Industry news

Infosys Ltd (INFO) are looking to spend $500 million on acquiring European business. The Indian computer-service provider walked away from a $645 million deal in 2008 to secure UK based Axon Group and are now looking again to expand their portfolio.

With research suggesting that Europe will experience slow technology spending in 2012, the investment of Indian based companies will be welcomed.

Chandrashekar Kakal, head of Infosys global IT services, said in an interview: “We do have cash, but we are looking for a company which adds to our capability and becomes complementary to our growth rather than becoming a laggard.”

The Federal Communications Commission has levied the maximum fine of $25,000 after a regulatory probe into Google’s privacy practices.

The FCC conducted an investigation into the companies email, text messages and information provided through the Street View map service. Google has come under increasing scrutiny from regulators over the firms data policies and its past practice of collecting sensitive data from wireless networks.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which requested the FCC investigation, said “Google unlawfully intercepted and stored millions of wireless communications from Wi-Fi routers.”

Interserve, which is already involved in providing welfare-to-work programmes for the public sector, has announced a joint deal with Durham Tees Valley Probation Trust to run UK prison and prohibition services.

The move comes as the government looks to further open up the probation service to the private sector, with justice secretary Kenneth Clarke proposing complete privatisation.

Interserve is just one of six competing firms looking to run three of nine prisons that have been opened up to the private sector. The contracts also include bonuses based on the rate of re-offenses committed by inmates.

Goldman Sachs have received a $22 million fine from regulators over the investment banks failure to properly monitor trading and analyst communications regarding key conversations prior to changes to published research.

The fine also included penalties for failing to implement higher order controls for business strategies and high risk trading.

Brad Bennett, executive of industry regulator FINRA, said that Goldman Sachs "did not have an adequate system in place to monitor client trading in advance of changes in its published research".

Microsoft has successfully won a contract to provide over 7 million students and half a million teachers with communication software as part of a deal with the Indian Council for Technical Education.

The contract includes providing email support, Office Web applications, storage and instant messaging software.

The move comes as Microsoft looks to compete with the rise of cloud based computing with firms such as Google.

British Airways has entered into talks with unions over 1,200 potential job cuts as the airline plans to integrate with regional airline bmi.

The integration between the two group approved by the European Commission is expected to be complete at the end of this month. Currently bmi is losing £3 million a week, the deal is expected to secure 1,500 jobs with BA at Heathrow.

The union unite commented, "BMI's future has been secured but we are very saddened at the scale of the job losses being proposed," the union said, adding that it would look to ensure that, where vacancies exist, BMI workers can be placed within roles at BA.

Amazon Web Services have launched CloudSearch, the service allows for the integration of search based functionality into cloud based software.

CloudSearch allows users to add the data that they want to be made searchable, CloudSearch then indexes the data added. Users are able to define search parameters and change settings to the search functionality on the fly.

The service currently costs $0.98 for every gigabyte of data uploaded to the search parameters of CloudSearch.

The government G-Cloud project director Chris Chant is set to retire at the end of this month with no replacement yet chosen.

The director has been critical of public sector CIOs, attacking them in a personal blog posted yesterday for their inability to adapt to meet the modernisation requirements of government IT.

A statement provided by the Cabined Office said: "We are very thankful for the years of service and in particular, his recent success with the G-Cloud Programme. Chris leaves Government ICT in a strong position and we wish him all the best in the future."

In the election run up, Boris Johnson has promised to make London the most Wi-Fi covered city in the world if he retains his position as mayor.

Johnson pointed out that London already compared favourable to other technological cities and citied the Tube Wi-Fi set to be rolled out to over 120 stations as well as the success of Tech City.

Boris said, "my ambition over the next four years is to make this the most digitally-covered and Wi-Fi accessible city in Europe, if not the world".

Public sector CIOs have been criticised Chris Chant, director of the government’s G-Cloud, as being undeveloped and inflexible in moving to a new digital agenda.

In his latest blog, Chant said that progress had been blocked by multiple failings including “an absence of capability in both departments and their suppliers, by a strong resistance to change, by the perverse incentives of contracts that mean it’s cheaper to pay service credits than to fix the problem and by an unwillingness to embrace the potential of newer and smaller players”.

Chant did however recognise that the public sector had made strong gains in accepting quality contracts, with CIOs considering moving away from large companies and would no longer accept poor service.