Industry news

Niall Sclater, the Open University's director of learning innovation, will shortly be taking a decision about whether to deploy Google Apps or Microsoft Live@edu.

He said that not only will the Open University be able to outsource email services for its 229,000 students, as well as its staff, taking away the maintenance burden from the university, but it will also be able to use the large document storage facilities offered by cloud computing systems.

"In the longer term I can see more and more functionality accruing to cloud-based services," said Sclater. "We are watching very closely and having conversations with Microsoft and Google as we make our decision about which of those systems to go for."

Defence, security and aviation solutions provider Patria and Fujitsu Finland have entered into an IT services agreement whereby Fujitsu will deliver IT infrastructure services to Patria. The service, which will be implemented following the Patja service model, covers availability and on-site support services at all Patria sites. Moreover, Fujitsu will assume responsibility for access management, workstation deliveries as well as support for printing and scanning services.

"Adherence to processes is very important in our operation which is why we require top-notch quality from our suppliers also. Our collaboration with Fujitsu first started in autumn 2008 and since then we have managed to achieve harmony and high quality in our co-operation. The expertise of the help desk, on-site support and other professionals as well as their solution-driven approach deserve our special thanks,” says CIO Sari Torkkola of Patria

IBM has announced a definitive agreement to acquire i2 to accelerate its business analytics initiatives and help clients in the public and private sectors address crime, fraud and security threats. Financial terms were not disclosed.

With more than 4,500 customers in 150 countries, i2 is a leading provider of intelligence analytics for crime and fraud prevention based in Cambridge, UK with U.S. headquarters in McLean, Va. i2’s clients span multiple sectors globally such as banking, defense, health care, insurance, law enforcement, national security and retail. i2 solutions are currently used by 12 of the top 20 retail banks globally and eight of the top 10 largest companies in the world.

Agilisys, one of the UK’s most innovative IT and business services providers, has annouced the company had been named preferred bidder by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham to provide a range of business start-up services as well as operational management of the new Barking Enterprise Centre due to open on time and on budget to the public in November of this year.

Agilisys will be responsible for all aspects of managing the centre, including facilities management of the 16,000 sq ft, 48-unit centre, marketing, and – most important – providing a number of services to help stimulate and support entrepreneurial growth in the Borough. Services aimed at supporting a high-growth, entrepreneurial culture will include business-support workshops, networking events, franchising advice, and one-to-one counselling sessions with experts in business coaching.

The services will be provided through Elevate East London, the innovative joint venture formed last year between Barking and Dagenham Council and Agilisys, which has fostering opportunity throughout the borough as one of its key objectives.

Oracle has accused Hewlett-Packard of fraud as the troubled relationship between the two technology titans plumbs new lows.

In court documents filed in California yesterday, Oracle claimed that HP concealed key facts during partnership negotiations, including that it was planning to hire Léo Apotheker, the former boss of SAP, the German IT giant.

Lambeth council has launched a procurement for a framework to support a shared service operation of an Oracle e-Business Suite for itself and several other London boroughs.

It is part of Programme Athena, under which a group of councils in the capital are moving towards common processes and procedures for HR, financials and procurement using a shared enterprise resource planning system.

The main purpose of the procurement is to contract an integrator to support the transition to a shared R12 version of the Oracle e-Business suite when support for the R11 version ends in November 2013.

Cisco has announced that it has acquired privately-held Versly. Based in San Francisco, Versly integrates collaboration capabilities via a plug-in into Microsoft Office applications, simplifying the way people work by enabling more effective collaboration around content in documents, spreadsheets, presentations and email.

"Collaboration is a top priority at Cisco. With this acquisition we're enhancing our collaboration offerings and improving the user experience by integrating social technologies within the business applications individuals and teams use at work," said Murali Sitaram, vice president and general manager, Collaboration Software Group (CSG), Cisco.

"Furthermore, the integration with Versly will drive productivity improvements for organizations and their knowledge workers, many of whom are among the 600 million Microsoft Office users."

Dell and VMware have jointly announced the availability of the Dell Cloud based on VMware vCloud® Datacenter Services designed to provide a seamless multi-tenant environment for running virtual systems. Dell is one of the first providers authorized to provide VMware vCloud Datacenter Services for enterprise-class, secure, public, private and hybrid clouds.

Theannouncement is the first public and hybrid cloud offering by Dell and supports Dell’s strategy to provide customers next-generation computing solutions composed of hardware, software and services. Dell will also offer consulting, application and infrastructure services to help companies transform their legacy IT environment and integrate these cloud services effectively in their business.

Dell and VMware will provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) choice for customer organizations, hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators and service providers. The offer provides automation, multi-level security and availability in order to manage on-demand capacity, workload scalability, or as a platform to respond to changing business needs more rapidly.

Dell and VMware have jointly announced the availability of the Dell Cloud based on VMware vCloud® Datacenter Services designed to provide a seamless multi-tenant environment for running virtual systems. Dell is one of the first providers authorized to provide VMware vCloud Datacenter Services for enterprise-class, secure, public, private and hybrid clouds.

Theannouncement is the first public and hybrid cloud offering by Dell and supports Dell’s strategy to provide customers next-generation computing solutions composed of hardware, software and services. Dell will also offer consulting, application and infrastructure services to help companies transform their legacy IT environment and integrate these cloud services effectively in their business.

Dell and VMware will provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) choice for customer organizations, hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators and service providers. The offer provides automation, multi-level security and availability in order to manage on-demand capacity, workload scalability, or as a platform to respond to changing business needs more rapidly.

British supermarket giant Tesco has announced a 45 million US dollars (£27.4 million) deal with a US firm to manage its IT network.

New York-state based firm CA Technologies will monitor the IT network for Tesco Group, including Tesco Bank, Tesco.com and Tesco Mobile.

The company will deal with a wide range of IT work from health and performance of its supply chain, including desktop computers, servers, networks, credit card transactions, suppliers and supply orders.

CA Technologies has 472,000 staff working in more than 5,000 stores across 14 countries.

Mike McNamara, Tesco's chief information officer, said: "Our systems infrastructure needs to work for our IT team in order to do their job for our customers, our colleagues and our suppliers."