You can now comment on these stories if you are logged-in. You are not alone - maintaining service levels with reduced budgets endemic NCC survey reveals IT decision makers under pressure to ... read more..

- without knowing what questions to ask your cloud vendor before you commit? The benefits of cloud computing are undeniable. Cloud technology boasts greater flexibility to quickly and easily adjust computing and storage capacity according to business need, which means improved business agility. It provides organisations with increased data storage ... read more..

In most organisations the enterprise architecture function is still the preserve of the IT function. Ovums 2010 enterprise architecture survey revealed that there is some way to go before an architectural approach is relevant outside the IT function for many organisations. Involving all stakeholders in an enterprise architecture initiative is an ... read more..

eradar.eu has published a FREE comprehensive check list of over 100 UK laws and regulations for CIOs, CTOs and IT/e-business project directors/senior managers. The check list includes brief summaries written for non-lawyers, referenced links to the UK's new official legislation database, plus guidance from government and enforcement authorities. New information ... read more..

Conspectus July/August 2010 - Summary In the past, successful companies looked after their customers instinctively it just made common sense. Nowadays its called customer relationship management, and you can buy a software package to do it for you! Of course, just installing a CRM system is not sufficient to develop a ... read more..

Back to school for the UK today but amidst the 2010 GCSE results we see a worrying trend emerging for IT Whilst, the number of pupils taking single sciences has surged, the overall pass rate rose again to a record 69.1%. Against a backdrop of increased pressure on university places ... read more..

The results of a new survey from the National Computing Centre (NCC) paint a challenging picture for the UK IT management community. When asked what was their most pressing issue in the current economic climate, most cited maintaining service levels with reduced budgets, this was closely followed by the challenge ... read more..

NHF accredited to NCC Standard and other updates from NCCYou can now comment on these stories if you are logged-in.National Housing Federation become Accredited to NCCs Standard for IT Departments How Unisys is using a cloud to keep mainframe customers happy NCC at the Microsoft Interoperability Executive Customer Council Intel ... read more..

From The RegisterIn an interesting turn, the economics of cloud computing have been questioned by one of Googles top bods. Or rather, Googles internal network chief Vijay Gill is having a competitive swipe at Amazon according to the Register. Vijay draws an analogy between renting and owning a car. The ... read more..

From ComputerworldUKDespite a lacklustre economy, the worldwide security software industry just keeps growing. Led by Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, IBM and EMC, total industry sales are projected to hit at least $16.5 billion this year, up 11.3% from 2009, according to Gartner.Into this security sales fest steps Intel with its ... read more..

From the RegisterIf Oracle and Sun Microsystems have anything in common - and as the poster children for Silicon Valley's IT upstarts, they have much in common - it is that they are not afraid to say they have the best technology and no one can touch them. That, in ... read more..

Passwords rendered pointless and other updates from NCCYou can now comment on these stories if you are logged-in.Graphics card supercomputers render passwords pointlessEmail archiving in Exchange 2010Can replication replace backup?Oracle unwraps latest BI suiteThe end of outsourcing as we know it?How much smaller can chips go?From the National Computing Centre:New ... read more..

From PC ProBarry Collins investigates how much further chip technology can shrink as miraculous feats of engineering give PC-like power to smartphones.If you have got a few minutes, have read of this interesting article which outlines the challenges of putting more power into smaller chips, and how the challenges are ... read more..

From CIO.comWithin five years the traditional outsourcing industry will be extinct argues A.T. Kearneys Arjun Sethi. Most Indian providers will be sidelined or subsumed while the fate of seemingly stalwart US players will hang in the balance. Google, Amazon and IBM will the key players in 2015 according to this ... read more..

From Ovum OpinionwireOracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 11g is the biggest business intelligence (BI) announcement of the year to date, packing in a raft of features and providing best-of-breed tool alignment. Some of the main enhancements are focused on plugging previous functional gaps, notably greater report and dashboard interactivity ... read more..

From The RegisterBackup started as saving a copy of data to tape. For many users it now means saving a copy to disk, either as a straight file backup or as a virtual tape backup. In both instances data is being moved from one disk to another. Thats what replication ... read more..

From Computer WeeklyA team of researchers at Georgia Tech Research Institute is investigating whether passwords are now worthless, given the supercomputer-like performance now available to hackers using standard desktop graphics cards report Computer Weekly.Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate - and as GPU ... read more..

The end of third party archive solutionsFrom ComputerworldUKWith the push for larger mailbox sizes by users and increasing compliance requirements by legal departments, email archiving is no longer optional for most organisations. But thanks to new technologies available in Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2010 SP1, including a bottomless mailbox capability ... read more..

You can now comment on these stories if you are logged-in.IT Contracts standard terms and conditions explained6 things CIOs should consider before moving to the cloudQuality is driver for open source growth7 IT Career rules worth breaking10 of the greatest technology flopsCIOs' three Cs for an effective IT plan: Context, ... read more..

From Silicon Almost every IT leader writes a strategic plan at some point. The intent is clear: provide a concise, readable summary of how investments in IT will further business goals. But the resulting plan is often anything but clear. What separates a strategic plan that ends up gathering dust ... read more..

From Wired Ever wondered how many books there are in the world? Perhaps not unless you have a commercial interest, like say, Google. According to Wired the search mammoth has explained the deep and thoroughly elaborate algorithm used by its literary offshoot, Google Books, to count just how many ... read more..

From silicon Clive Longbottom says that cloud computing has been hailed as the cure for all IT ills, but a measure of reality is now returning to people's view of the technology and the business value it can provide. He argues that some organisations are still not thinking through the ... read more..

From Computerworld US Its a tough economy and IT jobs are in the firing line. Whats more, the future of the IT Department in its current form is going to change. So what does it take to establish a career in IT? As David Taylor, the Naked Leader would ... read more..

From Computerworld More than two-thirds of businesses expect to increase their investment in open source software in 2010, according to a new survey from Accenture. The survey of 300 large organisations in the private and public sector across the UK and Ireland and the US, also found that 38 percent ... read more..

From The Daily Telegraph. It looks like Googles Buzz service is likely to go the same way as Googles Wave social networking service whose demise was announced last week, so the Daily Telegraph searched its archives for other technologies which never met the fanfare of expectations announced at their launch. ... read more..

From Computer Weekly Reviewing your contracts? Many IT decision-makers are responding to cost cutting initiatives by reviewing their contracts. Nick Philips and Brett Farrell from Barlow Robbins LLP have put together an update on IT contract standard terms including current interpretations of meaning. Read More NCC resources ... read more..

You can now comment on these stories if you are logged-in.OGC has no remit to produce and develop ITILMicrosoft to release emergency security fixSmartphone devices increasingly difficult to supportLack of Skills hits IT department performanceGovernment considers scrapping parity rule for IT outsourcers8 most common misconceptions about buying CRM appsCan you ... read more..

From Computerworld Leo King at Computerworld today reports that the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has no public remit to develop the ITIL methodology and needs to open the market for PRINCE2 project guidance, according to a report by the Office of Public Sector Information. OPSI, which is part of ... read more..

From Computer Weekly Microsoft plans to release an emergency security update for Windows today (2nd August) to patch a recently reported vulnerability in the way the operating system creates desktop shortcuts. The out-of-band release will prevent Windows from allowing malicious code to be executed when the icon of a specially ... read more..

From the Evaluation Centre A new paper from Mareeba CRM Consultings Richard Boardman identifies 8 misconceptions about buying CRM apps. The Evaluation Centre is a free to use NCC service which provides procurement advice and guidance for 11 different enterprise application types, including ERP, Document Management, Project Management, Security and ... read more..