I support David Chassels' comments about exploitation of innovation (Tough nut to crack, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk). As an observer of the market for innovation in the UK who regularly engages with high-growth small businesses, the most common complaints I hear are the difficulties in raising finance as these companies move to market, and also the problems of establishing stable revenues.

The typical story is: "We cannot raise finance without sight of sales, but the sales cannot come until the finance is in place to create and market the product." It is almost inevitable that companies fall short on their sales projections, even once they have raised funding, leading to disappointment and stress for the entrepreneurs and their investors.

In the UK we tend to be weaker in our sales focus than in the US. This is particularly because we do not focus hard enough on quarterly sales targets. However, we also suffer from very long buying cycles by potential customers and long decision chains. We would like every larger corporate to appoint a principal (or a team) to front their effort to engage with innovative businesses.

Modwenna Rees-Mogg

If readers really understood the psychology behind entrepreneurship, they would appreciate that a prime motivator is actually creating an enterprise. They would also appreciate that, while capital growth may manifest, it may not immediately be tangible (Business loses in capital gains tax, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk).

I fully support the Chancellor's attempt to streamline the taxation system, including making capital gains tax (CGT) simpler to administer. It was absurd for entrepreneurs to invest in an enterprise, to asset strip that enterprise and then to be levied only about 10 per cent tax on their capital gains.

Perhaps readers will recall the antagonism shown by IT contractors towards the introduction of IR47.

Although previously IT techies may have bought an off-the-shelf company, paid themselves high dividends and avoided paying their fair share of tax and National Insurance, the Inland Revenue finally caught up with the tax dodge. Thankfully, they started paying their fair share of tax.

The same issue arises when levying CGT. Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with entrepreneurs accruing wealth from their endeavours, let us avoid any tendency to condemn a change simply because we may lose out on capital gains.

Rebecca Pidgeon

My first reaction to Adam Thilthorpe's opinion piece (The time has come for the IT profession to grow up) was to roll on the floor laughing.

When Thilthorpe says: "Not very long ago anybody with a knowledge of programming only had to walk through the door of an IT firm to get hired," it says more about the BCS than a thousand words ever could. It might have been true in 1972 but certainly not during most of the 26 years that I have been working in that field.

But most of all his attitude to the chartered IT profession is wrong. There is no such thing as an IT professional, or for that matter an untested software architect.

People write or design software. They manage projects, test software, provide support, build web sites, administer or design databases, engineer systems and perform other roles. It is a very large area but you won't find a job with an exact description matching "IT professional". It is an attitude, not a job.

David Bolton

The only not-so-good relationship between aviation and mobile phones is that mobiles cannot be used in the plane yet (Passport to safety, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk). The idea of using your passport as a ticket is a good one, similar to the way passengers can go to a kiosk and use a credit card to check in.

But the mobile phone is not static. Business travellers especially would only need the mobile device to handle the full process, from wherever they are: booking, payment, check in and so on. No more waiting at the counter or at the kiosk when you do not have baggage to check in.

Furthermore, with the same SMS the passenger can receive a ticket in the form of a unique 2-D code, and information about the gate, delays or gate changes.

The mobile handset can be used for a two-sided communication in real time, which can make life easier and more convenient.

Marc, submitted on the web

Gartner analyst Andreas Bitterer makes some interesting observations about project managers in your article on information management skills (The formula for success).

Business may be continuous, but management is discrete. Failure among technologists to recognise this is one of  many reasons why they are not taken seriously. Project managers are just the messengers.

As a data person with a business degree, I am interested to see evidence that businesses are willing to pay money for people who don't fit in discrete technology or business boxes.

Ant Evans

McDonald's is getting lots of free publicity for its plan to provide free WiFi connections in its outlets (Free is the future for mobile computing, The editor's diary, editor.computing.co.uk), but shouldn't you wait and see if it uses WiFi as a way of pushing advertising at customers?

Worse than that, who wants to sit in a McDonald's "restaurant" using their laptops? Everyone knows McDonald's considers a customer staying more than 20 minutes as overstaying their welcome - hardly the right environment for a bit of mobile surfing.

Name withheld on request

Tom Young's article on data centre CO2 levels presents a hugely generalised view of the environmental impact of data centres (Data centres hike C02 levels). In many cases using the right kind of data centre can play a part in reducing emissions.

A well-designed medium-to-large data centre actually reduces CO2 emissions compared with running the same servers in a smaller data centre in an office environment because the infrastructure to support the servers can be made much more efficient in a larger, purpose-built facility.

One measure of efficiency is the ratio of total power used by the data centre divided by the power used by IT equipment. This energy efficiency ratio (EER) highlights how much power is used by air conditioning systems and losses in electrical systems.

It can vary from 1.5 to more than three, meaning the total power consumption of the data centre (and therefore CO2 emitted) is between 1.5 and three times that used by the IT equipment.

Well-designed data centres tend to run in the range of 1.5 to two, depending on the design specification and levels of redundancy in critical infrastructure.

Just by relocating IT equipment from a data centre with an EER of three to one with an EER of 1.5 effectively halves CO2 emissions.

Most third-party data centres use a billing mechanism that has a variable rate depending on power consumption. Some even provide real-time statistics of power consumption at a per-rack level.

Customers of these data centres see an easily identifiable cost for running their IT infrastructure rather than having it hidden in their own office costs.

Moreover, they can easily identify a cost saving if they switch to more efficient hardware or implement virtualisation of their server infrastructure.

As an industry we need to be focused on lowering CO2 emissions based on the useful work carried out by IT equipment. Rationalisation of hardware, more efficient hardware and virtualisation will all play a part in these reductions, as will more efficient data centres.

We must be wary of demonising data centres as a source of CO2 emissions, and instead look at the opportunities available to us by locating equipment in modern, purpose-built, efficient facilities. It is not how much power a data centre uses, but how much it saves.

Marcus Hopwood, IFL

In his letter (Windows' hidden price tag, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk), Peter Clinch seems to suggest that a PC with Linux rather than Windows would cost £200 less.

Dell is currently selling a Vostro 200 with Windows Vista Basic and no monitor for £179 plus VAT and a Vostro 200 with Windows Business and a 19-inch flat panel for £249 plus VAT. How does that work then, Peter?

Mark Wheeler

I must add my voice to the chorus of UK entrepreneurs urging the chancellor to rethink his damaging proposal to abolish taper relief on capital gains tax (Innovation must be encouraged).

The government stresses its commitment to boosting entrepreneurship in Britain but withdrawing taper relief would have the opposite effect. From my experience as founder and chief executive of Trampoline Systems, a London-based software business, I can see three ways that the proposed change would seriously damage the UK economy.

First, it will discourage people from setting up new businesses in the UK. One of the primary motivations for entrepreneurs is the capital return when a company is bought by a larger business or floated on a stock market. The prospect of a big prize motivates entrepreneurs to keep going through years of hard work and penury.

Under the chancellor's proposals the government will demand a breathtaking 80 per cent more of entrepreneurs' returns when the pay-off is achieved. We should not be surprised to see a generation of UK entrepreneurs relocating to the US or other European countries where the regime is less draconian.
Second, it will make it harder to recruit and retain talented employees.

It is already difficult to attract skilled personnel, and offering employees an equity holding in the business is crucial. At Trampoline we give employees a share of ownership in the business. The proposed legislation reduces the value of employee stock options, introducing a new obstacle for UK businesses to attract talent.

Third, it will reduce the motivation for investors to make long-term commitments to firms they fund. With taper relief the longer someone holds onto their shares in a company, the less tax they will pay when they eventually sell them. This is good news for businesses such as Trampoline as it focuses everyone on long-term success and brings greater stability.

I fully support the concept of a capital gains tax. It is right that I as an entrepreneur should share the fruits of my success with the wider society. What is at stake is a question of balance. The chancellor's proposals are ill-conceived and would seriously hurt the UK economy.

Charles Armstrong

As a product marketing executive, I can't always wait for my developer teams to write, test and launch new code in today's compressed market cycles (The death of packaged applications revisited, Freeform Dynamics blog, freeform.computing.co.uk).

I am not knocking software programmers, without whom marketing guys would have nothing to promote. They are the engineers that build the infrastructure that makes a better life for everyone. But in my defence, I'm the guy who lets people know about developers' inventions. I also add value by creating new uses for their applications.

So if my customers need a new feature now, I have two choices. I can reach out to my already-overloaded development team to create a new application, or I can find a company that already has a solution that we can integrate. Thus my job becomes more of a packager of third-party technology into one workable solution that I can price and sell to my market.

If I have a great idea for a new product, a quick web search will return three companies that have already launched it and have a platform with which we can connect. The product rollout game has become faster.

Mark Dlugozima

As a web developer, I am hoping BT decides to go through with the plan to put fibre into the home (How will the UK match the world's broadband elite?).

There is a petition on the prime minister's web site regarding this issue - see http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/fibretothehome.

I think all techies should show support for this and pressurise the government into action.

Dan Price

An article in Computing tells us that Parliament's security officers have abandoned the idea of using fingerprint technology for fear it might pose a risk of mutilation to MPs, peers or staff (Westminster avoids fingerprints).

The authorities' concern is that potential suicide bombers would have no compunction cutting off politicians' fingers in an attempt to defeat a system that relied on automatic readers to verify passholders' identities.

But aren't we all supposed to have our fingerprints on our ID cards? Fingerprint readers are already used at airports to speed through the lucky (foolish?) few at passport check.

Then the same issue of Computing has an article where banks are asking for more fingerprint readers (Biometrics needs the banks).

Why is it not acceptable for people to cut off the fingers of MPs, peers and Lords but it is OK if they cut off the fingers of ordinary members of the public?

Andy Wood

The Identity and Passport Service is putting out half-billion-pound contracts for a fingerprinting system for passports and identity cards, while MPs avoid such a system for fear of having their fingers cut off (Westminster avoids fingerprints). But increasing the risk of mutilation for the public is OK, is it?

Guy Herbert

Am I the only one who thinks this is a strange idea (Mobile phone boarding passes are ready to fly), especially as there is not a good relationship between mobile phones and aviation?

I wonder why the travel industry doesn't use passports instead of tickets. When booking they could ask for the number on the barcode of your passport, for which there is already an international standard.

For the other details, regarding terminals, departure time and so on, you can print that yourself, or even receive it via SMS if required.

Joel Mansford

Two-factor authentication usually involves the normal password method plus a device that will generate a random password, which changes every few seconds or minutes (Online banking fraud plummets).

The theory is that only the person with both passwords can access the account. This is widely used in Scandinavia and combats fraudsters intercepting or guessing single passwords.

In the UK it has been hailed as a silver bullet, but this method is still susceptible to phishing attacks. Surely e-commerce companies need to put a series of hurdles in front of the fraudster, of which two-factor authentication is only one step?

Laura Brown

On 5 October, 270 senior executives from the IT industry slept outdoors in support of NCH's annual fundraising event, Byte Night. The money raised helps young people at risk of homelessness all over the UK.

This year saw sleep-outs taking place in towns across the country, including Bradford and Reading, supporting the London event and helping to raise a record £340,000.

The generosity and support of the UK technology industry continues to astound us, and when 270 managing directors, senior partners and chief information officers sleep homeless it sends a powerful and invaluable message to the public about the scale of this problem.

Not a single person had a good night's sleep on that Friday. But everyone left knowing they had helped NCH in the fight against youth homelessness.

Of the money raised, £175,000 has already been allocated to 17 leaving-care projects across the UK to help regional centres remain fully operational. We look forward to welcoming you back next year for our 10th anniversary.

Ken Deeks & James Bennet Founders, Byte Night

Are we so desperate that comment from businesses that have yet to use Facebook become spokespersons? (Business faces up to social networks).

Rather than Zopa thinking about it, what about Lending Club, which launched on Facebook?
Business needs to stop talking about it and start trying it. Sony BMG's Dylan application is proof that more pointed advertising applications work if they are well thought-out and designed.

Understanding the relevance to your business is key, but Facebook has been much hyped for several months. Any advertiser still talking about it may have missed the boat already.

Two of the UK's leading lights for innovation, and they're stuck on how to use Facebook. How frustrating.

Charles, submitted on the web

I believe bridging the gap between the business and IT is not just an IT problem - it requires those on either side of the gap to reach out (Poor change and project management skills are hindering business transformation, Sandra Smith's blog, sandrasmith.computing.co.uk).

Too often, the IT community takes it on itself to tackle this issue without carrying its business colleagues on the journey. IT is an essential function of any major modern business and collectively we - the business and IT - have to harness processes, people and technology for mutual benefit. It is a team effort.

Why do IT-centric projects fail? My experience is that it is rarely because of the technology. Board-level misconceptions or ignorance play a major role in driving failure.

Senior IT decision-makers have a key part to play here in educating their colleagues. Methodologies, correct project setup and so on are not "comfort zones", they are engineering foundations, and it is essential for good business to administer them professionally.

Board members no doubt can read a balance sheet. I would suggest they should be equally familiar with the basics of process diagrams or purposes of different stages of software deployment.

I am all for recognising weaknesses and developing skills at all levels. Experience has taught me that those blessed with strong technology skills are often not similarly blessed with the strong soft skills essential for good project management and change management.

What to do then? Yes, do provide stretching roles but remember that dropping people in at the deep end is a high-risk strategy.

Any role that represents high challenge requires commensurate support to ensure the stretch is beneficial. I favour stretch roles that are supported with appropriate training, and subsequent workplace coaching support is highly recommended.

And please can we stop sending staff on Prince training courses and expecting them to be rounded project managers when they return.

Jon Dakin

For those of us working in small to medium-size companies, buying IT skills offshore isn't an option (Train your sights on business knowledge).

Additionally, at the university where I work, we have redeveloped our offering to align with Skills For the Information Age, a set of descriptors that the BCS and industry has bought into. Hopefully, we can turn out graduates with those skills, and an appreciation of business.

I strongly believe there will be a return to computing-related courses as all those marketers realise that their degrees won't bear the fruit of employment. It's a boom-bust thing - flavour of the month now, sour taste in the mouth next year.

Mark van Bellen

The UK's WEEE regulations do not place specific recycling targets for business equipment on producers, based on the annual weight of products placed on the business market Ð this is only for household products (Do WEEE know enough? Sandra Smith's blog, sandrasmith.computing.co.uk).

Instead, producers simply have to arrange to pay for the collection and recycling of any affected business equipment. This is quite different from having a weight-based annual quota to achieve.

Sadly, this does not necessarily encourage manufacturers to promote responsible environmental policies such as WEEE recycling to their business clients.

What we really need is an educational campaign by the Environment Agency making businesses fully aware of their WEEE rights.

Keith Pryde

I have been interested to see that the information management issues discussed in Computing (Keep your data safe) tend to focus on solutions based on file servers, typically clustered to provide backup facilities.

There seems to be a large amount of disk space available for use on the many workstations on networks. My current workstation, which isn't what you'd call top of the range by any means, has an 80GB hard drive and nearly 50 per cent of its space free.

Maybe we should think about using users' hard drives as part of the solution, whether as local caches to reduce network use and increase speed, or as file server backup. While there would be a risk of any single system failing, if the same data was stored on multiple workstations it could reduce IT server costs.

Mike Raven

While I can see the logic of Tony Roberts' argument that old PCs should be sent to the poorer countries, there is a flaw in his argument (Give old PCs to developing world, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk).

In the UK, old PCs, like all electrical equipment, have to be recycled at the expense of the manufacturer and according to stringent environmental rules. Send a PC to the Third World and eventually it will fail and may well have to be dumped as the type of recycling available in the UK just won't be there.
Added to that, old PCs are energy-hungry and the places they are being sent to are energy-poor.

John Loader

While funds for UK innovation are always welcome (£1bn for UK innovation needs to be doubled), I think your article and Lord Sainsbury's report miss a very important aspect of the problem - successful exploitation of our innovation.

In some respects this has been recognised by the setting up of the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), which seems to be using the right words. Whether actions will match and produce results remains to be seen.

Ask any innovator what he or she really wants and it is access to a market to get sales. This is where our US friends really understand how to create economic wealth. This is where the CBI should be thinking what it can do to help itself and achieve the goal of seeing successful technologies grow into successful companies.

The ones that do make it to commercial production very often sell out too early - usually from exhaustion and frustration at UK government and companies' failure to listen to, never mind buy into, something new.

True venture capital in this country still lies with the business angels, but even they have limits. Creating an environment that gives a better chance of commercial exploitation is a winner for all yet we are just so bad at this vital aspect.

The easy reply is that we are not good at selling, but is it that? I think it is that we are not good at buying - there are too many barriers to encourage adoption of the new - unless of course it comes from IBM, Microsoft and so on.

It's time for some really radical thinking. The government may be on track with the TSB but what is the CBI doing other than complaining that £1bn is not enough?

David Chassels

I wish there was some hope in the letter "Incompetence will kill ID scheme" (Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk), but it's either a hopeful or a naive view.

Incompetence will not kill something wanted so badly for social control by "them".

Connecting for Health - who cares if a few patients die through faulty IT? Tax credits - if people cannot claim properly it saves paying out. But ID cards for social control - now that's something that must be nurtured and protected.

It's scary to hear people bleat: "You have nothing to fear if there's nothing to hide." I bet Goebbels said the same thing.

The state has a history of abusing power, and ID cards will not be an exception.

Terry Webb

Roger Spencelayh asks how many people would select a non-Windows operating system given the option (No getting rid of Windows, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk).

Granted, the option he suggests at the point of sale - "Do you want Windows or Linux with your PC?" - would almost always come back Windows, but point out to the customer that the difference is £200 in favour of Linux and people might start getting more interested in the freeware.

Windows is largely seen as being free with a PC, but the reality is not quite the same. Get people to see the reality and the answers may start to change.

Peter Clinch

I assume that in Roger Spencelayh's world (No getting rid of Windows, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk), should I wish to buy a diesel-engined car, I would still have to pay Microsoft for the petrol engine.

Eric Lee

Following Mark Samuels' article (Train your sights on business knowledge), I felt compelled to write and express my disbelief at the suggestion that there is no point in studying technology at university anymore.

While I do not question that business and communication skills are important for an IT consultant, the reality is that businesses need well-rounded employees with a complete quota of technical knowledge, soft skills and business acumen. For a business to take a non-IT graduate and train them to be a top developer from scratch is not a realistic option, especially as most businesses already under-invest in training.

Furthermore, as a training and recruitment company, we have not seen any fall in demand for programmers and developers. Organisations are still very much on the lookout for experienced consultants with industry knowledge and technical skills.

No doubt big businesses are trying to reduce costs by offshoring low-value jobs to low-cost locations, but this is only a small fraction of the entire IT job market and should not be considered the norm. Those subscribing to the offshore threat must also bear in mind that Indian salaries are increasing by at least 15 per cent annually, so eventually the cost saving benefits will erode.

The UK IT skills shortage does not merely pivot around a lack of business acumen. The technical skills drought - most notably deficits in Java and .Net - is hitting corporates and restricting growth.
Unless the UK maintains a skills base in software development, we will strangle businesses of the future.

Julian Divett
FDM Group

Is it not reasonable to assume that as the demand for "cheap" labour increases the cost of these skills will also increase, leading to an even more precarious situation? (Train your sights on business knowledge).

Is offshoring a viable mid- to long-term option? Is it wise to terminate the development of local technical skills? Is it practical to continue to offshore for the indefinite future?

Nicki, submitted on the web

How is it that new software can be deployed without being tested to identify such issues? (Web site glitch exposes hotel customers' details).

Or was it deployed in spite of the fact that the fault was known about, as it appears to have been identified and fixed in "less than a day"?

This sort of incident only encourages the type of scare story beloved of the popular press that puts many people off using the internet for commercial transactions. IT needs to get its house in order if it is to show that it is a genuine profession contributing seriously to the nation's economy.

Andrew Fuller

Once again, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which aims to produce affordable laptops for schoolchildren in the developing world, has announced a price hike (Are you doing your bit for the world?, Editor's diary, editor.computing.co.uk). The "$100 laptop" will now cost $188 when it finally goes into production. However, while the project's aims are admirable, it still hasn't got any customers.

Unfortunately, for the schoolchildren intended to receive the laptops, countries have to raise the massive amount of money required to order the laptops before production can start.

Shouldn't the IT industry be listening to Michael Dell, who pointed out at a press conference in July this year that the millions of functioning PCs that come out of circulation annually offer a much more realistic - and affordable - option for the world's poorest children?

The UK government is in agreement; the WEEE directive explicitly prioritises reuse over recycling. Yet Computer Aid, the world's biggest not-for-profit supplier of refurbished PCs to developing countries, faces a shortage of supply to meet the demand for thousands more reusable PCs to schools, colleges and hospitals in the developing world.

We have already shipped more than 95,000 PCs to help bridge the global digital divide. And these machines are making a significant difference to hundreds of thousands of lives.

As if that wasn't enough, reuse is also more environmentally responsible than recycling PCs, as a research project at the United Nations University in Tokyo has demonstrated. Professors Rudiger Kuerh and Eric Williams have shown that reusing a whole computer "is some 20 times more effective at saving lifecycle energy than recycling".

That is because the manufacture of PCs requires the consumption of more than 10 times its own weight in fossil fuels; 75 per cent of a PC's fossil fuel consumption happens before it is switched on. This is much higher than most electrical goods, which consume around 95 per cent of fossil fuels when in use.
For all these reasons, it is a terrible waste to recycle a computer straight off the corporate desktop when it is only three or four years old. That is why Computer Aid says: "Don't recycle - reuse!".

Tony Roberts
Computer Aid International

I read your article (Call for computers without Windows) and started thinking of the effect of such a move.

Many large corporates buy PCs with a custom setup from their IT supplier, so no change there. Those small businesses with their own IT department will be able to install their preferred operating system (OS) without a lot of trouble - having made sure all required drivers are available, of course.

Maybe all PCs will have to be shipped with CDs containing all required drivers for all flavours of Windows, Linux, Unix and any other OS I'm not aware of. And what of consumers and small businesses without an IT department? I can hear the calls to the help lines now: "I've just bought a PC, turned it on and it's saying 'Boot partition not found'."

On the plus side, it'll be a great revenue stream for the smaller systems installers, but when you add that onto the cost of a new PC, the cost of ownership will certainly rise, putting PCs out of the reach of many home users and making many small businesses think twice before upgrading their hardware.

And in reality, how many people would select a non-Windows OS given the option? Just try asking at point of sale: "Do you want Windows or Linux with your PC?" It would certainly be interesting if one of the large PC/electrical retailers ran such a survey.

So is the next headline going to be "EU shoots itself in foot yet again", or "Cars in EU to be sold without engine management software"?

Roger Spencelayh

As far as I am concerned PCI DSS card rules are irrelevant in reducing card fraud (Payment security is lagging). The main issue shown in many cases, such as TK Maxx, is that companies like to keep card details from purchasers in their databases far longer than necessary to process the payment transaction.

Once the card information has been used to claim the funds from the purchaser (usually in a daily end of day processing ) then that information should be deleted.

Companies will claim that they keep it either to facilitate customers making later purchases or so that they can do online refunds if needed. Neither of these reasons is valid.

If customers want to make another purchase then they should be forced, in their own interests, to resubmit their card details. Similarly if they want refunds. The only way to enforce this would be to make it a criminal offence - with chief executives liable - for an organisation to keep credit/debit card details longer than necessary, which is usually a day at most.

Gordon Kennedy

The idea of giving IT users more control is coming from a lot of think tanks right now (IT autonomy will attract talent). Like the saying goes, "You can't please all the people all the time" and I think IT departments are getting sick of trying too.

Consumerisation is driving ever more applications and devices into the corporate arena and IT must double and redouble its efforts, not to keep up with technology but to try to integrate it within a safe, secure working environment.

There is a new principle coming out of Denmark called network consolidation. Basically, shrink the firewall to only cover your server farm and kick all users to a peripheral local area network with a basic firewall and proxy if needed.

Only the pre-secured applications can talk to the services on encrypted application-only tunnels; everything else is blocked. The PC does not know or see the server network so what the user has on their machine is immaterial.

Ron Wilkins

The civil libertarians need not worry. ID cards are a government scheme and will therefore never work (It is time for privacy debates to grow up, governmentinsider.computing.co.uk). It will go the way of Connecting for Health, child benefit, tax credits and everything else this government has tried to build.
The government has no managerial competence and hands over responsibility to a cabal of management consultancies who have no interest in seeing any of the projects ever completed.

In 10 years' time there still won't be an ID card, there'll be a "scaled down" national identity register that nobody uses because it's so unreliable, and the ministers and their deputies will be on the boards of the usual systems integrator suspects.

Johnny, submitted on the web

It was interesting to see that yet again a large company has suffered a data leak, with the loss/compromise of 6.3 million records which are understood to be already active in the hands of their new criminal keepers (Hackers hit US stockbroker TD Ameritrade).

At least in this case the people affected are aware of the loss, and so may take steps to protect their identity.

The real question is: what about all the other data losses? In the UK they slip under the radar, and do not get reported or make it into the public arena. These still create the same risk, but the loss is only known to the concerned organisations, which at the end of the day may be more worried about the potential of bad PR.

Is it not time to introduce the requirement for reporting all such data losses to the customers affected? After all, it is their data that is being looked after - or not, as the case may be.

John Walker

In addressing perennial concerns over skills shortages, the key issue is not whether employers express the view that they don't owe anyone a living (Employers rights, Letters blog, letters.computing.co.uk), but rather whether employers share risk, ownership and responsibility for training, either through continuing professional development for existing staff, or providing sponsorship and placements for students and unemployed candidates.

If employers are not part of the solution, they remain part of the problem.

Government should address those employers who deny any responsibility for training, and yet paradoxically moan incessantly about graduates not being "fully skilled, fully trained, fully experienced, capable of hitting the ground running".

Rebecca Pidgeon

We do need to be asking the right questions about ID cards and privacy (It is time for privacy debates to grow up, governmentinsider.computing.co.uk).

You give the example of Google using people's search profiles for targeted advertising. Google's main search page has no link to its privacy policy, and most people remain blissfully unaware that their search activities are stored and analysed.

A 2005 survey showed that 73 per cent of respondents were unaware that Google was retaining their search results. Once informed, 85 per cent said they would be interested in a service that allowed them to search anonymously.

What questions should we be asking? Whether the benefits of personal data collection and analysis are worth the potential abuses?

It is important to recognise that the state's record on abuse of powers is far from exemplary.
When the 2000 Terrorism Act was going through the Commons, the then Home Secretary Jack Straw said: "The Bill does not focus on demonstrations, which are a normal activity in a democracy. I wholly defend people's right to go in for peaceful protest."

However, the Terrorism Act was invoked to evict 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang from the 2005 Labour Party conference after he heckled Jack Straw. John Catt, 81, was stopped and searched under the same legislation for wearing an anti-Blair T-shirt outside the conference. About 140 people were arrested under the Act for demonstrating outside an arms fair in London in 2003, and the Act was also used to stop and search peace protesters demonstrating at RAF Fairford in 2003.

Yes, let's ask the right questions. But let's not dismiss legitimate concerns over ID card legislation as "rather infantile, government-bashing tradition". The concerns are real. And recent history shows that we should be concerned.

Steve Bayliss

WiFi is an IEEE-based specification Ð 802.11a/b/g/n and so on. 802 is the Ethernet specification and WiFi systems are really Ethernet mapped onto a radio system.

Unfortunately, there are fundamental differences (Municipal WiFi continues to struggle). Where Ethernet
detects collisions, WiFi avoids them.

So on a physical local area network, if multiple devices transmit at once, each device knows about it and stops transmitting.

In WiFi, networks have to be cleverly designed so each device can hear all the others; that way, if a device is transmitting, other devices will hear and not transmit themselves.

Hidden nodes can cause network meltdown, and municipal WiFi systems will always have hidden nodes that can't be seen by all other parts of that WiFi network, as nodes are often mobile, such as laptop users. This makes the networks  expensive and not particularly reliable.

WiMax gets around these problems as the base station is always in control of who gets to talk, so there's only ever a conversation between the base station and one endpoint at a time.

The other issue is that broadband has become ubiquitous, so homes and businesses are already connected to the internet. When municipal WiFi was first rolled out, broadband was costly and not available everywhere.

Steve Kennedy

If the IT industry wants less technical knowledge and more business skills, then it should recruit people out of college with computing A-levels or the equivalent and train them up in the business skills (Can we solve the skills crisis?).

Employers should stop insisting on degrees for 90 per cent of IT jobs and create more apprenticeships. I can't understand why a degree is virtually a requirement for a software developer, but totally unnecessary for an IT support career.

JC, submitted on the web

There was nothing in the conversation you recounted that suggests problems were caused by poor software testing (A testing conversation, Industry view blog, intellect.computing.co.uk). What you were talking about was poor software development.

There's no question that poor software testing and poor software development are often related. The former is a subset of the latter, and both are arguably subsets of poor management when the products make their way to release.

However, one man's poor management may be another man's pragmatic management. Decisions about software quality are ultimately business decisions, and there are lots of bugs - especially in in-house programs - that make more sense to ship than to fix.

Testers don't put bugs in; they have to find bugs that are hidden and placed there by someone else. Nor do the testers take bugs out; that is a development task. The decision on whether to take them out is a business task.

Michael Bolton

As an IT enthusiast, I did a course in IT and business administration at college at the turn of the century. At the end of the course, I needed money, and applied for jobs in both sectors. And because there are more jobs in administration, I got a job as an office junior before being offered anything in IT.
Fast forward six years, and I've now migrated into civil engineering, a sector in which I was not trained nor had experience, yet moved in and moved up fairly quickly. During this time I've completed my degree in IT, but despite applying for jobs in the sector I never got an interview, possibly because of my lack of experience.

While I love IT, I'm probably going to end up retraining as a civil engineer. Why? Because I have bills to pay.

Michael Raven

We live in a world where terrorism, hacking and identity theft reign unchecked (The surveillance society). To protect ourselves we need CCTV, ID cards and a DNA database of every citizen and visitor to the UK. However, given the UK's record with major IT projects I doubt that it is practical.

Mike Orton