* Posts by Smoking Gun

131 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2013

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UK.gov commits to rip-and-replacing Blighty's wheezing internet pipes

Smoking Gun

"The plan is for 15 million premises to have FTTP by 2025"

"As the national provider, we're ambitious and want to build full-fibre broadband to 10 million premises and beyond"

ROFL so even before the article finishes they have downgraded their forecast by 33%.

Bonkers Azure bookings give Microsoft a record-breaking $110bn year

Smoking Gun

You have to hand it to Nadella it has been a remarkable turn around under his watch. I remember well 4-5 years ago, Microsoft didn't seem to have any long term vision and were running into a wall after some dismal acquisitions like Nokia. While pimping premium Surface gear he has in parallel given way to a device-agnostic approach, Office on anything, and LinkedIn and Github both very interesting in their own way. It won't be long until Microsoft (and a few big players) are the only ones left, well after traditional VARs and MSPs are out of business, or are scrimping a living selling some IP built on Azure.

UK government's cloud spending hits saturation: Love of Microsoft endures

Smoking Gun

Re: £751,000 on Office 365

Enterprise E5 SKU why not?

About £30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 (Windows 10, EMS, Office 365 E3), £360 per year.

I've got way too much cash, thinks Jeff Bezos. Hmmm, pay more tax? Pay staff more? Nah, let's just go into space

Smoking Gun

This article leaves me on the fence.

It's an incredible goal to ensure that humanity becomes a multi-planetary species.

Who else is going to fund such an objective? Governments are in debt to the hilt and can barely afford to fill holes in roads let alone build a colony on another planet.

Corps like Amazon on the other hand (lump in Microsoft, Google, Facebook) have such vast resources now, the amount of cash they earn in obscene, I'd rather it go to something brave like propelling humanity into space than squandered on wars or vanity projects. At least if you spunk cash on space, it creates new economies and supply chains that need to fulfill the vision

Now, if they paid a fair share in tax, and truly returned some of this profit to their employees then I'd been full steam ahead, but that tax shirk is quite impressive and a dismal failure of government standing up to the big corporate business, so I'm not in the "lets spunk cash in space club, just yet" and still in the "capitalism is out of control and needs reigning in club".

Anyone fancy testing the 'unlimited' drive writes claim on Nimbus Data's 100TB whopper SSD?

Smoking Gun

Re: Does Tom the CEO still handle support?

Haha it's funny because it's true. I honesty did not know what to make of it, a hands on CEO or a 2 man band, because Brittany worked the twitter account.

Oh good. Transport for London gives Capita £80m for WAN, LAN and Wi-Fi

Smoking Gun

So they botch a contract for TFL and get rewarded with another?

TFL reckon they will make savings, Capita will charge them for ever little extra going, make very little savings in the long run, it's what they do. Bid cheap, charge the extras, Ryan Air of IT.

Azure fell over for 7 hours in Europe because someone accidentally set off the fire extinguishers

Smoking Gun

Interesting, we have clients in NE and were not affected.

I presume the referred too Microsoft services are all distributed across the data centre so this event, while disruptive to some, only disrupted a limited number of services for a limited number of clients.

The funny thing is when reading comments or talking to people about Cloud, as soon as they implement a service in Azure they automatically have an expectation of 100% availability and nothing will ever fail.

A lot of this comes back to lack of understanding, if you want availability, you still need to architect your service correctly, even on a public cloud, and this will ultimately increase costs.

Redcentric CFO quits after botched accounts discovered

Smoking Gun

CEO sells in September, November news crashes share price.

Hmmmmmm. Me thinks an investigation into CEO is required!

A sorry Brexcuse! Systemax blames Brexit for car crash Q3 results

Smoking Gun

Is this the MIsco bunch? I bet ya sales slide is nothing to do with Brexit...

EU announces common corporate tax plan

Smoking Gun

Carney created £85 billion in the few months since brexit vote. The problem is it goes to the banks who use it to rebuild balance sheets and ultimately ends up in assets like property or stocks that only benefits the very few and not the many. Wealth can most definitively be created out of nothing - it's distribution is a separate discussion.

Market pulls chain on Crapita share price after first ever profit warning

Smoking Gun

They are losing contracts. Government agencies are ripping up single sourced contracts and awarding contracts to smaller, specialist SME's and managing through SIAM. That, and they are being dumped from contracts early due to poor performance. "unwieldy”, “unnecessarily complex”, “expensive”, supply chain 4 deep in places, review meetings spent arguing "extras" because they price their contracts by the lowest common denominator and then charge over the odds for every little change. I don't like to generalise so will credit the doubtless many employees who do a great job and work their socks off for their customers, those employees who were no doubt acquired via TUPE and were doing a great job before their jobs were taken over by Capita and not off-shored yet, the cynic in me, I am amazed how they can keep securing government contracts and not surprised at all by profit warnings.

Three outsources staff to Capita

Smoking Gun

Re: It's always Crapita

"These are not the droids you're looking for" Waves hand.

Brexit will happen. The EU GDPR will happen. You can't avoid either

Smoking Gun

Re: Just move your business before actual Brexit

That's great excuse for sorting a few nights out in the red light district! I see what you did there... ooh Brexit uncertainly, lets move business to Amsterdam so I can see some titties..

Plusnet broadband outage: Customers fume as TITSUP* continues

Smoking Gun

I do sometimes wonder how we lived without the interweb.

These days, an outage is front page news and social media is full of customers #outraging, initial reaction is to phone support (that's often India), this only results in more #outrage, asked to turn it on and off, more #outage maybe a #disgrace then 30 mins later told its an issue in the local area and reaction is a massive #outrage #disgrace and perhaps a rofl emoji.

I mean, things go wrong from time to time, that's life, if it isn't working, chill, facebook will live on, go outside, see a tree, ask your kids how their day was, take them for an ice cream, watch a movie.. go see some friends and converse, have a pint, have a few pints, get in trouble with the Mrs, blame your ISP for it. You will survive. #brofist.

Skyscape rebrands to UKCloud following legal challenge by Sky

Smoking Gun

I hate this world. I don't think I will hear a more ridiculous thing for the remainder of 2016.

So anything with Sky in it's name is an infringement? Is anything with Cloud in the name an infringement?

Virtual mirror on the wall, what will happen at VMware's ball?

Smoking Gun

Is vSphere 6.0 working yet?

Cloud gear biz Outsourcery is running out of cash. Again

Smoking Gun

Re: Generous benefactors

Channel disaster story right here. Should make a film about this. And to think, I bought at £1.20 ... please kill me.

Brexit would pinch UK tech spend but the EU wouldn't care – survey

Smoking Gun

Re: There is so much bollocks ...

Truth is, if we leave the EU... the United Kingdom will sink into the Atlantic.

The BBC flashes £560m ICT deal at hungry tech suppliers

Smoking Gun

So, lets get away from over huge single supplier contract, and tender for a bunch of services from ... a single supplier. Irrelevant of the supply chain companies like ATOS deliver f&Uk all themselves bar priming the contract, sub it all out and cream a margin off the top, why is this any different?

WANdisco boss: 'We're seeing a humongous movement to the cloud'

Smoking Gun

Re: Maybe I am off the mark here....

Did you price in your year 5 hardware refresh?

Europe makes it rain for cloud biz: £30m of gold showered on BT, IBM etc

Smoking Gun

Re: A & A

What do ATOS do? It seems they sub everything out and just cream a bit off the top for management fees, for all we know ATOS's cloud services are actually Microsoft Azure and AWS anyway?

Lincolnshire council IT ransomware flingers asked for ... £350

Smoking Gun

Re: Zero Day Exploit

It sounds like CryptoWall. Those cyber crims are jolly nice fellows though.

Had a client who got hit by it, we asked the crims to extend the deadline to allow the Bitcoin's to clear and they extended by 2 weeks, more than enough time to restore from backups and clear up the mess.

Watch those Amazon emails with zip file attachments. Stay safe kids.

Google UK coughs up £130m back taxes. Is it enough?

Smoking Gun

£4 billion UK revenue

According to financial reports 27% net profit.

By my numbers I make that £1 billion profit (I'm rounding down here)

20% corporation tax = £200 million in one financial year

I'm no accountant but £130 million for 10 years doesn't seem such a good deal.

p.s. I am not an accountant

p.p.s wont someone think of the children

Women account for just one fifth of the EU’s 8m IT jobs

Smoking Gun

I once kissed a girl.... on the lips...

Beleaguered Microsoft customers: Streamline your licensing

Smoking Gun

Re: how about the SME's then?

Better still how about a better method of licence management.

It's always amazed me how the worlds largest software provider effectively works on a Trust basis backed by enforcers like PWC and Fast to audit and threaten.

VMware, Citrix, many others I work with seem to have a much better method for licensing management, allocation, revocation.

Per-core licences coming to Windows Server and System Center 2016

Smoking Gun

Get used to it. Once Microsoft have you by the short and curlies in Office 365 and Azure they'll ramp up the prices too.

Telecity London data centre outage borks VoIP, websites, AWS...

Smoking Gun

Re: Aws direct connect affected

Just because you chose to put your production environment in a cloud doesn't mean you get resilience by default right? Do you not have to architect your cloud environment like you would your own physical environment by selecting resilience datacentres for your production workloads?

Like in Azure you might tick the geo redundant feature or ensure your backups, backup to something not in Azure for DR purposes. If a business jumps on the cloud train and works on the basis that it all "just works" when things go tits up, surely need to think again?

Apple: We're going to sell $77bn worth of iStuff this holiday season

Smoking Gun

I'm still quite happy using my iPad 2. The moment Apple release an iOS update that the hardware no longer supports it, balance will be restored, as users cry "wtf is this, why can I not install iOSv19" on my iPad 2, not remembering that this has always been the way in the Windows PC world.

And iTunes! F*^k you iTunes! And the same goes for your proprietary 50 grand adapter cables.

I like Apple stuff, I just realised you get mugged off to pay for it and you can quite perfectly do what you need to do on something else.

TalkTalk: Hackers may have nicked personal, banking info on 4 million Brits

Smoking Gun

Re: Apathy

Re your first paragraph my Dad said the same thing, when he was working at BT "back in the day", he never had issues like this, never had a data breach on his Amstrad or floppy disk, the "world is too complicated now" he said. But you couldn't see what your mate had for dinner on Facebook, I said. In truth I figure he has a good point, wasn't the world better when we just met each other, talked, and did business with hard currency and spit on your hand.

Hurd clings to Oracle’s cloud growth as overall revenue declines

Smoking Gun

That picture made me laugh. Looks like Hurd followed through and the lady on the right has caught the whiff. Sums up Oracle nicely. Was this intended?

Dell seeking $40bn to buy EMC next week say reports

Smoking Gun

Perhaps the vultures are watching HP's current demise in sadness and think a Dell/EMC train wreck could help revive them? I don't think it's such a bad move.

Microsoft slaps 13 per cent increase on mobile enterprise levy

Smoking Gun

Re: F**k Microsoft

Microsoft need to drastically simplify their licensing models. For one of the worlds largest software providers their licence management is a shambles. Basically it's a trust game but with the threat of Price Water House coopers hanging around your neck who will fist you for non-conformance and tru-up.

I await the day when device licensing is scrapped once and for all. But I also await the day when user pricing sky rockets once more (off the back of some dodgy reason like $ fluctuations and to ensure price consistency across all markets), along with Office 365 and Azure price increases once they capture enough market share and can hold you over the barrel and continue the fistings.

Fiorina: I rushed out HP servers to power NSA snooping. Mwahahaha!

Smoking Gun

We all know that a real leader would his penis in dead pig's mouth.

Rule Britannia.

Citrix wants a buyer, fast

Smoking Gun

Re: Microsoft

I'm surprised Microsoft are not looking at Citrix and salivating at the prospect of acquiring them to fill the void in their desktop virtualisation portfolio. There is a load of synergy between Microsoft and Citrix in this space, and Microsoft would also benefit from their ADC Netscaler tech.

HP and Dell flogging Surface Pro direct? No issues THERE. NONE AT ALL

Smoking Gun

Simples

Isn't this an admittance from HP and Dell that their products are sub-standard and they just cannot get it right. I always had the opinion ever since Microsoft launched the Surface (ignoring the Arm devices) that this was a case of Microsoft telling the market how it should be done and what they need to aspire too. Then they'd sell the division to the highest bidder once their partners had cracked it. Never did I think the likes of HP and Dell would resell it. I bet the ADR's are delighted.

Outsourcing to 'play a part' in reducing £1bn police IT bill

Smoking Gun

Re: Is it too late for entries to Edinburgh's funniest joke?

To be fair to the bloke he seems to talk a lot of sense. 40 odd datacentres, multiple Microsoft and Oracle licensing bills, I bet there is an horrendous range of services (I mean how different could each force be <ducks>), seems like lots of money to be saved through consolidation here.

Capita hoovers up 1 in every 5 pounds of outsourced UK.gov IT spending

Smoking Gun

Re: "The market" at work

It amazes me, everyone I have spoken too in local authorities or schools, have said how crap they are. It makes you wonder who is rimming who?

Ed Snowden crocked cloud, says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger

Smoking Gun

Isn't it funny that what we once took as freedoms has now been redefined as privacy.

I watched a great doco on Snowden called Citizen Four.

Sorry Pat you're wrong, Snowden is a legend for what he has done.

Cause of Parliamentary downtime on Microsoft Office 364½ revealed

Smoking Gun

Office 365 has recently been cleared for NHS too.

The green salamander is out: Cisco gives up on Invicta flash arrays

Smoking Gun

Re: Shame

How many disks can you get in a UCS Blade? 2? I don't think that would make a good hyper-converged option.

Softcat preps for IPO, closes in on brokers

Smoking Gun

Softcat have a very good reputation, great working environments, look after their employees, and a respected competitor. I hope this works out for them, however I lack confidence in shareholders who don't give a monkeys about anyone or anything but their share price.

It's FREE WINDOWS 10 time: 29 July is D-Day, yells Microsoft

Smoking Gun

Windows 10.1, chicken dinner right there.

Mutant upstart Nimble embiggens revenues – and losses, too

Smoking Gun

Isn't that graphic a dream for any willing investor. The more you sell, the bigger the losses? It makes me wonder why these start ups bother or simply stay in business?

HP storage revenues declining as the dithering continues

Smoking Gun

Re: EVA and MSA replacements....

What happened to the P6300 and P6500?? Essentially EVA right, thought they still sold them?

Microsoft's certification exams: So easy, a child of six could pass them. Literally

Smoking Gun

Fair play to the lad. Especially consider a lot of 6 year olds can hardly read at this age.

CSC picks up the axe yet again, eyes 800 staffers' quivering necks

Smoking Gun

A CSC spokesperson said: "We are making a significant investment in our people to ensure our global workforce is fully aligned with our business and client needs"

In other words we're sacking 786 because we can do it cheaper in Eastern Europe or elsewhere.

I hate this sort of bull&*^% corporate language.

Thanks for your efforts over the years making managers and execs rich, now stuff you, I need another Bentley.

VMware makes vSphere licences portable to crimp EVO:RAIL costs

Smoking Gun

Re: VMware changes EVO:RAIL licensing but still gets it all wrong

Mark, reading your blog I completely agree VMware's licensing strategy for EVO RAIL is a bit of a disaster. I was on an HP HC webinar recently and the majority of questions I had came back to licensing.

To answer your questions I think it's important to understand where VMware are targeting EVO RAIL, which in truth wasn't completely clear on the webinar, however it certainly not the SMB/SME space at the present time, unless they have deep pockets and a lust for new tech.

This is aimed at high density cloud environments, and VMware mandating the Enterprise Plus line is for the whole SDDC mantra, distributed switch, network control etc.

I agree an SMB/SME EVO with Essentials Plus would be attractive for the smaller customer.

Value of European outsourcing deals plummets

Smoking Gun

Interesting article. I suspect the evolution of cloud services coupled with SIAM tower service models is something that may explain this. Why have one large outsourcing contract when you can multi-source what you need on a flexible pay as you go basis, and only outsource parts of the overall service for what you need, i.e. business has a excellent applications team but the service desk is a shambles and is a major headache to operate internally.

Microsoft and Oracle are 'not your trusted friends', public sector bods

Smoking Gun

Re: So, give them the boot - use open source.

Harsh number of down votes, clearly not been anywhere near an NHS Trust.

Got a killer Microsoft or Oracle cloud deal? Start sweating

Smoking Gun

Re: and another thing...

Blatantly a government customer.

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