Industry news

A post through the Government’s G-Cloud blog has detailed that the contract allowing the public sector to purchase via G-Cloud framework has been extended.

The option for purchasing the framework has now been extended until 13 November 2012 in order to allow Whitehall to deal with supplier and customer queries.

The post states that queries included feedback “about the basic philosophy and mechanics of G-Cloud.”

Business secretary Vince Cable has announced an increase in funding for the UK aerospace industry with investment of £120 million detailed.

Cable said that the backing is intended to modernise development in areas such as green technology while maintaining the industry as the 2nd largest aerospace industry producer in the world. The funding comes in a time of increased demand and expansion, with foreign development driving overseas export potential.

Cable commented that: "I don't feel at all embarrassed by saying that this sector is one of our winners. There is nothing wrong with the government getting behind successful sectors in the economy."

A report released by IDC shows an expected valuation of the analytics software market to reach $50.7 billion by 2016.

The report detailed a forecasted increase in growth of 9.8 percent year on year. The report detailed that analytics software in data warehousing grew by 15.2 percent last year while applications and business intelligence grew by over 13 percent.

Dan Vesse, vice president at IDC's Business Analytics Solutions, said: "The demand for business analytics solutions is exposing the previously minor issue of the shortage of highly skilled IT and analytics staff".

The Bank of England (BoE) is preparing to deploy a risk assessment IT system by the end of 2012 in order to identify risks in the financial sector.

The new system is expect to cost near £2.5 million and would provide BoE with scores categorising companies operating in the finance sector.

Those accepting the tender will be reviewed by both the BoE and FSA with the winner receiving a three year contract with the option of extension.

General Motors (GM) are looking at moving outsourced projects in-house according to reports.

GM has past history in carrying out large scale outsourcing in areas including IT services with over 90 percent of projects outsourced.

Martyn Hart, Chairman of the National Outsourcing Association, commented: "These services are arranged according to outsourcing principles. This internal company will have the governance models, SLAs and relationship management procedures that an outsourcing deal has. The only thing missing is the contract."

For the fifth year running Accenture have been named best outsourcing provider according to rankings run by the IAOP.

The rankings which detail the top 100 outsourcing providers included Infosys at second place while Wipro, Capgemini, and CSC all featured in the top ten. Rankings for best outsourcing advisor were also released which saw KPMG take the top spot.

The rankings also revealed that the outsourcing market had increased by six percent in 2012 with a average revenue for providers featured in the top 100 growing to $1.6 billion.

Salesforce.com have announced that they have acquired the Canadian based GoInstant which specialises in shared-browsing .

GoInstant provides shared-browsing for customers which runs via browsers without the need for add-ons and can be used by support and sales teams. The acquisition comes on the back of a recent splurge of SME buy-outs by the database giant.

Marcel LeBrun, senior vice president, Salesforce.com, said: "We believe there is tremendous potential for social enterprises to benefit from what the GoInstant has built, particularly when combined with salesforce.com's industry-leading social, mobile, and open apps and technology".

Free mobile broadband is being offered through the Three network if users watch video adverts.

Users have to purchase a SIM for a small charge and are then able to use mobile broadband through credit from watching adverts. Currently 2.5 minutes of adverts seen equates to 500mb of free data usage.

The service is being offered by Samba who stipulate that website visits may be tracked with such information often proving useful to marketing firms.

Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust has employed Big Data analytics and intelligence in order to gain greater insight.

The increased insight has allowed the Trust to reduce numbers of appointments that are missed by people as well as using analytics to move focus on to areas of concern.

Michael Meers, CIO of Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, commented: “MedeAnalytics provided the opportunity to move away from spreadsheet-based reporting to a web-based platform that was more flexible, easier to use and had more scope for expansion.”

Boeing has announced an order valued at £4.6 billion from Air Lease Corporation (ALC) at Farnborough air show.

The order consists of 75 737 Max short-haul jets which takes the total order of 737 jets to 539 which still lags behind orders for Airbus A320neo orders.

Airbus currently outperforms Boeing with over 1,300 orders for the new A320 however the company is expected to close the lead with multiple potential buyers of new craft in 2012.