Industry news

Amazon looks to continue to reduce the price of its cloud-computing service after a 37 percent reduction in price at the beginning of March.

Amazon’s move to reduce Cloud services costs has put pressure on Microsoft to do the same with their competing Azure Cloud services, as the two companies compete over the market share of Cloud service users.

Both Microsoft and Amazon have suffered from reduced profit margins, with Amazon stock falling nearly 25 percent from October, while Microsoft is under scrutiny from investors over its high cost position in the markets.

Collin Gillis, an analyst from BGG, said: “It’s a commodity business-these are ubiquitous services where you win with massive scale, and the way that you achieve massive scale is to lower the price.”

PayPal, the U.S online payment Ebay subsidiary plans to enter into overseas payment markets in China and India. PayPal is expected to meet strong competition from established online payment companies in China according to analysts.

The company is already used to facilitate cross border transactions but is now looking to make its services available domestically, with the Chinese market representing 193 million e-commerce users.

Dickson Seow, PayPal spokesman, said today: "We are currently applying for a domestic payment license in China and are intending to do the same in India in the future."

Wednesdays Budget is expected to see the scrapping of the 50p tax for top earners, and the introduction of measures for low and middle income families.

The Budget is also predicted to see the introduction of plans to reduce the salaries of public sector workers in poorer parts of the country. The proposed ‘tycoon tax’ introduced by the Liberal Democrat is expected to be discounted.

George Osborne said on the Andrew Marr Show: "The bulk of the measures in the budget are going to be targeted at working people on low and middle incomes. That is our priority."

Investcorp Corp, a Bahraini investment manager company, which is looking to spend over $400 million on stakes, has said today that it has acquired education firm GL Education Group.

The Bahraini investment company, who had previously floated such luxury brands as Tiffany & Co Gucci, paid an undisclosed amount to debt capital and private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, for the education group.

GL Education Group, previously named as Granada Learning Group, specialises in providing educational tools and programs to children.

BT has announced a contract with NATO’s Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), which is responsible for delivering technology in support of NATO’s global operations. The contract provides NATO with a communications network, connecting more than 70 locations, spread across the NATO nations and the Balkans. The five-year agreement is valued at €47 million.

Ethernet Connect will lay the foundation for a highly-secure wide area network (WAN) in support of NATO’s missions and decision-makers around the world. BT will also supply the NC3A-organisation with the hardware to accomplish this.

Georges D’hollander, General Manager at NC3A, said: “Information - and the ability to share it rapidly across a coalition - plays a paramount role in 21st century operations, as well as political decision-making. To underpin this we need a flexible, future-proof network. BT has, over the years, developed an in-depth understanding of the specific challenges we face. Their BT Connect portfolio is particularly well designed to support our communications needs.”

Cisco has announced its intent to acquire NDS Group Ltd., a leading provider of video software and content security solutions that enable service providers, and media companies to securely deliver and monetise new video entertainment experiences.

The acquisition of NDS will expand Cisco's ability to transform how service providers and media companies worldwide deliver next-generation video experiences to subscribers.

NDS uses the combination of a software platform and services to create differentiated video offerings for service providers that enable subscribers to intuitively view, search and navigate digital content anytime, anywhere and on any device.

Hampshire and Oxfordshire county councils are planning an ICT partnership that would see them supporting each other in the use of different systems.

A memorandum of understanding is already in place and the move will go ahead if it wins approval at Oxfordshire's cabinet meeting on 20 December.

The first step is expected to be Hampshire providing supporting the other council's SAP system when its current service contract with Serco ends in late 2012. This is predicted to save the council £1m over three years.

Wipro Technologies, the Global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited, has announced the launch of its NextGen Care Management solution for the US healthcare market, specifically aimed at primary care physicians and healthcare providers.

Wipro's application is built on Force.com, salesforce.com's social enterprise platform for employee facing social apps and, is uniquely positioned as a cloud based care management services and adopts the core principles of patient centricity, coordinated healthcare, interoperability, mobility, and outcome to better manage chronic, post-acute and elderly patient population.

General physicians and specialists can now experience continuity of information through a longitudinal view of patient's medical history, assessment and clinical reports. Primary care physicians and specialists can also form Medical Care panels, online, to be deeply engaged with the patients to maintain long term relationships and facilitate care across the continuum.

CSG has won a five-year, $9 million outsourcing contract with the Northern Territory Government-owned insurance and banking firm TIO.

CSG will handle all of TIO's infrastructure, networking and voice systems, including Windows-based systems and IBM AS 400 servers.

The deal will allow CSG to engage in both of its strengths — printer management and ICT services — according to the company.

"By outsourcing to a supplier with greater capability and skills than what we have in-house, TIO can improve our IT systems in a cost-effective and sustainable way," TIO general manager corporate services Jeff Wright said in a statement.

The contract to provide Wi-Fi access to London Underground stations has been awarded to Virgin Media.

The mobile internet service will be rolled out initially to 80 Underground stations by July in preparation for the Olympics, and to 120 stations by the end of the year.

The service will be free to Virgin Media customers after the Olympic Games, and will provide limited free content from the Tfl and full mobile internet to non-Virgin users via a pay-as-you-go plan.

London mayor Boris Johnson, said: "Millions of passengers will now be able to connect to their work, friends or access the latest news and travel information whilst on the move."