#ByteIT

The recent Microsoft-sponsored whitepaper from IDC illustrates how businesses utilising Windows are navigating their infrastructure between significant versions. From the established Windows XP, skipping over Windows Vista, and ignoring the forthcoming Windows 8; it seems we should arrive at a place where Windows 7 dominates. There’ll be movement away from Windows XP as the 2014 support deadline nears, coupled with Software Assurance agreements to smooth a downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7.

Is that motion too slow? Almost certainly - look at the figures:

Annual cost per PC per year for Windows XP is $870, while a comparable Windows 7 installation costs $168 per PC per year. That is an incremental $701 per PC per year for IT and end-user labor costs.

Organisations need to understand how much of a drain Windows XP will continue to be, and work to determine how urgent a change is.

The simple fact is a migration takes colossal effort. Ask Google - the company moves between LTS releases of “Goobuntu” (a customised version of Ubuntu Linux) to keep their IT stable and standardised. Engineers like Thomas Bushnell have developed a process to reduce downtime, as he highlights - a reboot can cost as much as a million dollars.

These are migrations at massive scale, and represent problems that are almost exclusively tackled by large enterprises.

Back at my former employer, I spent a summer holiday upgrading the entire school from Windows Server 2003 / Windows XP to Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7. Feedback from users formed a greater part of the change than tools and capabilities for administering the network. The pros: I unearthed a number of 64bit machines which ran blazingly fast and really wowed the kids. The cons: about a dozen software titles suddenly became unusable - mostly early years and special educational needs programs built for Windows 95, which upset respective teaching staff.

For SME’s, there are alternatives to a costly move - BYOD and rolling upgrades are plausible notions. To an enterprise, a largely unmanaged policy like BYOD chips away at fundamental principles of IT. But arguments like this, from an old post on Minimal Mac about Microsoft Office, suppose we’re ignoring another shift:

Microsoft’s biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie — they were not needed to get real work done. Or anything done, really.

SME’s - which direction will you move?

by @mled

This week (12 - 18 May 2012) is Adult Learners’ Week - a showcase of the opportunities available to people of all ages to develop new skills, whether for business or pleasure.

Adult learning and professional development is a subject that’s close to our heart. When you look at the stats, you’ll see why. According to e-skills UK’s Technology Insights 2011 report:

• The IT & Telecoms sector needs around 110,000 new entrants each year, 46% of which will come from another industry
• Around a quarter of employers say that applicants for IT & Telecoms jobs don’t have sufficient technical or business skills
• And 6 out of 10 IT professionals feel that by developing new skills, they could “improve their effectiveness in work and potentially the performance of their employer’s business”.

If you’re among that 60% of IT professionals - or even someone wanting to break into the industry - why not take this week as your cue to develop those new skills?

Our IT Professional Profile is a good place to start. You can use it to benchmark your skills against national standards, identifying gaps in your knowledge and the training you need to progress.

And when you’re ready to start learning, our subscription could help too - for £95 you get a year’s access to a wide range of training to use whenever you need.

Many training providers are running open days and taster sessions as part of the week too. You can find one near you here or follow #ALW12 on Twitter for further details.

by @lukenava

In case our DAPP announcement wasn’t enough, we’ve also got great news on our Training Provider Network.

Launching this week with 17 founding partners, the National Skills Academy for IT can offer IT professionals additional access to learning resources.

Online learning offers the opportunity for study anywhere, at any time, at a pace to suit the student.

Support from universities, colleges, and private providers adds other flavours of learning, helping IT professionals to access a programme of study they feel most comfortable with.

Our network undergoes the scrutiny of our Training Quality Panel, comprising of major IT employers, to ensure IT professionals will benefit from excellent teaching.

Keep an eye on our Training Provider Network pages for news and updates.

At the end of January, we heard from Christine Hodgson, chairman at Capgemini UK, about the issues faced by CIOs in recruitment.

With the development of new skills becoming ever more accessible with the increased availability of online learning, it seems difficult to explain why the UK’s IT sector isn’t exploiting opportunities to upskill the workforce.

Don’t fret - there are some shining examples. One such success story that has just been announced by the National Skills Academy for IT is called Developing a Programming Pool (DAPP).

DAPP ran in Wales, taking a group of learners through a programme of study in computer programming - namely .NET and VB. The goal was to set up the individuals with all the necessary skills to become highly employable.

Here are the headline numbers:

Total in work = 56%

Yesterday, renowned figures from the business and IT sector recognised and celebrated the UK’s most talented women working within the technology sector at the Cisco everywoman in Technology Awards in London.

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges from the industry for having demonstrated excellence within their field and having acted as role models to future generations.

Commenting on the Cisco everywoman in Technology Awards, Maxine Benson MBE, co-founder of everywoman said:

“The amazing women taking home awards today really highlight the diversity of opportunities that are available in the IT sector – whether within corporate organisations, charities or through setting up their own tech start-ups.”

“As many women are re-evaluating their career choices, today’s inspirational winners show that anything is possible and that technology is an industry that embraces its female talent.”

“We congratulate them on their achievements, and hope their success will encourage others into the sector.”

I’d add my congratulations without qualification, were it not for a comment on a popular social networking and microblogging site which suggested that having technology awards just for women to patronise women.

Personally, I do not feel able to comment with much authority - I’m not a woman and I cannot be described as an IT/technology professional (although the Guardian did once very sweetly describe me as an “IT expert”) - but it doesn’t feel as though it can be interpreted as patronising to me.

The facts of the matter are these:

• Women make up just 17% of the UK’s IT and telecoms professional workforce.
• The number of girls taking A-level computing is a pitiful 9%.
• The number of female applicants to computing related degrees is just 15% (with e-skills’ ITMB degree bucking the trend, with a third of all applicants being female).

I guess the question is why?

Research from e-skills UK shows that girls just don’t consider IT as a viable career choice. Girls as young as 8 are rejecting IT as being a “boy-topic”, as being dull and being geeky.

Does it really matter that the girls aren’t interested in IT as a career? From an individual (male?) point of view, a smaller recruitment pool in a rapidly growing sector is no bad thing for job seekers. And isn’t it better to have a talent pool full of people with a genuine interest and enthusiasm for their subject?

But from an organisational point of view, it means the industry is missing out on 50% of the UK talent pool.

While, as I explained above, I may not be the best person to express strong opinions about this matter, I think yes, it does matter.

For a start, e-skills research shows that people (not just girls) are put off considering careers IT because of negative perceptions and misconceptions about what working in IT really involves. If you have the time and inclination to watch a fairly silly, but very entertaining and effective, video about careers in IT I encourage you to so.

Another barrier to young women thinking about embarking on a career in technology is who do they have as role models? Did you know that five of the 10 top-paid CIOs at Fortune 500 companies are women? I only found out because it’s my job to find these things out, and I’d struggle to name a single one of them without looking it up. We know Bill Gates, we knew Steve Jobs, we know Mark Zuckerberg - these aren’t just names people throw into blog posts to add credibility - these are household names.

Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg are not. Yet.

So, are the everywoman Technology Awards patronising to women? Or are they an invaluable and commendable way to shine a light on the women excelling in IT and demonstrate to others the breadth and variety the sector offers.

The winners in the 2012 Cisco everywoman in Technology Awards are:

Woman of the Year – Sponsored by Cisco Systems Ltd
Vin Murria, Chief Executive Officer, Advanced Computer Software Group plc

Rising Star of the Year – Sponsored by BP
Laura Earle, Executive Communications Manager, Services, EMEAR, Cisco

Team Leader of the Year in an SME (with under 500 employees) - Sponsored by BCS
Kirstin Duffield, CEO, Morning Data Limited

Leader of the Year in a corporate organisation (with over 500 employees) – Sponsored by Alexander Mann Solutions
Sheila Flavell, Chief Operating Officer, FDM Group

Innovator of the Year – Sponsored by womenintechnology.co.uk
Mandy Chessell, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Master Inventor, Chief Architect for InfoSphere Solutions, IBM

Entrepreneur of the Year – Sponsored by Orga Systems
Olga Kubassova, Founder and CEO, Image Analysis Ltd

Inspiration of the Year – Sponsored by eBay
Gillian Arnold, Director, Tectre

by @aljwoods

Employees inevitably account for the biggest chunk of many organisations’ budgets. They are also any organisation’s greatest asset.

The benefits of offering staff training and creating an environment which encourages self-development are well documented: better skilled employees have better morale, and people valued and cared for are more productive, more committed, and are more likely to stay.

Yet training budgets, and the “use it or lose it” attitude often applied to them, remain a soft target. Only the most naive employer will fail to recognise the importance of having a well trained workforce, but the return on investment is rarely seen in the short-term. When immediate savings are what you’re looking for, it is difficult to defend the associated expense.

The National Skills Academy for IT has, since Day 1, been determined to make training as easy and accessible as it is relevant and up-to-date. That it’s value-for-money is so obvious it’s irrelevant.

Because the Academy charges an annual subscription fee which gives your employees access to over 1000 courses, investing in group subscriptions means your employees’ training is free at the point-of-use.

The unique thing about subscribing to the National Skills Academy for IT, though, is that by doing so you are emancipating your employees, giving them control over their own destiny, ownership of their own skills and development.

You’re also making it easy for them. Whether, as is much discussed, attention spans are getting shorter or not, we are now used to consuming information, learning, data in much smaller chunks.

e-learning has come a long way and the resources offered by the National Skills Academy for IT are designed to suit modern patterns of work and modern learning styles. Learners can choose what, when and how much they study and can fit it around their day-to-day tasks. Not only that but you can access it quickly, easily and as you need it.

The kind of people who are going to take advantage of this opportunity are surely those exact same ones you want to keep: the ambitious, the self-starters, the organised and in-tune, the people who know the value they can add to you, their employer, by being better trained, better skilled.

A business is only as good as its employees. Hiring the best people you can is just the start of it. Especially in an industry which moves as quickly and as dramatically as technology, ensuring your people stay up to date, engaged and motivated is the only way your business will do the same.

by @aljwoods

Subscribe now to the National Skills Academy for IT