Archive for March, 2008

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3602122.ece

IF the past eight months in the City have been grim, then the financial sector should hold on tight: the situation is likely to get worse and job losses in London could surpass those seen after the dotcom crash, according to experts.

As the City digests the bailout of Bear Stearns and prepares for an economic downturn, forecasters are tearing up the job-market predictions they made only a few months ago.

Experian Business Strategies said that job losses from a workforce of about 350,000 in London’s financial-services sector may reach as high as 20,000 - nearly 20% more than the 17,000 witnessed after the collapse of the dotcom bubble in 2000.

An interesting article, I wonder a mixture of things relating to this. Firstly no one likes to loose their job, whether they’re an employee or a contractor, but it is the cost of doing business. I wonder though how much of this is a result of losses, and how much is simply ‘restructuring’ the cost of doing business. What I think we might find is a mixture of things, we might find there is more a tendency to outsource elements of the IT; a drive to more efficiency in the way we do things in terms of people and the kit. A focus on delivery and achieving more with less, grid or virtualization being examples. Related to to this is the way we not only provision the server, but the way we pay for and charge back the IT teams, as we move to a 24/7 operation we need to work smarter, be able to have our people work when the business requires them, whilst providing the standard 8-6 kind of infrastructure support they expect. Does this mean we move to the follow the support model? Where the guys from New York can do oncall for the London support teams? Where Singapore can do some of the weekend work? How we structure this in terms of payment, structure (the way we do things in London is…), as well as the compliance and security issues is going to depend on your business.

Some back office roles might go, some trading positions might go, IT could be a target for efficiency drives. What you will find is a more focus on the revenue generation against cost argument, the statistics conversations - number of help desk calls closed, revenue vs cost comparisons etc. Interesting times are ahead, as with many industries, what raises itself as a downturn can often create even more jobs and opportunities - hardware recycling for free? On-demand IT engineers - Can I rent a grid/vm or Wintel guy? I need him between 7pm to 7am. The role might be the same, who signs the pay check, how you’re paid for might not be.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_pressreleases&view=detail&pr_id=14802&Itemid=77&ln=en

At the launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 in Frankfurt, Germany, Fujitsu Siemens Computers presented its range of PRIMERGY servers, ideally positioned to support the new products.

Windows Server 2008 technologies enable companies to better utilize server resources, enabling savings on operational as well as energy costs. According to Fujitsu Siemens Computers, an advantage of the upcoming virtual server environment is that IT departments gain flexibility because services and applications can be moved on the fly between physical host servers, thereby improving business agility.

“Microsoft and Fujitsu Siemens Computers are working closely together to offer leading edge technology to our customers,” said Bill Laing, general manager, Windows Server at Microsoft Corp. “Running Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on PRIMERGY server provides a wide range of advantages and savings to our enterprise customers.

Very cool, it will be interesting to see what new products are released with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 in mind, not to mention which servers from the different vendors support this new Microsoft operating system. I wonder if we’ll find more people ‘bundle’ Windows 2008 projects with virtualization - we need to upgrade to Windows 2008, let’s deploy it on virtual machines? We’ll have to see, do check out this news from Fujitsu relating to their servers suitability for Windows 2008.

http://timesofoman.com/inner_cat.asp?cat=1&detail=15422&rand=0QfjweFv5sTKvjUne56pnx0u9i

MUSCAT — Oman Mobile has become the first early adopter of Windows Server 2008 in the region, Microsoft Oman announced yesterday.

The major objective of the collaboration between Microsoft and Oman Mobile is around the evaluation of the new technology and its capabilities to support mission-critical roles such as enhancing network performance and providing increased security. With the deployment of Windows Server 2008, Oman Mobile is taking advantage of the rich features and powerful new functionality that the new system offers.

To access pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008, Oman Mobile became a first-time participant in the Microsoft Rapid Deployment Programme. The company’s IT staff evaluated Windows Server 2008 in a test lab before the main deployment to verify that it would work within its multi-vendor environment.

I highlighted this article to illustrate the innovation and demand in the EMEA regions continues, whether it’s in blade technologies, data center consolidation or virtualization projects. This article in particular is highlighting Oman Mobile adopting the new Windows 2008 technologies - very cool, I’m genuinely excited by what Windows 2008 will bring, it will be interesting to see what customers, vendors and partners think about this new Windows platform.

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/info/x/x3950m2/index.html

When was the last time you were introduced to technology that really made a difference in how your data center operates? In how your IT staff operates? What about new technology that made a substantial difference in lowering your IT costs while boosting performance? The question always remains how to do more with less. And scalable server solutions are more and more becoming the answer.

Allow us to introduce you to the newest member of the IBM System x enterprise-server family. A powerhouse of a server, the IBM System x3950 M2 uses the latest quad-core Intel® Xeon™ 7300 Series MP processors in its unique chipset to deliver extraordinary performance while maintaining best-in-class x86 reliability. System x3950 M2 configurations are built from four processor, 4U building blocks allowing you to deploy 16 to 64 cores either initially or later as your business growth demands.

I was checking out the specs of the IBM System X series servers, in particular to do with the quad core Intel processors. This page on the IBM site has got a lot of detail on their new x3950M2 which does look cool, and includes options for energy efficiency, do check out the pdf’s and the animation - very cool.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/careers-hr/my-career/news/index.cfm?newsid=8105

A recession for IT departments is imminent, according to an IT systems company.

Enterprise IT teams will halve within 10 years as companies attempt to streamline infrastructure and outsource specialist work, according to Dave Pritchard, chief technologist at Fujitsu Systems.

IT teams were due for a “big shake-up”, he said, with servers, storage and PCs being “managed more cost-effectively by external suppliers … to achieve lower lifecycle costs”.

I have mixed feelings about this. For some technology roles there will be job losses, but new opportunities tend to present themselves in other areas of the technology. I do wonder if it’s not one of those things, in the respect that a company might reduce the number of people it has within that IT department but find it’s operational costs remain similar. There also remains the vested interest part - don’t forget the power as a customer you have within your business - going up to an external vendor and making emotional comments about budget has less effect than walking into your CIO’s office and saying “fix it”, as a vendor/service provider I supply you with a service under a contract, everything else is emotion/noise. (Not being critical of such businesses).  There might be fewer Windows guys, but more people in virtualization roles? Until we get to a truly redundant intuitive IT system where the application, the revenue generation is abstracted from the server/switch/storage or database, we will still need IT people to deliver this service. What I think we’ll find is a closer link between IT and the business with a focus on service delivery in terms of enabling revenue generation or efficiency in terms of cost/delivery - I want faster/higher availability at the same or less cost.