Articles about Information Technology

More than two thirds of network managers in the UK consider the digital strategy an important part in tackling competition. However, almost half (49 percent) look at legacy technologies as something that’s holding them back in this endeavor.

This is according to a new report by Axians UK, released earlier today.

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Companies are ramping up investment in digital transformation, and it’s showing. This is according to a new report by Arvato, which says Q1 2017 was the strongest in the last five years when it comes to the UK’s private sector outsourcing market.

During Q1, businesses have agreed deals worth £2.42 billion. The Arvato UK Outsourcing Index, created in partnership with NelsonHall, says this is the "largest private sector spend since Q4 2011."

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The way we work is transforming at an extraordinary rate. Explosive progress in the technology industry, demonstrated by the fact that digital tech investment reached £6.8 billion last year, creating 1.64 million jobs as a result, is unavoidable. Despite this positive influx of job roles, there is a mismatch between the volume of positions available and the skills that are required to do them.

To be able to maintain a grasp of its competitive edge within a global marketplace, the UK must begin to tackle the ever-increasing skills gap.

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The IBM mainframe has been a stalwart platform for enterprise computing for the last 50 years. There are not many technologies you can point to that have survived that long and remain a key component of many companies’ IT infrastructure. Its survival should be lauded, but the question remains: "Is it the only game in town for enterprise computing?"

That answer is a resounding "No." The mainframe is a combination of hardware and software that is arguably unique to all other computing offerings available in the marketplace today. That doesn’t make it a bad platform, but it does limit its opportunities for growth. It is a proprietary platform, only available from a single vendor -- IBM.

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When it comes to meeting future demands, IT leaders in the UK are lagging behind those in Germany and the US. This is according to a new report by Brocade, entitled Global Digital Transformation Skills Study. The report is based on a survey of 630 IT leaders in the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore.

It says that organizations are "at a tipping point" -- a point in time when technology demands are just about to outstrip the skills supply. Consequently, those that train their staff now and prepare for the future in that respect are the ones that are setting themselves up for a successful future.

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Four out of five business leaders think their industry will get positively disrupted by digital transformation within the next three years. This is according to a new report recently released by Microsoft and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.

"A vast majority (80 percent) of the 783 survey respondents believe their industry will be disrupted by digital trends," the report states. "And most of those (84 percent) said their industry has either passed the inflection point of disruption or will pass it by 2020 -- just three years away."

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More than half (52 percent) of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK’s IT sector have no idea what they’d do if key staffers decide to quit. This is according to a new report by the Aldermore Future Attitudes, which claims these businesses are lacking a succession plan.

The report puts things in a dangerous perspective -- 22 percent of SME IT businesses see senior executives leaving as their biggest business threat.

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There is a high degree of mistrust when it comes to the technology sector managing people’s personal data. This is according to a new report from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), that got released late last week.

According to the report, just six percent of the public trusts businesses in the technology sector to handle their personal data responsibly.

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Demand for IT contractors has strengthened over the past six months despite the uncertainty caused by the vote to leave the European Union. At first glance this seems counterintuitive.

Historically, contractors have been the first into and first out of a period of economic malaise or even just uncertainty. The fear was that the EU referendum result would send the jobs market into a tailspin, and that contractors would be first to feel the pain. They are, after all, a flexible resource and it is much more cost effective for organizations to divest themselves of contractors than employees. In the months leading up to the referendum last June, that is exactly what we saw. Demand for contractors weakened as organizations hesitated over their IT investments until some measure of clarity was achieved.

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The IT infrastructure landscape is in the middle of a massive change. The proliferation of point security and networking appliances continues to drive up IT cost structures. Cloud adoption and the shift to a mobile workforce has made connectivity between entities other than physical offices ever more critical. Buying more point-solution or continuing to running networks separately only adds more complexity and cost.

Instead we’re starting to see the convergence of IT. By moving towards a simpler infrastructure with fewer point solutions, we reduce the costs and complexity plaguing our current IT environments. This trend is playing out across four IT tiers: networks, appliances, services, and management.

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It’s no surprise to anyone that the UK is in the grips of a legacy technology crisis. But, in an age of digital innovation it’s not acceptable that so many organizations are still running on technology that should have been left behind over a decade ago.

The golden rule with technology in any organization is to not lag too far behind. Equipment that is old, breaks down or slows work activity will have significant effects on the motivation levels of employees, and it’s already giving way to a negativity epidemic in UK offices.

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The UK is cementing itself as a hub for technology and as a clear leader in Europe when it comes to digital tech investment, digital skills and collaboration within ecosystems. This is set to continue as the latest Tech Nation Report revealed that digital tech investment is increasing -- reaching £6.8 billion, 50 percent higher than any other European country. This rising of the UK’s tech credentials is now vital for business growth, connectivity and efficiency; and the the benefits aren’t exclusively being seen in London.

Technology allows businesses to transcend geographical boundaries and we’ve experienced this for ourselves. We founded the company in Wales, but can do business anywhere in the world. Tech Nation found that the digital tech sector has added nearly £400m to the Welsh economy and we at Delio are proud to be a part of that driving force. This impressive growth rate shows that perceptions about starting a tech business outside of London and specifically in Wales is changing.

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Since the process to exit the EU was triggered by Theresa May on March 29, 2017, concerns have been expressed by various sectors about their ability to retain talent and recruit talented workers from the EU. Interest groups and industry bodies are lobbying to raise their concerns.

At the moment, workers from the EU (when we refer to EU workers in this article it includes the EEA countries Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein and Switzerland) are not subject to immigration control and do not need a work visa to work in the UK. The tech sector in the UK is reliant on a diverse workforce. According to techUK, 18 percent of the sector’s three million workers are foreign born, with one third coming from EU countries. Employers in this sector need to recruit the brightest and the best in this competitive market. If they are not able to do this they will lose out to competitors at home and abroad. Smaller tech companies will suffer the most as they will struggle with the costs and time involved in applying for visas and this could put them at a disadvantage.

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With its greater performance, reliability, and scalability, it is little surprise that we’re seeing a boom in  the deployment of public cloud services. According to a recent survey by Gartner, companies consider public cloud to be both the most disruptive and most impactful issue facing them in 2017. In fact, IDC predicts that the worldwide public cloud services spending forecast will double to more than $141 billion by 2019.

For most organizations, this first venture into public cloud has been in deploying new applications to engage with their customers (systems of engagement). Now, having successfully used public cloud platforms for these new applications, a growing number of application development and delivery leaders want to bring the same benefits of fast delivery, high security, and cost flexibility to core business applications.

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Years ago, comedian Steve Martin joked about the best trick to play on a three year-old kid: "Whenever you’re around him," he said, "talk wrong." On his first day at school, the kid will raise his hand and say, "May I mambo dogface to the banana patch?"

Pitching a project for implementing DevOps at your company can make you feel a lot like that kid. To you, the ask is crystal clear. To your executives, it’s mumbo jumbo. Why? Because if you’re like lots of technical folks, you’re using technical terms to make your case. However, "technical" is not the language that your management team speaks when discussing new processes and tools. When you’re asking to "mambo dogface," they’re thinking about things like, "How many people do I need to implement this?" or "How many people will need to be trained?" and "How long will it take them to become proficient?"

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