Industry news

Local homes and businesses to benefit from access to ultra-fast broadband

Homes and businesses in Deddington, Oxfordshire are set to benefit from the UK’s fastest available broadband speeds after BT announced the village will be the first pilot location for its fibre-only exchange programme.

This programme will explore the opportunities arising from a future fibre-only world in which services over copper are replaced entirely with next generation voice and broadband services running over fibre optic cables.

It is a long term programme given that copper based services are expected to be available for many years yet.

Sean Williams, Group Strategy Director of BT said: “Fresh advances in technology are pushing the boundaries for new services on an almost daily basis. This is an important pilot which will help the industry better understand the opportunities arising from a fibre-only world in which traditional copper will be replaced by the super-fast capabilities of fibre-optic cable.”

Oracle has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire ClearTrial, a leading provider of cloud-based Clinical Trial Operations (CTO) applications that make the planning, sourcing, and tracking of clinical projects and financial performance faster and more accurate.

ClearTrial's activity-based costing solutions use embedded intelligence based on deep industry expertise to help life sciences companies manage the rising costs and increasing complexities of bringing new therapies to market.

MDB system launched to simplify billing and meet demands for pay-per-use and agile tariff changes

Logica, in cooperation with SAP AG, Software AG and DigitalRoute, today launched a Mass Data Billing (MDB) system that enables organisations to increase revenue while dramatically reducing their total cost of doing business by deploying a usage-based billing approach.

The MDB system is available via a multi-tenant, software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, through which users access the system remotely over the internet. It aims to solve the many unique billing and compensation challenges – such as issues related to mass data collection, transactional volumes and varying tariffs – faced by clients in industries including telecommunications, utilities, transportation and logistics.

The European Commission proposed, on 28 March, to establish a European cyber crime centre to help member states detect illegal online activities, starting with fraudulent banking transactions. The objective is to guarantee an open, free and safe internet in the European Union.

The proposal has to be adopted by the management body of Europol, the European Police Office. The centre will be set up at Europol (the Netherlands), where it is expected to become operational in January 2013, employ up to 50 experts and have an annual budget of €3.6 million.

“Criminals are getting more and more competent,” commented Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. Their illegal activities “disrupt the lives of consumers and Europeans” shopping online or participating in social networks.

Three Hampshire local authorities have created a new partnership, sharing IT systems to help make local service delivery more flexible and efficient amid unprecedented challenges to public sector finances.

Following twelve months of joint planning, the collaboration has now been approved, and the agreement means that Hampshire County Council, East Hampshire District Council and Havant Borough Council will now form a true 'partnership' with joint management arrangements, sharing risk, investment, strategy and benefits around IT.

European and US businesses are expected to outsource around 750,000 jobs to overseas destinations over the next four years. However offshoring could see a sharp reduction during this decade according to research from The Hackett Group.

The research suggests that while jobs in IT, finance, human resources and procurement will be outsourced in large numbers to locations such as India, this level is expected to level off or decline by after 2014.

Michel Janssen, chief research officer at The Hackett Group, said that he expected that the economic advantages offered by offshoring would begin to dry up, “a decade from now the landscape will have fundamentally changed, and the flow of business services jobs to India and other low-cost countries will have ceased."

US financial services company Cowen International is to construct a technology centre in Belfast, which will create up to 50 high paying jobs.

Financial services and ICT sectors have been identified by development agencies as being important drivers for economic growth.

Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland's enterprise minister, said: “Subject to satisfactory growth and development, the project could create up to 50 jobs, which will pay salaries more than double the private sector average and will contribute more than £2m a year to the economy”.

Government agencies are faced with tight IT budgets over the next 12 months as the US federal budget faces reductions.

February saw the creation of a federal IT budget for 2013 that reduced spending by 0.7 percent, with priorities focused on cyber security and increased progress on interaction between agencies and businesses.

Bill Loomis, managing director of IT focused investment banking firm Stifel Nicolaus, said that despite short term reductions, he expected increased IT spending by the government in the coming years, as IT analytics and mobile device capabilities were expanded upon.

The Department of Transport have announced 13 firms that are in the bidding process as the next operators of Great Western, Thameslink and Essex Thameside rail franchises.

FirstGroup has been announced as a bidder for all three rail franchises, Stagecoach and National Express for two and Go-Ahead as a bidder for one. New operators are required to provide improved services and greater accessibility in tickets purchasing.

Theresa Villiers, Rail Minister, said: "The Government is engaged in the biggest programme of refranchising since the privatisation of the railways."

A new deal has been finalised between the Cabinet Office and Oracle which is expected to save the government a minimum £75 million by 2015.

The government currently spends over £200 million on software licensing deals with Oracle. The new agreement will see departments purchasing through the Government Procurement Service, who will then purchase software directly from Oracle.

Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, said: "The days of the government paying different prices for the same goods or services are over. We will no longer sign inflexible contracts that tie the taxpayer into unfavourable terms.