It has been all over the news this week and we are just as enthralled by it here at the sourcingfocus.com news room. The long-awaited end to the Sky and EDS dispute has been revealed, with Sky being awarded a substantial part of its £709 million lawsuit. The Round-Up read with interest an article on the Computing website which revealed that EDS’s key witness had bought his degree online. No surprise that this undermined the witness’s credibility, not to mention the credibility of the entire EDS case. Check out Tom Young’s article to see how this revelation played out in court.

For those of you who are more interested in the implications this case has on the outsourcing sector and the overall legal implications, look no further then sourcingfocus.com. The NOA chairman, Martyn Hart, has detailed what he believes will be the effect on the outsourcing industry in the Hart of Outsourcing and Alan Owens, partner at Morrison & Foerster outlines the ensuing legal implications in this week’s Guest Blog.

So apart from the end of this major battle, what else has been happening this week? Unlike Sky, McDonald’s is more than happy with the delivery of its outsourcing contract as it extended a long-term ITO contract with ACS.

Under the renewed agreement ACS will provide McDonald’s with a range of managed IT services including, desktop support, messaging services, data centre facilities management and network operations.

When it comes to popular publishing outsourcing destinations, India remained ahead of the game, it was revealed this week. Research carried out by Valuenotes Database revealed that 66 per cent of the 237 respondents selected the offshore giant. The US was second favourite followed by the Philippines, UK and China. With India and China continuously being pitted against each other it seems India is the Asian Tiger who prevailed in this particular race.

A UK company also revealed big news this week. AstraZeneca is to cut 8,000 jobs worldwide as it embarks on outsourcing more of its research and development. Great news for the industry, but not such good news for employees at the sites being closed in Loughborough and Cambridge.

Like most companies, AstraZeneca has stated that cost is a major motive for this move to outsource research and development.

That’s one point to China, and one point to India this week.