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Intelligent retailLearning customers’ buying habits through business inteLLigence is vitaL

for aiLing high-street shops to compete with onLine retaiLers page 20

nisa retaiL uses technoLogy to increase efficiency page 12

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the week in it

IT for government & public sectorCabinet Office blacklists Fujitsu over supplier’s risk statusthe cabinet office has blacklisted Fujitsu and another it supplier from tendering for government it contracts because they constitute too high a risk. Fujitsu has had problems with government projects recently. the Department for Work and pensions (DWp) cancelled a desktop deal before any work could be done, after the DWp lost confidence in the supplier. the highland council also criticised Fujitsu for project failures.

E-commerce technologyTesco signs £65m datacentre deal to drive online expansionsupermarket chain tesco is investing £65m in a state-of-the-art datacentre as it gears up to expand its web operations outside the uk. the retailer has signed a 15-year contract with datacentre operator sentrum, to host the equipment that will power its fast-growing dot com and bank-ing business.

Collaboration softwareUS federal government signs up to collaboration software supplier Huddlehundreds of thousands of us public sec-tor workers have access to cloud-based collaboration software from uk it firm huddle after two major us government departments signed up. A version of huddle – used by the uk government, which sits on a private cloud – is now available to the us government.

Mobile networkingEverything Everywhere poised to launch UK 4G mobile network everything everywhere is set to launch high-speed 4G mobile networking in the uk with download speeds at a maximum of up to 40Mbps. the mobile operator – now rebranded “ee” – will launch the service before the end of the year, but has not dis-closed the tariff. ee will test its 4G cover-age in London, Birmingham, cardiff and Bristol in the coming weeks.

Broadband communicationsHuawei commits to spending £1.2bn in UK research and procurementchinese telecoms company huawei is to spend £1.2bn in investment and procure-ment in the uk over the next five years. in a meeting with prime Minister David cameron, Ren zhengfei, founder and ceo of huawei, said the company would invest £600m in research and development and around £600m in local procurement.

PC hardwareHP axes another 2,000 jobs in restructuring exercisehp is set to lay off 2,000 more staff than it had originally planned over the next two years to simplify and restructure its operations. the company announced 27,000 job cuts in May this year when it published its second quarter results, which showed a 31% tumble in profits and a 3% fall in revenue.

Apple lAunches iphone 5

apple has unveiled the iphone 5 with an updated version of its mobile operating system ios 6.

apple launched the handset last week in san francisco, boasting a longer battery life for the iphone 5 thanks to apple’s a6 chip, and a four-inch retina display, enabling an extra line of apps on the home screen.

the iphone 5 is lighter and thinner than its predecessor, measuring just 7.6mm in thickness. the camera remains at 8mp but is 25% smaller. the front camera can capture 720p hD video for facetime calls.

new features in ios 6 include apple’s own map application, turn by turn navigation and an update to its voice recognition programme, siri.

access the latest it news via rss feed

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the week in it

Hackers & cyber crime preventionBig businesses failing to learn from cyber attacks, says researcherBig companies are failing to learn from information security incidents, according to Rob kraus, director of research at mal-ware analysis firm solutionary. Few organ-isations are conducting post-incident reviews to see how and why the attack took place, he told attendees of the 2012 (isc)2 security congress in philadelphia. Reviews can help organisations identify the controls they need to stop similar security incidents in future, he said.

Chips & processor hardwareIntel forecasts lower revenues for Q3 due to a reduction in demandintel has announced a decline in its sales forecasts for the third quarter (Q3) of 2012, due to lower demand for consumer and enterprise pcs. the chip manufac-turer expects revenue from Q3 between $12.9bn and $13.5bn, down from fore-casts of $13.8bn to $14.8bn. in July, intel warned of a slowdown as it announced its Q2 financial results. During the last quar-ter, which ended 30 June, intel made sales worth $13.5bn and a profit of $2.8bn.

IT for financial servicesCircuit breakers could mitigate risk in automated tradingthe investment industry could use new circuit breaking technology to reduce the problems caused by market volatil-ity, a working paper has revealed. the paper, put together by academics as part of the Foresight project on the Future of computer trading in Financial Markets, recommends ways of reducing the risks associated with computerised trading.

Hackers & cyber crime preventionMicrosoft discovers pre-installed viruses on PCs in ChinaMicrosoft has found pcs manufactured in china with malware installed. Microsoft’s digital crimes unit stumbled across the malicious software during an investigation into chinese manufacturers. Researchers found malware including the Nitol virus, which steals data.

IT for financial servicesBank of England hires 145 IT staff for Prudential Regulatory Authoritythe Bank of england is to hire 145 it staff to fill roles in its new financial services watchdog the prudential Regulatory Authority (pRA). the pRA is tasked with ensuring financial institutions have the appropriate levels of liquidity to withstand a crisis. it will have a total of 1,100 staff and is due to be established by early 2013 in Moorgate. “it is about scal-ing up the organisation and growing capa-bility,” said Bank of england cio simon Moorhead.

Database softwareIT system cuts visa abuse across Schengen AreaAn it system integrating disparate national border controls has reduced visa abuse across the borderless schengen Area of continental europe. the Visa information system is used by the european commission to enable schengen treaty signatory states in the area to share information, about individuals who have had visa applications rejected, in near real time.

Source: BT Engage IT

Which technology has had the biggest effect on your business in the past year?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Use of consumer devices

Virtualisation

Mobile

Cloud-based apps

New operating systems

Tablets

Cloud-based storage

42%

13%

10%

11%

14%

5%

3%

2%

technology At work

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interview

Channel 4 CIO Kevin Gallagher speaks to Angelica Mari about the time and technology challenges it overcame in broadcasting the Paralympic Games

The IT behind Channel 4’s live coverage of the Paralympic Games

Providing coverage of the paralympic Games was chan-

nel 4’s largest ever live broadcast undertaking,

but it also gave the it team an equally com-plex project that presented a range of new challenges and had to be executed under very tight deadlines.

to broadcast more than 500 hours of sport, c4 kicked off its preparation when it won the bid in 2010, with it a key com-ponent of the plans. But in practice, the team only had 10 days to put the necessary technology infrastructure in place at the international Broadcasting centre (iBc) after the London 2012 olympic Games ended.

Work carried out by c4’s partner computacenter involved setting up network connections between c4 and the olympic park, with connectivity to base at 100Mbps. the company partnered with sports special-ists sunset & Vine and iMG sports Media for production of the content, as broadcast and streaming data go through separate net-works. it work also included the roll-out of a sturdier video-conferencing set-up, Wi-Fi connections and laptops for the team.

A content management system, provided by italian sports media services company Deltatre, was also rolled out to support web coverage of the sports events. the broad-caster used similar tools for its online cover-age of the 2011 iAAF World championship in athletics in south korea and the Bt paralympic World cup in Manchester.

“the paralympics is definitely the biggest thing we have ever done. We have covered major sporting events before, but nothing as large as this event, where we totally focused the schedule on one thing for nearly two weeks,” says channel 4 cio kevin Gallagher.

From an it point of view, he says the main

challenge was getting the infrastructure in place in a short timeframe. “We only had access to the site about three days after the closing ceremony of the olympics, so we had to move pretty quickly. there is only so much preparation you can do with things that are live, but there is no second chance – you have to get it all sorted immediately,” he says.

Mobile and web focuschannel 4’s dedicated paralympics web-site exceeded 10 million page views and, according to Gallagher, there were more than one million streams on the web by the end of the Games. the website showcased on-demand highlights of events, as well as news stories, live text commentaries, results and medal tables, individual profiles of all paralympicsGB athletes and video guides to particular sports.

gallagher: with a live event, “there is no second chance”

Tight time scales biggest challenge for

Atos Paralympic IT switchover

Disability activists hijack Paralympics for

Atos protest

CW500 interview

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“We had all the experience from the previous sporting events we had worked on, but technology moves on. When we started planning for this, ipads didn’t even exist. however, you have to react to those sorts of things. it became clear that as mobile technology became more viable to consumers, it was important to focus on that.”

About 60 it contractors worked on the paralympics team at channel 4, in addition to 60 in-house staff. According to the cio, work progressed smoothly with no major issues – but challenges always exist.

“the biggest difficulties are quite often to do with the things you haven’t done before: what is going to be popular; how online view-ers are going to behave; estimating traffic levels. to some extent, it is about specula-tion,” says Gallagher.

“online you get a certain amount of cases where someone may say they can’t see the website on an ipad because it doesn’t run Flash – we all know it is an Apple situation, but someone may report that as an error. it happens,” he says.

“one thing is for sure though: there is no second chance, no second release – we had to get everything absolutely right. But it went very smoothly, nothing really alarm-ing happened. We are very pleased with the way it all went, both in terms of delivery and performance.” n

“We realised the website was going to be difficult and challenging, but we were determined to make this our most important project so far,” says Gallagher.

to meet such demands, a dedicated team was put in place to focus on paralympics online coverage and apps.

According to the cio, while some of the technology used for the online service is new, a lot of it already existed. For example, the company had experience in working with partners such as Akamai in content delivery networks and Amazon cloud services for hosting. Gallagher anticipates that, increas-ingly, the company’s programme-based systems will be based on the cloud.

Lots of mobile interestthe fact that c4 had been improving its web offering over the years also meant that some of those lessons could be applied to the mobile world. For example, the broadcaster has traditionally focused on video-on-demand for the web, but the paralympics prompted the company to offer mobile streaming for the first time.

channel 4 launched Android, iphone and ipad apps especially for the paralympics, attracting more than 500,000 downloads,

and there were also a significant number of users streaming content over mobile devices. Gallagher says there was much more interest in the mobile tools than anticipated.

“All the mobile stuff was more suc-cessful than we

thought it would be. the paralympics was very successful, and [the same] can be said about the work we did to prepare for it,” says Gallagher.

› CIO priorities 2012: Kevin Gallagher, CIO, Channel 4› The technology behind the BBC’s Olympics coverage

› The Olympics in technology stats

“We Were determined to make this our most important project so far”

analysis

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Cw500 rePOrt

Building relations with board helps IT leaders deliver better results

Cios are winners – the Mo Farahs, Jes-sica ennises and usain Bolts of the business world. Right?

sadly, for many company boards, cios while successful, are not well-recognised in their own organisations.

At best, it leaders are seen as people who like to say no – people who will find reasons why things cannot be done; while at worst, they are the technology equivalent of London Mayor Boris Johnson – controversial, a mav-erick and a bit scary.

But it need not be this way, senior it pro-fessionals heard at cW500 club meeting in september.

Learn the language of businessRobin Young, chief operating officer (coo) of the pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers, and himself a former cio, offered offered some tips from his own experience.

he was joined by Jim Norton, former Bcs president and chartered director, and Nick Beighton, finance director of online fashion retailer Asos.

Young recounted one of his most important lessons – he was working for a pharmaceuti-cals company in the run-up to the year 2000 and the cio was presenting his plans for the Millennium bug to the board.

“We watched the ceo nod and smile and it appeared it was all going swim-mingly,” he said. “But when the poor chap came in to take his accolades for the work he had done, he received the biggest kicking i’d ever seen.

“the chief executive believed his presenta-tion was ‘emperor’s trousers’, rubbish, and that he had been conned. the gap was very simple. it was just communication.”

the incident brought home to Young just how important it is for the cio to learn to speak the same language as the board.

even the most simple it architecture dia-gram can be too much for the boardroom.

Immerse yourself in the businessthe argument over the it/business divide is an old one. But Norton said it is important for cios to be immersed in the business.

the cio needs to understand the business if he is to help transform it, and he needs to understand it as well, if not better, than his fellow board directors, he said.

“that needs a real link to the business at a grass roots level – an understanding of the processes that are critical to the business

CW500 Club hears tried-and-tested approaches to building more effective communication with company directors. Bill Goodwin reports

Video: BCS’s Jim

Norton – IT in the boardroom

Video: Mitchells &

Butlers’ COO Robin Young

“start With a realistic vieW of What you can achieve”jim norton, former Bcs president

Jim norton, former president of bcs

and chartered director

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and an understanding of what we can do to make them significantly better.”

it is also important for cios to take the time to explain to business staff why it projects matter, Norton said. “i have seen so many organisations where the technology was fine, but no-one had taken the time to explain to the staff why it was necessary.”

Gain business expertise Beighton advised cios to integrate not just themselves, but their it teams, closely inside the business.

“Get yourselves from the back of the bus into the co-driver’s seat. if one side is finance and the other is it, by completing that trian-gle, you empower your ceo,” he said.

Norton agreed. “A cio really needs to understand the business because the board isn’t going to reach out to you; you have to reach out to them and show them you under-stand the nuts and the bolts of the business as well as they do – preferably better.”

Use your data-driven advantagecios may not realise it but they have a secret weapon in their armoury – they are the gatekeepers of the company’s data and can make that work for them on the board.

“Getting to that data and fuelling board-room decisions with information transforms the value that your team is delivering,” said Beighton. “it transforms the way they see you, and suddenly, you are straight into the heart of the organisation. ”

Norton advises cios to carry out post-implementation reviews of successful pro-jects – something they rarely do.

“it is absolutely crucial to demonstrate to the board why it was a great success and what the numbers were,” he said.

Talk business, not technologyYour cFo will love it if you starting using the language of business, said Beighton, “people

understand what you are talking about and see you are trying to

solve their problems.”Be device agnostic, because your customers

are device agnostic, he said. “they don’t care

what platform you are deploying and they don’t care what device you are favouring – they just want what your business is offering and they will get it any way that they can.”

Honest approach to IT projectsFor a cio, honesty about timescales and budgets is essential, the meeting heard.

“if you try to complete a project without the budget and to a ludicrous timescale, you have no credibility,” Norton told the group.

openness is particularly important if a project is running into difficulties. covering something up, invariably makes things worse. “You might be surprised that someone on the board can help you out,” said Beighton.

Communicate clearly with the board “there has to be really good communica-tion. By that, i mean not just broadcasting, but actually two-way communication.

“the crucial thing is to start with a real-istic view of what you can achieve, and the resources you need to do it,” Norton said.

“And don’t be shy about taking credit when projects are successful. We are our own worst enemies in not actually showing what we can do and – when it’s done properly – not taking credit for it,” said Norton. n

This is an extract of the CW500 report. Click here to read the full article

› Public sector IT in an age of austerity› How CIOs are exploiting the cloud

› Organisations beating the downturn

Cw500 rePOrt

robin young, coo, mitchells & butlers

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Case study

How Pulsant helps Edinburgh International Festival perform

Every August, swathes of tourists head north of the border to check out the sights and sounds of edinburgh, with

some claiming the population of the scot-tish capital doubles for the month. Visitors see numerous cultural activities taking place but, at the top of the pack, is the edinburgh international Festival (eiF).

the eiF, which began in 1947, has grown to involve 10 venues, ranging from 300-seaters to 3,000 at the edinburgh playhouse, and host 109 shows over its three-week run.

Both running the festival in the summer and organising the next one throughout the year are complex tasks, and as such they need a dedicated team. it is not just the people, but also the technology involved that ensures the eiF runs smoothly for both organisers and visitors.

“our focus has been to switch to more digi-tal content, so our speed of access and ability to sell tickets online have been key,” said Rob knight, it and database manager at eiF. “We have also had to look at ensuring the best customer service and need the best hosted service to meet all our requirements.”

the company decided to work with pulsant six years ago and has just signed another contract – it renews every three years – to use the company’s hosted services.

Aydin kurt-elli, chief operating officer (coo) at pulsant, said it won the trust of eiF from its work on similar projects.

“edinburgh international Festival knew of pulsant from its work with other festivals in the area, and as edinburgh is blessed with more culture per capita than anywhere i know, it makes sense for us to have a base here,” he said. “it also meant the organis-ers understood the baseline support that we could offer, be it internet access or ticket sites, through to remote venues, back office systems and web presence.”

Website reliability is keyone of the major tasks it has had to take on is the website, which has become increas-ingly important to festival visitors.

“the website is a key aspect of the festival,” said Jackie Westbrook, director of marketing and communications for eiF. “it is database driven, allowing visitors to search by date, name, art form, etc, to find what they are looking for.

“there are great peaks and troughs in the traffic, although mostly peaks. take the first day of public sales – our traffic rose to 3,000 unique visitors with 28,000 page views. on this day alone £177,000 was made from online ticket sales, so the e-commerce aspect of the site is very important.”

Jennifer Scott talks to the festival’s organisers and hosted services provider Pulsant about how technology helps with the running of the world-famous event

How to select the

right hosted services

Government tenders for

£1bn hosting framework

reliable online ticket sales were critical to edinburgh festival

shows such as gulliver’s travels

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A significant 64% of purchases were made online on that first day and, over the course of the festival, online purchases averaged out as being responsible for between 52% and 54% of all sales.

the website needs to be reliable, or ticket sales do not go through and shows will not have an audience. “We are utterly reliant on our network as a business,” said Westbrook. “We have a number of no-fail dates, like the first day of public sales, as you can’t re-run a day like that. You can’t re-run the festival, and if we don’t have that connection to the digital world, it will create enormous issues for us and our visitors.”

knight added it is about failover and fall-back: “We need the load balancing and multiple lines of connections so that we have a constant presence and are not threatened by one-off disasters.”

A single point of contactkurt-elli claimed pulsant’s approach to hosting the website alongside other office technologies for the eiF gives the organi-sation a more constant service and all the tools to tackle any problems it faces straight away.

“in the past, a number of different suppliers were involved, and getting different parties to join and work with one another was very difficult,” he said. “We offer a more coherent it and telecoms set-up, giving eiF one place to refer to and one company to join up all the dots.

“As well as specifics for the festival, we offer core network services for the office all year round – not just one piece of wire – and, as Jackie said, we cannot re-run the festival, we have to get it right first time.”

pulsant hosts eiF’s applications and data within a private cloud environment, but has the ability to pool more vir-

tual resources if additional infrastructure is needed, meaning the organisation can cope with any sharp rises in traffic or need for access.

“the technology side of our business doesn’t stop at the website,” said eiF’s

Westbrook. “our office needs a network, and while our it needs are growing, so are peo-ple’s expectations of what they can achieve in the office or what their experience is as a visitor. the great help with pulsant isn’t just the systems for today, but it is the help with strategic thinking, future-proofing and pick-ing our way forward.”

Building a valuable partnershipone thing eiF is looking to do in the future is include more rich content for its users, something it has already started to build into its website.

“We have a lot of video content and rich media, and are creating more all the time,” said Westbrook.

eiF is also considering revamping the website and perhaps upgrading its ticketing system, meaning plenty more work for kurt-elli and his team at pulsant.

“eiF is such a specific product and brand that it makes it similar to our other mid-mar-ket customers which are trying to build their own brands for their own products,” he said. “our job is to support and empathise with the company, help with the backbone, and ensure its business gets through the rough and tumble of daily life with a constructive relationship with us.”

he seems to have the support of eiF. “it is not much like a customer/supplier rela-tionship between us, as it can’t be,” said Westbrook. “Aydin needs to know our busi-ness much more than in other cases, so i think we have more of a partnership.

“our next step – looking at a new ticket-ing system and deciding whether to put this out to tender, as well as debating what to do with the website and if these changes are made – will be major, so we will need the support of pulsant.” n

Read more case studies online› Asda Direct revamps distribution centre IT

› The Guide Dogs’ BPM modernisation

Case study

“our speed of access and aBility to sell tickets online are key”roB knight, eif

www.t-systems.com/cloud

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Case study

Making stock management easier

Retail consortium Nisa Retail has evolved its it to support independent retailers that operate under its brand.

At its heart is an order capture system (ocs) for orders placed by its retailers.

Nisa has been running for 35 years – it began as a buying consortium, then became a distributor. in the last two years, it has moved back to the high street and now has 800 stores, operated by independent retailers.

“once an order is received, we try to up-sell to get the best out of the order. And if products are not available, rather than refuse the order, we can advise the retailer and offer preferential pricing or volume dis-counts,” says Nisa Retail’s head of it, David Morris, who has worked at the consortium for 19 years.

Morris started out as a programmer and now, as head of it, he manages a team of 48 to support warehousing, network infrastruc-ture and the company’s ocs.

Additional servicesthe ocs links Nisa Retail with its retailers. Morris believes it can provide much more. “Running stock control is a management overhead. We need to provide more of a service for our retailers,” he says.

today, they provide their own hR and finance systems. “there is no reason we can’t offer them a cloud service for hR and finance,” Morris adds.

he believes that such a system would not only simplify the retailer’s it, it would also mitigate external support.

During Morris’ long tenure at Nisa, it has changed significantly. When he started, the web was only just starting to grow; Ms-Dos and Windows 3.1 were the dominant plat-forms and the industry was beginning to sell the concept of client-server computing, to allow pcs to take some of the workload, pre-viously run on large computer systems.

“At the start, it was an unnecessary evil – it was expensive and delivered little

benefit,” he says. “But now, it is integral to retail operations.

“over time, more people have adopted it, from point of sale right through to the back office. A lot of our retailers are innovative; they use tablet applications and wireless broadband. they expect the availability of information at any point,” says Morris.

the shift in the availability of information is mirrored in how people now want to shop. “these days, the concept of being ‘always available’ means people are surprised if a shop is closed,” he says.

The evolution of Nisa Retail’s order capture system has reduced bottlenecks and ensures stock replenishment is more efficient. Cliff Saran reports

Retailers refocus IT

investment for e-commerce

Retail suffering from lack of mobile

presence

“more people have adopted it, from point of sale right through to the Back office”

David morris, head of it, nisa retail

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Although Nisa Retail stores are not open all hours, “our retailers want to be available. it’s all about being local. our stores are at the heart of the community and can present information 24 hours a day.”

he says Nisa Retail’s main it comprises an oracle 10g database with an oracle application server and the oracle Retail 10.2 merchandising system.

the company uses its own ocs – built using Microsoft’s .Net – that talks to the oracle merchandising system. the ocs is an online application that gathers orders from the firm’s independent retailers every day.

“We have a large distribution warehouse in scunthorpe and retailers order two to three times a week,” explains Morris.

some trends in retail it are no longer de rigueur – such as Nisa Retail’s use of elec-tronic data interchange (eDi) – for communi-cating orders across the retail supply chain.

“over the years, traditional eDi has dropped off. our order capture system has its own XML interface – to exchange to and from our own systems. We still use eDi with our suppli-ers, but not with our retailers,” says Morris. n

iMproVing orDer processing with coMpuwAre DynAtrAce

for the last 15 months, nisa retail has been using compuware Dynatrace to address issues presented by the ever-growing com-plexity of systems and environments, as well as increasing business and user demands. the compuware Dynatrace tool has allowed nisa retail to identify issues and bottlenecks in its ocs. page response times on the ocs are on average 46% faster. Dynatrace has also reduced database load, with utilisation dropping from 22% to 13%.

morris said Dynatrace was originally bought to tackle peaks in demand when retailers placed orders on the ocs.

“we have a cut off each day for orders placed with nisa retailers. the system previ-ously relied on retailers sending faxes to replenish stock levels. the move to online ordering means the system remains idle for 23 hours,” explains morris.

as the deadline approached the ocs would experience a massive peak in usage and Dynatrace allowed his team to identified the key bottlenecks.

› Retailers without multichannel risk losses› DynaTrace upgrades software performance management tool

Case study

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Everyone would gain from making business divide slightly thinner

It’s been one of those weeks where it seems the only thing that matters in technology is the fact that some-one has produced a slightly thinner smartphone.

cynics say the launch of the iphone 5 shows why Apple needs to resort to patents to hinder its competitors.

the smartphone market has now become one of minor, incremental improvements, rather than the huge leaps that were catalysed by the release of the original iphone.

Wouldn’t it be good, therefore, if the big mobile makers devoted more of their product development towards the needs of business?

Research and development (R&D) cash for technology products is understandably biased towards consumer products. Gone are the days when it was created for business first, then morphed into a consumer device. But now, with the growth of consumerisation and bring your own device (BYoD) schemes, there’s a gap between the capability of mobile technology and what business needs.

every it leader facing demands from employees to use their own devices to access corporate systems will vouch for the problems it continues to present.

the forthcoming launch of Windows 8 could prove to be another catalyst, in that Microsoft is hoping that a common operating system from phone to tablet to desk-top will be the answer to the it department’s prayers.

But there’s still going to be the challenge of users say-ing, “sorry, i don’t want a Windows phone”.

Nonetheless, it opens up an opportunity for Apple and Google/Android to show how easily and securely their users can access key applications and data.

the ultimate aim for it is to remove the distinction between business and consumer technology. Many cloud services already blur those lines. the only reason we’re fretting about BYoD is because it is trying to bridge two worlds that have been historically diametrically opposed.

But the people using technology on a daily basis no longer see such a distinction – well, other than when consumer products are easy and fun to use, and corporate systems are complex and difficult. it R&D – and mobile makers in particular – would benefit themselves and their customers by eliminating that business-consumer divide. n

Bryan GlickEditor in chief

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OPiniOn

The four horsemen of shadow IT

Some of us have worked in it long enough to remember when we had full control of the infrastructure. No hard-

ware or software could be brought into the business without the seal of approval. Busi-ness users had neither the knowledge nor the resources to acquire or maintain technology, but soon things began to change.

unapproved software would appear on machines when someone discovered an application or device that enhanced produc-tivity. When the first wireless network points appeared, businesses immediately saw the benefits of staff mobility, yet it groups were slow to react because of security issues.

the scale of the problem became apparent when it was asked to support devices and applications they had no knowledge of. it groups sought to regain control, explaining the impact on it resources and risks to corporate security and compliance. Desktops were locked down, software audits per-formed and policies produced in an effort to stem the proliferation of unapproved sys-tems. For a short time control was re-estab-lished, but before long “shadow it” was back.

shadow it describes it systems or solu-tions used in an organisation without the approval – or even knowledge – of corporate it, often referred to as consumerisation.

Armed only with a credit card and a browser, anyone can purchase low-cost subscription licences and have a new appli-cation up and running in no time at all. importing corporate data and integrating with other enterprise applications can also be achieved, without the involvement or even awareness of the it department.

the pressure on employees’ productivity outweighs concerns over security and corpo-rate compliance. When staff need to access data quickly, they no longer need rely on it. Why would they go through the red tape of procurement, provisioning, testing and security, when they can find a solution themselves and get going in seconds?

The four key risks of shadow ITl sAM compliance. software asset man-agement (sAM) is a big enough challenge when it has decent processes for managing software licences.

When licences are procured outside of that, sAM is impossible and the organisation is exposed to unnecessary risk. Discovery of unapproved software could mandate a com-plete audit, with all the associated financial and resourcing costs. the ultimate sanction against unlicensed software for the cio is jail and/or an unlimited fine.l Governance and standards. organisations invest heavily to ensure they comply with regulations imposed by gov-ernment and industry. investing time and resources to document systems, process flow and business models is wasted if it doesn’t reflect reality.l Lack of testing and change control. When new devices or applications appear in the infrastructure without guidance from corpo-rate it, change management processes are bypassed and other aspects of the infra-structure go unconsidered. software-as-a-service (saas) customers are always on the latest version, but upgrades can and do break systems. Managing the cycle of change, testing and release is taxing enough without the layer of complexity of including third parties in the process.l configuration management. it groups may have spent months or years populating a configuration management database and defining relationships between systems. if users go outside official channels, key sys-tems may not be added or supported. n

Unregulated consumerisation brings hazards related to licensing, compliance, managing change and configuration, write Vawns Guest and Patrick Bolger

A secure approach to

consumerisation

CW Buyer’s Guide to

consumerisation

Vawns Guest and Patrick Bolger are members of the Transition Management Special Interest Group at the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF UK).

This is an edited excerpt. Click here to read the full article online.

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Since its introduction two years ago, Apple has managed to convince consumers that the tablet form factor, with its ipad, is a desirable device to carry around. the latest market share data from ihs isupply puts Apple’s market share at 69.6%. it depart-ments are not immune. Many cios and it directors carry their own ipads to meet-

ings and industry events.Although Apple was first to market a tablet, Android devices such as the samsung Galaxy

Note are steadily gaining momentum. in october, with the launch of Windows 8, there will be a host of new devices aiming to bridge the gap between a laptop and a tablet. Moreover, these devices will be running a full enterprise desktop pc operating system (os) optimised for tablets, thanks to the latest iteration of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows os.

Why tablets workthe tablet form-factor has several benefits over a traditional laptop in its light weight, long battery life and the instant-on capability of ipads and Android tablets.

Accenture and Vodafone’s Transforming the Mobile Workforce study revealed that partici-pants primarily used their tablet computers for internet browsing and email, which increased their productivity and enabled collaboration. the report notes that tablets are particularly

isto

ck

pho

to

Creating the enterprise-

class tablet environment

Implement business

tablets instead of BYOD

The best tool for the jobTablets have replaced laptops for many uses because of their light weight and longer battery life, but there remain important distinctions between devices, writes Cliff Saran

Buyer’s guidetablets part 2 of 3

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suited to reading and presenting documents, but have limitations in creating and editing documents. Around half of all participants found their tablets better than laptops for check-ing emails, viewing or making presentations and browsing the internet.

if someone only wants to look at email and read powerpoint slides, why use a 1.5kg laptop which can barely offer six hours of battery life when a 652g ipad is sufficient?

Many people prefer their own devices to corporate laptops. A recent study from analyst Forrester reported a third of the devices used are non-Microsoft and a quarter are mobile. Many of these mobile devices will be tablets and smartphones.

so the traditional enterprise pc is going out of fashion. staff prefer their own devices and increasingly these devices are tablets. But tablets are not well-suited to the task of creating documents and enterprise applications are not well represented in the Apple Appstore on Google play apps markets.

Virtualised enterprise desktopVirtualisation offers it a way to deliver enterprise applications to tablet users. citrix has a long track record of provid-ing thin-client access software. its citrix Receiver software is capable of connecting Android and ios to XenDesktop, the com-pany’s virtual pc environment. By using XenDesktop a user can access normal desktop pc applications from a tablet as if they were sat on a desktop pc in the office.

patrick irwin, europe product market-ing manager at citrix, says: “the XenDesktop software can inspect the endpoint device and deliver services appropriately,” meaning it recognises when a user is connecting from a tablet device and provides the appropriate user interface.

“tablets are great for mobile work. using a tablet keyboard is great for a quick email. they are better suited to consuming content, but you can get a full Windows desktop,” he says.

VMware’s View product does a similar job. But these products offer a full Windows user interface (ui) on a tablet. so while it will access Windows applications, the look and feel of Windows is not suited to a touch ui.

Rather than offering a full Windows desktop environment, it can use application virtualisa-tion such a Microsoft’s App-V, ovum principal analyst Richard edwards explained.

VirtuAl Desktops for chArity workers’ tAblets

formed in 2004, charityshare was established to allow charities to use enterprise infrastructure consulting without having to pay the large costs normally associated with it. it supports the children society, alzheimer society and age uK and provides it services for 7,000 users across 500 sites. Desktop it is provided through virtual desktop infrastructure (vDi) using citrix.

paul mainstone, citrix architect, says: “we have been using citrix to add tablets. access is available from citrix receiver and also from a browser.”

a citrix access gateway is used as an ssL virtual private network (vpn), which provides two-factor authentication for XenDesktop and Xenapps. mainstone has defined three category of user: those whose jobs are mainly task-based and require microsoft office and the internet; those deemed knowledge workers that additionally require line-of-business application; and people who need full mobile access. users are categorised by the department they belong to. microsoft active Directory is then used to control which applications they are able to run.

“taBlets are great for moBile Work. using a taBlet keyBoard is great for sending a quick email”

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“App-V can be used to virtualise applications so that they don’t interfere with your configu-ration,” says edwards.

While it will not take advantage of the touch user interface, App-V provides it with a way to deliver an enterprise application on a tablet device if the app is unavailable.

Apps managementin its report, Forrester notes that while the Windows os is still dominant on pcs, the rise of mobile devices and incremental growth in Apple’s Mac pc business means a third of all devices being used for work are not Microsoft os devices. According to the report’s author, Frank Gillett, a quarter of devices used at work are smartphones and tablet devices.

if most tablet devices are not running Windows, they are unable to run the major enterprise applications that are predominantly Windows-based, unless those applications are available in the Apple Appstore or Google play market. if virtual desktop infrastructure (VDi) is not desirable, it departments will need to develop their own native apps.

A new category of application management is required that takes into account not only the identity of the user and their security credentials, but also understands the devices used and the network connectivity.

Analyst Gartner categorises this technology as workspace aggregator software, which unifies the delivery of desktops (local, full hosted virtual desktops or published desk-tops), applications (software as a service, Windows, and native mobile) and data through a single user interface. companies offering this type of software include centrix, citrix and VMware.

in its Hype Cycle for Virtualisation report, Gartner notes: “Workspace aggregators will enable it organisations to better manage and control access to applications being consumed by their users.”

Windows Legacythe investment in desktop software licences for enterprise systems cannot be migrated to non-Microsoft platforms. Nor are it departments set to support multiple devices and operating systems. it is easier to support a common os and provide a suite of applications that have been tested on that platform.

Freeform Dynamics analyst tony Lock says: “enterprises are used to running Windows. one of the problems with BYoD [bring your own device] is it assumes users can look after them-selves. But users need support. the chances they will fix it on their own are remote. if you end up with 10-20% of the workforce using their own devices, how will you support them?”

Microsoft is setting the stage for a comeback with Windows 8, which will introduce Windows-based tablets. the beauty of Microsoft’s strategy for tablet computers is that it uses Windows.

Lock says: “the security policies match onto Windows as does the device management.”

several pc manufacturers have unveiled tablet devices, some with built-in keyboards. there are two main varieties: devices capable of running the full Windows os, based on x96 pro-cessors; and those based on system-on-chip (soc) designs using an ARM core.

these soc tablets can only run the Rt version of Windows, which makes them unable to run 32-bit applications natively. the benefit of Windows Rt-based devices is longer battery life; they are lighter and should be cheaper.

Rt will present challenges for companies running older applications, which will need to

“there are many usage scenarios Where you don’t need a keyBoard all the time and people Who do might just stick With a laptop”

› five steps for successful tablet adoption› Best practices for introducing tablets› Improving the Workplace with tablets

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be recompiled so an enterprise will need two binary models, one for Win32 and one for Windows Rt. Although Win32 applications will not run on Rt devices, users can still access them if they are made available via VDi.

According to ovum’s edwards, the full Windows-based tablets compete at the high-end with the Apple MacBook Air, while Windows Rt-based devices will compete with low-end

tablets. some, the so-called “transformer” devices, include a slide-out keyboard while others come with a docking station that includes ethernet and usB slots, making them suitable as a desktop device.

Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at Quocirca, says: “i’m not convinced by the transformer-type model. tablets with detachable keyboards – which can be left behind rather than forced to carry around – will take off more than the flip-type models.

“there are more usage scenarios where you don’t need a keyboard all the time and people who do might just stick with a laptop.”

Alex Achucarro, head of mobile sales at Avanade, has been trialling Windows 8 on a tablet pc. he says using Windows 8 on his tablet allows him to cut down the number of devices he needs to bring to work, so instead of having his ipad and laptop, he now only needs his tablet with Windows 8 installed onto it.

enterprise it is facing a problem which will only get worse. the good news is that it will not be wholly responsible for providing desktop it. if the experts are right, hardware will be purchased by users themselves.

But given the variety of devices and operating system combinations available, it may need to standardise, just as desktop it was standardised to simplify it support. For most employees, Windows 8 may become the logical choice for supporting enterprise applica-tions on tablet devices. Anyone using their own ipad or Android tablet for work may need to contend with VDi. n

“taBlets With detachaBle keyBoards – Which can Be left Behind rather carried around – Will take off more than the flip-type taBlet models”

the tablet form-factor has several benefits over a traditional laptop in its light weight and long battery life

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business intelligenCe

As both online and in-store retailers grapple with the growing del-uge of customer data,

companies are using business intelligence (Bi) tools to remain competitive in a cut-throat con-sumer market.

Given the state of the economy, a company that can intelligently identify potential customers can stay ahead of competitors. traditionally, retailers have used Bi to track historical trends to make better use of somewhat laterally-minded decisions. For instance, one retailer famously put beer next to nappies in its stores, because it had identi-fied that men tend to buy the nappies. today, business intelligence has moved to real-time business analytics, allowing retailers to make decisions and changes almost instantly.

Understanding the customerthe task of using business intelligence to inform decisions is crucial for bricks-and-mortar retailers who are fending off online-only retailers from cannibalising the high street. But the scale of that task is also more complicated, as high-street retailers have multiple legacy systems and a more anonymous customer base compared with online-only sellers.

“online retailers have the advantage with customer data, as customers can log in and identify themselves to purchase online, making the experience automatically more tailored to them,” says Bjorn Weber, analyst at planet Retail. “they are data players and already likely to be experts if successful in the market.”

Weber says that customer use of tablets and smartphones is driving big changes in retail technology and business intelligence systems.

“there is a new need for speed in the context of data and information in the retail sphere,” he says. “Non-food retailers are losing business to e-commerce companies and need to rapidly change the systems available to them so that customers don’t have bet-ter information than they do.

“Retailers need to enable and interact in a clever way with the shopper and their smartphone and tablet pcs, but also enable their own staff to support the shopper,” says Weber.

Much of this will come from joining up information about the customer online with the in-store experience. For example, retailers could offer shoppers an in-store discount on certain items via their smartphones. such incentives could even be personalised to the customer.

“using real-time data accessibility to make quicker decisions on pricing and product

Business intelligence

and Software-as-a-Service

CW Buyer’s Guide: Business

Intelligence

Gathering retail intelligenceLearning their customers’ habits through business intelligence is vital for bricks-and-mortar retailers to stay competitive, reports Kathleen Hall

LANieR/istockphoto

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information, enabling clever discounting, is becoming very important,” he says.in principle, that would allow retailers to react faster on price trends, and discount

things accordingly, but at the moment the systems are so complex that buyers cannot see the whole truth, Weber says.

Making decisions quickerBut Weber believes the technology to enable that transformation is not quite there. “We need real-time data warehouses. the business intelligence architecture is still far from being fast enough to support the decision-makers and store manager in real-time.

“Most of the people i speak with say it is the database systems that are too slow. the most important data is that being scanned from the checkout,” he says.

sAp is one of the big software providers to the retail sector, making a lot of noise about accelerated data analytics, thanks to its in-memory database, hana. But actual applica-tions such as forecast engines are not yet available, according to Weber. similarly, oracle is still selling traditional database technology to retailers. And, of course, even though a retailer can track stock levels accurately from the point of sale, once the stock has gone, there is very little a retailer can do.

however, Weber says there are still big devel-opments occurring in business intelligence tools for retailers. Replenishment automation has had the biggest impact on retailers over the past 10 years, reducing inventory by around 10%, he says. But now that technology is mov-ing into other areas, such as assortment and price optimisation, he says.

Assortment optimisation enables retailers to predict which lines should be delisted, enabling them to be more responsive to changing consumer preferences, while price optimisation can gain the edge over competitors.

“if retailers are looking to improve their price image, they now have access to really sophisticated software that can allow them to do that. those tools use massive data ware-houses,” says Weber.

From catalogue to onlineNeil McGowan, cio of online plus-size shopping company JD Williams, has overseen the firm’s shift from being a catalogue business to an online retailer, and the information issues

that have occurred with that journey.“We have an advantage as a traditional direct retailer, as

we already have a strong confidence in data analysis and analysing datasets based on the catalogue and call centre model,” he says.

“there is an awful lot of data to capture, and deciding how to filter that information to make it relevant is a challenge,” he says.

intelligent data mining and the use of real-time information is key to the company’s suc-cess. “if someone comes onto the site and we know who they are and that they haven’t been to the website for a while, we might decide to give them an extra discount as an incentive. We can filter offers accordingly, using an embedded cookie on the user’s permis-sion. Much like the way Amazon operates,” he says.

ultimately, effective use of business intelligence can create a more personalised shop-ping experience.

“there is an aWful lot of data to capture and deciding hoW to filter that information to make it relevant is a challenge”

› Mobile sparks recast of BI› Business intelligence and analytics:

how to develop a complementary strategy

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“We do have a wide product range, which can create the impression of being a cluttered shop. so the goal is to filter out certain products and make it relevant to what the particular customer is interested in. that way we can create a personal experience relevant to what the customers want to browse.

“offline, the analysis is about what business can do to understand different groupings, and trends coming out of [the buying informa-tion]. the challenge is how to aggregate that information. it is a big data challenge,” says McGowan.

“We are also looking at more modern approaches, such as hadoop, that allow us to analyse less structured datasets. We’re just starting to do a trial in those areas using iBM’s Netezza analytics, which is modern, used in big data approaches and has hadoop at its core.”

the availability of real-time information is another key opportunity, he says. “so for exam-ple you might be able to quickly provide a per-sonalised offer to someone on trousers if they are only buying shirts.”

According to McGowan, real-time web analy-sis is not too difficult to achieve using embedded Java code on the website. such information can be analysed using a data warehouse engine like teradata.

“We are also examining some of the new data warehouse platforms that have the capa-bility of allowing us to analyse better,” he says.

Making sense of tweetssocial media has dramatically changed the way retailers gather information, as custom-ers are now in the habit of commenting on products and contacting companies directly through channels such as twitter.

tools such as Radian6 from salesforce.com allow retailers to measure customer senti-ment to gain a better understanding of their customers.

But the main issue is that most of the data coming from social media is unstructured and comes in a format where consumers are not necessarily using literal meanings – such as the use of “bad”, says christine Bardwell, research manager at analyst firm iDc. “so the issue is how do you cut through that, gain sentiment and understand what that means.”

the creation of a “single view” of the customer is now becoming key, says Bardwell.“the most effective way of doing that is a master data management (MDM) system

that de-duplicates information about the customer. this could create a single line about the customer that may hold many data points such as transactions, what was bought, and information on Facebook.

“how it looks in the database is irrelevant – it’s important there is just one profile and then all other systems feed in and out, such as online systems, in-store systems, and loy-alty schemes that can then be updated.”

investments in integration are likely to continue, as traditional retailers tackle multiple legacy systems, often described as spaghetti because there are so many of them.

“Retailers wanted to move quickly on omni-channel and increase customer loyalty, but mostly there has not yet been a long-term view – just a lot of linking up in the background,” says Bardwell. “there is not a long-term view about the foundational layer. MDM will be a big investment for retailers,” she says.

“Linking up the order management and inventory has been the priority, that has been the main focus to date. customer and analytics comes further along the omni-channel journey.” n

“We are examining some of the neW data Warehouse platforms that have the capaBility of alloWing us to analyse Better”

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Over the last two years, services company capgemini has been battling with the financial crisis, and has seen a massive cut in it

spending. At the same time, it is adapting its business model in a bid to take on low-cost it services firms.

industrialisation is one of the issues raised in a Gartner analysis of capgemini. it high-lights the transition to an industrialised model as a threat to the firm. it also cites long-term revenue viability in the commodity consulting market as a threat, along with margins and profits in strategic consulting domains.

christine hodgson, chairman of capgemini uk, who was named Woman of the Year at the 2011 everywoman technology Awards, defends capgemini’s position in the market. “over time, if you remain static and you’re not developing your expertise, then it becomes a commodity,” she says, but she disagrees with Gartner’s analysis of the commodity consulting market. “i don’t see consulting as a commod-ity in the way that you might refer to outsourcing,” she says. “We do a lot of work in digital consulting for digital transformation and a lot of our competitors don’t.”

Digital transformationthe company signed a three-year agreement with the Mit center for Digital Business to work out how to drive digitisation into everything that other modern businesses do – from strategy, through to operating processes and managing its employees. hodgson cites cloth-ing manufacturer Burberry as an example. “its catwalk shows get front-page coverage,” she says. “But the headline will be about the company being a pioneer in technology because it’s streaming the video live or tweeting the models live, before they go on the catwalk.

“everything it does has a digital angle,” she says. “At its results announcement last year, the investor presentation wasn’t just done by the ceo and cFo – it was done by both of them, plus the cto. that’s incredible.”

cyril Garcia, head of strategy and transformation at capgemini, says that the digital trans-formation idea has evolved in response to changing market conditions and, in particular, to new questions being voiced by ceos.

these include the best strategies for capturing and securing data and how well it govern-ance and business governance are aligned. should they create dedicated organisations for new business? these are all on the table and driving capgemini’s strategy, Garcia says.

“today, it liberates business revolution and if you want to gain market share, you have to

Capgemini sales jump 11% in 2011 as growth continues

in 2012

Capgemini takes on Rolls

Royce service integration

role

Capgemini changes focus with digital transformationCompany refocuses its business model to take on low-cost IT services firms, reports Danny Bradbury

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be more productive on your it investment,” says Garcia. the company is not only target-ing technology partnerships with customers, but also business partnerships, to help drive innovations further into its clients’ organisations. underpinning this is a concept that Garcia defines as “intimacy” – these changes must be made at a detailed, granular level to ensure that they stick and become part of a client’s culture.

New business modelscapgemini is exploring new types of revenue model as it tackles new delivery mechanisms, such as cloud-based services. “We talk about new business models a lot. the possibilities are endless,” says hodgson. she acknowledges, for example, the opportunities inherent in subscription-based contracts, where customers choose from a menu of cloud-based ser-vices and have them delivered à la carte.

“the more sophisticated end of the market addresses attitudes to risk and sharing in the benefits,” she adds. A contract with a revenue-generating opportunity could bring the opportunity for capgemini to share in that revenue. charging on a per-meter basis is an example. if a smart meter programme takes off, the value of the contract is directly proportional to its success.

“the skin in the game will be a share in the upside that the client may generate,” she says.

All this requires a shift in customer thinking, however. customers have to evolve beyond pure cost-based outsourcing – in which they strive to slash costs by out-sourcing operations – to a strategic outsourcing arrange-ment, in which they rely more on partners to add value to their operations. that’s a crucial challenge in the cur-rent economic climate, not least because about 70% of capgemini’s revenues come from the public sector, which continues to make swingeing cuts.

hodgson says capgemini plc has already stepped up to help government clients slash costs. the process began last summer, when it service providers were invited to negotiate new contract parameters with government. “We were one of the first of the 19 suppliers to go in and discuss what cuts we could make across all our contracts,” she says.

the company’s business information management offering became evident in 2009, when it said it would increase the number of consultants by 3,000 – giving it 7,000 overall globally, a thousand of which were based at a new centre of excellence in india.

since then, it has bolstered its presence in this market. it first purchased Avantias, a busi-ness intelligence (Bi) firm in France, then snapped up Minneapolis-based Bi consulting Group, which focuses on consulting for oracle’s business intelligence and enterprise perfor-mance management systems.

capgemini’s efforts in this area have paid off. in January 2012, it was chosen by unilever to manage a three-year global business intelligence project, in which it will create the consumer goods company’s first enterprise data warehouse, to gain real-time data on its global cus-tomer base. Again, the focus here is on digital transformation and spanning the technology and business operations for its clients. its application life-cycle services offering is designed to help clients to manage the life-cycle of software applications, not just through develop-ment, but also through maintenance.

When announced at the end of 2009, capgemini said the initiative would be supported by 15,000 people across the globe. half of its 20,000-strong indian workforce would be involved in supporting the service line, it said. it also retrained 5,000 application consultants and managers over six months to support the project. since then, it has fleshed out its offer-ings in this area. in late 2010, it launched sAp Life-cycle, a subscription-based service to help develop and manage sAp implementations on an ongoing basis.

“it liBerates Business revolution, and... you have to Be more productive on your it investment”

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in 2011, the supplier announced an agile leg-acy life-cycle service in collaboration with iBM. Again testing the boundaries of capgemini’s experience with a subscription-based business model, this service is delivered via centres of excellence in the uk and india, along with oth-ers in the Netherlands and the us.

in August 2011, it netted Nordic com-pany entercard, which issues credit cards. capgemini was chosen as the application maintenance and development services com-pany to support entercard’s delivery of new products and services to the market. the five-year agreement was worth €30m. shortly after launching the application testing ser-vices line, capgemini integrated its software testing resources into a new offering. it took a software testing resource services business and gave it 6,400 testers and 11,000 applica-tion specialists across 40 countries.

since then, it has upped its game in the world of software testing. in March 2010, it announced plans to offer testing as an on-demand service, hosted online. in June 2010, it joined with hp to launch an application testing service under a pay-as-you-go scheme. it launched the oracle software testing centre of excellence in india that october.

in December 2011, it topped ovum’s 2011 benchmarking study of testing services. ovum evaluated companies based on criteria including cost and value, customer responsiveness and test process capabilities – with capgemini excelling in the latter.

the infrastructure transformation service plays host to capgemini’s cloud-based busi-ness, which is becoming an increasingly important part of its portfolio. this services suite, announced in 2010, was again launched in conjunction with sogeti. it includes four offerings, ranging from datacentre optimisation and consolidation to virtualisation, unified communi-cations and cloud computing. capgemini has since announced a range of partnerships and customer wins in the area of cloud computing. in July, it signed a global deal with Microsoft to deliver customer solutions around Windows Azure. it also committed to train 1,500 architects and developers on the Microsoft platform and to develop a dedicated offshore centre of excel-lence for Azure in Mumbai.

it followed up the Microsoft deal with a five-year partner-ship with eMc to develop cloud-based offerings. they will begin with storage-as-a-service, on eMc hardware to be hosted at capgemini datacentres. the eMc and Microsoft deals represent only two of six strategic group wide partner-

ships. its other top technology partners include iBM, hp, sAp and oracle. capgemini had a presence in the cloud computing sector before its major 2010 push, but it has since signed more deals on the back of a dedicated cloud service line. in addition to existing partnerships with Amazon, it also signed a 2010 agreement with the Royal Mail Group to provide cloud services as part of a broader business and consumer online service transformation strategy. underpinning the contract was the goal of swiftly moving into new web-based business opportunities, with an emphasis on personal and small and medium-sized enterprises. n

› Unilever outsources BI platforms› HMRC saves £200m with renegotiations

› The IT Apprentice: Technology internships

This is an extract of the Capgemini profile on the Computer Weekly research channel. For more supplier profiles go to www.computerweekly.com/research.

christine hodgson, chairman of

capgemini uK

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relieved to hear she would never see another copy of the magazine messing up her hallway.

Boris’s fantastic 4G faux pasBoris Johnson made a surprise appear-ance at a press conference in London’s science Museum last week. the press conference was for everything everywhere to announce the roll-out of 4G across the uk, as well as its rebranding to ee.

BoJo made a hilarious speech to declare London’s networks “switched on”. Not before rambling on about how well the mobile networks coped with the extra demand during the olympics.

But he didn’t stop there. Boris specifi-cally went on to thank ee’s competitor, Vodafone, along with further thanks to Bt.

Awkward Boris, awkward. Downtime doubts you will receive an invite to ee’s christmas party after that. n

Wives of Computer Weekly readers rejoice at the loss of print editionuntil recently, Downtime had not spared much thought for the wives of computer Weekly’s readers. But recently, one of the Downtime team was asked for a contact number by the local church, and so handed over a business card printed with name and personal mobile number.

the recipient immediately said: “oh no, you don’t work for computer Weekly do you?” puzzled, the Downtime representa-tive said yes, and asked why she sounded so negative. “oh, it’s not the content,” she said. “My husband gets computer Weekly and we have a huge stack of them that get in my way and make my house untidy.”

Downtime assured her of the fact that computer Weekly is now a digital publication only. Many readers were disappointed to learn this fact, but this computer Weekly reader’s wife was

the nAffest superhero eVer

if you thought skateman was one of the worst superheroes of all time, you haven’t met printerman. well, technically he isn’t a superhero, more of a villain.

printerman is the brainchild of bytes Document solutions, the same company which previously delivered a delightful video of people smashing up printers.

apparently, printerman is to blame for every single documented and undocumented printer-related error, be it a paper jam, error message or toner problem.

in bytes’ latest video you can see the devious little sod running around the streets of London causing havoc.

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