* Posts by PhilipVirgo

5 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jun 2016

'We've done it, we've wasted further time!' Judge raps HP over Mike Lynch court scrutiny

PhilipVirgo

"Few things are certain in this world, save that when two parties go to the law over an estate, at the end of the affair the estate shall be sold to pay the expenses of the lawyers." From a Henrician (during the reign of Henry VIII) "Common Place Book" - a collection of witty sayings..

PhilipVirgo

Many years ago the NCC Microsystems Centre had a small contract to deliver a series of Saturday Morning sessions for Judges so that when they asked Counsel "And what is this think you call a micro-computer" they would be able to tease out what the Jury needed to know that was relevant to the case. Today a Judge might similarly ask "What is Artificial Intelligence" in order to tease out whether the system in question was a simple rules based engine or a complex hierarchy of linear regressions and the provenance of the data that fed it … and thus who might reasonably be assumed responsible for which aspects of what it was doing. And if he got a mass of technobabble he would know that Counsel (or the witness) did not know what they were talking abut or was bullshitting. Those who delivered the lectures never discussed the experience … save to say that the audience was very polite but also very perceptive in the questions they asked and how they checked the answers they were given. They also helped me set up the original BCS Expert Witness Panel.

Police ICT Company kills £500m procurement, no longer wants one box shifter to rule them all

PhilipVirgo

Home Office and Police Forces should take a look at how JISC does procurements on behalf of the Universities. IMHO it run by far the most cost effective set of procurement vehicles in the UK. Cheap to run, cheap to bid and well below average prices for the widest range of choices.

Openreach boss Clive Selley wants Ofcom to wrap it up already

PhilipVirgo

Why Ofcom should confirm Openreach's "suspended sentance", not let it off the hook

The signs are that now it has an engineer in charge Openreach is moving towards a hybrid solution. G-Fast where it will work well (probably well over half the network) give a boost and a mix of fibre and wireless where it will not: distance, aluminum networks, exchange only lines etc. etc.). Given the post-brexit funding problems BT will face (rights issues to pay for buying EE and DT reluctance to invest more) we may even see it become an anchor tenant for those altnets which use new technology to build more robust networks at lower cost. Will separating Openreach from BT help expedite that process? .... hmmm. One of the "lessons" of history is that monopolies frightened of regulatory action give better service to their customers. The only certainty Ofcom should give to Openreach is that it will not intervene provided its services improve (price and performance) into line with those of its competitors and it does not assist predatory behaviour on behalf of its parent.

UK digi strategy on ice post Brexit results - sources

PhilipVirgo

So what effect will Brexit have on the IT industry?

1) prices of US Cloud Services and hardware already up 10 - 20% - will be build our own or buy from China?

2) wholesale replacement of central government IT systems - ? upgrades or transition to new build at a fraction of the cost to run but what about security?

3) End of US subsidy for GCHQ Powers because EU communications with US (as the global internet hub) no longer run via the UK but via France and Spain

plus ... http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/When-IT-Meets-Politics/What-effect-will-Brexit-have-on-the-IT-industry-and-profession