The minty fresh breath of IT management….

The bright and very shiny ComputerworldUK launched today, only a day behind schedule.

In a non-naïve, non-eco way, it’s green. Very green. And red. Which will confuse colour-blind techies (who surely electrocute themselves on a regular basis), but please gypsy queens (who, presumably, are pretty happy anyway having never paid any tax).

Perhaps best of all, the ComputerworldUK logo is nice and easy to copy, which is great for coverage round ups. The editorial copies and pastes cleanly as well, which saves valuable ‘re-formatting in Word’ time. Thanks Mike, a God send. The search engine seems pretty snappy, which is one in the eye for the FT and Silicon among others.

Least good is the irritating-beyond-belief pop-up adverts that blast the second paragraph out of the way just as you’re half a line into it.

Clearswift and HP have clearly decided that there’s advertising ROI to be proved by getting in early, while Samsung’s early spend is hard to detect. It’s suitably 2.0, with RSS, Digg, Slashdot, Del.ic.io.us and Reddit (if you’re confused with this cutting jargon, surf like billy-o to the CIPR’s website for explanations).

Although it currently carries a fair bit of generic IDG content (a bonus as interviews with Jeremy Kirk will now appear in the UK too), it has a strong editorial team, headed by Mike Simons of CW fame, where Helen Beckett made her name too. For those old enough to remember Information Week, Stuart Lauchlan and Sarah Aryanpur return after respective spells freelancing and copywriting at (the no-longer)-August-One. Chris Mellor of the risibly-titled StorAge is also on board, along with IDG stalwart Peter Judge and card-carrying leftie Tash Shifrin (OK, just guessing about Tash but, Christ, she used to write for The Guardian).

As for editorial tone, tone towards PRs (thus far cordial) and general standing in the marketplace, we’ll have to see. But, given the majority of the technology world is US-based, and Computerworld is a lead title there, it should do fairly well.