IT Week Insider, Volume 10, Number 13

The Insider offers a round up of key stories from IT Week

This week one of our monkeys was due to appear among the suited hopefuls on The Apprentice TV show, squaring up to the similarly hairy-faced Alan Sugar.

Unfortunately the simian got loose right before the first task and set about hurling Amstrad’s entire stock of Emailer internet phone-things out of a warehouse window. All three phones were badly damaged.

Sir Sugar took great offence and promptly fired said monkey before it had even had a chance to rip up the chairs in the waiting area.

For once Sir Alan can consider himself lucky.

News:

Intel’s Penryn promises a 45 percent speed boost
Deep inside Intel’s upcoming Penryn Xeon and Core 2 chips, the gates are constructed from the exotic metallic element hafnium, rather than silicon dioxide. This, according to Intel, is the most significant change to chip design since the late 1960s. The hafnium gates contributed to an overall speed boost of up to 45 percent. Which is all news to us, as we thought gates were for keeping sheep behind.

More news:
Microsoft adopts Smarts route to systems managementMicrosoft has struck a deal with EMC ("you hold ‘em, I'll hit ‘em") to integrate its Smarts network discovery and health monitoring software into the next version of System Centre Operations Manager (SCOM) software. The agreement should make it easier for firms running large networks to work out what's up and where.

This is also news:
e-skills launches IT skills framework
E-skills UK, the UK IT skills body, has revealed its new IT Professional Competency Model, which it hopes will improve levels of professionalism in the industry and create a common terminology for IT roles. So, in a nutshell, it would rid the industry of the term "helpdesk monkey". About time too.

Comment:
Land of hope and glory (and tax)
Lem Bingley takes a look at the UK's remorseless tax system this week. We hope that all his returns are in order, because he is likely to face more scrutiny than comedians named Dodd and jockeys called Piggot. It's OK, though, it’s not really about tax, it’s more about the difficulty of starting a firm in the UK. So, Mr tax man, you can put your bowler hat back on its stand.

Pray to the Lords for cheaper roamingDave Bailey rings in the changes relating to roaming charges. Or, the likely changes. Some changes? Well he does at least suggest that changes are afoot. Now that the House of Lords has looked into the costs of roaming (cue 'Lords of the Ringtones' joke) and made its recommendations, it’s up to mobile operators and possibly the EU to sort it all out. That should be really, really easy.

IT Week PodcastAudio analysis of the week’s events. This week Madeline Bennett and Dan Robinson discuss both Vodafone's mobile business applications and the new Symbian OS. Then David Neal pops in to talk about technology and privacy.

IT Week Labs blogThe labs dudes got their hands on some thin clients this week. The size zero debate rolls on.

Green Business News
James Murray on Fidel Castro and what he has to do with biofuels – which apparently is something.

IT Sneak blogSneak is looking forward to The Apprentice. This has nothing to do with the fact that he is the reason we are banned from using freelancers, work experience people, and suggestible temps.

Phil Muncaster blogPhil on online fraud. At least we think it is Phil.

David Neal blog
David Neal ponders how Korea will block every adult web site on the internet. Presumably it has a very, very big net.

Lem Bingley blogThis week Lem reveals that Microsoft researchers are experimenting with cats and dogs - the swines.