CIO News View

If Technology Press Releases Covered Great Moments In English History

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:57:07 GMT

I don't know about you -- indeed, how could I when we hardly ever meet? -- but I get lots and lots of press releases. In my main mailbox, I've had 10 in the last couple of hours alone, even...

Google opens Apps Marketplace (and scares the bejeezus out of Microsoft)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:23:35 GMT

In the great tradition of no-brainers, Google today opened the virtual doors to its Apps Marketplace, inviting us all to download, try out and purchase complementary services to its core productivity applications and communications suite. I've been like a dog...

Dyson's right: we need a bolder, ingenious Britain

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:43:51 GMT

Ruggedly handsome, hugely wealthy, highly personable and feted by all, there is a lot to dislike about Sir James Dyson* but it has to be said that he's talking a lot of sense when it comes to UK attitudes to technology....

HP-EDS UK boss: Election will see IT spend hiatus, not drought

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:58:01 GMT

In the third and final part of our interview with HP Enterprise Services (the former EDS) UK MD and VP Craig Wilson, we talked about ICT services after the impending general election and Wilson's view on a radically new model...

HP-EDS UK boss: Civil servants are terrified by outsider views of IT projects

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:08:28 GMT

In the second part of CIO UK's interview with HP Enterprise Services (the former EDS) MD and VP Craig Wilson we talked about the challenges to contracts between outsourcers and government and public sector. The public perception (OK, media perception)...

HP-EDS UK boss on BSkyB, the merger and building an alternative to IBM

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:46:29 GMT

In my experience at least, EDS always had a tendency to keep itself to itself. That's unsurprising as when it did appear in the press it was usually on the sticky end of stories relating to problematic public-sector projects. However,...

'Twitter for business': Reed tests Salesforce.com's Chatter

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:02:59 GMT

Being a simple bloke, I'm a big fan of Twitter as a simple way to air simple views. My only surprise is that the company is missing out on what may well be the big revenue source for this sort...

IT charge-backs can be a 'think of a number' game

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:39:24 GMT

For IT departments, the ability to charge back has long been regarded as either badge of honour or longed-for status symbol but ask CIOs about the process of creating a charge-back scheme and the clanking noise that you hear is...

So You Want To Get Into CIO...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:17:20 GMT

You know, I've done a lot of things right since I started the job of Editor-In-Chief of CIO UK nigh on two years ago. My tea making wins universal approbation; I am a generous contributor to leaving-this-place/birthday/anniversary/I've-just-replicated card collections; I...

Jeremy Allaire weighs in on Apple/Flash stand-off

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:43:44 GMT

The saga of Apple mobile devices and their (non-) relationship with Adobe's Flash technology has been revisited by many industry watchers ever since the announcement of the iPad last month and reports (for example, here and here) that Steve Jobs...

At 20, Photoshop is a spring chicken compared to veterans of PC era

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:32:15 GMT

So Photoshop is 20 years old. Its menus and shortcuts appear to be an Enigma code to outsiders and it requires the sort of computer configuration usually saved for missile defence systems, but a whole generation has grown up and...

Service downs brand-infringing sites but problem won't go away

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:38:11 GMT

I've written in this space before about MarkMonitor, the self-styled "global leader in enterprise brand protection" that helps fashionable or well-known firms fight fraudsters, counterfeiters, pirates and sundry other ne'er-do-well's. Today the company made available its Site Staydown Service, a...

Atos Origin chief on EDS-BSkyB, Olympics, elections and man-to-man marking

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:58:39 GMT

With Atos Origin announcing financials that appeared to show an improvement in the group's fortunes (and with analyst TechMarketView suggesting that the firm has entered the Top 10 in UK software and IT services companies for 2009), I spoke by...

How much is Twitter worth? Maybe $7m per employee...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:09:15 GMT

Considering that it has become the catalyst for much of the world's news, the water-cooler for global gossip and the most-watched technology phenomenon since Google, you could be forgiven for thinking that Twitter must have a payroll running into significant numbers....

Microsoft rips up the Windows phone book and starts again

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:56:40 GMT

So Microsoft wasn't messing when it said it had come up with something radical to fight back in smartphones. The announcement today of the Windows Phone 7 Series -- effectively a back-to-the-drawing board new platform -- bears the stamp of the...

10 Random Twitter Annoyances

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:43:02 GMT

Twitter. It's like eating a digestive biscuit. You can't see it as one of life's great pleasures but it's better than nothing. It's good to have it on in the background, like the radio, or the TV when Hoovering. It's birdsong...

Microsoft's Mangelaars on Win 8, Apple & Google's Chrome ads blitz

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:26:29 GMT

In part one of CIO's interview with Microsoft EMEA boss of consumer and online, John Mangelaars, we focused on what Microsoft is doing in smartphones to fight back against Apple, RIM and Google. In part two, we roam across a...

Microsoft to tighten grip on Windows smartphone designs

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:08:26 GMT

Microsoft plans include limiting handset makers to core specifications and designs as the firm seeks to stage a comeback in smartphones. The firm is expected to announce more plans at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week. "We'll come back pretty hard on the...

Will Apotheker exit fuel M&A at SAP?

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:55:11 GMT

Oracle's blitz on leadership in enterprise applications might well be working to destablise its deadly rival SAP after CEO Leo Apotheker walked away from the German giant, adding fuel to the suggestion that the German giant is stumbling. Apotheker's departure comes...

Improving on Jonathan Schwartz's haiku (it can't get verse)

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:48:15 GMT

Many watchers viewed the reign of Jonathan Schwartz at Sun Microsystems as a stint characterised by incomprehensible cryptic references and odd schemes that led to general lack of understanding and a dwindling audience. So when Schwartz on Wednesday said 'sayonara...

Fallout from EDS-BSkyB: higher prices, more red tape

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:55:00 GMT

So HP-EDS has finally been told to pay £200m as an interim penalty in the latest installment of the saga surrounding the failure of an ancient CRM implementation at BSkyB. Like a lot of couples that end up facing each...

There's no such thing as a business smartphone anymore

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:32:07 GMT

I stumbled on a full-page display ad in the London Evening Standard on Monday that replicated the already familiar iPhone campaign promoting apps from partners. However, while most of the apps pushed in the past have been largely consumer in...

Google's 'deep reading' fears lost in shallows

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:22:14 GMT

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week the tone was one of uncharacteristic caution. Having been surprised by the big wave of financial chaos, most speakers appear to have been oddly sotto voce. Whisper it, but the masters of the...

Apple searches for a market with blank sheet of iPad

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:24:34 GMT

In the end it was that rare thing: an Apple announcement shorn of surprises. There was Steve Jobs, the man in black and denim, looking pretty well for a bloke who has endured more speculation about his health than Fidel...

Oracle-Sun could still shake up servers

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:19:23 GMT

It's only January but Wednesday promises to be one of the biggest dates in the 2010 technology calendar with Apple (we assume) announcing its tablet product and, as a sideshow to the main event, Oracle discussing its plans for Sun. In different...