Industry news

Defence giant BAE has secured a five year contract to supply the U.S. army with equipment in a deal valued at $780 million.

The contract will see the arms manufacturer supply newly developed explosives from its Tennessee plant to the U.S. military, as a high stability replacement for TNT, which is being phasing out within U.S. forces.

The contract comes as welcome news to the company’s shareholders, at a time when BAE is suffering from reduced contracts being put for tender, as the world’s largest defence spender makes significant cuts to defence programs, in light of global recession and the changing theatre of warfare.

Erin Moseley, president of BAE Systems’ Support Solutions sector, said of the new explosives: “Once fully fielded, it will help to save lives on and off the battlefield.”

BAE selected as preferred bidder for Foreign and Commonwealth office framework

The potential for the country exiting the Eurozone had been a real risk due to the scale of the financial crisis in Cyprus. The European Central Bank (ECB) had stated that it would cut off funds to banks in the country by this Monday, if a deal had not yet been agreed on.

The potential impact of an exit by Cyprus from the Eurozone on other European countries facing economic hardships had caused investor panic and instability from a loss in market confidence.

The bailout has led to the reconstruction or closure of parts of the banking infrastructure in Cyprus, as the county seeks to move to a sustainable solution with capital security.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, said the loan would "put an end to the uncertainty" surrounding Cyprus’s economic stability and the support of Europe.

With the announcement of the deal investor confidence has been bolstered, with Asian markets showing growth as investors respond to the agreement.

Negotiations enter final stages as Cyprus’ fate is decided

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has been criticised for supplying six years worth of inaccurate data by the Home Affairs Committee.

Invalid data included the size of the immigration asylum backlog and the measures that were being employed to trace immigrants that had lost contact.

The Home Affairs Committee reported that the failure to trace immigrants who had lapsed in contact with the UKBA, had resulted in the mistaken belief that such individuals had left the UK, when in fact many are still believed to be in the country.

The Home Affairs Committee criticised Lin Homer, the then head of the UKBA: “Lin Homer, who was in charge of the Agency for much of the period in question, has repeatedly misled the Committee over the size of the asylum backlog and still refuses to take responsibility for her failings”.

Ms Homer said that the criticisms related to events and failings that occurred long after she left the UKBA 18 months ago.

UKBA and Capita to be investigated by ICO

Equity firm Blackstone Group has reportedly submitted a counter-bid to buyout Dell, undermining the current favoured offer by founder Michael Dell.

The reported deal citied by the New York Times to unnamed sources, reported that Blackstone made the bid during last Friday, in a proposal which would see the equity group offer above the offer of $13.65 per share by Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners.

The new competition is likely to result in Dell’s move to becoming a private organisation dragged out over many months by multiple meetings and debates involving Dell’s core shareholders, surrounding the competing offers.

Other counter-offers are expected to appear on the horizon, with dissent from shareholders surrounding the value of the business.

$24 billion acquisition of Dell confirmed

Apple has taken the top spot with consumers as the leading cloud storage provider, ahead of competitors including Amazon, Google and Dropbox.

In a survey of Internet users carried out by Strategy Analytics found that 27 percent of users had used Apple’s iCloud, compared to its nearest competitor Dropbox, with 17 percent.

The survey revealed that the cloud storage market was still ripe for expansion, with 55 percent of those surveyed having never used cloud storage services, and only 33 percent using the services on a regular basis of once or more within a week.

The survey revealed a divide in the sexes with men favouring Google and women choosing Apple’s offering.

The results also demonstrate that cloud storage services are becoming increasingly used for music storage, with around 90 percent of customers using Apple, Amazon and Google cloud storage for music files, as users move their media library content from on-site storage to the cloud.

US Homeland Security move to cloud

Gas prices jumped by as much as 50 percent after a technical fault caused the closure of one of the UK’s key pipelines.

The closure amidst continued cold weather and increased demand, has led to fears that the UK energy infrastructure is risking shortages, however the government has denied this.

The major gas pipeline running is scheduled to run at a reduced capacity in the near future when Norway carries out essential maintenance work in April.

The impact of the shortage on current prices is likely to impact the rise of home energy bills as companies pass down cost rises.

A spokesman from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said: “'Storage levels are low at the moment - as you'd expect towards the end of winter”, adding that “the UK gas market is tight”.

EDF given the go-ahead to construct new generation of power stations

The stability of the Eurozone and Cyprus lies in the balance as today’s negations seek to prevent the country from crashing out of the Eurozone as debts mount up.

Cyprus has been in negation with European countries including Greece and Russia as it seeks to secure a bailout, with its European future resting on the success of today’s negations.

Over the next two hours the political leaders of Cyprus are set to meet and decide on a proposal set out today, including the decision to sell parts of the Bank of Cyprus to Greece as well as Cypriot assets.

While today's actions will have a significant impact on Cyprus and its European future, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that the calm reaction in finical markets predicts a positive response, saying: “The financial markets clearly recognise that the euro zone is essentially better prepared for possible turbulence.”

August reveals extent of global economic slowdown

The benefits of cloud services including increased user accessibility, cost, and agility has succeeded in attracting the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The transition having begun in 2012, will carry through 2013 as consolidation and migration occurs.

The migration to a cloud platform has allowed the DHS to begin a consolidation of its datacentres, from 42 down to just two.

The transformation to a cloud based platform has also allowed for a dramatic cost reduction in the cost of IT infrastructure and services according to Margaret Graves, DHS deputy CIO, with the cost per email box coming in at around $7, compared to the $24 per email box as used by DHS agency FEMA.

The move to a cloud service is expected to increase cost transparency, with IT costs accounting for 15 percent or $6 billion, of the DHS’ budget.

A process of consultation between users and developers has helped shaped the new DHS IT service.

Margaret Graves said users are now: “sitting with the developer- talking through use cases, they are testing at appropriate times", these tests alongside feedback informs further changes, being "continuously incorporated into the development cycle” she added.

U.S. military IT infrastructure unprepared for cyber attacks

Leeds based food giant Symington’s, which owns pot noodle brand Golden Wonder has moved to onshore production of the noddle brand back to the UK having moved production to China.

Citing increased costs in China and logistical delays caused by the remote nature of production in China, with the sourcing of noodles taking eight to ten weeks.

Symington’s will now cancel contracts and move shipping and manufacturing capabilities to a £15 million site in Yorkshire.

In moving services back to the UK, the food giant will reduce costs, increase the efficiency of the brands supply chain and create 50 new jobs.

The move by Symington’s reflects a trend of companies moving services back to the UK from traditional offshore destinations as price rises reduce or negate the original sourcing decision.

Offshoring v Onshoring - Which Way is the Pendulum Swinging?

Oracle has experienced a reduction of 1 percent in the last quarter, with revenue relating to new cloud and software services falling by 2 percent.

Profits have been impacted by customersholding out on recent purchases in expectation of purchasing new products from Oracle that are around the corner, with its new line of T5 servers set to be released next week.

Safra Catz, Oracle's chief financial officer, said of the new servers: “our customers know the new products are coming out next week and have held off for that".

Oracle announced that over December to February revenue totalled $9 billion with net profit reached $2.5 billion.

Revenue relation to hardware products and hardware support for business suffered however, with a drop of 23 percent and 6 percent respectively.

Oracle acquires Acme Packet for $1.7 billion