Industry news

The House of Lords Communications Committee has warned against the practice of using one supplier in rolling out national UK coverage.

The employment of one supplier, in this case BT’s fibre optic service, would hinder a competitive marketplace.

The committee commented: “The exclusive ability of one provider to build a final fibre link is actually a categorical departure from the idea of an open access fibre optic hub in which anyone is permitted to build a link.”

Betting company William Hill has reported that the employment of online services has increased operating profits of 14 percent and net revenue growth of 11 percent.

Innovation in online technology contributed to the online net revue rising by 30 percent to nearly 200 million.

Ralph Topping, William Hill’s chief executive, said: “We have seen a strong performance in our multi-channel UK business in the first half”, he also said “Mobile remains a top priority and continues to outperform our expectations".

Ovum’s regulation practice leader, Matthew Howett, has dismissed the Lords Select Committee report on Communications.

The release of the report, which contains nearly 50 recommendations, were “likely to be dismissed as nothing more than a pipe dream" according to Howett.

Howett added that “times the regulator seemed to lack basic understanding of what operators were likely to do with the spectrum and failed to design an auction accordingly.”

To understand how businesses can use Big Data to garner businesses insights, we must first define what it is. Gartner, an IT analyst firm, refers to Big Data as the volume, variety and velocity of structured and unstructured data pouring through networks into processors and storage devices, along with the conversion of such data into business advice for enterprises.

Although a nice definition, it does not address what Big Data really means as far as its business impact. Ken Rosen, Managing Partner at Performance Works thinks that Garnter’s definition misses the real point, suggesting that it is like saying ‘New ideas come from electricity moving among brain cells.’ It’s correct, but the emphasis is wrong. It makes sense that an IT‐oriented firm like Gartner would focus on speeds, feeds, and infrastructure, but executives need a different view.

To be clear, Big Data is not simply dealing with lots of data. For instance, a thousand movies take up a Petabyte of storage but a thousand movies is not a Big Data problem. On the other hand, a business may have a serious Big Data initiative, but the total amount of data fits on a single hard drive.

So what is Big Data? Big Data is where businesses derive new meaning from new data sources. New meaning that was never practical to find before. This could be because of scale, data format, the distribution of data in many locations or the fact that no one thought of looking before. It is easily as much a new mindset as new technology.

Why should businesses care? Businesses must care about Big Data as they can learn what to offer and to whom; when to offer something new and through what channels; which employee can best solve a problem and when to get outside help; which competitor will win and when their stock price will reflect the victory. Big Data will be the one of the most important things for business since the Internet due to the business insights that it can provide.

Big Data is all about delivering new insights to decision makers. As reported in a Forbes article, Walmart wanted to find out what the biggest selling items were that people bought before a hurricane hit. The No. 1 answer—batteries— was not a surprise, but the unexpected No. 2 item was Kellogg’s Pop‐Tarts, as they last a long time, don’t require refrigeration or preparation, and are easy to carry and store. As a result of this intelligence, Walmart can now stock up on Pop‐Tarts in its Gulf Coast stores ahead of storm season. This is where the reach of new‐generation business analytics tools shine by directly helping enterprises make smart decisions.

Historically, data analytics software hasn’t had the capability to take a large data set and use it to compile a complete analysis for a query. Instead, it has relied on representative samplings, or subsets of the information to render results. That approach is changing with the emergence of new Big Data analytics engines, such as the opensource Apache Hadoop. Hadoop processes large caches of data by breaking them into smaller, more accessible batches and distributing them to multiple servers to analyse, much like cutting your food into smaller pieces for easier consumption. Hadoop then processes queries and delivers the requested results in far less time than old‐school analytics software—most often minutes instead of hours or days.

Hadoop and other such systems provide complete looks at big data sets, instead of a team of analysts spending days or weeks preparing the parameters for data subsets, and then taking 1, 2 or 10 percent samplings, all the data can be analysed at one time, in real time. Why bother? Because data sitting in storage arrays and cloud accounts represents unrefined value in its most basic form. If interpreted properly, the stories, guidelines and essential information buried in storage and databases can open the eyes of business executives as they make strategic decisions for their company.

Never mind 20th century focus groups and marketing research surveys. Let the Big Data / Big Analytics games begin, for they are not about computing and databases, they are about a new generation of analytics driving business insights for business innovation.

Big Data analytics provides businesses with customer information that helps derive meaning from customer actions; the difference between what they say they are going to do and what they actually do. Real predictable consumer behavior comes from understanding the attitudes that drive that behavior. Understanding attitude is a second and third order effect, derived from the combined context of multiple Big Data type analysis, but more importantly from true engagement, interaction and understanding of the customer.

Outsourcing has long been an option for large companies to subcontract work. But the creation of web-based platforms like Elance has brought outsourcing to smaller companies. Organisations that are not looking to outsource large-scale contracts, but smaller projects, can now take advantage of global networks of professionals, quickly and easily.

This growing trend of 'the human cloud' is a large and powerful network of freelancers and contractors, all operating online. By working in the 'human cloud', organisations can outsource aspects of a business and can reduce costs and overheads, freeing up resources that can be invested in business development and company growth.

Investing in company growth is a risk

SMEs often require specialist personnel to help get a company off the ground and this means employing experts in specific areas. The challenge for smaller companies is to decide whether to invest heavily in a large work force to handle all aspects of a business or not.

The Advanced Child Academy (TACA) is an online start up that provides parents with recommended learning materials and courses to enable them to help their children have a head start in their education.

TACA wanted to grow an idea into a business, quickly and with only a small initial investment. The TACA team knew that employing a large workforce just wouldn’t be possible and yet the company needed a wide range of skills and expertise to help get the business off the ground.

Neil Asher, founder of TACA, said: “When starting the company we created a budget and a business plan. Part of that process was to look into how much investment was needed to get the company up and running. Before we looked into outsourcing the risk was too high for us to invest in the company."

Using the human cloud

By outsourcing, a company like TACA can minimise the risk of large investment in permanent staff. Specialists can be hired for short periods of time to provide advice and expertise.

In the instance of the TACA, outsourcing was a potential solution to these problems but the company was unsure how best to recruit and manage a team of freelancers that could help on specific tasks and projects.

Elance immediately seemed like the ideal recruitment tool for TACA as it would allow work to be outsourced online and the company would be able to manage expenditure by hiring freelancers on short-term contracts.

“Suddenly we had access to a very powerful resource that would allow us to hire the right people for the job, no matter where they were in the world. We could now hire and manage a virtual workforce all through the platform which gave us incredible control over costs and the work itself,’ explained Neil.

A flexible approach

The online employment process means companies like TACA can employ flexibly. Expert advice and sales initiatives can swallow up significant amounts of budget. Outsourcing minimises this risk as you just pay for the time required. Should a growing company want to create a specific sales initiative, it can take on a sales rep for a period of weeks. Once this period is complete it can assess and make a decision on whether to continue with the contract.

For TACA, the results have been staggering, as Neil explains: "By building our business model entirely around outsourcing online, we have been able to reduce our costs by 80%. This not only meant that the creation of the business was financially viable, it freed up investment that could be used in other areas of the business. We redirected resources into marketing and advertising, improving the company’s chance of success.”

The initial challenge for most businesses when assessing their cloud computing options is overcoming the confusion surrounding cloud terminology. With so many labels and technical jargon, there are many varied interpretations with terms meaning different things to different people. The labelling of cloud solutions as being either ‘public’ or ‘private’ is one such example of loosely-defined terms that have led to a lot of confusion for many businesses. The general perception is that public cloud is insecure and that businesses should use a private system if they have security and privacy concerns. This is, however, a gross simplification and highlights the need for greater clarity so that firms can make more informed decisions around cloud.

A totally private cloud solution is one in which the infrastructure is situated in-house, and is for the exclusive use of a single organisation. In comparison, a public cloud solution is an outsourced service delivered by a third party to numerous clients that share the cloud infrastructure. The apprehension surrounding public cloud stems from the location of your stored data being unknown and possibly accessible by others – posing a significant security or regulatory concern. It is necessary to bear in mind here that cloud cannot simply be defined as either public or private - there is a whole spectrum of solutions, with all shades in between.

Take for example a typical solution used by a small to mid-sized business. They rent their own virtual servers and their own private network at a cloud provider. This business is sharing the cloud provider's core infrastructure - its storage area network (SAN), backup technology, networking and physical premises. It is this economy of scale that makes cloud services a cost effective option. The key question is whether the cloud services provided to you are secure and contained?

In reality, a good cloud provider will have built their infrastructure to a high standard, and typically the security is more rigorous than that of companies who house and manage their own infrastructure. This is all part of the due diligence process you need to go through when selecting a vendor. You have to be sure that your chosen cloud provider can deliver secure and resilient services that meet your It requirements.

Cloud solutions now offer a range of advantages for businesses of all sizes. You can benefit from greater IT flexibility, increased agility, more effective collaboration, and better control over your expenditure given the financial implications of running your IT as an operational expense rather than a huge up-front capital investment. You may find that your particular cloud solution requires a hybrid arrangement with various levels of private services. For instance, what we have seen from the SME market is that many businesses have chosen to have their core IT running from a private system on premises whilst outsourcing their disaster recovery to a third party. We have also noticed that a growing number of firms are finding some of their everyday functions, such as email, also lend themselves well to the cloud, given the range of secure private/public options available. We expect to see businesses moving more standard office productivity to the cloud as remote working and the virtual desktop becomes the norm.

Deciding on the best fit cloud solution for your IT strategy requires significant understanding from both a business and technical perspective. The ability of a vendor to fully appreciate the particular challenges and opportunities facing your company, and to propose a solution that best leverages its strengths, is fundamental to seeing the benefits of this technology. Cloud is very much a validated service, with the best results being generated by focusing on the aims of your business, rather than being sidetracked by the irrelevant public vs private debate.

Atos UK has recorded high half year profits with growth of 6.7 percent.

The news was released on Friday as the Olympic opening ceremony started, Atos is a key IT partner to the event.

Atos UK appointed Ursula Morgenstern as CEO at the start of the year, and has since enjoyed strong market growth despite the declining revues of many European businesses.

The reports of growth come as Atos receives an extension of five-years with the Welsh Government, as part of a contract valued at £70 million.

Gas and electricity giant National Grid has said that they are on track to invest £3.5 billion into the company.

The announcement comes despite no significant change in the company’s financial position in the last four months and the selling of US based energy distribution units for $309 million. National Grid have invested heavily in the creation of a UK Gas Distribution Front Office systems, which are nearing completion, and are expected to deliver increased cost savings.

Chief Executive Steve Holliday, said: “We are maintaining our positive outlook for 2012/13, reflecting the expected delivery of another year of solid operating and financial performance."

Apple has bought AuthenTec for $356 million, the American company specialises in providing security services and chip creation, including fingerprint scanning software.

The deal will see Apple take ownership of AuthenTec patents and software at a cost of $8 per share.

Apple has been involved in multiple legal battles and lawsuits against various parties including Samsung. The move may come as part of Apples safeguard against further legal action, with past acquisitions fuelled by the need for patent protection.

Samsung currently employs AuthenTec software within its Android devices.

The Metropolitan Police (MPS) have started to employ the national procurement hub (NPPH) to offer tender for services and equipment.

The procurement office is an e-marketplace that is intended to provide cost savings across the police force to 43 services.

The police procuremment hub was created by Procserve and acts as a “Amazon-Style” online procurement service.

Lee Tribe, director of procurement for MPS said: “Users within the MPS have access to a greater variety of products and services, and faster delivery times.”