Industry news

A joint venture between Lancashire Council and BT known as One Connect has consolidated its security systems under one roof with McAfee.

One Connect, which provides telecommunications and business services to the council and public services, originally operated with nine security solutions upon its foundation in 2011.

The move to a single security provider came as the joint venture sought to reduce expense while increasing flexibility and speed of service.

The new security service will be hosted at one centrally managed site with one integrated framework for all users, covering networks, data encryption and backup and email filtering.

McAfee plans for $389 million purchase of network security provider

A high-speed broadband project in South Yorkshire has been scrapped after failing to attract customers.

The Digital Region program funded by the council with European funding was designed to provide local businesses, homes and public services with access to high-speed broadband, but only managed to attract 3 per cent of the required 108,000.

The failure of the project comes despite the success of South Yorkshire in meeting targets by delivering increased broadband coverage to 80 per cent of the population.

Digital Region said in a statement: "Shareholders in South Yorkshire’s pioneering Digital Region project have agreed to halt their search for a private sector partner following increased uncertainty and risk around compatibility of future funding with EU state aid rules".

The estimated cost of continuing with the project is £95.8 million with the scrapping of the high-speed broadband project leading to the loss of £80 million currently invested.

It is now expected that £30 million in funding from the EU in the form of investment from the European Regional Development Fund will now need to be returned.

UK broadband speeds increase rapidly as government spending sees strong results

Ofcom looks to reduce broadband migration costs in order to improve competition

China has announced that it will bring increased internet capacity to all major cities by 2020.

China has set targets of 50 Mbps by 2020 for new broadband services and 12 Mbps in rural areas. The undertaking is huge given China’s population, with nearly 600 million already using internet services, with speeds just averaging 1.7 Mbps.

The plans for increased internet speeds will also see the rollout of 3G and 4G mobile services, with an estimated target of 85 per cent of a 1.35 billion population.

The move to develop broadband and mobile communications comes as China sits behind its neighbours in delivering increased speeds despite a large user base.

China sees sluggish manufacturing trend

Alibaba Group set to build $48 billion logistics network in China

Trusteer which provides cloud services and software aimed at providing security against online financial fraud has been approached by IBM as a potential buyer.

Trusteer has experienced “well above the market's growth rates" according to a report published by Gartner earlier this year.

The move to purchase the security company comes as IBM seeks to offer increased security capabilities to clients against increasingly sophisticated threats.

The acquisition of Trusteer's technology according to IBM: "will help our clients across all industries address the constantly evolving threats they are facing".

IBM identifies increase in cloud uptake down under

IBM appointed as innovation partner for Thames Water

Dell has revealed a 72 per cent drop in profits after introducing price drops to gain increased business.

In a letter to investors CFO Brian Gladden said: "Our efforts to improve growth have improved our share position at the expense of profitability".

The announcement comes a month before a major stakeholder meeting on the potential future privatisation of the company.

The decline in profits comes as the PC market continues to perform poorly with the 72 per cent decline giving a total income of $204 million.

Microsoft loan for Dell purchase comes with payment strings

A new study carried out for cloud specialists Rackspace has shown a desire for a mixed cloud offering by businesses.

The study found that 60 per cent of respondents viewed a hybrid model consisting of both public and private frameworks as providing the most beneficial model.

60 percent of respondents were also looking at partially or completely transitioning applications from public clouds to private frameworks based on the limitations of services.

The transition of services between internal and external cloud offerings comes as businesses gain greater understanding of new services and prioritise the need for each services benefit such as control, security or flexibility.

March sets records for public sector cloud adoption

Virgin Money has renewed an IT framework contract with Fujitsu after acquiring Northern Rock.

Fujitsu had previously provided IT services including mainframe maintenance to the bank which was rescued from closure by Virgin in 2012.

Virgin Money have now moved to extend Fujitsu’s operating system licence which supports the banks processing capabilities and provides support services.

Jonathan Kennedy, CIO, Virgin Money, said that Fujitsu, “moved with the times to exploit modern platforms. Fujitsu also provides the strategic consultancy and technical capability required in a trusted IT partner.”

Banks move to enhance analytic capabilities

Customers waiting on improved IT services from financial sector

Cisco Systems have announced cuts that will see the loss of 4,000 jobs as it moves to focus on key businesses.

Jobs will be cut in middle management as the networking giant moves to develop business development speeds.

The cuts were disclosed during a conference call on the last quarter’s profits which totalled $12.4 billion from a 6 per cent increase year-on-year.

Cisco CEO John Chambers reasoned that cuts had to be implemented in order to compete in a rapidly changing market: “We just have too much in the middle of the organisation".

Cisco begins expansion programme

Arqiva, Capita, CGI and Telefónica have been awarded preferred bidder status for the installation of smart-meters throughout the UK.

Three contracts for North England and Scotland, East Anglia and Wales, and South England are expected to deliver customer savings and promote energy efficiency from accurate meter readings.

The contracts which cover the installation of smart meters throughout UK households in 2015 are estimated to be worth £175 million over 12 years.

Companies including G4S, BT and Vodafone have failed to achieve the preferred bidder status.

Bidders wait for preferred bidder shortlist for £2.8 billion of energy contracts

A new report published by Gartner has shown strong signs of stability in government IT departments, with almost 75 per cent of department being reported as having increased or flat budgets in 2013.

The report of stabilised and increasing budgets comes at a time when the government has been seeking to create cost savings and reduce the overall cost of IT services. This new report suggests that IT departments are being given increased funds in order to promote long term efficiencies and IT projects designed to increase savings.

Gartner said that, “CIOs in government indicated that reducing overall business costs is now more important than reducing IT costs alone, which will permit government CIOs to accelerate enterprise-scale initiatives.”

The report which gathered data from CIO’s in the fourth quarter of 2012 revealed renewed focus on analytics, as the public sector seeks to understand areas and services where action can deliver further savings.

Local government ITO: Innovating to reinvest

London councils move to create a shared £1.1 billion ICT services framework