The famous statistician George Box once said “Statisticians, like artists, have the bad habit of falling in love with their models”. Mathematicians working with big data can often come to believe that their model is flawless – because based on the huge amounts of data they have, it is! However, no data set, however large, can cover every eventuality, and no model is ever perfect – the important question is whether they are good enough to be useful. (more…)
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Developing Applications for the Cloud
In previous posts I have talked about ‘the cloud’, what terms such as IaaS mean, some history and where we’re going. For this post I’m going to look at some of the cloud platforms out there, and discuss issues that organisations should consider when deciding to move onto ‘the cloud’ using an ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (Iaas) offering.
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Mining Facebook’s Big Data – After the Gold Rush
So, Facebook’s initial public offering didn’t result in those investors who managed to buy in making large profits from the increase in the share price that they had hoped for. Facebook got what it wanted – cash to clear their debts, invest and acquire competitors – their executives improved their fortunes, but the initial investors lost out. And it has to be remembered that 25% of those investors were the public. Were they, and the larger investors, just too greedy? Were they misled by Facebook? Whatever the reasons, it looks as if they won’t get their money back in the short term, and it’s by no means a certainty they ever will.
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What kind of 4G can the UK afford?
Ofcom has published a second consultation on allocation of spectrum for 4th-generation mobile networks in the UK. The consultation proposes to oblige those networks that buy 4G licences to provide near-universal UK 4G coverage. It’s an obligation which will be costly for the network operators, which will tend to depress the market for 4G network services, and which, I suggest, is based on two misconceptions. (more…)
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Agile Thinking in Public Procurement
Shaun Davey, CEO at IPL, led a joint session on the challenges facing agile procurement with David Shields, MD of the Government Procurement Service at a Cabinet Office conference on 21st November. This opportunity arose from IPL’s work with the Crown Representative for SMEs.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude gave the keynote speech at this event highlighting the Government’s ambitious plans for a new agile relationship with suppliers of IT and FM services and solutions. This will be the first of an ongoing series of high-level engagements between Government and its suppliers.
Davey’s address posed a number of challenges for public procurement professionals, including:
- How to procure agile solutions which are, by definition, indefinite
- How to compare agile solutions on a like-for-like basis
- How to ensure active participation from supplier, client and other stakeholders
- How to empower agile client/supplier teams to make effective and rapid decisions
As a long-term supplier of IT services to government, IPL welcomes the change of approach which has real potential to benefit suppliers and government, given the commitment to early engagement with suppliers, reductions in the cost of bidding and increased access for SMEs.
The Cabinet Office and key government CIOs are providing leadership in this area – will the legions of government IT and procurement staff follow their lead? Will the big suppliers do more than tack “agile” onto every marketing message? Watch this space.
You can read more about Shaun’s thoughts on the challenges ahead here or read the latest Computer Weekly article on the challenges faced with Public Sector procurement involving Agile Development, with comment from Shaun.
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Pandora’s printed box
The public moral outrage at the uncontrolled copying of digitised works has been lukewarm. Most people agree that it’s wrong, but it seems to be a minor misdemeanour because the works that are copied are so insubstantial. Ephemeral pop songs, trashy movies, magnificently engineered software … who cares a button? (more…)
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Whole lifecycle SIM management
There are more mobile phones in use in the UK than there are people. Far more. A couple of years ago we were already heading towards 2 mobiles per person and that’s before this year’s statistic that 25% of the population has already bought a smart phone since the start of the year. (more…)
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Not so happy
The BBC says that Bournemouth has been found to be the happiest place in Britain, with 82% of people questioned saying they were happy with their lives. It won’t be like that for long. (more…)
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Here comes the Snow
So MPs want the government to appoint a Snow Supremo to sort out the transport system. It could have been a Snow Tsar, but perhaps that is a bit too last government. Well, they could start by providing him or her with a consolidated view of the weather. (more…)
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Innovator Interview
IPL customer Michael James has many years of experience as a high technology entrepreneur. IPL asked him to share some of his experience in software-intensive product startups.
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