And so...after some good times and bad, the highs and the lows, the peaks and the troughs, the ups and the downs of this crazy rollercoaster ride we call IT journalism, the time has come to hang up my blog writing, um, boots. I know that metaphor didn’t really work, but sod it, it’s my blog and I can do what I like, right?

Yes it has been a pleasure spouting off about IT this last year, and seeing this blog rise to the heady heights of number one on the Google rankings (well, when you type in ‘IT Week blog’). Being berated by bicycle couriers, sharing my moment of fame with the Hoffmeister general, touring Samsung’s printing labs in downtown Suwon...ahh the list goes on, for a bit. It’s better this way though, my efforts are needed at IT Week on more serious endeavours, like Sneak, and soon, the terrifyingly exciting world of video. So maybe we’ll meet again on some distant web site in some far-flung corner of the internet, but until then, with tears, goodbye.

June 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5)

The nice people from Adobe met me the other day at a not very secret London location, I can honestly say for the first time. I’ve reported Adobe stories in the past but to be honest it has always been one of those companies whose products I shy away from, because to go there is to enter serious geek developer country, with products like Flex, Apollo (now AIR) and so on.

So it was a relief that the firm’s Jeff Whatcott started talking to me in plain English – well, American, but it was near enough – about how AIR can reach the parts other developer tools just can’t. Now I can see that it allows programmers to deliver applications with the “richness of the desktop but the reach of the web”, but I just had to take Jeff’s word for it when he explained it makes it possible to blend HTML, Flex and PDFs in a way never before possible, as they’re all treated as equal components. Similarly, Ajax “runs out of gas” when used for serious enterprise applications, unlike good ol’ AIR, he told me.

There were harsh words too, maybe unsurprisingly, for Microsoft’s Silverlight technology which he didn’t give a huge chance of success beyond creating micro apps like small portlets, because of the lack of runtime ubiquity – yet another thing for programmers to learn. Virtually no-one has the Silverlight runtime yet, according to Whatcott, and to get developers interested you really need around 80 percent of the web covered, where of course, Adobe has a bit of a lead. On the Google Gears front, the message was, more agnostically, we’ll have to wait and see which tool becomes the most popular for doing things like allow users to work offline with their web-based apps. As always, best laid plans often run awry when you leave it in the hands of those freakishly devoted and talented bunch of developers.

June 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6)

I met Anton Grasion, the EMEA security strategist of network security specialist Juniper Networks the other day. Over a calzone the size of a small child’s head, he told me about the rapidly maturing central and eastern European markets, the perils of zombiefied PCs (as I believe they’re known in the trade) and how most insider threats come from harmless simpletons. Which I suppose is already pretty much suspected by your average CISO anyway, although it doesn’t make it any easier to mitigate these risks; sometimes stupidity knows no bounds…

He also sympathised with IT directors given the thankless task of moving over to SOAs while trying to keep operating costs down – doing more with their network but without adding complexity. And Grasion maintained interoperability is key if you want to be successful in the industry, before explaining how Cisco’s business model has led to its forced entry into new markets. You can only get the most out of their network if they are the only provider, but as they become more successful the market gets more difficult to grow. Or so the argument goes.

There was a final entreaty before coffee to application, network and general IT security staff to work together more closely to create more coherent policy. The more companies adopt converged IP networks the higher the risks are likely to be and the more that risk needs to be balanced with the business benefits. Thankless task…but a nice pizza.

June 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Now, I've been thinking of doing a spot of decorating recently. I'm thinking what the hell, I might be renting but the landlord hasn't thrown me out yet so I must be trustworthy…let's get rid of those pink curtains and purple walls. But then the agonising choice, what colour to go for? Maybe some neutral pastels or perhaps something with a bit more character. Then my mind was made up when I saw BT is releasing a special (limited edition?) version of its Home Hub router, which apparently is "just the thing for any bachelor pad or modern home". I can think of nothing more desirable than a black router – it's what every stylish and single geek-about-town wants. But hurry, there is strictly limited availability…don't say I didn't warn you.

June 13, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

What do you think it takes these days to differentiate yourself in the overcrowded notebook marketplace? Dell has obviously tried in the past, but exploding batteries were perhaps in hindsight the wrong strategy to catch the imagination of the consumer. More successful will be its environmental commitments outlined on World Environment Day last week, especially its pledge to build the ‘greenest PC on the planet’ and become ‘the greenest technology company on the earth’.

Lenovo is doing a little bit better though…its Formula 1 sponsorship has been hard to miss; emblazoned all over the place, from Melbourne to Monaco, making the firm apparently now fourth in terms of global brand recognition in the world’s most glamorous motor racing competition. They’re also actually already the greenest company in the IT industry, according to Greenpeace thank you very much, pipping the likes of Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and, yes, Dell. And if all that wasn’t enough, they’re about to launch the most luxurious notebook PC…in the world ever, according to the firm's senior VP Milko van Duijl. Designed to for the highest of the high-end market, and to coincide with the anniversary of its Thinkpad range, the new box will include copious amounts of leather, apparently, and come with an integrated services offering, bells, whistles, and anything else you might think of.

June 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

The mobile web, the web in your hand (or whatever you want to call it), has had more abortive starts than my old Nissan Sunny, god rest its soul. Time and again the hubris of the mobile operators has got the better of them, they promised the moon on a stick but sadly download speeds were too slow, data packets too large, sites unwieldy and hard to navigate around, and, most importantly, prices were too high and tariffs unfathomable.

This generally gave everyone the perception that it just wasn't worth accessing the net from your phone, you might as well wait until you get home; at least everyone knows where they are with broadband. And from a site owner’s point of view, the proliferation of different handsets on the market makes it nigh on impossible to design a site which will render well on all phones.

Well, it looks as if things are finally coming together. Initiatives like .mobi are galvanising the industry to move towards standardisation, making mobile sites more user-friendly, faster and cheaper to download. And the operators have also got the message, offering flat-rate, broadband-like tariffs which are easy-to-understand, or transparent. Hot on the heels of T-Mobile and Orange, Vodafone this week launched its own web portal service, imaginatively entitled Vodafone Mobile Internet – wonder how many marketing man hours that one took to dream up.

It looks good though, and from a web owner’s perspective, it automatically renders fixed web pages into a format that makes them easy to read and navigate on a handset. Not that it’s perfect, while I was told it can intelligently decide to put things like log-in boxes at the top of a page, the IT Week site displayed in an unusual order, beginning not with the main headline stories but less interesting areas of the site. Either way though this technology, if it generally works, could be a differentiator for Vodafone as it means firms don’t have to spend time and money designing their own mobile sites if they don’t want to, although it would probably make sense to do so if they want to reach the broadest number of consumers possible.

Another thing to look out for with this service is a special localisation capability which firms can (wait for it) leverage to their advantage. Vodafone uses its network of base stations to triangulate the geographical location of individual handsets, so that more relevant content can then be pushed to the user. Happy customers, more revenue-making opportunities, more responsive web sites – everyone’s a winner.

June 8, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes the disconnect between what we report and the view from the ground is disconcertingly great, for whatever reason, so here's another quick dig in the ribs for IT managers. Anti-malware specialist Sana Security – yeah I know there's a vested interest somewhere, but they also have pretty good visibility into what's going on – renewed warnings detailing the why today's bots are growing at such a rapid rate, perpetuating spam, and launching malware and denial of service attacks.

The firm's Tim Eades explained how rootkit capabilities have become more advanced, making the little critters harder to detect, and how most bots now don't need the traditional 'bot herder' to control them. Because they often operate on a kind of P2P model nowadays, he added, they can be maintained by each other, making traditional methods of tracking down the system admin and shutting it down pretty pointless. While appliances can do 80 percent of the job of protecting the enterprise, therefore, firms would do well to look at a signature based security agent on the client side, with some kind of sandboxing or behavioural heuristics technology in place. Eades also encouraged firms to work with their ISPs more, as they are in the best position to spot, track and mitigate attacks stealing bandwidth, processing speed and sensitive information from organisations.

June 4, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Had lunch the other day with Richard Farnworth, the general manager of enterprise solutions at NEC. It's an unusual IT company in that despite a hundred year heritage in the industry and an incredibly strong track record of technical innovation, it still suffers from a perception problem among a lot of people – something of a well-kept secret. Part of this, explained Farnworth, is maybe because 90 percent of the stuff that the company makes is kept for the Japanese domestic market. But NEC has also been a victim of its own success in boldly moving 'beyond IT', as its mantra goes, and delivering holistic end-to-end solutions. In this way it's chosen as much for its delivery ethos as its products, so if a customer wants a different brand's technology as part of its solution, it shall be done.

That said, they're also working on some interesting stuff which could be pretty revolutionary for enterprises and governments around the world. One of these is smart CCTV technology which can monitor the movements of people and things and alert if there is any pre-defined unusual activity. This makes the whole process of monitoring more efficient and probably means less staff are needed to sit staring at their CCTV monitors, or twiddling their, um, thumbs, or whatever it is they do, I'm not going to speculate.

Another neat solution Farnworth told me about was invented to create more 'dwell time' for airport passengers, to encourage them to buy more duty-free. Working with the airport, the airline handling agents and other parties, NEC invented a solution to notify passengers how long it would take for their gate to appear on the departure boards, which could also be tailored to include texts when the gate is ready.

The firm's also heavily involved in biometrics, although it's an area like RFID which has so far failed to take off in the massive way that was predicted, argued Farnworth. One which is being trialed currently however is a solution which aims to segregate domestic and international airline passengers so boarding passes cannot be swapped in the departure lounge. The NEC answer is using biometric identifiers stamped onto the boarding card to uniquely tie one card to one passenger – something we're all likely to see in a few years time.

June 1, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)