Industry news

A new ‘Cyber Security for Business’ programme has been launched, which will include UK businesses receiving advice on how to defend against and reduce risk of cyberattacks

The new programme is expected to be the vanguard of a new governmental policy to play a proactive role in increasing the security of UK businesses against IT risks.

A report released at the start of last year placed the annual cost of cybercrime to the UK economy at £27 billion. There have also been reports of increasing state funded cyber espionage against UK businesses.

The European Union has given the go ahead to a joint venture programme between Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere to provide mobile payments.

The joint venture programme was announced in March in order to develop a mobile payment solution in order to compete competitively against the likes of Google.

The decision comes after an investigation into the effects of the programme on competition.

The EC’s vice-president, Joaquín Almunia, said: “The proposed joint venture is one of several initiatives to develop the sector in Europe.”

The Irish department of environment have signed a contract with Polycom, which will see the deployment of a unified communications service.

The move comes as the department seeks to reduce costs under economic pressures while modernising in preparation for Ireland’s 2013 European Union presidency.

Paul McDonald, principal officer for ICT and communications at the department said: “The increased collaboration has been hugely beneficial as meetings can now be done over a video call.”

Microsoft is preparing to increase its presence in China by bringing in an additional 1,000 staff to the country.

The company is looking to expand research and development (R&D) within the country and has, according to Zhang Ya-Qin, chairman of Microsoft's Asia-Pacific R&D group, increased its (R&D) development budget by 15 percent.

Reuters have reported that Microsoft will also look to increase other areas including sales, marketing and services.

Microsoft is preparing to increase its presence in China by bringing in an additional 1,000 staff to the country.

The company is looking to expand research and development (R&D) within the country and has, according to Zhang Ya-Qin, chairman of Microsoft's Asia-Pacific R&D group, increased its (R&D) development budget by 15 percent.

Reuters have reported that Microsoft will also look to increase other areas including sales, marketing and services.

Mobile giants Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom have both moved to heavily invest in technology start-ups.

Telefonica has created a venture capital fund network of €300 million, known as Amérigo, described by the company as being aimed at “new businesses that are innovating in the digital space”.

Deutsche Telekom have also rearranged there venture capital arm T-Venture, as it moves to increase speed of investments, as well as moving to buy majority stakes in tech start-ups.

The NHS and CSC have reached a new agreement seeing an end to the contract to provide patent record systems to 160 NHS trusts.

The new agreement will save the Department of Health £1 billion, while CSC will receive £68 million, for providing record services under the Lorenzo programme to 10 trusts.

The new agreement announced today will allow the NHS to deploy other care service systems in the future, independent of volume.

CSC stated that the agreement offered, “substantial flexibility to NHS trusts in their choice of electronic care records solutions while affording CSC the opportunity to expand and accelerate its marketing of the Lorenzo solution to NHS trusts across England”.

After receiving heavy criticism from high level individuals and organisations, Salesforce.com has dropped its application to trademark the term ‘social enterprise’.

The company has also stated that it will remove the term from future marketing material. The company received criticism of its use of the term, in describing the use of social media to link businesses with consumers and employees, contrary to the commonly held understanding of ‘social enterprise’ to describe businesses involved in community interest projects, rather than being aimed at maximising profit.

In a Salesforce.com blog in August, the company said: “Salesforce.com does not own or intend to own the trademark rights for the term social enterprise within the nonprofit sector, and is not seeking to restrict descriptive uses of the phrase by others in philanthropy”.

Microsoft and Nokia are preparing to launch the new Windows phone device tomorrow, as analysts predict a make-or-break moment for the device.

The timing of the release is close to the expected launch time of the new iPhone of September 12th, which could threaten to steal the limelight away from the Windows phone.

Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight, said "If it fails to get that reaction at the time of the announcement that does not bode well for the future of the portfolio."

Tesco has completed the acquisition of ebooks supplier Mobcast, the most recent digital purchase of late.

The move comes at the supermarket looks to increase its competitive edge against Amazon. Amazon has been recently linked to rumoured interest in grocery expansion.

Tesco has recently expanded its digital portfolio with digital-movie streaming service Blinkbox and internet radio service WE7 alongside Mobcast.