Varied skills are an essential spend

Learning and training have always been discretionary spends for corporations (The demand for skills should not be demand-led, peterskyte.computing.co.uk).

If the UK is not to fall behind the rest of continental Europe, never mind such countries as India and China, UK firms - some of which are subsidiaries of global corporations often with US-based headquarters - must stop regarding vital investment in learning and training as non-essential.

In lean times, target the spend on immediate and  urgent skills training. In better times, allow employees to broaden their knowledge beyond just the known technical or workplace skills.

For example, let them learn a new language, or  follow a course in environmental studies or even on how to direct a stage play. Maybe none of these would have a direct or immediate application at work, but they would equip an employee with knowledge and skills that will, inevitably, come into play at some time   during their careers.

Government can play a part by assisting companies, perhaps through the taxation system, to provide financial incentives to continually re-skill the workforce.

Mick Matysiak

Maintain to gain

Producing a network security policy is the easy part. The hard part is actually enforcing it and managing the constant review process. Security threats never stand still and neither should a company's security policy (Case study: Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust).

A trusted security adviser can help organisations identify and manage the risks, as well as design, implement, monitor, review and amend the corporate security policy in the light of changing threats. But before outsourcing network security can be contemplated, a company and its chosen security
partner have to build up those high levels of trust.

Staff should never feel the impact of a good security policy; all they should ever experience are the benefits.

Scott Nursten

Ensure your host gives the most

As businesses, and particularly small and medium-sized businesses, rely  increasingly on the internet for core functions such as e-commerce web sites, email and hosted applications, any interruption in service is a huge concern.

In the current economic climate, every opportunity to sell must be maximised. Hosting providers have
become adept at building in get-out clauses to protect themselves, rather than their customers, in the event of failures - even when they appear to offer a 100 per cent uptime guarantee.

So when selecting a hosting provider, do not be bamboozled by marketing puff and false promises. Place
issues such as resilience,   customer care, hardware fix times and real-world service level agreements at the top of your list.

Ben White

21st century boy

Next-generation access is a key issue in avoiding the bandwidth crunch, but with BT's 21st century network (21CN) years from completion, it is not just the ISPs that ought to be concerned (iPlayer piling on the pressure on worried ISPs).

UK businesses that still run their communications through BT-based DSL or through ISPs that use the current BT network will inevitably start to feel the strain of outmoded copper wiring.

Even when 21CN is eventually unveiled, it must provide fibre to both the core and access networks
before it can offer a genuine next-generation network. Upgrading BT's access network will require significantly more investment, and the question of who will pay for it has yet to be understood.

We would welcome an  informed debate on how best to keep UK telecoms moving forward.

Stephen Beynon,
ntl:Telewest Business

Losing patients

What patients think about others having access to their medical records depends on what they have been told about who will have access (NHS must learn lessons on centralised patient records).

For example, what if men were told that if they are  prescribed Viagra it would be known by administrative staff for up to six months  after being issued? It is not just current medications that will be on the system.

What if they were told about the NHS secondary uses service, pharmacists,  researchers and so on - would that affect their view on access?

When I contacted a primary care trust about drugs such as anti-depressants, Viagra and medications used in a termination, they seemed to imply that this data would be uploaded. Would all women who had an abortion be happy about uploading anything that implied they have had such an operation?

Dave, submitted on the web

Cobol crippled my job opportunities

Legacy programming skills are somewhat required, but do not think all skills are
needed (Look to the future, letters.computing.co.uk).

I got my first job as a Cobol developer, which I have had for three years since graduating. I wish I had stayed away from Cobol and so should all graduates. It does not matter whether or not there are 70 billion lines of Cobol if you cannot get a job in this area.

I have been looking for work and finding it very hard to get a job. I am a  first-class graduate with a masters degree, and even with these academic qualifications three years of doing Cobol has crippled my chances.

All you have to do is type Cobol in a job search and there you have it - the last time I received just 40 hits. Cobol is dead in the job market. When you narrow down your search to London, there are only about seven hits.

Some developers say Cobol is not dead and that they have recently got a job. These people have probably been programming in Cobol for  a lifetime, so everyone is  competing with these guys for a handful of jobs.

A company might give people with Cobol skills lots of money to fix a bug, but how often do these bugs cause faults? You could be unemployed for years before anything goes wrong, waiting for your one-off big contract payment - it is too risky an investment.

I have three years' experience in Cobol and if another candidate has three years of Java, C or C#, I am out of the competition. Do not listen to those who say it does not matter what the language is, because it does.

I am now hoping to build on my skills at university and will keep trying to apply for jobs. I am also hoping to do some courses to refresh my knowledge in areas I have neglected over the past three years. Cobol should not be taught at university.

Peter, submitted on the web

Bad Phorm

David Evans wrote that: "A bunch of lunatics ranting about privacy are trying to prevent ISPs monitoring user connections, profiling them and then intervening by serving advertising. Do they not understand that the ISPs are simply trying to improve the customer experience? The extra revenue would be spent on much-needed infrastructure upgrades." (iPlayer piling on the pressure on worried ISPs).

I sincerely doubt the ISPs are trying to improve the customer experience. As far as I recall, Phorm - the company at the heart of this reference - is working with a couple of ISPs with a product that will use deep packet inspection to intercept and read your personal traffic between you and the web sites you are reaching, which is itself of questionable legality.

The company promises faithfully that it will ignore personal data and just extract keywords which will be used to provide targeted advertising. One has to simply trust this company.

If such a company were involved in, say, adware deployment or perhaps rootkits, one might take a different view. The analogy often quoted asks how you would feel if all your personal mail were opened, scanned, resealed and the data used by the postman to select which  advertising flyers you should receive. Of course, the   postman promises not to  actually read anything.

Do you really think it is  lunacy to be concerned?

John K, submitted on the web

Malcontent ISPs

The only bunch of lunatics are the ISPs. They have oversold their services to customers, and the market
is so competitive they fear increasing prices. (iPlayer piling on the pressure on worried ISPs).

So they want to sell their customers' privacy to spyware vendors instead. Using what value proposition? Simply steal valuable content from the content creators - smart plan. Or at least, it would be if you could get away with it.

When ISPs start stealing and abusing content to entice people away to competitors, content providers will start getting annoyed. When that happens, you will see net neutrality has two sides. Not to mention commercial and legal disputes.

Pete, submitted on the web

Fight for your patent rights

Despite calls to introduce pure computer software patents in the UK, many observers will be encouraged to see the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) appealing the recent Symbian court decision (Confusion reigns on software patents). It is worth reflecting on the importance of this move.

Judging from the US, where pure computer software patents can be granted, the evidence of success in
extending patent law in this field is mixed. The software industry in the US grew exponentially without pure software patents, suggesting they are not necessary to promote innovation and, rather than acting as an incentive, prevent competitors from developing in a similar field.

Extending patent law in this case is widely recognised as unworkable, particularly in a field where
innovation is usually accomplished in increments too small to be viewed as inventive steps, and where freelance businesses use the free and automatic protection of copyright protection.

Introducing pure software patents could raise the costs for small software developers to mitigate against risks surrounding research and development, thereby inflating the capital needs of  software development.

The government-commissioned Gowers Review of Intellectual Property agreed with this position, and recommended that changes in the current position on pure software patents, business method patents and gene patents should only be  made in light of economic evidence that they would enhance innovation to offset the considerable costs.

Many commercial and  individual software developers are glad the UK IPO is  taking a stand to listen to all interests in our industry, not merely vested practitioners.

Laura Creighton
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
www.ffii.org
Shareholder Report
www.reportlab.org

Pieter Hintjens
Director Imatix Ltd
www.imatix.com
General Secretary European Software Market Association (ESOMA)
www.esoma.org

Aidan Maguire,
Director Blue Fountain Systems
www.bluefountain.com

Patents are losing their shine

It is a pity that this kind of legal action only stifles progress (High Court rewrites UK software patent rules). Imagine if someone had patented binary or the alphabet.

Introducing patents to software is the reason all the big software companies are embroiled in constant court battles. Every company seems determined to patent every software concept they can, knowing that it will screw up some other software producer's ideas.

Ah well, one of the few remaining bastions of the UK's computer industry is destroyed.

Andrew, submitted on the web