Bye bye MacBook, hello iPad: Why I’m taking the tablet

By Seb Janacek

Takeaway: Many people are still undecided about whether they could use Apple’s tablet instead of a notebook. There’s no doubt in Seb Janacek’s mind.

One big issue with replacing your laptop with an iPad is that Apple's tablet doesn't seem to age well. Photo: Apple

I tweeted the other day to no one in particular that I couldn’t see my iPad replacing my desktop machine but I could easily imagine not buying another laptop.
I’ve given it more thought and as much as I had assumed I’d update my MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air in a few years, now I’m not sure I need to. The iPad is now the computer I use most.
The world’s reaction to the iPad was muted at first. Like many others, I bought an iPad when it first went on sale in 2010 without a clear idea what I would use it for. Before buying it, I’d played with one for about 30 minutes, firing through 10 to 15 iPad apps in quick succession: the BBC app, Marvel comics, the Guardian photos app, and a graphically rich interactive book.
Steve Jobs mused about whether there was a space for a product between a smartphone and a laptop and decided the iPad was it. According to the Walter Isaacson biography, the polite applause and muted reception depressed Steve Jobs because the concept had been the culmination of several years of work.
Meanwhile, the tablet drew accusations that it was primarily a device for the passive consumption of content. Not anymore. The iPad is selling at pace far in excess of any previous Apple product.
There’s no doubt that the iPad is a fine device to watch stuff on. One of the best descriptions comes from the journalist and TV writer Charlie Brooker who described it as a device “ideal for idly browsing the web while watching telly”.
It performs this function very well, but two years after I first started to use it, I know it does a whole lot more. So much more that I suspect, based on my personal usage, that I can get by with a desktop Mac and an iPad and cut out Mr Laptop altogether.
Here is my home set-up: a mid-2007 24-inch iMac, a mid-2010 13-inch MacBook Pro and a third-generation 32GB wi-fi iPad. I would estimate my usage ratio as 20:10:70 for iMac:MacBook Pro:iPad.

Lack of a physical keyboard

Some people dismiss the iPad because they feel it’s uncomfortable to write on due to its lack of a physical keyboard. But I found you soon get used to it.
I admit that even now I probably make more mistakes on the soft iPad keyboard than I do on a real one, yet these errors do not represent enough of a problem to stop me using it for writing and certainly not when considering the device’s wider benefits.
On three occasions I’ve written full articles in the car - of course, not while driving. There’s more room to work on trains with the added bonus that I don’t need to worry about being within a couple of feet of a power cord.
For me, the iPad’s key work uses are writing and editing articles - sometimes long ones - producing simple presentations, and viewing often tedious papers in preparation for meetings.
I use it as my main email and browsing machine. It’s excellent for managing social media channels. There are endless Twitter clients and the WordPress app lets you post articles, review and publish comments and get headline traffic and usage data.
The Pages app is an excellent basic word processor, possibly my favourite since the Windows version of WordPerfect 5.2. Pages is used for making notes in meetings or at presentations, as well as writing longer articles. Note-taking on the iPad also means my jottings are legible, unlike my paper laptop filled with full of page after page of childlike scrawl.
A to-do app lets my manage priorities and a calendar app lets me manage time and appointments. Dropbox lets me access my files from anywhere with a wi-fi connection and presents documents and papers very well, although Excel spreadsheets less so.
Of all the common productivity applications, spreadsheets are the most problematic. I’m not a fan of either the Mac or iPad version of Numbers so still looking for a solution on this issue.
There will be many cases where a laptop is preferable to an iPad. But for someone who needs the basic functions of web, email, social media, productivity apps and other office-based applications, the iPad is starting to look like a worthy alternative.
It offers mobility and lightness, excellent user experience and a superior focus on tasks and work. Plus, in downtime, it’s an excellent machine to watch stuff on.

Issue with iPad as laptop replacement

The one big issue I have with the iPad as a laptop replacement is device longevity. My first-generation iPad is becoming slow and unresponsive and despite my new iPad’s quick performance I suspect that in two years it will succumb to a similar fate.
iPads don’t seem to age well the way Macs do. Given their lower price, I suspect Apple - and possibly other manufacturers - see them as devices that will have a shorter upgrade lifecycle than laptops or desktops.
Despite being a mid-2007 model, my iMac is still in fine shape and will last another couple of years before being upgraded. The MacBook Pro is new and will give many more years of service.
This may be the core issue. A Mac laptop has traditionally lasted me five to six years before being upgraded. If the iPad continues to creep towards obsolescence after two or three, then the maths takes over. Will it be a smaller outlay every two years for a new iPad or a larger investment every five to six years for a new laptop?
However, cost aside, increasingly there’s not really an argument for me over form and function. The iPad is winning the day.

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Women in the IT department: Why the shortage matters

By Steve Ranger

Takeaway: More women in the tech team could help rebuild the relationship between business and IT.

Most CIOs want to hire more women for the IT department, but struggle to find qualified female applicants for the roles they need to fill.

Two out of three CIOs plan to recruit more women but eight out of 10 can’t find the right candidates, according to a survey. Half of tech chiefs said more women in the IT department will improve the relationship with the rest of the business and enhance team cohesion and morale.
But as the IT department becomes less about building technology and more about providing services - thanks to trends such as cloud and BYOD - building better relationships with the rest of the business will become increasingly important. Indeed, it’s the lack of these relationship-building skills that often make IT seem out of touch with the rest of the business.

However, the vast majority of CIOs  - 82 per cent - surveyed also said hiring more women would have no impact on strategy and 86 per cent thought it would have no effect on technical skills.
Women are and have been for many years significantly under-represented in IT and in particular in IT management. Only one in 10 CIOs is a woman.

One in three of the CIOs surveyed admitted there are no women in IT management roles in their organisation, while just under half said women accounted for less than a quarter of their IT managers, according to the CIO survey by recruitment firm Harvey Nash.
The survey found similar under-representation of women in tech roles. A quarter of CIOs admitted they have no women in their technical teams while half of CIOs said they only had one woman on the tech team.
The survey found more women in non-technical roles such as business analysis and training.
And it seems that old attitudes die hard. Big gaps remain between what female CIOs and male CIOs see as the benefits of women in the IT department. While 49 per cent of the female CIOs interviewed said women have a positive impact on efficient decision-making, only 18 per cent of male CIOs thought women contribute positively in this area.

And while only 24 per cent of female CIOs said increasing the proportion of women in the IT department will have a positive effect on technical skills, only nine per cent of men agreed.
Indeed, not all CIOs agree think the lack of women in the IT department is a problem. A quarter of ‘dinosaur’ respondents - those who have no women in IT management roles - believe women are fairly represented in their department

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Virtual hacks: How the dark side is morphing

By Peter Cochrane

Takeaway: In terrorism, a false threat is often far more disruptive than the real thing. Now we are seeing that same tactic in the virtual world.

We'll probably have to spend more on the virtual hacking threat than we ever have on the real one. Photo: Shutterstock

Written at London’s Gatwick airport and dispatched to TechRepublic a week later from my favourite coffee shop via a wi-fi link at 22Mbps.

I can’t remember a time when terrorism hasn’t been a big problem somewhere on the planet. Over the years, people have perpetrated apparently random attacks and bombings with and without warning in support of their various causes.
The impact of the attacks has often been magnified by false threats and multiple bombings timed to trap people as they flee or tend the wounded. None of these tactics developed by accident.
As I stand in the security line at airports I often ask myself: who won after 9/11? The cost of dealing with the continued threat of further incidents has been enormous and continuously disruptive. But what else can we do?
Develop better security technologies seems to be the only answer, but I fear we will never return to the pre-9/11 modes of travel. So, in that sense the dark side won that battle.
A decade on and we are now seeing a build-up of similar activities in the virtual domain. Threatened attacks are now a reality. The hoaxers, disgruntled employees, digital criminals and terrorists have discovered a new tool and developed new tactics of disruption.
For the moment they seem content to attack governments, companies, and big sites, but their techniques are bound to migrate down to smaller targets including companies and individuals.
Looking to the future it seems likely that this process is going to become increasingly automated and could become a far bigger disrupter than real attacks.
We all receive those phishing attacks and blatant requests for us to confirm our banking information. All of them depend on a volume of hits to find the careless, unguarded or unknowing.
So, what can we do? Obviously we have to get ahead of the game and develop suitable strategies and defences that involve far more than firewalls and virus protection.

Continuous and automatic monitoring

We are talking continuous and automatic monitoring of network traffic for billions of fixed and mobile terminals worldwide. Creating this security will be no mean undertaking and, logically, far more sophisticated scenarios will have to be developed if and when the disruption escalates.
Personally, I prefer the ghost scenario - running real and ghost targets side by side, with seamless switchovers when an attacker strikes or a threat is posed. It just appeals to my sense of irony.
Visible targets can come and go, get damaged, only to be repaired and replaced at speed, while honeypot targets take a growing percentage of the flak.
What’s certain is that a strategy of ignoring all these problems and hoping they go away is untenable. We will probably have to spend more on this virtual threat than we ever have on the real one.
So, as I stand in that security line at the airport once more, I remind myself that there are far more good neurons on the planet than bad, and at all costs we must never let the dark side win.

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Personal data: Time to rethink our whole security approach?

By Stewart James

Takeaway: Securing data simply by defending the network perimeter is no longer enough to satisfy the law. IT departments need to consider a different approach.

Attacks have shown that a perimeter-based strategy is not enough to meet the needs of most networks. Photo: Shutterstock

Protecting personal data is an emotive subject that’s long been an issue for CIOs. It became an even bigger concern when UK data privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office gained the power in 2010 to impose fines of up to £500,000 ($800,000) for breaching the Data Protection Act.

But breaches that affect commercially sensitive and secret information get less attention. That’s surprising because such incidents can result in companies being sued for breach of contract and directors facing action for breaching their fiduciary duties.

UK data protection law is based on eight principles and requires companies to take “appropriate technical and organisational measures” to protect personal information.

Against that, the law of confidentiality, which applies to commercially sensitive or secret information, is a common law right based on precedent and has not been codified. Consequently, people tend not to understand it so well, although the principles are easily stated.

This approach to protecting confidential and personal information is logical. It allows the law to remain flexible and relevant despite rapid changes in the technology industry.

The result is that regulators and enforcers have to take a purposive approach, which may appear quite subjective, when they decide whether appropriate protection has been provided.

The trouble with this approach is that it is relatively easy to apply in retrospect but not so easy to use when drawing up requirements. Furthermore, rapid tech changes can make solutions that are satisfactory now seem totally inadequate in six months.

These factors create a further dilemma for CIOs, particularly when faced with increasing demands to make information mobile, allow for technology convergence and permit the use of personal devices and develop BYOD-friendly policies. They need to rethink the underlying approach to securing information.

Meeting regulatory requirements

It’s clear that an approach to securing information that relies solely on defending the network perimeter will not now meet the regulatory requirements.

Hackers have succeeded with attacks even where strong network security is in place, such as in government networks. These attacks show that a perimeter-based strategy will not be sufficient to meet the needs of most networks.

So, we should be looking at the fundamental requirements of information assurance to deliver the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information, and where the information is communicated, to be able to verify the source.

Reversing the approach and concentrating on securing the information makes allowance for the possibility that the network may be compromised and focuses attention on the value and importance of the information itself.

The information owner is the person most likely to understand the harm that might be caused if the information is disclosed, deleted or corrupted. So the information owner should also be empowered to make a decision on the level of protection a piece of information requires while it is held by the business.

Like the law itself, protecting information as an asset allows for a more flexible approach to technological development.

Inside-out approach to data security

So an inside-out approach meets two key requirements of the regulatory environment. First, it allows the technical approach to remain relevant regardless of changes to the platform and applications used for the processing of that information.

That flexibility allows the IT department to meet demands for system and network improvements while reducing the risk that these changes will expose the company to accusations of failing to take adequate steps to protect information.

Secondly, employees will require education on the allocation of appropriate levels of security to the information assets. This training will go part of the way to meeting the organisational requirements of the data protection legislation.

In doing so, we may have to accept that the default position will be to overprotect information. But in the context of the heavy fines and the reputational damage that occurs in the event of a breach, that overprotection should be seen as the preferred option.

Of course, companies could remove the decision from employees and take the approach of enforcing the highest level of security to all information assets in all circumstances. But that measure may overburden the system and can have a wider impact on the business.

Securing information does not remove the need for perimeter defences, but it should form the key part of a comprehensive security strategy.

Encrypting information and using digital certificates meet the security needs of all stakeholders while the data is at rest and in transit. When the information is being processed it is much harder for an unauthorised person to access, alter or publish it, and this is also the area where intrusion-detection and prevention systems are more capable of providing adequate protection.

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Five ways CIOs can keep the boss - and the IT team - happy

By Nick Heath

Takeaway: Veteran CIO Ian Alderton shares his tips for tech leaders struggling to satisfy the CEO’s demands while keeping the IT from falling over.

The successful CIO does far more than keep the server room lights on: they understand their business’s needs and how to use technology to serve them.

But it can be difficult for IT leaders to understand how best to work with the business, especially when having to juggle so many competing demands for their attention.

Ian Alderton, a CIO with more than 22 years experience in the IT industry, shares his tips on how the IT team can deliver the competitive edge demanded by the CEO.

1. Swot up on the business
The CIO and the wider IT team should be seen as a “trusted advisor” to the business.
“Don’t have a technology organisation that is at arm’s length from the business,” Alderton said. ”Have one that knows the businesses’ commercial operation so it can say to the business ’I understand your products and know where you’re going tomorrow, and can deliver the technology you need’.
“I’m a strong believer that if you sit down with the business and understand their products - maybe go on a course and learn about those products, how you trade them, what the cash flows are, how the business manages risk and how that impacts the bottom line - that puts you in a completely different position.”
CIOs that fail to understand business strategy and the role IT plays in enabling it, “risk technology just becoming an order taker”, where instructions are carried out without understanding of how it will benefit the business.
“When you become a trusted advisor it will take the business and the technology to a different level. No longer will you have that at arms length conversation of ‘I just want one of these’.”
2. Sell business and not technology benefits
When talking technology with the board, spell out how the IT benefits business strategy and the bottom line.
“For example, when you’re reporting to CEO about technology portfolio, use an investment management approach,” he said. “Say: ‘This is your investment you’re making in technology, these are the outcomes that are going to be delivered, this is the benefit to the bottom line and the revenue, and this is where we are’.”
He added: “Talk in terms of investment, ‘You’re paying £50,000 for this’, this will deliver to your bottom line over three years £150,000′, as opposed to just saying this is ‘red, amber, green status’, which is not going to tick the box of the CEO.”
3. Get the IT team invested in the business
It’s not enough that the CIO is invested in the business - the whole IT team should feel like they are making a contribution to the bottom line.
“If they’re working on a particular development show them it’s not just that they’ve delivered ABC, but how that will enable the business.”
Alderton said that means encouraging staff to think about ‘What does that deliver in terms of financial impact?’ before starting each new piece of work or ‘What is the impact to the business?’ before making a change.
“For example, it’s not just that they delivered a great piece of code, it’s that they delivered a great piece of code that enabled the business to deliver a product faster to market and secure a new revenue stream of £150,000.
“If you start looking through a business lens it starts changing people’s behaviours and that will start amplifying through the technology organisation.”
4. Focus on the stuff that makes a difference
Focus in-house work on those products, services or delivery channels that provide a competitive advantage and outsource those commodity services that don’t add value.
“Instead of me having to pay £500,000 for something that’s not a competitive advantage I’d much rather give that to a third party and they give me a per transaction cost, and I don’t have to carry the maintenance cost, the capital cost and development cost.
“Focus innovation on the customer and opportunities where the business can outmanoeuvre the opposition,” he said.
5. Ask whether it’s time to move on
Just because your business has always run its tech in a certain way, for example giving each staff member the standard desktop PC and phone combo, it doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for the organisation.
Ask “What does it cost just to keep the lights on for technology?”, Alderton said, and whether there is a more efficient way of providing IT.
“This covers a whole magnitude of things. It’s not just focusing on the sexy stuff, it’s looking at the plumbing and the non-critical tech through to the telco side of things,” he said.
“For example, many people might have a desktop and a laptop and a phone. Looking at the corporate bill you can ask ‘Do I need all of that infrastructure?’” he said.
“If I can virtualise that then I don’t need that box underneath somebody’s desk that’s depreciating. If I can centralise that I can get better utilisation that will drive down my cost of ownership and improve my depreciation, power consumption and security.”
Business processes and workflows should be put under the same scrutiny: “Things evolve and grow , and if you take a step back that wouldn’t be the workflow you’d implement for a greenfield site.”
Where possible automate the workflow within the organisation, to reduce cost and the risk caused by mistakes when work is handed from one manual business process to another.

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Cloud computing: Five reasons why it won’t face a backlash

The economies of scale from the cloud will not necessarily lead to fewer jobs. Photo: Shutterstock

By Mark Samuels

Takeaway: Even the inexorable rise of outsourcing met with resistance, but IT experts seem to think cloud computing will escape a similar negative reaction.

Business computing is slowly but surely moving on-demand, with analysts suggesting the cloud will be a standard way of sourcing technology over the next decade. So what will such a change mean for the IT organisation and the wider business?
Just as outsourcing experienced a backlash because of its effect on employees, will organisations and IT departments that externalise technology through the cloud also suffer a negative reaction? TechRepublic seeks the opinion of five IT experts.

1. Going on-demand will change job types, not job numbers

Kurt Frary, ICT architecture manager at Norfolk County Council, is looking to develop partnerships with suppliers to improve services, and is considering the potential of approaches such as the cloud.
“At key decision points, you must consider all service options,” he says. ”There are some things we just can’t put into the cloud, like the social care system. You evaluate the decision point and work with that. Cloud is not always a risk to jobs, but it could be a risk in regards to a change in the type of jobs an organisation can offer,” says Frary.

2. Cloud computing will make the IT profession more exciting

David Molony, principal analyst at Ovum Telecoms, also thinks access to new types of service will help develop new types of employment, both abroad and at home. “The cloud will give you access to new resources and allows you to undertake cool projects, which make the IT professional’s job more exciting.”
The effect of on-demand technology will vary, but the flexibility offered by the cloud will give IT professionals a means to investigate the costs involved in a worldwide rollout.
“If you’re in an emerging market, and you’re in a hurry, cloud services offer a great way to move quickly,” he says. “If you’re a specialist engineering company, for example, the cloud can help you increase your footprint and move with speed into new global territories.”

3. The cloud makes sense for certain IT tasks

Bill Limond, CIO at the City of London, says most of his organisation’s IT projects are still managed inhouse. However, resource constraints mean it can make sense for the various authorities of the UK capital to look at ways to share services, including technology resources.
“Sometimes you will find that IT provision can be undertaken better by an external provider,” he says. Limond recently helped roll out a trial of Microsoft Office 365 in a separate department associated with selling the City overseas as a potential investment location.
“We used the cloud to quickly establish an IT infrastructure,” he says, referring to the strengths of on-demand in that particular situation. “We wouldn’t want to use cloud across the organisation yet, as it is not necessarily cost effective. But for a quick rollout, on-demand has worked well.”

4. Forget the cloud backlash and think of the opportunities

Alvaro Arenas, professor of information systems at the IE Business School in Madrid, thinks fears of an outsourcing-like backlash against the cloud are overstated. “It won’t be like that,” he says.
Arenas was senior research scientist at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK, where he helped explore the potential for shared services across education departments.
“With the cloud, you can connect devices and applications, and companies will need people who are specialists at programming to create the level of required integration between systems. Such a transition might change the dynamics of the IT department but it does not represent a risk to the technology profession,” says Arenas.
“There will be economies of scale from the cloud but that won’t necessarily lead to a decrease in jobs. The move towards the cloud might actually mean there are more jobs at the on-demand providers. In fact, the cloud could help increase the range of job opportunities in IT.”

5. On-demand creates new openings for remote workers

The backlash against the cloud is not the same as the type of negativity attached to outsourcing, says Steve Fraser, a relationship partner at accountancy firm Monahans who divides his time equally between client advice and technology management
“It feels different,” he says. “In the case of outsourcing, the backlash was against the call centre and the potential movement of jobs abroad.” How cloud will alter the geography of IT employment will become clear over the next decade.
“The cloud is more about where data sits and most organisations have to think very carefully about where their information resides,” says Fraser. His analysis leads him to suggest the move on-demand will potentially lead to the development of different roles.
“The cloud will lead to new types of core IT skills in certain areas,” says Fraser. “Going on-demand might create new opportunities for IT professionals that would rather work flexibly and remotely.”

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Hardware hassles? Time to make it someone else’s headache

It's when disposing of hardware that a managed approach to the IT lifecycle can produce the biggest savings. Photo: Shutterstock

By Clive Longbottom

Takeaway: Too many organisations give little thought to the lifecycle of hardware - from acquisition through deployment to disposal. That lack of management may be costing them more than they realise.

For most organisations, the lifecycle of IT equipment is straightforward: buy it, provision it, run it, deprovision it and dispose of it. Simple and reasonably effective.
However, unless it’s handled carefully, it’s an approach that could be doing organisations a major disservice. Starting with purchasing, for example - just how good a deal is your business getting?

Assuming your organisation is a mid-sized one and it buys a few hundred to a few thousand servers per year, then the costs will be considerably lower than the list price. But is the organisation getting the same deal as one that buys tens of thousands of servers per year?

Doubtful - and when this is taken across the whole IT estate - servers, storage, networking equipment, desktops, laptops, printers, multi-function devices, maybe even smartphones and other devices - the cost differential can be significant. One option here is to use a managed IT lifecycle management partner to bring economies of scale.

In the running of the equipment, again there are economies of scale from provisioning equipment before delivering to site. Maintenance, repair and operation costs can be driven down through shared resources and cheaper spares, again driven by the scale of purchasing.
But it’s at disposal that you can see the real savings. Most organisations run their IT equipment until it’s relatively useless to the business. The equipment will have been written off at the book-value level, and in Europe the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEE) directive means the equipment cannot just be dumped, so there’s generally a hefty cost involved in its disposal.
For those with a discrete equipment disposal process, the costs associated with getting rid of storage securely can be significant.

Funds from hardware disposal

However, if the disposal is linked with the overall lifecycle management process, expense can not only be minimised, but the equipment may have a value that can be used to offset costs - and even, in many cases, provide additional funds for new equipment.
Each item of equipment has some inherent value. That value is affected by various factors - for example, obviously over time it will progressively fall. The launch of a new model will also push down the value because organisations won’t want the old version, which others will also be dropping causing a glut on the second-hand market.
A change of technology - for example, the greater adoption of 100GB Ethernet - can force down the value of equipment that cannot support the new standards.
A good managed IT lifecycle management partner should be aware of the timings of these variables and advise on the optimal inherent value of a specific piece of equipment. By deprovisioning it and disposing of it in a secure manner and then selling it on as a working piece of equipment, as a bare-bones system or for parts, the money can go towards replacing it with new equipment.

Intelligence on future releases

Managing this set of variables effectively is not easy. The IT lifecycle management partner requires solid ongoing relationships with technology vendors to know what’s coming down the line.
They need good purchasing agreements to secure the best acquisition costs. They also must understand the legal aspects of equipment disposal and of secure data destruction. They also require solid technical skills in provisioning and running equipment.

Choosing the right IT lifecycle management partner can ensure the organisation always has the optimal IT platform through the replacement of equipment at the right time with the best overall cost equation in place. Having an optimal IT platform available means the organisation should not be constrained by IT - and allows it to compete more effectively.

Lifecycle management should not be regarded as a nice optional extra. For those organisations that see IT as core to their business, it should be a necessity.
You can download Quocirca’s free lifecycle management report on the various stages of an IT maturity model and what is involved in putting in place a full management approach.

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Why the lone wolf of IT has to come in from the cold

By Steve Ranger

Takeaway: Consumerisation, the cloud and the internet of things will force tech chiefs to rethink their attitudes.

CIOs are perceived by their bosses to be lone wolves, detached from the rest of the rest of the business and unlikely to stick around for the long term.
According to a survey of chief executives by analyst firm Gartner, the CIO is seen as an “itinerant specialist” while the CFO remains the CEO’s trusted adviser.

Gartner vice president Mark Raskino told TechRepublic: “There is a general tacit agreement in business today that CIOs are not quite part of the core team. Sometimes they are, but in general they are perceived as people who are first and foremost specialists in what they do - and somewhat secondarily industry or company specific.”

He said this perception is truer of CIOs than most other executive-level roles, adding, “The CIOs are not necessarily uncomfortable with this.”
Raskino said CIOs are less likely to see themselves as staying with an organisation long term, “So they are not so deeply bonded into the core of the organisation.” According to Gartner’s research, CIOs and CEOs expect the CIO’s next job to be running technology at another company - rather than stepping up into the CEO role.

About 40 per cent of CIOs report to the CEO, 30 per cent report to the COO and 25 per cent to the CFO, according to Gartner. As a result, Raskino said, CIOs are less involved with key relationships - with the board, investor and customers - than the CFO or CEO, which means their role is less deeply immersed in the core business.

In contrast, the relationships the CIO maintains are with key suppliers of technology: “The relationships the CIO has are generic - they’re going to be with Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and so on,” Raskino said.
But he said the status of the CIO may have to change. “As we get towards the cusp of the internet of things world, the complexity of what needs to be done with technology in the business will mean the CIO role will become stronger,” he said.

“This idea that the CIO is an interchangeable professional who can just be plucked and shoved from one company to another is less likely to be the way it is in five years from now.”
According to Gartner’s survey of CEOs, CIOs are rarely seen as leading innovation. As such CIOs need to move from itinerant to entrepreneurial modes.

Raskino said it is unclear where leadership of IT will go. “Because of consumerisation, the cloud and the internet of things, and because in the second half of the information age people will focus more on information than technology, the leadership roles required to extract business value may change,” he added.

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My laptop is so dumb - why can’t technology give me something smarter?

The IBM Watson artificial intelligence system is probably the first glimpse of tech's next phase in augmenting human brain power. Photo: IBM

By Peter Cochrane

Takeaway: The technological advantages we have enjoyed year on year are starting to top out because of our human limitations, but there are some clues about where the next phase will come from.

Written in the Channel Islands and dispatched a day later from a coffee shop in St Helier, Jersey, via a free wi-fi service at 20Mbps.
Decade after decade IT has supported us with faster speeds, bigger data storage, better networks, super-fast search engines and a raft of apps that have improved our efficiency and efficacy. But we might just have reached a new limit.
I don’t know about you but I can’t assimilate information any faster. I can’t process it any faster, and I certainly can’t output any faster. I’m at my limit of creativity - I can’t solve problems any faster. Give me a computer 10 times more powerful and my output will remain static or at least only improve marginally. I need something more.
I have always seen spanners and screwdrivers as muscle amplifiers and computers as amplifiers of the mind. However, the human I/O is limited and so is our processing power, and we increasingly need machine augmentation.
If only my laptop wasn’t so dumb. If only it had a modicum of intelligence so it could correct my errors, anticipate my needs, recognise the direction of my investigations and work, and help me model and solve complex problems.
Even at a search level it’s so limited. What use is there in searching a topic and receiving a response in 0.18 seconds with a message that says there are about 187,000 results and here are the first 10?
None of these issues are likely to be solved within the confines of my laptop, iPad or iPhone, but the answer looks to be coming fast in the cloud. When our terminals are given access to supercomputing power and the new intelligences being developed, then we might just see our human brain power augmented with what we need for the next phase.
The IBM Watson artificial intelligence system is probably the first glimpse we have seen of what might be possible. IBM has created a video explaining how IBM Watson appears so smart. You can also gain an idea of what the technology might mean for medicine and healthcare. For another take on the subject, you could also watch my 10-minute presentation on machine intelligence.
It doesn’t take too imagination and extrapolation to see what this technology might mean for engineering, science, technology, construction, or you and me, while Apple’s Siri is an indication of the natural language possibilities for future interfaces.
These are the technologies many of us need right now. Perhaps for the first time in our IT history we are waiting for the technology to meet our needs, rather than IT waiting for us to catch up to exploit its capabilities fully.
And for the first time it might mean we don’t have to learn some new convoluted interface. Generalised intelligences combined with natural language interaction would empower us for the next phase of innovation and business.
Hopefully, they will also help us deal with the growing complexities associated with globalisation including the diversity and speed of trade.

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Seven-inch iPad: How far is Cook’s finger from the launch button?

A smaller screen and icons could make common tasks on a normal iPad considerably less comfortable. Photo: Apple

By Seb Janacek

Takeaway: Despite the late Steve Jobs’ antipathy to smaller tablets, his successor at Apple might just take a different view.

Apple is poised to release a seven-inch iPad - if you believe the speculation of the past month. Although rumour is part and parcel of an Apple watcher’s brief, most of it is wide of the mark and based on wishful thinking. While talk of a smaller iPad is an interesting prospect, it’s far from a sure thing.
First, a little perspective. Steve Jobs famously panned the seven-inch form factor for tablets, suggesting that users would have to sandpaper their fingers to get the most from their smaller displays. Typical Jobsian hyperbole, perhaps, but there is a grain of truth. Smaller screens and icons would make certain common tasks on a normal iPad considerably less comfortable - and the iPad is all about comfort and superior user experience.

However, since Jobs passed away the rumour mill has taken a new turn. Anything’s possible, despite the views of its former CEO. Jobs’ successor, Tim Cook, is doing things differently. He’s cast as an operational genius but from his early tenure in the CEO role it’s clear he’s making Apple in his own image.

To many there is a wide and enticing gap between the 3.5-inch iPod touch and iPhone and the 9.7-inch iPad. Some manufacturers have already tried to fill it with mixed success. Samsung released a Galaxy Tab at the seven-inch form factor, while Amazon has the Kindle Fire in the US.
While Amazon is claiming strong sales - the company doesn’t break down Kindle unit sales - seven-inch tablets from other manufacturers are hardly setting records. IDC suggests Amazon may have sold a healthy 4.7 million units in its Q4 2011. However, the Fire also sells at the low cost of $199 and is considered as a loss leader by Amazon to sell its store’s wares, hardly Apple’s successful high-margin model.
Meanwhile, the iPad is setting sales records and is defining, almost singlehandedly, a new era of computing. A smaller iPad might emulate the success and would reinforce the suspicion that there isn’t so much a tablet market as an iPad market. That consumers are captivated by the Apple brand rather than the tablet computing platform.
As it stands there’s no compelling, conventional reason why they shouldn’t release the smaller form factor. Then again, Apple is not a conventional company.
One of the most-quoted Jobs product statements was that Apple was as proud of the products it chose not to release as much as the ones they had. Nobody doubts there are iPads and iPhones of all shapes and sizes on the six long steel tables the Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson described inside Jonathan Ive’s design studio in Cupertino - but that doesn’t mean that they’ll ever see the light of day.

Pros and cons for widening iPad range

There are precedents for and against diversifying the iPad range. In favour of diversification is the iPod which has come in all shapes colours and sizes since its 2001 launch. Indeed, much of the iPod’s success has come through miniaturisation in the forms of both the iPod mini and later the nano.
The argument against diversification is the iPhone. The same screen size, the same physical button arrangement, the same relative processor speed. Despite many reports prophesying otherwise, the iPhone has never offer a diminished or smaller version of itself.
Putting aside storage capacity, it has accommodated the existence of legacy versions of itself but the iPhone, from the perspective of the user, has not changed fundamentally. It offers a single, consistent user experience.
The iPod had a single core function, which was to play music. It could also be used to view other media and access basic functions such as games and calendars but it was a device mainly to play music, preferably bought from the iTunes Music Store. Adding additional secondary functions didn’t compromise the overall user experience of the iPod as music player.
The iPhone does not have a single purpose, but a wide range of functions supported by a vast legion of developers. Even shorn of third-party apps, the iPhone has a broad range of use cases right out of the box.
The appearance of an iPad mini or nano is more likely than an equivalent iPhone as the form factor could accommodate a scaled user experience more successfully.
Apple could no doubt capitalise on the component deals that would let it enjoy better margins than its competitors. It’s also unlikely to face complaints from developers. A second iPad with a similar resolution to the original would be nothing to support compared with the so-called fragmentation of the Android platform.

The two factors in Apple’s iPad decision

However, whether a seven-inch iPad ever sees the light of day or not seems to come down to two main factors.
First is whether Apple believes the seven-inch form factor complements the nascent tablet market. It would need to be convinced the smaller device genuinely has an opportunity to carve out a segment for itself and wouldn’t risk cannibalisation of the existing iPad. If it believes this opportunity exists, then the chance to dominate the whole post-PC tablet market will be sorely tempting for Apple.
The second factor is whether Apple can design and manufacture a smaller form factor iPad that does not compromise the user experience of the existing one - either in terms of the smaller iPad in itself or in comparison with its larger brethren. If it can’t at least replicate the user experience of the existing iPad, if the brand risks being compromised by an inferior experience, then I think they’ll walk away from it.
Jobs was adamant on this second point and this devotion to preserving the user experience is part of Apple’s DNA. If it can’t be made “insanely great”, then the seven-inch iPad will remain on the steel tables in Ive’s design studio.

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