News and analysis to 30th November 2007
IT Industry to save the planet
The burden of saving the planet falls to the IT industry if
the recent United Nations IT Infrastructure conference in New York is anything
to go by. The US government informed technology vendors that the IT industry
was creating centres of ‘obscene’ waste. The vendors have taken this to heart
and were quick to present their latest offerings as planet-saving eco-friendly
tools. Interestingly Google is about to sink hundreds of millions of dollars
into researching renewable energy sources.
Is this an altruistic move or is Google planning to add energy provision
to its suite of desktop tools? If Google sticks to its business model, the
energy will be free. However energy users will be subjected to adverts that are
context sensitive to the device being powered.
UK and Israel are hot beds of tech growth
According to Deloitte Technology the UK is home to 91 of the
500 fastest growing tech firms in EMEA. However Israel is producing companies with
the most impressive growth trajectories; it secured the top three rankings.
Ireland and the Netherlands were also well represented. Despite current
economic unrest EMEA appears to be showing no signs of weakness, unlike the US. US airport authorities should be on the
lookout for venture capitalists attempting to leave the country with briefcases
stuffed full of dollar bills.
Web 2.0
A quick way of establishing whether the person you are
talking to at an IT soiree has a clue about IT is to drop the term web 2.0 into
the conversation. If they smile or nod knowingly this is a strong indicator
that their core expertise is in winging it when discussing IT matters. This
observation has been formalised in research commissioned by IT services firm
Parity. Only one third of UK IT managers said they understood Web 2.0. The
other two thirds were presumably busy updating their social networking
accounts.
Hey there wait a minute Mr Postman…
The UK Government has set a new high (low) in terms of the
number of people compromised by an IT related incident. Approximately 40% of
the UK population were impacted by the UK Government’s loss of confidential
child benefit data. There are at least two worrying elements to this. The first
is that the data should have been desensitised but this was seen as too costly
given the rigid relationship with the IT supplier. Secondly the data was
dispatched in a very unsecure manner via a private postal service. This will
hopefully stall other nationwide IT initiatives involving citizens’ data until
an appreciation of security is understood and practiced at all levels of the
public sector. The second worrying
element is that this fiasco highlights the problems associated with outsourcing
critical aspects of your IT to a third party organisation using a commercial
model that encourages and enables corner-cutting with respect to security.
Neither the Government nor the service provider blocked this. If you should
find the wayward data please ring the UK Government. Failing that, please refer
to the data in your possession and ring one of the 25 million families
affected.
DTEDS
According to the FT, Deutsche Telekom is planning to acquire
outsourcing giant EDS. The aim would be to merge the US outsourcer with its
T-Systems division and spin both out as a public company. It would be simpler
and less costly for EDS to buy DT’s ailing IT and networking services division.
However it would have a brand diluting impact on EDS, as this would be a move
down the IT food chain.
EU double takes on DoubleClick
Google’s plan to acquire
online advertiser DoubleClick was dealt a blow recently when the European
Commission announced that it would take an in-depth look into the potential
$3.1bn deal. The lingering feeling is that the deal would give Google too much
control over the online advertising market. Microsoft is likely to be
sniggering in the background, as it was an unsuccessful bidder for DoubleClick.
Oddly Microsoft acquired ad outfit Aquantive in August for $6bn, in a deal
approved by the European Commission. Possibly this is all part of the recent
Microsoft-European Union antitrust settlement?
IBM Cognoscent of BI marketplace
IT services giant IBM has launched a $5bn bid for business
intelligence software vendor Cognos. It was just a matter of time before the
last of the tier one BI players was Pac-manned. Recently Sap acquired Business
Objects and earlier in the year Oracle acquired Hyperion. It would appear that
both parties have been preparing for this marriage. IBM has built an
Information Management division that is in need of a BI bolt-on. In turn Cognos
has reengineered its product to sit nicely on IBM software. Now that the big
three BI vendors are spoken for, the remaining independent players can develop
their cross platform (IBM, Oracle, Sap) capabilities, and charge a premium for
what will be a much needed service.
