Pay as you go cloud hosting
Customers can now get what is thought to be the UK’s first truly fixed-price pre-pay cloud hosting service that fully utilises VMware’s Resource Pool capabilities.
Customers can now get what is thought to be the UK’s first truly fixed-price pre-pay cloud hosting service that fully utilises VMware’s Resource Pool capabilities.
Announced in the last issue of VitAL, The VitAL Focus Groups which take place on 21st June 2011 at the Park Inn Hotel, Heathrow, will aim to focus on key strategies to help IT professionals through the tough economic times ahead.
“The real theme of our time seems to be ‘doing more with less’ and clearly IT is the key to this process. The VitAL Focus Groups aim to equip its delegates with the tools to cut costs while improving their service levels,” comments VitAL editor Matt Bailey. “While June 2011 is nearly a year away, I suspect we can safely assume that the economic situation, while unpredictably fluid and dynamic in many respects, will still be forcing companies to drive out cost.”
In a survey of 250 chief information officers and IT professionals in organisations of 1,000 employees or more, 43 percent of British IT leaders said that reducing expenditure would be their top priority for the next three years, compared to 26 percent of their peers in the US, and just 17 percent in Germany. The research also showed that 50 percent have had their IT budgets cut for the current year (the same as the global average), despite the UK’s economy officially emerging from recession in January. The survey focused on recipients in global companies based in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany across the verticals of financial services, healthcare, retail and the public sector.
A scientist from the University of Reading claims to be the first human to have been infected with a computer virus after he contaminated an electronic chip which was inserted into his hand. Dr Mark Gasson said the device was programmed with a virus which could transfer itself to any other electronic systems it came in contact with, raising the possibility that in the future, advanced medical devices such as pacemakers could become vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Only three per cent of UK businesses plan to replace IT staff to fill the skills gap left by the recession, according to a recent survey of UK IT managers commissioned by Esteem Systems.
As the UK starts to see signs of recovery, 64 percent of businesses and organisations admitted they will be investing in IT to help drive business forward. Just six percent said they would take a ‘wait and see’ approach to the recovery. The research also revealed that due to the demand for more flexible solutions to solve the skills shortage resulting from the recession, IT managed services are becoming a growth area.