Industry news

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has stated that the £4.93m G-Cloud framework stands to save the public sector a substantial £340m. The saving estimation came in a written response from Maude to an enquiry about the costs from Michael Dugher, MP for Barnsley East.

CloudStore, a catalogue of public cloud services for the public sector’s use, was launched in February of this year. The catalogue comprises of 257 suppliers, 50% of which are SMEs – in keeping with the government’s pledge to move away from the major vendors and enter into more contracts with SMEs.

However, newly appointed director of the G-Cloud, Denise McDonagh said that the second iteration of the contract will also include some bigger names such as Amazon and Salesforce.

The National Outsourcing Association has announced Wipro Technologies’ association with the National Outsourcing Association Awards (NOAAs) which is taking place in London in October.

This is the 9th year of the NOAAs, the only annual UK awards ceremony for the outsourcing industry, and is set to take place on Thursday 25th of October 2012 at Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, London.

The NOAAs are firmly established as the highlight of the outsourcing industry calendar, attracting over 500 delegates annually and recognise the efforts of companies and individuals, demonstrating world-class technology and outsourcing best practices, and this year has a record number of categories.

Martyn Hart, NOA Chairman said: “The NOAAs are growing year on year. They are one of the most prestigious awards within the IT and Outsourcing Industry. Last year’s awards had more entrants than ever. We are delighted that Wipro have decided to come on board with their support for the awards this year. It is clear evidence that companies recognise the value of being associated with the NOA.”

Rahul Kadavakolu, Head – Global Field Marketing & Branding said: “Wipro are delighted to be part of the NOAAs 2012. The Awards bring together the entire IT and Outsourcing industry and provides a great platform for both clients and service providers to showcase the best in class consulting and technology solutions. Our aim is to recognise the best in the business through our support for these awards.”

The National Audit Office today published its report on assurance for major government projects, including the introduction of large IT systems, the construction of ships and helicopters and major changes to how services are delivered in support of government changes to the central assurance system.

The report details 205 projects in the Government Major Project Portfolio, totalling a combined whole-life cost of £376 billion, and annual cost of £14.6 billion- 39 of those projects have a delivery confidence rating of 'red' or 'amber/red'.

Martyn Hart, Chairman National Outsourcing Association said: “With the stakes of £376bn at stake the government needs to quickly prioritise its focus, as an alarming 1/5 of its major projects are in grave danger. Collecting and sharing information on what makes major projects go wrong – and what makes them go right – would be an enormous step to the government saving taxpayer’s cash. Knowing which deals are working is one thing, but government departments still need to do more in terms of sharing learnings with each other. Studying the BS11000 standard in Collaboration would be a good place to start eradicating a culture of persistent ‘wheel reinvention.”

A new ad released yesterday for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign condemns Republican candidate Mitt Romney of outsourcing jobs and slams him for keeping money in foreign bank accounts.

The ad asserts that Romney "shipped American jobs to places like Mexico and China" whilst lead at the investment firm Bain Capital, as well as stating that Romney "outsourced state jobs to a call center in India" when he was governor of Massachusetts.

The campaign has spent the considerable sum of $780,000 to place the ad in the three crucial swing states Virginia, Ohio and Iowa.

The Obama ad is in response to a spot released last week by the conservative political group Americans for Prosperity which suggested money from Obama's $814 billion economic stimulus package went to overseas green-energy companies.

Xerox is to deploy a managed print services (MPS) strategy for Boeing, providing the aerospace leader and innovator with a streamlined approach to managing documents on the ground in Boeing’s U.S. offices.

The Enterprise Print Services contract is to last 6 years and will see Xerox consolidate devices and develop a strategy for the most cost-effective, environmentally friendly approach to help meet environmental sustainability goals to reduce paper use, power use and landfill waste.

Ted Colbert, vice president, Boeing IT Infrastructure said “This partnership will strengthen our ability to provide best-in-class print services to our employees and customers. Additionally, the newer technologies and improved services Xerox provides will help reduce IT costs while maintaining our commitment to an environmentally friendly workplace.”

Visa has confirmed that its new digital wallet service, V.me, will launch to an initial group of consumers in the UK by autumn 2012. The announcement by Visa is the latest in a number of contactless payment systems.

Visa will be using WorldPay as a key development partner in the delivery of the V.me service in the UK. Further development and launch partners in each market, including banks and retailers, are to be announced soon.

The service will be made available through Visa’s member banks and will initially be accessed through the internet browser on a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Consumers will be able to put multiple cards into the wallet.

Mariano Dima, Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing Solutions at Visa Europe, said: "V.me sits at the heart of Visa’s future of payments. For the first time, consumers and retailers will have a streamlined online checkout experience through an acceptance mark that offers industry-leading security and, when a Visa card is used in a V.me wallet, the same protection and rights that come with any Visa card transaction.”

The news follows Barclays move to extend the Pingit service to non-Barclays customers and O2’s Wallet application allowing users to shop or send money via their mobile.

SAP has replaced its UK Managing Director. Fred Hessabi will act as the interim MD after predecessor Steve Winter occupied the position for just six months.

Hessabi, based in Paris, also serves as General Manager of Continental Europe and is responsible for all SAP operations in the continent. Winter is still with SAP and will now be in charge of a new business HR operations team.

“We will continue to structure our business around the five market categories that are critical to our combined success: mobile, database and technology, analytics, cloud and applications,” said an SAP spokesperson.

“As part of this structure and market focus, we have recognised the incredible opportunity available to us regarding SAP’s line of business HR solutions and as a result, Steve Winter has been appointed to lead the newly created line of business human resources sales team.”

A Welsh health board has become the first NHS organisation to be issued a monetary penalty by the The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) following a serious data breach.

The Aneurin Bevan Health Board (ABHB) has been hit with a penalty of £70,000 after sensitive data - containing explicit details relating to a patient’s health - was sent to the wrong person in March last year.

The error occurred when a consultant emailed a letter to a secretary for formatting, but did not include enough information and also misspelt the patient name. The errors led to the report being sent to a former patient with a very similar name.

Stephen Eckersley, the ICO’s Head of Enforcement said: “The health service holds some of the most sensitive information available. The damage and distress caused by the loss of a patient’s medical record is obvious, therefore it is vital that organisations across this sector make sure their data protection practices are adequate.

“Aneurin Bevan Health Board failed to have suitable checks in place to keep the sensitive information they handled secure. This case could have been extremely distressing to the individual and their family and may have been prevented if the information had been checked prior to it being sent.

“We are pleased that the Health Board has now committed to taking action to address the problems highlighted by our investigation; however organisations across the health service must stand up and take notice of this decision if they want to avoid future enforcement action from the ICO.”

Microsoft has invested $300 million in eReader firm Barnes and Noble, ushering the beginning of a new ‘strategic partnership’. The partnership consists of a 17.6 percent equity stake for Microsoft and will 'accelerate the transition to e-reading'.

The investment will be primarily used to set up a new subsidiary currently known as Newco, aiming to bring together the digital and College businesses of Barnes & Noble. According to Microsoft, one of the first benefits for customers will be a NOOK application for Windows 8, which will extend the reach of Barnes & Noble’s digital bookstore by providing one of the world’s largest digital catalogues of e-Books, magazines and newspapers to hundreds of millions of Windows customers.

“The formation of Newco and our relationship with Microsoft are important parts of our strategy to capitalize on the rapid growth of the NOOK business, and to solidify our position as a leader in the exploding market for digital content in the consumer and education segments,” said William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble. “Microsoft’s investment in Newco, and our exciting collaboration to bring world-class digital reading technologies and content to the Windows platform and its hundreds of millions of users, will allow us to significantly expand the business.”

A new pension scheme for Britain’s civil servants has been launched today. My Civil Service Pension (MyCSP). MyCSP "the first 'John Lewis style' business created from a central government service", according to the Cabinet Office.

The scheme has been launched by Francis Maude MP and former Cabinet Minister Lord Hutton will become the first chairman of the scheme. MyCSP will provide employees with a 25% ownership stake, board level representation and profit share.

Maude said: "We no longer face a binary choice between public services delivered by state monopoly and straight privatisation. That is why I am a passionate supporter of mutual, which will help Britain grow a more diverse economy.

"As a mutual, MyCSP will deliver better services for its pension scheme members, millions of pounds of savings for the taxpayer and a real sense of ownership for employees over what they do.

"We are transforming a neglected back-office operation into a new competitive and responsible business - the rest of the world is watching.”