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Effective response to customers is essential for winning orders in this recession, especially for the recently privatised companies. Candice Goodwin explains how IT is integral to helping companies distinguish themselves […]

With 80 directly attached systems to upgrade, engineering consultancy Arup chose a radical solution - to junk DAS and move toward a single, tapeless solution. Candice Goodwin reports From the […]

recruitment The best companies, the prime locations and the hottest skills on the market Candice Goodwin computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk The first half of 2003 was good for employers and tough for IT […]

Electricity supplier ScottishPower is pulling the plug on its mainframes and going client/server, in a move that involves one of the UK's largest ATM implementations to date. Over the next […]

Co-operation is the word on everyone's lips in the IT industry. Vendors have finally woken up to the realisation that customers are not happy being forced to choose between conflicting […]

The IT department has come in for its fair share of flak over the years, but IT people who have been involved in installing workgroup systems often find themselves basking […]

When the Japan pioneered the concept of just-in-time manufacturing techniques they catapulted themselves to the forefront of the world's economy. Now the concept is taking on a new lease of […]

Over the past few years, software maintenance has emerged from the closet as one of the IT industry's most pressing issues. Estimates of the proportion of software budgets spent on […]

Gone are the days when mean time between computer failures could be measured in days: now we are looking at months - sometimes years. This change, together with the falling […]

COLLEGES QUEQE UP TO COLLABORATE During the 1990s, the computer industry can expect to be wooed on all sides by educational establishments keen to promote their services in anything from […]

WHAT YOU NEED IS A FLEXIBLE FRIEND It's a hard life selling payroll systems. In a market where virtually every established company has a computerised solution to its payroll needs […]

WHEN SPEED SORTS OUT THE CHAFF Of 200,000 customers, which ones in the Manchester area have ordered both garden equipment and children's toys to a value of over 25 pounds […]

What goes around comes around -- at least it does in the IT business. After the anarchy than the PC brought to end-user computing,there is renewed interest in centrally managed […]

Every software house and IT department wants to build new applications faster and more cheaply. The idea of improving development productivity by reusing software components has been around for many […]

Thanks to the PC, business users are now more willing to get to grip with information technology. In many companies, where five years internal memo ruled supreme, electronic mail is […]

Software development has undergone radical change in recent years, propelled by the advent of new object-oriented techniques and rapid application development tools. Where does that leave the traditional anaiyst workbench? […]

AS computer power moves out of the computer room onto the desktop, information professionals are spending less time tending the central mainframe. and more time attending to the needs of […]

A little more than 10 years ago, the International Standards Organisation published the first version of its electronic mail standard, the X.400 Message Handling System (MHS). For some years, the […]

When planning their network architectures, users should bear in mind the high bandwidth demands of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), which is likely to become the dominant technology, writes Candice Goodwin […]

The confused world of Unix may be about to stabilise. Candice Goodwin profiles the major players in the struggle towards a unified Unix operating system The Unix wars seem to […]

This article asserts that wireless technology is key to better control of the supply chain. As goods travel between the production line and the point of sale, moving from depot to depot and being loaded and unloaded from lorries, there are many opportunities for them to be lost or stolen or languish on shelves beyond their sell-by date. This is where wireless technology, such as wireless networking (Wi-Fi), RFID, Bluetooth, GPRS and GPS, comes into its own. In the warehouse, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology are improving logistics and saving costs. On the road, GPS systems linked to onboard computers enable head office to track the truck's whereabouts and change routes in response to changing demand. For example, delivery firm the UPS plans to equip its trucks with handheld computers with GPRS and GPS capability, to give drivers more detailed directions to customer pick-up or delivery points, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity so that they can communicate with systems in the depot.

The article focuses on career development and opportunities for IT professionals. Financial directors are looking for a return on investment from every aspect of the business, and IT is no exception. Customer-facing staff, including IT employees, need to understand and acknowledge the values and priorities of their customers. Technology constantly changes, so keep up to speed with the current hot skills. Performance appraisals are the ideal opportunity to let your employer know what you can do and what you would like to do. Getting to know people in sales and marketing, order processing and administration helps you do a better job. An enthusiastic, can-do attitude can make you stand out as an employee worth hanging on to. Permanent staff should show they understand the business issues.