The pendulum of shared services

Spend enough time in the IT industry and you'll soon realise that many of the new trends we see are cyclical: fat vs. thin clients; various development methodologies falling in and out of fashion; and shared vs. distributed services.

The pendulum swung towards shared services in New Zealand this week, but they are not alone — many Australian state governments have also joined in. Patch Monday discusses the situation and why some people do not feel shared services are cool enough.

Microsoft is making in-roads at Australian universities, with the University of Sydney joining the University of New South Wales and the University of Queensland as Microsoft customers. Much of the talkback to the story was quite damning of the new system, so we discuss whether this is a warranted outcry or a response to change.

Dell announced that it would be offering Ubuntu on its netbook aimed at school children, but simply because it is offered, will it be a success?