Industry news

HP Enterprise Services has announced a new service to help enterprises and governments gain control of multivendor service environments, improving overall IT performance and quality while optimizing costs.

Most large enterprises combine services and technologies from multiple providers to deliver services to their end users. These multivendor delivery models challenge IT leadership to ensure efficient workflow, timely problem resolution and adequate service-level performance. The inability to effectively integrate service delivery in these multivendor delivery models can lead to poor IT performance and higher costs.

By improving supplier management and the handoffs between suppliers and internal delivery teams, the new HP Multi-Supplier Integration (MSI) Service helps chief information officers (CIOs) improve overall IT performance and manage multivendor environment complexities while keeping costs in check.

With HP as the single service integration and management layer, clients can focus their efforts on innovation and process improvement. As a single point of contact, the HP MSI Service drives effective supplier collaboration, rapid problem resolution and workflow process improvements. In the event of a service interruption, the MSI Service provides comprehensive diagnostics, accountability and timely restoration of services.

“Clients are embracing hybrid delivery models that increase complexity with traditional and new ‘as a service’ offerings from multiple suppliers,” said Rhonda Vetere, vice president, Enterprise Service Management, HP Enterprise Services. “The HP MSI Service provides the tools, processes and personnel to effectively manage multi-supplier delivery and the governance to drive continuous service quality improvement.”

Horizon Power, has penned a three-year contract with Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand to provide end-to-end ICT infrastructure support.

The company is focused on generating, procuring, distributing and retailing electricity in the state’s regional areas, with about 42,500 customers spread over an area of approximately 2.3 million square kilometres.

Under the deal, Fujitsu will provide end-to-end infrastructure support in WA, for staff and contractors across the state including service desk; change, problem, asset and configuration management; server, storage, database and network support; capacity management; support for e-mail and Citrix applications; VoIP telephone system support; end-user device support, both remote and desk-side; meeting room technologies; applications packaging; service delivery management and reporting.

Horizon Power general manager knowledge and technology, James Deacon, said he was looking for an outsourcing partner who understood the company’s IT requirements and could support its delivery of assets to the community.

“The successful partner needed to have a proven service delivery capability and the ability to leverage processes and expertise from a national and global pool of resources, from a local base, allowing Horizon Power to provide greater efficiencies at all of our sites.” According to Deacon, throughout the selection process, Fujitsu indicated its ability to deliver and meet the requirements and a willingness to partner with Horizon Power in the area of Aboriginal employment in WA, across various fields of work.

The Government Procurement Service has taken a new step towards the full implementation of the Public Services Network (PSN) with the first procurement notice for related services.

It has published a tender notice for telecommunications connectivity services. These will then facilitate the procurement of networks and infrastructure compliant with the PSN, which in turn will enable public services to make full use of the network.

It is a significant step forward in the roll out of the PSN, which is being built as a 'network of networks' to support collaborative working in public services. The services covered by the framework will be available to all parts of government, the health service, voluntary organisations and private sector bodies that work on behalf of the public sector.

Support services group Interserve said it is working hard to clear up the mess caused by the riots and looting in London and other parts of the country.

Chief executive Adrian Ringrose praised the work of staff, who he said are helping with boarding up, replacing windows and providing extra security.

The group provides cleaning and shop-fitting services for many of the UK's high street names, including betting chain William Hill, pharmacy group Boots, Homebase, Sainsbury's and HSBC, many of which have seen shops and branches targeted over the past week.

It also works for Croydon and Ealing councils, two of the London boroughs most badly affected by the unrest as well as providing back-office support for the Metropolitan Police.

Martyn Hart took part in a live Guardian online debate on Thursday 11th August. How far can the public sector go in offshoring IT services overseas?

Offshoring has jumped back onto the government ICT agenda recently but the debate was concern whether there is any real benefit in shipping provision overseas.

There are those who say offshoring services as part of delivering back office functions and IT support has been happening for some time, and it's gaining respectability as government strains to save on a large scale. The question is, how far should public sector go in outsourcing IT services overseas?

To read all comments on the debate:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2011/aug/05/online-debate-offshoring-public-sector-ict

Health secretary Andrew Lansley is understood to be drawing up plans for a dedicated central unit to house billions of pounds of 'toxic' IT-contract exposures says the Guardian.

The IT project, which was the subject of a swingeing report from the MPs' public accounts committee last week, is also believed to be top of cabinet office minister Francis Maude's list of government procurements he wants officials to revisit.

Maude's Major Projects Authority, which is reviewing several large government contracts, last week sent tough proposals to the prime minister setting out recommendations on how years of information technology delays and contract disputes in the NHS could be resolved in the best interests of taxpayers. Lansley recently described the programme, the largest non-military IT project ever undertaken, as an "expensive farce". He is expected to announce a new structure for health service IT within weeks.

Interserve, the international support services and construction group, announces its half-year results for the six months ended 30 June 2011.

Shares in Interserve rose 10.5 per cent yesterday after the group posted higher first-half profits, saying it was confident about its medium-term outlook as demand for outsourcing gathered pace.

The company, whose clients include the BBC, the NHS and retailers including Sainsbury’s, said pre-tax profits rose 10.3 per cent to £30.1m in the first half of the year, despite choppy market conditions.

LloydsTSB is cutting another 15,000 jobs but will not be shutting branches as part of its strategic review.

The main targets will be back office staff. It is not shutting branches except as part of Project Verde – the EU-mandated scheme to sell off 632 branches, the TSB and IF brands.

The review document highlights £2bn in annual savings to be made by cutting jobs, withdrawing from 15 of 30 countries where the group operates and by moving the different parts of the business onto a common platform.

Oracle, the business software company, is launching a recruitment drive aiming to bring 1,700 new employees to the company across Europe.

Oracle, which has more than 108,000 employees across the world, said it was responding to increased demand in Europe for technologies such as cloud computing, where companies move their IT functions into remotely-hosted data centres. Europe accounts for about a third of the company’s revenues.

Activity streams, wireless power, Internet TV, NFC payment and private cloud computing are some of the technologies that have moved into the Peak of Inflated Expectations, according to the 2011 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle by Gartner, Inc. Other newly featured high-impact trends include big data, and natural language question answering.

Gartner's 2011 Hype Cycle Special Report provides strategists and planners with an assessment of the maturity, business benefit and future direction of over 1,900 technologies, grouped into 76 distinct Hype Cycles. The Hype Cycle graphic has been used by Gartner since 1995 to highlight the common pattern of overenthusiasm, disillusionment and eventual realism that accompanies each new technology and innovation. The Hype Cycle Special Report is updated annually to track technologies along this cycle and provide guidance on when and where organizations should adopt them for maximum impact and value

The "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" report is the longest-running annual Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that IT managers should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.

"Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" targets strategic planning, innovation and emerging technology professionals by highlighting a set of technologies that will have broad-ranging impact across the business," said Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow. "It is the broadest aggregate Gartner Hype Cycle, featuring technologies that are the focus of attention because of particularly high levels of hype, or those that may not be broadly acknowledged but that Gartner believes have the potential for significant impact."