowing scientists to engineer on a molecular level.

The potential uses of this technology would take up an article in themselves, but for the IT industry this could mean exponentially smaller components, which in turn means exponentially faster and more efficient devices.

There is also the potential use in biotechnology. Smaller and more efficient computing hardware can allow for less invasive and safer treatments and implants.

Iain Thomson: Just as Shaun would have liked to see robotics placed higher, I would have preferred this topic to be much further up the list. Nanotechnology has the same potential to revolutionise human existence as industrial mass production did for our forebears.

Widespread and cheap nanotechnology would allow for quantum computing, highly efficient batteries, ultra-strong building materials and new medical devices that could see us living a lot longer.

But put yourself in the shoes of a nanotech engineer. Being able to build on an atomic scale, placing individual atoms where and how you want them is a power akin to that of the gods, and I'll bet that underneath the sober white coats the scientists doing this are thrilled to their very core.

7. Peer-to-peer

Iain Thomson: The first time I used peer to peer technology I literally couldn't believe it wasn't someone trying to wind me up. It was shortly after Napster hit the internet, and the very concept of all that data freely available was enough to boggle the mind.

Of course, my pirating days are long behind me and it's wrong kids, m'kay? But the beautiful elegance of the P2P concept remains deeply thrilling. All of those P2P nodes represent people, sharing their computer's resources and data with each other in a huge network that is not only highly efficient but very damage tolerant.

It's a perfect metaphor for the internet as a whole, and there are some who want to apply the concept to society as a whole. I wish them luck; that kind of behaviour got you nailed up 2,000 years ago.

The other deep thrill of that first encounter with P2P was in its use, i.e. sticking it to the record companies. After years of getting screwed time and time again by record companies with albums that proved to be two or three good tracks surrounded by fillers, and getting overcharged because the recording companies colluded to keep prices artificially high, it felt good to take something back.

The results haven't been pretty for the record companies and maybe people are taking things too far now, but my goodness it felt good at the time.

Shaun Nichols: If you are a record company or film studio executive, then you're likely to be less than thrilled with P2P technology. For the rest of us, however, P2P touches on a very basic virtue of computing; it empowers average people to do things that had previously been limited to a select few.

Just as the first PCs allowed people to process and create on a new level, and the internet allowed people to communicate on a new level, P2P allows us to share data on a direct level, without the need for a host or gatekeeper.

As expected, people have used it for less than legal means. I do understand that content providers are unhappy about not getting paid for the use of their products, but the attitude that the record labels have taken is outrageous. We don't blow up the highway every time someone has a car accident. Police don't raid cutlery stores whenever someone gets stabbed.

Aside from that, the worst thing you can do to quell a rebellion is to randomly go after a few people. Every time a kid gets sued for downloading music, support for P2P grows and more people tell the labels to just beat it.

6. Lithium ion

Shaun Nichols: The now ubiquitous lithium ion battery has been taken for granted in recent years, but imagine life without it. Laptop PCs and mobile phones would be far less prevalent, and those that did exist would cost a fortune and would need to be charged almost hourly.

The notebook market owes much of its current size to lithium cell technology. Many of the first portable computers, such as the Macintosh Portable, used lead acid batteries that helped make the system weigh in at upwards of 15lbs. Imagine lugging that around a convention floor all day.

Seeing how prevalent portable computing devices are today, I think we all owe the humble lithium ion battery a bit or gratitude.

Iain Thomson: Agreed on the gratitude, unless you are one of the very rare individuals who ends up with an exploding laptop.

Lithium ion batteries, and lithium polymer, are a boon to computing. The ability to take a laptop and run it for a working day between charging is a major boost to the laptop industry. Having a phone that can last up to a week between charges is even better.

The first laptops, with their clunky, inefficient batteries, were like bricks to lug around and had a useful life away from a power socket similar to a suicidally depressed mayfly. As for phones, watch Oliver Stone's Wall Street and marvel at the 'high tech' mobile phones used in the 1980s.

5. Spreadsheets

Iain Thomson: I can hear the sound of jaws hitting keyboards as I write this. Spreadsheets? is this guy serious? The most boring application known to man, with the possible exception of PowerPoint?

But bear with me. Spreadsheets are a stunning application when you think about it. In the days of yore, when Shaun was just a glint in his parents' eyes, spreadsheets had to be done by hand. Armies of terminally bored accountancy staff sat in offices slaving away making millions of manual calculations in work that makes watching paint dry interesting.

Then along comes this computer thingy that takes all the grind out of the process. All of a sudden companies can game out the effects on the bottom line of cutting prices by one per cent and get the result in seconds rather than days. The spreadsheet revolutionised the whole science of doing business, and enabled vast new swathes of business practice. This is indeed thrilling stuff.

Shaun Nichols: Iain suggested this one while we were eating lunch at a local deli, and I was pretty sure that someone had slipped the wrong kind of mushrooms into his cobb salad.

After some explanation though, I saw his point. Spreadsheets have really democratised the practice of accounting. I entered high school just around the time spreadsheet programs were first taught in maths classes, and I remember my teacher pointing out that we were performing calculations which he hadn't been able to learn until his second year of university.

As I mentioned before, the most thrilling thing about computing is that it allows just about anyone to do things that in the past required years of training and often cost thousands of dollars. Spreadsheet programs are a shining example of this.

4. Multi-core computing chips

Shaun Nichols: The idea of multi-thread computing has been around since the days of the first supercomputers. By adding multiple processing units, computers could divide the workload and complete the entire task much faster.

For decades, this was done by tossing multiple processors into a system. Not a huge problem when you're talking about giant multimillion dollar supercomputer clusters, but a major problem to the rest of us who like our computers to be smaller than our desks.

The high cost and hearty power appetite of the CPU limited most computers to just one processor, and even the highest-end desktop systems had only two chips. Then came multi-core technology.

By putting two computing cores on a single chip, chipmakers can more or less add a second processor without the high costs and power limits. This made multi-thread computing cheaper and allowed more powerful desktop and notebook systems.

If you ever doubt just how thrilling multi-core chips can be, try exporting a video file on an old single-core system. When it's done, you'll moonwalk with joy back to a multi-core machine.

Iain Thomson: Intel's recent advertising campaign may have poked fun at its own geekiness, but it wasn't a million miles from the truth. That we've reached the stage of silicon design where it's possible to put as eight or more processor cores onto a single piece of silicon is a stunning achievement.

To someone who grew up plugging single transistors into a circuit board to make a light bulb glow at the right intensity, the idea that there are millions of the things on a single chunk of silicon that I can slip into my pocket is astounding and deeply thrilling.

The men and women who don the full body suits and carve these marvels in clean rooms around the work are the artisans of the computer age. Forget the jewellers or artists who create useless ornaments; it is the chip designers who deserve the artistic laurels.

3. The iPod

Iain Thomson: I feel dirty just writing this. I'm not the biggest Apple fan but deep in my dour Scots soul the iPod does give me a little thrill, even if I feel a little ashamed of the feeling.

I was a very early adopter of digital media players. I was carrying around housebrick-sized chunks of hardware in the 1990s just so I could listen to my digital music collection on the way to work. These early models were uniformly awful, with lousy menu systems, clunky design and a battery life akin to a snowflake in a blast furnace.

Then along came the iPod. It looked really good, it had controls so simple my mother could use them and it had the first version of iTunes, which was really, really good, even if later editions have fallen away.

Later iPods just kept looking better and better, and the current iPod Nano is a thing of beauty indeed. Hell, I even broke my long-standing Apple embargo and started using an iPod Touch, although I didn't actually buy it but got it as a gift.

Given that a decade ago I was scrolling down track listings laboriously pressing a clicky button to move down a track at a time, being able to scroll through the entire library with a flick of the finger is a real pleasure, and one that I will give up when you pry the thing from my cold, dead ears.

Shaun Nichols: Some of us can vaguely recall the days when people had to listen to albums one at a time. Back in the days when portable music meant carrying around a discman and a big vinyl book full of CDs, the concept of having 100 albums to choose from was laughable. Now, you can have thousands of songs at the ready with a device that costs $99 and is about the size of a large coin.

I'm sure that, when the first portable media players were introduced, companies felt like they were getting into little more than a niche market. Even the mighty iPod struggled in its first years on the market. Eventually, however, people saw just how convenient portable media players were, and everyone from school kids to grandmothers began to sport the white earbuds.

2. The transistor

Shaun Nichols: Easily one of the most important inventions of the past century, the transistor is responsible for IT and consumer electronics as we know them.

Vacuum tubes are pretty cool for things like guitar amps and steampunk art projects, but they're pretty lousy for most computing applications. They're hot, bulky and incredibly fragile.

In 1951, William Shockley solved all three of these problems in one fell swoop by creating the transistor. The transistor was able to replace vacuum tubes and, in the process, allow for the development of computers that could actually fit inside a single room.

From then on, computers have been shrinking, down to the handheld smartphones of today.

Iain Thomson: Like the late, great Arthur C Clarke I've a bit of a grudge when it comes to transistors. He saw satellites as the springboard for man into space, since we would need to maintain large work crews in space to service the millions of vacuum tubes needed to make satellites work. Then the transistor came along and ruined everything and we're still largely stuck at the bottom of the gravity well.

But there's no denying that the transistor is a device of such basic simplicity as to thrill the soul. Shockley was a bit of a nutter when it came to his support of eugenics and the idea that anyone with an IQ of under 100 should be paid not to reproduce. But I'm willing to bet that when his team at Bell Labs found they could build transistors that worked, he must have had an Archimedes moment. Thank goodness he wasn't in the bath when he heard.

1. TCP/IP

Iain Thomson: As I warned you in the introduction we are geeks. Who else would put a communications protocol as the most thrilling piece of technology on the planet? Our parents must be so proud.

But TCP/IP is stunningly good technology, and is a deserved winner of this week's list. It is such an elegant concept in itself, establishing base level protocols that allowed pretty much any network to communicate and share data with any other. These connections were given the added value of granularity by allowing the layering of data. It's a seemingly simple but revolutionary concept.

But even more thrilling is the results of this technology. Ever since the IT industry adopted TCP/IP protocols the internet has been made possible. To think that this sprawling online collection of humanity comes down to a few simple protocols thought up by a couple of geniuses staggers the mind and thrills the soul.

Shaun Nichols: For an environment that is so fluid and caught up in the latest and greatest, it's stunning to think that the basis of the internet is a system that has changed very little in the past 30 years.

The TCP/IP system set the standard format in which various networks can communicate among one another. It also established the layering system that allowed the transmission of various types of data. Without this protocol, we might still be stuck on systems such as ARPANET, and most of you would not be reading this right now.

For the entire world to talk, a common language needs to established, and that basic language is TCP/IP. Without it, there's nothing to connect networks, which means no web, which means no web sites or services, which means most of us are out of a job. Seeing as how I can't pay my rent without it, I'd say I'm pretty thrilled with TCP/IP.

Focus: Doing business the green way

Fleur Doidge — 2009-07-10T14:57:00.000Z

Fleur Doidge, CRN, Friday 10 July 2009 at 14:57:00

Regulation changes and cost issues means firms are rapidly becoming more environmentally driven, says Fleur Doidge

In a recently released film, The Age of Stupid, a man living alone in a devastated 2055 reminisces over footage from 2007 and asks why the human race did not take any action to stop climate change when it had the chance.

Tracey Rawling Church, director of brand and reputation at print vendor Kyocera Mita, previewed the film. “It asks, ‘When we have the chance to save ourselves, why don’t we?’,” she said.

“I am aware that there are people who claim it is all a conspiracy, or that it is all Al Gore’s fault, but it doesn’t take rocket science to work out that our future depends on looking after this planet and if we don’t it is pretty much curtains for us.”

Kyocera has long been keen to present itself at the forefront of moves towards increasing environmental sustainability. Its environmental charter states that it will operate in accord with its basic management philosophy, which is not only to provide for the material and intellectual growth of the company and its staff but to “contribute to the advancement of society and humankind”.

The Japanese parent company believes that preserving the environment is central to achieving those goals. It requires all its affiliates to actively participate in sustainable measures that will protect the environment.

But green IT is not just the latest fad.

Andy Lawrence, research director of analysis on eco-efficient IT at The 451 Group, said green IT really started in around 1990.

“They were more concerned then with paper and chemicals in manufacturing, as well as waste and disposal,” he said. “And it did result in some reductions.”

We all know that the vision of the paperless office turned out to be a mirage. Costly paper consumption actually increased as businesses and customers alike found the need to create more records and archive electronic files many of which were never used again.

Paper is only finally being less used now as cost pressures are brought to bear. “There are signs that paper consumption is falling, but it is unclear whether that is just because of the recession or increased use of collaboration technologies,” said Lawrence.

“It is also possible that paper production may be a form of carbon sequestration. The real issue isn’t the paper but printing: the toner and the ink.”

The business imperative

Scientists do generally agree that we must take better care of our environment. The devil is in the detail, and research therefore continues. But whether you agree or not, the business imperative one that’s not going away any time soon is about cost and waste control.

And printing waste is not the only or even the most important issue. Lawrence said that the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive has mandated improved management of electronic waste. And today the emphasis is increasingly moving to the datacentre.

“Around 2003, people started to realise that datacentre energy costs were very, very high, which again raised questions about the carbon footprint of all that energy use,” said Lawrence.

“The focus went very much to the datacentre, especially in 2007 when the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) reported to the US Congress.”

The difficulty for resellers and their customers is in differentiating genuinely eco-efficient offerings from the merely greenwashed, he added.

But that choice is an important one to make because the 2007 report r evealed that datacentres account for 1.5 per cent of US energy use. That figure is expected to be similar in other developed nations and to double by 2012.

“Existing technologies and strategies could reduce typical server energy use by an estimated 25 per cent, with even greater energy savings possible with advanced technologies,” the EPA reported and that was all the way back in 2007.

Since then, organisational eco-efficiency strategies have concentrated on improving the energy use and insulation of datacentres. This is particularly critical when much datacentre kit is habitually left running whether it is in use or not.

Beyond that, most businesses could save a lot of energy by deploying simple things like desktop power management software. Surprisingly, few firms have done this, according to Lawrence, despite evidence suggesting it is very effective in saving energy and money.

Suppliers have been growing their desktop power management sales 20 per cent, 30 per cent or even 100 per cent a year as a result, and the market may double or even quadruple in three or four years.

“But it is hard to predict,” added Lawrence. “For example, Microsoft is always capable of integrating a lot of that technology into its own products. But it is a good market right now.”

The UK government’s CIO council has also indicated that a plan around desktop use will be formulated although it is likely that it will be carefully worded to allow CIOs to use their discretion.

“It will provide clear guidelines on when equipment should be replaced,” said Lawrence.

Rawling Church said she believes that most green IT initiatives are driven by a near-universal need for improved efficiency. Kyocera has worked towards that goal across its range, redesigning printer technology such as cartridges where needed, bringing technology into line with standards such as ISO 14001.

Developments in motion

Products that create even less heat and use less energy than before are always appearing. Duplex printing has not yet been widely adopted, but even that potential has now been superseded by ‘two-up’ and ‘four-up’ where two or four pages are printed on one side.

Print-and-follow technology means people can no longer hit print and then forget to pick up the document the cause of the traditional paper mountains at many departmental printers. Instead, they are forced to swipe a card or enter a passcode at the printer itself to actually print out.

“Since the first Kyoto Summit in 1992, people have been talking about things like embodied carbon, counting everything that has gone into a product,” she said. “But, actually, the biggest issue is in how people use the products.”

Culture and processes need to change. These things provide obvious revenue opportunities for the channel through consultancy, training and other IT-related support to customers.

“The key thing is that it really is not about polar bears,” said Rawling Church. “It is all about the sustainability of humankind being at risk. I have heard some really interesting people speak on the subject recently. One man pointed out that fluctuations in climate are natural and not a new thing, but it has never happened when industrialisation was already taking place.”

The problem can be summarised as exponential growth and demand for resources colliding with climate change. That means that thinking about green is not a nice-to-have but a must-have. Governments are falling into line and businesses must as well, notes Rawling Church.

“When people started out with it, there was a huge price premium,” she said. “In our technology at launch, that was 10 to 15 per cent. But there is no longer a price premium with our products in fact, over time they will cost you less. And this is true for a lot of environmentally focused technology.”

With business lobby CBI estimating that some 30 per cent of energy used by UK businesses is wasted, there appears to be plenty of room for increased energy efficiency, said Rawling Church.

Most movies are made pretty much purely to entertain. But like its extremely successful forerunner, An Inconvenient Truth, The Age of Stupid has a definite message and purpose.

It also wasn’t made or sold like other films it was crowd-funded from the start (the first £50,000 was rumoured to have come from punters in a London bar on a single night) and employs the distributor directly.

It is also likely that innovative, individual approaches from IT providers and the channel will also prove essential if the green message is to succeed.

Popular power

Another company that has already recognised the inevitability of being green and that has started to make changes that will help its customers towards more environmentally efficient businesses is IBM.

Jacqui Davey, vice president of the business partner organisation at IBM UK and Ireland, said green IT has become a business imperative. Drivers for action move beyond costs to regulation and compliance, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder reputation and business development.

“IBM recognises that solutions to climate change represent both an opportun ity for innovation and an imperative for corporate action,” she said. “As such it is helping clients reduce energy use and carbon across their business, while implementing climate protection as part of its own strategy.”

IBM tries to take a holistic view of customer needs, moving beyond the close focus on IT through its energy and environment model, and harnessing its 100,000 Business Partners as much as possible.

It promises to invest in channel success, offering training, education and incentives that help them offer value-added services.

“Further, we engage our Business Partners in opportunities that arise from emerging technologies and evolving market dynamics,” said Davey. “So, in support of this we continue to share our vision and messages for climate change with the channel and how the channel can take advantage of latest technologies.”

IBM is helping Malta develop nationwide smart grid systems for power and water distribution that are aimed at improving efficiency and customer service.

It also tackled Chinese shipping giant COSCO, helping it move from 100 to 40 distribution centres, slashing logistics costs by 23 per cent and CO2 emissions by 15 per cent or 100,000 tonnes a year. It has been building greener datacentres in universities in Australia and the US, that it claims can halve the power needed.

“This is a massive opportunity,” said Davey. “There will be £233bn spent on business upgrades to infrastructure by 2025.”

IBM itself reduced its CO2 emissions by 40 per cent between 1990 to 2005. Big Blue pledges to reduce its own greenhouse gas footprint seven per cent from 2005 figures by 2012, primarily by saving energy.

Globally, IBM renewed or recycled £100m of kit in 2006, returning one per cent to landfill.

It is also aiming to reduce energy costs and consumption through system and resource optimisation.

Businesses and governments are opting for smarter and greener buildings, IT infrastructure, utilities, supply chains, and business operations.

“This is clearly around key emerging technology and is a key evolving market,” said Davey.

However, she added that the market currently appears oversaturated with solutions

that have a green label in one way or another. Customers and resellers need to be able to differentiate.

IBM is looking across customer needs, at IT infrastructure efficiency, at business process transformation, and at the need for the development of new products and services. It has formed the Green Sigma Coalition, an industry alliance to provide better metering, monitoring, automation, analytics and the like for energy, emission, water and waste management.

“The coalition will enable companies using these solutions to better understand energy and water usage, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions across their business operations,” said Davey. “It will help them make changes to improve efficiency, reduce consumption and waste, and lower environmental impact.”

Other members include Cisco, ABB, Honeywell Building Solutions and Siemens Building Technologies. The Lean Six Sigma business improvement methodology will be applied in assessing customer needs and processes because when it comes to green IT, the best solutions must be complex and individually tailored.

“There is no one answer,” said Davey. “Every customer is different. Solutions can range from developing smart grids, to smarter datacentres, to digitising otherwise paper-laden processes and technologies that monitor and help reduce carbon emissions.”

Taking responsibility

According to IBM, green technology solutions can be most successfully offered by paying attention not just to Return on Investment (RoI) but also the notion of corporate social responsibility which is gaining ground in an era of mandated accountability, sustainability ideals and regulatory compliance.

Meanwhile, VARs must, as usual, demonstrate real business benefits to prospective customers.

“Particularly in tough times, resellers can encourage businesses to spend money on environmentally friendly initiatives,” said Davey.

Independent analysis may agree. The London office of Datamonitor has just released a report, Can Green IT Bloom in an Economic Downturn?, which indicates that green IT is one area in which businesses are still keen to invest.

Rhonda Ascierto, senior analyst at Datamonitor and the report’s author, said: “The global economic recession has spurred a shift in the way organisations evaluate, budget for and deploy green IT.

“The downturn has also resulted in green IT trends for datacentres, client devices and asset lifecycle management, as well as reshaped return on investment (RoI) models.”

While IT spend overall has remained flat, green IT is a larger proportion of that spend. Organisations no longer regard green IT and cost-effective IT as mutually exclusive concepts. In fact, green IT that lets companies slash capital expenditure is enjoying increased demand with environmentally focused legislation and cost control as the drivers.

Datacentre virtualisation, datacentre design and layout, as well as asset lifecycle management, have become increasingly important, and the green IT market is expected to benefit and evolve accordingly, the analyst said, especially as green IT vendors are being forced to develop IT solutions that are more efficient as well as environmentally friendly.

“Flat IT budget growth also means that organisations that face critical datacentre limitations, such as a shortage of floor or rack space, are looking to software or outsourcing alternatives to building new datacentres or upgrading existing facilities,” said Ascierto.

“Those alternatives include IT leasing, managed services, virtualisation software, cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS).”

Changes in the datacentre

Cloud computing should also be green. Meanwhile, datacentre virtualisation will become more all-encompassing with servers, storage, communications infrastructure and business applications being virtualised across a pool of datacentre hardware, the analyst said.

The next UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit is coming up this December in Copenhagen, following an initial June round of negotiations, involving 182 nations, in Bonn.

With the December talks aimed at amending the Kyoto Protocol to take strong action against climate change, it looks like the timing has never been better to go green. Who can afford to look stupid now?

What does Windows 7 mean for Microsoft?

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-10T00:58:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Friday 10 July 2009 at 00:58:00

With the sting of Vista still fresh, Redmond has to make next Windows work

On 22 October, Microsoft plans to release Windows 7, its latest operating system and the first since the 2007 launch of Windows Vista.

In many ways, the Windows 7 launch is shaping up like most other software releases from Microsoft. After extensive testing and a fair bit of marketing, the company is preparing to first ship the operating system out to system vendors, then a release to the general public.

In many other ways, however, the release of Windows 7 looks like being one of the most important in Microsoft's history. Perhaps not since Windows 95 has so much depended on the company getting a Windows update released smoothly and on time.

Though the company still has a stranglehold on the market, new threats to Microsoft's dominance are emerging every day. The walls may still be strong in Redmond, but the wolves are also beginning to surround the company.

First, there's the MacOS. Though Apple has continually hovered around with roughly a tenth of the overall market, the company has become a visible thorn in Microsoft's side.

Apple has excelled in many of the consumer areas Microsoft has failed to penetrate, particularly media players and online media services. Meanwhile, the constant public jabs from Apple's advertising series have begun to sink in with consumers, even driving Microsoft to acknowledge the much-smaller Mac market with its "I'm a PC" ad series.

If Windows 7 flounders on release, those "Get a Mac" ads will ring truer than ever with consumers.

Then on the business front there is the looming threat of Linux. Microsoft has worked to make nice with the open-source community through deals with vendors such as Novell, but the reality is that Linux remains a very real threat to the company's lucrative server branch. And with the list of enterprise Linux backers growing every day, there is less room for error than ever for Microsoft.

Microsoft lost a lot of credibility in the business world with Vista. To help regain the confidence of the enterprise world, both Windows 7 and Server 2008 need to be rolled out smoothly.

Then there's the newest threat: Google's Chrome OS. The recently-unveiled operating system will take aim at the emerging netbook market currently occupied by both Microsoft and Linux.

Though Microsoft will enjoy a significant head start over the 2010 target date for Chrome, a lame-duck netbook port of Windows 7 would only increase interest in Chrome and slow sales while buyers hold out for the Google systems.

But outside threats are not the main reason Microsoft has to make Windows 7 work. The lion's share of the trouble for Windows these days can be summed up with one word: Vista.

The disastrous release of Windows Vista was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment for the company. Hailed as the next generation of Windows operating systems, Vista landed in the market with a thud.

Dogged by ambiguous and often lofty hardware requirements, confusing pricing and bundling systems and overall disappointing performance, Vista became a certified flop in both the consumer and enterprise spaces.

In the years after Vista's release, Microsoft was subjected to the supreme humiliation of having to extend the life of Windows XP, the aging OS Vista was supposed to replace. In the business sector, many companies simply opted to skip Vista altogether and hold out for Windows 7.

Thus far, indications are that development and deployment of Windows 7 is going far smoother than that of Vista.

From the time Windows 7 was announced, Microsoft gave itself plenty of wiggle room on the release date, first estimating early 2010, then late 2009. Analysts have praised the company for its inclusion of hardware and system vendors in the development process, and many of the demanding hardware requirements of Vista are now well in the range of most PCs.

The public has also been privy to more of the development process. Microsoft has made both the beta and release candidate builds of Windows 7 available for public download, and the development team has kept in touch with users through extensive blogging.

None of that will matter come 22 October, however. All of the transparency and goodwill will be for naught if Microsoft can't deliver a sleek, functional and glitch-free release to carry the Windows banner for the next five years.

That is not to say that Microsoft is doomed if Windows 7 is a clunker. The company is still by far the largest software vendor in history, and with Windows XP closing in on 10 years of age, most will have no choice but to upgrade.

However, a poor showing by Windows 7 could signify the beginning of a decline for Microsoft. Not a death blow, but perhaps the beginning of a larger crisis in Redmond.

If more consumers lose faith in Windows, the migration to Mac and Linux will pick up. Enterprise users will likewise look to other vendors for both desktop and server software as both patience and trust in Microsoft wanes.

Windows 7 may not be a "do or die" situation for Microsoft, but it very well could prove to be a "do or decay" release.

The Climate Change Showdown: Dealmaking Begins Anew with Bill in US Senate

Bill Beaver, GreenBiz.com — 2009-07-09T17:24:00.000Z

Bill Beaver, GreenBiz.com, BusinessGreen, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 17:24:00

Bill Beaver takes the microscope to the backroom deals that will shape the future of the US climate change bill

If you thought automakers and banks were the only companies getting a blank check from the government - think again.

As part of sweeping climate change legislation under consideration in Congress, energy companies and utilities will receive hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to help them comply with a new program to regulate greenhouse gases. Which companies will cash in and how much money will get back to consumers hit with higher energy prices are shaping a summer showdown in Congress.

Earlier this week, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held the first in a series of July hearings to develop legislative policies to address climate change. While it was largely a cheerleading session by four top Obama Administration officials on the need for Congress to act quickly, the hearing kicks off a complicated set of negotiations to secure the 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster that would slow and even halt action on climate change this year.

It was a difficult path for the House of Representatives, where it took significant compromising - and several hundred pages in last minute amendments - to secure passage of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act by a vote of 219-212 on June 26.

As the Senate develops its own version of the bill, at its core will be a cap-and-trade program that will ratchet down US greenhouse gas emissions, setting a cap that decreases over time and requires emitters to hold to permits to offset their emissions beyond the set level.

President Obama promised during his campaign last year to auction 100 per cent of cap-and-trade "allowances" - permits for every ton of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. The sale of these allowances to polluters was slated to fund the largest investment in renewable energy in history. The president has backed away from that commitment, and these allowances have become a new currency with which members of Congress barter for support.

Allowance allocation - a topic previously limited to specialist policy wonks - was the magic ingredient that brought weeks of intense negotiations and marathon sessions to resolution and led to the House of Representatives passing the landmark legislation in June.

The cost of passage in the House: 85 per cent of allowances would be given out for free. These allowances are targeted at utilities, low-income Americans and manufacturers ostensibly to prevent massive increases in consumer prices, but the allocations also satisfy uncommitted politicians who represent industrial, agricultural or coal-producing districts.

Whatever the rationale for free allowances, it is undisputed that allowances will be worth a lot of money and how they are distributed matters - for companies, for the government, and for the public. Between now and 2050, the bill will redistribute trillions of dollars and generate hundreds of billions in government revenue.

As the Senate revises the allowance allocations in developing its cap-and-trade proposal, who will be on the sidelines, cheering or coaxing their fence-sitting Senators to secure a better deal?

First, it will be agriculture interests. An eleventh-hour deal brokered by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson was a coup for farm-state members, changing the way in which the EPA calculates biofuel emissions and shifting carbon offset management from the EPA to the USDA. Farm-state Senators will work for a similar deal.

Second, regulated utilities, largely seen as winners during the House Energy and Commerce Committee markup in May, will seek to protect the generous 35 per cent of the free allowances they received in the House bill. These utilities, backed by coal-state politicians, will press for more allowances or at least defend their allocation.

Third, heavy industry - like the carbon-intensive production of cement, pulp and paper, and steel - will fight for more support. Senators from industrial centres in the South and Midwest will want additional allocations to prevent cost increases from making American-made products uncompetitive with international goods and to protect US jobs from moving abroad.

Fourth, the oil and gas industry, which has been increasingly pushed to the fringe of US energy policy, will look to salvage their meager allowance allocation. At less than two per cent, the industry is widely viewed as the big loser in the climate debate as refiners are asked to take the burden of the US fossil-fuel transportation industry. Democrats and Republicans from Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico may look to deal their vote for more generous support.

How allowances are distributed will impact which companies win and lose in the regulated environment and determine how much revenue the US government will have available to invest in complementary energy efficiency policies and clean technology development and deployment. Which is why allowance allocation is shaping up as the fight to watch this summer.

Bill Beaver is a summer associate at GreenOrder, an LRN company. The strategy and management consulting firm has helped leading companies turn sustainability into business value since 2000.

GreenOrder associate Rebecca Lutzy contributed to this article.

This article first appeared on GreenBiz.com

Open source bites back

Martin Courtney — 2009-07-09T12:41:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 12:41:00

Recession-hit companies are tired of vendors holding a gun to their heads over software licensing, says CEO of Ingres

Roger Burkhardt, chief executive of open-source database company Ingres, tells Computing why growing resentment over high licensing fees in proprietary software is prompting more companies to switch to open-source equivalents.

Computing: Why would any company choose to undertake any large, mission-critical software migration in the current economic climate?

Roger Burkhardt: People have hard choices to make in a recession, and one of the decisions CIOs have to make is whether to cut back on people or other costs, and the thing that stands out is the high licence fees being charged by proprietary software vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle, which have recently implemented price increases for their software. We see a big take-up from people who do not want to pay premium prices on software licences.

Is lower pricing the single biggest attraction in open-source software?

Many people have had it with aggressive, almost predatory pricing from proprietary database software vendors. You may have laid off 15 per cent of your staff and the whole business is under pressure, but some vendors are basically holding a gun to your head and saying you have to pay more for licensing even though your usage is down. You do not find many people concerned about the technology, and open source is quicker to implement and innovate. But mainly, people are sick and tired of being taken to the cleaners and forced to write more multimillion-pound cheques for proprietary software.

Some companies find that any cost savings on software licensing are negated by support and maintenance costs. What is the Ingres pricing model?

Our model is like the Red Hat model, where we have a free community edition and an enterprise edition which asks customers to pay for support, testing and indemnity. We have some enterprise customers who use the community edition and have chosen to self-support. If you take a proprietary Java [application] stack from Oracle and compare the costs of licensing and maintenance over a three-year period, the list price for the Oracle database application stack [and hardware] is $1.92m (£1.18m), whereas the list price for a combination of Ingres and Red Hat on an eight-core server using Enterprise Linux and JBoss [open source application server] would be $118,000.

What about migration costs?

You can write new open-source applications that have no migration costs at all, and there are examples, such as when the application is written in Java, where the migration costs are very low. But some existing applications from the old client-server world are written with proprietary extensions, and that can mean a migration does not make economic sense.

What other advantages does open-source software offer to business customers?

It can allow them to make the move from proprietary hardware to industry-standard hardware and save money there, and there are also cost savings because Ingres database administrators are more productive than others. The feedback we get is that database administrator skills are expensive and rare, so Ingres helps with productivity by offering simple, easy-to-use management tools and automated tasks.

Recent reports have suggested that take-up of open-source software in the UK lags behind other countries. Why do you think that is?

I hesitate to name a particular factor, but the UK seems to be a little behind in understanding the alternatives [to proprietary software]. People still think about open source the way they did 10 or 15 years ago. There is lots of discussion around the idea that the UK government has been slow to adopt open source, but I work on the commercial side of the CTO role where choices are not driven by what the government does. Many people do not choose to publicise what they are doing, so we are not always aware quite how pervasive open-source software is, but a lot of people have adopted open source over the past decade.

Many IT professionals still worry that open-source software is unreliable and offers poor security, for example. How do you convince them otherwise?

I cannot claim credit for a team which has done miracles in reliability and security. The truth is that Ingres was formed around a database which is 30 years old, that was already a proven asset in the hands of many customers before it went open source. We have established customers such as the Irish government, which has run its entire tax system on Ingres for many years. We also have a Swiss company, BBP, which has developed financial messaging applications based on Ingres and Red Hat open-source software, and no way could it afford to compromise on security and reliability.

How important is standardisation in encouraging more people to use open-source software?

In the database world, Ingres and all the major proprietary vendors support standards to access SQL data, though there are more lightweight open-source databases that have not complied. However, we need to get to the point where there is compliance in both the application server and database world so there are clear and effective standards for those that choose to migrate from Oracle to Ingres or Sybase for example, and to something else in the future. Ten years ago, this was hard to do because there was no application server and different databases had different procedural languages and no middle tier, but today’s Java-based application servers make it much easier.

Low profile may limit amnesty’s success tax

Judith Tydd — 2009-07-09T11:46:00.000Z

Judith Tydd, Accountancy Age, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 11:46:00

Tax advisers remain skeptical about how HMRC is going to circulate the amnsety message to the 50,000 people who might have tax liabilities to confess.

Of all the pieces that will help shape HM Revenue & Custom’s efforts to persuade people to declare income on funds held in overseas accounts, the one most advisers have been waiting for is the penalties that will be imposed by the taxman.

HMRC first launched an amnesty for holders of overseas accounts in 2007. This was for accounts held with the five major retail banks. What the taxman wanted was for account-holders to declare what interest they had earned on the funds held offshore. Failure to come forward earned a penalty of 10% of the outstanding tax plus interest.

Details of a second amnesty have been emerging over the past few weeks. Among the details revealed last week is that account holders in those banks would now face a 20% penalty if they voluntarily come forward - a big increase on the previous punishment. If they fail to own up and are found out the penalty will rise to 30-35%.

But, many tax advisers remain skeptical about how HMRC is going to circulate the message out to the estimated 50,000 people who might have tax liabilities to confess.

The lack of publicity from the first round of disclosures in 2007 is widely-touted as the reason for the £400m in tax revenue generated by the scheme - a haul many experts regard as paltry, when estimates of a possible £1bn win for the taxman had been reported.

Despite calls from the tax community for HMRC to aggressively promote and publicise the next round of disclosures - scheduled to commence in September, a public advertising campaign is yet to be launched.

Mike Down, chairman of Baker Tilly’s tax risk and investigations management group, says: ‘I don’t think the first amnesty was advertised enough. They put it on the website and relied on the profession to get the message out.’

A spokesman for the Chartered Institute of Taxation says: ‘The risk you run if you don’t publicise it is people saying they weren’t aware, so maximum publicity is needed. It prepares the ground for HMRC to come down heavier.’

A spokeswoman for HMRC says the department plans to ‘make people aware of the opportunity through a publicity campaign. The major activity is timed to begin at the same time as the NDO in early September.’

HMRC has estimated the disclosure opportunity could bring in approximately £500m over four years, including £150m in 2009/10.

Steve Besford, tax associate at BDO Stoy Hayward, says the penalty structure will create an ‘administrative headache’ for HMRC, as many taxpayers of the major retail banks will argue they weren’t aware of the previous disclosure opportunity.

So just how will zoos fit a hippo on the balance sheet?

Mario Christodoulou — 2009-07-09T11:35:00.000Z

Mario Christodoulou, Accountancy Age, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 11:35:00

New guidelines from the Accounting Standards Board aim to tackle how to account for 'priceless' artifacts, but could hit the balance sheets of zoos as well

Wedged between the bearded pigs and the camels lives Thug, the 13-year-old pygmy hippo and one of the star attractions at London Zoo.

But one place you won’t find the 300kg West African is on the zoo’s balance sheets, where the difficulty in valuing the exotic animal has resulted in Thug receiving a nominal value of zero.

This situation may be about to change. On 19 June, the Accounting Standards Board released new accounting guidelines which attempted to tackle the age-old practice of leaving precious, but otherwise priceless, artifacts and artworks off balance sheets.

While aimed predominately at museums and galleries, the implications could flow on as far as London Zoo’s penguin pool where animals are left off accounting records or accounted for at nominal levels.

The test comes down to whether the animals can be defined as being held for ‘knowledge and culture’, which, according to the ASB’s project director Alan O’Connor, they can.

‘You have situation where the entities’ greatest assets are not reflected on the balance sheets,’ he says.

O’Connor says the new rules encourage zoos to be more transparent, but also acknowledges that some assets are plain near impossible to value. ‘You would hope that [the new rules] might encourage them to show more transparency,’ he says.

The consequences for zoos may be that they have to show ‘stewardship costs’ or the costs associated with maintaining the ‘assets’.

‘The disclosures should provide readers with an understanding of the asset values being reported as well as the entity’s policies for managing its total holding of heritage assets,’ the new rules state.

The ASB’s stated aim is to increase transparency. When he announced the new rules, ASB chairman Ian Mackintosh said that under the current practices ‘many museums and galleries publish accounts that do not adequately reflect the collections that they exist to safeguard and preserve’.

O’Connor says each zoo has a slightly different approach to the accounting dilemma.

Bristol Zoo assigned a value of £1,000 for its collection of more than 7,000 animals. At London Zoo, the animals are not represented on the balance sheet at all, instead they are described as gifted.

Other nations adopt a similar approach. Australia’s Taronga Zoo values its collections at $1 (50p) per animal but considers the collection ‘part of a regional and international collection and not the specific property of the institution’.

O’Connor also struggles to see how some accounting rules could be interpreted in the zoo environment. Difficult questions include how, for example, can acquisitions and disposals be equated into births and deaths, or how are asset lives calculated. ‘We know what the likes of a giraffe or a lion is, maybe you could come up with a useful [asset] life but how useful is that to the reader,’ he says.

London Zoo declined to comment.

Lack of enterprise appeal takes shine off Chrome OS

Martin Courtney — 2009-07-09T10:58:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 10:58:00

Enterprise buyers unlikely to ditch Windows for Chrome OS in the near term, say experts

Google has upped the ante and challenged Microsoft’s dominance of the software industry by promising to develop its own streamlined operating system (OS).

Google Chrome OS will be an open-source, "lightweight" OS, set to be available in the second half of 2010. Barely more than a boot mechanism topped by a Windows-like graphical user interface running on a Linux kernel, it will strip out much of the complexity of other operating systems. Instead, it will be designed primarily to quickly channel portable devices straight into web access via Google’s Chrome web browser, which was first unveiled in September 2008.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google and Linus Upson, Google engineering director, said that other OSs were designed in an era when there was no web.

“We’re designing the [Chrome] OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds,” they wrote in a blog post, revealing Google's OS plan. “The user interface is minimal and most of the user experience takes place on the web.”

Google’s strategy is clear in pushing people to use its own web applications, including mail, storage, simple Office-type documents (word processor, spreadsheets, presentation and so on) and maps, available through the cloud computing model. It may also use its Google Gears application programming interface to provide the option of hosting those applications offline.

The company has specifically targeted Chrome OS at netbook users, and has so far offered little detail. But in designing an OS capable of only running applications in the cloud, Google may have limited its appeal to corporate users.

“Will Chrome OS make it into the enterprise? That depends if the enterprise is going to change,” said Mike Davis, senior analyst at Ovum. “It has real potential for any organisation whose staff are highly mobile and using netbooks already, but most businesses remain wired infrastructure and desktop-based, and do not want to send all their stuff over the internet.”

Previously, Google has delivered services such as web maps, webmail and the Chrome browser, initially targeting the consumer market, noted Ray Valdes, research vice president at analyst Gartner, in a blog posting. "It will be years (three to five) before [Chrome OS] has any impact on the enterprise."

Though using Google web apps is cheaper than owning software licences outright, application performance is heavily dependent on the reliability of the internet, and the constant availability of the servers hosting Google’s web applications.

Google’s assertion that users "don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates – it [security] should just work,” may also cause concern to IT leaders, if only because of its vagueness.

Google has not outlined how it will address the security of the physical device, the applications or the internet communications, said Davis.

And hackers write malicious software specifically to target OSs they know have the highest number of users – currently Microsoft Windows – but that could change.

“The security of the cloud is actually quite good and is backed by Google having multiple, very large datacentres for storage – you don’t have the problems with the local C: drive or offloading data to memory sticks, for example,” he said. “If the OS has less bloatware, it may also have fewer security holes, but you have to remember that the bigger the dartboard, the more likely hackers are to throw things at it, as evidenced by Apple’s OS X for the Mac.”

That said, a simple OS that offers users limited control over their own application environments may prove attractive to companies looking to scale down their own IT support, almost harking back to the old days of the thin client computing model where dumb terminals accessed applications and storage resources on a central server or mainframe.

Nor is it certain that consumers or business users will prefer Google’s Chrome OS as opposed to other operating systems, Microsoft-owned or otherwise. Many existing netbooks, including the top-selling Asus EEE PC and Acer Inspire brands, already use streamlined versions of Linux. However, with its large user base for Google Mail, Google Docs and other web applications, Google may become the preferred Linux variation, not least because its popularity will inspire software developers to build new applications for the platform.

Experts are under no illusion that Google has effectively declared war on Microsoft, but the Chrome OS will have to be very good to displace Windows Vista or the forthcoming slimmed-down Windows 7 OS from desktop and notebook PCs. Microsoft is also experimenting with web-based applications of its own.

“People use Windows primarily because Microsoft pays hardware manufacturers such as Dell a lot of money to pre-load it – and this is the big agenda here. Google is gunning for Microsoft and Microsoft is gunning for Google because it wants a bigger share of the search engine market,” said Davis.