Industry News

Ian Cheshire, group chief executive of retail group Kingfisher has praised the initiatives of his management team as the company today reported a 50 per cent rise in profits, up to £566 million for the year to January 2010.The two UK businesses; B&Q the DIY retailer and Screwfix, reported a rise in profits of 64.5 per cent, whilst the French division reported profits up by 3.2 per cent.Talking to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 Cheshire kept to the script of the company release that "self-help initiatives drove growth in profit and cash generation from the 'Delivering Value' plan."In March 2008 during the worst of the credit crisis the Kingfisher group announced plans to centralise its IT and management structure based on its three main markets which now operate as divisions; UK, France and International. Kingfisher had operated a decentralised management structure based on brands such as B&Q and Kingfisher. Richard Collins, IT head at Kingfisher has moved his division into the property and staff management resourced under the revisions.Cheshire praised management "across the board, all teams were lowering costs," he told Today. Kingfisher is now looking to extend the integration of its trade online and catalogue business Screwfix into B&Q stores with its Tradepoint plan which has been successfully piloted.

Apple's Safari browser got hacked on both Snow Leopard and the iPhone during the first day of the annual Pwn2Own contest, where security specialists can win the hardware they successfully attack. As CNet reports, security analyst Charlie Miller won $10,000 after remotely exploiting Safari on a MacBook Pro.

Victory was both sweet and familiar for Miller, the principal security analyst for Independent Security Evaluators, since he had successfully exploited Safari in the contest's 2009 and 2008 iterations. He's keeping the exact mechanics of this year's attack under wraps at the moment, but indicated that merely having the target computer visit a specially-crafted Website was enough to trigger the exploit, granting him command-line access to the Mac. The Pwn2Own sponsor, Tipping Point's Zero Day Initiative, shares information on exploits with the vendors involved, to give them an opportunity to patch the vulnerabilities.

The iPhone, meanwhile, was felled by Vincenzo Iozzo from Zynamics and Ralf Philipp Weinmann from the University of Luxembourg, who will split the $15,000 prize for hacking the device. (Each should also earn an award for having uniquely challenging names.)

The iPhone hack also started with a Website containing malicious code; the attack forwards the contents of "the local SMS database of the phone to the server we control," Weinmann told CNet.

Hackers also successfully attacked Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox--both running on Windows 7--at the event.

The Commodore 64 is back, after a US company announced plans to release a PC resembling the classic computer but this time including Intel dual- or quad-core processors and support for Windows 7.

The PC Commodore USA plans to launch in June retains much of the original Commodore 64's styling, but the updated specs include hardware that computing enthusiasts in the 1980s could only dream about.

According to Commodore USA's website, the computer can be configured with a choice of Intel chips, including a Core 2 Duo, a Core 2 Quad, a Pentium D or a Celeron D.

It has two DDR2 SDRAM sockets, populated with up to 4GB RAM, while the graphics are powered by an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100.

Other features include four USB ports, an optional 2.5in hard disk drive, a slimline Blu-ray or optical drive and a built-in Synaptic two-button touchpad.

With the keyboard and internal components built into one unit, much like the original Commodore 64, all that's missing is a monitor, which is supported via a DVI port. The system ships with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, but there's an option on Commodore's site to include Windows 7 Home Premium, Ultimate or Professional.

Commodore USA said almost one million viewers visited its website within 72 hours of its launch on March 17, 2010.

The Commodore 64 is the machine that spawned many a computer geek's obsession with all things PC. It's even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling computer model of all time, with sales estimated at between 17 million and 30 million units worldwide since its introduction in 1982 and its reluctant end in 1994.

See also:

Photos: Original Commodore 64 disassembled

Glory days: Our first home computers remembered

Encyclopedia Britannica were given a present today when online information goldmine Wikipedia crased due to an over-heating problem that started in its European data centre.

Apologising for the Wikipedia outage a spokesman wrote in the company blog:

"Due to an overheating problem in our European data center many of our servers turned off to protect themselves. As this impacted all Wikipedia and other projects access from European users, we were forced to move all user traffic to our Florida cluster, for which we have a standard quick failover procedure in place, that changes our DNS entries.

"However, shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally. This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects."

It is expected that 90 percent of school homework will be handed in late tomorrow.

Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation Web sites went down for hours on Wednesday in a global outage caused by a domino effect of technical problems.

The problems started when Wikimedia servers overheated in the organization's European data center and shut themselves off automatically.

Wikimedia then switched all its traffic to its server cluster in Florida, but the failover process, which involves changing servers' DNS entries, malfunctioned, knocking the organization's sites offline around the world.

"Shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally," wrote Mark Bergsma, Wikimedia's operations engineer in a post on Wikimedia's Technical Blog.

Google's YouTube video sharing site also reportedly suffered downtime, going offline on Thursday morning, according to news reports.

Leading virtualization software vendors Citrix Systems and VMware are both running behind in plans to ship so-called bare-metal hypervisors for desktop PCs.

Developing all the necessary drivers needed by PC users has proven to be one major challenge. Another roadblock may be persuading PC vendors to ship and support these hypervisors with their hardware, according to research firm Gartner.

Citrix and VMware were expected to ship their respective products, XenClient and Client Virtualization Platform, before the end of 2009. Now VMware hopes to have something out by the end of 2010. Citrix is waiting for the results of an ongoing closed beta test before committing to any dates, according to Dave Austin, Citrix's director of product marketing in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

A bare-metal hypervisor, also known as a type 1 hypervisor, runs directly on system hardware rather than on top of a host operating system. That allows one or more operating systems to run on top of the hypervisor as virtual machines.

Desktop virtualization allows corporate IT departments to easily ensure a standard operating environment for all users, but the current approach requires that the desktop environment be networked to a server where the virtual OS is actually running. With bare-metal desktop hypervisors, performance is improved because the system is running locally, not over a network, and users are also able to work offline.

They would also allow companies to create a standardized operating system image that can be rolled out on all desktops, and then updated and managed centrally. For it to work, the PCs need to be compatible with Intel's vPro technology.

Currently, there are a couple of issues delaying the two companies, according to Mark Margevicius, research director for client computing at Gartner.

From a technical perspective, the development of bare-metal hypervisors for client-side virtualization is made more complex by the plethora of components the hypervisor must interact with on the PC. So drivers have proved to be a big challenge for VMware and Citrix, Margevicius said.

And the vendors agree: you have to take into account networking, Bluetooth, graphics hardware, and other common client-side components, according to Austin. In the server world, where bare-metal hypervisors have been around for ten years, the hardware compatibility list is much shorter and well-defined, according to Fredrik Sjöstedt, VMware's director of product marketing in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

There aren't just technical challenges that have to be sorted out. PC vendors will have to support the products, and bare-metal hypervisors aren't necessarily beneficial, according to Margevicius. That's because they may make it easier and cheaper for companies to switch vendors when they can build a standardized desktop image that is independent of the hardware. They can change the vendor, but the image stays the same, Margevicius said.

"If the costs come down, customers will be doing bids on PC hardware on a weekly basis," said Margevicius.

There is a different side to that argument, according to Sjöstedt. He agreed that bare-metal hypervisors will make it easier to replace PCs. But that doesn't necessarily mean companies will be switching vendors all the time. It could also help organizations upgrade to PCs with the latest processors more easily than they can now, Sjöstedt said.

How PC vendors will see the issue remains to be seen. Both virtualization companies have Intel in their corner. VMware is in talks with the PC vendors, but hasn't got any deals in the bag that it can announce, according to Sjöstedt. Citrix is in the same position: some hardware vendors are interested, but that isn't anything the company can disclose publicly, a Citrix spokesman said via e-mail.

For the CIO, bare-metal hypervisors could let them entertain the idea of having users buy and bring their own PCs to work, according to Margevicius. A personal and a work operating system could run side by side, and be completely separated from each other.

The bare-metal hypervisor will definitely make the process of letting users buy their own PC or Mac much easier, according to Austin. One thing administrators could do that they can't with any other platform is to send out "a kill pill" from a central location when a user leaves the organization, he said.

VMware is seeing the same trend toward user-owned PCs, but has decided to approach it with a different product. It's accelerating development of a host-based virtual desktop solution for employee-owned PCs called View Manager Local Mode, according to Scott Davis, CTO for VMware's Desktop Business Unit.

Bare-metal hypervisors and employee-owned PCs are a bad fit because the IT department would have to bring in the computer, wipe it and then install the hypervisor, according to Davis. Bare-metal hypervisors are a better fit on devices that are owned by the company, and, for example, located at remote office or branch office locations.

"I have talked with a couple of oil refineries. They want managed end-points out on the rigs, where the network isn't robust enough for VDI and there is no IT personnel," said Davis.

VMware will ship View Manager Local Mode before Client Virtualization Platform. But VMware isn't saying when; "soon" is as far as Davis will go.

A new survey of U.S. smartphone users reveals a majority of them want to use mobile devices, including tablets like the upcoming Apple iPad, for work as well as personal activities. Yet the same users also see only limited productivity gains because they can access so little of the personal and business information they need.

AT&T's new spring smartphones

The online survey polled 2,443 respondents, all adults with mobile phones. Of these, 770 were smartphone users. The study was commissioned by Sybase, which sells several mobile applications for enterprise customers, and conducted by Zogby International, which polled its online panel, a cross section of the U.S. adult population. (You can see the full set of slides here.) 

The sample was asked how they would use a tablet device, which has video, office and e-mail applications, citing the iPad as an example. Not very surprisingly, entertainment-related uses were two of the top three picks. Forty-eight percent chose "watching movies, video, television programs" and 35% said they'd do "gaming and other entertainment."

What was surprising was the No.1 use: 52% said they'd use an iPad-like tablet for "conducting work on the device."

Smartphone users are more likely than standard cell phone users to do work-related activities with their phone. Of standard phone users, 46% say they use their phone for both work and personal tasks. But 79% of smartphone users say they do both tasks.

But regardless of the phone, users say they can access only a small fraction of the personal and business data they're interested in. The question asked was this: "How much of your data would you estimate you currently have access to on your mobile phone."

The question could be interpreted in different ways. For example, are users accessing data that only resides on, or has been transferred to, their mobile phone? Or is the phone a means for accessing data that may reside elsewhere on corporate or Web based servers?

However it was understood, users were clear that they want more access to more data. For "personal data" nearly 60% of the respondents say they access less than 10% of it on the phone. Nearly 70% say they access less than 10% of their "work data." Fewer than 1 in 10 respondents say they can access over 50% of both kinds of information.

The results were even worse when the question focused on enterprise-specific applications such as CRM.

The question was: "How much of your company's applications (such as spreadsheet applications, CRM applications and e-mail) would you estimate you currently have access to on your mobile phone?"

Seventy-two percent of the sample estimated less than 10% of these were accessible. Just over 8% estimated they access more than 51% of these applications.

The survey found very modest productivity gains, at least as self-assessed by the respondents. They were asked "Do you think devices such as the smartphone and the iPad make us more or less productive at work?"

Half of the sample selected "somewhat more productive." One quarter chose from several responses, with 9% saying "no difference" and almost the same percentage saying "somewhat less productive." Only 1 in 4 say these devices have us "much more productive."

Productivity hinges on access, in the view of these users. Asked to estimate the productivity impact of having access to twice the data and applications they can work with today, about two-thirds say it would "make me more productive and better at my job." A fifth, 21%, said improved access "would not have a significant impact either way" to improve or hurt productivity.

Finally, the respondents were asked to name the new or added features they want on their current devices:* Ability to watch streaming television and movies: 27.2%* Interconnection with my work systems: 27.1%* Easily access and read newspaper, magazine and online news content: 24.6%* Allowing me to purchase basic things like my morning coffee: 11.4%* Provide easy use for social networking sites that I like: 10.8%

And 26% chose "none of these."

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World.Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnwwBlog RSS feed

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-Malware section.

Verizon Wireless today has started selling the new Motorola Devour smartphone for $150 after a rebate and with a two-year contract.

The slider device fits into an emerging concept being embraced by U.S. carriers -- offering a wireless phone that focuses on helping users access social contacts and offering the ability to easily send text and Web messages. The Motorola Devour, for example, it includes a 3.1 inch touchscreen and an ample physical keyboard that appears when the touchscreen slides out.

While the new product concept may appear to be aimed mostly at the consumer market, the carriers say they are starting to get demand for the new features from workers who need quick messaging capabilities.

Motorola first announced in February that Verizon would sell Devour. Today it first disclosed the pricing and availability of the smartphone from Verizon.

Devour is the second Android-based smartphone available from Verizon. The first, Droid , went on sale last fall.

The Devour supports the Motoblur service, which allows users to synchronize contacts from work with personal e-mail as well as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Contacts and messages can be automatically backed up to a secure Motoblur portal.

Users will need a contract supporting talk, text and data to get access to all of Devour's features.

Verizon's talk and text plans started at $60 a month, and a smartphone data plan costs an additional $30 a month.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen , or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

Read more about mobile and wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Knowledge Center.

A problem large companies face is how to have honest lines of communication between employees and the highest rungs of management. With several hundred or maybe thousands of employees for every key senior leader, it can extremely difficult to find out what’s happening on the ground with a product launch.

“People are often over-optimistic about how a project will progress,” said Mat Fogarty, chief executive of Crowdcast.

Fogarty’s company Crowdcast is a pretty novel solution to gathering intelligence in big companies with crowdsourced bets. It’s launching a dashboard today that lets managers pose questions to employees, and learn from their anonymous answers whether a project will meet its target.

If a manager, for example, asks a question like, “How many users will we have in 30 days?”, employees can anonymously make bets on what will happen. If they’re right, they’re rewarded with virtual currency that can be translated in benefits like reward carts.

The company uses financial incentives and gaming mechanics like leaderboards to get employees to participate. Employees can adjust their bets up until a deadline, giving a managers a constantly changing barometer of where projects are. They can also turn around and ask more detailed questions if they want reasons why a project ifs behind.

Crowdcast is funded by Alsop Louie Partners and has clients including GM, Electronic Arts and Hallmark.

Tags: crowdsourced, crowdsourcing, Management

Companies: Crowdcast

People: Mat Fogarty

A refresh of routers and modem-routers from Belkin includes a flagship model that is one of the first to combine an ADSL modem with gigabit ethernet and 802.11n wireless in the same box.

The Belkin Play Max features one WAN and four LAN ethernet ports specified to gigabit (1000Mb/s) operation. For wireless LAN connection, there's 802.11n, promising a 300Mb/s connection, on 5GHz as well as traditional 2.4GHz frequency bands.

And unlike the standard version of the Play modem, the Play Max offers two USB ports to allow the connection of external storage or printers.

The Play Max (£119.99) also includes the most comprehensive selection of Apps - built-in or installable programs that aim to expand the functionality of the router.

These include Bit Boost, which allows you to select and prioritise particular types of network traffic, and Torrent Genie, an app that promises the capability to continue downloading from torrent networks when your PC is switched off.

Belkin's selection of apps are designed for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Both Play models also boast cross-platform apps such as Daily DJ, to automatically compile personalised music playlists, and Music Labeller, which can explore your music archive and fill in missing track info.

Belkin's new lineup of wireless routers and broadband modems aims to take the pain out of installing and setting up. Belkin's Easy Start process is said to reduce the number of stages by 60%, compared to earlier models.

There are three main models of modem in Belkin's new range: Surf, a simple four-port wireless-n modem router at £69.99 (£49.99, cable); Share, which adds a USB port and VPN support, for £89.99 (£69.99, cable); and Play, a dual-band device for £99.99 (£79.99, cable). For power users, the Play Max at £119.99 (£99.99, cable) includes two USB ports and gigabit ethernet.

All models are available as modem-routers, or as just wireless routers with no ADSL modem, with a £20 saving in each case.

The range should appear in the shops in early May 2010.

See also: Belkin Surf, Share and Play Wi-Fi routers

Brighton based iPhone developer Nik Fletcher has introduced Happening for iPhone and iPod touch.The application promises to bring nearby events to your pocket, powered by the Yahoo! Upcoming service.Happening lets users discover nearby events via the iPhone's geo-location capabilities, view users own upcoming events along with those of friends and colleagues.Users can RSVP to events, search event listings, check the location of event venues using the built-in map, or easily open the venue in the Maps application for directions to the event.Happening also lets users view event attendee lists, while built-in email support allows users to send event listings - complete with a Google Maps link - to friends and colleagues.A future update will add sharing to Twitter and FireEagle location updating.Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Happening costs £1.19 and requires the iPhone 3.0 Software Update.Nik Fletcher notes, Happening relies on the Yahoo! Upcoming service to supply nearby event data. If there are no nearby events listed in your area, you can always add some - or encourage your friends to add some - at upcoming.yahoo.com

Document viewers for the iPhone and iPod touch have, in general, become increasingly sophisticated. With sophistication comes complexity, and iSilo's approach, which assumes a fairly high level of user capability, is a valid one. You can do many things with iSilo, but only a few of them come easy.

Offered by DC & Co., iSilo enables you to download and read documents in iSilo, Palm Doc, plain text, PDF, HTML, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats. You can place the files in folders, but moving them between folders does not seem possible--a real drawback if you like to stay organized.

The app offers many options for document viewing--you can select a font, type size, and color. You also can choose among options for "tap" behavior--if you tap on the center of the screen once, you can have the document advance one line or a page, for example. iSilo also offers a slew of options for operating within documents, including bookmarking, sophisticated search, options to return to the first or last page of the document, or to resume where you left off.

Unfortunately, iSilo isn't very adept at handling common file types such as PDF or Word files. For example, it can not reformat PDF files for easy viewing (as GoodReader can), so you need to be prepared for lots of left-to-right scrolling. In my tests, the app imported an Excel file fairly well--except cell values were missing in one of the columns.

You can move files from your Mac into iSilo by enabling Web sharing on your Mac, which sounds easy. But in practice, it's a clunky solution that may require experimentation and a moderate learning curve for non-experts. In part, this is Apple's fault, as it has disabled USB file-sharing functionality from the iPod. But it would be much nicer if you could upload files to an iSilo-hosted secure site, and then download them to your iPod.

You can access files from services such as Dropbox; unfortunately, you can not download files from Google Docs (an option in GoodReader) You can, however, view Google Docs files and other Web-based files easily, as iSilo has a robust built-in Web browser. But you cannot edit the files, nor can you save for offline viewing.

The most obvious drawback to using iSilo as an iPhone document viewer is simply that it is not designed for the iPhone. Its look-and-feel is dated, and its folder-based hierarchical file structure seems to be designed with desktops, not handhelds, in mind. The app's developer makes no secret of the fact that iSilo is a multi-platform app--the home page boasts of versions for Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Windows and Mac computers, and other devices. In addition, iSilo's Website-- which provides comprehensive information both about the app and links to sites such as MemoWare and Fictionwise where you can download documents formatted for portable devices--is not designed for the iPhone.

However, if you have a lot of Palm Doc files and are familiar with iSilo because you have used it on other portable platforms, the iPhone version could prove very useful. But as a general document viewer or e-book reader, this app falls short of the mark set by GoodReader, Stanza, and several other iPhone apps.

[Jeff Merron is a freelance writer and editor living in North Carolina.]

Business spending on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) will grow by up to 25 percent worldwide by 2013, according to analyst house IDC.

Ruediger Spies, vice-president of enterprise applications at IDC Central Europe, told the IDC's SOA and Beyond Conference 2010 in London that the growth will be led by the Americas, followed by EMEA.

"There are people in the market saying that SOA is over. Nothing is more wrong," said Spies, who also spoke about how SOA can provide a framework for cloud computing.

Spies said that between 2008 and 2013, SOA spending in the Americas will expand by 24.7 percent, EMEA will see a 24 percent growth and Asia Pacific will see a 23.2 percent growth.

However, although the EMEA region will see a smaller growth, Spies said: "We in Europe already have a better architecture for IT than US companies, therefore spending does not need to be as high in Europe, because it is already better linked together."

SOA can help to improve the alignment of IT with business needs, Spies added. However, in order for SOA to be successful, companies should "think long term".

"Architecture is not just a project - it's a project that has to run for some years," said Spies.

"Typically, SOA projects have a longer life span than ERP systems, which last around 12 to 13 years."

Spies also recommended that SOA architects define value for the business, enable the business to understand the contribution to the bottom line.

"It's all about integration. As a project manager, you need to understand the business requirements. It should not be someone who has just left university. It needs to be a person accepted on the business and IT side," said Spies.

Meanwhile, Spies said that SOA, if designed properly, will provide the basis for BPM strategies, which he described as a "pretty small step" from cloud computing.

"From now on, cloud computing becomes just another sourcing option for selecting and replacing existing systems," said Spies.

By adopting cloud computing, companies may then be able to reduce costs and increase flexibility.

Furthermore, although integration is one of the key challenges of cloud computing, Spies insisted: "If you've done your SOA properly, you will have the roadmap for the process architecture and the information architecture that builds the groundwork of things, and how they should fit together."

Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) has announced the release of Messenger for Mac 8 Beta.The new beta includes A/V support, which allows users to communicate with contacts via instant messaging and audio and video calls.The beta will be available to download at microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx.

IT industry figures have expressed a mixed reaction to yesterdays' Budget, in which Chancellor Alistair Darling announced little to assist the tech companies and users.

The most prominent step for technology will be the creation of 20,000 higher education places for science, technology and engineering studies. In addition to this, the previously announced 50 pence broadband tax was confirmed.

There was also support for small and medium sized businesses, with a £2.5 billion fund to "promote innovation and invest in national infrastructure", as well as a cut in business rates for a year from October.

The CBI, which called the Budget "clever" in political terms, said it welcomed the government's "commitment to stimulating demand for [broadband] by providing state-run services over the internet". It also said that teaching via the internet, and introducing online GP consultation, "could help deliver better-quality services for consumers, and save the taxpayer money".

But Barry Murphy, UK technology leader at services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the broadband tax would not necessarily bridge the digital divide. "It isn't about preventing the digital divide forming in the future, it's about correcting it now," he said.

"Reaching out to the elderly and the disadvantaged should be a priority - working out why such people are not online and bringing them in to the digital fold. The geographically disadvantaged and the financially disadvantaged are effectively being hit doubly hard."

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com, said he was disappointed with the budget. "When you consider that Virgin Media are already able to deliver 50Mbps to half of the country today, with 100Mbps services expected to be available by the end of this year, and 200Mbps by the end of 2012, the promises made by both the government and opposition parties are quite underwhelming.

"Following Gordon Brown's speech on Monday about 100% coverage by 2020, we were expecting the budget to include something more than we had already heard from the government."

Earlier in the week, a £30 million web science institute was announced, alongside a £40 million national space centre. There will also be an initiative to create shared services centres with commercial organisations.

The CBI said it was "concerned" that the plan to create state-owned shared services companies "could actually backfire by preventing commercial companies from competing for contracts".

"It would be better to create a level playing field to encourage competition and efficiency," the organisation said.

But IT service providers are nevertheless expected to pitch for new work as the government relocates 15,000 civil servants outside London, and as it reorganises back office processes.

Lee Hull, director of public sector work at network and services provider Virgin Media Business, said that technology would support quality public services as the civil servants are relocated.

"Thanks to email, instant messenger, presence indicators and video conferencing, public sector teams will be able to collaborate and work as one regardless of their location," he said.

Chancellor Darling also said there would be support for the British computer games industry. Murphy at PwC said the industry had "long argued for support to stem the drift of talent and jobs".

"The Chancellor aimed to make this year's Budget more sensible than in years past, but the public sector too needs to become more sensible in its approach to service delivery, by reducing waste and streamlining activities," said Jonathan Buckle, head of public sector at communications supplier Avaya.

He added that it was important to "ensure the public sector continues to be an attractive destination for qualified talent", by "offering the tools that enable work-life balance, rather than simply paying lip service to it".

Yahoo!, a worldwide provider of Internet services, has launched Yahoo! Search for iPhone and iPod touch.The free application is billed as an all-in-one search tool for those on the go.Yahoo! Search for iPhone offers the following features:Local Maps: Get maps tied to your location; place a phone call or get directions with one tap.Search Assist: Offers instant, local suggestions as you type.Best of Yahoo!: Get results from Yahoo! Sports, News, Finance, Movies - designed just for the iPhone.Voice search: For making search easier and faster.Local Businesses Photos: View photos, ratings, phone numbers, and more from Yahoo! Local, Yelp! and Citysearch.Personalised information: Tailored results that get better the more you search.Fast queries: Get site summaries at a glance with Quick Load."My Log": Offers quick access to recent searches and local business results.Shake to clear: Start a new query with a shake of your iPhone.Available in 22 markets across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia via the Apple iTunes App Store, Yahoo! Search for iPhone requires the iPhone 3.0 Software Update or later.Yahoo! has also this week introduced Sketch-a-Search for iPhone and iPod touch. "You simply draw a boundary on your phone's map to discover local businesses within that location," Yahoo! notes. "Initially available for restaurant searches in the US, Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search will launch additional local categories on an ongoing basis and will extend to international markets in the near future."

Spam levels on Twitter have dropped to below one percent, the micro-blogging service claims.

According to Twitter, spam levels hit 11 percent in August 2009 but were cut to just under one percent by February this year.

"Posting harmful links to phishing or malware sites, repeatedly posting duplicate tweets, and aggressively following and un-following accounts to attract attention are just a few examples of spam on Twitter," said Abdur Chowdhury from Twitter, in a blog.

"We're constantly battling against spam to improve the Twitter experience and we're happy to report that it's working. While the battle will never be over, we're doing well on the front lines."

Twitter also urged users of the micro-blogging service to "click the 'report for spam' link on any suspicious profile page".

"This action alerts us about the account and blocks the account from following or replying to you," added Chowdhury.

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See also: Twitter tool to help put tweets on your website

Super-fast broadband is essential to create thousands of new businesses and jobs in the UK, says Chancellor Alistair Darling.

During today's budget announcement, Darling revealed the government has "taken the decision to ensure the benefits [of super-fast broadband] were spread to rural as well as urban areas".

Darling then said a proposed 'broadband tax', which was first outlined in the Chancellor's Pre-Budget report in December, will "unlock private investment and enable 90 per cent of the country to access the next generation of super-fast broadband by 2017".

Under the 'broadband tax' Brits will be charged a £6-a-year levy on their telephone line. This tax will create the 'Next Generation Fund' that will pay for the roll-out of super-fast broadband across the UK.

However, Darling did elaborate on when the 'broadband tax' would come into force.

Darling's comments come just days after Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed that the government hopes to ensure every Brit has access to super-fast broadband by 2020.

Sebastian Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com said super-fast broadband will change the way Brits use the web.

"It will help individuals interact with governments and businesses in a more efficient and personal way," he said.

According to Lahtinen, there has been a surge in the use of 'telepresence', a type of high-resolution video conferencing which "creates the feeling that you are physically in the same room".

"Being able to take part in a meeting from home will mean saving on travel costs, and more importantly allowing you to spend your time more effectively whether that means more time with the family or to complete other work," added Lahtinen.

"Many people are looking to start their own businesses, and by having access to high speed broadband, they can put off renting an office which can present a significant cost saving, and possibly even make the difference between profitability when times are tough."

According to Dominic Monkhouse, managing director of web hosting firm PEER 1, believe super-fast broadband will help encourage more Ecommerce in the UK.

"Ecommerce start-ups are typically one or two man bands working out of their living rooms and without a huge amount of capital behind them. It's not just the availability of high speed broadband that will launch these businesses but the cost - there's no point having the service available if it's too expensive to have any meaningful impact," he said.

"Superfast broadband absolutely has the potential to promote online start-up businesses which will in turn create jobs, so long as those who would benefit the most aren't priced out."

• Broadband speed test
• Internet & broadband news

See also: Gov't group to oversee roll-out of 100Mbps broadband

Random House, the world's largest book publisher, may prevent its books from being available on Apple's forthcoming iPad over fears the device may drive down the retail value of eBooks.

According to a FT report, Random House is uncomfortable with Apple's new pricing mode, which could erode established publishing practices and see authors and agents missing out on potential earnings.

Click here for more Apple iPad coverage

Random House's publishing rivals - Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Harper-Collins and Penguin - are understood to have signed up for Apple's iBookstore.Bestselling Random House title's include Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The iPad goes on sale in the US on 3 April, while those in the UK will have to wait until the end of April for yet unconfirmed date for the launch.

(Editor’s note: Tom Klein is a shareholder at the Silicon Valley office of Greenberg Traurig LLP. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)

The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley since the dot-com bust has been that if a startup is not strong enough to be taken public by Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, then it shouldn’t go public. As venture-backed companies begin to emerge from the recession-forced cocoon, we’re finding that conventional wisdom may no longer apply.

Most CEO’s and venture capitalists defer to the giants in the public offering industry simply because of their brand power. For 7 percent of the deal, the major banks will field a team to prepare and sell the company’s securities. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting the B team or the C team, you still have the Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, or Bank of America/Merrill Lynch name behind you

Admittedly, the big banks do have something to offer, but these days so do the smaller banks.

Let’s look first at what you get with the usual suspects…

Major banks offer deep relationships with some of the deepest pocketed “buy-side” institutional investors.  The “sell side” analysts at the major banks have long-standing relationships with their counterparts on the “buy side”.  The analysts can facilitate an understanding of the company, its financial projections and the estimated public offering valuation.  Doing so allows the company executives on the “road show” (when the company executives visit the institutional buyers for in person meetings) to focus largely on company vision and strategy.

The big banks are also very knowledgeable on selling securities to the major institutions and some may also be a “principal” in the deal as a purchaser of some of the offered securities.  In addition, these big banks have big balance sheets, and can effect stabilizing transactions post-offering to support the stock in the aftermarket.

Tier Two

Beneath them, a ‘second tier’ of banks also has good relationships with their buyers, who are similar (though perhaps not comparable) in financial strength. They do not, however, have as much depth in the institutional buy-side for initial public offerings.

Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, UBS Securities, and Barclays, though very strong, may not match the IPO experience, financial depth and breadth of the major banks, but may offer a higher quality selling and execution team than the first tier banks for two reasons:  The size of the transaction and the attention devoted to the transaction.

A transaction that is not large enough for a major bank, or that might get the second team at the main IPO banks could be a perfectly sized deal for the next level bank and very important to a bank without the cachet of a Goldman or a Morgan.  These ‘second tier’ banks will likely always field an A-team for a good Silicon Valley technology company, so that a very effective effort will be put into selling and executing the deal.

Tier Three

The next tier of banks usually offers something unique to the startup going public.  While they can’t offer the same kind of support as the first and second-tier banks, they make up for that with execution skill, personal attention and after-market support.

Banks such as Jeffries & Co., Piper Jaffray, Cowen, Raymond James Financial, Oppenheimer, Thomas Wiesel, JMP Securities, and Stifel would make a Silicon Valley technology company their primary transactional focus for the duration of the transaction.  These banks will also provide long-term guidance and support to the company long after the IPO, often at competitive rates and fee structures.

Many startups may not have a choice but to use this tier, but even if you’re able to consider the major banks, these are worth a look. The managing principals in these firms – some of whom are veterans of the big banks – often work directly on the deal, get to know the company and advise the board long after the IPO has been completed.  These banks will continue to provide analyst coverage to the companies they take public, so there will be continuing after-market support.  (Some big banks drop coverage if the company falls below a certain market capitalization.)

Many smaller banks have a deep knowledge of a particular sector, a highly regarded analyst in that area, or may be very well-regarded as a judge of companies in that space.

Other banks that don’t fit squarely into the main banking tiers may offer unique services as well.  WR Hambrecht & Co., for example, pioneered the Open IPO, which is a proprietary bidding system for auctioning the issuer’s shares in the initial public offering.  (Google used a variation of this auction method when it went public with WR Hambrecht as one of its underwriters.)

Raymond James, meanwhile, has one of the largest retail distribution channels in the world for selling the issuer’s shares.  This is a qualitatively different channel than the large banks with their large institutional clients.  And Lazard, Evercore, Pacific Growth Equities and others may offer a special analyst, a unique professional or a specialty in one sector that may make them a logical choice for an IPO.

There is a spectrum of banks in the market. For some companies, the big banks will be a natural and correct choice. But for others, smaller financial institutions may have the specialized expertise or high-levels of personal attention and after-market support that make it worth ignoring the old rules of underwriting.

Tags: IPO, underwriting

Companies: And Lazard, Barclays, Citigroup, Cowen, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Evercore, Jeffries & Co., JMP Securities, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Oppenheimer, Pacific Growth Equities, Piper Jaffray, Raymond James Financial, Stifel, the Goldman, Thomas Wiesel, UBS Securities