Industry news

The EU has revealed three proposals aimed at developing the IT market.

The stimulus proposals include improving infrastructure coordination, regularise and regulate online payments processes and enforce e-invoicing for public service contracts.

The proposals are designed to develop and standardise the IT marketplace within the public sector while setting the trend for the private market.

T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS have announced a joint merger as “the leading value carrier in the U.S. wireless marketplace," the deal has seen MetroPCS pay $1.5 billion for T-Mobile capital.

The new company will be jointly owned by MetroPCS with 26 percent of shares and Deutsche Telekom with 74 percent.

The merger will increase network coverage of the company and increase its presence in the wireless provider market.

MetroPCS chairman Roger Linquist, said: “"Ultimately, this combination will create a stronger wireless provider nationally with broader value offerings to better serve our combined customers and drive shareholder value".

Private NHS contracts worth £250,000,000 were signed this week according to Labour's health spokesman Andy Burnham in a speech during the Labour party conference.

Burnham said that the Government had moved to a “market in healthcare” with increased privatisation of the NHS, he citied contracts including Arriva non-emergency ambulance services and Parkwood Healthcare’s patient advocacy groups services contract.

Burnham voiced concern that privatisation had seen "care being fragmented and services becoming disjointed".

FirstGroup has experienced sharp losses from the scrapping of the West Coast rail contract with a fall in shares of 21 percent and £240 million lost in value from the company.

The emergence of serious flaws from the DfT procurement process, removed FirstGroup's position to take over from Virgin in the running of the service in December.

The procurement failure is expected to cost the taxpayer £40 million in compensation to the four shortlisted bidders.

Indian based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which specialises in IT services, will provide support services to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

The DBS which along with the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority, prevents unsuitable persons from working within a variety of roles including children and other vulnerable groups.

the Public and Commercial Services Union revealed that “the Home Office has announced its ‘intention to award’ the DBS contract to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The Home Office is currently finalising discussions with TCS on the implementations plans of the five-year contract which will start in 2013.”

IT services and consulting giant Cognizant and Mobile banking company Monitise have announced the creation of a global alliance to promote mobile engagement within finical institutions.

The alliance is designed to help global financial institutions to respond to the movement towards mobile financial services.

Alastair Lukies, Chief Executive of Monitise Group, said: “Our strategy involves extending our Monitise Enterprise Platform to the world’s leading banks and payment companies to help them improve and expand their customer relationships.”

Prasad Chintamaneni, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Cognizant’s Financial Services practice commented that, “By combining Cognizant’s extensive expertise and experience in delivering innovative domain and technology solutions to financial institutions with Monitise’s acclaimed platform-based mobile solutions, we are well positioned to help our clients develop compelling mobile banking, payments, and commerce solutions”.

The contract for the running of the West Coast main line has been cancelled, after significant flaws emerged in the franchise process.

This announcement will mean that no franchise will be awarded the railway contract after Virgin’s current contract expires on the 9th of December, with state-owned Directly Operated Railways to run the service instead.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has indicated that key staff involved in the process will be suspended, after flaws emerged in how bidding risks were evaluated.

Such flaws have been linked to the models associated with costs and levers associated with service delivery. A failure in applying effective benchmarking from within the Civil Service resulted in the creation of a untenable contract.

Martyn Hart, Chairman, National Outsourcing Association said: "Another government outsourcing fiasco, developed by people who appear not to understand outsourcing at its most basic level. You’d think that the Department for Transport would understand what drives costs on a railway, but it would seem not. "

DfT spokesman, Philip Rutnam, said “The errors exposed by our investigation are deeply concerning. They show a lack of good process and a lack of proper quality assurance.”

A YouGov survey commissioned by software company Citrix has revealed that nearly half of all businesses who adopted flexible working practices during the Olympic Games plan to continue the practice.

48 percent of businesses said that flexible working will become more important in the next five years, with 56 percent saying that flexibility was needed to attract talent.

47 percent of businesses surveyed said that they planned to keep flexible working or reintroduce the strategy in the near future.

Intel’s investment arm Intel Capital has announced plans to carry out a global IT investment programme, valued at $40 million.

Asia is to be a major investment target for the programme, with the technology giant investing in five Asian based companies.

The investment programme is designed to promote the employment of microprocessors, with acquisitions and mergers aimed at long term rather than short term investments.

Tesco have reported a 12 percent fall in group pre-tax profits, as the supermarket giant reports the first profit drop in 15 years.

While UK sales have risen over the last three months, decline in Europe and Asia has led to a reduction in overall group profits.

Rival Sainsbury’s have reported a 1.7 percent increase in sales with expansion plans having been funded by non-food sales.