Editor's blog

Blackberry 10 - it's the enterprise stupid...

Mike Simons — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:48:07 GMT

Blackberry came from the enterprise and its future will depend on the enterprise. That future may be as a stand-alone company, as part of a larger supplier -such as Lenovo, or on the IT industry scrapheap. Sure there has been...

Another government, another NHS IT programme?

Mike Simons — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:45:41 GMT

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wants the NHS to be “paperless” by 2018. He was due to say so today in a widely trailed speech that, if Hunt is still in politics by the allotted date, is likely to come back...

HP's Autonomy fraud allegations. Get real...

Mike Simons — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:29:59 GMT

Let’s cut to the chase about the HP-Autonomy fraud allegations. HP massively overpaid for Autonomy last year. It did so because it was a distress purchase. HP’s core business is shrinking and it needs to transform itself into a software...

IT and breast implants

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:41:28 GMT

What could IT possibly have to do with the emerging scandal about the safety of breast implants made by the bankrupt French company PIP? Quite a lot, actually. There are a number of issues involved: The manufacturer’s criminal use of...

Oracle calls Autonomy's Mike Lynch a liar or an amnesiac

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:13:54 GMT

You’ve got to hand it to Oracle. They don’t mind who they slap. Whether Oracle's customers like their aggressive attitude to rival suppliers though remains to be seen. Next week’s Oracle Openworld will be one place to find out. No...

Steve Jobs, Mike Lynch and the future of UK IT

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:45:06 GMT

Mike Lynch might not be Steve Jobs, but he has done all right for himself and for the UK IT industry.The barrage of articles on Steve Jobs' genius at Apple and the speculation on the future of his company has...

Google bags headaches along with Motorola patents

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:37:21 GMT

What does Google get from its £7.7 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility? It gets the company that first developed the mobile phone, some 24,000 patents and a hardware partner. But it is a hardware partner that has slipped back...

Silly SAP, silly fine. Make sure we don't all pay the price

Mike Simons — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:58:00 GMT

The ruling which gave Oracle £820 million in damages from SAP has potentially damaging implications for all enterprise IT customers, and it is in no one’s interests for it to stand. Regardless of the rights and wrongs, and SAP clearly...

Is HP really paying Leo Apotheker $1.2m a year basic plus $4m signing on fee?

Mike Simons — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 16:02:09 GMT

How much is Leo Apotheker worth to HP? Is he like an over paid football star - worth so much because he brings in even more income for his employers?I don’t know what the going rate for the CEO of...

Gideon Gartner takes a swipe at the analyst group he founded

Mike Simons — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:47:00 GMT

Gideon Gartner invented the IT analyst game. He founded the Gartner Group back in 1979, launched an IPO in 1987 and saw his company acquired a year later by advertising and media giant Saatchi and Saatchi. When the relationship...

The Budget, the cuts and IT

Mike Simons — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:27:00 GMT

"Osborne’s kill or cure budget". That was the Financial Times headline this morning. If that sounds apocalyptic, even the cure could well be the death knell of public sector IT as we have known it. Socitm, the public sector...

Can you really claim storage will transform the future?

Mike Simons — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:47:00 GMT

“This changes everything,” is a claim we hear daily from IT companies and their PR people. Once in a decade or so, something comes along that does actually change everything. I don’t know if EMC’s virtual storage vision is...

NHS IT how much is the government paying to keep suppliers sweet?

Mike Simons — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:58:00 GMT

There is something obscene about the political manoeuvring around NHS IT and, amidst the weasel words, opportunism and dissembling, some important questions are not being asked. The Tories are accusing the government of “fixing” contract renegotiations on the £12.7bn...

IT strikes, a sign of the times?

Mike Simons — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:27:00 GMT

The end of the strike over pay, redundancies and pensions at Fujitsu services raises a host of questions. The deal, announced last Friday, ends a four-month dispute, which saw 10 days of strike action, a lobby of parliament and...

Waledac gets whacked, Linux gets valued

Mike Simons — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:53:00 GMT

Microsoft is not getting the credit it deserves for winning a court order to take down the Waledac botnet. It went to court, provided compelling evidence to the judge, took action on the ruling it received and told promptly...

Getting it right

Mike Simons — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:45:00 GMT

Computerworld UK and Techworld have pulled a number of articles by Randall C. Kennedy, a contributor to our US-based sister title Infoworld. Kennedy last week admitted that while writing for Infoworld he was also working under a pseudonym as...

Dell buys Perot: Following the money

Mike Simons — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:01:00 GMT

How valuable is your IT department? How much should you do yourself and how much should you outsource or contract out? Dell’s shock acquisition of Perot Systems, raises a host of questions, not least those around the cost organisations...

Let's stop knee jerk cuts in IT spending

Mike Simons — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:31:00 GMT

There are increasingly loud voices being raised demanding cuts in public sector IT spending. Today it is the turn of the Institute of Directors, which is calling for the scrapping of the National Programme for IT in the NHS,...

Some good stuff on ComputerworldUK today

Mike Simons — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:25:00 GMT

MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee slammed Government IT projects for ‘repeating’ basic errors. It is much the same with the basic message of their reports. Year after year, the same conclusions. You shouldn’t shoot the...

Climate change: Unlike the airline industry, IT is part of the solution

Mike Simons — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:42:00 GMT

I'm not complacent. I don't believe there is a technology solution to every problem. But this morning's news from the government’s official advisers on climate change made me angry. We are being warned that the UK might have to...

Orange, T-Mobile, Oracle and Sun: Sweet and sour mergers?

Mike Simons — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:07:00 GMT

The merger between Orange and T-Mobile’s UK networks has probably sparked most conversation among IT professionals today, but the possible link between two food giants may ultimately prove more interesting US-based Kraft (Philadelphia cream cheese, Maxwell House coffee, Toblerone)...

Getting rid of shelfware

Mike Simons — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:51:00 GMT

Ray Wang, the esteemed Forrester analyst, has some sound advice over on his Software Insider personal blog about how to negotiate with suppliers over licenses you no longer need or want. Apply three shelfware maintenance fee reduction techniques, says...

Is Oracle repeating SAP's mistakes?

Mike Simons — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:01:00 GMT

Is Oracle about to make the same mistake that SAP did last year, and take its users for granted? Oracle’s stealthy move to raise the price of some of its database management modules could be as damaging to its...

Learn from the vendors

Mike Simons — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:21:00 GMT

EMC’s battle with NetApp for Data Domain is one of the few real bidding wars the IT industry has seen. There is always a lot of noise around mergers and acquisitions – with the company being bought trying to...