CIO Essentials: Vista, Kindle and data breaches

Ever wondered what CIOs are reading on silicon.com? Our CIO Essentials feature puts you in the picture. Each week a leading IT chief picks his or her top stories from the past seven days and explains why they matter.

This week we hear from Graham Yellowley, director of technology services for investment bank Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International.

Photos: Amazon enters the e-book world
Yet another handheld device to bump up against the iPod, the iPhone, the BlackBerry and the remote access token. A competitor to Sony's Book Reader, podcasts and the physical book. I wish it well but as soon as Apple launch the integrated iPhone/iPod/iBook it will be history.

Gartner: CIOs - develop business analytics or IT loses out
I thought business analytics was either slice and dice costs smarter, or real compute analytics to make pricing and risk models smarter but it turns out to be "making a difference with what you have". However, this is a smart move as IT becomes a research and strategy partner for the business, finding opportunities and synergies using existing information. Gartner could be on to something here.

Agenda Setters 2007 - Top 20

Find out who made it into silicon.com's Agenda Setters top 20 by clicking the links below…

1. Mark Zuckerberg
2. Steve Jobs
3. Eric Schmidt
4. John Chambers
5. Ashley Highfield
6. Nicholas Negroponte
7. Niklas Zennström
8. Diane Greene
9. Jonathan Ive
10.Viviane Reding
11.Paul Coby
12.Marc Benioff
13.Emily Bell
14.Larry Ellison
15.Jeff Bezos
16.Ben Verwaayen
17.Nandan Nilekani
18.David Yu
19.Satoru Iwata
20.Mark Hurd

Photos: Tech predicts future of London transport
Commuting is either a chore or something you get used to but I have to say that even with the occasional delays and frustrations commuting provides, I do have faith in the system. The London Transport Museum captures the essence of this well and I now have to visit the Museum just to see what transport changes may be coming my way in the not too distant future.

ICO: HMRC breach - where were the tech safeguards?
Regrettable as this is, who hasn't stopped to think whether this could happen in their environment, though maybe not to the same magnitude? After all, 25 million personal details is over 40 per cent of the population of the UK. But this does raise the issue about a clear and concise security policy and implementation in an organisation and how easily this can be undermined. I recommend everyone to review their organisation's capability to be undermined - quickly!

Microsoft rolls out XP SP3 test beta
Microsoft rolled out SP2 and wanted us to adopt Vista, now SP3 is almost out and Microsoft still want us to adopt Vista. Having said that, it is easier to migrate from XP SP2 to XP SP3, and SP2 compatible applications should still be SP3 compatible, whereas Vista is another story. Looks like 2009 is the Vista year then.

If you are a UK-based IT director or CIO and would like to take part in the CIO Essentials series by choosing your top five stories of the week, send us an email here at silicon.com.