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Businesses are missing out on the benefits that Web 2.0 technologies have to offer them, according to an expert.

Many executives think Web 2.0 is a drain on their resources but in fact is a way of engaging with partners and customers and is simply an extension of email, according to the chief executive of IT Governance, Alan Calder, who was speaking in CIO magazine.

‘There is a genuine need for CIOs to enable people to use this technology to benefit the firm,’ he told CIO magazine.

‘No matter what policies a company has in place, people will tell other people what it is like to work there, whether it is through Facebook or a blog and everyone has a computer at home today.’

Banning use of the sites is also effectively saying to young people who use the sites that they are not wanted, and senior management had to understand that the technology is ‘embedded in the way of life’ of younger people.

‘Young workers feel that Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook, YouTube, blogging and Flikr, are key to how they do their job,’ he said.

He did sound a note of caution however, warning that businesses need to be careful with the technology, for instance with the posting of litigious comments.

Research has shown that using email as a means to provide customer service to customers in the UK is the most ineffective way to communicate.

Eservice provider Transversal looked at how well 100 leading UK companies across various sectors could answer simple questions through email, website and by phone and found that less than half (46 per cent) of questions answered through email were answered effectively.

This figure is down compared to email response satisfaction since 2006, when email responses were satisfactory for 60 per cent of customers.

Dee Roche, director of marketing at Transversal, said that companies are playing “ping pong” with emails, sending them back and forth and confusing customers, with the general picture one of laziness.

While insurance companies were found to be the worst in responding effectively, 80 per cent of CD/DVD retailers had the quickest response time (one hour) and answered with the most correct emails.

GNUCitizen said they have found a serious security bug in the BT Home Hub that could let hackers steal identities and commit other types of fraud by controlling calls routed over the internet.

With BT’s Home Hub a widely used router, the ability reach many homes is a serious threat to many customers as the bug can still be sent out even if the default password for the hub has been changed. For the bug to activate, a user of VoIP would have to visit a website that has some kind of malicious code.

Adrian Pastor, one of the hackers GNUCitizen, said that “we believe this is gonna be very hot in the VoIP fraud arena”, in an email.

To resolve the issue, BT has disabled the Remote Assistance features that allow support professionals to gain control over the device, according to Mr Pastor.

As a result however, Mr Pastor said: “Now we have been able to come up with a new technique to steal VoIP calls”.

Businesses need to look at new ways of using IT for collaboration purposes in order to help their organisations become more efficient, experts have advised.

According to Gartner analysts speaking at the Symposium/ITxpo in Cannes, companies should consider embracing innovations such as online social networks rather than relying on more traditional methods of collaboration.

One way in which businesses could do so is by reducing reliance on email and using wikis, discussion forums and blogs to allow staff to effectively create and share information that is important to the business, Gartner said.

‘Improving intra-organisational and inter-organisational communications with people and groups that may not be able to physically interact is the ultimate goal, and organisations need to look at new and innovative ways of making this happen,’ Nikos Drakos, research director at Gartner, commented.

The advice comes shortly after the research firm identified a total of 14 alternative delivery models that will change the IT market over the next five years, including storage as a service, communications as a service, remote management services, web platforms and user-owned devices.

Last Thursday Dell unleashed the XPS^TM M1730 notebook, aka “the beast”, for gamers who want to experience the peak of mobile gaming performance.

I have just received the email update with from Dell which means it ready for UK customers. However after visiting the dell site I am faced with notice of “Due to unprecedented demand for this system, we regret to inform you of a prolonged delivery time on your order“.

I am happy to see that more and more laptop are appearing with a full qwerty keyboard with full 10-digit number pad. Back in the 1990s only a handful of company used to do laptop with full 10-digit number pad on the main keyboard.

Without delay lets look inside “the beast”:

In the standard package we have:

Processor: Intel® Core^TM 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)

Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English

Monitors/Displays: 7.0″ UltraSharp^TM WUXGA (1920×1200) TFT with TrueLife^TM with Integrated 2.0MP web cam

Video Cards: Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT graphics with NVIDIA SLI Technology

Memory: 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]

Hard Drives: 250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive

Optical: Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW

Wireless Communication: Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-Card - Europe

Services: Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)

The system also boast other features as optional:

Blu-ray Disc DVD+/-RW Optical Drive including software [at a cost of £387.75]

Complete wireless connectivity options - Mobile Broadband3, Bluetooth® , Wireless-N support and Dell’s exclusive Wi-Fi catcherTM

and may be more…

As with all new systems these days there is no resource CD.

Things that got me really interested about this model of XPS are:

The world’s first built-in notebook Logitech GamePanel LCD, and eye-to-eye and loud and clear with the built in 2MP CCD camera and the built-in, dual digital array microphones.

Illuminated, keyboard to play even when the lights are off with the 10-key number pad.

A lot of room for turning it into a mighty beast!

A number of businesses are failing to adequately prepare for periods of email downtime, according to new research.

The survey, conducted by Osterman Research for technology firm Neverfail, found that over half of respondents only know they are experiencing email problems when users report issues with sending or receiving messages.

A further 40 per cent of firms said they stand to lose as much as $50,000 (£24,622) for every instance of email downtime, equivalent to almost $1 million a year for each business.

‘The emergence of email as the dominant communications platform signalled a paradigm shift in the way business is conducted, yet companies have been slow to recognise that email should have 24/7 availability,’ commented Andrew Barnes, senior vice president of corporate development at Neverfail.

Earlier this year, research from email continuity solution provider Teneros found that 96 per cent of firms see a significant drop in staff productivity during an email outage.

Read the full report.