What the IT industry thinks of 2009 Budget

A plethora of policies affecting the technology industry were announced in the 2009 Budget, with mentions of high-tech green investment and broadband infrastructure highlighting the growing importance of IT in mainstream politics.

IT industry experts said there were a range of relevant announcements, but some of the longer term effects are as yet unclear.

The announcements came just a day after the government published the Operational Efficiency Programme which recommended spending £7.2bn a year less on IT through efficiency savings.

Green technology investment was high on the agenda, with £750m earmarked for emerging technologies and £405m for advanced green manufacturing.

But Barry Murphy, partner and head of technology at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, said it was unclear how or when firms would see the benefits.

In order to mark the twentieth birthday of the web, CERN will be hosting a couple of "short presentations from web veterans, in addition to a keynote speech from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, alongside a demonstration of the original browser". 

"There are a lot of headline announcements but I am not entirely sure what the delivery mechanism is for companies who will need the investment. There is recognition of our need to be at the forefront of a new knowledge economy, but I am not clear on exactly where the money will go."

Good news came in the form of a temporary increase in the main rate of capital allowances, which has been doubled to 40% for this year. This will be helpful for investment - including communications companies investing in broadband infrastructure - but some warn it may not be enough.

Philip Virgo, strategic advisor at the Institute for the Management of Information Systems, said, "I would call for 100% for two years, but at least this recognises the importance of capital allowances and it is better than nothing. This may cause people to bring forward investment they were planning anyway, but it is not enough to trigger things that would not otherwise happen. There is also a need to take a look at the valuations used for business rates."

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Taken from Computer Weekly

Huawei unwraps 21Mb/s HSDPA dongle

Modem maker Huawei has introduced an HSDPA dongle with a slide-out USB connector. Not only that, but it supports monster download speeds

The E182E supports HSDPA 3G data transfers of up to 21.6Mb/s - provided the network can manage it, of course. That's the downlink - upload speeds run to 5.76Mb/s, Huawei said.

The retractable USB connector pops out at the push of a switch and locks into place during use.

You'll have seen this trick on USB Flash drives. And in a nod to the design's origins, Huawei said it will offer the E812E with up to 32GB of storage on board.

It didn't say how much it'll charge for the modem, but Huawei did say the E182E will arrive in Europe in April. ®

Taken from RegHardware.co.uk

Asus brings Eee Keyboard to CES

Computer maker touts fully functional PC housed in a touchscreen keyboard

Asus has used the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to demonstrate its newest innovation, a keyboard PC with a 5in touchscreen built in.

The company describes the Eee Keyboard as a fully functional PC designed to be used in conjunction with another device.

Asus explained in a keynote demonstration that, although the included screen can be used for browsing and other simple tasks, the Eee Keyboard can also be used to stream media or browse the internet once attached to a television or other type of screen.

The device is designed to be portable at just under 1Kg, and boasts a range of features. It runs Windows XP Home, includes a 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor, 1Gb of DDR2 DRam and a choice of 16GB or 32GB solid state drives for storage.

Asus said that the design is still in the concept stage, despite it looking well advanced, and declined to announce any release information.

Taken from vnunet.com

One year ago today Windows Server 2008 was released to a waiting tech world. We take a look at how it’s done.

This week marks the one year anniversary of one of Microsoft’s most important releases – Windows Server 2008.

Before it arrived on 27 February 2008, it had been five long years since the release of the last major version of Windows Server. In a world that was moving on from simple client/server applications and with server clouds on the horizon, Windows Server 2003 was looking long in the tooth.

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Taken from ITPro.co.uk

Expect internet "brownouts" from early 2010

Reports says online demand exceeding supply will see PCs jitter and freeze

Regular "brownouts" for the Internet are forecast as early as next year as cyberspace gets more crowded, says a report from Nemertes Research, a "respected American think-tank".

Computers and laptops trying to get online will soon just "freeze", thanks to consumer demand for content - growing at around 60% per year, not including rising demand from India and China - that will "start to exceed supply".

More people working online and the ever-increasing popularity of bandwidth-hungry services such as YouTube and the BBC's iPlayer are said to be partly to blame.

The "waves of disruption" are said to be expected next year, with computers "jittering" and "freezing", followed by "brownouts" where computers will go "offline for several minutes at a time".

From 2012 Nemertes Research states "PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the Internet an 'unreliable toy'".

A Nemertes Research bod said: "Today people know how home computers slow down when the kids get back from school and start playing games, but by 2012 that traffic jam could last all day long".

Written by Amy-Mae Elliott

Spotify UK MD Paul Brown: "We're on a path to profitability"

It's the music phenomenon that's turning existing models on their heads. But will it make any money? Paul Brown reckons so.

It's the old conundrum: how do you make people pay for something that they're used to getting for free?

Swedish music streaming site Spotify has been delighting its fans with fast, comprehensive access to tunes online for six months. Now, they've launched a subscription service. It's cheap as chips – the "all-you-can-eat" package costs from 50p per day – but is that a few pennies that the British public are unwilling to spend?

No, is MD Brown's answer.

"We know from subscription services that have been out there, subscription is still a model that has real legs," he told The Guardian. "It's not just about giving you the same service with a pricepoint."

And he's got a few ideas to get users reaching into their pockets. "Spotify isn't one of these companies that's going to tell you 'there's 20 things we want to do'," he says, cagily. "But portability is an obvious one. If you can execute well on the iPhone, for example (Pandora on iPhone has seen several million installs), Spotify as a pay service might see a nice subset of that in the UK."

It's all very well to talk about the distant future – how many people might end up subscribing, but what about now? Of the million users currently bopping away to Spotify, how many are paid up members?

"The majority are obviously going to be free at this stage," Brown admits. "We have a nice proportion - a decent proportion, but we can't disclose numbers - of paid subscribers. That will get more interesting."

Interesting is the word. Having seen Pandora, a similar music streaming site, go bust after legal wranglings over fees and royalties, and Napster, which was also touted as the evolution of music streaming – die a death, can Spotify really break the curse of free-to-paid for?

by Rebecca Burn-Callander

YouTube partners with Universal for new music site

YouTube and Universal are in talks to create a premium online music video service, according to reports.

The deal would see the two create a stand-alone site to showcase music videos by Universal artists, as well as related content designed to garner higher advertising rates than now available through YouTube.

The site, provisionally dubbed Vevo, could also offer other merchandise, such as concert tickets and clothing lines, the sources claim.

"UMG CEO Doug Morris came up with this idea to do a Hulu for music but only with premium music content," says one person familiar with the matter, adding that other music companies have expressed interest. "We literally just started negotiations."

If they reach a deal, the service could mark a significant step forward in Google's attempt to generate revenue from YouTube, which it acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006.

A deal would also represent a broadening of the sometimes fractious ties between YouTube and the media industry, which has on occasion ordered the popular video-sharing site to pull down clips of TV shows or music videos uploaded by users without permission.

Universal's current licensing deal with YouTube expires at the end of March, and a new deal is expected for April. EMI is also in contract renewal talks with YouTube. Sony Music renewed its contract with YouTube last month.

"We are always working with our partners to find creative ways to connect music, musicians, and fans," says YouTube in a statement.

Taken from PCPro.co.uk