Industry news

Microsoft is set to absorb a loss of $6.2 billion this quarter due to the impact of low returns from the 2007 purchase of aQuantive.

The marketing company aQuantive was purchased for around $6.3 billion which ranked as the largest ever acquisition at the time, in order to improve Microsoft’s online marketing capabilities.

A statement issues by Microsoft said: “the acquisition did not accelerate growth to the degree anticipated, contributing to the write down,".

Sony has announced the purchase of gaming cloud platform Gaikai for £242 million. The finalisation of the deal had been rumoured for several weeks.

The company provides cloud gaming services enabling PC titles to be run through the internet and streamed to the user without the use of powerful software.

Sony’s implementation of the software has yet to be announced, but it is likely to be integrated into the release of PlayStation 4.

RBS has denied media reports that IT workers in India had made errors that had resulted in the disruption of IT services for NatWest and RBS customers.

In a report to MPs, RBS stated that it had been in fact Edinburgh based IT staff that had been responsible for the failure.

RBS chief, Stephen Hester wrote: “The initial reviews we have carried out indicate that the problem was created when maintenance on systems, which are managed and operated by our team in Edinburgh, caused an error in our batch scheduler.

Dyfed Powys Police, the first emergency services organisation to employ Cisco Unified Contact Centre Enterprise (UCCE) technology, have reduced call times, while helping to deal with large numbers of calls.

The Cisco technology allows operators access to real-time information and have reportedly allowed for faster response times.

Mark Hall, head of network services at Dyfed Powys Police, said: “The new system is truly state of the art. The implementation process was fast and seamless."

Apple is looking to put in $1 billion over the next ten years into a Reno, NV project that will include a data center dedicated to iCloud and a separately-located business and purchasing development.

According to online postings from city and county officials uncovered by the Reno Gazette Journal, the deal was months in the making and encompasses both a downtown Reno data center and "business park" as well as a recently-proposed separate 2,200 acre data farm near Sparks, NV.

The developers behind the massive undertaking, dubbed Project Jonathan, said that while the Reno facilities have been under planning for years, Apple only approached local and state officials about the Sparks center earlier this year.

Delta Air Lines will start offering in-flight WiFi service on international flights early next year, the Atlanta-based carrier said Thursday.

Delta already has WiFi available on its entire domestic fleet of 550 mainline aircraft. The expansion to the international fleet will involve 150 aircraft, including transoceanic Boeing 757. By 2015, the company expects to operate about 1,000 WiFi-equipped aircraft in its worldwide fleet.

HMRC's accounts for 2011/12 showed it overpaid around £2-£2.5 billion in tax credits and underpaid up to £290 million as a result of fraud and error, said the report by a National Audit Office.

A target of reducing the level of fraud and error to 5 per cent of tax credit entitlements was missed. Taxes totalling almost £5.2 billion were written

The chairman of the influential House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge, said she was shocked by ''the sheer scale of waste and mismanagement'' at HMRC

The Government Procurement Service (GPS) has awarded its long-awaited IT hardware and solutions framework, which has a predicted value of up to £4bn over a maximum of four years.

According to the Cabinet Office, the framework is intended to allow the public sector to get better value from its purchases of commoditised hardware, such as desktops, laptops, tablets, servers, printers and the most commonly used peripherals.

It said the framework has a "good mix" of suppliers, including original equipment manufacturers, SMEs and resellers.

UK bank shares have jumped following last night's announcement of a £100bn stimulus package for the UK economy.

The Bank of England and the government are set to provide billions of pounds of cheap credit to banks which they can then lend to companies, in an effort to insulate the economy from the impact of the eurozone crisis.

The new measures will see the banks given funding from the Bank of England below market rates, providing they sustain or increase lending to non-financial businesses.

Morocco and MEDZ Sourcing have been named “Offshoring Destination of the Year” by the European Outsourcing Association (EOA), which presented its 2012 awards on Wednesday evening at the Law Society in London.

The award recognises Morocco’s attractiveness as a platform for providing business, information and communications technology services to European organisations seeking cost competitive solutions for deploying their sourcing strategies. Morocco beat five other destinations shortlisted for the award including South Africa, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Egypt.

The EOA judges cited Morocco’s success in establishing an attractive nearshore outsourcing industry, with strong backing of testimonials from European companies, such as Dell, Logica, Deloitte, HP and Attento, who are benefitting from doing business from Morocco.

“Being chosen as EOA’s Offshoring Destination of the Year is a great testament to the daily contributions of the 55,000 women and men working in Morocco’s world class outsourcing centres”, stated Abderrafie Hanouf, Director General of MEDZ Sourcing, operator of dedicated business parks including Casanearshore Park, Rabat Technopolis and Fès Shore, which opened officially on 20th of June.

MEDZ Sourcing, was cited along with Morocco as recipient of the 2012 EOA Offshoring Destination of the Year Award.