worked in GOV for long time - when we looked at this M$ turned up with loads of support resource dropped threats to bump up licences and everyone behaved. They then disappeared as quick as they arrived, tumbleweed for a few years and off we go again. Now we have more cloud and SaaS it is much easier to change the endpoint and disengage with the enshittifcation of the desktop. There really is no reason a large proportion of IT estates couldn't move off reliance on Windows and Office $365 but it is the usual fear that yonks back was "nobody got fired for buying IBM". It take a brave IT Manager to move into this area and good luck as the rewards for reducing dependency on lining the pockets of US companies annually and focussing on actual support costs will pay dividends long term. Europe has always been more open to open source, the UK prefer to blag on the special relationship we have with the US (not looking so good now guys!) but maybe as costs increase it will return IT to actually being more radical that the lackluster homogenised environment it has turned into.
Posts by Mickey Porkpies
78 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Aug 2007
France’s digital directorate dumping Windows desktops, adopting Linux instead
Amazon would rather shareholders did not look too closely at carbon footprint
Targets and aspirations
absolute BS and they know it I aspire to be King and distribute the wealth to all but the chance of this happening is as likely as AWS reducing it's carbon footprint - smoke and mirrors and we should stop gaslighting people and companies have to admit to outsourcing their targets to AWS and stop pretending to care. If you care about your carbon footprint you run it yourself and control and own the issue.
AI search is atomizing our information, warns government digital designer
Microsoft 365 confirms new premium tier, stuffed with AI and few discounts
Iranian news service claims drone strikes on AWS were deliberate, to probe for US datacenter dependencies
UK watchdog eyes Meta's smart glasses after workers say they 'see everything'
BBC bumps telly tax to £180 as Netflix lurks with cheaper tiers
The last stand on media without interuptions
BBC keep me sain in a world bombarded with adverts and sponsored crap it is the only way to watch stuff and is the true personal media service. Whilst news has sunk to the depth of Daily Mail so much good TV is available on the big screen without the need to pay for high speed broadband and even with the streaming service offers a massive selection to the widest audience. It is a truly inclusive service that is an island in a world of haves and have nots and should be protected as such
It isn't a commercial streaming service it is public service and selfish interests will destroy it. If we have anything left of the British Identity in a stupefying globalised homogenised world it is this.
France to replace US videoconferencing wares with unfortunately named sovereign alternative
Fast Pair, loose security: Bluetooth accessories open to silent hijack
X sues to protect Twitter brand Musk has been trying to kill
Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy
VPNs will eventually be banned - Business lobbies politicians pretend it is to save the kids when it is really to protect Netflix / Disney etc and make them more money so they can feed on users until they have every penny. Once business went online it was the beginning of the end greed corrupts everything alas so back to drinking down the pub with your mates... oh they are closed.
JLR: Payroll data stolen in cybercrime that shook UK economy
Bonkers
More and more IT is commoditised and companies pay less and less for what is probably the most important part of a modern business yet they wonder why this crap happens - Russian Rolette to outsource your IT to the lowest bidder but as they aren't held responsible for losing personal data what do they care. JLR gambled and lost most companies have no idea of the consequences.
London councils probe cyber incident as shared IT systems knocked offline
UK minister ducks cost questions on nationwide digital ID scheme
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
ISPs more likely to throttle netizens who connect through carrier-grade NAT: Cloudflare
Windows 11 update leaves Blu-ray and TV apps stuttering
Microsoft boasts about humongous datacenter on abandoned Foxconn site in Wisconsin
wah wah green wah wah
MS have an army of people convincing you they are green whatever they do. The race to the beat the AI bubble bursting will render billions of e waste that will make the 400 million tons of windows 10 pcs seem like small change. We will all be huddled around fires sipping puddle water while all our resources are burnt up so they can solve a problem that was theirs in the making.
Windows Security Update turns smooth NDI streams into jittery messes
Data watchdog put cops on naughty step for lost CCTV footage
The UK wants you to sign up for £1B cyber defense force
UK's smaller broadband operators face tough road ahead, consolidation possible
Dell ends hybrid work policy, demands return-to-office despite remote work pledge
blah blah
This more about cost tied into property investment and how we can't have all these posh offices empty and some tired old working practices rather than data driven productivity.To get the best people Dell need to compete with employers offering hybrid approach and for me as a corp customer this speak volumes on the old dog no new tricks scale. Anyone who has had the misfortune to trial their hybrid personal AV kit will know how little they know about how people work from home.
Microsoft flashes Win10 users with more full-screen ads for Windows 11
Recall the Recall recall? Microsoft thinks it can make that Windows feature palatable
Now Dell salespeople must be onsite five days a week
VMware giving away Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro free for personal use
Microsoft Teams: The good, the bad, and the ugly
It's collaboration Jim but not as we know it
slack clone, sucks up processing, great Sharepoint interface (as mentioned) nice video conferencing for 4 people (don't try to collaborate with any more than 4) it's moving in the right direction so I guess once it is almost perfect they will drop it for something else.
Oxford University reportedly turns off its Huawei money tap
Re: The Real Problem
Trust me I am not a fan of China... I agree my issue is where is all of the other kit that is swapped out made? China build pretty much anything that has a cable, led and chips. If China wants to backdoor its own kit it isn't a wild leap that it can do it to any kit Cisco, Ericsson etc. I agree there is a risk but unless you manufacture your own components and assemble there is always a risk. The argument that just because it is state controlled it can't be trusted is simplistic to the extreme.
Put up or Shut up
ok how many more peeps are dumping their kit for "security" reason PUBLISH you evidence. Nobody denies their link to Government but given the evidence of other government backdoor shenanigans thanks to Mr Snowden which has been published if their is a genuine issue lets see the evidence and their response. This is becoming more farcical than Brexit.
Nest cameras can be easily blacked out by Bluetooth burglars
Busted Windows 8, 10 update blamed for breaking Brits' DHCP
Office Software Checkpoint
There are alternatives if you look
Most users never take advantage of all the balls and Whistles of Full Blown Office so you are paying needlessly. there are robust Exchnage replacements such as Zarafa http://www.zarafa.com/ but as mentioned peeps are too scared to dare to think of a non M$ world. Come on IT Manglers think out of the box.
Vodafone's network knackered by thieves
UK.gov: One address-location database to rule them all
Amazon poaches Microsoft games chief
Budget to cost over a million jobs: Official
Reality Check
err lets not forget how we got into this mess ...it wasn't the public sector!! Also don't go on about slacking government workers I admit to have come over some of them in my 20 years working with Governments (local and central) but come across just as much if not more over paid and under skilled private sector consultants and had to clear up their messes.
The private sector is not better than public sector, there's good and bad in both wake up and smell the shit
Google can kill or install apps on citizen Androids
Twitter topples over
Gov ICT contracts to go online in July
great savings guys
and how is all this going to be paid for?? diverting money away from services to make it easier for all our uni friends to get a slice of the gravy train
get real... all this data is accessible via FOI (except all the central gov stuff) this is going to cost thousands to manage.
this comes from MP's who wouldn't publish their own expenses without blanking out.
ID cards poster girl laments her £30
The joy of software licensing on the desktop
OSS can work but it requires effort
and in my experience most ICT departments cannot be arsed to migrate away from the likes of windows or office even though usage does not warrant the constant upgrade path.
In one site we audited the use of office and found only 40% of users used word within 1 month and apart from some prolific excel users the remaining software was unused. One could also argue that those using the software rarely got close to the potential supplied by the package. I have no beef with Microsoft (other than they are greedy and unimaginative) but their software can be very functional. most users never use that function yet are happy to re-buy the product every few years,
I have used Open Office for over 6 years for tender documents, advanced budgeting, presentations etc and all have been without issue. How many companies have support contracts for MS Office and if they spent some time getting use to alternative they may be surprised. Lets face a lot of SANs and old VMWARE all use *nix platforms!
Mucky private chat could be illegal soon
The twits can't twitter then
if it is illegal to tweet anything that will be seen as "grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing, annoying, inconveniencing or causing needless anxiety" then pretty much anything an MP or other politician says falls foul of this!!
Makes a change then given all the freedoms signed away by the last government....
Bank sues Google for identity of Gmail user
Dell's first phone spied on web
Long term commitment?
why would I buy a phone from a company that brought out Axim handhelds and dropped them. I suspect Dell will try this and if doesn't make them a packet quietly discontinue them leaving a bunch of users with unsupported outdated expensive MP3 player.
The iphone may be the 80's Red Sports Car signifies something of the decade but at least they invest in it (and backwardly for old generation users) This is one for the must avoids