13-19 September 2011 | computerweekly.com

Public services going digitalIn an exclusIve IntervIew wIth computer weekly, mIke Bracken, Government dIrector of dIGItal, dIscusses onlIne strateGy paGe 4

Hiring a business architecthow thIs emerGInG role wIll help usher In orGanIsatIons’ transItIon from It to BusIness technoloGy paGe 5

Review: business intelligence toolswe test two low-cost alternatIves to the BIG BI supplIers to see how they shape up paGe 11

the week onlineHighlights from

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Turkish hackers redirect traffic from websites

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National Archives releases public API for 11m records

computerweekly.com/247784.htm

Everything Everywhere and Three boost mobile broadband

computerweekly.com/247785.htm

Shocking facts about CIOs’ apps portfolio understanding

computerweekly.com/247801.htm

Telemedicine in the NHS: benefits and costs

computerweekly.com/247778.htm

Scammers lure users into granting remote access to PCs

computerweekly.com/247789.htm

CSC targets growth in the UK

computerweekly.com/247779.htm

Fake web certificates created to spy on Iranians

computerweekly.com/247804.htm

Toshiba, Acer and Lenovo unveil ultrabook devices

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Global IT services market value plummets 40%

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> Business benefits of managed print services for SMEsSmall and medium-sized enter-prises (SMEs), like larger enterpris-es, depend on printing for a variety of business activities. Even the smallest office needs a fast, reliable, cost-effective printer capable of professional output. computerweekly.com/247812.htm

> The next wave of digitisation: setting your direction, building your capabilitiesTechnology, internet and telecom-munications industries are undergoing a fundamental change towards near-complete digitisation, with redefinition of existing business models and value creation systems. This shift is based on the ever-pres-ent availability of broadband, a high rate of innovation in mobile devices, and increasing computing and transmission speeds. computerweekly.com/247811.htm

> How fast is the cloud?The cloud can be at least as fast as conventional hosting environments, and when the total cost of owner-ship is considered it becomes a compelling solution that businesses cannot ignore. This report should reassure any IT leader who has been cautious about adopting the cloud because of uncertainty about performance. This research proves that good performance comes by design, planning and good management, not by accident.computerweekly.com/247627.htm

review

> 3G review: Is next-gen mobile broadband ready for business?Mobile broadband has undergone a makeover of late. Developments in technol-ogy, increased competition and falling prices mean it is getting easier to work on the road using a mobile dongle. The question still remains, however, should more businesses provide their staff with dongles? computerweekly.com/247750.htm

opinion bloGS

> Christine Hodgson: Capgemini’s UK chairman reflects on being Woman of the Year 2011With the Everywoman in Technology 2012 awards now open for nominations, 2011’s Woman of the Year, Christine Hodgson, UK chairman at Capgemini, reflects on winning the award in a guest blog post.computerweekly.com/blogs/witsend

> Adrian Bridgwater: Hacking Kernel.org Linux sorts the script kiddies from the developers Not for the first time in its illustrious history, hackers recently chanced their collective arm by launching an attack on the Kernel.org Linux repository last month. The offensive used a Trojan in an attempt to ultimately make changes to the source code of the Linux kernel itself.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider

> Karl Flinders: Why the cloud is forcing IT service providers to spend on uncertain returnsIT service providers have to invest in developing new delivery models such as cloud computing despite customer caution. Cloud computing is a hype beyond hypes which includes lots of sub-hypes within its bubble. Well that’s what an analyst firm might say anyway. computerweekly.com/blogs/inside-outsourcing

> Matt Scott: The lid is lifted on the Sony S and P tabletsFormally known as the S1 and S2, the Sony S and P tablets were unveiled at the IFA show in Berlin earlier this month. The S, which comes with a 9.4in screen, and the P, which comes with dual 5.5in screens, run Android 3.1 and 3.2 respectively. However, a 3.2 update for the S is in the pipeline. computerweekly.com/blogs/inspect-a-gadget

in depth

> How financial services uses big data analytics to predict client behaviourA challenge for the banking industry is how to use the breadth and depth of data available to satisfy more demanding regulators, but also improve services for customers.computerweekly.com/247773.htm

> Top skills for IT managers – coaching and mentoringIt is no secret that people tend to absorb only 10% of their knowledge from formal training, 20% from working with role models and 70% from on-the-job experiences. In other words, people learn best by observing a master at work, says Joseph R. Czarnecki, senior consultant at ESI International.computerweekly.com/247725.htm

> ICANN’s expansion of domain names suffixes: the benefits and disadvantages to businessesSince its creation in 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has gradually increased the number of domain suffixes to its current level of 22. Despite this increase the internet naming system remains heavily prescribedcomputerweekly.com/247747.htm

2 | 13-19 SEPTEMBEr 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

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> Apple’s future without Steve JobsSteve Jobs and Apple are so intricately intertwined that it is difficult to imagine the future of Apple without him, but he has left the company in a uniquely strong position, and his successor, Tim Cook brings 13 years’ experience at Apple.computerweekly.com/247769.htm

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the week in IT

3 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Facebook ruled out for ID projectThe government will not be using Facebook as part of its digital identity assurance project because Whitehall does not trust the way the social network uses customer data.

Identity assurance is key to the Cabinet Office’s drive to get more citizens accessing public sector services online. It will be the means through which citizens electronically provide their personal details to access government services, as more transactions move to a “digital by default” model.

“Facebook is one organisation that we haven’t spoken to, because we are concerned about what they may do with people’s data,” Bill McCluggage, deputy government CIO, told Computer Weekly.computerweekly.com/247829.htm

“I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s chairman of the board.”

Carol Bartz, former Yahoo CEO

yahoo

UK public sector software and IT services growth

Source: TechMarketView, UK public sector market trends & forecasts, September 2011

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enterprise software

Morrisons rolls out point-of-sale technology across 9,500 tillsSupermarket chain Morrisons has completed a major electronic point-of-sale roll-out as part of its ongoing £310m IT transformation programme. During the half year to 31 July, the retailer implemented the new system to around 9,500 tills. The project is part of a six-year plan to re-place all of Morrisons’ IT systems.computerweekly.com/247848.htm

legislation and regulation

Home secretary: social media shutdown ruled out during riotsThe government did not consider shutting down social media sites dur-ing the riots last month. Speaking to a select committee, home secretary Theresa May said: “At no stage did we consider closing social media net-works.” May recently met with the Association of Chief Police Officers, Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry-maker RIM to discuss the use of so-cial networks during the riots. computerweekly.com/247842.htm

desktop computing

PC refresh cycle delay could force manufacturers out of marketAs businesses delay PC refreshes, Gartner has questioned if PC manu-facturers will be forced to abandon the market. Fewer PCs will be shipped worldwide in 2011 as the European market slows and tablet sales accelerate. Gartner predicts PC shipments will grow 4% in 2011 and 11% in 2012, compared to previous predictions of 9% and 13%. computerweekly.com/247838.htm

datacentre management

UK ranks second in datacentre investment but expansion dragsDuring the 2011-2012 financial year, the UK is expected to invest $3.35bn in datacentres - the second highest spending of any country, after the US. But with only a 2% expansion of new or existing facilities, the slow increase ranks UK datacentre expan-sion at 21st out of 22 regions.computerweekly.com/247826.htm

wireless technologies

Ofcom postpones 4G spectrum auction over legal challengeRegulator Ofcom is to delay the auction of its 4G spectrum due to a number of technical and competition issues. The watchdog had intended the 4G spectrum to be auctioned in the first three months of 2012, but fol-lowing a number of issues, including a legal challenge from 02 earlier this year, the auction deadline has been extended by up to three months.computerweekly.com/247810.htm

risk management

Sony names former US national cyber security chief as CISOSony has appointed its first chief information security officer. Sony has named Philip Reitinger as senior vice-president and chief information security officer, who will report to general counsel Nicole Seligman. The move to appoint a chief infor-mation security officer comes four months after Sony was hit by one of the biggest data breaches in history.computerweekly.com/247806.htm

enterprise software

Networked UK population surges, says Office of National StatisticsMore than half the UK population aged 16 and over is now using social media, according to the Office of Na-tional Statistics. Results from the an-nual survey on British internet habits has revealed that, while 43% of those aged 16 and over were using Twitter and Facebook last year, that figure has now increased to 57%.computerweekly.com/247794.htm

network infrastructure

Government tenders £2bn public service network contractsThe government has announced a framework agreement worth up to £2bn for its public services network (PSN). The PSN is intended to create a network of networks, enabling the delivery of public services from any place by any provider. The govern-ment hopes it will: generate signifi-cant savings by removing duplicate network connections; simplify procurement processes; increase the uptake of mobile working; and lead to greater use of shared services.computerweekly.com/247790.htm

it services & outsourcing

Global IT services market plummets as big deals drop offThe value of global IT services sales plummeted 40% in the second quar-ter of 2011 compared to the same pe-riod in 2010. Ovum revealed the total value of deals was just over $19bn in the quarter, with a lack of big deals in the public sector exacerbating a drop in private sector contracts.computerweekly.com/247788.htm

enterprise software

National Archives hawks its wares online with API for 11m recordsThe National Archives has made details of 11m records available through an application as part of an ongoing programme to get more of-ficial records online. The API allows anyone to search for and retrieve the metadata that describes records in the archive in XML format. computerweekly.com/247784.htm

computerweekly.com/247818.htm

more onlineNews: E-petitions crashes on first day – after raising 2,400 petitionscomputerweekly.com/247535.htm

News: Government plans next-generation ID schemecomputerweekly.com/246856.htm

News: Government cancels SME contracts and hands deals to Capitacomputerweekly.com/247104.htm

News: Government struggling to accelerate IT strategycomputerweekly.com/247841.htm

interview

Users at the heart of government digital services, says ‘Twitter Tsar’

4 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Mike Bracken, UK government director of digital, talks to Kathleen Hall about bringing public services into the digital age

Whitehall is not exactly known for being at the bleeding edge of technological innova-

tion. But as the newly appointed government director of digital, ex-Guardian technology head Mike Bracken is set to change that percep-tion. In an exclusive interview with Computer Weekly, he discusses the challenges ahead.

When the £141,000 per annum role of digital director was first adver-tised it was met with a flurry of angry headlines, most notably from the Daily Mail which derisively branded the job as “Twitter Tsar”. But given the scope of Bracken’s task – to trans-form public sector services to a “dig-ital by default” model – it’s surprising he finds any time to tweet at all.

Despite such misleading descrip-tions, Bracken is relaxed about the public attitude to his role. “What I’m really bothered about is public en-joyment and consumption of gov-ernment digital services. People in the industry are right to take an in-terest in the nuance and details, but citizens don’t need to be bothered,” he says.

During our interview, Bracken uses the phrase “user experience” at least a dozen times. “Putting users at the heart of digital services is our vision statement, and as such it’s ultimately simple but involves a lot of transfor-mation,” he says.

“The success behind companies offering digital services is a relentless focus on the users, because they know that at a moment’s hesitation the user will switch if they find a bet-ter service elsewhere. For a govern-ment to think like that and create products like that is a radical trans-formation.”

Cheaper services will be a by-prod-uct of this focus on user experience, he believes. “If we make transactions as friction-free as possible for the consumer, the cost per transaction will fall exponentially.”

Experience in digital servicesBracken took up the position of director of digital in July following Martha Lane Fox’s recommendation that such a role be created in her government digital services review last year.

Before joining the government, he worked at the Guardian as head of digital for nearly four years; co-founded e-democracy site My Socie-ty; and ran technical services compa-ny Wavex.

Bracken entered the public sector with the challenges of a cross-govern-ment remit, but he believes the will for change is strong, due in part to an increasingly sophisticated sense of digital awareness.

“With large-scale uptake of tech-nology such as iPhones, everyone is an expert in digital applications and starting to expect more from govern-ment services, not least those who work in government themselves,” he says.

Bracken says some aspects of the public sector have traditionally pre-cluded against rapid innovation – an over-reliance on externally run serv-ices being one. But now such weak-

nesses are being identified they can be addressed, he believes.

“For example, with e-petitions, no-one could predict just how fast that demand would go up,” he says. “Consequently we learnt a lot about scaling and applications within the government estate.”

E-petitions is a good example of a successful small government project. It is agile, based on free software, uses cloud-based services, is done cheaply and in an iterative way, Bracken says. “You don’t get to finish or launch this kind of stuff, you just do a first ver-sion and keep on iterating.”

The digital roadmapBracken is in the midst of heading up an internal transformation in govern-ment, which includes big structural changes and bringing in new talent for his Government Digital Services (GDS) team.

The five areas of GDS will include Directgov, which will be the most prominent constituent; identity assur-ance, which will identify people con-suming government services; BetaGov (formerly known as AlphaGov), which is building a prototype for a

single government website; digital en-gagement; and the innovation team.

“The only thing we’re concentrat-ing on at the moment is bringing all those areas together,” he says.

The next step is to complete the overhaul of 750 separate government websites, to be replaced by a single internet “front door” to public servic-es on the web through Directgov.

As director of digital, Bracken will oversee the £23m budget for Direct-gov, which is to drop to £17m by 2014. The overall budget for all five areas of GDS is yet to be finalised, but in the current environment of austerity, could cost constraints im-pede the progress of the transforma-tion agenda?

“Money could always be an issue, but I’m not overly concerned right now,” he says. “We’re not talking about multimillion-pound deals with systems integrators, we’re talking about the cost of developers.”

Social media will also have a role to play in improving digital engage-ment. “We talked to the managing di-rector of Twitter to verify all minis-ters’ Twitter accounts so we can get them using Twitter a bit better and meet government requirements of how to use social media.”

So what about the use of social net-works in his role? “I will also start to do some more regular tweeting on what we are doing,” he says. “I am the Twitter Tsar after all.” ■

Directgov is to become the front door to public services on the internet

public sector it

more onlineNews analysis: Business architect is vital to process transformationcomputerweekly.com/247731.htm

In depth: Business process case study: Co-op Financial Servicescomputerweekly.com/247121.htm

News analysis: Process manage-ment boosts customer satisfactioncomputerweekly.com/247324.htm

news analysis

How to identify and fill the role of business architect in your company

5 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Organisations may be missing a vital post, write John Rymer and Alexander Peters, but what can they do to fill it?

I f you have not yet heard the term “business architect” you soon will. Whether business architects report into the business or IT,

this emerging role will help usher in organisations’ transition from IT to business technology. Working with the firm’s most senior business proc-ess executive – the change agent – and senior business stakeholders, the business architect plays a key part in shaping and fostering continuous improvement and business transfor-mation initiatives.

No matter what the industry, busi-ness process professionals need an effective architecture for the business process management (BPM) projects that make up the business change programme. Working as the right hand of the business process change agent, the business architect takes the lead in developing that architecture. The business architect fleshes out the business model – often referred to as the target operating model – describ-ing the need for business technology across the organisation and the role that process plays.

Business architects typically have deep business knowledge, essential for today’s BPM transformation initi-atives. Specifically, they must have comprehensive knowledge of large-scale, cross-functional processes – such as supply chain management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), finance, or customer relationship management (CRM) – or extensive experience with core, strategic line-of-business processes.

Business architects must not only see the big picture when looking across multiple process improvement initiatives, they must also have busi-ness strategy talents, wide-ranging process discipline skills in methodol-ogies such as Lean and Six Sigma, and technology know-how.

Business architects have a rare combination of business domain knowledge, process experience, transformation talents, methodology skills and a winning personality that helps with communication and busi-ness change management.

The business architect role is vital to organisations pursuing BPM pro-grammes. These programmes not

Business architects typically have deep business knowledge

it leadership

only seek to improve and transform cross-functional processes, but also attempt to control the complexity that increasingly sophisticated tech-nologies introduce and capitalise on relationships with customers and suppliers. In a survey, Forrester found organisations transforming their businesses, processes and infor-mation systems needed the business architect role most acutely.

The missing business roleWhat is not obvious to many new to the business process transformation scene is how this crucial position should be organised, who should occupy it and what business archi-tects should do. Forrester says only a handful of firms consistently try to fill this role, in part because it is so difficult to fill, although business process professionals lead the way in bringing business architects into process transformation initiatives. Forrester’s survey found that:l The business architect is too often a missing link. Some 35% of or-ganisations have not established the business architect role, 33% have de-veloped some business architecture guidelines but do not use them across

the organisation, and 20% have de-fined a consistent architecture frame-work for business processes.

But only 6% of organisations use this framework to fuel the organisa-tion’s portfolio of business services for prioritising business process change investments; a further 6% see business architecture as a strategic capability for decision-making.l Management practices around the business architect position are a work in progress. Many respondents reported low maturity levels on the governance and lifecycle manage-ment practices critical to business ar-chitecture. For example, with respect to governance, only 19% confirmed their organisations had set up cross-functional leadership teams, where business architects typically operate. Moreover, when asked about end-to-end process management, 46% said their corporate initiatives for process and information insights pursue dif-ferent objectives and are executed without coordination.

How to fill the gapThere are two views of how organisa-tions can charter and fill the business architect position:

l A new organisation unifying proc-ess and project experts. The Business Architects Association (BAA) advo-cates placing a senior internal con-sultant with strong industry experi-ence in the role of business architect, arguing that it is usually easier for businesspeople to learn technology than it is for technology experts to learn the business.l A new career path for enterprise architects. Business architecture is also an emerging discipline and as-pirational position within enterprise architecture (EA) practices and the teams that run them. Alignment in the organisation, bringing together business strategy and capabilities to drive results and/or transformation, is key to this approach.

Both the BAA model and the EA discipline approaches, however, have the limitation of usually being consultative in nature, unless the business architect reports into a proc-ess improvement organisation.

Forrester proposes a third way for organisations to fill the need for a business architect: Charter the posi-tion as a management or executive function accountable to the senior business process executive for getting things done, rather than just advising others on what to do. ■

Alexander peters is principal analyst at Forrester research. John rymer is vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester research.

this is an edited version of the article. to read the full text, click on the link below.

more onlineNews: London 2012 Olympics ticket site buckles under surgecomputerweekly.com/247111.htm

News: Atos Origin extends Olympics IT contractcomputerweekly.com/236163.htm

In depth: IT chief gets set for cost and timing of London Olympicscomputerweekly.com/219912.htm

news analysis

Olympic software engineers enter final leg of marathon IT programme

6 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Created in 1992, the commentary software for the London 2012 Games is nearing its finishing line, writes Karl Flinders

W ith the London Olym-pics less than a year away, Mert Karakilic – the man in charge of

the Olympics application relaying real-time information to commenta-tors – describes the rigorous develop-ment process as “going through hell” to perfect the software.

A team from Atos is developing the Commentator Information Sys-tem (CIS) that will provide commen-tators at the 2012 London Olympics with accurate information in real-time. The team has just completed the first phase of testing the software in sporting venues. It has been shadow-tested rigorously in the data-centre but venue testing the software remains critical.

Scale of effortOmega systems record the results and send the data to the CIS, which processes them and sends the infor-mation to the touchscreen monitors commentators will use. The first round of live testing, which included testing systems for equestrian, mod-ern pentathlon and volleyball, has seen the team move hardware to the venues for 15 sports and test the systems with real-life events. The remaining 21 sports will be done in two more rounds of testing. When the tests are complete, the hardware moves back to a datacentre in Canary Wharf for even more testing.

The work that goes into the CIS ap-plication is vast. There will be three teams of 160 people monitoring and supporting the application 24 hours a day, for two months leading up to and during the Olympic Games.

Applications at the Olympics fall into two groups. These are results in-formation systems, which CIS is part of, and core games management sys-tems such as a workforce manage-ment and scheduling application and

Karakilic: “We have no idea what to expect and they just pull plugs out and things like that. We put ourselves through hell”

“For the first time all 36 sports are on the CIS system as well as some Paralympics events”

project management

a system to accredit participants, workers and volunteers.

Evolution of a systemThe Java-based CIS system, which uses XML to transfer data and a Microsoft SQL Server database, was developed by Atos in 1992 when the French system integrator won its first contract to work on the Olympics IT.

The Olympics was in Barcelona that year so the software was devel-oped in Spain. It still is to this day. But the current system has never been more different.

Mert Karakilic, the Atos applica-tion manager for the Olympics in charge of the CIS system, told Com-puter Weekly about the changes that have been made to the software for London 2012. He has been working on the CIS system for the London Ol-ympics since late 2007, even before the previous Olympics in Beijing.

He said normally the software

doesn’t change that much from the previous Olympic Games, with be-tween 50% and 80% remaining the same. Improvements and responses to requests from the users – the com-mentators – means tweaking is re-quired. “People look at the systems used in Beijing and suggest improve-ments and some are then agreed.”

Drawing up for the final lapTypically things like the operating system and the browser change every four years but the underlying tech-nology remains largely the same. But the London 2010 CIS will be com-pletely different.

“The software has remained very similar since 1992, but as well as op-timisation we gave the system a facelift this time,” said Karakilic. “For the first time all 36 sports are on the CIS system as well as some Paral-ympics events.” The previous Olym-pics in Beijing only had 25 sports on CIS, with no Paralympic events.

The fact that one company has pro-vided the software for so many years makes optimisation and improve-ments more achievable. Karakilic says the company has 20 years’ expe-rience with the application, adding that the company is proud of its knowledge transfer process.

But he says nothing can prepare the team for the technical rehearsals. These see the team deliberately cause problems in the live environment, which have to be identified and fixed quickly and according to priority.

“We have no idea what to expect and they just pull plugs out and things like that. We put ourselves through hell,” he said. Different events and scenarios are given differ-ent levels of importance which means some have to be resolved fast-er than others.

The team will carry out technical rehearsals in March and May next year prior to the Games in July. ■

more onlineNews: Government cancels SME contracts, hands deals to Capitacomputerweekly.com/247104.htm

Opinion: It is time for new IT suppliers for governmentcomputerweekly.com/247444.htm

Analysis: Buying from SMEs is crucial to government cost cuttingcomputerweekly.com/247527.htm

news analysis

The obstacles facing SME suppliers in public sector IT procurement

7 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

The government’s aim to open up public sector IT procurement to include more small businesses has been widely welcomed, but many smaller suppliers still report that the reality is very different from the intent. Kathleen Hall reports

Computer Weekly has talked to a range of SME IT firms – often on condi-tion of anonymity – about

the obstacles they face winning government contracts against the major suppliers that dominate the sector. Common problems cited include the conflicting demands of the drive to centralise procurement following Topshop chief Philip Green’s efficiency review last year; the entrenched interests of systems integrators [SIs]; unspecified project aims; and filling out forms the size of phone directories.

While it is still relatively early days since Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude announced plans to raise lev-els of SME procurement to 25% of all contracts, some small businesses re-main sceptical about the drive for change in government. Part of the problem, they say, is creating the re-quired cultural change in Whitehall.

Bad formsElla Romanos, director of digital pro-duction company Remode Studios, was recently one of the final two firms bidding for a public sector project, but lost out due to undefined specifica-tions during the application process.

“We were told that we were the best company, but that the other business beat us on price. Had this been defined at the beginning then we would have created something more suitable to the budget, but in-stead we wasted a lot of time. We were perfectly happy to lose to an-

other company, but the reasons did not seem fair,” she said.

Part of the problem is wading through the application process, which involves filling out the same generic document regardless of the project. “We hired a tender-writing company for this, which I think is one of the reasons we got as far as we did. Clearly there are certain buzzwords they are looking for,” said Romanos.

Following her experience, Ro-manos said the company is unlikely to bid for public sector work again.

Clouded plansThe G-Cloud project has been hailed as a key to breaking up the SI oligopoly and bringing in multiple, smaller suppliers. But one SME cloud provider said there has been immense frustration among small suppliers that government is not in-cluding them in the process.

“The rumours are that the govern-ment is only talking to existing SIs and is enamoured with Google and Amazon, which is very frustrating because there are cloud offerings we can deliver at a much cheaper price,” said the provider.

“They need to have a list of pre-certified providers in the app store available for the government to use on a pay-per-use basis. But this is such a paradigm shift for them, the idea at the moment seems to be fall-ing flat,” it said.

“There does seem to be a bizarre unwillingness to buy British, even though there is a thriving home-grown cloud industry which could create jobs in Britain.”

Since the General Election there has not been much open engagement with industry, said the firm’s execu-tive. “I know in the short term the focus is on datacentre consolidation, and for that they do need to be talk-ing to existing suppliers. But they could also be experimenting with the cloud at almost no cost.”

Green issuesWhile there is no denying that the government must save money, an-other SME said the Cabinet Office’s adherence to the Philip Green review,

which recommended a centralisation of government procurement, is freez-ing small businesses out the market.

The SME said it has consequently lost work to much larger companies. The Green review could be counter-ing the government’s good intentions, it said. “Taking the view that every-thing can be bought as a commodity means the government will go to a large company rather than a smaller business that can provide innovative services and help with real change. The government needs to allow for a pluralistic market,” said the SME.

“The naive view of Philip Green is that the government is running a simple supply chain, but to as-sume that model readily applies to central government departments as complex as the NHS and Ministry of Justice is false.”

The government risks losing out on cost savings that some SMEs can provide, it said.

The old guardTrevor Pegley, director of IT consul-tancy Visionhall, said the dominance of SIs over government contracts cre-ates the impression of a closed shop. “If there was more transparency around how procurement decisions are made it would avoid any sugges-tion of profiteering,” he said.

Pegley said his company has more success winning contracts in other countries due to the arduous and time-consuming process involved in UK government procurement.

“We are not after any preferential treatment or positive discrimination. If there was a level playing field where contracts were awarded based on value for money and proven track record we would be happy. Under those circumstances we and other SMEs would win a lot more govern-ment work,” he said.

“In our limited experience we have seen how the current procurement process results in bespoke projects costing five to 10 times that of a prov-en off-the-shelf alternative. If the gov-ernment is serious about cutting costs without affecting front-line staff, it should take another look at IT pro-curement,” he said.

Free lunchesRachel Andrews, owner of Andrews Computer Services, decided to stop supplying to local government be-cause too much of the process was about knowing the right people. “You needed to woo the necessary people by taking them out for meals – at least that was the situation when we were selling to local government. If you didn’t play the game then others would, and you wouldn’t move up the preferred bidders list,” she said.

Andrews agrees with Remode’s Romanos that filling in bulky forms acts as a big deterrent for time and cash-strapped small businesses. “Some of the questions, such as what equal opportunity policies you have in place, don’t always seem relevant and make the process much more dif-ficult for SMEs, which have very few staff anyway,” she said.

“I would like to see some common sense about the bidding process. If you are bidding for a £100m software project to rewrite an entire system then a lot of due diligence is re-quired. But if someone is just supply-ing the basics such as laptops, ink cartridges and back-up tapes, do we really need to go through such a huge process? Surely all that is needed is that you are in the premises you say you are, have a good credit rating, and your VAT numbers check out.” ■

Is the government really willing to open its doors to smaller suppliers?

government It

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Licensing terms prevent SaaS delivering flexibility

Could public sector IT really be improving?

9 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

There are some things in life you just have to get on with, and in IT one of those is the management and adminis-

tration of software licences.Managing licences well can yield

benefits before we even consider the potential of cloud services.

So why is it the commercial and legal aspects of software are frequent-ly swept under the carpet? Licence management can make significant cost savings and optimise staff per-formance, while reducing the risks associated with non-compliance.

A huge array of models exist on which licences are measured and charged. Traditional models can be based on the number of named users, concurrent users, computers or CPUs. With the rise of virtualisation and dynamic systems, licensing ap-proaches are emerging which take ac-count of the number of virtual ma-chines and size of memory used by virtual machines.

In data management, there are op-tions to licence tools based on the amount of disc space being used or managed. Licence terms even vary from one piece of software to another, even when from the same supplier.

With so many options available, we might assume organisations have all the suppleness required when it comes to building flexible IT systems

that can meet the needs of the busi-ness as things change rapidly. In fact, a glance at the figures shows this is by no means certain.

Fewer than a third of companies think the licensing terms of their soft-ware suppliers allow them to run so-phisticated IT systems based around virtual systems that can be varied dy-namically as needs change. Four out of 10 say they can do so only in some cases, while one in four say licensing terms and conditions do not allow them the flexibility to match that po-tentially available in much of the un-derlying IT infrastructure.

Clearly, having a lot of licensing

Using licensing terms to prevent organisations reducing usage will prove counterproductive

Bryan Glick leader tony lock opinion

models in place does not help if things get locked down rigidly once contracts have been signed.

If licensing in the businesses limits flexibility, is there room for cloud and software as a service (SaaS) to provide any of the greater flexibility sought by organisations as they look to match usage with business needs?

So far as most respondents to a re-cent survey were concerned, SaaS flexibility only ever goes up in terms of commitment to the provider. Only a quarter think it is more elastic.

More worryingly for the supplier, one in 10 consider SaaS to have no flexibility at all, a matter of concern for an architecture that markets flexi-bility as one of its greatest strengths.

The perception of flexibility in SaaS is more pronounced in organi-sations with little or no experience of SaaS usage. As almost all SaaS solu-tions are now built on architectures that allow usage to scale up and down, any factors inhibiting users from reducing their usage must be purely financial in nature.

Using licensing terms to prevent organisations reducing unnecessary usage will prove counterproductive. It appears many SaaS suppliers use licensing terms to prevent, or severe-ly penalise, reduced usage and such approaches could inhibit new users from taking on SaaS services. SaaS is not delivering the flexibility it prom-ises, and this is a significant consid-eration in an uncertain economy.

It is clear that managing software licences and SaaS subscriptions is too complex. For suppliers to help organisations garner the flexibility promised by both private and public cloud, both licence and subscription models need to change.

Rather than seeking to lock organi-sations in to protect their revenues, suppliers will increase the usage of their offerings more quickly if they deliver real usage flexibility, both up and down, as the potential customer base will have less fear of being locked in or buying too much.

That said, it is also clear that organ-isations can help themselves greatly by putting in place processes and tools to manage their software licenc-es proactively. ■

tony Lock is programme director at Freeform Dynamics

Public sector It remains – rightly – under great scrutiny in the UK. right now, it faces a set of chal-lenges unique to the political cycle,

but they are challenges that warrant patience from the many critics of Whitehall It policy.

Last year, a new government promised new ways of working, widespread It reforms, an end to the headline-grabbing It failures. Now, a little over a year has passed and critics are expecting to see tangible evi-dence that things are really different, not simply empty political promises.

It is right, of course, to hold government to account on its intentions – and Computer Weekly has been at the forefront of that.

but there is a real sense that, quietly, thoughtfully, behind the scenes, genuine change might just be taking place.

transforming years of public sector It cul-ture and moving away from complex legacy systems is not so much like turning round the proverbial oil tanker, it’s like taking all the oil and trying to push it back into the well too. It takes time.

bill mcCluggage, the deputy government CIO, talked to Computer Weekly readers at a recent CW500 Club meeting, and described the welcome improvements in attitude and environment in the Cabinet Office and the Whitehall It community over the past year.

When you talk to bill and his It leadership peers in government, they have the air of knowing what they need to change, and give the impression they know how to do it. they also bear the weariness of knowing everyone expects them to have done so yesterday.

but more than that, you can detect the confidence that they believe they are on the right path, and that they are slowly proving it.

We have of course been here before. It’s by no means the first time we’ve been told gov-ernment It is changing, only to be disap-pointed. And such bitter experience means every cynic is entirely justified in questioning any of the latest initiatives.

but slowly, cautiously, carefully, there are signs that, this time, the situation might actu-ally be different. ■

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buyer’s guide

11 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

There is a school of thought which stipulates deploying business intelligence (BI) tools to as many people as

possible in the organisation. Rolling out BI to the masses empowers staff to make business decisions them-selves, rather than rely on managers.

The cost of rolling out enterprise BI tools across an organisation can be prohibitive, but CIOs can reduce this cost by opting for low-cost or open source alternatives.

Jaspersoft BI EnterpriseJaspersoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) Suite Enterprise Edition is a strong competitor in the commercial open source BI market, with its main rivals

and dashboarding functions, plus ad hoc and in-memory data analysis ca-pabilities.

But the suite’s open source code-base also enables it to support third-party commercial and open source BI tools, which gives its broad range of capabilities. These components in-clude Talend’s open source extract, transform and load (ETL) tool and ac-tivity monitoring console; R, an ad-vanced analytics development envi-ronment; and JasperAnalysis, an OLAP tool based on the open source Mondrian engine.

One disadvantage of this approach is that while these tools extend the suite’s functionality, Jaspersoft does not own or control these key BI com-ponents, or their roadmap or integra-tion.

Nevertheless, Mike Boyarski, di-rector of product marketing at Jasper-soft, argues that the relatively low cost of BI Enterprise is a big attraction for many IT managers. “In some

Give your business a BI boost for lessThe benefits of business intelligence are clear, but cost is a major barrier to mass adoption. With this in mind, Arif Mohammed reviews two different BI models – one open source, one commercial – to see how they compare

cases, the cost of expanding the use of an existing commercial tool is pro-hibitively high due to per-seat licence fees and associated services expens-es. For core BI requirements, Jasper-soft often equals or betters the [price of the] incumbent solution,” he says.

Analyst view of JaspersoftForrester Research principal analyst Boris Evelson says there is a clear distinction between Jaspersoft’s com-munity and commercial enterprise suites, with the latter able to compete with the commercial market leaders on features and functionality.

In terms of open source, enterprise-class BI suites, he says Actuate BIRT “leads the pack because of richness of reporting functionality”. But he adds: “Jaspersoft Enterprise, SpagoBI, Pentaho Enterprise, and Pentaho Community are close behind, and offer a much fuller and broader BI stack than Actuate BIRT, including ETL and advanced analytics.”

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being Actuate BIRT, SpagoBI, and Pentaho Enterprise. But due to its wide toolset, analysts also view Jas-persoft worth considering alongside commercial BI platforms from Mi-crosoft, IBM, Information Builders, Oracle, SAP and SAS.

Jaspersoft provides a broad BI suite covering reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), data visualisation and data integration. It also features interactive, web-based reports, dash-boards and analysis, and comes at a fraction of the licence cost of offer-ings from commercial suppliers.

BI Enterprise also supports a range of implementation options such as on-premise, multi-tenant software-as-a-service (SaaS), and cloud-based deployment, and Jaspersoft offers similar technical support packages to most commercial BI suppliers.

The supplier owns and controls its JasperReports and iReport tools – for core reporting – and JasperServer – which provides repository, security

CW Buyer’s guideBusiness intelligenCe

part 2 of 4

»

buyer’s guideEvelson argues that while

Jaspersoft does not match, feature for feature, the likes of Oracle, Mi-crosoft and IBM, BI users should consider whether they really need all of the “bells and whistles” of the larger suites. “If your IT culture calls for an 80/20 rule – where 80% of requested functionality is mostly good enough – and your budget is limited, Jaspersoft, Pentaho, and SpagoBI offer very respectable op-tions,” he says.

QlikTech QlikViewQlikTech’s QlikView is a commercial BI platform that has achieved rapid success over the past few years, par-ticularly since the company had its Nasdaq IPO in July 2010, making it the first BI flotation for many years.

Analysts have remarked on QlikView’s user-driven approach to BI, which focuses on ease-of-use for both IT professionals and non-techni-cal users. The suite also differentiates itself from other BI platforms by being wholly based on an in-memory data store. By utilising in-memory, as opposed to traditional disk storage, the BI application can refresh data in real time to support operational BI environments, such as monitoring fi-nancial transactions.

QlikTech’s main in-memory BI competes with Microsoft SQL Server, PowerPivot, IBM Cognos Express and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.

QlikView, which is currently on version 10, comes with a set of inte-grated BI tools designed to create highly interactive applications, dash-boards and reports. One of its strengths is that it can combine data from disparate sources, including Or-acle, SAP, Salesforce.com, SQL Serv-er and Excel.

It then provides associative search facilities, which the supplier likens to Google’s Instant Search, with the interface highlighting significant rela-tionships in the data. The product also offers extensive data visualisa-tion via expandable 2D and 3D charts, tables and graphs.

According to analysts, data visual-isation is one of the main features of the platform. During the MP expens-es scandal, QlikTech developed a demo application that allowed peo-ple to visualise and analyse their local MP’s expenses.

Steve Dark, an independent QlikView consultant, says: “At the time the scandal was unfolding, the data was being rolled out via QlikView on the web. In the inter-vening time there has been a huge surge in interest in, and use of, QlikView in the UK.”

Analyst view of QlikViewQlikView’s strengths lie in its user-driven approach to BI, its ease of use, its intuitive interface and how “lik-able” the product is to use, says Rita Sallam, research director at Gartner.

But Gartner has a number of con-cerns about the platform. “QlikTech has no expansive product strategy be-yond its current offering. While it has a roadmap for incremental improve-ments to its current product, Qlik-Tech has not laid out a clear vision elucidating how it will maintain a sustainable competitive advantage,” says Sallam.

“QlikView is increasingly seen as expensive – almost a third of custom-ers surveyed see this as its main bar-rier to wider use. Its pricing model often does not sit well with larger de-ployments to more users, nor does the investment in RAM required to support the increasing numbers of concurrent users,” she adds.

And while QlikView has a reputa-tion for “blistering speed”, Sallam says 11.6% of its customers reported poor performance as a problem they had encountered. Despite this, she adds: “The general perception of its customers is that QlikView still deliv-ers among the best performance on the market.”

Jaspersoft versus QlikViewGartner’s January 2011 Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms featured both Jaspersoft and QlikView – with

Jaspersoft meeting the criteria for the first time. Gartner considers Jaspersoft more of a “niche player”, but among the challengers, while QlikTech operates in the “leaders

and visionaries” quadrant, alongside SAP, SAS and Information Builders.

Gartner’s Sallam says: “Cost [and total cost of ownership are] by far the most compelling part of the Jaspersoft value proposition and the major ingredient driving its success.”

In comparison, QlikTech imple-mentations can be significantly more expensive. In terms of func-tionality, both platforms offer sophisticated data visualisation and dashboards and a full range of BI tools, albeit through third parties for Jaspersoft.

In conclusion, QlikTech is a better option for larger enterprise implementations with deep pockets, while Jaspersoft is ideal for smaller companies that are happy to work with a commercial open source platform. ■

more onlineCW+: Using data to maximise returns on business intelligencecomputerweekly.com/247487.htm

Whitepaper: Seven trends that will change business intelligencecomputerweekly.com/246819.htm

News: CIOs must reassess their data analytics strategy, says Accenturecomputerweekly.com/247541.htm

12 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Jaspersoft BI EnterpriseCompany: Jaspersoft founded in San Francisco, US, in 2004Product: Jaspersoft BI EnterpriseFeatures: Reporting, OLAP, data visualisation, dashboards, data integrationProduction deployments: 175,000 in 100 countries; over 14,000 commercial customers Website: www.jaspersoft.com

QlikTech QlikViewCompany: QlikTech founded in Lund, Sweden, in 1993Product: QlikTech QlikViewFeatures: Data integration and analysis, searching, visualisation, dashboards Production deployments: 19,000 customers in more than 100 countriesWebsite: www.qlikview.com

Product information

»

RelayWare, a supplier of partner relationship management (PRM) software to the likes of Sony, Lexmark and Trend Micro, chose Jaspersoft BI Enterprise and JasperReports Server after “extensive evaluation”. The firm rolled out the latest version of its PRM software, RelayWare Version 8.3, in August, incorpo-rating JasperReports Server.

It chose Jaspersoft mainly because its reporting capabilities allow RelayWare to enable its clients, many of whom have non-technical sales and marketing users, to share reports dynamically with their partners across the world via web portals and dashboards. RelayWare operates globally, and therefore chose to implement Jaspersoft in the cloud.

“We were struck by JasperReports Server’s ease of integration, functionality, feature set and ease of use, says RelayWare CEO Mike Morgan. He adds that the firm chose an open source platform partly because of its “lack of expense” compared with commercial platforms, and partly because of its “ongoing development and support”.

Case study: RelayWare/Jaspersoft

According to QlikTech, more than 85 NHS trusts are using QlikView, including Cambridge University Hospitals, Newham University Hospital and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.

Gareth Goodier, CEO of Cambridge University Hospitals, says the NHS trust chose QlikView after tendering for a front-end system that could present all its management information. Managers and clinical professionals across the organisation use QlikView to detect operational inefficiencies, “from the board to the ward”.

Goodier describes the software as fast, simple and easy to use. “We have invested less than £1m over four years in terms of the software. It has required very little staff time and has facilitated very significant improvements in patient care, the efficiency at which we deliver that patient care and our general productivity,” he says.

Another NHS organisation, the North West NHS Collaborative Procurement Hub, deployed QlikView to consolidate data from 45 financial and purchasing systems – in a 12-week implementation. The Hub claims QlikView has delivered procurement savings of £42m and freed up hundreds of hours previously spent on manual reporting and analysis.

Case study: The NHS/QlikView

Copyright © 2011 Sybase, an SAP Company. All rights reserved. Unpublished rights reserved under U.S. copyright laws. Sybase and the Sybase logo are trademarks of Sybase, Inc. or its subsidiaries. ® indicates registration in the United States of America. SAP and the SAP logo are the trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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telemedicine

14 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

The NHS is feeling the strain of demand across its serv-ices, with the UK population increasing by half a million

in just one year from 2010. Health professionals and medical experts agree patients will have to do more home monitoring in the future if the NHS is to cope.

But how advanced is the telemedi-cine market in the UK, and how well is the NHS positioned to implement the necessary changes to provide tel-ecare services?

Telehealth care enables patients to monitor their conditions using mo-bile technology. According to health minister Andrew Lansley, around 80% of face-to-face interactions with the NHS are unnecessary.

Moving just 1% of those meetings online would save the health service around £250m a year, claims the minister for health.

“In particular this could be used for patients with chronic disorders, such as diabetes and heart condi-tions, where all that needs checking is heart rate, blood pressure, weight and oxygen saturation. This could be used on apps on Androids and iPads, so the patient can keep a daily log which goes off to the centre looking after them,” says Provan.

Data security and investmentBut the biggest difficulty at the mo-ment is letting outside data into hospitals, he says. “Secondary care

“For diabetes, all that needs checking is heart rate, blood pressure, weight and oxygen saturation”

Taking the NHS into the 21st centuryKathleen Hall looks at how technology can help doctors guide the NHS through a demographic time-bomb

is slower in adopting these systems because of data security. But that’s a hurdle we will just have to work through as this kind of technology is already available in other countries.”

It will also take investment from the healthcare budget which the De-partment of Health (DoH) will have to agree to. “I know the DoH is keen to use mobile tech, and Andrew Lansley is very pro iPad and apps, but they haven’t identified the areas where they want to use it yet. There needs to be more discussion about which diseases are best to monitor

NHS costs of aging populationResearch from Ovum found 70% of NHS money goes into caring for people over the age of 65 and 60% of those suffer from chronic illness. With 10 million people 65 and over, a figure rapidly increasing, there is the potential to save a lot of money in this particular area.

Drew Provan, senior lecturer in haematology at The Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine, believes it is imperative for the NHS to get as many patients out of hospital as possible. He says this can be done by enabling them to keep track of their blood pressure, temperature and other vital signs and transmit that information back to a monitoring centre. A nurse can pre-dict when they will become ill and intervene with a treatment, prevent-ing that patient from having to be ad-mitted to A&E, he says.

telemedicine

In 2005-2007 Kent NHS trialed a telehealth pilot with 250 patients suffering from chron-ic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a lung disease. Each patient received a device to monitor vital signs.

Results were automatically uploaded to a central computer, where community matrons and practice nurses monitored them and were able to step in and advise

or visit when necessary. The results were COPD hospital admis-

sions fell 50%, leading to savings for the primary care trust of between £30,000 to £40,000, allowing it to buy 15 more monitors.

Costs of hospital admissions were estimated at £2,000 each, so saving 50 admissions led to £1.2m savings per year for the PCT. Home visits were also cut by 80%,

saving on travel costs, allowing healthcare providers to better prioritise their work.

Case study: Kent NHS trials telecare services pilotand how to deploy devices in the community, says Provan.

“There have been lots of pilots in the UK, but no-one has yet decided which format to use, which disease to treat and which devices to deploy. All the bits of that have to be joined up by someone and we appear to be nowhere near that strategy yet.”

But Provan believes deployment doesn’t need to be hugely expensive, as people could use relatively inex-pensive devices such as an iPod Touch, and then download an app which is usually free. All they would need to do is stand on scales, for ex-ample, and tap in the information to their iPod Touch. Or use a digital thermometer to put under their tongue to transmit a message via Bluetooth to the device, he says.

“We need investment, there’s been pilot after pilot but someone actually needs to bite the bullet. At the mo-ment people have to take the whole day off work sometimes just to take a test, which is ridiculous in some cases,” Provan says.

Alison Mlot, member of the Healthcare Technologies and Medi-cine Knowledge Transfer Network, a government-funded organisation dedicated to exploiting technology in the health industries sector, agrees with Provan. She has been involved with hundreds of pilots testing tele-health. The next step is to focus on mainstreaming it, she says.

“The mobile technology industry is starting to understand there is no need for another black box which just sits in the house. People want some-thing like Apple technology, which they are used to,” says Mlot.

Growing consumer demandWhile telemedicine in the UK re-mains a nascent market, consumer demand for telehealth self-monitor-ing devices is growing. A number of telemedical devices are emerging such as for blood pressure monitor-ing, weight management and quit-ting smoking.

Most of the technologies for tele-

medicine are already established and the challenge lies in applying them to the health sector. There are many challenges when it comes to the prac-tical application of these technolo-gies such as interoperability, issues around sharing data, and standards – something which the Technology Strategy Board is currently working on, says Mlot.

“There’s lots of guidance around, but until it starts to be driven by gov-ernment or the private market, it will remain slow. It’s a no-brainer to say something has to change in the way we operate, and technology gives us the best option to do that. The indus-try is as frustrated as anyone at the moment because the routes to mar-kets are blocked,” she says.

But Cornelia Wels-Maug, an Ovum analyst, believes more research is needed to win over the DoH. “The current sample sizes are not large enough to form a business case. We need some large-scale pilots that run longer than three days,” she says.

The other issue is suitability, par-ticular when discussing self-monitor-ing of the very elderly. “If you are vulnerable then the last thing you will want to do is learn self-treat-ment. But most of the time this is something patients learn fairly quick-ly. There have been studies in Eng-land where some sicknesses work better with telehealth than others, and again this is something we need more trials for,” says Wels-Maug.

Why health trails businessPaul Flynn, doctor and deputy chair-man of the British Medical Associa-tion’s Consultants Committee, says technology in the health services doesn’t have the same uptake as the business sector for two main reasons.

“Firstly there’s the issue of confi-dentiality and worries that informa-tion on patients could be accidentally or deliberately accessed. So hospitals tend to use closed networks. The sec-ond issue is the cost. In the long-term this technology might save money in

various ways, but the problem is these savings won’t be realised for some time,” he says.

“And there has to be an initial ex-penditure in order to save. The NHS is often looking at very demanding targets, without the capacity to take a loss this year because of the future savings in a year to come.”

But Flynn also believes telehealth isn’t a panacea for all patient condi-tions. “There are an awful lot of areas that are symptom-based and need more complex evaluations with the age-old instruments of eyes and ears.”

Hospitals save with PCT costsThe other big issue is that primary and secondary care have traditionally operated in silos. “They are in differ-ent and competing parts of the NHS. So while self-monitoring may lead to cost savings in secondary care, the budget may have to come from primary care. The benefits that come about are a reduction in hospital ad-mission, but primary care has to do the implementing,” says Flynn.

He says it is unlikely we will have the same amount of hospital units as we currently have. Rightly or wrong-ly, he says, technology can be used to justify such moves. “If you want to close down places, you are going to overstate benefits of potential for technology. And the potential is vast, but in terms of immediately realisa-ble benefits, the case is sometimes overstated. There is an enormous po-tential there, but it shouldn’t be used to replace doctors and nurses, al-though it can make their job easier and cut down on time-wasting.”

With major shake-ups in the NHS – particularly with changes in GP commissioning – it’s difficult to say whether investment in telehealth will be accelerated or put on the backburner for the time being. But as we all experience the benefits of in-creased life expectancy, some of the onus of monitoring conditions will have to shift towards the patient, if the health service is to cope with an increased demand – and that is some-thing the NHS has only limited time in delaying. ■

more onlineNews: DoH seeks NHS savings with patient self-monitoring ITcomputerweekly.com/243112.htm

News: Andrew Lansley plans online consultations to save £250m a yearcomputerweekly.com/246208.htm

News: Welsh NHS spends £33m to deploy telemedicine technologycomputerweekly.com/229462.htm

15 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

IT leadership

16 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

The digital age has forced businesses to increasingly lean on their IT department to analyse data, innovate

technologies and maintain a com-petitive advantage. So how does the CIO’s role fit in the money-making mobile apps business?

Figures from research firm Forrest-er show over half (52%) of businesses agree technology is fundamental to their business model.

But more than putting technology

tentially adding 25% to the compa-ny’s turnover with an app launched just six months ago.

Betfair had over £1bn worth of bets placed through the mobile products it developed in-house in its fiscal year 2011.

“We’ve seen 88% growth in mobile revenues in the past year and 122% growth in the number of customers betting through their mobiles with us,” says Raj Vemulapalli, vice-presi-dent of mobile engineering at Betfair.

From back office to bottom lineJenny Williams profiles the new breed of CIO making money for their organisations in the age of the mobile app

“Technology is an enabler to achieve business goals. To that end, IT departments and CIOs should choose the right technologies and build the right products for their users and customers in order to achieve the desired business results.”

IT as a business strategyAnalyst firm Forrester believes CIOs will move towards business technol-ogy (BT) strategies where measuring IT success will be judged on boosting

at the core of business strategies, CIOs are developing products to di-rectly boost company sales, moving the IT department into an era of prod-uct development, away from simply providing back-office support.

Products developed by in-house IT teams – such as mobile applica-tions – have generated significant business results.

London minicab firm Addison Lee is set to take £20m in bookings through its iPhone app in 2011, po- »

IT leadership

Addison LeeLondon minicab firm Addison Lee is set to take £20m in bookings through its iPhone app in 2011, having received £1.4m through the app in June. The company’s stated turnover is £80m, meaning the iPhone app has added 20% to the top line in just six months.

BetfairBetfair reports 122% year-on-year growth in the number of customers betting on Betfair via mobile phones, which equates to £1bn worth of bets placed in fiscal year 2011

and an 88% year-on-year increase in sales from Betfair’s mobile app portfolio, which includes a HTML5 web-based Android app. Third-party developers can build additional mobile products for Betfair customers using the company’s open platform API.

DebenhamsDebenhams launched a second iPhone app, called Debenhams Beauty Club, in May 2011 after achieving over 400,000 downloads and sales of over £1m in five months of launching an initial Debenhams iPhone app.

How CIOs are making money for their businessesbusiness results.However, at the end of 2010, a For-

rester survey found only 13% of IT strategies use the same success meas-ures as used to measure the effective-ness of business strategy.

“There is a significant gap between IT success metrics and the rest of the business,” says Nigel Fenwick in For-rester’s report, Beyond Alignment: BT Strategic Planning.

While business-driving product development has entered the CIO remit, some are still sceptical about tying IT strategy to business results.

Speaking at a recent Vodafone En-terprise Services panel session about the consumerisation of IT and the de-ployment of personal mobile devices, Paul Domnick, CIO at law firm Fresh-fields Bruckhaus Deringer, said his role has shifted to include responsi-bility for all product development and project management.

However, he added that CIOs should never make business value promises to the board – for example increased productivity through the use of personal mobile devices – be-cause the CEO will ask, “Who will be fired?” if targets are not met.

“IT doesn’t drive growth so should never claim productivity,” says Domnick.

But this attitude could change as in-house IT departments develop customer-facing, sales-focused prod-ucts as well as supporting day-to-day operational tasks.

Creating consumer productsKevin Gallagher, CIO at Channel 4, says: “We’re developing all the busi-ness systems we’ve always done but we’re also developing products. From a mindset point of view, that’s a big change for us.”

To deal with the shift, Gallagher says his IT team is adopting more product-centric roles to respond to demand for in-house IT to develop products directly for consumers.

Channel 4’s Apple iPad applica-tion for on-demand video cost a “low six figure sum” to develop. But it has already made its money back, with sponsorship opportunities and over a million downloads so far.

As at Channel 4, the trend is in-creasing for businesses to bring de-velopment of products in-house to create innovative products to drive business and increase sales.

“We’re developing all the business systems but we’re also developing products. That’s a big change for us”

Tesco set up its own mobile devel-opment team in 2010 as an extension to its IT team. Using its new team, the retail giant recently launched a free mobile application for Google’s An-droid operating system (OS) to pro-vide shopping and delivery services.

The app adds to Tesco’s portfolio of mobile apps. Tesco’s store and product-finding iPhone application, Tesco Finder, reached one million downloads at the end of 2010.

Online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter recently announced plans to double its IT team to 200 to support in-creased in-house product develop-ment across e-commerce and mobile platforms and generate business. By the end of 2011, the IT department will equate to 20% of the firm’s over-all workforce of 1,000 employees.

The money-making CIOMobile products are being developed to deliver a direct return on invest-ment (ROI).

Kevin Summers, global CIO at Whirlpool, believes focusing on the ROI of applications will help trans-form IT in organisations, allowing IT

to move from a technical focus to a business consultant role.

Summers says IT should focus on applications with strong ROI figures and off-load anything else.

IT recruitment firm Harvey Nash has seen a recent surge in demand for CIOs. It believes the role of the CIO is becoming differentiated between those who see their job as driving in-novation and those who focus on keeping the business running.

It is clear that the idea of the “mon-ey-making CIO” is coming to the fore-front. “It’s a reflection that CIOs can no longer just be concerned with back-office and maintaining infra-structure,” says Steve Prentice, re-search fellow for executive leader-ship and innovation at Gartner.

Prentice believes CIOs need to de-liver revenues to organisations through the implementation of tech-nology, which is integral to every as-pect of business, or relegate them-selves to a limited support role.

He says companies emerging from the recession are increasingly looking to sell more products, rather than re-duce budgets to improve the health of the bottom line.

But with IT budgets remaining tight, the challenge will be balancing day-to-day operational tasks with in-novative product development.

Prentice says some CIOs have de-volved day-to-day responsibilities to a deputy to allow them to focus on revenue-driving projects. But, ulti-

mately, CIOs will have to accept the IT department’s success will be di-rectly measured against its ability to drive sales.

For instance, at General Motors, the CIO’s role is now, simply, to sell more cars, says Prentice

Furthermore, an increasing number of CIOs are seeing a propor-tion of their bonuses being influ-enced by increasing revenues. Pren-tice says: “It comes down to, if you grab them by their wallets, their hearts and minds will follow.”

CIOs are moving further and fur-ther away from just keeping the lights on. But if CIOs fail to strike a successful balance between support-ing enterprise infrastructure and sys-tems and generating sales, they could find themselves left in the dark by the business. ■

more onlineNews: Gartner outlines six money-making CIO profilescomputerweekly.com/245077.htm

News: iPhone app boosts Addison Lee business by 20% in six monthscomputerweekly.com/246975.htm

News: Betfair sees 120% increase in mobile customerscomputerweekly.com/247157.htm

17 | 13-19 SeptemBer 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

1. the entrepreneurial CIOResponsible for generating sales including external sales as well as traditional IT planning, design, implementation and operations.

2. the cost-optimisation CIOHelping businesses to meet earnings targets through IT procurement and decommission-ing methods.

3. the revenue-creating CIOExploiting IT technologies, products and services to help increase enterprise revenue.

4. the business-innovation CIOPlacing IT staff members in product development areas of the business.

5. the business-development CIOTransferring IT operational

responsibilities to a senior enterprise executive and reporting directly to a head of business development, the business-devel-opment CIO will still retain IT business planning responsibilities.

6. the public-serving CIOPublic-sector money-making CIOs work to shorten tax receipt-related government process to save money.

Gartner’s six different types of money-making CIOs

»

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SME security

19 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

IT security and compliance is a challenge even for big organisa-tions, but small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face the

same security threats with smaller budgets and less resources as they focus on growing their businesses.

SME IT leaders met at a recent roundtable debate hosted by Compu-ter Weekly, in association with Dell SecureWorks, to discuss the cyber threat landscape and the challenges they face around regulatory compli-ance, social networking, mobile de-vices, educating users and how to apply best practice.

Cyber threatsDon Smith, vice-president of en-gineering and technology at Dell SecureWorks, said there is a real gap in understanding of the scale of the cyber threat that organisations face. “On average we see two posi-tive security incidents per week per customer. SMEs are exposed because

Marcus East, CIO at Comic Relief, suggested talking to similar organisa-tions to help tackle the cyber threat. “Don’t religiously accept what ven-dors tell you. Talk to each other,” he said.

Culture and user educationRichard Swann, head of IT at the In-stitute of Directors, said information security is not solely an IT issue, and that needs to be emphasised across the organisation. “Everyone in the business needs to be aware of infor-mation security – not leaving their laptops on trains or having insecure passwords,” he said.

But Mike Jackson, head of ICT at accountant Frank Hirth, said the role of IT leaders is still vital. “Don’t un-derestimate the power of our role in getting users to stop and think. Their vigilance is very important. It’s not just educating them; it’s also com-munication. Common sense is very important.”

IT security considerations for SMEsAt a recent Computer Weekly roundtable debate, in association with Dell SecureWorks, SME IT leaders discussed the cyber threat landscape and its impact on small and medium-sized businesses. Lisa Kelly reports

Chomic agreed that culture and communication are key. “In most cir-cumstances, you can’t rely on techni-cal control,” he said.

Stuart Ritchie-Fagg, information se-curity analyst at Hermes Fund Manag-ers, said employees are central to ef-fective IT security. “People are the main point. The focus is too much on technical security; you have to put the emphasis on awareness,” he said.

Compliance issuesSMEs are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of regulatory compli-ance around security, with PCI-DSS (payment card industry data security standard) seen as a particularly ex-pensive headache for many.

“PCI-DSS is a pain. It can be a six-month project costing tens of thou-sands of pounds. Who knows what it means for smaller organisations, but if you are not compliant it can mean another 4p on each card transaction,” said Swann.

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they commonly have no full-time security staff and can’t track the secu-rity landscape,” he said.

The challenges are exacerbated by a changing landscape, with the ad-vancement of cloud, software-as-a-service, unmanaged devices and in-creasing mobility, said Smith. No one can be completely safe, he said, but SMEs can advance protection by hav-ing a strong understanding of their external web presence, ensuring it is secure by undertaking penetration testing and minimising exposure by taking action such as regularly updat-ing security patches.

One of the biggest threats to SMEs can be the understandable need to get things done at the cost of proper IT administration and governance, said Gabe Chomic, IT security manager at Action for Blind People.

“The pressure to get a new service running can prove a huge threat as the holes do not necessarily get closed later,” he said. »

SME security

Gabe Chomic, IT security manager at Action for Blind People and director of partner development at ISSA (Information Systems Security Association) UK, said not enough SMEs are thinking about security.

Analysis undertaken for the information commissioner in 2010 revealed that very few SMEs think about IT security at all, especially in “micro businesses” with fewer than 10 staff.

“Many regard it as inordinately complex and believe it is easier to get on with the everyday business than think about security,” said Chomic.

The findings are disturbing, considering a significant proportion of the UK economy is not composed of large enterprises.

“SMEs have resource constraints, but that does not mean the security challenges go away. The report highlighted the soft underbelly of the UK economy,” said Chomic.

“[Another problem is that] SMEs are not sure what regulations they need to comply with, while they are faced with too many compliance requests,” he said.

Increasing mobility is another factor and “a huge issue for large or small enterprises”.

SMEs also have the challenge of facing too many suppliers selling security and telling them what to do to

comply with regulations such as PCI-DSS or the Data Protection Act, said Chomic.

“Unless you are a lawyer or a security practitioner, how do you figure it out?” he asked.

ISSA UK is attempting to resolve the complexity by raising awareness of information security.

“ISSA is trying to point out to organisations, even micro-sized ones, that it is not necessarily a technical issue, and [encouraging them] to spend a few minutes thinking about the major risks,” said Chomic.

The security group is pushing out an information security standard (ISSA-UK 5173) that SMEs should consider. A key principle is basic security measures.

“Even if you are a micro enterprise, you need to patch your computers and ensure everyone in the organisation thinks about it,” said Chomic.

As an SME grows, it needs a more formal approach. “An organisation of 250 people should have a written security policy. ISSA is attempting to lead organisations towards being prepared and ready for information security as they grow,” said Chomic.

He said there is also a focus on encouraging SMEs to “think about how they can minimise risks so the risks don’t become such a huge liability that they don’t even want to think about it”.

ISSA UK: Helping SMEs with information securitySMEs can also face difficulties in understanding what they must com-ply with, said Katherine Coombs, IT director for Buying Team. “There is the Data Protection Act, but what else should I be compliant with? You can’t always trust one source as changes come out,” she said.

Chomic said there are challenges in staying up to date with the regula-tory environment, which vary from business to business. “There will be different concerns, but ask key ques-tions such as: What is your business? What do you worry about? What have you got to be compliant with?” he said.

But Robert Bond, partner and chairman of the information security committee at law firm Speechly Bir-cham, pointed out that compliance is often non-negotiable, so “when your largest customer says ‘jump’, you jump”.

Chomic said he is seeing situations where standards are being pushed down the supply chain to smaller suppliers, who have “little ability to push back”, but recognition of this issue is growing. The fact that there is no single place to go for guidance has been recognised, but with many or-ganisations vying to be that one place, “at best it’s counter-produc-tive”, he said.

Keith Searing, systems manager at the Registry Trust, highlighted that even if an organisation thinks it has met its compliance obligations, things can go wrong. “For example, there was a report that said all due processes were complied with in the ‘Baby P’ case [where the baby later died after being abused and neglect-ed]. This shows it is the spirit of what you are trying to achieve that is im-portant. You need to get hearts and minds involved,” he said.

Managing mobilityDonald Bremner, IT director at Ecofin, said a pragmatic approach is the best way to deal with mobile security. “Blackberrys are the most commonly used devices, but now we have iPhones, which I don’t think are as secure, but we have to let people use them,” he said.

Chomic said it is possible that if you take security too far, you get none of the benefits of the mobile platform and the users will get around the se-curity tools anyway. “It is a very diffi-

SMEs can advance protection by having a strong understanding of their external web presence

cult balancing act to get right when the technology is something the users love,” he said.

Ray Titcombe, IT manager at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said: “We are all facing similar problems – increasing mobili-ty and mobile devices and the pluses and minuses of social networking.”

Stuart Grinnall, IT manager at Big Yellow Group, called for more best practice around mobile security. “There are new devices coming out all the time; you can’t standardise an-ywhere, so how can you implement a secure system without saying no to every request?” he said.

Taking responsibilityAll too often, senior executives only take responsibility after a security breach has happened, said Alan Coburn, director of security and risk consulting at Dell SecureWorks.

“They react to a problem, but the push-down can be expensive and dif-ficult to adhere to,” he said.

Comic Relief’s East said the busi-ness case for security needs detailed consideration. “For example, with the amount of money we take, we must invest in PCI compliance. But

the question is, who do you turn to? You need a level of stability with sup-pliers and skills within the organisa-tion,” he said.

East said a security breach will have “a double whammy” if action is not taken because of the negative effect on corporate reputation. “Sometimes top leadership doesn’t understand the issue. Whatever it costs, everyone needs to understand what the security risks are so they can decide if the cost is necessary and what the implications are if they don’t take action. Just because infor-mation security is complex, you can’t bury your head in the sand,” he said.

Dell’s Smith said that in deciding what security products to put in place, organisations need to decide what data they have, where it is and why they need to protect it. “If you know the answers to these questions about your data assets you can have a good conversation with your provid-ers,” he said, adding that it has been shown that as the maturity of an or-ganisation grows, they spend less, not more, because they spend more effectively.

“If you follow a pragmatic ap-proach, you get an answer in plain English and you have a language you can use with senior stakeholders in the organisation,” said Smith.

East said CIOs must take responsi-bility for leadership. “You can’t ex-pect non-experts to lead because they do not understand the issues. This is a good example of where

technologists have to step up to the plate,” he said.

However, Bremner said business leaders should have legal responsibili-ty for information security. “Ten years ago, IT was responsible for disaster re-covery. Now the Financial Services Authority has moved that [responsi-bility] on to the chief financial officer (CFO) so it is a business issue. I think the CFO should take responsibility for information security,” he said.

“Research on business has shown that where CIOs can help with secu-rity, IT security can become a busi-ness enabler,” Chomic said. ■

more onlineNews: Survey shows cyber attacks remain top risk for businessescomputerweekly.com/247753.htm

News: Cost of cyber crime study shows need for security planningcomputerweekly.com/247524.htm

Analysis: IPv6: The security risks to businesscomputerweekly.com/247634.htm

Exclusive: James Caan talks about information security for SMEscomputerweekly.com/small-matters

Case study: Land Securities enables access via employee-owned mobilescomputerweekly.com/247700.htm

20 | 13-19 September 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

»

21 | 13-19 september 2011 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com

Caffeine addiction draws thou-sands to new London websiteOnline entrepreneur Alasdair Monk has attracted more than 40,000 visi-tors to his new website in just two weeks with the promise of a produc-tive caffeine fix.

Inspired by a map of Wi-Fi hotspots at Reading University cam-pus, the 23-year-old set up a website for sharing recommendations of cof-fee shops in London where people can work while imbibing their fa-vourite hot drink.

The recommendations include de-tails such as how to access the Wi-Fi and whether or not it is free, availa-bility of working space, and the qual-ity of the coffee and food.

Monk says he checks every recom-mendation himself, which is why he does not plan to extend the service be-yond London and New York for the time being.

He says there has been demand from other cities, but would prefer to cover London and New York well

before expanding further afield.Coffee with work has mixed bless-

ings for the male population. On the one hand it could boost productivity, and caffeine apparently helps stop

hair loss – but the downside is that it works by suppressing testosterone, the number one hair killer.

Something to think about when you next take a break from your work to munch on a cinnamon bun washed down by your favourite java.

It’s true; on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dogAnother sad case proves that it is true that on the internet, nobody knows who you are. In this latest case, an Australian woman did not know that a charming UK-based engineer was actually a scammer in Nigeria before it was too late.

Eight months after a divorce, Katie Stuart signed up to an online dating agency, and in time “met” and fell in love with a man, ignoring the tell-tale signs that all was not as it seemed, such as a persistent problem with his web cam, meaning she was never able to see her correspondent.

Another warning bell should have sounded when the man invited Stu-art to be part of a joint venture to ren-ovate a house in Florida requiring an investment of thousands of dollars, which she raised by drawing money from her mortgage and selling her car and jewellery, according to reports.

Based on e-mail evidence of paper-work that appeared to be genuine, Stuart was systematically fleeced of $100,000 before she was confronted with evidence that all was not well when she started receiving goods that had been purchased using fraudulent credit cards issued in her name.

Stuart is publicising her experi-ence to warn others how easy it is to be drawn into scams.

She is certainly not alone, with Australian consumer protection au-thorities recording about 900 calls a month about online scams and re-porting losses by victims of more than $5m in the past year.

Shopping trolleys with iPad docks coming to a supermarket near you?Sky and Sainsbury’s are here to rescue those of us who are forced to meander aimlessly around the su-permarket at the weekend, dragged away from the sofa and the lure of the beautiful game.

A Sainsbury’s store on Cromwell Road, West London, is trialling a trolley fitted with a solar-powered iPad dock and speakers. All you need to watch Premier League stars dribble skillfully down the wing, while you drag your feet down the fruit and veg aisle, is your own iPad and the Sky Go app.

One likely problem with this oth-erwise ingenious idea is that as users become more engrossed in what they’re watching, there is the poten-tial to lose focus of the world around you, along with control of the shop-ping trolley, which are not easy to control at the best of times. However, Sainsbury’s has this covered with… proximity sensors.

Downtime is unsure whether little beeps would be adequate to prevent enthralled users from mowing down an unsuspecting child who happens to be running amok in the aisles, but it’s better than nothing. ■

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Read more on the Downtime blogcomputerweekly.com/downtime

heard something amusing or exasperating on the industry grapevine? e-mail cw-downtime@computerweekly.com

13-mile tribute for Steve JobsJoseph Tame, a media producer and, you’d assume, big Apple fan, paid tribute to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs by running a half marathon in the shape of Apple’s world-famous logo.

By sticking to a very specific 13-mile route through the streets of Tokyo, Tame was able to recreate the Apple logo using two iPhones and the Runkeeper app. Two hours well spent.

Tame began his route near the Imperial Palace, jogged through Rop-pongi, and continued around Shinjuku to Kagurazaka. The Runkeeper app then used the iPhones’ GPS to create the piece of “trail art”.

This is not the first time Tame, a keen marathon runner, has recreated a logo using GPS. He has previously mapped out a nine-mile Twitter bird.

downtime

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Wednesday 12th October

10:30am 40G on UTP or shielded copper – reality or myth?

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11:15am Can cabling help support energy effi ciency? Rob Cardigan, Nexans

12:00pm Growth of IP solutions Mani Manivannan, Arup Communications

1:30pm Video over IP – convergence and picture quality

Mark Marriage, COE Limited

2:15pm Designing and implementing standards-compliant parallel optics networks within budget – a roadmap

Alastair Waite, TE Connectivity

3:00pm Contamination, inspection and cleaning of optical fi bre connections

Martin Warne, Exfo

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10:30am Parallel optical systems – purchasing, installing and caring for your system

Rosemary McGlashon, 3M

11:15am Trends in high effi ciency data centres Dr Ian F Bitterlin, Ark Continuity

12:00pm Taking a holistic view of data centre energy matters

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