Lee Evans joins peers from across the globe in the latest SMB 150 Channel Influencers list, which is announced annually by publishing and events company SMB Nation.
His recognition comes after a three-stage nomination process, and reflects him being highly active within the technology reseller community.

SMB Nation shares the knowledge of SMB technology trends through its magazine, conferences, books, online services and seminars and workshops.
Lee said: “SMB Nation has around 45,000 followers worldwide, so to be recognised in the SMB 150 is a great honour.

“What struck me the most about this year's list is its inclusion of channel members from all over the world, which is a real reflection of the diversity and strength of our global community.

“The competition process to make the list is very lengthy, and began several months ago with open nominations. After that the SMB IT community then voted for individual nominees.

He added: “Following the community vote, a panel of industry experts judged each nominee based on a variety of relevant areas.

“The community vote accounted for 40 per cent of each nominee's overall rating, with the expert panel's decision contributing the remaining 60 per cent.”

A major aspect that links all the 150 influencers is that each and every one of them has spent countless hours growing the SMB Nation community.

SMB Nation is a publishing and events company that delivers complete business solutions to help consultants and resellers better manage their business, technological and marketing needs.

When SMB Nation was established in 1999 its members focused on Microsoft Small Business Sever, but it has since grown to include SMB infrastructure alternatives, voice-over-IP, cloud computing and business technology consulting best practices.
 

IT suppliers have been pushing the idea of smart cities for five years, but they lack the long-term financial commitment to make them a reality, according to research by analyst group Ovum.

“It's not that IT companies don’t have a huge part to play, it's that their need for a 15-month return on investment makes it very difficult for them to engage,” said Ovum analyst Joe Dignan.

IT suppliers aim to draw on IT trends, including cloud computing, the internet of things and consumerisation, to create connected settlements that offer more intelligent services to citizens.

To read the full article on computerweekly.com please click here 

The programme was developed to enhance the sales and technical competencies of SMART’s reseller network. The accreditation represents the highest tier of product and service delivery. It gives business users confidence that AVM is able to provide the best customer experience and deliver a full range of services such as installation, training and customer support for the SMART collaboration and meeting room solutions.

Edward Cook, Chief Executive Officer at AVM said “Undergoing the accreditation program shows the commitment that AVM has to the SMART business products and allows us to become more effective in deploying these. The extensive training and technical knowledge that’s required means that AVM are best placed to advise customers and meet the needs of the market place.”

Martine Dodwell-Bennett, Sales and Marketing Director at Steljes, comments “I am delighted that AVM has made the investment in joining SMART's Reseller Accreditation Programme. AVM is one of the largest audiovisual integrators in the UK working with many extremely high profile clients. Their experience and knowledge within the corporate sector make them a key business partner in our progress within this market place. I am looking forward to strengthening our relationship with AVM and seeing them thrive as a pioneer within this programme.”
 

It was announced on April 13, at a hearing at Leeds Crown Court, that NextGenus UK CIC and Fibrestream Ltd, had been forced into Administration. NextGenUs CIC were the service provider who ran the wireless network in the villages of Newton and Stape. NYnet offered its full support to the community and CIC regulators to ensure the service remained up and running until a suitable alternative provider could be appointed to maintain a sustainable network. This has now been resolved and Quiet PC in partnership with Beeline Broadband are now the Internet Service Providers for the Newton network.

David Cullen, Chief Executive of NYnet Ltd said: “We have been asked by several communities in the past, what happens if the service provider goes bust, will there still be a network? We have reassured them that NYnet will take all necessary steps to protect end users and this is clearly an example of just such a situation. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a fact of business life in this economic climate.”

The project funded by North Yorkshire County Council through NYnet, began in the Spring 2010 and enabled access to high speed broadband for the residents of Newton-on-Rawcliffe and the neighbouring hamlet of Stape. Since then it has connected residents in the villages of Levisham, Cropton and Dalby Forest and continues to grow with more than 100 subscribers.

Before the project was rolled out the village of Newton-on-Rawcliffe suffered from a slow or nonexistent internet connection, which limited economic opportunities, further isolating the rural community. The project has helped reverse the trend of urban migration, enabling residents and businesses to remain in the village and stimulating the community’s economic and social regeneration.

NYnet provided fibre-optic based internet to within striking distance of the village, where it is beamed wirelessly to the rest of the village via the fibre hub at Lady Lumley’s School in Pickering. As a result of this initiative, residents are able to access broadband connections of up to 10Mbps.

Mike Steele lives at Kale Pot Hole five miles outside Newton on Rawcliffe. His nearest neighbour is half a mile away and the property is incredibly remote. Mike runs a holiday cottage and an events management company from his home. “I advertise my holiday cottage online and send and receive big files for my events management company. With my brother living in New Zealand, my daughter in Florida and my cousin in Venezuela I rely on the internet to stay in touch. If we were to lose the connection it would have left me and my wife very isolated. My businesses would have suffered and we would have really struggled to stay in touch with the family. We were very grateful to NYnet for stepping in and setting up the new service provider partnership with Quiet PC and Beeline Broadband.”

The Newton scheme was the pilot for community broadband projects and has helped secure grants from Defra and North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) for future projects. NYCC are expecting to fund a further 15-20 schemes built on the Newton model over the next couple of years. NYnet is also running a procurement to establish a framework (or list) of community service providers to operate schemes such as these, on behalf of NYCC and other county councils adopting a similar approach around the country. The framework will be in place to fall in line with the Connecting North Yorkshire initiative, which is due to award a contract in July this year for next generation broadband across North Yorkshire and York.
 

"The Beijing Olympics saw 12 million cyber security incidents during their Olympics," he said during a visit to the International Centre for Defence Studies in Estonia.

"We have rightly been preparing for some time - a dedicated unit will help guard the London Olympics against cyber attack – we are determined to have a safe and secure Games," he said.

Maude said that during his visit to Estonia, he would be discussing ways in which the two countries can share their experience in increasing business and government's resilience to cyber attack.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here 

Provident Financial, the UK’s leading provider of personal credit products, used the move of its Bradford headquarters as an opportunity to reassess its IT infrastructure and decided to relocate its data centre, which was formerly on site. The new deal, which builds on their previous relationship with data centre provider Node4, will allow Provident Financial to keep control of their equipment but have peace of mind that it will be housed in a suitable purpose built environment.

Provident Financial issued a tender to find a company that would help facilitate its move by providing it with a data centre that would be secure enough to host all of its vital data. At the same time, it was also important that this data centre would be within a close enough proximity to enable the technicians to gain easy access. As a result of this, Node4’s data centre in Wakefield was an ideal location for Provident Financial’s service.

Node4 supplied Provident Financial with data centre space with an infrastructure spanning two separate sites. It also provided a wide area network that connects the two data centres together resiliently, and also incorporates the Provident Financial head office. Within the service, Node4 also included ‘remote hands’ where its technical team can carry out minor jobs on Provident Financial’s behalf so frequent trips to the data centre aren’t necessary.

Andrew Clark, IT Transition Manager at Provident Financial, said, “Our original head office had a data centre in it that had grown organically. It wasn’t a purpose-built environment as such and there were a number of issues that arose as a result. We looked at building our own data centre within our new head office but there were a number of constraints such as space, power and cost. Being a data centre provider or builder isn’t our core competence. That’s what led us to go out and do an ITT to have a look at the market and ultimately we decided to work with Node4 for the project.

“The remote hands facility in particular gives us confidence. We can rest assured that the Node4 team know our environment and are more than capable to action our requests when needed and do the job as an equivalent to one of our IT staff when smaller tasks need performing.”

At its old data centre, Provident Financial had a large server estate which had a lot of dated equipment. There was a number of large enterprise class storage arrays, and the data on there was key to our business. Despite this, Provident Financial had just one weekend to make the transition. They were confident, however, that they would be moving their data to be housed with a provider that understood their needs.

“Node4 are an extremely capable, flexible and agile company who are at all times happy to meet our needs”, says Andrew Clark. “We put some non-standard requests to them, and they go out of their way to help us in any way, shape or form. The relationship we have with Node4 is one of the best ones we have with a third party. The service that we get, the sort of value-add, and the confidence that we get from the Node4 team is exceptional.”

 What is the EU Cookie Law

The EU Cookie Law is in essence a data privacy law that protects visitors to your website. It forces a business to understand what cookies and technology it is placing on users devices and what data the business is collecting about the user. In certain circumstances the law requires that you seek the consent of the website user before you use such technology. You can read more about the EU Cookie Law at the Agenci website here

Who does it apply to?

All websites.

EU Cookie Law in Practice

There is certain controversy in the business community about the various implementation methods and the impact on the user experience. What is absolutely clear is that compliance with the law requires that as a minimum you understand the risk and what technology your site is using. That you have performed a Cookie Audit.

The Agenci, Chamber Patrons, are working with some of the worlds largest brands on delivering compliance with the standard. With less than a month to go The Agenci are offering Chamber members an exclusive single site discount of 25% if signed up before the 10th of May. This represents a saving of £200 against the single site audit of £800. For the Chamber exclusive price the Agenci will perform a single site cookie audit and where appropriate issue a certificate of compliance. You can read more about the detail of the service at the Agenci website here

Your company will be breaking the law and subject to potential fines from the information commissioner if you are not compliant by the 26th May 2012. The reputational damage alone can be significant.

The presentation explored how virtualDCS implemented VMware’s vCloud director within their new Leeds data centre, covering the challenges and successes faced when deploying the solution. Asif Malik and Paul Sheard, two new vArchitects for the company lead the presentation in one of their first virtualDCS appearances.

“I really enjoyed presenting at the VMware UK user group and I hope that the presentation aided companies in managing and implementing this technology within their own virtual infrastructure,” said Asif.

Richard May, Managing Director of virtualDCS said: “It was a great honour for the team to present at the VMUG. We pride ourselves on using the best virtualisation technology, which is why we choose to use VMware in our solutions. Presenting at the user group was a welcome opportunity that we were happy to assist with.”

The founders of virtualDCS have pioneered the development of the Cloud Computing industry for over a decade. As one of the first companies dedicated to Cloud services in the world, businesses can be confident that they will only receive the finest solutions. Their approach is to work in partnership with clients to ensure that their infrastructure is ready to exceed the service levels demanded by their business.
 

The cloud operations represents just 3.79% of the online retail giant's overall business, which reported revenue of $13,185 for the quarter that ended March 31 2012, an increase of 34% over last year's first quarter results. However AWS appears to be the fastest growing area of the business, reporting 61% growth compared to 43% in the electronics business, and 19% in media.

Founder and CEO, Jeff Bezbos, highlighted the success of the Kindle Fire. He said in the first quarter, nine out of 10 of the top sellers on Amazon.com were digital products – Kindle, Kindle books, movies, music and apps.

Amazon has been running a conference in the UK to show why cloud economics makes sense. It is selling the idea of the Amazon cloud as a way for IT to keep up with business demands.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here 

The Open Day, now in its fourth year, has already signed more exhibitors than ever before and has moved to a new premise, at Carrwood Park, due to demand. With the IT industry worth an estimated £81bn per year, the Blue Logic event provides a great way to develop knowledge and expertise and keep updated with the latest technologies.
The Open Day is aimed at professionals and businesses in the local area who would like to know more about cost effective ways to improve their IT infrastructure, develop their knowledge on new technologies available in the market and learn how to take advantage of their current IT environment. Businesses can come along and speak with professionals, attend seminars hosted by Microsoft and SAGE, and receive free advice on new products and services to help get the most out of their IT.

Dave Helm, Director at Blue Logic said, “The Blue Logic Open Day event has grown in size and scale dramatically over the past few years, and we are proud to be able to offer this unique opportunity to Yorkshire businesses, as well as our current customers. As a business, it’s important to us to educate businesses on what is on offer within the technology market.”

He added: “The IT services market is changing, and customers want a competitive and innovative IT choice – the Open Day provides a showcase for this.”
Oliver Corrigan, Carwood Parks Manager said, “It’s fantastic that this event is coming to Carrwood Park. We look forward to hosting the event with Blue Logic, and welcoming businesses to our newly developed business centre.”

Lorraine McGill, Sage Business Partner Channel Development Manager said, “We have exhibited at Blue Logic’s open day for the past couple of years and found it to be an excellent platform to demonstrate how Sage and Blue Logic work closely together. The event has grown in size and prestige and allows us to showcase the great range of products we have to offer whilst meeting businesses face to face. As a Platinum Business Partner with Sage, they ensure the customer is always provided with the best business solution”

Free lunch and wine is provided at the event and the opportunity to network with industry leaders. To register for free, click here
 

Launched today, this is going to be the essential resource for the entire low carbon energy RD&D community. The Low Carbon Funding Landscape Navigator (link to www.lowcarbonfunding.org.uk) connects funding bodies to those looking for financial support within the low carbon sector. Commissioned by the Energy Generation & Supply Knowledge Transfer Network, with support from DECC, it allows users to search for all the latest funding opportunities in the low carbon arena and get help in finding the right partners to build collaborations for specific calls. Both public and private funders can add and manage their own funding opportunities.
Angela Donnelly, marketing director of Exbos, said: “We were tasked with creating an innovative system that would not only provide lightning fast searches but also include matching, validation and multiple user features”.
“We were awarded this contract in recognition of our own low carbon approach to programming. Our high calibre reusable libraries and tools cut our development time in half. We proved efficient code is green code and energy savings from working smartly are cost savings for our clients”.

About Exbos

Yorkshire based Exbos provide a range of bespoke internet and cloud software services. Their focus on constructing reusable high value resources and tools translates to faster delivery rates, higher quality software, lower development costs and a safe uninterrupted service.

Contact

Angela Donnelly 0113 229 0683
angeladonnelly@exbos.co.uk
 

The company reported second quarter revenue of $39.2bn, up from $24.7bn in the same period last year, with net profit of $11.6bn nearly doubling from $6bn.

In comparison, IBM's most recent quarterly results showed sales of $24.7bn, while HP reported revenue of $30bn – in the same period last year, IBM delivered the same and HP more revenue than Apple.

The record sales came from huge growth in device shipments – Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones, an 88% year-on-year increase; 11.8 million iPads, up 151% and four million Macs, up 7%. Only iPod shipments declined, down 15% to 7.7 million units.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here 

It has taken nearly three years, but the new rules on cookies are finally about to bite. By 26 May 2012, all websites must obtain user consent for the use of all cookies, as well as providing clear and comprehensive information about the cookies used. Getting this wrong is a recipe for disaster, as businesses who fail to comply may face investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office ( ICO ) - which has the power to impose fines of up to £500,000 - and it has made it clear that doing nothing is not an option.

Cookies are small files that are downloaded onto your computer or other mobile media device when you visit certain websites. Their main purpose is to allow the website to recognise your device. There are some concerns about the use of cookies as they store personal data about you.

The changes aim to give users more choice and control over what information businesses and other organisations store on their computers.

So what do businesses need to do?

STEP ONE: COOKIE AUDIT

Businesses should review which types of cookies and similar technologies they use and how they use them.

Identify which cookies are operating on or through your website(s)
Confirm the purpose(s) of each cookie
Confirm whether you link cookies to other information held about users – such as user names
Identify what data each cookie holds
Confirm the type of cookie – session or persistent
If it is a persistent cookie how long is its lifespan?
Is it a first or third-party cookie?
If it is a third-party cookie who is setting it?
Double check that your privacy policy provides accurate and clear information about each cookie.
Those cookies that are no longer used or that the business does not really need should be removed.

STEP TWO: ASSESS YOUR COOKIES

Each cookie should also be assessed to determine how 'intrusive' it is.

If businesses are using, or allowing, cookies to create detailed profiles of an individual's browsing activity, they will need to make achieving compliance for these cookies a priority.

STEP THREE: OBTAIN CONSENT

Decide on the best method for obtaining user consent. The more intrusive the cookies used, the more that will need to be done to get meaningful consent.

It is no longer good enough simply to tell users about cookies and allow them to opt out of using the cookies. Users must now give specific and informed consent to the use of cookies.

The ICO suggests that, for the more intrusive cookies, you could use a pop-up 'tick box' - although it recognises that this may spoil the experience of using the website if not implemented carefully.

A link from the homepage to the privacy policy alone is not sufficient, and the ICO has suggested that simple steps may help, such as changing:

the size of the link
the description of the link to include reference to cookies
the location of the link to make it more prominent.
The new rules do not distinguish between cookies used for analytical activities and those used for other purposes, and the ICO does not consider that analytical cookies fall within the 'strictly necessary' exception.

In practice, businesses will need to provide clear information to users about analytical cookies and take what steps they can to obtain consent. Equally, however, the Information Commissioner has stated that whilst he: "cannot completely exclude the possibility of formal action in any area, it is highly unlikely that priority for any formal action would be given to focusing on use of cookies where there is a low level of intrusiveness and risk of harm to individuals. Provided clear information is given about their activities, we are highly unlikely to prioritise first-party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action".

NO TIME TO LOSE

It was hoped that the ICO would take note of industry concern that additional regulatory burden on website operators would damage ecommerce and adopt a lenient approach to enforcing the new rules. However, this has not proved to be the case and the countdown to enforcement is now on.

Current figures suggest that nearly 92 per cent. of websites utilise cookies in some form or another, so if you are thinking that the new rules do not apply to you, think again.

In addition, according to KPMG, approximately 95 per cent. of companies are yet to comply with the rules.

Businesses should not underestimate the amount of work involved in achieving compliance and, if they have not already done so, should begin their cookie audit immediately.

Please contact any of the authors or your usual Walker Morris contact for further advice. 

BT’s investment in super-fast broadband in Yorkshire and the Humber is expected to give the region a massive boost, creating thousands of new jobs and start-up businesses in the next 15 years, a new report reveals today.
The report, by Regeneris Consulting, predicts the high-speed technology is capable of contributing hundreds of millions pounds to the regional economy.
It will allow existing firms to operate more efficiently and to develop new products and services and make it easier for new businesses to get started through increasing use of innovations, such as ‘cloud computing’.
The report predicts that over the next 15 years BT’s super-fast broadband investment could give the economy of a typical UK town a £143 million* boost , create 225 new jobs and 140 new start-up businesses, whilst for a typical city the figures are expected to be £296 million, around 430 new jobs and 320 business start-ups.
There is also expected to be a big surge in flexible and home working. The report says that the high-speed technology could result in about 1,000 more homeworkers in a typical UK town and around 1,500 in a city.
BT’s £2.5 billion roll-out of super-fast broadband across the UK has already made the technology available to more than 545,000 homes and businesses across Yorkshire and the Humber – and this figure is expected to pass the million mark by the end of this year.
The Regeneris report also examines the wider impact of BT in Yorkshire and the Humber through direct employment, expenditure with contractors and suppliers and the spending of its employees. It shows that BT last year gave the region a near one billion pound boost and supported more than 18,000 jobs in the region through spending with suppliers and the expenditure of its employees.
The overall beneficial financial impact of BT activities, including the roll-out of super-fast broadband, is expressed as a “Gross Value Added” (GVA)* contribution with last year’s BT GVA figure of £998 million representing more than 1.1 per cent of the region’s total.
John Anderson, BT’s regional director for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “This report demonstrates the great benefits that BT’s activities, including its major investment in super-fast broadband, are delivering for Yorkshire and the Humber and will continue to deliver in the years to come.
“BT is playing a vital role in the prosperity and well-being of the region from the massive economic boost provided by our activities to the 4,000 hours of volunteering activity carried out by BT’s people right across the region.
“BT’s plans to roll-out next generation broadband across Yorkshire and the Humber are already well underway. But we want to go further and would very much welcome the opportunity to have an even bigger impact on the regional economy by working with the public sector to make the high-speed technology available in more challenging areas.
“It is vital that we continue to grow and help our customers, stakeholders and employees to thrive as we work together to create a more prosperous Yorkshire and the Humber.”
The ‘Social Study 2012 - The Economic Impact of BT in the United Kingdom’ report analyses the positive contributions made by BT through the salaries and wages of employees and contractors, and the beneficial impact of its procurement and overall expenditure around the UK.
The report highlights that BT in Yorkshire and the Humber –
is responsible for the employment of more than 7,000 people – 5,590 direct employees and more than 1400 contractors – with a total income of £233 million;
provides work for a further 11,270 people through the company’s expenditure with businesses supplying its equipment and services and the spending of its workers;
spent £291 million with suppliers in Yorkshire and the Humber last year;
committed almost £2.3 million to community, charity and voluntary programmes in 2010/11;
has enabled about 75 per cent of its employees to work flexibly, with 641 homeworkers – nine per cent of the workforce.
More than seven million households and businesses across the UK now have access to high speed fibre broadband. BT is expecting to reach 10 million premises in 2012 and two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014. That involves BT laying more than 50,000km of fibre, enabling over 1,000 exchange areas and installing 30,000 street cabinets.
In UK terms, BT’s GVA contribution is assessed at more than £17 billion. It supports 274,000 jobs and last year spent £7.6 billion with UK-based suppliers.
BT also invested £684 million in R&D to support innovation in 2010/11, covering everything from scientific research to the development of new products and services working with customers, partners and universities around the world.
Stephen Nicol, Managing Director of Regeneris Consulting said: “The interesting thing about BT is that it provides a genuinely national impact. It benefits every town or city across the UK. It is also one of the single most important businesses for the UK economy. As a result of its full economic impact, BT supports £1 in every £70 of wealth created in the UK, making it one of the single most important contributions to the UK economy by any firm”.
The full report is available at www.btsocialstudy.co.uk . 

Business Talk is an A5 sized, professionally published magazine offering the latest in business technology information.

It also includes discussions on how technology changes and trends are affecting business, as well as the challenges and opportunities that the fast changing IT landscape presents to them.

The magazine is available completely free to owners and managers of businesses in the region.

The magazine will also be available at the many trade events and conferences that Vital Network Solutions exhibits at as well as online in digital format shortly after publication.

Lee Evans, managing director of Vital Network Solutions, said: “The aim of Business Talk is to keep our customers, clients and local business community up to date with the latest business developments in the technology industry and the challenges and opportunities they present to business.

“It also allows us to share our expertise and engage local businesses leaders in a jargon free and business focussed conversation; focussing on shareholder value, protecting business assets and improving profitability or the efficiencies that business technology can deliver.”

Interested business owners can contact Vital for a free print or digital subscription to Business Talk magazine by visiting www.vital-ns.co.uk.
 

Windows 8 Enterprise will be available only to businesses that have signed Software Assurance deals with Microsoft. Software Assurance is a kind of software insurance that lets firms upgrade to every new version of a specific product released during the life of the agreement.

Software Assurance fees typically run 23 to 29 percent of a desktop product's license price for each year of coverage.

The Google Apps Tips website was launched in February 2012 and has already attracted interest from Google Apps users worldwide.

The website is free to use and visitors can sign in with their Google Apps account to leave comments and share their own tips. The response has been very positive, the site has attracted over 5,000 visitors since launch and received hundreds of newsletter subscriptions.

Mark Williams, Senior Consultant at Refractiv said: "As a Google Apps Reseller we use Google Apps for Business internally, and naturally we share tips with each other around the office. Over the past few years we've shared some really nifty tips for Gmail with our clients, through training and support, which knock spots off things you can do with Outlook. It left us thinking - wouldn't it be brilliant if there was a site full of tips across all areas of Google Apps, that we could share and discuss with each other and with the wider Google Apps community?

"We couldn't find one, so we built our own and so far the response has been fantastic. We're now committed to adding new tips as we find them, and sharing them on gAppsTips.com means we can not only share them with our clients but also the worldwide Google Apps user community."

About Google Apps
Google Apps is a suite of office tools providing online email, calendar, documents and more. It is reliable, secure, web based "Software as a Service" with powerful, intuitive applications like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs.

It can help you reduce IT costs, manage information more effectively and enable employees to collaborate wherever they are.

About Refractiv
Refractiv, based in West Yorkshire, is a Cloud Solutions Provider and a Google Apps Authorised Reseller.

Refractiv provide a range of cloud computing services in support of your online business needs, including the design, development and support of advanced websites and web applications.

Leeds, United Kingdom, April 2012 – The news comes shortly after Asif Malik also joined the Cloud Computing experts as a vArchitect. New recruit Matthew Chamberlain will now be working within the company’s existing operations and support team, performing a range of duties including proactively monitoring customer servers and offering help desk support.

As a VMware expert Paul Sheard, be also working as a vArchitect for the team, where he will be proposing, specifying and building server virtualisation solutions. Paul commented on his new appointment stating that: “I’m thrilled to be working for virtualDCS; they are a highly innovative company with a number of large key businesses. I can’t wait to get started.”

Richard May, Managing Director of virtualDCS said: “We are delighted that Matt and Paul are joining virtualDCS. After winning a number of significant contracts, the business needed additional members of staff. Paul and Matt were the perfect candidates for the positions and we are very pleased that they have decided to work with virtualDCS. We are incredibly lucky to be a rapidly expanding company, especially within the current economic climate.”

The founders of virtualDCS have pioneered the development of the Cloud Computing industry for over a decade. As one of the first companies dedicated to Cloud services in the world, customers are confident that they will only receive the finest solutions. Their approach is to work in partnership with clients to ensure that their infrastructure is ready to exceed the service levels demanded by their business.

Knight Frank’s IT network delivers vast amounts of digital content, such as video tours of properties and graphic-intensive multimedia files for staff to use when helping customers. The existing ADSL network was unable to support the large number of multimedia applications it required.

The new network, which uses a secure IPVPN from Virgin Media Business, will not only provide the bandwidth to enable these applications, but will also increase resiliency due to it being diversely routed to Knight Frank’s two datacentres.

The network will be delivered as part of a five-year contract to support staff in Knight Frank’s 60 regional UK offices.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here 

Truste found an average of 14 tracking tools per webpage, which means a user typically encounters up to 140 cookies browsing a single site.

The study found that 68% of the trackers belonged to third-parties, usually advertisers, rather than the site's owner.

"The high level of third-party tracking that is taking place is certainly an area of question and scrutiny," Dave Desy, Truste's vice president of marketing, told the BBC.

"It's not illegal to do the tracking - the question is whether you are giving consumers enough awareness that it is happening and what you are doing with the data," he said. 

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here

CloudSearch is based on the A9 technology that powers search for Amazon’s retail website. Amazon said the search engine provides businesses with high throughput and low latency. It offers a query language which enables developers to search particular fields, perform complex Boolean searches, retrieve facet information, and specify the data included in the search results.

Amazon offers an automated setup for CloudSearch, which recommends search fields from a sample data set. Settings can also be customised from the AWS Management Console.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here 

Growth is the number one priority for the 229 CEOs Gartner surveyed in its CEO Survey 2012. CRM is the technology of choice to help businesses leaders achieve this objective, according to Gartner. The firm urged CIOs to improve IT-related competitor intelligence to help the business navigate the difficult economic climate ahead.

Gartner analyst Mark Raskino says the 2:1 ratio reflects IT’s resilience to change. “During the boom we did not see people throwing money at IT, and during the recession, they did not shutdown datacentres, but they did close factories.”

He expects 2012 will be a slower year for growth. “Things might get better, but the gut feeling among business leaders is that Chinese and Indian growth is slowing. There is a lot more headwind, and this will impact the propensity to increase IT investment," he said.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here

However, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG Report on Jobs found that agency temp/contract placements decreased. Despite this drop being moderate, the report indicated it was the fastest plummet in short-term appointments for the past two-and-a-half years.

The report suggests that this conversion from hiring temp agency workers to permanent staff has come about as a result of recently introduced Agency Worker Regulations.

The regulations, which came into play in October 2011, mean agency workers are now entitled to the same basic employment and working conditions as staff recruited directly.

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here

Globally, the company reported revenue of $10.65bn for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, an increase of 24% compared to the first quarter of 2011.

Due to a tax loophole, according to reports including one from Bloomberg, Google only pays 2.4% tax. Bloomberg reported that the search engine giant cut its taxes by $3.1bn in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

In the first quarter of 2012 Google reported it spent $1.28bn on data centre operational expenses, along with intangible assets, content acquisition costs, and credit card processing, representing 12% of revenues, up 10% from $897 million in the first quarter of 2011. 

To read the full article in computerweekly.com please click here

The analyst estimates that 119 million media tablets will be sold worldwide in 2012, a 98% increase from 2011 sales of 60 million units.

Apple's iOS continues to be the dominant media tablet operating system (OS), accounting for 61.4% of worldwide sales this year, despite the imminent arrival of Microsoft Windows 8-based devices and the expected international rollout of Amazon's Kindle Fire.

But Gartner predicts that by 2016, Google's Android OS will close the gap on its Apple rival, growing from 32% of the market in 2012 to 37% in four years, bringing the iOS share down to 46%.

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From 12 April 2012, Infinity will offer up to 76Mbps download speeds, up from the existing maximum of 38Mbps, with upload speed increasing to 19Mbps – which BT claims is the highest upload speed available in the UK.

Infinity is the telecom giant's fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) product, and is being rolled out as part of BT's £2.5bn programme to provide FTTC to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.

Higher upload speeds are becoming increasingly important to home broadband users who share photos and videos through social media sites. 

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Microsoft will also be granted licensing rights to about 300 patents that will be retained by AOL, according to the BBC.

As patent wars become increasingly common in the technology market, companies are seeking to strengthen their position by acquiring as many patents and licences as they can.

Several big companies, including Intel, Google and Facebook, have already acquired a large number of patents this year.  Google, for example, is in the process of buying Motorola Mobility in a $12.5bn deal that includes more than 17,000 patents.

AOL said the agreement with Microsoft was the result of a "robust auction process" and that a "significant portion" of the proceeds would be passed on to its shareholders.

In early April, Facebook announced that it was counter-suing Yahoo in an escalating patent battle between the rival internet firms. Facebook claimed Yahoo violated its patents covering photo tagging, advertising and online recommendations.

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Web development agency Vital Online Studio, in Harrogate, has expanded its services to include PR, social media and online marketing and has employed a former national journalist to lead its new venture.

Richard Hamer has worked online since 1999, having previously been employed at the Press Association’s new media division, as well as being an independent consultant since 2006.

Vital’s clients frequently ask about public relations and social media services when they are having a new website built as they often do not have an in-house capability, and the company has responded to this demand.

Andy Topps, Vital Online Studio sales director, said: “Richard has worked closely with us for some time helping to develop our online presence, so we are pleased that he has joined us on a permanent basis.

“From talking to our clients we know there is great demand for these new services which sit very comfortably with what we already offer, and will help us become a major player in the Yorkshire web development sector.

“Richard’s remit is to manage client’s social media sites and email marketing, as well as online and offline news and blogs; and this will be help greatly when pitching for new work.”

Richard Hamer said: “Having worked with Vital Online Studio for some time now I’m keen that the company is able to add to its services as it looks to become a more rounded agency.

Vital Online Studio, which is part of Vital Technology Group, has a growing client portfolio across Yorkshire, the North East and Lancashire, and has enjoyed its busiest spell for several years.

Its clients include Laver Leisure, Pentland Wholesale and Mabey Hire as well as the award-winning Yorkshire brewery Rudgate.

Launching on 1 May, the ‘Smarter Healthcare Locally’ campaign will visit 40 locations across England in a three-month rolling programme. The free events will inform CCGs, GPs and practice managers about how they can use EMIS services to save time, cut costs and improve patient care as they meet the challenges of new ways of delivering health services.

Each event will include

• A morning strategy session for healthcare commissioners and providers, covering: tools for cross-organisational reporting; audits and data extraction; managed referrals and QIPP.
• An afternoon of presentations and hands-on demonstrations from clinicians who are already using the company’s transformational system EMIS Web for groundbreaking work in a range of areas, from out of hours care to community-based minor surgery.
Visitors who are too busy to attend for a half or full day can visit a drop-in room where local EMIS operations managers will give on-the-spot consultations.

Sean Riddell, Chief Executive of EMIS Group, said: “In Smarter Healthcare Locally, we are addressing some of the major challenges now facing CCGs and frontline staff – demonstrating how technology can help them streamline workflows, reduce costs and save time.

“As the company builds up its delivery capability to accelerate the roll-out of EMIS Web, these events will also give visitors a close-up view of what EMIS Web is already capable of in the new NHS.”