I’ve just been compiling Computing’s news reviews of 2007 for our web site, looking back at the big stories that made the headlines during the year. With such an overload of articles, how can the past 12 months be best summarised?

Well, to be honest, it’s been something of a case of same old, same old. What have we learned this year? 

The government continues to embarrass itself where technology is concerned, sadly negating all the good work that is increasingly taking place in public sector technology. 

Green issues have leaped to the top of IT managers’ agenda, and rightly so. But really, most of the current advice available is simply common sense, good practice IT operational management. We are still painfully short of genuine vendor-free best practice green computing – although there are a few leading companies that are starting to write the rulebooks. 

IT security is just as much of a pain as it has been, but the law enforcement community seems to be drifting further away from being able to address the concerns of business leaders. The great fear is that e-crime will only be tackled once something really bad takes place to make the authorities act. 

What else? 

There are still skills gaps; the profile of the IT leader continues to change; more work is being outsourced; and offshoring is expanding faster than ever. 

Web 2.0 has become the new internet and e-commerce buzzword; stock market valuations for online companies are becoming very silly again; and broadband is an increasingly important economic driver (so let’s hope we get moving on the next-generation infrastructure). 

All in all, it sounds very much like how you would summarise any other mature, business-critical sector of the

UK

economy. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the French would say if they translated into English. 

In that light, perhaps the most important story of the year came just this month, with news that the UK IT sector is now the second biggest industry in the country, after financial services, contributing 6.4 per cent of the economy – some £66.5bn. 

Maybe in years to come, we will look back at 2007 as a pivotal time, one when IT continued to grow up and establish itself as central to the UK's international success. Technology is increasingly just a part of business, it flows with and influences our lives every day, and perhaps it is a good thing that as the year ends, we are not looking back on any one trend as a defining influence. 

Just another year for a vital part of the way we live, work and play. 

Merry Christmas from everyone at Computing, and best wishes for a prosperous and incident-free technology new year.

 

IT leaders are becoming more aware of the importance of a green IT strategy ­ but many are struggling to find the right advice and best practice to put into action.

There are plenty of vendors whose products can help improve users’ energy efficiency ­ but there are few sources of independent advice on how to put in place a meaningful technology programme to improve your environmental credentials.

Building the business case for green IT is essential ­ and the best place to find out what to do is from peers.

To help make this happen ­ for a few of our readers at least ­ Computing last week hosted a roundtable debate in association with VMware and Intel, appropriately enough at Kew Gardens, to discuss the experiences of a number of leading organisations.

Several common concerns quickly appeared, but two in particular seemed to resonate around the table.

Everyone knows that IT has a green problem. Trewin Restorick, director of environmental charity Global Action Plan, was on the panel and presented recent research that said 86 per cent of IT departments do not measure their carbon footprint.

The response of the IT leaders present was that there are no recognised ways to measure the environmental credentials of their operations ­ and even if there were, how do they know if they are good or bad?

Until measurement becomes standardised, it will be impossible to benchmark your organisation ­ which should be a key factor in determining a green strategy.

The second concern is the difficulty in finding best practice. Every vendor, it seems, now tells us it is a green supplier, when in reality they have simply realised that their products can help you to reduce your energy use. That is not a green strategy ­ environmentally-friendly products should plug into a wider plan, determined by best practice, but there is so little best practice available.

There is still much to do. One delegate, from a major global financial services firm, said that users in his organisation are told to leave their PCs on overnight and at weekends in case its outsourcing supplier needs to update software patches. Others nodded in agreement.

Awareness of the impact of technology on the environment is growing. If IT leaders do not embrace green computing, we will all be under fire before long.

Unlikely as it may seem, the latest battleground in IT is the school desk of children in developing countries.

Leading the way in publicity terms is the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, dreamed up by US technology guru Nicholas Negroponte.

The aim was to provide a $100 computer based on low-cost components and open source software. The scheme has generated many column inches, but fewer sales. Negroponte admits that many heads of state who said they were interested are less keen to sign a cheque. A short-term scheme has been announced where US residents can purchase two OLPC laptops for $399, and one of them will be donated to a child in the developing world ­ the $100 laptop has already become a $150 laptop.

The motivation behind OLPC is sound, but the reality is proving to be a challenge. Nevertheless, Intel has been sufficiently impressed/worried (delete as you consider appropriate) to launch a rival scheme called the Classmate PC.

An already popular option is to donate used computers to be refurbished and sent out to projects in developing countries. Computing has supported the charity Computer Aid International for some years, and several thousand computers have already been provided by readers. Computer Aid is a great charity ­ even if we are biased ­ but it needs more backing and more PCs to spread its reach.

Microsoft founded a similar charity ­- and rival to Computer Aid -­ called Digital Pipeline, and in July announced that EDS had donated 30,000 PCs for use by schoolchildren in Africa. Some have questioned Microsoft’s motives ­ you can’t see those PCs having Linux installed ­ but the recipients will not be complaining.

And last week, another scheme popped up. Macedonia’s Ministry of Education and Science has signed a €44m (£30.8m) deal for thin-client supplier NComputing to provide 180,000 devices costing just £35 each to the entire school population of the former Yugoslav republic.

For UK IT leaders, the race for the school desk has clear implications. The drive to reduce the cost of personal computing can only benefit your budget ­ although the impact will probably not be felt for some time, and IT suppliers are unlikely to rush to offer the same low-cost technology to wealthy business buyers.

But this is also an opportunity for IT departments to play their part in the organisation’s corporate social responsibility plans by donating PCs or supporting projects in the developing world. The question for those in UK IT is: what are you doing to help?

For many people this is a momentous week.

If you are a smoker, you will already be discovering the joys of standing in the rain outside your office, favourite pub or restaurant.

If you are an IT manager – smoker or otherwise – a more significant occasion will have been the passing into law of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Weee) directive. All used hardware now has to be disposed of environmentally. If you have not put in place a recycling programme for PCs, monitors and other old kit, it is now time to do so.

Given the contribution that technology makes to carbon emissions – about two per cent of the world’s total, according to analyst Gartner – this is a sensible and timely piece of legislation, and one that will hopefully act as a catalyst for IT departments to put in place a wider green computing strategy.

But if you read the news on the internet or in the national papers, you would think there is only one thing that matters this week in the technology world: the Apple iPhone is now on sale.

I can quite happily engage in conversation about the whys and wherefores of smoking in public. I can get quite passionate about the benefits of green computing and the reasons you should donate your old PCs to charities such as Computer Aid for re-use in developing countries. I suppose I should be excited about the iPhone.

But frankly, the whole thing leaves me cold.

I just don’t get the hype on this one. A combined MP3 player and smartphone? Hardly a first. A great new user-friendly interface? I’ve not heard many BlackBerry users complaining. The latest trendy gadget? At $500 each and a minimum of $60 per month for a network contract, you would have to be blinded by Apple fervour to think so. And no 3G, no third-party applications, and not available yet outside the US.

It is great, of course, that IT has such a buzz about it. The convergence of consumer-led technology and business technology is gaining pace and will be a significant driver of change in the IT department in the coming years.

But does an overpriced, overhyped fancy phone – even if it does come from the only IT supplier to be seen as a fashion icon – help or hinder that progress?

The reason technology is crossing over so rapidly into the consumer world is because it has stripped out the unnecessary geeky functions and become a tool that genuinely helps to improve people’s lives. If suppliers over-exploit that breakthrough, then be prepared for the backlash to surely follow.