In this week’s issue of Computer Weekly, we look at the key trends and technologies that will be on IT leaders’ agenda in 2012. Our first Buyer’s Guide of the year examines how IT consumerisation will affect business technology; and Home Office IT director Denise McDonagh tells us why government IT isn’t working. Download the new issue now. 

Many IT administrators believe the cloud is staged to offer adaptable, flexible and scalable resources at a fraction of the cost. But with varying definitions, strategies and expectations, the cloud is still clearly in the developmental stages. Take a look at this white paper for an expert analysis of cloud computing. 

Cloud computing is one of the latest computer and business industry buzz words. This paper will discuss the definition of cloud computing, the public or external cloud, the private or internal cloud, the evolution of cloud computing and more. 

Economies of scale, flexibility and costreduction – cloud advocates have made sure that we are familiar with these potential benefits, even if we have yet to agree on an exact definition of cloud computing. But doubters argue that none of these benefits will actually be available unless some fundamental security issues can be overcome. 

IT is moving from being a point of differentiation for an organisation towards becoming a point of constraint. 

Windows 7 migrations can be risky and expensive, threatening employee productivity by changing the working environment. Access this resource to learn how AppSense User Virtualisation technology can alleviate seven critical user-centric concerns in your Windows upgrade. 

As the global economy slowly heals, finance leaders are looking to fulfill the promise of the last 20 years. Much of the hard work has been done, the infrastructure largely in place. The challenge is to build upon this platform to drive dramatic improvement in the quality and value that finance delivers. 

Read this paper by Global Knowledge instructor, John Hales, to learn how to build a home lab for VMware vSphere for study. This paper is broken down into three major sections; the first and most detailed is about the hardware required, the second is about the Workstation configuration, and the third is about installing vSphere and Virtual Center. 

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. 

The definition of a mobile payment is often open to interpretation and can differ from source to source.    Juniper Research has a simple definition of a mobile payment as “payment for goods or services with a mobile device such as a phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), or other such device.” 

More IT pros are looking to introduce a cloud infrastructure to their organization. However, as the definition and its potential benefits have morphed over time, knowing exactly what this technology offers is not always easy. This white paper highlights cloud computing to help you better evaluate this technology. Learn more here. 

Juniper Research defines mobile banking as  “the provision of banking services to customers on their mobile devices”: specifically we mean in the vast majority of instances “the operation of bank current and deposit or savings accounts”.