The Great Debate UK

Dear Prime Minister – leave tech spending alone

-Steve Ranger is the editor of silicon.com. The opinions expressed are his own. Join Reuters for a live discussion with guests as Chancellor George Osborne makes  an emergency budget statement at 12:30 p.m. British time on Tuesday, June 22, 2010. -

There has never been a more important time for chief information officers to raise their profiles and make their worth clear – especially in the public sector, where over the next few years budgets will be under attack like never before.

We were particularly pleased that in this year’s silicon.com CIO50, an annual programme which celebrates the best technology chiefs in the UK, we saw more CIOs voting, and more CIOs being nominated to date.

This year’s winner was John Suffolk, the UK government CIO, who is in charge of setting the technology strategy for the entire public sector.

IT spending has been one of the first victims of the new government’s belt-tightening, with the coalition already having identified hundreds of millions in potential cuts from IT budgets across Whitehall, and put in place an immediate freeze on any new IT projects worth more than 1 million pounds.

The thinking probably runs something like this: government IT projects have had a tremendous track record of running late and over budget, and the last thing the UK needs now is more extremely expensive digital white elephants.

Tackling digital copyright theft

-Lavinia Carey is Chair of the Alliance Against IP Theft, and Director General of the British Video Association. The opinions expressed are her own. -

The proposals contained within the much anticipated Digital Economy Bill have prompted lively debate among politicians, industry and consumer groups. Unfortunately, some have characterised the debate as industry versus consumer, when in fact both industry and the consumer have an interest in reducing copyright theft.

The proposals will benefit millions of people, and significant consensus exists about the need to tackle the issue by first warning and ultimately taking action against those who distribute other people’s content online without permission.

Whilst some have criticised the Government’s proposals on temporary broadband account suspension this is one of a number of potential measures, implemented only after due process and a robust appeals process, which may be used as a last resort against those who have ignored multiple warnings and continue to persist in illegal file-sharing. Research also shows the important role the existence of such a deterrent has to play in changing people’s behaviour.

Equally, most parents would surely welcome a warning that alerted them to the fact that the activities of their children were exposing the whole family to security breaches. That is what happens when people file-share – the software they download to access illicit music or film files, for example, also provides access to other users to all the files on their computer, some of which may contain very personal and private information and it’s a great propagator of malware and viruses.

Many internet users find broadband speeds unsatisfactory, particularly during the heaviest use of bandwidth by file-sharers between the hours of 6pm and midnight, so consumers who use legitimate services will probably welcome the fall in illegal traffic, which significantly contributes towards congestion on the networks.

Those who rely on the creative economy for their livelihood, including musicians, directors, software developers, lighting and camera operators, make-up artists, costumiers, designers, producers, grips, writers and sound engineers to name just a few deserve to have their creativity protected. They are consumers too. If they are not properly rewarded for their work, our creative economy will suffer. This is not something our country can afford to risk. This is one of the fastest growing industries in the UK, 8 percent of GDP, and in many parts of the sector we justifiably lead the world.

Digital Britain stuck in the Dark Ages

-Ted Higase is managing director Europe, Middle East and Asia at Global Crossing. The opinions expressed are his own.-

The government-proposed Digital Britain initiative is living in the dark ages, especially if its authors expect UK businesses to believe that a transmission of two megabits per second is “superfast”.

Having adequate underlying infrastructure is critical to the success of Digital Britain and that requires investment and commitment to ongoing innovation. Internet foundations must be robust enough to deal with demand for business use in particular, but a successful Digital Britain needs to be about gigabits not megabits.

In the same breath, before businesses begin to jump on-board the Digital Britain bandwagon, they must understand the race to gain a competitive advantage isn’t won purely on speed. The service must also be up to scratch with adequate provision to ensure the systems can cope and with alternative measures available should a problem arise.

One of the benefits that an improved communications network should provide businesses is the ability to work more flexibly, where remote workers can access networked information more effectively.

But by the time the scheme is rolled out, the changes will already seem outdated and some of the benefits unambitious. Fundamentally the customer is not interested in the speeds, only in the services they can use and in today’s climate the opportunity to cut overheads via remote or home working relies on the ability to provide employees access to rich media applications.

Video conferencing and the use of technologies like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are a much hyped benefit of faster broadband and offer the potential of cost savings, enhancements to business performance and reductions in the time and money spent when employees are out of the office environment. Thus, the UK economy will receive a much needed boost.