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computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 1
Home
News
IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
How Singapore is working towards a digital advantage
Scandinavian Airlines CIO has high hopes for digital technologies
Editor’s comment
Buyer’s guide to network function virtualisation
Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
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Singapore to build on digital foundationsThe city state is investing in technologies and skills to secure its place as a leader in the digital age
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18-24 OCTOBER 2016
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 2
Home
News
IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
How Singapore is working towards a digital advantage
Scandinavian Airlines CIO has high hopes for digital technologies
Editor’s comment
Buyer’s guide to network function virtualisation
Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
Smartwatches banned from UK Cabinet as IoT standards loomMembers of the UK government’s ruling Cabinet have been banned from using smartwatches as the European Commission plans to implement security standards for such internet-connected devices. The moves come amid growing warnings from security research-ers about the security and privacy weaknesses in devices that make up the internet of things (IoT).
G7 sets cyber defence guidelines for global financial sector The Group of Seven (G7) industrial powers is to set guidelines for pro-tecting the global financial sector from cyber attacks. The move fol-lows cyber attacks on large finan-cial institutions, such as JPMorgan, and coincides with a report by cyber security firm Symantec that a cyber criminal group dubbed Odinaff is targeting financial insti-tutions worldwide with backdoor Trojan malware to steal money.
Isle of Man signs up for new policing platform The Isle of Man has signed a five-year contract with Northgate Public Services for its Connect policing platform, making it the 13th police force to take the system. The force hopes the digital platform will help to future-proof and modernise pro-cesses on the island. It has signed up to take the investigation, intel-ligence, case and custody elements of the platform.
PC market in longest period of decline since records beganThe global PC market saw its eighth consecutive quarter of shipment declines in the third quarter of 2016, making it the longest sales slump since records began, said Gartner. The three months to 30 September saw year-on-year shipments drop by 5.7%, with a total of 68.9 million devices sold, after ever-longer device refresh cycles and softening demand for machines in emerging markets.
Samsung kills off the Galaxy Note 7 Barely 24 hours after temporarily sus-pending production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone device following a spate of battery fires, Korean electronics giant Samsung called a permanent halt to all production and sales of the device through all channels.
❯Catch up with the latest IT news online.
NEWS IN BRIEF
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computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 3
Home
News
IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
How Singapore is working towards a digital advantage
Scandinavian Airlines CIO has high hopes for digital technologies
Editor’s comment
Buyer’s guide to network function virtualisation
Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
NEWS IN BRIEF
Fujitsu announces UK job cuts Japanese IT supplier Fujitsu is plan-ning to cut about 1,800 jobs in the UK as it restructures its business, with the automation and offshoring of roles planned. The cuts, which amount to around 18% of its UK workforce, were described by the Unite union as a “hammer blow”.
Digital-only Atom bank opensDigital-only challenger bank Atom has opened to the public after completing its invite-only launch. The bank, which received its licence in 2015, delivers products and services through an app for mobile devices and desktop computers.
BT takes on broadband obligation BT’s chief strategy officer, Sean Williams, has told a panel of MPs that BT will volunteer to become the designated universal service provider to fulfil the government’s planned broadband universal ser-vice obligation of a 10Mbps service to every UK premises by 2020.
More women in IT by 2020 The number of women choosing to work in IT is set to increase over the next four years as marketing and finance departments and other business areas recruit more people with IT skills, according to a major study by the CEB, a membership group for business executives.
$5m for Alan Turing Institute Microsoft is donating $5m worth of cloud computing capacity to the Alan Turing Institute’s research teams to support data science work. Institute researchers will tap into the Azure computing platform to carry out data analytics tasks. Data director to leave GDSPaul Maltby, director of data at the Government Digital Service (GDS), is the third senior leader to leave the organisation in recent months, Computer Weekly has learned. As data tsar, Maltby was responsible for one of the most important parts of the government’s digital plans. n
MPs campaign for Lauri Love to be tried in UK Prime minister Theresa May is under pressure to reform the UK’s extradition laws after a court’s decision to extradite engineering student Lauri Love to the US to face hacking charges. Backbench MPs are campaigning for the US to drop the request so that Love (pictured above with his parents) can be tried in the UK.
❯ Government to name departments not securing email.
❯ Lloyds Bank launches technologies to improve services.
❯ Two-thirds of US office workers unaware of ransomware.
❯ Bristol is Open picks new network partners.
❯Catch up with the latest IT news online.
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computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 4
Home
News
IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
How Singapore is working towards a digital advantage
Scandinavian Airlines CIO has high hopes for digital technologies
Editor’s comment
Buyer’s guide to network function virtualisation
Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agencyPublic sector IT contractors have left the UK Hydrographic Office over a tax clampdown. Caroline Donnelly reports
Several major IT projects at a Ministry of Defence (MoD) agency are on hold after IT contractors walked out in a dis-pute over their tax status, Computer Weekly has learned.
About 30 out of a possible 32 IT contractors are understood to have deserted the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) since the end of August 2016, with the remaining workers left to prioritise day-to-day technology support issues, it is claimed.
The organisation is responsible for the collection and supply of hydrographic and geospatial data to the Royal Navy and the merchant shipping industry.
Avoid PAYE taxThe dispute centres on whether contractors are eligible to be taxed under controversial rules known as IR35. Freelancers using IR35 are treated as off-payroll, and are typically employed by a limited company, of which they are a director – and as such, avoid PAYE tax on their contracted earnings.
However, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) wants to clamp down on contractors abusing the system by making public sector
bodies treat them as salaried workers unless they can prove they conform to IR35 rules.
“Public sector departments usually tell contractors: if you get an independent contract review [to prove IR35 eligibility], we are happy and that is assurance enough for us that you are pay-ing the correct tax,” a source, working in the public sector con-tractor community, told Computer Weekly. “But UKHO started to say recently that it wouldn’t accept independent contract reviews as an assurance any more, and started to make tougher demands to the point where it became a lot harder to be a con-tractor working there.”
Sidestep the issueAccording to UKHO sources, contractors were told they could sidestep the assurances issue by agreeing to be taxed in the same way as regular employees or cease working there from 1 September 2016.
“The vast majority of contractors did not want to follow the new arrangements and, along with the considerable bad feeling at the
ANALYSIS
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IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
How Singapore is working towards a digital advantage
Scandinavian Airlines CIO has high hopes for digital technologies
Editor’s comment
Buyer’s guide to network function virtualisation
Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
way it was announced, they left at the end of August,” a source told Computer Weekly.
The UKHO declined Computer Weekly’s request to confirm the number of contractors who had exited the organisation over the changes, but said off-payroll workers currently accounted for about 5% of its total workforce.
Sources working at UKHO said the MoD had told contractors of its plans in May 2016, and initially gave them until July 2016 to agree to the terms of the new regime or leave the organisation. This deadline was later extended to August 2016.
The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE), which represents about 26,000 public sec-tor off-payroll workers, is known to have written to the UK
Hydrographic Office in June after several contractors had com-plained about its change in stance on contract reviews but had received no response.
The move is being interpreted as a bid by the MoD to pre-empt HMRC’s forthcoming IR35 tax avoidance reforms, which will see public sector organisations assume responsibility for determining how limited company contractors should be taxed.
At present, the onus is on contractors to declare themselves “outside” of IR35 to avoid being taxed in the same way as a per-manent employee, and to conduct their business in a way that does not risk them being considered one.
The proposals are the subject of an ongoing HMRC consulta-tion, and the government is widely tipped to use the Autumn
ANALYSIS
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computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 6
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IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
How Singapore is working towards a digital advantage
Scandinavian Airlines CIO has high hopes for digital technologies
Editor’s comment
Buyer’s guide to network function virtualisation
Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
Statement on 23 November to confirm whether or not the reforms will be formally adopted across the public sector.
In a statement to Computer Weekly, a UKHO spokesperson denied that the organisation’s change in tax status assurance policy was part of a push to adopt the IR35 reforms ahead of schedule. “We have not implemented any early changes to the IR35 rules – the government is still consulting on this,” the UKHO spokesperson said.
The IR35 reforms are designed to clamp down on tax avoidance by off-payroll workers and the implications of the plans have been widely debated since the former chancellor, George Osborne, mentioned them during the 2016 Spring Budget.
Incorrectly classifiedSeveral contractors told Computer Weekly about their misgiv-ings over the public sector’s ability to accurately determine how limited companies should be taxed, and fear being incorrectly classified “inside IR35” as a result.
“There is a concern that public sector clients will simply say it is too complex for me to work out whether each one of my contractors is inside or outside IR35 and – because I want to be compliant – I will just say they all are inside,” one contractor told Computer Weekly. “Contractors will get lumped into a higher tax bracket that they feel does not apply to them, and will need to consider increasing their day rates to cover the resulting fall in take-home pay.”
A recent IPSE poll, featuring responses from 829 contractors about their attitude towards the IR35 reforms, revealed that
about one-third (31%) would cease working in the public sector altogether if the changes are introduced.
Meanwhile, 23% said they would move to terminate a current public sector contract if they were made to pay the same level of tax and national insurance as employees, prompting IPSE to warn the government about a possible public sector brain drain should the IR35 reforms go ahead.
Andrew Chamberlain, deputy director of policy and external affairs at IPSE, told Computer Weekly: “What we’ve said [to the government] is, if you’re not careful and push these things through in too much of a stringent way, you’re going to drive contractors out of the sector and end up with departments where no one is doing the work and you have to resource all the projects.
“If it imposes rules that contractors cannot work with, they will leave the public sector and find work elsewhere, and the public sector will be robbed of the resources it has come to rely on, and public services will suffer.” n
“If It Imposes rules that contractors cannot work wIth, they wIll leave the publIc sector
and fInd work elsewhere”Andrew ChAmberlAin, iPSe
ANALYSIS
❯ IR35 dealt a blow as Special Commissioners rule in favour of a freelancer at Ford.
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IR35 dispute prompts mass walkout of IT contractors from MoD agency
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Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
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Singapore works towards digital advantageThe city state is investing in technologies and skills to secure its aim of being a leader in the digital age, says Karl Flinders
As a small city state with fewer than six million people and no natural resources to rely on, Singapore needs differen-tiation to prosper in the global economy. This, combined
with a need to be efficient with its limited resources and space, has put digital technology high on the government agenda.
Since its independence in 1965, the nation has focused on spe-cific industries. Initially, it used its strategic position in the world to develop as a sea hub, which is now the world’s second busiest. It then turned to higher value manufacturing, before focusing on services, especially those in the finance sector.
The nation has now put foundations in place to become a major user and supplier of digital services.
Launchpad for a digital futureThe recent merger of two government departments – the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and the Info-communications Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) – to form the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore, is the launchpad for the next phase of the city state’s Infocomm Media 2025 vision.
The restructure reflects the blurring of lines between IT and media. The Singaporean government hopes the organisation
will help businesses, workers and the local community ride the current global transformation wave, where digital technology is being adopted by consumers, governments and businesses.
In a separate but intrinsic announcement, the Singapore govern-ment announced GovTech, a new department focusing on gov-ernment IT that will attempt to transform the delivery of public services by creating citizen-friendly digital government services and managing its IT infrastructure. Both this and the IMDA sup-port Singapore’s ambitions to become a smart nation.
By coordinating citizens, business and government, the IMDA will help design an education system to ensure Singapore pros-pers in a digital economy, create legislation that is fit for a digital world, and work with organisations to help them use digital tech-nologies to overcome their challenges.
For example, the IMDA will instigate and coordinate digital pilots in vertical sectors and take the initial risks involved with investing in pilot projects. Once concepts are proven, organisations across sectors can benefit from these technologies and methods with-out the up-front risks.
According to the IMDA, the Infocomm Media 2025 vision will see Singapore become “a place where infocomm media ena-bles a better quality of life for our people through world-class
ANALYSIS
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connectivity, compelling local content, and technologies to make everyday lives smoother and more convenient”.
It also has plans for the nation to be a “living lab” for entrepre-neurs, growth companies and multinationals in the information and communications (infocomm) media space to allow them to experiment and innovate to contribute to economic growth.
Equipping the workforce with digital skillsIn economic and social transformation, the IMDA will look at potential applications of infocomm media in areas such as health, education, community and social services, as well trans-port, financial services, logistics, manufacturing and e-com-merce. It will reskill the Singaporean workforce for high-value infocomm media jobs.
Speaking at the launch of the organisation, IMDA’s CEO Gabriel Lim said it was spurred on by the convergence of infocomm and media. “[The IMDA] will shepherd and lead Singapore in a future where there will be far more convergence, technology will be far more pervasive, and digital disruption and digital transformation will fundamentally change the way we work,” he said.
“Despite uncertainties around digital disruption, there are many opportunities to be reaped,” added Lim. “For the workforce, the IMDA will look at how to equip citizens with more skills to achieve in a world where convergence and digitisation will become far more important.” For communities, he said the IMDA would try to prevent a digital divide where parts of the community get left behind: “Everyone, including vulnerable groups and low-income households, must be part of this journey.”
ANALYSIS
IMDA’s Adrian Lim with Kibo robot (main picture); Singapore Post drone for
delivering letters and parcels (inset)
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Lim said the IMDA would support Singapore in emulating some of its past success with digital IT and media. “If you look at Singapore’s growth and development since independence, one thing we have done well is ride every successive wave of transfor-mation and position ourselves for growth,” he said. “With a strong infocomm media sector, we can generate opportunities in others. We’ve been working very closely on projects with our SMEs and stakeholders to identify companies with the right capabilities, support them and scale them up.”
Supporting technology innovationThe IMDA is running projects through its labs to help local organisations overcome operational challenges with technol-ogy. It takes on the cost of testing concepts to remove the bur-den of risk from the organisations that might ultimately benefit.
One example is how the IMDA lab tested an idea to use drones to deliver mail to a remote island off Singapore. With the island’s post-man of 40 years about to retire, the IMDA supported Singapore Post in piloting drones to deliver letters and parcels to the inhabit-ants of Pulau Ubin Island to replace the need for a boat crossing.
“Most of Singapore is densely packed, but we also have a remote community offshore. We wanted to see how we could make effi-cient deliveries to the island. We piloted the use of drones because our help brought the risk of the experiment down. We proved the concept, so the postal service could look at how to scale it up for commercial purposes,” said Lim.
Another project sees the IMDA work with technology firms to find ways of improving logistics. The urban logistics project
will enable deliveries to shopping malls to be better coordinated through digital platforms, reducing congestion, costs, waiting times and emissions while speeding up deliveries. The project is being run at Singapore’s Bedok and Tampines Malls, and will be expanded when complete. For example, the IMDA is working with
IT firm Gursoft to develop systems for scheduling deliveries and managing queues. It’s also working with Ascent Solutions to cre-ate electronic locks for delivery units to secure and track deliveries.
The IMDA is also running 30 projects across Singapore to use smart technology such as analytics, sensors and predictive main-tenance in facilities management. This aims to address a short-age of workers in the security, cleaning, landscaping and facilities management sectors.
Other programmes being run with IMDA support include the use of virtual reality in the healthcare sector, to train surgeons for example, as well as allowing schoolchildren to experience things from their classrooms using virtual reality.
the Imda Is runnIng projects through Its labs
to help local organIsatIons overcome operatIonal
challenges wIth technology
ANALYSIS
❯Singapore’s newest healthcare cluster was designed with IT at its core.
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Without the IMDA managing these projects, this level of col-laboration would not be possible due to the higher risk it would pose to individual organisations.
Tan Kah Chye, board member of Singapore-based financial ser-vices firm Tin Hill Capital, said one of IMDA’s strengths was its ability to engage different economic sectors to apply contempo-rary technologies to solve real-world problems.
“I was fortunate enough to see how the IMDA engaged the finance sector to explore the use of blockchain technology some years ago, despite few in the finance sector having heard of block-chain. Today, Singapore has spearheaded different blockchain-related proof of concepts to digitise trade, and such innovations are capable of having a large impact on the way domestic and cross-border trades are conducted,” said Tan.
“The proof of concept exercises were a huge success because IMDA was there to provide technology domain expertise and work in conjunction with sector experts provided by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It was clear from the start the proof of con-cepts had to be commercially oriented. As such, the participating
banks were encouraged to apply the blockchain technology to solve real-world problems and focus on solutions that can be commercially viable in the marketplace,” he added.
“I believe Singapore is seen as an innovative global city because of its ability to harness the best of what technology can provide, whereby IMDA is always working in close partnership with sector experts from different government organs,” said Tan.
Large multinational organisations can also benefit. Shirish Wadivkar, global head of payables, receivables and flow foreign exchange at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, said the com-pany had received valuable support from the IMDA.
“As the progeny of two very progressive agencies, the IMDA stands out,” said Wadivkar. “IMDA’s parent agencies actively played the role of catalyst to seed innovation in Singapore in the past. We, at Standard Chartered Bank, have been direct benefi-ciaries. Jointly with another bank and IDA, we created the world’s first application of distributed ledger technology to trade finance.”
Laying the foundationsThe IMDA also plays a critical role in schools. Part of its remit includes developing a workforce for the future at an early age.
Speaking at a pre-school where children are being introduced to the basics of computing through toys, Adrian Lim, director of edu-cation at IMDA, said: “We want the citizens of Singapore to have the digital skills needed to work, live and play in a digital economy. We think it’s important to start them young.”
Lim said this involves more than just handing iPads to five-year-olds. “You don’t want to throw an iPad at them and have them
“sIngapore has spearheaded blockchaIn-related proof of
concepts to dIgItIse trade”TAn KAh Chye, Tin hill CAPiTAl
ANALYSIS
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Why collaboration is a survival skill for local authorities
Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
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stare at it.” He described seeing children in pushchairs in the US and Europe with iPads on a special mount in front of them to keep them entertained. “I think this is scary because the iPad is being used to keep the child quiet,” he said.
“We don’t want to introduce technology to kids that is too advanced, because we want them to interact with it and cultivate their creativity. This does not mean giving them some of the tech-nologies Silicon Valley is trying to push on the world,” added Lim. “We decided from the age of four to six to focus on less screen-based learning and make things play orientated to encourage them to work together.”
The IMDA encourages the use of what he described as tech toys. These include Circuit Stickers, which are circuit boards that use magnets instead of soldering, and the Bee Bot robot, which you can make move to a certain point, teaching sequencing through pressing buttons in an order before setting it off. Lim also demonstrated the Kibo robot, which can be controlled using block programming. “There are no screens and these tools are age and development appropriate,” he said.
The IMDA has 160 pre-schools on the programme. Teachers are trained to use the equipment and there is tech support on-site. “Tech is the easy part, but getting the teachers to use it meaning-fully is challenging,” said Lim.
Beyond pre-school, the IMDA is involved with various edu-cational programmes and provides guidance for schools that focus on infocomm and media. Programmes such as Code@SG Movement and Code for Fun offer primary and secondary school students exposure to coding and computational thinking.
The IMDA also provides direct guidance and support to schools that choose to focus on computing on top of the core subjects all schools do. One of these schools is Clementi Town Secondary School in Singapore, which has about 1,000 students aged between 13 and 17. The school principal, Helen Tan-Lee,
said all schools in Singapore have to do core subjects, known as Learning for Life, but also choose an applied learning pro-gramme, which is individual to the school.
Clementi, with support from the IMDA, has chosen computing. “We have chosen our applied learning programme to be related to computing and coding,” said Tan-Lee. “We want to give all our students a basic foundation in what coding and computing is. We want to expose them to what’s out there in computer science and hopefully ignite their interest in the process. Hopefully some of them will consider it a field they can grow in,” she added.
The IMDA also has mobile labs that visit schools to introduce children to technology. It holds workshops at schools for about a week at a time in an attempt to get students to create technology rather than just consume it. n
Imda provIdes guIdance and support to schools that
choose to focus on computIng on top of the core subjects
ANALYSIS
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SAS sets sights high with digital innovationThe CIO of Scandinavian Airlines, Mattias Forsberg, talks to Eeva Haaramo about how digital technologies are enhancing customer experiences and transforming the airline business and the wider travel industry
The airline industry has changed significantly in the past two decades, with the introduction of budget airlines and an increasingly demanding digital customer base. The lat-
ter is also what attracted Mattias Forsberg to take on the CIO position at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS).
“The airline industry is interesting in that it is heavily depend-ent on IT. The industry has been an early adopter of digital busi-ness processes, and SAS has been one of the leaders in it. Many [current systems] come from development inside SAS,” says Forsberg, who began working with the company in January 2016. “We are at the point where we need to focus on developing SAS for the future, and digitisation is a very important part of that.”
SAS is the largest airline in Scandinavia. It plans to invest around SEK500m (£44m) in digital transformation initiatives over the next few years. It is a new phase for SAS, which previously shifted its IT focus largely to cut costs, as it was on the brink of bank-ruptcy in 2012. Cost reduction remains a priority, but with SAS now on more stable ground, Forsberg has introduced an IT strat-egy focused on replacing legacy systems and increasing the capa-bilities of the airline’s digital products and digital innovation.
“The importance SAS puts on digital innovation is one of the reasons I joined its management team. We aim to make the whole process efficient and transparent and create new systems for our customers to make their life easier,” says Forsberg.
“We need to be able to capture the benefits of new technolo-gies. Digitisation will affect the airline industry for a long time to come,” he adds.
Defined performanceWorking in a consumer business is not new for Forsberg, who was awarded the title of “Swedish CIO of the year” in 2013 while working at state-owned Swedish alcohol retailer Systembolaget.
Prior to this, he gained business experience as a consult-ant in business transformations and working with startups. Consequently, Forsberg sees his broad understanding of business as a key strength. He says IT, like any organisation, should always have clearly defined key performance indicators (KPIs).
“It is not rocket science, but it does take a lot of time. It is important to start with clear KPIs so you can then focus on your improvement areas,” he says.
INTERVIEW
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Forsberg spent his first three months at SAS interviewing eve-ryone working in IT or with IT in business functions to learn what works in the company and where the pain points lay. Now SAS is starting to implement the necessary changes to better serve the 28 million passengers it transports annually.
One of these is increased transparency. Forsberg is a strong advocate for creating transparent processes. He sees this as particularly crucial to organisations that are highly dependent on outsourcing, such as SAS. “We have a very small internal IT organisation, and most of the staff work in business IT functions, close to the business,” says Forsberg.
Furthermore, SAS’s internal IT team of 72 people works in infrastructure, service management and governance in close co-operation with the company’s major service provider partners – Tata Consultancy Services, CSC and Amadeus – and a group of other suppliers.
These partners are used to boost SAS’s digital innovation capa-bilities. Forsberg believes it is a good model – the internal team brings airline industry experience, while the partners have deeper knowledge in the latest technologies.
“The next step is to broaden the scope for innovation to the whole company and implement a way of working with external parties and the vibrant startup communities in Stockholm and Silicon Valley,” says Forsberg.
No need for digital strategySAS has always been an early adopter in digitisation. In 1965, it became the first airline to use the electronic booking system
INTERVIEW
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Mattias Forsberg: “The importance
SAS puts on digital innovation is one of the
reasons I joined”
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Sasco (SAS computer system). However, IT is far from a support function today, which is why Forsberg believes time has moved beyond isolated digital strategies. “You don’t need a digital strat-egy,” he says. “Digitisation is about making all operations more digital. It cannot be the responsibility of one person. Digital needs to be integrated in all strategies.”
Often, this approach is accompanied with a transformation project, as processes and technologies must be rebuilt to enable digital business models. Forsberg advises setting a clear goal and creating a holistic transformation plan, but one which takes into account that technologies and priorities will change over time.
“Transformation takes three to four years. You cannot plan in detail for such a long time frame,” he says.
Due to the length of transformation processes, Forsberg also likes to start small. Typically, this means tweaking customer
interfaces where even small improvements can offer immediate benefits. For example, SAS released a beta version of its revamped online services in August 2016, and is now collecting feedback from customers about the touch-optimised user interface.
SAS is also in the process of moving away from legacy systems and ensuring its IT architecture is robust enough for digital inno-vations. This includes improving data quality, as it should be a key issue for IT to make sure applications and data are not created in separate silos, says Forberg.
Personalised travel experienceData is a major ingredient in digital innovation at SAS. In early 2016, the airline launched a unit called SAS Labs, with the spe-cific focus of improving customer service and simplifying cus-tomer interaction through modern digital technologies.
“If you look a few years into the future, we will most likely know so much about travellers and what they like that we could create a personalised travel experience – and not only when they are trav-elling, but for services around travelling,” says Forsberg.
SAS Labs has developed the online platform and integrated upgraded features into the SAS mobile app. The company is pro-totyping electronic bag tags, which could be managed through the app instead of paper.
The airline is also experimenting with open application pro-gramming interfaces (APIs) and chatbots to expand its customer service to where customers spend most of their time.
The aim is to make the airline’s digital channels interactive and cognitive so they can understand a user’s natural language
“you don’t need a dIgItal strategy. dIgItIsatIon Is about
makIng all operatIons more dIgItal – It needs to be Integrated
In all strategIes”mATTiAS ForSberg, SCAndinAviAn AirlineS
INTERVIEW
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 15
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and answer their questions automatically. This is being trialled with chatbots in Facebook Messenger and voice controls with Amazon Echo.
However, digitisation is not only transforming the customer experience. Forsberg believes the internet of things (IoT) and robotics will further transform the industry as sensor technolo-gies and robotics start to take on processes in and outside the aircraft, such as luggage handling.
SAS is also looking into the potential of 3D printing for the main-tenance of its fleets. The most futuristic visions see the company investigating autonomous, pilotless flights.
Forsberg says there will always be some need for human inter-action, but change is inevitable.
“Digital transformation is not different from business [any more]. You need to define how to transform the business and capture more opportunities through digitisation. Companies in all industries need to change,” he says. n
INTERVIEW
SAS
“you need to defIne how to transform the busIness and capture more opportunItIes
through dIgItIsatIon”mATTiAS ForSberg, SCAndinAviAn AirlineS
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We need to know GDS’s future direction
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is central to the future of Whitehall IT, but it is an uncertain place at the moment – or so the rumour mill says. Everyone knows there is a new strategy on the way over the next couple of months, and nobody is quite sure how different it will be. Kevin Cunnington, the new director general of GDS, is writing that strategy – now known as the
Government Digital Transformation Strategy.It is understandable if GDS staffers feel a little unsure of the future after so much has happened in the past couple of months. As well
as a new boss and three outsiders brought in from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to help write the strategy, they have a new minister in Ben Gummer. They see a respected former minister in Francis Maude publicly expressing his concern for the future direction of GDS. And they see senior, popular GDS leaders deciding to leave.
GDS will not be broken up – that has been promised by Cunnington. But it’s possible – probable – that his GDS will be very different.Computer Weekly has been told by sources close to GDS that they expect Cunnington to significantly reduce the amount of software
development carried out by GDS. It is said that he sees GDS as a transformation unit similar to his former DWP operation – with delivery done elsewhere.
Sources have talked of a Venn diagram doing the rounds in the Cabinet Office – three overlapping circles labelled digital transforma-tion, organisational transformation and manifesto commitments, with GDS where those three circles overlap. If true, that would risk GDS becoming little more than a policy and standards unit of the type it was set up to replace in 2011.
But add in some prototyping capability, or a small development function for producing beta versions of cross-government digital plat-forms – and do we then start to see a picture of where GDS is headed? That remains, for now, a rhetorical question.
It seems certain that some of GDS’s powers will be devolved back to the big departments that lobbied to lessen GDS’s influence. The question is, what powers – and to what extent?
And what about that £450m budget? Sources suggest some of that cash could be used as a “seed fund” where GDS invests in depart-mental projects that have a wider use across Whitehall.
But this is all speculation, and only Cunnington and his close companions really know. We await the truth, and it must come soon. n
Bryan Glick, editor in chief
❯Read the latest Computer Weekly blogs.
EDITOR’S COMMENTHOME
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 17
Virtualising network functions, along with software defined networking (SDN), is part of the wider tele-coms wide area network (WAN) infrastructure trend towards virtualisation and commoditisation. The net-
work function virtualisation (NFV) focus is primarily on optimising the network services operated by WAN infrastructure providers (here called telcos), whereas SDN seeks to separate the control and forwarding plane for a centralised view of the network.
The main drivers for NFV adoption by telcos are escalating infrastructure costs and the change in network usage driven by the mass adoption of cloud computing. Internet content provid-ers such as Google and Skype are delivering new video and audio services and content to users much more quickly than traditional telco service roll-outs, and the rise of cloud services has boosted WAN network traffic loads. Telcos need to keep up or go down.
Change in mindsetNFV enables a fundamental change in WAN provider mind-set, and addresses all WAN elements from customer premise devices to network access, across the service edge, and right through to the core WAN. Telcos are being forced to justify their investment priorities and operating costs in terms of business value rather than evolving their infrastructure to meet specific performance metrics, irrespective of cost.
As a result, many telcos acknowledge the need to speed up implementation of new services and features. Doing so with a dedicated hardware platform takes too long, takes up too much office rack space and is energy inefficient. It costs too much.
NFV helps telcos save money on WAN
infrastructureTelecoms providers are optimising their services through network function virtualisation, says Bernt Ostergaard
BUYER’S GUIDE TO NETWORK FUNCTION VIRTUALISATION | PART 3 OF 3
JULIEN EICHINGER/FOTOLIAHOME
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This new mindset shifted the focus from pro-prietary hardware performance features to open standard software residing on standardised hard-ware. The affected range of hardware is extensive and includes: routers, firewalls, gateways, content delivery network (CDN), session border control-lers, network address translation, WAN accelera-tors, quality of experience testers and radio net-work controllers.
Along with cloud automation and SDN programmability, NFV aims to relocate all these device functions onto standard high vol-ume servers, storage and switches with software from independ-ent software suppliers.
More coherent approachNFV emerged when WAN operators tried to deploy standard-ised IT virtualisation technologies, but found they needed a more coherent approach when confronting traditional network infrastructure suppliers.
In December 2012, this led seven major telcos – AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Verizon – to band together and create the NFV ISG (industry specifica-tion group) under the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
Since then, 30 other telcos have joined the NFV ISG, plus 250 WAN hardware and software suppliers and communications research bodies. The creation of ETSI NFV ISG resulted in the foundation of NFV’s basic requirements and architecture in 2013.
Once telcos embark on the NFV transition jour-ney, the payoff comes as:n Lower hardware costs by avoiding supplier
lock-in.n Extending the lifetime and functionality of hard-
ware platforms with software upgrades and add-ons.
n Having a much wider range of performance management features.
n Expanding the number of possible providers, notably with smaller suppliers coming out of the IT and DevOps environ-ment and competing against established players on both price and performance.
n Adapting infrastructure to a DevOps environment where development, testing and implementation is possible on oper-ational infrastructure.
There is no single standard or coherent hardware architecture you can adopt when planning a shift to NFV, so a buyer’s guide to NFV is as much an implementation guide as a product review.
NFV Release 2The ETSI NFV ISG Release 2 specifies NFV compliant hypervi-sors, functional requirements for management and orchestra-tion interfaces, interfaces to acceleration mechanisms, and the virtual network function manager (VNFM) that handles scaling, changing operations, adding new resources, and communicat-ing the states of virtual network functions (VNFs) to other func-tional blocks. NFV Release 2 came out in 2015.
BUYER’S GUIDE
❯Service providers are rapidly adopting NFV
infrastructure, but addressing NFV security in the
process is essential.
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 19
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The current work on Release 3 began in May 2016 and will stretch into 2017, adding specifications for actual service deploy-ments, including: billing, end-to-end management, multisite connectivity, lifecycle management and security. It also works closely with other NFV initiatives, notably the Linux Foundation open source reference platforms, which include ONOS, OpenO, ECOMP, CORD, Open vSwitch and OpenDaylight.
Also, there are at least 13 different standards organisations, such as 3GPP and TMF, working on fixed and mobile WAN infra-structure standards with NFV elements.
From a fully standards compliant product point of view, it is still very early days. ETSI will not host the first Release 2 Plugtest to test the alignment of NFV end-to-end configurations with com-ponents from different providers before January-February 2017.
Get their act togetherBut equipment manufacturers are not waiting around for telcos or the ETSI ISG to get their act together. They are already offer-ing NFV products that are compliant with the specifications that come from the NFV-related industry consortia under the Linux Foundation umbrella. So any NFV-compliant product comes with a lot of strings attached, and buyers must investigate thor-oughly what compliance any NFV product is actually based on.
Let’s not forget that the rising importance of SDN and NFV strategies underpinning WAN infrastructures depends on con-tinued improvements in hardware processing and transmission capacity from the chip level and up. So competition for hardware performance and efficiency will continue, but with the incumbent
BUYER’S GUIDE
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WAN infrastructure suppliers shifting their priorities towards optimising their architecture, simplifying operations and increas-ing processing velocity to operate in a standards-based multisup-plier environment.
Typically, major infrastructure suppliers such as HPE, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Juniper Networks and Cisco are combining their SDN and NFV product ranges to address performance challenges on fixed and mobile infrastructures. Specialised NFV contributions come from a wide range of suppliers, such as Amdocs for billing, Ciena for orchestration and Red Hat for virtual infrastructure management (VIM).
HPE’s ContexNet is based on the Linux OpenDaylight carrier-grade SDN/NFV fabric and is being deployed in conjunction with Intel. It enables a virtual mobile core and access infrastructure that allows mobile cloud service pro-viders to virtualise network functions and deploy services faster to accommodate rapidly multiplying mobile data sources. We are seeing many similar SDN/NFV products undergoing field testing.
Early telco NFV adopters include NTT Docomo and Indonesia’s XL Axiata and are working with several major NFV suppliers. On the fixed network side, Ericsson is providing them with its OpenStack-based cloud execution environment as the virtualisa-tion platform and its NFV Cloud Manager for orchestration. The system initially supports a multisupplier virtual evolved packet
core (EPC) deployment and also provides system integration and support services. On the mobile infrastructure, NTT is trialling Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to support its long-term evolution (LTE) systems for handling the company’s mobile communications.
In the UK, BT’s access network division, Openreach, has con-tracted Huawei and Nokia to deploy an NFV compliant G.fast broadband infrastructure to reach 10 million UK homes and businesses by 2020.
In France, Orange Business Services has rolled out the SME EasyConnect VPN service. This takes advantage of SDN and NFV technologies to let customers quickly set up and manage an IP-VPN, as well as firewalls, web content filtering and other services,
using a self-care portal. The services rely on Ciena Blue Planet technology for orchestration and VNF management. Orange has been working with Red Hat for VIM services, and tasking Juniper Networks Contrail to provide the SDN controller.
Across Europe, Vodafone is working with Amdocs, Juniper Networks, Aria Networks, Red Hat, Adva Optical Networking and Fortinet to build an advanced virtual private network (VPN+) using SDN and NFV components to increase performance and keep hardware requirements to a bare minimum. The aim of a VPN+ is to automate and simplify deployment and incident man-agement processes, while providing information about multiple
BUYER’S GUIDE
the rIsIng Importance of sdn and nfv strategIes depends on contInued Improvements
In hardware processIng and transmIssIon capacIty
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parameters (analytics, performance and security monitoring). Smaller point-product suppliers such as Sonus (session border controllers), OpenWave (media optimisation), Qosmos (DPI), Callup (mobile device management), Peplink (virtual SD-WAN routers) and ADVA (optical networking) see significant oppor-tunities with NFV to target much larger WAN infrastructure deals than would otherwise be possible, because they don’t have to provide all the pieces.
Adva develops high-performance FSP 150 ProVM hardware that works with open software and hardware from other suppliers. Last year, it acquired and integrated the Overture Ensemble software suite into its opti-cal networking hardware to launch its NFV strategy. Adva’s Ensemble NFV is designed to allow service providers to innovate quickly, explore experimental service offerings and create try-before-you-buy programmes, hosting virtualised functions on any commer-cially available servers.
Peplink’s Multi-WAN FusionHub routers simplify the use of MPLS, xDSL, fibre, 3G/4G/LTE and Wi-Fi as a WAN, and have been designed from the start as intelligent multi-WAN capable devices providing full WAN virtualisation capabilities. FusionHub runs on mainstream virtual machine software, including VMware, XenServer and VirtualBox.
Clearly, NFV and SDN represent a step-change for WAN infra-structure providers in their competition with internet-based digi-tal service providers, and in meeting the expectations of their cus-tomers who are shifting massively to cloud services and mobile access to these services. And while there is no going back, moving
forward in a still loosely standard-ised tech space has its own imple-mentation and integration chal-lenges. Some telcos find it too risky to introduce new processes and product simultaneously, and may virtualise their network and service platforms first.
There are also economic repercus-sions for telcos investing in an NFV infrastructure. The pace of adoption is not just a standards and technol-ogy issue, it is also about the ability
to bill customers and the revenue sharing between NFV suppliers and the infrastructure providers.
Early adopters are concerned about the NFV licensing, where there is a “misalignment” between the way an operator wants to sell services and the way suppliers provide licences – something seen in the early days of cloud services. One cost-saving option may be to run multiple services on the same virtual network or container and introduce more open source technologies. n
Bernt Ostergaard is a service director at advisory company Quocirca.
nfv and sdn represent a step-change for wan
Infrastructure provIders In theIr competItIon wIth Internet-based dIgItal servIce provIders
BUYER’S GUIDE
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 22
The standalone local council spending its scarce IT resources on dedicated projects and systems for its own locality in splendid isolation is surely a dying breed.
Similarly, those councils which persist in procuring their own equipment, consumables, services and products should be on the list of endangered species.
Councils don’t have to be in formal shared services arrangements – such as One Source between Newham and Havering Councils in London, or the Local Government Shared Services Partnership in the regions – to benefit from great economies of scale and effi-ciencies in the way they spend local taxpayers’ money.
There are plenty of ways and means to collaborate and achieve great efficiencies in spend, better outcomes for customers and more opportunities for staff.
Local councils spent more than £2bn per annum in 2012 on IT systems and services. With many councils engaged in transfor-mation programmes, this spend is likely to be nearer £3bn a year.
Even just a 10% saving on that spend offers £300m in funds that could be directed to much-needed investment in technology – for example, to provide improved care for the elderly.
In addition to the financial savings, the requirement for common IT platforms can often make or break service integration projects across the public sector – council with council, health with local government, and so on.
Collaboration is a survival skill for local authoritiesCouncils need to seek opportunities to work with their peers if they are to take advantage of digital transformation at a time when budgets are squeezed. Sean Green reports
COLLABORATION
HOMEERHUI1979/ISTOCK
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It would be great to be ahead of the game, and if common plat-forms were in place before the service integration project kicked off, that’s one less issue to affect the success of such initiatives.
Why isn’t it happening?There are a number of factors that prevent greater collaboration. We don’t build in enough time when reviewing contract renew-als and new IT contracts, for a start.
We get obsessed about the unique characteristic of our own organi-sations rather than taking an agile approach and focusing on the 60% we have in common, where we could procure and implement together for quality outcomes across local government. Procurement rules are perceived as a barrier for collabora-tion, but often it is our interpretation of the rules causing the problem. Increasingly, there is more openness and flexibility in frameworks and catalogues that we can use off the shelf, or build together if there are gaps not supporting our digital needs.
Sometimes it’s simple laziness – it’s complicated having to work with stakeholders in other organisations. Building networks and relationships across local government IT and the public sector is limited and often focused on pilot projects.
When such collaboration does take place, too often it’s organised around traditional committee structures or informal conferences
which, while useful for knowledge sharing, don’t typically lead to tangible outcomes and changes in the way we work together.
Organisational politics and regional sovereignty mean people don’t want to give up their power in decision making or control of budgets. Our individual areas of expertise may be seen as less important to our organisation when sharing and collaborating.
A report from BT in 2014, which included a survey of local government managers, identified several IT-specific issues – 80% of respondents said data sharing was a barrier, 81% pointed to lack of time and resource, and 85% highlighted incompatibility of IT systems.
What can be done?Four years ago, human resources and consulting firm Hay Group came up with some insights gained from researching successful col-
laborations, which are still relevant today. Hay’s research said strong mutual understanding was needed for both parties. While discussion around practical implementation is important, funda-mentally success or failure hinges on the competencies and com-mitment of those at the top, and the freedom they have to deliver the necessary cultural shift.
The research said organisations need to invest time in building trust and joint understanding with those they collaborate with. They should define a shared understanding of the outcomes for
COLLABORATION
procurement rules are perceIved as a barrIer for collaboratIon
In local government, but often It Is our InterpretatIon of
the rules causIng the problem
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their users and how this will be achieved, and consider what’s in it for the other organisation(s) and seek mutual victories. Good partnerships look for shared language and terminology to describe the issues and the solutions as a way of breaking down barriers and getting everyone on board.
Behaviour, culture and trustA 2015 report from the University of Birmingham Institute of Local Government came to similar conclusions. Researchers found that behaviour, culture and trust are far more important to success in collaboration than the structures through which people work. Collaboration is voluntary and particularly prone to procrastination, especially if projects meet complex
challenges. The report said organisations need a clear strategy to avoid a loss of momentum, especially during the startup phases.
Collaboration doesn’t happen by accident. Both practice on the ground and academic work on collaboration underpin the view that it is driven by people with very particular skills. National bod-ies – and local government collectively – can do more to develop the collaborative skills, according to the report.
We can hope that extinction of the council that revels in its sov-ereignty and splendid isolation is surely inevitable, especially with post-Brexit pressures and increasing demands on council budg-ets. If local authorities don’t change quickly enough, then central government is more than likely to impose changes.
Collaboration can be as sim-ple as skills and knowledge
COLLABORATION
Collaboration doesn’t happen by accident. It is driven by people with very particular skills
ART
VEA/ISTOCK
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Legacy roadblock needs clearing to make way for digital future
Downtime
sharing to increase capacity between councils to deliver joint pro-jects, through to joint procurements and bringing together teams and budgets into more formal shared services networks.
There are some great opportunities to collaborate in new digital investments and innovation labs, which should be high on the list when seeking partners for collaborative working.
It is down to those in leadership roles to make the difference.
Make collaboration a key goalIf you work in local government then ask yourself, are you will-ing to be one of those leaders who seeks ways to providing IT differently? Or are you a bystander, passively contributing to the longer-term failure of your organisation in how it delivers on value-for-money promises to customers?
Make collaboration one of your personal goals and a goal of your team. Use your influence to make it a priority objective for your organisation.
At a national level, the Department for Communities and Local Government should measure councils and other public sector bodies on the extent to which they can demonstrate collabora-tion, highlighting and celebrating those that do it well.
Let’s see successful organisations partner with those that are less mature in their collaborative behaviour to help them accelerate their approach to nurturing better and more productive partnerships. n
Sean Green is service head ICT, customer access and
transformation, at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
COLLABORATION
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Collaboration can be as simple as skills and knowledge sharing to increase capacity between councils to deliver joint projects
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 26
Nearly half of all enterprise IT assets are in urgent need of modernisation. In the UK alone, this represents an estimated technology debt in the tens of billions of pounds – a little like our national pension deficit.
That was the key finding of a senior executive survey of 40 lead-ing financial, industrial, government and IT services organisa-tions conducted by the University of Surrey in early 2016, which showed that 40-50% of IT is effectively out of date.
Digital disruption is clearly visible in virtually every sector of the economy, accelerating at a pace not seen in any previous era of technology-induced change. Such disruption is largely associated with the explosion of mobile devices and real-time transactions – underpinned by cloud services – that traditional systems were not designed to accommodate.
Performance gapThe advent of 5G mobile, the internet of things, data analytics and machine learning will further widen the performance gap. The survey shows the challenge of modernising legacy systems is an issue for every sector, with the largest banks and public sector organisations having the biggest technology debt.
Much IT investment has taken place at the front end of organi-sations to support growing customer demand for digital services, but the core systems that form the foundation of any IT estate are unable to evolve quickly enough to respond to the digital tsunami cascading down the supply chain.
In particular, the IT sector itself is being rocked by the public cloud phenomenon that is transforming services in a fundamental
Clear legacy roadblock for a digital future
Legacy IT and legacy thinking are preventing many organisations from embracing the digital economy – but it is an obstacle that can and
must be overcome, write Andy Nelson and Roger Camrass
LEGACY IT
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way. Analysts such as Gartner forecast that 50% of all internal IT and business services will migrate to the public cloud by 2020.
Although many core systems have become effi-cient and stable over the decades of their exist-ence – dating back to the 1970s and 1980s in many cases – they are now seen as a key obstacle in the rapid evolution to a fully integrated digital business.
This is compounded by cyber security concerns, a lack of in-house skills, supplier lock-in through multi-year contracts, and the difficulty of demonstrating a viable business case for legacy modernisation. A senior automotive executive expressed the problem like this: “Software is the new rust.”
Cataclysmic eventDespite the seismic changes tak-ing place across the digital econ-omy, the Surrey survey reveals that most boardrooms see the process of fundamental systems modernisation as overly complex, too costly and involving unaccep-table levels of risk. Only a cata-clysmic event such as a full-scale public outage – as experienced by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2012 – appears to elevate the topic to the board agenda.
In this context, all evidence suggests that legacy extends well beyond the boundaries of technology itself. According to senior
executives, it is more about a prevailing legacy cul-ture, attitude and mindset.
In tackling the legacy problem and so helping organisations to take the big leap towards becom-ing fully digital, the survey uncovered some valu-able pointers to a successful migration strategy aimed at reducing or even eliminating technology debt. These are summarised below:
n Adopt a business driven and evolutionary (step by step) rather than revolutionary (big bang) approach when modernising core systems and associated infrastructures to align with cus-tomer needs in the emerging digital economy;
n Adjust both the business and supporting IT operating mod-els to progress towards an integrated digital organisation,
while maintaining strategic con-trol over both these aspects of enterprise architecture;n Tackle each layer of the IT stack
by employing open standards, modern tools and techniques, especially those emerging in open cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure;
n Start to componentise or “hollow out” monolithic and heavily customised core systems by using software packages and pub-lic cloud services, thereby simplifying access to valuable cor-porate data and improving front- and back-end IT integration;
LEGACY IT
❯Download the full report by Andy Nelson and Roger
Camrass, Escaping legacy – removing a major roadblock
to a digital future.
most boardrooms see fundamental systems modernIsatIon as overly
complex, too costly and InvolvIng unacceptable levels of rIsk
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 28
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n Consider new strategic IT partners in place of incumbents that bring innovation and the necessary funding to support com-plex and lengthy migrations.
However, technology should not be seen as the sole answer to the problem. Businesses must aim to simplify business processes and rationalise their product portfolios. There is clear evidence that simpler business models supporting fewer products are not only cheaper to operate, but are also more agile.
Cloud servicesOrganisations will be better placed to exploit digital technolo-gies, tools and techniques and make best use of the growing range of cloud services.
For IT to play its full part in this digital journey, it must adapt its operating model. The characteristics of such a model include:n Support for any future business operating model that
will be needed to compete successfully in the emerging digital environment;
n Ability to accommodate rapid technological change that is predicted over the next five to 10 years in areas such as devices, digital channels and machine learning;
n Designed to exploit new external partnerships with cloud providers and agile software developers as well as innovative new startups;
n Capable of embracing a more flexible multi-sourced model at each layer of the IT stack to exploit changes in the rapidly evolv-
ing external IT services landscape;n Ensuring that software design and
development adopts an “engi-neering discipline” to deliver both reliability and flexibility, thus min-imising future legacy issues.
Overall, the conclusion from the many interviews conducted for the survey is that “do nothing” is no longer an option if leading organisations want to avoid the sort of catastrophic melt-
down witnessed in sectors such as retail and entertainment.
Rewrite applicationsThe report also concluded, more positively, that the grow-ing maturity of cloud services and ever-richer sources of soft-ware packages means that legacy systems can be modernised without needing large-scale multi-year programmes to rewrite these applications.
It is time for boards and corporate leaders to control their own destinies in the new digital economy – otherwise someone else is surely able to do so. As one insurance executive said: “We don’t want to be Ubered out of existence.” n
Andy Nelson is an experienced IT leader, and former UK government CIO.
Roger Camrass is a visiting professor at the Business School, University of Surrey.
LEGACY IT
there Is clear evIdence that sImpler busIness models
supportIng fewer products are not only cheaper to operate,
but are also more agIle
computerweekly.com 18-24 October 2016 29
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Downtime
Google wages war on tofu – the virtual typeGoogle has teamed up with typography firm Monotype to wipe out tofu across the internet.
#FitFam, #lifestyle and #veganlife instagrammers need not be worried, however – the type of tofu Google aims to eliminate is not the tasty bean curd snack (well, sometimes painfully bland bean curd snack, depending on the chef).
In this case, the phrase refers to the blank boxes that are used to replace text that cannot be displayed. We often see this when certain browsers or web pages are unable to process emojis or our fave font.
This phenomenon usually happens when someone writes in a font or language that is not supported by Unicode, the standard for the encoding of text.
Through a joint project called Google Noto, Google and Monotype will be developing a new font family called Noto
(short for “no more tofu”) which will be free, and allow text to be written in all languages without the fear of these dreaded blank boxes appearing.
We’ll allow them to remove web-based tofu, but let’s hope the search giant doesn’t try to take down any other vegan staples in the future. n
DOWNTIME
❯Read more on the Downtime blog.