UK Gov department's IT spend is £2 billion over budget
,----[ Quote ]
| THE DEPARTMENT for Work and Pensions has admitted the true cost over-runs of
| its IT projects.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/04/dwp-really-2bn-budget
Maybe they took [Microsoft P|G]artner's advice on TCO. From only days ago:
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/03/31/230047/pc-deal-could-save-public-sector-billions.htm
"Suffolk told Gartner, “I think we have fundamentally failed on a worldwide
basis as an IT industry to understand the cost of what we do. And I roundly
blame Gartner for this, because you guys are the ones who come up with TCO
[total cost of ownership] benchmarking. It has become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
“So, I go out and I pick boring desktop infrastructure. What price do you
think the suppliers broadly pitch? You will not be shocked to know that it is
somewhere around the Gartner TCO benchmark.”"
Related:
iSoft in critical condition as NHS trusts seek alternatives
,----[ Quote ]
| The government's vision of an integrated computer system for the
| NHS is coming apart at the seams as NHS trusts are to start looking
| for alternative IT suppliers, The Guardian reports.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/05/nhs_upgrade_alt/
Microsoft in the NHS
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is one of the key technology firms in the £6.2 billion NHS
| IT programme. It is working particularly closely with iSOFT ...
`----
http://www.e-health-insider.com/comment_and_analysis/index.cfm?ID=69
Prescription for an I.T. Disaster?
,----[ Quote ]
| In 2002, the British government embarked on a $12 billion effort to
| transform its health-care system with information technology. But
| the country's oversight agency now puts that figure at $24 billion,
| and two Members of Parliament say the project is "sleepwalking
| toward disaster."
`----
http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2058194,00.asp
NHS computer boss failed IT exams
,----[ Quote ]
| Mary Granger is amazed that her son was put in charge of a £20bn
| project to transform the NHS's computer system. She is less
| surprised that his 'Connecting for Health' project is over-budget,
| behind schedule and threatening to become the biggest IT disaster
| in history.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35685
NHS Scotland pools budget for Microsoft savings
,----[ Quote ]
| NHS National Services Scotland forecasts it will save up to £8m over
| three years from a new procurement deal with Microsoft
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/30/scottish_nhs_microsoft_procurement_deal/
Accenture escapes £1bn penalty for NHS walk-out
,----[ Quote ]
| Accenture, the IT and consultancy firm has avoided huge penalty fees for
| withdrawing from the UK National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/29/accenture_nhs_penalty/
Accenture: NHS failure is 'track record for success'
,----[ Quote ]
| After months of negotiations, Accenture handed contracts worth £2bn over
| to rival Computer Sciences Corporation after getting paid just £110m
| for spending a third of the allotted 10 years on the job. Its hand had
| been forced by losses of $450m it was set to make on the deal this
| year.
`----
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/09/28/accenture_failure_success/
CfH refutes computer failure claims
,----[ Quote ]
| "Very often they are not major incidents as such, but could be caused when
| a patient administration system is running slow or there may be problems
| with the local network. The severity level is attributed by the user and
| this is subsequently very often down graded or amended."
|
| Many of the incidents that have been reported by CfH include failure of
| the systems used by surgeons to see X-ray pictures on a computer screen
| in wards and operating theatres. On some occasions the system is believed
| to have crashed during an operation, forcing surgeons to suspend the
| procedure while a hard copy of the X-ray is found.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/19/cfh_defends_itself/
NHS Direct all better
,----[ Quote ]
| NHS Direct is back online this afternoon after going on the sick
| with a server error earlier today.
|
| According to Netcraft, the Windows 2000 server at the bargain
| basement hypochondriac magnet modern, accessible public healthcare
| resource was rebooted today. See here.
|
| Whatever malady did for the box, it was "unexpected", as the message
| on the site explained for most of today.
|
| NHS Direct was unavailable for comment at time of writing.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/10/nhsdirect_back/
Hacking attacks can turn off heart monitors
,----[ Quote ]
| American researchers have proven it's possible to maliciously turn off
| individuals' heart monitors through a wireless hacking attack.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/12/heart_monitor_hacking/
Microsoft quietly tackles known Wi-Fi flaw
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft has quietly posted an update found here. The update
| prevents a Windows wireless client on a laptop from advertising
| its preferred wireless network list to the world at large.
|
| But the update appears to leave open the larger problem, which
| is having your laptop connect to a criminal rogue access point
| with the same default name as one of your preferred home networks.
`----
http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6143573.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
Ecma - a case study for vendor capture
,----[ Quote ]
| A small network of people of ECMA International dominated the whole ISO
| process around OOXML while technical experts of national ISO members were
| impeded by committee stuffing, rules bending and political intervention and
| the general restrictions of the revamped ISO/IEC fast-track process.
|
| [...]
|
| On the right you find a picture of Jan van den Beld, back then general
| secretary of ECMA international who received the 2000 pages from Microsoft
| represented by its employee Jean Paoli (center). Jean Paoli is probably best
| known for taking the Microsoft credit for the standardization of XML. The
| other person with the beard is Adam Farquhar from the British Library, chair
| of ECMA TC 45. You also find the picture on the right in Adam Farquhar's May
| 07 presentation which advocates for OOXML.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/ecma-and-vendor-capture
British Library books go digital
,----[ Quote ]
| Digitised publications will be accessible in two ways -initially through
| Microsoft's Live Search Books and then via the Library's website.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7018210.stm
Britain: E-Mail Time Capsule in Works
,----[ Quote ]
| Now the British Library is appealing to ordinary Britons for their
| e-mails, saying it wants to create a snapshot of British life in 2007.
|
| [...]
|
| The e-mails will be collated and indexed by Microsoft Corp., which
| has previously partnered with the library to digitize books from
| its archive, and they will be available to researchers before
| the year's end.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070503/britain_e_mail_archive.html?.v=1
Vista and British Library put da Vinci online
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft and the British Library have digitised two of Leonardo da
| Vincis' notebooks.
|
| [...]
|
| The British Library has created an updated version of its application
| called "Turning the Pages" which allows people to browse parts of
| its 150 million piece collection via a web browser. We heard how
| this works better using Vista.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/30/vinci_notebooks_vista/
British Library calls for digital copyright action
,----[ Quote ]
| In a manifesto released on Monday at the Labor Party Conference
| in Manchester, the United Kingdom's national library warned that the
| country's traditional copyright law needs to be extended to fully
| recognize digital content.
|
| "Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize
| the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass,"
| Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, told ZDNet
| UK.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6119043.html
BBC Corrupted
,----[ Quote ]
| Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With
| today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of
| duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution
| of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating
| system to view BBC programming on the web. This is akin to saying you must
| own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV. And you must accept the Digital
| Restrictions Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes. You simply cannot be
| allowed to be in control of your computer according to the BBC.
`----
http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted
|
|