Editor's Blog

How will consumer IT impact your business?

Back in 2005, the analyst house Gartner predicted that consumer technology would have a huge impact on enterprise IT over the next 10 years. With many office staff now clutching an iPhone or BlackBerry, and desperate to get their hands on an iPad, it looks like they got it right. Yet despite this, some CIOs are still not convinced that technology designed primarily for the consumer market has a place in the enterprise.

Location aware applications: the big business buzz

Location aware applications have been around for some time and are, as their name suggests, simply applications that run on Smartphones or computers that are aware of their geographical location. Until recently their uses have been limited to satellite navigation systems and fairly nerdy geocaching treasure hunts, but last year this changed.

When bad news is good

You know the economy is in a bad way when a dramatic plunge in a company’s profits is described as better than expected. Nokia’s announcement that its profits have fallen by 90% was greeted – quite unbelievably – with a sense of relief by market analysts and resulted in the company’s share price rising by eight percent.

The axis of privilege

This week the full extent of the losses suffered Royal Bank of Scotland were revealed. Shockingly the bank announced total losses for 2008 of US$34.2 billion - the largest loss EVER in UK banking history. This means that the government will be handing the bank another £13 billion of taxpayer's money.

A glimmer of hope

Sick of reading bad news about the economy? Well there's one story this week that may bring a smile to your face. A former manager at the collapsed UK chain store Woolworths, was so determined to save the store where she had worked for 18 years, that she re-opened it with a new name.