Digital Britain? In your dreams

Ever wondered why you dream? There’s no shortage of theories out there, from Sigmund Freud’s view that dreams are disguised fulfilments of repressed wishes, to one that views dreams as a test drive for new ideas, and another that thinks dreaming is just the brain cleaning up mental clutter ready for the dawn of a new day.

Taking Freud’s wish-fulfilment view, how many out there are dreaming of a UK-wide optical fibre-based network? Not many, I suspect, especially after the publication last week of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report.

The thing that really gets steam coming out of my ears, is Gordon Brown’s speeches on how important all this is to the UK economy. Comments such as: “We can’t leave this to chance,” and: “The UK will become the digital capital of the world,” would seem to suggest that he understands how important this is to UK plc. The government’s actions fail to match such rhetoric.

Which other country still has an agency ­ a Valuation Office Agency, to be precise ­ that considers optical fibre in the ground as a taxable asset? In fact, the tax only applies when the fibre has data going through it, and it gets worse, because the rating system favours large carriers with large numbers of fibre connections. For small carriers rolling out a few fibres, the charges are harder to swallow.

There is simply no financial incentive for these smaller ISPs to roll out fibre to the 25 to 30 per cent of the country that Carter has said will miss out because it is currently economically unviable.

Let’s move on to one of the big winners of Digital Britain ­ BT, and in particular its Openreach division. Ofcom is already consulting on proposals that would give Openreach control of those green cabinets you see located on most streets.

Openreach is the organisation that will be connecting up ISPs who want to roll out next-generation connectivity to your house. However, its record for doing the same for businesses in the UK leaves a lot to be desired, according to some ISPs I have talked to.

The main issue is a lack of transparency when it comes to connection charges. You can sign up to BT Wholesale for fibre connections, and then later down the line get hit by Openreach charges for connecting that fibre.

And some of these charges are no laughing matter. An ISP I spoke to recently had a nasty surprise after it checked out how much a fibre connection would cost in a large city centre. “You can use the BT Wholesale pricing tool and come back with a nice figure that looks very good, but when you order it, Openreach comes back with extremely high additional costs indicating excess construction charges,” said my source.

“Look at the charge for drilling a hole,” he added. “More than £300! What type of drills are they using ­ gold-plated ones, badged by Armani?”

You get the picture by now, but remember the government and Ofcom has conceded that BT has to make a return on its investment; the question is ­ just how much? If the Openreach charges relating to connecting up fibre for businesses are any indication, ISPs, and that includes BT Wholesale, should prepare to get stiffed big time.

So instead of dreaming about a Britain with state-of-the-art network infrastructure, I’m reminded more of the Ellen Ripley character in the Alien movies. In the last film of the series, Alien Resurrection, Ripley is once again trying to rid the universe of the bio-mechanoid killing machines. At one point she’s chatting to the obligatory android and says: “I don’t dream any more.” When asked why, she answers: “Because however bad the nightmares get, when I wake up ­ the reality is always worse.”

Ring any bells?

Digital USA - $7bn broadband handouts from Obama, but no takers

A report in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration will be shovelling out $7.2bn for stimulating broadband rollout looks to be another case of the US showing the UK how things should be done.

But, hang on a minute – none of the big US carriers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast have started to fill out the forms for this cash bonanza.

The reason looks to be the US communications regulator applying a shedload of red tape to the contracts and putting profit-sapping restrictions on network connections built with the funds.

On this side of the pond, UK regulator Ofcom and BT have already shaken on the deal, and allowed BT to make a good “return on its investment” for rolling out optical-fibre connectivity for high-speed, 100Mbit/s-plus connections.

So it looks like a tale of two countries, with the US carriers begging for Ofcoms approach to regulate future government “broadband stimulus”, and BT saying “not in my backyard” to the fiscal strictures being applied to US carriers if they bring their wheelbarrows along for some broadband funds.

As Joe Brown once sang – "What a crazy world we're living in!"

By Dave Bailey

Why it pays to be more social

Since the end of the world as we knew it, we have witnessed a rollercoaster of events in the economic world order and experienced feelings ranging from uncertainty and panic to a brutal reality check and, lately, hopes of a possible recovery.

For many, the post-recession technology heritage will be a portfolio of postponed projects and an IT shop cut to the bone. But how can IT leaders keep things running and return to growth with limited resources in the upturn?

Future challenges are not related to technology, but how to use it as an enabler. This may sound familiar, but chief information officers (CIOs) are looking even more similar to chief operating officers, as they put IT into the context of the new business imperatives.

CIOs across most of the UK’s biggest companies are leading IT transformations, but the smartest are realising the need for more partnership, inside and outside the business, so that such projects can be completed successfully.

A good example is banking. Its need to drive more segmentation, retain customers and rebuild their trust is urgent, as is the creation of better risk management and compliance frameworks. Unsurprisingly, a lot of change is happening.

Collaboration technology can help leaders to identify change agents and expertise within the business. Change is often concerned with altering the way people do things, so if teams can identify someone who can spread the benefits of projects via strong networks, staff become more efficient and risk can be minimised.

A major UK bank, for example, is planning to use an analysis tool to support its merger with a European institution. This will help it reach out to staff worldwide and improve co-operation by examining email content to identify people with relevant knowledge and expertise.

“Such tools are definitely worth the investment, even when it is so difficult to get money to do new things and when there are so many old things to fix,” said the head of innovation at the bank.

Decisions related to multi-sourcing, integration or cost cutting may seem daunting. But seeking advice from internal partners, suppliers and peer groups to react to market changes -­ and justifying projects that will help understand what the business needs ­ should be one of the steps towards becoming a proactive, valued CIO.

By Angelica Mari

Digital Britain – finally

Tomorrow afternoon in a building designed by Scottish neo-classical architect Robert Adam, close to Charing Cross railway station, Lord Carter of Barnes will rise to his feet and deliver the final Digital Britain report.

RSA House is the venue for the report's final disclosure. However, Lord Carter is still working on the implementation plan which will fill in the detail about exactly how all the mission statements will be delivered – the who and when – and hopefully the how much.

I'll be at the event, and I would like to think I'm going to hear something amazing tomorrow, that Carter will blow everybody out of the water with a succession of stunning announcements designed to move the UK's communications infrastructure into the 21st century. So, are we going to get visionary thinking from Lord Carter - or a point release of January's interim Digital Britain report plus small tinkerings at the edge?

The big problem for Carter is that he's hamstrung by the government's aversion to stumping up a serious amount of folding drink vouchers to deliver the proper digital IT infrastructure needed by the UK to compete effectively with our global competitors.

At the last forum organised to discuss Digital Britain, Gordon Brown took the stage and said: "We can't leave this to chance." Unfortunately I suspect that is precisely what will happen after tomorrow's announcement - Brown will be leaving the country at the mercy of Lady Luck, and if his recent luck is anything to go by, that doesn't bode well for the digital future of the UK.

By Dave Bailey

Is this the start of something big?

I am too young to remember when Google broke onto the scene. Considering I only started using email with a university account in 1997, and tentatively exploring the web a little after that, it is fair to say that I arrived quite late to the technology party.

It would also be pretty fair to say that I was looking the other way, or more likely, trying to get older kids to buy Newcastle Brown at the corner shop for me, when most of the great technology events of the past decade or two occurred. But I might finally have cracked it this time, with Wolfram Alpha.

Created by British-born scientist and all-round brainbox Stephen Wolfram, it is what he calls a “computational knowledge engine”, and therefore differs from search in a few vital ways. Which is just as well, because despite new search engines launching every few weeks, Google still has the lion’s share of the market.

Some, such as Oparla, have tried to differentiate themselves from the competition by offering users the chance to win money by searching, while others, such as Yauba, say they can offer privacy protection. Another, MelZoo, previews search results on the right-hand side of the screen. All seek to do something that web behemoth Google cannot do, but so far none has met with much success. This is because most human beings are creatures of habit, and they have by now grown rather used to using Google to search the web.

Wolfram’s bid to be inducted into the digital hall of fame, however, does not rest on out-Googling Google, but providing a rather different kind of service.

Put simply, Google looks up web pages that may contain the answer to your query, whereas Wolfram Alpha reads and processes your query before computing the answer. Well, in theory anyway.

To explain fully how it does this is beyond my capabilities, for reasons I alluded to at the start of this column. However, in Wolfram’s own words, the technology aims to “explicitly implement methods and models, as algorithms, and explicitly curate all data so it is immediately computable”. Simple.

And Wolfram and his team have tried to do this with a combination of automated help from his Mathematica computational software program, and lots of human experts.

Now with all that complexity going on behind the scenes, Wolfram has been wise to keep the user interface pretty clean ­ there is only one input field, much like Google.

There have, however, already been some complaints, including accusations that the site is not web standards compliant, and that the engine cannot understand users’ queries. Early feedback on the Wolfram Alpha blog points to disgruntled users failing to have their “simple” questions, such as “What is the highest building in London?”, answered. And yet the same engine can hazard a guess at “How many fish in the sea?”. Total ocean fish biomass, in case you were wondering, is estimated at 2,000,000,000 metric tons.

This is a project that will never be finished, says Wolfram, so perhaps it is a little early to judge this effort, especially given the vast number of man hours and computing resources that it has taken to get it this far. Remember, Google wasn’t built in a day and Wolfram’s pet project is still an alpha.

It is probably best not to rely on Wolfram Alpha just now for any mission-critical tasks, but given the extraordinary potential, it is well worth keeping tabs on it. Just think ­ I might yet be able to claim one day that I was there at the birth of a technological phenomenon.

By Phil Muncaster

Smart meters lead to powerful communication challenges

As well as putting meter readers out of work, the government’s plans to install smart meters to remotely monitor every household’s gas and electricity use by 2020 may hit other snags.

Neither Whitehall mandarins nor the utility companies have yet outlined how they plan to pull off this ambitious project, preferring to muse on the potential reduction in the average household’s bills and national carbon footprint.

Smart metering works by replacing existing meters with equivalent devices that are able to transmit data about customer use to a central office via a communications network.

That network can be wired or wireless. Existing schemes use cellular GPRS and SMS communications, for example, which is unlucky for those living in areas with no reliable mobile phone signal.

Network transmission based on Wi-Fi, WiMax and other licensed and unlicensed radio wavebands is being explored, and there are wired alternatives such as analogue modems (dial-up over PSTN), broadband, and power line communication (PLC) where the electricity supply cable carries data.

Electricity supplier First Utility, which says it has already provided smart meters to more than 10,000 households in London, uses PLC, GPRS, SMS, PSTN and low-power radio (pagers).

The suppliers hope that, somehow, every household ­ even if they are halfway up a mountain where no existing phone or broadband operator offers a service ­ will be able to get their smart meter connected to head office one way or another.

The biggest winners are the electricity and gas companies, which get to remove a substantial part of their expenditure on the engineers who currently come out to read our existing meters.

And with so much consumption information at their fingertips, suppliers also get to match supply more closely to generation. So they know in advance when to deliver additional capacity in busy periods, and slow down supply at other times, and negotiate the best wholesale price accordingly.

So far there is nothing to suggest these private firms will be duty bound to pass on opex savings to consumers in the form of lower prices. Even then, only those with smart meters may benefit.

For those in deadspots, the traditional method of billing may continue, effectively creating a two-tier utility pricing system. Those living where smart meters work might get lower-cost power – ­ those who don’t could pay a premium.

By Martin Courtney

Time to become more sociable?

Many firms are still weighing up the benefits of rolling out social media technologies, according to a recent poll by Computing’s sister web site vnunet.com. Only seven per cent of the businesses surveyed use social media tools ­ – a surprise given recent reports that indicate social networks are now more popular than email.

Market research firm Nielsen recently reported that 67 per cent of internet users worldwide accessed social networks last year, compared with 65 per cent who used email.

The growing popularity of these tools means implementing them at work is relatively straightforward in terms of staff acceptance and training. But what do firms have to gain from such a move?

Social networks can be used to distinguish a brand from its competitors, especially now while sophisticated online media strategies are still relatively thin on the ground –­ it’s an opportunity to stand out.

Recently, I’ve been interrogating the collective mindset of the Twitterati, looking for insight into why people use our web sites ­ nearly all of them said our presence on micro-blogging site Twitter was a key reason why they remain loyal our brand. Twitter has helped connect the writers with the readership, making them appear more approachable.

Similarly, by allowing outsiders to contribute their views and influence opinion, a Twitter presence can give a business a reputation for having an open and engaging culture.

Other than marketing purposes, social tools can serve internal functions. One senior executive from a trusted household brand told me she analysed her co-worker contacts to understand relationships that exist in the workplace. She suddenly understood why certain people were getting better treatment than others. Perhaps social networks might contribute to a more level playing field, shedding light on “old boy networks” or other such bastions of inequality.

A growing number of executives are also using social tools to tighten relati ons with outsourcing providers and partners, as well as to better understand their customer base. I have found that I now form contacts through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn before I attend a conference and then use the event to solidify these relationships.

So what is holding companies back from deploying social tools? It is difficult to make a compelling business case for deploying a social strategy in the middle of a deep recession. Although many social tools are free, integrating them with a company marketing programme requires skill, time and investment.

However, done well, social strategies can be incredibly cost effective. For example, the huge publicity confectionery brand Skittles generated when it spent £100,000 on changing its traditional homepage into an online portal of feeds from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube would never have been achieved had the same money been used to pay for TV advertisements. Skittles was rewarded with 4,000 mentions in the news following the launch.

Less-adventurous firms may hesitate because they can’t envisage a formal way of measuring the results of social media marketing strategies. Businesses need to adapt to a new way of doing things, measuring performance through new metrics such as mentions on blogs, comments on content and clicks through to web sites.

Moderating social networks is another obstacle that may seem difficult to overcome. There have been a few scare stories in the news about how the openness of social networks can quickly dent an individual’s reputation. However, such scenarios can be avoided by hiring firms that specialise in managing user-generated content, such as Tempero.

If businesses do not want to jump in at the deep end with the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn, there are social suites available from enterprise vendors that might be a better place to start easing their workforce into the networking mentality.

By Rosalie Marshall - who Twitters at http://twitter.com/RosalieVNUNET

Cloud computing comes of age

Isn’t it time IT leaders stopped asking where software-as-a-service (SaaS) might be deployed in their business, and started wondering instead where it shouldn’t?

Recently, SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com celebrated its 10th birthday. This year it also became the first enterprise cloud computing company to reach $1bn (£700m) in annual revenue, and has about 1.5 million subscribers.

If you want an alternative snapshot of how far on-demand/SaaS/cloud computing ­ – whatever you want to call it ­ – has come, look no further than Serena Software, an application development tools provider that migrated more than 700 worldwide staff to Gmail, in about the time it takes me to get to and from work.

Here is a sizable company dumping Microsoft Exchange because it can get a cheaper, more efficient and no less reliable service from the cloud. All done in the blink of an eye.

A recent Forrester Research report confirmed that the model has evolved beyond its early roots in customer relationship management and human capital management applications and is now gaining traction in areas such as web conferencing, collaboration and IT service management. These categories will experience significant SaaS success over the next decade, says Forrester, with only business intelligence and integration technology vendors unlikely to adopt the model.

But what of the caveats to this brave new world? Gmail itself was rocked by an outage in February, which had the Twitterati tweeting furiously. It was only out for about two and a half hours, but highlighted the problems, some said, of letting loose consumer technologies in the corporate sphere, and especially of using cloud-based technologies ­ – it’s out of your IT department’s control, you see?

Well, it hasn’t bothered Serena. René Bonvanie, senior vice president of IT, told me that Salesforce, Google et al do a better job of uptime and transparency than most IT departments can manage, it’s just that outages are so much more vis ible with these vendors.

And as for security concerns – ­ they are no greater with Salesforce than they would be with an on-premise Oracle solution, he says. Recent privacy concerns around Google’s cloud computing services may rock the boat for a little while, but too much momentum has already gathered for this to spoil the SaaS party.

By Phil Muncaster

Users to Microsoft : Extend support for XP for one more year

More than 60 per cent of all the world's computers will cease to have full support from Microsoft from next week - it's security fixes only until 2014 for Windows XP.

No doubt the spin will be: "What's the problem, it's a mature operating system anyway, all the nastiest bugs have already been fixed."

Such comments may well be true, but it's the perception of the world's largest software company withdrawing support from its most popular operating system. It just jars somehow.

In fact it gets worse. If you look at Microsoft's lifecycle support web page, mainstream support for Office 2003 with service pack 3 installed also expires on the same date. So that's mainstream support for my operating system down the Swannee and probably my main office application as well.

So if your firm is using XP then only by signing up to a support contract within 90 days after mainstream support ceases do you get hotfixes.

By Dave Bailey

View from the US: And now for the good news

Last October, the head of Sequoia Capital, the top dog in Silicon Valley venture capital, called a now infamous meeting. The heads of the companies in which Sequoia had invested were ushered into a boardroom where, standing before them, was a gravestone bearing the epitaph “RIP Good Times.”

British partner Mike Moritz then began a detailed explanation of how bad the next few years were likely to be. Staff would have to be cut, budgets trimmed to the bone and all industries would be hit ­ business and consumer. Given Sequoia Capital’s clout and track record, the whole tech industry took the message to heart.

However, nearly six months later, the situation may not be as gloomy as some first believed. Redundancies have been bad but businesses are still buying they are simply more selective about IT.

A case in point is the move to green computing, which is receiving a double stimulus from government spending and the knowledge that it makes sense, because efficient technology saves money.

Likewise, mobile data also seems to be surviving. Mobile internet is taking off in the US in a big way now that services are being standardised. The duality of mobile phone standards in the US has left the country two steps behind Europe, and to an extent one behind Asia. But 3G has won out and there is now strong growth in mobile applications, particularly in financial transactions and location-based services.

But the really safe bet seems to be services. Salesforce.com and other software-as-a-service firms have seen a big uptake in business. It is partly the result of reliable web connections but also the cost savings involved. Buying software on CDs is seen as wasteful and so old fashioned.

Companies such as IBM have been seeing growth in software services revenue while hardware sales head in the opposite direction. IBM’s sale of its PC division to Lenovo is now looking like a very smart move indeed.

The one bright spot in hardware is mobile sales. The iPhone is making a play for the business market, although it needs much more application support to really make an impression; RIM is continually hitting the market with better BlackBerry models, and the new Palm Pre looks to be a smash if the company can deliver on time.

By Iain Thomson, US editor