Techies happy to work for small firms despite recession

Techies happy to work for small firms despite recession

The attraction of working for a small company has not been diminished for technical staff despite the belief many hold that SMEs are suffering most in the downturn.

According to figures from the IT Job Board, 60% of technical staff think that small firms are vulnerable in the current economy, but 53% said that it had not put them off applying for roles in smaller companies.

Some are avoiding seeking work at smaller outfits but the proportion is not as high as might have been expected.

Alex Farrell, managing director of The IT Job Board, said that there was still an open mind from technical applicants which was encouraging.

"Techies certainly seem to think that small companies are suffering more in the current climate. However, it is good to see that this hasn't affected the choices many would make in the size of organisation they would work for," he said.

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Top ten questions to ask when making IT cuts

Top ten questions to ask when making IT cuts

IT bosses are being asked to shoulder a disproportionate share of company cost-cutting during the downturn, according to consultants the Birchman Group.

IT typically accounts for only 6% of an organisation's spending, but many CIOs are being asked to cut a higher proportion of their spending than other parts of the business, says Kevin Stephens, a UK Partner.

"CIOs should reflect carefully upon cost reduction initiatives in the IT function to ensure that the actions are sustainable, managemeable with limited resources, executed quickly and successfully, and do not damage the core capability of IT for the future," he says.

Read the 10 things here.

-Ken

Aviva is latest insurance firm to cut IT jobs

Aviva is latest insurance firm to cut IT jobs

IT workers will be hit by 1,100 job cuts to be made by insurance company Norwich Union Life, owned by Aviva.

Most of the job cuts are in business change and IT, with the rest spread across other areas of the company, said the UK's largest insurer. A total of 590 contract positions will also be cut.

But natural turnover and redeployment mean the number of permanent employees who will leave the company is estimated to be about 800, said Aviva.

Mark Hodges - CEO at Norwich Union Life, which is the Aviva business affected - said the company has made progress in improving its operational efficiency and is also nearing completion on a series of major change projects.

"Unfortunately, this means that a reduction in the number of roles in the business is inevitable," he said.

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IT vacancies dry up twice as fast as jobs in other industries

IT vacancies dry up twice as fast as jobs in other industries

Demand for IT staff fell at twice the rate of demand for staff in all industries, according to the latest employment survey from sector skills council E-Skills UK.

Overall demand for staff in the UK fell by 5% in Q3 2008 to approximately 1.9 million vacancies, but the number of ICT positions on offer dropped 10% to 161,000 positions, E-Skills UK reported.

There was falling demand for both permanent and contract posts as vacancies shrank by 9% and 13% respectively over the quarter to 130,000 and 31,000 positions, it said.

Paradoxically, the number of firms that said it was harder to find skilled staff almost double from 17% to 31%.

Read the whole article here.

-Ken

University virtualises to save £120k

University virtualises to save £120k

Lancaster University has saved over £100,000 on electricity bills and more than £20,000 on hardware procurement in less than three years after virtualising large chunks of its x86 server estate.

The organisation, which is based in north-west England and educates about 11,000 students, began a four-month pilot of EMC's VMWare technology in March 2006. Its datacentre was starting to hit capacity in terms of the amount of power being consumed to run and cool its IT infrastructure and it was running out of space.

Matthew Storey, systems technical co-ordinator for information systems services at the University, says: "We started examining virtualisation to reduce the impact of the physical issues we were facing, but we also explored other benefits that came along with that. Although the real focus was on cost savings, there's also an active desire in the university to be more 'green'. And from a management perspective,...

Recession leads to flood of IT volunteers

Recession leads to flood of IT volunteers

Hundreds of IT volunteers have pledged to help charities since the recession started, according to IT4Communities.

The organisation, which matches IT volunteers with charities that desperately need their specialist skills, says it has been flooded with people signing up since January.

Over 660 people have signed up so far this year, compared with 212 in the first three months of last year.

Charity officials say the boost is a real "upside" to the recession, with people who have been hit by redundancies signing up to help a good cause while keeping their skills up to date.

Read the whole article here.

-Ken

CompTIA Network+ Bridge Exam

CompTIA Network+ Bridge Exam

For IT professionals who are encouraged or required by their employers to remain current on their certifications, CompTIA has the following options. Individuals who are certified under the most recent exam — with 2005 exam objectives — may choose to become certified under the CompTIA Network+ 2008 exam objectives in one of two ways...

Go to CompTIA for the rest.

Red Hat Certified Engineer program turns 10. Certs matter

Red Hat Certified Engineer program turns 10. Certs matter

There was a time when having an IT certification was the key to getting a job -- that time may be here again. Back in 1999, when many of my colleagues were out getting MCSE's and CNEs (remember those?), Red Hat launched its Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) program. Ten years later, the program is still kicking, with Red Hat now boasting that it has certified over 38,000 people -- that's a pretty big number. Then again, think of how far Linux has come in the last ten years -- think of how far Red Hat has come too. Ten years ago, most of us (Red Hat users) were running Red Hat Linux. That's a product that doesn't even exist today. We've got Fedora now (the modern equivalent of Red Hat Linux) and then there is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (RHEL). In 1999, in my experience, Red Hat was mostly run at edge of network as a webserver, firewall or as file server.

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Windows 7 has the ability to disable more than just IE8

Windows 7 has the ability to disable more than just IE8

First, it was the unveiling of the concept that individuals utilizing Windows 7 would have the ability to turn Internet Explorer either on or off, however now other features included in Microsoft's OS are being revealed -- each of which will be able to be turned on or off under user control, but without removing them from disk (so they don't later require re-install from the original Microsoft install DVD). In a blog post on Friday, Microsoft announced that the next version of its operating system will allow users to control on and off settings for...

The rest is at TG Daily

802.11v Answers The Call For Order In Wireless LANs

802.11v Answers The Call For Order In Wireless LANs

Enterprise wireless LANs today can be described as controlled chaos: The heat is on for companies to deploy and manage a growing fleet of untethered devices, so you never really know where, how, and what kind of mobile users are going to connect to the corporate WLAN. Meanwhile, wireless network management abilities currently end at access points, leaving devices to fend for themselves.

In response, the IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance are working on 802.11v, a standard that aims to calm that chaos by creating an interface that enables a network to be managed and optimized all the way down to client devices, and leverages existing infrastructure and WLAN standards to do it.

The standard, expected to be finalized in mid-2010, should be near top of mind for network administrators and CIOs alike because it can help them get a grip on wireless usage, while potentially saving power and minimizing network...