News spotlight

Charles Bligh TalkTalk Business me / Company / Years in IT / Areas of expertise? I have been the Managing Director at TalkTalk Business since 2011 and have been in the IT industry for 22 years, starting at IBM as an Engineer. From there I held a number of senior project management, sales and senior leadership roles in professional services and product related businesses. I have worked across Asia for 4 years (based in Tokyo) and have spent the last 5 years in the UK. What has been your favourite project so far? This one! Joining TalkTalk Business and working over the past two years to further improve the customer experience has been both fulfilling and rewarding, but the best is yet to come. I like to say TalkTalk Business is the best kept secret in the industry. We are just at the beginning. What tech were you involved with ten years ago? Ten years ago, back in early 2000, I was working with companies to help them view the web as a revenue generating opportunity, not just to reduce costs. It all sounds incredibly naive now when you think about how far we’ve come. What tech do you expect to be using in ten years' time? In ten years’ time I would expect to be using, flexible (bendable) touch screen devices integrated into all aspects of my life, at home, on the move and at work. Who's your tech hero? My tech hero is Gordon Moore, the man who came up with Moore Law, which says that everything doubles in performance every two years. The law challenges us to drive innovation while relying on the idea that everything will be smaller, faster and more connected. Who's your tech villain? This is a tough one, I am not sure I would single out one person. I’ve always been a very ambitious person, so when it comes to technology, I think it would have to be any kind of person who says it can’t be done. What's your favourite technology ever made? Which do you use most? The web is my favourite technology and my favourite gadget is my tablet (iPad!), which I use for all kinds of things, to stream movies, surf the web and listen to music. What is your budget outlook going forward? Flat? Growing? Substantial growth! We’ve had a strong first quarter of our financial year and we’re seeing increased demand for our data and carrier services. Apart from your own, which company do you admire most and why? Companies that provide excellent customer service on a sustained basis. At TalkTalk Business we put good customer service at the heart of everything we do, so I value that trait when I see it in other organisations. Barclays, who won an award for Best Customer Experience Centre of the Year last year, is a great example. What’s the greatest challenge for an IT company/department today? One of the greatest challenges the technology industry is facing today is managing the fast growth of mobility and how to harness it in the workplace. The need for mobility to drive business objectives, now combined with the added device-driven dimension of BYOD, presents quite a network and security challenge for businesses of all sizes. To Cloud or not to Cloud? For me, the answer is undoubtedly to Cloud. But which cloud? Your own private or public or hybrid? Businesses are moving into a world where the cloud is used for almost all enterprise applications. The cloud allows companies to use a shared environment, makes it easier to tap into common interest data and provides access to the computing power of hundreds of servers, without the expense. That isn’t to say working in the cloud doesn’t present its own challenges, but with the right technology choices, secure flexible network and ICT partners, they’re not insurmountable. What did you want to be when you were a child? It wasn’t what I wanted to be, but more of where I wanted to be. I wanted to live and work around the world.Name / Company / Years in IT / Areas of expertise? I have been the Managing Director at TalkTalk Business since 2011 and have been in the IT industry for 22 years, starting at IBM as an Engineer. From there I held a number of senior project management, sales and senior leadership roles in professional services and product related businesses. I have worked across Asia for 4 years (based in Tokyo) and have spent the last 5 years in the UK. What has been your favourite project so far? This one! Joining TalkTalk Business and working over the past two years to further improve the customer experience has been both fulfilling and rewarding, but the best is yet to come. I like to say TalkTalk Business is the best kept secret in the industry. We are just at the beginning. What tech were you involved with ten years ago? Ten years ago, back in early 2000, I was working with companies to help them view the web as a revenue generating opportunity, not just to reduce costs. It all sounds incredibly naive now when you think about how far we’ve come. What tech do you expect to be using in ten years' time? In ten years’ time I would expect to be using, flexible (bendable) touch screen devices integrated into all aspects of my life, at home, on the move and at work. Who's your tech hero? My tech hero is Gordon Moore, the man who came up with Moore Law, which says that everything doubles in performance every two years. The law challenges us to drive innovation while relying on the idea that everything will be smaller, faster and more connected. Who's your tech villain? This is a tough one, I am not sure I would single out one person. I’ve always been a very ambitious person, so when it comes to technology, I think it would have to be any kind of person who says it can’t be done. What's your favourite technology ever made? Which do you use most? The web is my favourite technology and my favourite gadget is my tablet (iPad!), which I use for all kinds of things, to stream movies, surf the web and listen to music. What is your budget outlook going forward? Flat? Growing? Substantial growth! We’ve had a strong first quarter of our financial year and we’re seeing increased demand for our data and carrier services. Apart from your own, which company do you admire most and why? Companies that provide excellent customer service on a sustained basis. At TalkTalk Business we put good customer service at the heart of everything we do, so I value that trait when I see it in other organisations. Barclays, who won an award for Best Customer Experience Centre of the Year last year, is a great example. What’s the greatest challenge for an IT company/department today? One of the greatest challenges the technology industry is facing today is managing the fast growth of mobility and how to harness it in the workplace. The need for mobility to drive business objectives, now combined with the added device-driven dimension of BYOD, presents quite a network and security challenge for businesses of all sizes. To Cloud or not to Cloud? For me, the answer is undoubtedly to Cloud. But which cloud? Your own private or public or hybrid? Businesses are moving into a world where the cloud is used for almost all enterprise applications. The cloud allows companies to use a shared environment, makes it easier to tap into common interest data and provides access to the computing power of hundreds of servers, without the expense. That isn’t to say working in the cloud doesn’t present its own challenges, but with the right technology choices, secure flexible network and ICT partners, they’re not insurmountable. What did you want to be when you were a child? It wasn’t what I wanted to be, but more of where I wanted to be. I wanted to live and work around the world.

Cloud

IT Life: Talking With TalkTalk’s Business Head

Charles Bligh loves the cloud, the web and his iPad

Marketing

Low-Cost Moto G Is A Sign Google Wants Greater Control Of Android

Google risks wrath of Android developers and manufacturers as it seeks to push its services, says Steve McCaskill

Green-IT

Green Taxes Need To Catch Up With Data Centres

Governents want to use green taxes to regulate emissions - but Peter Judge thinks they don't understand the special role of data centres

Open Source

Don’t Expect Major Bugs In Fedora 20 Heisenbug Beta

Heisenbug is just a name: Red Hat's Robyn Bergeron tells Sean Michael Kerner about the new Fedora's SDN and storage improvements

Big Data

Hadoop 2 Pushes Big Data Further Into The Mainstream

The new Apache Hadoop promises a world where Big Data players work together, says Doug Cutting

Workspace

Snowden’s Wake-Up Call On Password Management

To avoid what Edward Snowden did to the NSA, adopt Wayne Rash's password management tips

Regulation

‘We Can Trust GCHQ On Encryption’

Professor Alan Woodward doesn't think GCHQ or the NSA would have meddled with encryption, given they use it so much

Firewall

IT Life: Keeping Up With The Cybercriminals

Protecting data is a company's toughest task, says Lior Arbel of Performanta

Cloud

The NSA Uses OpenStack – But Its Clouds Promise Freedom

The NSA has contributed to OpenStack, writes Sean Micchael Kerner from Hong Kong - but it hasn't given it a back door

Cloud

Does HPC Need A Different Shade Of Green?

Is high-performance computing (HPC) a special case, or does it have the same efficiency needs as the rest of IT, asks Peter Judge

Mobility

NSA Probably Couldn’t Crack Merkel’s BlackBerry

The NSA spied on Angela Merkel - but Wayne Rash thinks her phone's encryption kept the spooks out

Governement-IT

Sir Nigel Shadbolt: Free Data Can Be ‘As Valuable As You Can Imagine’

The co-founder of the Open Data Institute talks about analytics and how to raise a new generation of data scientists

Open Source

Git Soothes PHP Security Fears… For Now

Regulation

Art Coviello: Attacking Anonymity, Just In The Right Places

RSA chief explains why he thinks anonymity is the enemy of privacy, but is he more than a little motivated by commercial concerns?

Big Data

IT Life: The Human Face of Big Data

Senior vice president of EMEA Field Operations at Informatica and MENSA member Charles Race talks about big data, Clive Sinclair and cricket

Mac

Apple iWork Isn’t Enterprise Class

iWork might be free, but it isn't a patch on Microsoft Office, says Don Reisinger

Mac

Apple Results Show It Isn’t Immune To Market Forces

Sliding profits at Apple should come as no surprise, given the increase in smartphone competition, says Wayne Rash

Cloud

Does The Data Show We Need Green Data Centres?

An efficient data centre is better than an inefficient one, regardless of how you interpret the latest climate data, says Peter Judge

Security

CAPTCHA Is Dead. Long Live CAPTCHA!

CAPTCHA has been broken many times before. Yet even an effective new method of cracking it will do nothing to dampen CAPTCHA's popularity, says Tom Brewster

Open Source

IT Life: The Future Of Computing Is Distributed

Justin Sheehy, CTO at Basho, talks about NoSQL, Grace Hopper and why distributed computing tools shall inherit the earth

Security

How Code Signing Will Secure Applications

Data Storage

IP Expo: Coraid And CommVault Are “Like Fish And Chips”

Peter Godden, vice president for EMEA at Coraid, talks about the partnership with information management company CommVault

Green-IT

London Buildings Pack MicroGrids And Death Rays

Adding renewable energy to a building makes sense - but solar power can be dangerous, says Peter Judge

Regulation

The US Vice President Who Feared A Cyber Heart Attack

Dick Cheney feared his heart implant could be hacked - but not everyone needs to worry, says Sean Michael Kerner

Data Storage

IP Expo: Fusion-io Introduces New ioControl Features

Chris McCall, senior director of ioControl Marketing, talks about the new software Fusion-io has launched in the UK

Security

Burning Bridges: Paunch Is Erased From Forums After His Arrest

Underground crooks quickly block Blackhole creator Paunch's account following his apparent arrest, Tom Brewster finds

Cloud

IP Expo: Moving Workloads To Make The Most Of The Cloud

With multiple clouds to choose from, you need a way to move workloads between the different providers, says Ian Masters

Security

IT Life: Secure your Data, Not Your Network!

When Neil Thacker changed to a data-centric security approach, people started to listen and he cut through complexity

Mobility

Windows 8.1 Doesn’t Fix Everything

Windows 8.1 brings some much needed improvements, but doesn't fix everything, says Wayne Rash

Cloud

Hounslow Council Believes In The G-Cloud

Hounslow Council's Anthony Kemp is full of praise for G-Cloud as it becomes Box's first UK government customer