Looking for the perfect home computing or electronic gift? Here’s a selection of Insight’s best Christmas technology gadget and gift ideas…and spend online until 10th November for your chance to win a LG 26″ LCD TV

With Software as a Service (SaaS) and similar managed IT models continuing to gain momentum and more and more potential services and suppliers looking to capitalise, telling the men from the boys can be difficult.

Increasingly IT users are bringing their own technology into the workplace, the most ubiquitous of which is the USB storage device. On a key-ring for easy data sharing with colleagues or sat proudly next to a notebook for DIY backup, they are everywhere.

Confessedly never the most sparkling of the stars in the data management firmament, Backup has tired of its dowdy reputation just lately and decided to go all webby and onlinified.

Everyone is talking about Desktop Virtualisation as the new way of improving agility and cutting cost and complexity at the same time – but is it really as straight-forward and effective as that?

The provision of employee benefits is an area given much consideration by organisations of all sizes from business to lifestyle related benefits such as pension plans or gym memberships. If your organisation offers these, have you considered providing an Employee Purchase Programme (EPP) for IT products?

Hyped more than anything else in the last 18 months, the Cloud has been the subject of heated debate in the IT community. Many think it’s the failed ASP model marketed differently, other will tell you it is the biggest shift the business technology sector has ever seen.

Irrespective of either view, here are five reasons I believe the Cloud will be the norm:

Insight Direct continues to strengthen its presence in the UK market by announcing its partnership with Ciao, Europe’s leading shopping and consumer website.