Industry news

Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced plans to bring the manufacturing of the next line of Macs to the US along with the design in 2013.

The next line of Mac computers will see around $62 million in investment, a small fraction of total Apple manufacturing spend.

Mr Cook said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek that: "Next year we're going to bring some production to the US," adding that, “This doesn't mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we'll be working with people and we'll be investing our money."

David Cameron has announced further investment for Tech City totalling £50 million to develop Old Street roundabout adding space for future start-ups.

The investment will include the creation of a civic centre including classrooms, workshop space and printing facilities in addition to super-fast broadband infrastructure.

Cameron said in a statement: “"As well as backing the businesses of today, we are creating an aspiration nation and also backing the innovative, high-growth businesses of the future".

The government has announced that Virgin Rail will continue to operate the west coast rail line for a further two more years.

The short-term contract had been discussed and expected after the failure of the west coast procurement process in October.

The new contract will see the use of new carriages with greater numbers of seats and a new service between Glasgow and London.

IBM has finalised the purchase of Kenexa who provide HR services and applications for $1.3 billion USD.

The Pennsylvanian based company provides HR applications designed to streamline services and allow for automation in areas such as performance management and recruitment.

The acquisition began in August and has been undertaken in order to provide IBM with the ability to enhance current services through integration with Kenexa applications.

BT have released details of a drop of rental rates of ultra-fast fibre optic broadband, charging rental rates of £38 rather than £60 per month for use of its cable infrastructure.

The new price will be introduced from June 2013 and comes after the telecommunications giant face heavy criticism for low fibre uptake compared to the rest of Europe.

Mike Galvin, Managing Director NGA at BT Openreach described the planned cost cut, saying: “It is now time for us to focus further on FTTP and I am pleased to say that we are making it more affordable than ever. I am sure that small businesses will welcome this major price cut and I am also sure that our fibre on demand plans will be of great interest.”

The NHS Commissioning Board (NHS CB) is looking to outsource GP IT services to third-party suppliers.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) will decide what services are provided by local suppliers and what services are delivered internally.

The new procurement system will come into place by April 2013 when the CCGs take control of the commissioning of services. The G-Cloud is expected to feature heavily in future procurement processes, being already employed to source e-mail providers for the NHS.

IT services giant Atos has invested in an Indian wind farm in order to offset carbon emissions generated by services and data centres.

The move comes as Atos seeks to halve its carbon footprint of 170, 000 tonnes by 2015. The move co-insides with reducing power usage across the company and developing modern green facilities.

Atos corporate social responsibility executive Phillipe Mareine said that: "To become a zero carbon company, Atos strives to improve carbon performance in all areas of its activities," adding that, "In this respect, we have launched many initiatives including remote working, zero email, building energy management, and carbon audits.

A range of new cyber security measures have been announced by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude including the creation of a new ‘Cyber Reserve’ force.

In a statement to parliament Maude detailed the creation of the force consisting of different nationalities and skill sets organised under the MoD to combat IT security threats.

The planned creation of a new UK National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) was also revealed, designed to co-ordinate responses to security events and threats.

US private equity house Leonard Green & Partners have entered into talks with business entrepreneur Sir Philip Green to acquire at 25 percent stake of Topshop for £250 million.

Topshop is part of a group of businesses including Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge which makes up the Arcadia empire owned by Sir Philip.

Sources in retail have speculated that the deal could be confirmed by as soon as Thursday thisweek.

New cuts to be initiated by George Osborne are likely to result in the cutting of over 13,000 jobs within the civil service.

The predictions come on top of 63,000 positions cut from 2010 in order to reduce cost and safeguard funding for frontline services and economic stimulation projects.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted that the loss of 730,000 public sector jobs by 2017 will be outweighed by the creation of £1.3 million job in the private sector.