Inflation, open source and castles

Sara Yirrell looks back at the week we've had

It has been another week of doom and gloom for UK plc, with reports that SMB lending is not meet-ing targets (what a surprise) and news that inflation has now crept up to 4.5 per cent.

How much further will it go? One thing is certain: rail companies will be rubbing their hands as season ticket income goes off the scale. But I digress.

This week’s CRN magazine, out today, features some interesting results about open source following the recent BBC report that the government is still spending wads of cash on proprietary software.

A whopping 63 per cent of ChannelWeb readers thought the government would make cost savings by switching to open source. Just five per cent felt proprietary was the only way to go.

But there is an ongoing war between prag-matists and evangelists over the merits of open source, with a strong opinion that it would be best used in a blen-ded solution.

Further on in the issue, our feature on XP shows how time is running out for the operating system, although fears over upgrading to Windows 7 are causing headaches for businesses and the channel alike.

Cash-strapped firms are worried that a software upgrade is only viable with a full hardware upgrade, but Microsoft claims this is not the case.

We also have a case study from React Technologies, which was faced with the challenge of bringing a 500-year-old castle bang up to date through the installation of a wireless network.

The new-look CRN is keen to feature interesting case studies like these, so do get in touch if you have any. The quirkier, the better.

Please do give us your feedback, on these or other issues in the channel, both on ChannelWeb or via Twitter. Your views are very important to us.

Email Sara Yirrell at [email protected]