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This article reports that an increasing number of executives and key personnel working in the field are communicating with the office through phones and laptops. This has fuelled a need for staff to have access to information systems and corporate data from anywhere, whether they are away from their desk within the building, at customer premises, on the road or in premises such as a hotel or coffee shop. Allowing users to keep connected to business systems, and retain access to business-critical systems while away from their desks, is becoming increasingly easy thanks to the proliferation of wireless connectivity, from the now lowly GPRS services that piggy-back GSM mobile phone services, to 3G-based cellular data access. As costs have fallen, the range, quality of signal and security features have improved, making it viable for businesses to deploy wireless networking, either as a supplementary network or in many cases as their primary network in environments where cable laying is either impractical or uneconomical. Deploying the right device to the workforce is increasingly complex, as it is proving harder for a blanket solution to suit every different job function.

The article focuses on the plans of Microsoft Corp. for a massive overhaul of Windows, Office, SQL and its developer tools. The release of Windows Vista has now been confirmed for the second half of 2006, with the server version, still called Longhorn Server, scheduled for 2007. Perhaps of more importance to enterprise users than even the operating system is Office. Office 12 was unveiled at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference, sporting a new user interface, in keeping with most of the other client technologies in the pipeline. INSET: SQL Server first to cross the finish line.

Presents an interview with Sohaib Abbasi, enterprise software vendor Informatica Corp.'s chief executive officer. Comments of Abbasi on the future market for data integration products, which are changing over the coming years; Cause behind the data fragmentation faced by British businesses that are outsourcing; Views of Abbasi regarding aims of business intelligence vendors.

The article reports on the efforts made by Pret A Manger for improved backup and recovery. Data growth of the company has created three primary IT objectives related to backup and recovery. They include improvement in nightly backup, storage and back up of non-sales data that are stored remotely at individual stores, and implementation of disaster recovery processes. As part of its disaster recovery initiative, the company selected EVault InfoStage online backup software.

The article discusses the data backup systems used by food chain Pret A Manger. At its headquarters, Pret has 25 Microsoft 2000 servers, each storing and managing about 500GB of information. Each Pret store has a dedicated point-to-point line connecting it to headquarters and the servers. Pret's data growth created three primary information technology objectives related to backup and recovery: Nightly backup required improvement as backup windows were being encroached by the growing data volumes--leading to some data not being backed up each night. After evaluating other backup and recovery software, Pret selected EVault InfoStage online backup software.

The article presents an interview with Bernard Liautaud, chairman and chief strategy officer of Business Objects Inc. When asked about the expansion plan of the company he said that the company is the number one in core business intelligence (BI) sector and it is going to expand in the enterprise information management services including data quality, data integration, data profiling and data management. According to him BI not be affected adversely by the consolidation of the tools like enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management and financials.

The article highlights the non-availability of technology to tackle the problems related to e-mail. Viruses, worms, phishing, spam and joke-of-the-week messages all add to the influx of e-mail that the average person has to deal with at work and at home and that is before one even get to the legitimate e-mails one receives. Combined, the volume of incoming e-mails an individual has to deal with and the amount of traffic an IT manager has to manage, are enormous. The end result is an ever-growing collection of messages that become slow to access and from which it is difficult to extract any value.

The article presents information related to the DesignIT contest, a competition to recognize creativity and innovation in IT system design. DesignIT consists of two parallel competitions, the deadline for which is May 3, 2006. One is to reward innovation in enterprise IT system design, the other rewards the designer of an outstanding system design that could benefit a charity. Shortlisted work will be exhibited at a London art gallery, while the winner will receive a trip to the Ice Hotel in Sweden. The winner of the charity competition will see their system design implemented at their chosen charity, up to a cost of £15,000.

This article presents the author's views about different issues related to physical hacking in businesses. Today people are seeing more examples of physical hacking, in the form of corporate espionage and identity theft. Companies dump millions of pages of confidential data in bins that could be used by a criminal or a competitor. And with more and more critical business data in electronic form, it is easier than ever for someone on the inside of an organization to remove or copy confidential data. The most sensible approach to IT security is one that takes a balanced approach to protecting the business and its IT infrastructure from both internal and external threats.

This article presents an interview with Mark Canepa, head of StorageTek and executive vice president of the Sun Microsystems Inc.'s data management group. Sun Microsystems's position in the storage market was consolidated by the $4.1bn acquisition of StorageTek, an important player in the tape and disk backup world, in June 2005. Canepa says that they expect the process to take a year to 18 months. A number of things are already done. They have rationalized the product line and merged the product teams. According to Canepa, the company believes in a network-centric architecture that is designed to provide computational, middleware and data management resources to solve customer problems.

The article reports that software firm Vista will offers business users dedicated versions of Windows Vista, Microsoft's next PC operating system. The company announced that when Vista launches there will be three consumer versions, two for businesses and a limited low-cost version for emerging markets. The business versions exclude many consumer features, but have extra security, storage and management functionality. Vista Business, for smaller businesses with little on-site IT support, includes data encryption support and more flexible group policy management to reduce support callouts.

The article presents information on Microsoft Corp.'s DesignIT project. The project is intended to redress the balance by identifying the best examples of innovation and creativity in the design and implementation of business IT infrastructure and systems in the enterprise, public sector and in the voluntary sector. IT professionals can submit a design for an actual deployed IT system, or an aspirational system design appropriate for any size of organization in the commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

This article presents an interview with Jim Morrison, chief executive of smartphone maker I-mate. When asked why I-mate has seen a rapid rise to prominence in the Windows smartphone market, considering that the I-mate brand was not around at the inception of the devices, he said that he would not say that they were late to come in to the market. He said that devices such as the XDA have proved very successful in the enterprise market, but I-mate has also managed to break into the consumer market.

The article presents information on recent developments related to business intelligence (BI) in Great Britain. Samsung Co. Ltd. unveiled its first high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA)-based handset for the European market. HSDPA promises to deliver even better data throughput over 3G, while I-mate, easily the most popular and stylish smartphone maker around has launched a set of software tools to help IT managers integrate I-mate smartphones into their Windows enterprise back-end, to backup data and to manage them in the field.

The article presents information on the findings of a research that revealed that many businesses in Great Britain fail to maximize the benefits of virtualization. New research carried out by C&C Technology Consulting into PC and server virtualization suggests a lack of understanding among businesses of the benefits of virtualization technology. The survey questioned 26 senior IT decision-makers from Great Britain firms with at least 1,000 users, and examined the understanding, adoption and application of virtualization software. The research revealed that most of the firms fail to realize the cost effectiveness and benefits of running virtualization applications on desktop and server PCs, and how this can improve the use of processing and storage resources.

The article presents the author's views on the phishing e-mails that affected more than two million bank accounts worldwide at the time of Christmas and New Year. According to the author, such organizations have a duty to educate their customers about the risks and liabilities and, most importantly, how to spot a genuine e-mail from a fake one. Genuine emails will contain a piece of personal information, such as a postcode, to which a blanket phishing attack will not have ready access. It informs that Great Britain banking organizations appear to be doing very little to inform and educate their customers about the problem.

The article evaluates the Q-BE 512MB MP3 player and offers information on its size, price and features.

The article evaluates the Xyzel WiFi Hotspot Finder and offers information on its utility and features.

The article evaluates the Brother MPrint MW-140BT mobile thermal printer which can run on mains power or its built-in rechargeable battery and is compatible with Windows-based PDAs.

The article evaluates the Sensible Soccer 2-player game based on the Mega Drive version of the 1990s football classic and offers information on its features.

The article evaluates the super-slim iPod Nano by Apple Computer Inc. and offers information on its utility and design.

The article evaluates the JX10 Bluetooth headset and offers information on its design, size and utility.

The article evaluates the software Navicore Personal which is bundled with a Bluetooth GPS receiver.

The article evaluates the Seagate Inc's SGB Pocket Drive for USB storage and offers information on its design and utility.

The article evaluates the DiscStakka by Imation Corp. which can store 100 CDs or DVDs in a mechanical carousel and spits them out as needed.

The article evaluates the HP Photosmart W5 Photo Printer which can store up to 1,000 photos on its internal hard drive and can read photos straight from a variety of digital card formats.

The article evaluates the PDA smartphone M5000 which is available on contract with the company Orange.

The article evaluates the WiFi voice-over IP telephone by Vonage Inc. offering wired services that connect to the existing broadband router.

The article evaluates the E3 sound isolating earphones by Shure Inc. which block background noise by creating a seal within the ear.

The article evaluates the Abacus Palm PDA and offers information on its features, cost, and compatibility with other operating systems.

The article discusses several issues related to phishing. Phishing is the process of sending an email purporting to be from a reputable financial organisation, which asks users to log into a fake Web site, entering and revealing their login details for their online banking/credit card/electronic payment service to a crook. Phishing is a modern spin on one of the oldest yet most effective cons in the book, make something appear legitimate to trick the unsuspecting victim into willingly handing over the contents of their wallet, or in the modern age, into handing over the login details to their online banking service or credit card. With the use of online banking and online account management at record levels, phishing poses a real risk, especially among the millions who still do not know what it is.

This article reports that data security is once again at the forefront of business concerns. "Data Compliance--A Disaster in the Making?," a survey conducted by independent information technology (IT) research consultancy Vanson Bourne Ltd. for data management vendor Embarcadero Technologies Inc., queries the understanding of current security and data compliance issues. The survey questioned 150 senior IT directors from FTSE 100 organizations and firms with more than 1,000 staff across the finance, telecoms and public sector industries in Great Britain, France and Germany.

This article presents an interview with John Lervik and Ali Riaz, executives at Fast Search & Transfer ASA. Both of them presented their views on the growing demand for enterprise search, and its importance in helping users understand their data. Lervik states that search is more than just searching for information. Search technology can be used in several new areas, such as business intelligence, as a means to structure unstructured information, rather than just as a means to find one piece of information among many. Using enterprise-grade search alongside a business intelligence tool can complement and even replace much of its traditional workings.

This article reports that this year has seen the long-overdue refresh of millions of business desktop personal computers (PCs), and with it a significant spike in the number of new users of Windows XP and Linux on the desktop. With new operating systems have come healthy sales of PCs, particularly laptops, as businesses continue their aggressive use of mobility among the workforce, and servers. But it is Linux that has been the desktop star in 2005, with several hardware manufacturers adopting the platform, and software vendors such as Apple and Novell leading the way in showing what a Unix-based operating system can do on the desktop.

This article presents information on Blackberry computers. BlackBerrys make email accessible to everyone, and in almost any location. The BlackBerry is just one of several mobile devices that are allowing the people to work more effectively and flexibly. There is a multitude of hardware appliances, from Windows and PalmOS-based PDAs, to mobile phones and so-called smartphones, devices that combine the basic features of a PDA with a phone. Users must remember that these tools have an off button, and, like the devices themselves, it should be used when appropriate. Asking more of a workforce is one thing; equipping the people with the tools to work more flexibly and in locations other than a well-equipped office is fair enough; but boundaries between work and rest need to be maintained.

This article discusses how businesses are tackling information lifecycle management (ILM). ILM is the structured process of managing data as it passes through the organisation, ensures effective handling, security and eventual disposal of data. Understanding the amount of data being retained at any one time is a big challenge for the information technology (IT) department, and effective measuring is essential both for network and storage capacity planning. A survey of 258 British IT managers across the public and private sectors, found that seven per cent of IT departments have no idea of their storage commitment, while 38 per cent are managing between one and 10TB of data.

This article presents an interview with Greg Gianforte, chief executive and founder of customer relationship management (CRM) vendor RightNow Technologies Inc. Demand for CRM products has exploded in the past two years, as companies seek to get to grips with the challenges of trading across borders, languages and time zones, as well as across multiple platforms such as the web, interactive TV, and the phone. According to Gianforte, the company has more than 30 government agencies in Great Britain using the technology to manage their interactions with the public. With more and more travel retailers and service providers turning to the web as their primary outlet, they are looking at ways to improve and streamline their customer services, and in particular their question handling, which is where an effective CRM system comes to the fore. Gianforte said that Internet businesses need to make the most effective use of what staff and resources they have. He remarked that the viability of a business starts with whether the customers are happy and if they get something of benefit from the product.

This article reports that Microsoft Corp. is to introduce enterprise business intelligence (BI) features with Office applications, making it easier for workgroups and medium-sized businesses to perform complex data analysis. The company is to release and develop several products and add-ons for the current version of Office and the forthcoming Office 12. The aim is to allow users already familiar with the functions, and with developing for Office and the Sharepoint portal, to cost-effectively deploy and use BI features in Microsoft's SQL Server database.

The article focuses on the storage space use, archiving and data compliance in Great Britain. A survey conducted by eMedia Corp. on behalf of storage software vendor BridgeHead Software focused on the storage needs of 300 IT directors at medium-sized and large British companies, and found that with regard to storage volumes, 70% of respondents manage about two terabytes of day-to-day live storage, in addition to second tier and archive capacity. Those surveyed also pointed to email as the main consumer of space, with two thirds using up to 20% of their total storage for live and archived email. Archiving remains a difficult challenge for all businesses, and 67% still do their archiving manually.

Presents letters to the editor on matters related to information technology (IT). Use of incoherent speech by IT leaders; Information on projects performed by IT manager and directors; Discrimination of women in the IT sector.

The article presents information on Longhorn, the next version of Windows that will replace Windows XP and, eventually, Windows 2003 Server. Microsoft Corp. presented Longhorn at the 2003 Professional Developer Conference. Features have been cut down and even stripped completely from the later development builds of Longhorn, including WinFS, the indexed file system and database-driven information repository that was to form the core of Longhorn and revolutionize the way we interact with data on the desktop. Realizing that WinFS was a far bigger job than it envisaged, Microsoft cut it from the planned final product, and it is to follow in a service pack once the company can actually get it to work.

This article reports that business users face the biggest change to their desktop PC software since the release of Office and Windows 95. Speaking at the company's bi-annual professional developer conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft Corp.'s chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates explained the company's plans to drastically overhaul both Windows and Office. Windows Vista features an entirely new look and feel, with several new features including 3D window viewing, live preview of minimized windows and extensive use of XML and RSS feeds for tracking files and web page changes.

The article reviews the Office 12 suite and the Windows Vista operating system from Microsoft Corp.

This article focuses on the growth of search engine technology. Many perished during the time of dot com collapse, yet a few survived, as did some of the better technology providers specialising in search. Today, these search companies are able to demonstrate clear revenue-generating capabilities amid unprecedented demand, as companies and consumers struggle to come to terms with an ever-growing mass of enterprise and personal electronic data. Search is finally at the forefront of technology thinking and spending. For example, online shopping giant InterActiveCorp recently announced a multimillion-dollar deal for Ask Jeeves Inc.

The article discusses the practical and financial benefits of Internet protocol (IP) communications in business. Voice over IP is used extensively in day-to-day business telephony. But with improving bandwidth availability, falling costs and the convergence of devices and software, opportunities now exist for using rich media services, such as online collaborative working tools, as well as email and instant messaging. Delegates at a seminar posted a series of questions on the technologies and operational issues that affect both existing users of IP-based communications systems and those considering investment in IP technologies.

The article reports that Microsoft Corp. has released the first test copies of Windows Vista, the next version of the company's desktop operating system. Vista, formerly known as Long-horn, is scheduled for general release by the end of 2006, with a server version planned for 2007. The beta test is intended as an early preview for 10,000 Microsoft developer subscribers, says Windows Vista product marketing manager David Weeks. Vista features include a newlook user interface with transparent windows, 'virtual' folders that put information into a single view, improved search tools, task automation technology, and an experimental version of the Internet Explorer 7 web browser that allows tab browsing so that users can keep several web pages open in one window

This article discusses issues of identity (ID) theft and credit card fraud. Regularly used as a form of identification and proof of signature, a person can easily pretend to claim for somebody else's identity by using the other person's credit card. The cards can also be used to acquire more credit cards and loans, one of the main reasons for ID theft, in the name of the person whose ID is being cloned. ID theft has rapidly become a criminal enterprise.

The article reports on a survey which analyzes issues that drive corporate storage investment. The survey was conducted by market research firm Vanson Bourne on behalf of IT distributor Zycko. The survey questioned 200 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 200 larger firms in Great Britain. Back-up and recovery is the major focus for all businesses. The sheer volume of data entering the organisation came second for both, with 87 per cent of large businesses and 74 per cent of SMEs citing it as a reason. Both small and large companies agreed that their next storage purchases would be governed by a need to react to existing storage shortages.

Presents an interview with the U.S.-based provider of hosted enterprise applications NetSuite Inc.'s chief executive officer Zach Nelson about the company's expansion into Great Britain and the growing demand among organisations of all sizes for hosted applications. Benefits of hosted customer relationship management, e-commerce and accounting; Difference between application service provider (ASP) products of NetSuite and the other ASP products; Importance of the rise of broadband in allowing ASPs to succeed.

The article emphasizes on the need for business enterprises to have a disaster recovery planning. Geographical location usually has the biggest part to play in defining the real threats to business continuity. Discussion of terrorism threats has helped to focus the attention of many companies on the task of disaster recovery and business continuity. When developing a business continuity policy and disaster recovery plans, one has to consider everything but spend money only on the hardware, software, services and support that will help one to recover from the most probable disasters.