Call it leasing, equipment rental, or hardware as a service, the idea of NOT owning your computing devices has been around for years. But many individuals and corporations have been distinctly ambiguous about the idea, feeling that the benefits tend to flow to the suppliers, and most of all, the financers.

Whether tech workers saved the world during the pandemic or whether we should thank health workers and researchers is one for another day. But tech workers certainly kept business and the public sector going, helping organisations pivot to online and by allowing employees to work remotely.. But a year on, has the hero effect worn off? Or can they, should they, expect a permanently elevated status?

The debate around the benefits of sharing medical data for the greater good versus individual’s expectations of confidentiality and consent, has become heated to say the least over the last year and a half. But if consent is not just assumed, but informed, do we all stand to benefit? Our contributors serve up their own prescriptions, but you get to decide.

The pandemic has highlighted the increasing importance of technology within education – and shown what happens when policy makers and education authorities get things wrong. But is this just a question of access, or are there other factors we need to consider? Our contributors take to their keyboards to thrash out the issues.

Should you migrate your services and applications to containers, or are virtual machines good enough? Is containerization an overkill and just for the likes of Google and Amazon, or are virtual machines a blunt tool unsuitable for modern software deployment?

Hackers are friends not foes, says Alyssa Miller in this opening argument for our latest debate

Proponents claim storage consolidation means less storage, which means lower costs. Naysayers argue storage consolidation may actually increase costs and can be hugely complex. Where is the benefit?

Is this artificial intelligence genuinely useful, does the technology as it stands today have a place in the enterprise, or is it simply a cynical marketing turn to dress up previous algorithms as intelligent?