Industry news

The Irish Government has backed the creation of a data centre aimed at cloud computing with an investment of €5 million. The site known as the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce (IC4) has the support of IT giants including Microsoft, Fujitsu, Intel and IBM.

The IC4 site, designed to promote cloud innovation, is based at Dublin City University and is expected to promote and develop the Irish cloud market.

The site is also expected to create jobs from the development of the industry, with cross-research alongside IT companies designed to: “turn good research ideas into good jobs in the Irish economy", stated the government.

BYOD adoption is increasing in high-growth markets due to a ‘live-to-work’ ethos, according to Ovum.

The analyst giant said that the trend was being driven by a lower rate of mobile technology provision from within companies.

Research conducted across 17 markets found that 57.1 percent of full-time employees practiced some form of BYOD.

Ovum analyst Richard Absalom said: “Employees in high-growth economies are demonstrating a more flexible attitude to working hours, and are happy to use their own devices for work”.

Oldham Council is expecting to save £2 million through an early payment system.

The system delivered by Oxygen Finance has been piloted since mid-2012 and generates savings through early payment in exchange for cash return.

The system ensures a return of a minimum of one percent back from every early payment. The £2 million saving is expected to be generated over a four-year period.

CEO of Oldham Council, Charlie Parker stated that: “Our work with Oxygen to implement the early payment programme is helping Oldham Council to make significant savings over the next few years.”

Oldham Council is expecting to save £2 million through an early payment system.

The system delivered by Oxygen Finance has been piloted since mid-2012 and generates savings through early payment in exchange for cash return.

The system ensures a return of a minimum of one percent back from every early payment. The £2 million saving is expected to be generated over a four-year period.

CEO of Oldham Council, Charlie Parker stated that: “Our work with Oxygen to implement the early payment programme is helping Oldham Council to make significant savings over the next few years.”

Google has moved to increase its cloud market in Europe through the expansion of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) infrastructure and the reduction of cloud storage costs.

Cloud storage costs have been cut by 20 percent with Google’s IaaS offering now undercutting the price of Amazon’s S3 storage cloud.

Google has moved to comply with European Union data compliance regulation and establish sites in within the EU in order to create close links to the European market, provide physical access to the company and ensure compliance with data regulation.

The Department for Work & Pensions’ outsourced Work Programme has seen 207,883 people enter work under the shared services programme.

The Work Programme, based on a pay-by-results basis has seen the greatest value of any back-to-work initiative, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA).

While the overall figures have been high, only 31,000 people had reached the three or six month period that resulted in the suppliers reaching the pay-for-results stipulation.

Minister for employment, Mark Hoban, said: “While these figures show progress is being made, the government is clear that there is more to be done. Each provider has a performance development plan and the department is managing them vigorously to constantly improve performance. Formal contract letters requiring improvement have been issued to those providers with the lowest performance to date.”

Capita has announced the a offer to acquire a majority stake in Staffordshire County Council’s education services division, for £32 million over a three year period.

The outsourcing giant aims to achieve over £2 billion in revenue from the purchase over the next ten years.

Capita is heavily invested within education, providing IT systems and pension services to educational departments. The majority control of Staffordshire’s education division by Capita if approved would see the creation of a highly competitive shared services organisation with the potential for aggressive expansion.

A report from the IDC has forecast that Android and iPhone devices will have replaced BlackBerry devices in 2012 at enterprise level.

IDC estimated that iPhones would be the most popular device purchased for business while Android devices will have ranked as the most popular devices for employees in 2012.

The decline of the BlackBerry was explained by IDC as stemming from reduced developer and consumer interest.

A new data centre is set to open in Birmingham in March next year, the complex is expected to be worth as much as £60 million.

The complex known as the Data City Exchange data centre will offer low energy usage and scalability to users.

Mark Barrow, strategic director of development at Birmingham City Council, said: “The new data centre will create significant employment opportunities across the city and help support some of the local businesses in the area.”

Warwickshire NHS Trust and the University Hospitals of Coventry are looking for suppliers for new IT hardware with a contract worth between £50 million and £100 million.

The four-year contract has been put out for tender through the group purchasing organisation HealthTrust Europe.

The Trust and hospitals will be able to divide the contract between multiple suppliers to ensure quality and specialisation in areas including supply, support and device specific items such as enterprise servers.