Industry news

Google Inc. has announced financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2011.

"We had a great quarter,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “Revenue was up 33% year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!"

Q3 Financial Summary

Google reported revenues of $9.72 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2011, an increase of 33% compared to the third quarter of 2010. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the third quarter of 2011, TAC totaled $2.21 billion, or 24% of advertising revenues

Powers to conduct compulsory data protection audits in local government, the health service and the private sector are needed to ensure compliance with the law, the Information Commissioner said today at the 10th annual data protection compliance conference in London.

Christopher Graham’s call came as figures showed that the ICO is being blocked from auditing organisations in sectors that are causing concern over their handling of personal information.

The only compulsory data protections audit powers the ICO currently has are for central government departments. For all other organisations the ICO has to win consent before an audit can take place.

Data breaches in the NHS continue to be a major problem. Of the 47 undertakings the ICO has agreed with organisations that have breached the Data Protection Act since April, over 40% (19) were in the healthcare sector. In addition, the most serious personal data breaches that have resulted in a civil monetary penalty occurred in the local government sector. Four of the six penalties served so far involved local authorities.

Businesses remain the sector generating the most data protection complaints. Despite this, as reported in July, just 19% of companies contacted by the ICO accepted the offer of undergoing an audit. The ICO has written to 29 banks and building societies and so far only six (20%) have agreed to undergo an audit. The insurance sector has also shown reluctance in this area. Of the 19 companies contacted this year by the ICO, only two agreed to an audit.

Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham said: “Something is clearly wrong when the regulator has to ask permission from the organisations causing us concern before we can audit their data protection practices. Helping the healthcare sector, local government and businesses to handle personal data better are top priorities, and yet we are powerless to get in there and find out what is really going on.”

“With more data being collected about all of us than ever before, greater audit powers are urgently needed to ensure that the people handling our data are doing a proper job. I am preparing the business case for the extension of the ICO’s Assessment Notice powers under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to these problematic sectors.”

Barclays Bank has told staff it is cutting 65 jobs in Glasgow as it ships the work offshore to India.

The company has launched a consultation process, which will last up to three months, on the cuts after deciding it could reduce costs and gain greater flexibility to handle the peaks and troughs of demand by splitting the work between an in-house operation and a third-party supplier, both based in Chennai.

After redeploying some staff elsewhere in the company, it is expected that Barclays will make between 35 and 50 people redundant.

Hampshire County Council, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and Hampshire Constabulary have pledged their commitment to investigate the potential to combine support services - saving money and protecting and improving frontline services.

Amid unprecedented challenges in the face of reduced levels of Government funding and additional operational pressures, all three organisations have begun programmes which will transform and develop new and innovative ways of working. Identifying opportunities for efficiencies and service improvements through greater joint working and sharing of resources is key to this.

The three organisations will now explore ways to work together more closely to share support services, which will include areas such as information technology, human resources, finance, procurement, legal and property management. A detailed business case will be developed to this effect for each of their authorities to review and make a final decision upon.

BT has been awarded certification to a new British Standard in recognition of its Smart City partnership with the City of Edinburgh Council.

To achieve this BT has successfully demonstrated it meets best practice in terms of Collaborative Business Relationships following rigorous assessment of its 11-year ICT partnership with the Scottish local authority. It is the first ICT company to gain the BS 11000 certification – and it’s also the first time the new standard has been awarded to a local authority partnership.

In making the award, BSI (the British Standards Institution) highlighted the additional value created by the partnership, not just in identifying further opportunities that benefited both parties, but in getting involved in local community projects and even the Council’s staff awards.

The assessment looked at evidence from across all aspects of the partnership, from vision and values to working together, knowledge and skills, policies and people and commitment to continuous approval.

Andrew Unsworth, head of e-government at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: "Working with the right partner is essential for the City of Edinburgh Council to ensure we are delivering the best possible services.

“This certification reflects how far the partnership with BT has come in the last 10 years. It confirms the quality of our people and practices and demonstrates the added value that collaborative working brings."

Keynote Systems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Mobile Complete, Inc, doing business as DeviceAnywhere, a leading enterprise-class cloud-based platform for testing and monitoring mobile websites and apps, for approximately $60.0 million in cash plus a potential earn-out.

“We welcome DeviceAnywhere’s talented employees to Keynote. We are especially pleased that industry pioneers Faraz and David will continue to provide expertise, vision and leadership by heading up our new Keynote-DeviceAnywhere division.”

Umang Gupta, Chairman and CEO of Keynote, said: “Combining DeviceAnywhere’s leading testing and quality assurance (QA) cloud-based solutions with our strong mobile monitoring business firmly establishes Keynote as a leader in the mobile testing and monitoring markets. The resulting increased product breadth and scale meaningfully enhance our competitive position. In addition, the acquisition will expand our addressable market into the immediately adjacent enterprise mobile testing and quality assurance space, which we project could enable us to grow this into a $100 million business.”

Also based in San Mateo, DeviceAnywhere will continue to be led by its co-founders Faraz A. Syed, CEO, and David J. Marsyla, CTO, and will operate as a standalone subsidiary, similar to Keynote-SIGOS, after the transaction.

Gupta added, “We welcome DeviceAnywhere’s talented employees to Keynote. We are especially pleased that industry pioneers Faraz and David will continue to provide expertise, vision and leadership by heading up our new Keynote-DeviceAnywhere division.”

Sony has suspended over 90,000 user accounts after unauthorised login attempts were discovered yesterday.

Sony’s Chief Information Security Officer, Philip Reitinger, said: "We want to let you know that we have detected attempts on Sony Entertainment Network, PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment (“Networks”) services to test a massive set of sign-in IDs and passwords against our network database. These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources.

In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks. We have taken steps to mitigate the activity."

IBM and Nirvanix has announced the integration of cloud storage technology from Nirvanix as part of an expanded IBM SmartCloud Enterprise storage services portfolio available to customers worldwide.

With the integration of Nirvanix cloud storage technology, IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise storage services will provide customers with a solution designed to support millions of users, billions of objects and exabytes of data to complement IBM’s existing security-rich, virtual server environments in the cloud.

“We look forward to teaming with IBM in the enterprise cloud storage space and cooperatively enhancing our leading cloud storage service for the most demanding IBM global customers,” said Scott Genereux, President and CEO of Nirvanix. “Today’s announcement marks an important step in accomplishing Nirvanix’s strategic goals of capturing cloud storage market share and accelerating revenue growth.”

Sitel, a leading customer care outsourcing provider, today announced that Dagoberto “Bert” Quintana, 51, has been named Chief Executive Officer. Quintana, who has been serving as President and Chief Operating Officer of Sitel since February 2010, succeeds David Garner, 53, in the role of Chief Executive Officer. Quintana will continue to serve as President. Garner will continue to serve as non-executive Chairman of Sitel. Garner will continue to support the Board and the executive team of Sitel on strategic matters and as necessary on commercial and operational initiatives.

Garner said, “Bert Quintana is an energetic, customer-focused leader in our industry. Working with Bert over the past two years, I am confident of his commitment to our Customer #1 strategies as well as to enhancing Sitel’s market position, revenue growth and stockholder value. Bert is ready for this next challenge.”

Quintana said, “Sitel is a growing company with a strong client base. I look forward to continuing the progress we have made over the past two years in my new role. I also want to recognize Dave Garner for his many contributions to Sitel. Dave is a true industry leader and has mentored me over the past two years to reach for this next challenge. I thank him for his continued commitment to Sitel and look forward to continuing to work with Dave in his role as Chairman in the future.”

Key highlights from last quarter include:

- Revenues were $1,746 million for the quarter ending September 30, 2011

- QoQ growth was 4.5%; YoY growth was 16.7%

- 45 clients were added during the quarter

- Gross addition of 15,352 employees (net addition of 8,262) for the quarter

“The global macroeconomic environment is still uncertain. It is and should be a concern for the IT industry.” said S. D. Shibulal, CEO and Managing Director. “In this scenario, clients are looking for new opportunities for growth, accelerated innovation and increased returns on investments. Our strategic initiatives and organisation structure will enable us to build long term partnerships with our clients and help them drive their business objectives.”