Top 10 IT news stories of the week: Naive Tim Berners-Lee, Liam Maxwell speaks out about government IT and cash machines that keep on giving
Why on Earth would Computing readers be so interested in malware that can enable attackers to empty cash machines?
Celebrity stories are strictly for the Daily Mail website, and its "side-bar of shame" in particular, but this week, such celebrities as Liam Maxwell and Sir Tim Berners-Lee attracted the interest of Computing's esteemed readers. But they weren't the top attraction. For some reason, Computing's more high-brow audience were most interested in malware that can help attackers to empty compromised cash machines - out of professional interest, we're sure...
10. Why Reed.co.uk opted for Google Apps instead of Microsoft Office 365
Google is keen to sell a story that the Chromebook - and similar "network computers" - are the future. The sales figures tell a different story, however Reed is one organisation that has taken the plunge and gone the whole Google. According to director of technology Mark Ridley, the reason for dumping Office was the complexity of Microsoft's licensing model. "Sometimes it's just a lot easier to say 'okay, we're going to pay £3 a month for email or for document editing' - the original Office 365 terms and conditions said you couldn't use Office 365 licences in a virtualised environment, but you could on hardware," he said.
9. H4cked Off: Naivete, thy name is Tim Berners-Lee
Being mean to someone as clever and nice as Sir Tim Berners-Lee isn't easy, but someone has to do it, and the proposals he put forward at his keynote address at IP Expo deserved a thorough shake-down. Not least, according to Peter Gothard, because they were so hopelessly naïve. The trouble is, the majority of people - especially young people - just don't seem to care about their own personal data or with whom they knowingly or unknowingly share it. That is, unless or until their nude selfies are hacked from their personal iCloud account.
8. Coca-Cola uses Splunk for data-driven insight
Coca-Cola is one of those mysteriously successful products: a packaged drink that basically tastes of sugar, sold at premium to other drinks that taste the same. What's wrong with a nice cup of tea? Be that as it may, Coca-Cola told delegates at the "splunk.conf 2014" in Las Vegas how it uses the tool for data analysis. Mixing his metaphors delightfully, he said: "I think filling up that data lake is daunting - it has been for us. But there is light at the end of the tunnel." Perhaps the most interesting point he made, though, was that the company was moving all its IT infrastructure to Amazon Web Services - presumably, its super-secret recipe for Coca-Cola will now be stored there too.
7. Forget the postponed IPO, Box may struggle just to survive, says Accellion CEO
There are quite a lot of smart people - and even some stupid ones - who say that we're in the midst of another technology bubble, with ridiculous valuations given to companies that won't stand the test of time. Box, according to Accellion CEO Yorgen Edholm, is one such company. It was going to float in March at an absurd valuation, but pulled out at the last moment. Edholm thinks it's because the company just isn't going to be go-er in the long term due to competition from big boys like Microsoft and Google. "They were the new company going to take over the world, but then suddenly Google and Microsoft say 'hey wait, we can't afford to forfeit that space', so now they're coming after them," Edholm told Computing.
There's a mild irony in seeing Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman introduce plans to split HP in two, with PCs and printers going one way, and all the enterprise IT going the other. It was, after all, a similar plan by former CEO Leo Apotheker in 2011 that led to his ousting and the installation of Whitman. Back then, Whitman ditched the PC divestiture plan, but gave the thumbs up to the purchase of Autonomy for $11bn. Perhaps it should have been the other way round? Either way, Whitman now claims that the divesture forms part of her five-year plan for the company, but shareholders probably won't complain as they'll end up with stakes in two, hopefully more manageable companies, instead of just one big one.
5. Liam Maxwell: 'We need to reset our relationship with technology'
One thing the coalition government has achieved - although you won't see it on any election poster or hear it in any of the debates next year - is to bring just a soupcon of order and common sense to IT procurement. The G-Cloud initiative, which started slowly, is finally helping the public sector in the purchase and implementation of new systems at fair prices, and Iain Duncan Smith's Universal Credit project would appear to be the only one heading for planet flustercluck. So when government CTO Liam Maxwell speaks, people listen. At IP Expo this week, Maxwell explained what he's been doing to whip IT across the whole of Whitehall (and beyond) into some semblence of sense - achieving savings in the order of £1.3bn.
4. Tesco launches Hudl 2 - with first batches on shelves this week
Okay, this didn't receive quite the stratospheric number of hits that anything with "Apple" in the headline would usually get, but it's still quite surprising to see how much interest there is in Tesco's Hudl tablet computer. That's probably because it's a very well-specified device at a good price. Alternatively, it may be - as one of our commenters suggests - because it's more likely to be bought as a gift, while the giver buys themself a shiny Apple iPad.
3. Credit Suisse saves £500k a month using Splunk, with Oracle database set to be decommissioned
When a company - even a big bank like Credit Suisse - claims that it is saving as much as half-a-million pounds every month simply by running a bit of software, the resulting story always proves popular. The claim in this case was made by Credit Suisse's head of grid operations and support, Finnbar Cunningham, who needed a statistics platform to help monitor the bank's not inconsiderable IT resources. "We have data inputs which are grid statistics, so every time a job is completed, the grid produces some summary stats - the product has some of its own stats and analysis tools and uses Oracle on the backend, but I just grab the data before it gets into the Oracle database, it gets written to a file, I index that file and Splunk fills out all of the fields," Cunningham told Sooraj Shah. Yes, it really is as simple as that.
2. Tough Love: How BG Group's HR boss binned SAP and passed over Workday to embrace Oracle HCM
Stories about binning SAP are always going to be popular. And stories about binning SAP in favour of Oracle are always going to be popular, too - with people who work for Oracle. This one therefore enjoyed close to a hundred retweets following the Oracle World conference, as utility BG Group explained why it dumped SAP for Oracle after giving Workday the once-over. Luci Love, head of HR shared services, told Peter Gothard how it all went: "I've described it a bit like, you know when you're in an earthquake zone and you have a human chain to move the rubble - that was our approach to systems. It was just survival."
We're not sure whether that sounds good or bad, but Love seemed delighted with the move from a heavily customised SAP ERP system to an on-premise cloud from Oracle.
1. Cash machines running Windows being emptied by 'Tyupkin' malware
We can't think why this one would excite so much interest: a techie crowd clicking to read a story about a cheeky piece of Eastern European malware that can help its attackers to empty cash machines of all their money. Needless to say, the process for doing it was a touch more complicated than the headline might have led readers to suggest, requiring physical access to the machine in order to be able to upload malware enabling attackers to take control of the ATM - but only at certain times so not just anyone can empty it. Very clever. What's less clever, perhaps, is running a cash machine, of all things, on an old version of Windows and not keeping anti-virus and other security up-to-date. Of course, no British bank would be caught with its trousers down in that way. Would it?