The Scottish Enterprise Software Group which, as reported earlier (CI No 2,158), is looking to make Scotland a top European computing centre is looking to encourage take up of high performance computing with its Forum for Open Systems, launched in April. The Forum is a special programme set up to bring Scottish information technology vendors and users together. It is part funded by membership subscription, and part government funded at present, and has also won a European Community grant. Full membership costs UKP250 per annum. It boasts 71 members representing Scottish business users, software producers, management consultants, technical consultants and systems integrators, the academic community, government and training. It is also affiliated to X/Open Co Ltd, UniForum, Unix International Inc and the UK National Computing Centre alongside the Department of Trade & Industry, European Commission and the Scottish Local Enterprise Companies. The Forum is taking a number of strategic directions to get its message across. These include the introduction and partnering scheme ‘matchmaker’, which operates within Scotland and outside; information provision over a range of issues from development to funding; training and accreditation; and collaboration with manufacturers and standards bodies. Already it has a conference programme under way for members and pilot Open Systems Information Centre for members. It is planning an Open Connections Programme to forge links between users and vendors to begin late summer, and is now undertaking a feasibility study into setting up an Evaluation Laboratory to provide a showcase for users. It has a number of clearly defined aims to pursue over the next three years. For instance, it is hoping to stem the flow of computer spending out of Scotland. Less than 40% of the country’s UKP500m annual expenditure is reckoned to be channelled into Scotland’s domestic industry, a proportion that the Forum intends to increase by around 50%. It also plans to implement an annual Scottish IT Spend review. Scottish graduate placement in computing will be monitored, with a view to increasing numbers by up to 50%, and there are also hopes of increasing the total of training days in Scotland by 50%.
Open systems
Quality also is to be addressed with efforts made to increase the number of accredited companies and to introduce a Scotland-wide individual-consultant accreditation scheme. It is hoped the Forum will broker an average of UKP1m new projects a year in the first three years and will seek to raise the profile of the industry through international events and through press coverage. Open systems are also likely to play a part in the Highlands economy which is set to be revitalised thanks to the ISDN telecommunications system recently installed by British Telecommunications Plc in the area. Improved communications are considered to be an asset both to traditional local industries such as oil, fish and drink and important for new investment. The new telecommunications backbone comprises high capacity fibre optic cables and microwave links rather than copper cabling, which means that voice lines are sharp and clear – and that high capacity data links are also available for the businesses that need them. Around 70% of the area’s population and business are linked to digital exchanges and BT is already considering upgrading the remainder so that soon anyone in the Highlands can be ISDN-linked. The predicted demand for ISDN consultancy Prognos reckons it will be the basis for business networks by the year 2000 – and the liklihood that it will become cheaper over time bodes well for the Highlands. Teleworking is one area for example which is now open for exploitation. A company has set up recently in Crossaig, Strathclyde for instance that makes use of the ISDN system to distribute abstracts from medical journals to its customers. It uses optical scanning to store information on computer and then networks it to scattered staff who index, abstract and compile the material for an on-line database in Amsterdam. At BT
‘s Thurso help desk in Caithness, 30 staff provide on-line help to BT computer users in London and a further four in a tele-service centre provide desktop publishing and video conferencing to other departments and non-BT companies. As Calum Davidson of Highlands & Islands Enterprise put it at a recent Open Forum conference, In the south of Scotland, in Silicon Glen, the Scottish workforce use their skills to produce IT equipment for their world. In the North of Scotland, in Telecom Glen, the Highland workforce use their skills, unleashed by the Telecom and IT infrastructure of the area to process knowledge for the rest of the world.
