Industry news

A European scientific cloud service called Helix Nebula is to receive support from the GÉANT network.

GÉANT is co-funded by the European Commission and is used by the Education and National Research networks.

A statement from GÉANT said: “GÉANT has joined the Helix Nebula partnership in order to take an active role in the development of what we consider the natural solution for cloud computing in Europe. GÉANT is a key element in continuing our leadership in enabling researchers worldwide to collaborate.”

Good governance is critical to the success of any outsourcing venture. It is an enterprise wide, overarching corporate function, aimed at delivering innovation, value and mitigating risk to the business. An exclusive sourcingfocus.com roundtable, in association with IBM and the NOA,examined how governance should provide a management continuum throughout the outsourcing life-cycle to provide a consistent and appropriate focus on strategic outcomes.

PasS (platform as a service) is expected to be worth an estimated $2.9 billion by 2016 according to Gartner.

The analyst giant predicts the 900 million increase from 2011 figures as the market expands in countries including Japan and the US and technology matures.

The PaaS market is still heavily competitive within itself and with main rival SaaS, the rapid growth over the next four years will be fuelled by fierce competition says Gartner, as cloud providers and enterprise software supplies fight for market dominance.

Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner, said: “PaaS is where the battle between suppliers and products is set to intensify the most.”

The NHS Commissioning Board is expected to set a record setting precedent for the G-Cloud, as it plans to procure email services from multiple suppliers.

The procurement process would be the largest deal to go through the G-Cloud, potentially providing services to the whole of the NHS.

The procurement process is expected begin in July 2013 when the contract with the previous email provider expires.

Spotify has secured funding of $100 million from Goldman Sachs, Coca-Colam, and Fidelity Investments.

Total revenue raised by Spotify has now reached $288 million despite the company posting a loss of €45 million in 2011.

Along with a loss making model Spotify is facing renewed competition from rivals including French based Deezer who managed to secure funding of $130 million within last month.

Private equity firm Terra Firma has acquired a contract to run UK armed forces accommodation for £3.2 billion.

Terra Firma is in the process of buying Annington Homes who own the MOD housing property, the deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The acquisition marks the largest UK purchase by the firm during 2012 and will see the firm control properties belonging to more than 40,000 armed forces families.

A Greenpeace compiled list entitled ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ has been topped by newcomer Wipro.

The guide which is designed to promote operational efficiency and green projects found that Wipro displayed numerous green processes in recycling and supply chain delivery.

Casey Harrell, IT analyst at Greenpeace described how hardware companies can have a large impact upon the environment because of the nature of their work, the expanding nature of the industry and the use of chemicals in the manufacturing and assembly process.

Jaguar Land Rover has moved production to Shanghai after the Chinese approval of its joint venture program with Chery Automobile.

The move comes after the car manufacturer has seen an 80 percent rise in demand in China through this year. The new plant and production chain will supplement current facilities within the UK rather than reducing construction within the UK.

The venture will see the construction of a brand new facility which is expected to be completed by 2015.

Birmingham Metropolitan College have reduced the cost of IT equipment procurement by 40 percent through the employment of a cloud based benchmarking system.

The college employed the benchmarking software ITelligence from Mercato which provides users with information on the wholesale price paid by suppliers.

Jamie Smith, director of systems and policy development at the college, said: “Like all organisations in the current economic climate, the college needs to get more for less”.

Network giant Cisco are set to acquire cloud service provider Meraki for €1.2 billion.

Meraki with over 10,000 companies using its services is focused upon medium-sized businesses, the acquisition comes as the networking giant seeks to expand into the cloud services market.

In a statement, Cisco senior vice president, Rob Soderbery, said: "The acquisition of Meraki enables Cisco to make simple, secure, cloud managed networks available to our global customer base of mid-sized businesses and enterprises".