This report from Knowledge Peers and Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), reveals what leaders of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs) think of IT – its strategic value, its potential, and the changing way in which it is being used in their organisations. 

When Bunnings, a retailer of home improvement and outdoor living products, needed to find a replacement for older storage systems that supported their vital business applications, they turned to IBM products. To learn how Bunnings benefited from this upgrade, read this case study. 

Read this expert e-book by BI visionary Wayne Eckerson and gain insight into the growing adoption rates of big data technology and learn why companies are finally recognizing its many benefits. Eckerson offers a comparison of open-source options and analytical platforms, and also dives into an analysis on the varying types of processing systems. 

This week’s Computer Weekly asks what chancellor George Osborne's Budget means for the UK IT community and if he can deliver his goal to make Britain "the technology centre of Europe". Also you'll find the final part of our private cloud Buyer's Guide and we examine the options for choosing the right WAN optimisation strategy. 

This report from Deloitte argues businesses are again investing in IT to provide the differentiation and innovation critical from their competitors despite the downturn. 

This week’s Computer Weekly kicks off our Buyer's Guide to data security by looking at the changing role of the IT security chief. We also examine why flexible working is proving so slow to roll out and we talk to the UK's air traffic control operator about its ambitious desktop virtualisation project. 

<p>When choosing a desktop virtualization platform to manage your desktop infrastructure, your architecture and capabilities may be limited by the features offered by each product. This document details the features and benefits of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops 3.0 in comparison with current market competitors.</p> 

The UK public sector is in the midst of a period of transformation and improving citizen engagement will be key to the success of this change. 

In the cover story of the Summer 2011 edition of Storage Europe, Manek Dubash highlights how two UK financial firms are leveraging server virtualisation for affordable DR provisioning. 

This research from management consultants, Xantus, shows that while there is still a lack of clarity and a reluctance to fully commit to the cloud, there is a general acceptance from CIOs of the benefits and a growing commitment to develop those benefits. 

Emerging markets offer huge potential for technology companies to expand. This report from Grant Thornton assess the opportunities in a range of emerging markets. 

<p>Learn how to communicate more effectively with your boss in this guide from Dr Brian Sutton and Dr Robina Chatham. </p> <p> </p> 

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we talk to the British Library about the enormous storage challenges of digitising its printed archive; we examine the state of the UK IT jobs market and the skills that are most in demand by employers; and we look at case studies of the best virtualisation projects. Download the new issue now.