Industry news

The decision to proceed with the troubled Lorenzo patient record systems has been heavily criticised by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.

The Lorenzo scheme to be delivered by CSC, has seen repeated and significant delays, with millions spent without targets being met.

The criticism from the Public Accounts Committee came from a meeting between NHS executives and the committee with the revelation that the NHS is still set to pay nearly £600 million for the patient system.

The sum was driven by further payments including £100 million paid to CSC to renegotiate on new ‘key milestones’, which drew further condemnation from the parliamentary group, as CSC had failed to deliver on multiple objectives within the original program.

Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge called the CSC record system, “hopeless”.

Negotiations between CSC and NHS extended

CSC admits NHS account errors

The Ministry of Justice has pulled the plug on its End User Computing £300 million procurement programme.

The programme was designed to cover 2,300 sites within the UK, but issues including high costs and a divergence between the government’s ICT procurement strategy, which seeks to promote the use of SME suppliers, and the large enterprise level companies that were shortlisted, resulted in the halt to the process.

The UK government is now expected to seeks to divide the contract into even smaller components and move closer to the over ICT public sector strategy, with the procurement process restarting at a later date.

Ministry of Justice’s handling of outsourcing is ‘shambolic’

The National Audit Office (NAO) has moved investigate the publicly funded rural broadband programme, designed to provide superfast broadband to businesses and households throughout the UK.

The investigation comes as the broadband delivery programme receives criticism for providing a effective monopoly to BT, with the telecommunications giant having received all contracts currently available through the programme.

The UK government has provided £530 million in subsidies to fund the project, with the aim of having the “best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015” according to the NAO.

The NAO have said the report: “examines how well the Department has designed the rural broadband programme and the extent to which its safeguards assure value for money. It also considers whether the 2015 targets for rural broadband provision are likely to be met."

Ofcom launches investigation into BT following complaint

BT end of year results beat expectations

Cascade Investments and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, two organisations controlled by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, have invested £16 million in security services provider G4S.

The two Gates controlled companies have now raised their combined stake in the company to a value of over £110 million.

The increased investment will come as a welcome relief to the company, after having successive blows to its reputation over the past years and the issuing of a profits warning in May.

The move to expand investment in the company may represent a move by the Gates controlled companies to take advantage of the recent change in leadership at G4S, and confidence in future growth after past turbulence.

G4S wins G8 summit contract

G4S shares spiral as European recession bites

Pearl Therapeutics is set to be acquired by drugs giant AstraZeneca for around $1.15 billion.

The move to purchase the U.S. based drug specialist comes as AstraZeneca looks to refresh its product pipeline after the recent expiry of drug patients resulting in a diminishing product offering.

AstraZeneca’s new CE Pascal Soriot has said that the drug companies’ respiratory drug offering would represent a core focus for the company going forward, with drug industry experts predicting the growth of new pulmonary drugs in the near future.

The latest acquisition by the drugs company comes on the back of the recent purchase of Omthera Pharmaceuticals for $443 million.

AstraZeneca moves to acquire heart drug specialist

AstraZeneca meets with union leaders regarding R&D move

Energy giants Centrica who are the owners of British Gas, have entered into talks with Cuadrilla Resources, a leader in shale gas fracking within the UK, about buying a stake in shale gas operations.

The talks surround the purchase by Centrica of a stake in Bowland shale, located in north-west England.

The announcement of a deal is agreed upon by both companies and shareholders could be reached within weeks.

Entry of a energy company the size of Centrica into the UK’s shale fracking industry would represent a huge boost for the industry, suggesting at the potential of that energy source.

The talks come only weeks after Centrica had played down shale gas as a viable new energy source for the company, describing shale gas within the UK as being dissimilar to "the game-changer we've seen in North America".

Centrica partners with Fujitsu for systems modernisation

Centrica and Qatar Buy Canadian Gas Field equiv. to 15 Billion Barrels of Oil

UK rail infrastructure provider Network Rail has signed a series of new framework agreements with IT suppliers.

The list includes Accenture, BAE Systems Detica, CSC, Cognizant and TCS, and comes as Network Rail seeks to streamline procurement services through a reduction in the overall numbers of suppliers.

The new agreements known as ‘zero-value IT Solutions and System Integrator framework agreements’ mark the IT suppliers as the rail companies preferred suppliers.

Network Rail’s chief information officer Susan Cooklin, said: “By creating this framework we will be able to scale more flexibly our resources to meet demand, while retaining our vital assurance role. In this way we can improve our efficiency while continuing to allow 24,000 trains a day across the rail network.”

The new framework agreements comes after a centralising program designed to sabe £250 million a year, that was undertaken in January.

Network Rail to invest £333 million in IT

Energy supplier Centrica has hired IT giant Fujitsu to carry out a transformation of IT services including the modernisation and migration of services and systems.

Fujitsu will manage the movement of 26,500 Centrica staff in 26 locations from Windows XP to Windows 7.

The project is designed to drive IT performance, employee experience and the ability to employ new applications.

Fujitsu currently already provides IT services as part of a five year contract to supply desktop established services, set up in 2010. This new agreement extends the partnership between the two businesses.

Richard Bull, executive director, End User Services at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, said: "This project is a prime example of IT truly engaging with the business, rather than reacting with a solution. Fujitsu is very happy to be part of the journey and looks forward to continued, mutual success."

Centrica reports increased profits from protracted winter

Centrica sees a annual profit increase of 14 percent

IT giants Dell and Oracle have extended an existing partnership, which will see Dell continue to package Oracle software and services with hardware, while Oracle in turn will optimise services for Dell’s product offering.

The extension of the collaborative partnership will see the sharing of customer support and engineering support services.

“We test it together, we patch it together, we support it together," was how Oracle Co-President Mark Hurd described the shared relationship between the two IT giants.

In supporting each other services which compete in differing markets, the two companies seek to gain the competitive edge through the collaborative joint packaging of services and products.

The new partnership comes as Dell seeks to see increased growth after a downturn in its traditional PC markets.

Microsoft loan for Dell purchase comes with payment strings

$24 billion acquisition of Dell confirmed

Database giant Salesforce has moved to acquire digital marketing provider Exact Target, in a deal which is expected to be finalised by the end of July and worth $2.5 billion.

Exact Target which provides online marketing services has provided services to major labels including Coca-Cola and Nike, with over 6,000 companies and brands employing Exact’s services.

The marketing company’s acquisition marks the largest purchase deal that Salesforce has carried out, of the 40 companies purchased over the last five years.

The move comes as digital marketing is predicted to expand rapidly over the following two years, with the purchase complimenting the acquisition of a social media monitoring company and a social media management company in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The database giant has said that the new deal is expected to deliver a additional $120 million in revenue by 2014.

Salesforce.com launches storage application Chatterbox

Salesforce.com acquires shared-browsing company GoInstant