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. 

CIOs are more confident of securing technology budget increases than at any time in the last five years, according to the CIO Technology Survey 2012. 

In this podcast, industry experts discuss how investment in three critical areas - the applications themselves, tools and technologies to deliver the integration, and pre-built integration accelerators - is integral when tackling the most complex of application integration challenges. 

Business rules management systems (BRMSs) help organizations gain real-time insight into application performance and incorporate automation strategies into their processes. Read this white paper to learn more about the budget-friendly open source options when it comes to integrating business events with automated decision-making. 

<p>Tight budgets are shrinking workforce operating resources. Read this white paper to learn eight steps that can help you make effective and smart decisions when it comes to reducing your workforce costs.</p> 

Watch this webcast to learn how to reign in your unruly data and leverage its capabilities for business intelligence and real-time decision making in a SQL Server 2012 environment. 

Whether you're a small organization trying to extend the value of the assets you already have or a larger data center pushing the envelope in automation, Dell and VMware can deliver solutions that make sense for your budget, staff, and business. 

Learn how you can transform your business, budgets, and service levels with Oracle Database 11g Release 2. You’ll discover how its new options and features can help you reduce server and storage costs, improve query performance, and ensure availability during database application upgrades. 

Companies that use IBM Cognos software are able to improve productivity, reduce or avoid headcount, reduce financing costs, and increase profitability.  These benefits are achieved because when employees can rapidly access and analyze data in consistent ways, they are better able to make business changes that both lower costs and increase revenues. 

Faced with limited budgets and even leaner staff resources, small companies realize that making the most of in-house talent is critical to executing on strategic goals. Read this paper to learn how automating performance appraisal and measuring every employee against clear, objective goals can improve execution of a small company's strategy.