Week in Review: The future of Britain is digital

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The interim Digital Britain report dominated the thinking of the UK’s top technology and media leaders, as Lord Stephen Carter outlined a strategy of where Britain’s digital future lies.

The one big headline-making recommendation (which had already been leaked out anyway), was that broadband for all was going to be a universal service commitment at a speed of 2Mb/s.

That may sound small, but it is enough to stream video, and Lord Carter was very clear that he wanted telecom companies to view this as the absolute minimum they should be aiming for.

However, perhaps of more concern to businesses rather than consumers was the government’s future role in the creation of a next generation broadband network.

There is probably no question of a major investment in the short term, but more of a wait and see attitude where BT, Virgin Media and the other smaller fibre optic companies furrow their own paths. However by the time of the full report, we’ll be a little bit more clear on where public money might go.

The tech geeks seem to be salivating over Microsoft’s Windows 7 even though it hasn’t even left beta, with IT PRO’s technology editor Benny Har-Evan singing its praises when he was one of the first to take a look at the download.

He isn’t the only one who loved it though, and this has caused Microsoft to give a second extension to the beta download deadline. After the negativty of the IT community towards Vista, this looks to be a welcome fillip for Microsoft – IT PRO has already commented on Microsoft’s attempt to be a lot more public friendly.

There are job cuts going on everywhere, and the recession is the reasoning the big tech companies are using for mass redundancies. However this doesn’t help the people who will be out of work, and companies like HP are likely to be facing increasing protests as a lot of angry unemployed people start to take to the streets.

It’s one thing with the London Underground and its predictable strike action over cuts, but tech workers rebelling over their ex-employers need to keep their profits is quite another. This is one story that everyone involved in IT business will need to keep an eye on.

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