Trying to predict the future is tricky at the best of times, but I think it is perfectly possible to use current trends to illustrate future developments. Using trends like this does work. A famous example is “Moore’s Law“. In 1965, the Intel co-founder  Gordan Moore suggested that the computing capacity would double approximately every two years. Broadly speaking he’s been proved correct and the development curve has been exponential from the monstrous computers of the 1950s through to the supercomputers of today. Semiconductor companies have based billion pound budgets on Moore’s prediction.

Throughout the 20th Century there has been a trend of rapid and continuous improvement in nearly all fields of human endeavor. We have progressed from the Model-T to the Bugatti Veyron, from the Wright brothers and their rickety bi-plane to the Euro-fighter. From the 8-bit website of the 1980s to the web 2.0 website of today…

The overarching trend is of rapid and innovative technological development. So where is this development curve taking us? Is it possible to pick trends applying to the web and web devices? Yes, I think so. Read on…

Most intranets are largely static sites. On its own, an intranet is essentially a shared drive, serving up centrally stored documents alongside internal articles or communications. Some organisations use words such as “communication hubs” to describe them, but for the most part that communication is one-way.

These days, however, an intranet really can be a hub for your company. The intranet portal now closely mirrors employees’ expectations of world wide web functionality. Systems such as Microsoft SharePoint allow users to communicate with each other and collaborate, much as they would using social media tools such as blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

There are a number of capabilities that you can implement relatively easily, with SharePoint in particular making many of them available as standard.

Read on…

SharePoint 2010 is in beta testing, with a probable release date somewhere in Q4 this year. In the new release of the collaboration platform, emphasis seems to be placed on breaking out the roles of people involved in the production of a SharePoint intranet, and the access to resources as needed by people in those roles.

SharePoint 2010 looks to be the biggest update in the Microsoft Office family this year, as all communications so far indicate that other Office applications will only undergo minor tweaks.

So what are the big changes for SharePoint?

Read on…

Art by Kelly “Suuqin” Chan – Words by Geoff “NotWelshMan” Scaplehorn

Just in case you were wondering what our highly-trained staff do in their spare time… well, the answer is usually “not very much”. However, some of them have used their evenings in a vaguely productive manner by putting together a blog that we can only describe as: “Opinions may not reflect those of Content Formula”.

But we liked this cartoon. Consider this our very first guest post!

What would happen if our medical records were made available via Google or Microsoft?

This is the question currently being raised by politicians following the current NHS IT project, the Care Records Service, which is being criticised for going over budget and taking too long to set up following its introduction into England. Would it better to hand the job of storing medical records over to private firms, such as Google or Microsoft? Read on…