Many of you will have heard about the G-Cloud project. It’s the Government’s programme aimed at getting more cloud-based services into the public sector. Already it’s been met with a huge amount of interest from companies looking to develop services for it.
The G-Cloud aims to be agile, efficient and open to companies of all sizes to compete for Government contracts. Simply come up with a good idea, get the OK from the Government, create it, and then make it available to public sector workers. Think of it as a big Government app store.
Whilst there are concerns that opening up the public sector to a variety of software suppliers will require management in and of itself, it’s surely a good thing the Government’s experimenting with the cloud and inviting more companies to demonstrate their inn...
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Although the world’s gaze will be focused firmly on the UK throughout much of 2012, we’ve found that many businesses are unsure what to expect this year. We talked to 5,000 business leaders from across the country and found that one in two are anxious about how their company will fare over the next 12 months. This is on a par with what our survey found this time last year, suggesting that concerns about the state of the economy haven’t diminished.
And with talk of a double-dip recession in the press, it’s not surprising that a third of businesses are concerned that they don’t have access to the funding they need to succeed in 2012. Some 36 per cent of the people we spoke to said they’d like to see banks lend more money to businesses this year. Improvements to internet access came high up on...
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2011 was a very busy year for us at Virgin Media Business. With some of our biggest deals and product launches ever all taking place there has rarely been a quiet moment! Before 2012 is fully underway, I thought I’d take a quick look at some of the exciting stuff we’ve been up to in 2011.
At the start of the year we started working with London Grid for Learning to give London schools access to innovative e-learning products and IT tools at a price they can afford.
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In April we became the first provider to receive the interim NGN 224 security accreditation. This meant that we could offer PSN accredited services to the public sector. We gained full accreditation in August.
Just a few months ago, we announced a ground breaking deal with MBNL. The deal will see us build 14 regional ag...
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Posted by Lee Hull on 19th December 2011
Last week, the Prime Minister announced that the Department of Health plans to offer telehealth technology to three million people with long term health conditions over the next five years. Forming a key part of the government’s £180m Life Sciences Strategy, the UK-wide initiative will radically improve the care that Britons receive while helping to reduce costs.
The government’s initiative will give at-risk patients access to technology that can send vital data to doctors easily, preventing patients from having to make regular trips to the hospital for tests.
The scheme follows a successful trial by the NHS in Cornwall, which gave patients access to technology so that they could monitor their health at home. The trial saw death rates reduce by 45 per cent and hospital admissions drop by a f...
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Parents and CIOs have something in common – they can both get annoyed by rapid growth. While parents might be frustrated by children outgrowing their clothes and shoes every few months, CIOs are pulling their hair out as they try to keep pace with rocketing data growth.
Fortunately, most children will only grow a couple of inches per year, whereas enterprise data is increasing by around 60 per cent every 12 months. To put that into perspective, if a 10-year-old child was growing at the same rate they’d be almost three feet taller by the time they blew out the candles on their 11th birthday.
For CIOs, trying to keep IT systems running, whilst data traffic grows and grows, can be incredibly frustrating. Not only do they have to work out how to overcome the technical obstacles that this creates...
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Many of Europe’s technology pioneers recently descended on London for Internet Week Europe – a five-day festival of events to celebrate the continent’s thriving internet community. Nearly 150 events were hosted across the capital - ranging from parties and meet-ups to executive breakfasts and conferences.
Speaking on the first day of the festival, Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, took to the stage to talk about how the government is attempting to kick-start the UK’s economy by encouraging investment in technology start-ups based in Tech City - an area of east London that the government hopes will one day emulate Silicon Valley in the States.
With the number of technology firms in Tech City tripling in the last 12 months to more than 600, it’s easy to s...
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It may only be early November, but many shoppers have already started their Christmas shopping with gusto in a bid to beat the last minute rush come December. With online sales making up a significant chunk of all retail revenue in the UK, it’s no surprise that one in seven people plan to do all of their Christmas shopping online this year, according to HSBC.
As some shoppers are moving away from the high street in search of cheaper bargains online it’s vital that retailers do all that they can to deliver a fantastic shopping experience in-store. Whilst offering customers mince pies and mulled wine is always a winner, customers are likely to be more impressed if shop workers go out of their way to provide excellent service.
The same is of course true for online retailers. Although it may be...
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Whether it’s great deals online or eye catching window displays, retailers are pulling out all the stops to try and entice shoppers this Christmas. This is particularly apparent on London’s world famous Oxford Street, where many of the flagship stores are using technology to deliver a greater shopping experience to their customers.
Several initiatives to improve the customer experience caught our eye when we took a stroll down the capital’s most famous shopping street. We found Niketown attendants taking payments on mobile devices to cut down queuing times and in Debenhams we discovered that they’re running a ”free coffee Friday” offer via the location-based social network FourSquare. Even John Lewis is getting in on the act, having recently announced plans to offer free Wi-Fi to shoppers i...
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The use of technology in business is always changing, allowing innovative companies to take advantage of new developments and steal a march on the competition. One technology that’s getting a lot of interest from forward-thinking companies is cloud computing. By moving to the cloud many businesses are finding that they can reduce their IT expenditure, whilst improving services. However investing in technology isn’t just about saving money, it can also help firms generate new streams of revenue - for example, by taking advantage of e-Commerce.
Wanting to find out more about how businesses are embracing technology, we recently asked 5000 businesses for their thoughts on some of the key trends in business IT at the moment. Unsurprisingly we found that over two-thirds of companies now depend on...
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There’s been a lot of debate over the last few weeks regarding the UK’s education system, following comments made by Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt. Schmidt argued that schools in the UK are getting IT wrong by teaching children how to use software - rather than make it.
It’s an interesting point. With a greater understanding of IT, the workers of tomorrow will be in a much better position to create innovative new technologies and start companies that can compete on a global level against the rising economies of India and China.
Programming skills are already in huge demand today and are part of the driving force behind initiatives such as Silicon Roundabout. It’s therefore great news that Science Minister, David Willetts, has recognised this. Last month, Willets announced that a new GCSE...
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