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March 2008

Features

OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING
China's offshore opportunity
The Chinese IT outsourcing industry has many challenges to overcome. But it also has the resources to pull it off
By Pete Swabey

CHINA AND SECURITY
The China security threat
The threat that China poses to IT security is making Western business executives nervous
By Michelle Price

STORAGE
Thin provisioning
Thin provisioning can radically improve storage utilisation levels by allocating storage resources that do not exist.
By Kenny MacIver

Perspective

IBM'S SOFTWARE AGENDA
An interview with Steve Mills
In a rare and exclusive interview, IBM’s software chief, Steve Mills, opens up on the company’s software agenda
By Kenny MacIver

EXPERT ADVICE
The virtual licensing hurdle
Licensing software on virtual machines brings fresh challenges, says Gartner’s Frank DeSalvo
By Frank DeSalvo

DATA CENTRES
Balancing availability with environmental responsibility
Can businesses guarantee availability without wasting energy?
By Gareth Morgan

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
See-through Tarmac
How construction materials provider Tarmac opened up its ERP systems to its customers
By Kenny MacIver

Industry

MONTH IN REVIEW
Month in review
The top IT industry stories from February 2008
By Kenny MacIver

STORAGE
HDS engineers a virtual revival
Controller-level storage virtualisation to boost storage utilisation levels
By Gareth Morgan

DEVELOPMENT
Adobe blows AIR into desktop web apps
Desktop web-app runtime may propel document format vendor into platform market
By Pete Swabey

SECURITY
Veracode strives for standard security
Fledgling testing provider declares war on insecure code
By Michelle Price

SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE
BlueWolf brings SaaS consultancy to Europe
Salesforce.com-affiliated consultancy moves new model across the pond
By Pete Swabey

FINANCIAL REPORT
Salesforce.com on track to break $1 billion barrier
Plus, the fortunes of HP and Dell continue to diverge
By Pete Swabey

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
Virtualisation gold rush continues apace
Novell and Sun Microsystems extend their virtual reach
By Kenny MacIver

Departments

EDITOR'S LETTER
The tao of IT
Embrace China's contradictions, says Kenny MacIver
By Kenny MacIver

INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
“Proposed laws targeting illegal downloaders may put businesses at risk”
Does a government green paper point to a time when businesses are responsible for the music downloads carried out by their staff at work?
By Pete Swabey

LAPTOP SECURITY
This data will self-destruct
New anti-theft device wipes sensitive information
By Pete Swabey

OPEN SOURCE
Desk pest
Tux the penguin now available in robot form
By Gareth Morgan

DATA QUALITY
Hiding in plain sight
How data quality software has unearthed some of the world's most notorious criminals
By Pete Swabey

CLOUD COMPUTING
The Big Switch
Nicholas Carr, famed for his earlier judgement that ‘IT doesn’t matter’, maps out the transformation of IT into utility services and a time when the ‘World Wide Computer’ will be indistinguishable from human intelligence
By Kenny MacIver

IT SPENDING
IT spending to slow
Economic downturn will affect IT spend, says Forrester Research
By Kenny MacIver

GREEN IT
Cost governs green IT agenda
Energy costs drive environmental policies
By Kenny MacIver

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Business intelligence spending to slow
Consolidation leads to customer caution
By Kenny MacIver

DATA CENTRES
Data centre land grab seen in 2007
Hunger for data centre space not seen since dot com boom
By Kenny MacIver

Also in this issue...

MANAGEMENT REPORT
Effective IT 2008 Summit
A report from Information Age's Effective IT 2008 Summit event
By Information Age

Back issues

Information Age, July 2008 - The evolution of the CIO, Agile development, enterprise content management. Management Report: The Future of the Data Centre 2008

Information Age, June 2008 - Offshore innovation, Green IT in action, storage deduplication. Management report: Business Intelligence 08. Research Report: The value of IT

Information Age, May 2008 - The coming energy drought, women in IT. Research report: Information orchestration. Business briefing: Shadow data systems. Management report: Future of Software 2008

Information Age, April 2008 - Corporate social networking, securing virtual environments, an interview with HP's enterprise chief Ann Livermore

Information Age, March 2008 - IT opportunity and threat in the new Chinese economy, thin provisioning, the Effective IT 2008 Summit

Information Age, February 2008 - Living without an IT director, alternative biometrics, WiMax. Research report: Data governance

Information Age, January 2008 - The Effective IT 2008 Report: The technologies and services behind today's most dramatic business success stories. Plus: Management Report - IT for the M Business

Information Age, December 2007 - Data centre mythbusting, protecting against floods, SaaS meets SOA. Management report: Eco-responsibilty in IT

Information Age, November 2007 - Contactless payment systems, data centre co-location, systems management & virtualisation. Research report: Maximising IT's potential

Information Age, October 2007 - Serious business in virtual worlds, agile development at Standard Life, VMware profile, NHS Direct Q&A

Information Age, August 2007 - The insider security threat, video conferencing, Effective IT Awards winners report

Information Age, July 2007 - Agile ERP, financial service innovation, Storage, Business Briefing: XML integration, Management Report: The Future of the Data Centre 2007, Research Report: Virtualisation

Information Age, June 2007 - New licensing models, search and BI, Capgemini's global strategy, Q&A: British Energy

Information Age, May 2007 - Dynamic pricing, business process management, content management, Q&A: Reuters

Information Age, April 2007 - Cyber assault, managed print services, fixed-mobile convergence, Management Report: Business Intelligence 2007

Information Age, March 2007 - SOA design pitfalls, virtualisation and the operating systems, Business Briefing: Enterprise 2.0

Information Age, February 2007 - Out of India, the life and times of the relational database, The Effective IT 2007 Summit

Information Age, January 2007 - Advanced analytics, green IT, the state of security, The Effective IT 2007 Report