Industry news

Jim Currie, deputy leader of Cornish council, has resigned over plans to increase public sector privatisation.

The privatisation of council services is expected to go to preferred bidders CSC or BT, in a deal that could be worth as much as £300 million per year.

While council members had resisted the creation of a privatisation contract, pressure from cabinet members had driven the procurement tender through revealed Currie.

In a resignation email, Currie pointed to the increasing lack of Council control over joint ventures coupled with the rush to enable private contracts.

Council leader Alec Robertson said: “I am hopeful that members will support the strategic partnership once they have access to all the facts. However, if I a majority of the council decide to vote against the proposal, then it will not go ahead.”

The relationship between Chinese networking giant Huawei and UK based telecommunications giant BT is to be investigated by a UK parliamentary committee.

The investigation comes after a US report which concluded that the Chinese company posed a threat to national security.

BT receives much of its networking equipment from Huawei including material involved in the rollout of superfast broadband within the UK.

The chairman of the investigation, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said in a interview with the Guardian: “We wanted to look at the historical background to that contract, to what extent there were security concerns at the time, whether and to what extent the British government were involved in these decisions, and whether there have been any causes for concern that have arisen since Huawei became involved in our telecoms infrastructure.”

Asus is to construct three new data centres in order to meet increased usage of cloud services from users.

The new data centres will be potentially located in China, the USA and Europe, with 10 million users already being served by three data centres located in the Taiwan, China and the States.

The news comes as Asus’ cloud business prepares to break even at the end of 2012 with strong revenue growth predicted for the following two years.

The announcement comes after a 23 percent jump in profits for Centrica owned British Gas.

An average customer of British Gas can expect to see their bill increase by £80 to £1,318. The move comes as the UK’s North Sea gas supplies begin to dwindle and British Gas is forced to enter a competitive global marketplace.

The move is expected to be followed by other gas and electricity suppliers.

British Gas managing director Phil Bentley said: “Unfortunately, we cannot run our business sustainably on lower margins and still make the investments in jobs and future energy sources that Britain needs, especially if the country is to grow its way out of recession.”

David Cameron promoted the value of the UK’s expertise in technology and investment, and the importance of growing these UK service industries in order to create economic recovery, during his speech at the annual Conservative Party conference.

In the speech, Cameron said: “All around the world, countries are on the rise. Yes, we’ve been hearing about China and India for years, but it’s hard to believe what’s happening in Brazil, in Indonesia, in Nigeria too. Meanwhile, the old powers are on the slide.”

The lack of concrete proposals in the speech may give concern to industry leaders, along with a lack of details of how the government will address the expectation of increased skills shortages.

IBM has expanded their pre-integrated PureSystems line aimed at developing online transaction processing and business analysis capabilities.

Each system is of a bespoke design, built for the applications requirements, needing limited maintenance and allowing for rapid installation.

In comparison to similar offerings by Oracle, IBM director Pete McCaffrey, said: “we're optimizing for the specific type of data workload. That is why we are coming out with different models aligned to different workloads."

BAE Systems has ended a contract with Logica to provide BPO and HR services.

The contract to supply the services will now be reverted to Xchanging as the previous supplier, which has promoted new HR functionality in service delivery.

The impact on Logica from the termination of the contract has yet to be fully observed.

The Cloud is not just the new way to manage data and costs and promote greater internal and external collaboration but is also the opportunity to reinvent brands and business models, with huge potential benefits – upstream and downstream.

A recent Wipro-TLG research report revealed how the Cloud is no longer seen by CXOs as an improvement to IT infrastructure – a ‘step change’ that is simply making processes and systems more efficient. Rather, business leaders see the Cloud as a transformative innovation that will lead to tremendous opportunity.

• The Differentiation opportunity: There is a clear expectation amongst business leaders that, at one level, the Cloud will create new efficiencies and even new supply chains (upstream). At another level, it promises to reinvent value chains and customer propositions (downstream).

While some businesses still feel Cloud adoption may be a choice, in a few years consumers will force the Cloud onto businesses. The next generation consumer is driven by experience, mobility and accessibility – factors that new technologies and the Cloud will deliver. Businesses that do not invest in the Cloud will lose out, and companies that build their products, operational systems and applications with a clear Cloud strategy, will gain a competitive advantage. The survey also confirmed that companies that do not invest in the Cloud will fail to innovate and “will lose market share”.

Figure 1: How, if at all, may companies that don’t invest in the Cloud lose out

• The Economic opportunity: Business leaders attach critical significance to the Cloud for giving them the power to generate greater efficiencies and economies so overheads can be reduced. Cloud allows the business to scale up and down as and when required. This supports business growth without requiring expensive changes to existing systems. By enabling companies to cope with varying market conditions, the Cloud part of a more sustainable business environment. This is a form of economic value creation.

Cloud has the potential to create completely new business models and SMEs and start-ups will embrace them. Start-up businesses and SMEs can establish themselves without having to invest capital on IT infrastructure and the associated labour costs which are non-core to the business model. For large enterprises, it poses a challenge because they have well-established business models and rarely embrace innovation at a fast pace.

• The Workforce opportunity: The Cloud allows for significant innovations in workforce models. With the Cloud, teams are not tied to offices and offices are not tied to teams. Cloud computing helps business become mobile, teams can be spread across geographies and time-zones, and employees can work and access information from anywhere. The Cloud also triggers the power of collaboration. This is a very important dimension for businesses looking for new solutions, new ways of thinking, working and winning.

• The Social Opportunity: Cloud offers businesses and civil society an opportunity to transform expectations at an economic and social level. The Cloud represents a paradigm shift in terms of building capacity to transcend social and commercial boundaries to reinvent known models. Conversely, businesses and governments without a Cloud strategy are missing an opportunity.

Today, we can imagine a future where consumers will consume an enterprise as a Cloud. Enterprises, on their hand, will consume services as a Cloud. The key to success will be how Businesses and IT will get integrated to create a winning Customer Experience.

About the author

Dr. Anurag Srivastava is the Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President for Wipro's Global IT Business. His responsibilities include technology strategy planning, technology incubation through Center's of Excellence, business Innovation using futuristic technologies, technical stream & IP management, technology alliances in advanced areas with industry and academic forums.

Prior to this role, he was head of the Wipro Energy and Sustainability Services business. He was also responsible for starting the Consulting business for Wipro Infotech and additionally led key strategic business transformational initiatives for Telecom, Telecom Equipment, Infrastructure, and Government industry verticals to build newer services/business models.

Outsourcing company Mitie has spent £110.8 million to buy home care provider Enara, the fourth-largest home care businesses in the UK.

Enara, which is based in Surrey, employs 6,000 workers who are involved in giving care to the elderly.

The move comes as Mitie seek to expand in the growing healthcare market. Mitie said the acquisition would provide a “scalable platform to compete in the growing outsourced health and social care sector".

The government have proposed plans to provide NHS nurses and midwives with £100 million in funding for technology services and equipment in a bid to reduce paperwork and increase available patient time.

New technology could include handheld mobile devices and digital record entry devices in order to reduce paperwork. The fund would be loaned to the NHS, however only a small percentage would be repayable.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, said, ““Most nurses and midwives chose their profession because they wanted to spend time caring for patients, not filling out paperwork. New technology can make that happen”.