Industry news

Market Leading Cloud.com Platform Lets Customers Build Clouds the Way the World's Most Successful Clouds Are Built

Citrix Systems has acquired Cloud.com, a market leading provider of software infrastructure platforms for cloud providers. The company's innovative CloudStack™ product line helps providers of all types deploy and manage simple, cost-effective cloud services that are scalable, secure, and open by design. This acquisition further establishes Citrix as a leader in infrastructure for the rapidly growing cloud provider market.

The transition from the PC Era to the Cloud Era is expected to fuel a massive build out in cloud infrastructure, creating a new market projected to exceed $11 billion by the end of 2013, according to industry analystsi. This market will feature thousands of providers of all shapes and sizes, offering a vast array of new cloud services ranging from business, infrastructure and development offerings, to consumer, mobile and gaming services. Most of the clouds that service this market will look nothing like traditional enterprise datacenters. They will run on radically different platforms purpose-built for cloud computing – platforms designed from the ground up to deliver multi-tier, multi-tenant services in the simplest and most cost-effective way. The world's largest and most successful public clouds are all built this way today.

The Cloud.com product line is not a traditional enterprise server virtualization platform with cloud management layered on top. It is a powerful, hypervisor-agnostic solution designed from the ground up to help providers build clouds the way the world's largest and most successful public clouds are built – simple, automated, elastic, scalable and efficient. This proven approach has helped Cloud.com customers around the world roll out new cloud services up to 50 times faster, at one fifth the cost of alternative solutionsii.

With the addition of Cloud.com, Citrix now offers a complete portfolio of virtualization, orchestration and networking solutions purpose built for the Cloud Era — solutions that are not only among the market leaders individually, but also designed to help customers avoid vendor lock-in by letting them use the hardware, software, management products and service providers of their choice.

Outsourcers unanimously agree that FM is facing a margin squeeze

Over two thirds (71%) of outsourcers and facilities management suppliers agree that the Government should do more to help smaller businesses win more of its work, according to a survey by Interim Partners, the leading provider of interim managers to the private sector.

The survey, which was conducted among Chairmen, CEOs and CFOs of some of the UK’s largest outsourcing and facilities management businesses, found strong industry agreement among 64% of respondents that the Government favours larger outsource companies when allocating contracts.

Mark Kitchen, Head of Practice for Business and Support Services at Interim Partners, comments: “Despite the Coalition Government’s attempts to improve outsourcing to SMEs, industry leaders agree that more should be done to help smaller bidders for Government work.”

“Whilst some contracts can only go to outsourcers that have reached a certain scale, there is the concern that too much of the outsourcing market will consolidate in the hands of just a few players.”

“Directors of mid-tier FM providers and outsourcers do not want to see the rapid consolidation within the sector that could happen if small providers are permanently locked out of the market for Government work. Many larger providers sub-contract some of their work to small, specialist providers so they want to see as healthy a supply chain as possible.”

Weak economy means margin squeeze

Every single survey respondent agreed that FM contracts are under more margin pressure than before the credit crunch.

Interim Partners explains that the poor performance of the economy and the timing of the Government’s austerity drive have put a squeeze on FM clients’ budgets.

Mark Kitchen says: “The squeeze on margins means that facilities management companies, as well as wider outsourcing providers, have to become more efficient than ever before in providing a high quality service.”

“Interim managers have a proven record of stripping out unnecessary costs to maintain margins and service delivery quality, even when clients are asking for a cheaper service.”

Government austerity drive likely to signal more work

Although margins are being squeezed, 79% of providers say they still are expecting more work because of the Government austerity drive.

Mark Kitchen continues: “It’s increasingly accepted that outsourcers and FM providers can help the Government to deliver a lot of public services more cost effectively than the Government can itself. As further cuts are implemented support services businesses are expecting an increase in demand from central and local government.”

New services for customers critical to future growth

The survey also reveals that 64% of outsourcers and FM providers expect growth to come from adding new service lines, rather than international growth (21%) or UK growth from existing service lines (14%).

Mark Kitchen adds: “Senior support services figures are saying that strong future growth is going to come from offering clients additional services, such as back office outsourcing, rather than selling to more customers in the UK or expanding overseas.”

“It is always difficult to launch a new service to customers because of the perception of inexperience in the market place but hiring an interim manager can really help. The business can market the interim’s previous experience of delivering the service to help it win new business. When the interim spearheads delivery of the service for the client they will also train up permanent staff.”

In a speech in London yesterday, the PM argued the need to give individuals and local communities more control and more choice over the services they receive.

Mr Cameron said the reforms were a “people power” revolution that will replace bureaucratic control with “more freedom, more choice and more local control”.

He described public services as “the backbone of the country” but said that they still operate with a “take-what-you’re-given” philosophy that has failed sufficiently to close gaps between the life quality of the rich and poor.

“I know what our public services can do and how they are the backbone of this country. But I know too that the way they have been run for decades – old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given – is just not working for a lot of people.

“Public services were centralised with all the right intentions: to drive progress through from on high, to keep tabs on how that progress was going with targets and rules and inspections. But the impact of this has been incredibly damaging.”

The PM’s speech follows the publication of the Open Public Services White Paper which sets out the government’s approach to public services by applying five key principles:

•Wherever possible we should increase choice by giving people direct control over the services they use;

•Power should be decentralised to the lowest possible level;

•Public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service;

•The state’s role is to deliver fair access, fair funding and fair competition; and

•public services should be accountable to users and to taxpayers.

The White Paper will be followed over the summer by a wide-ranging discussion with individuals, communities, public sector staff, providers and others with an interest in how public services are delivered.

Cognizant, a leading provider of consulting, and business process outsourcing services, and Visma, a leading provider of business software and services for accounting and administration, has announced that they have entered into an outsourcing arrangement with Norway Post, the leading Norwegian postal and logistics services company owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications. Norway Post is engaged in the development and delivery of integrated, value-adding communications and logistics solutions to domestic and international customers through physical and electronic networks.

As part of the multi-year deal, Cognizant and Visma will collaborate to deliver finance and accounting services to Norway Post. The services delivered span the entire value chain of transactional finance services, ranging from accounts payables and receivables, to fixed assets, general ledger, and period-end closing.

Visma will combine its local Norwegian accounting and regulatory expertise with Cognizant's global delivery model, transaction processing capabilities, and Oracle solution accelerators to deliver significant process improvements, greater operational efficiencies, increased automation, enhanced productivity, and a high-quality customer experience.

Genpact Limited, a global leader in business process and technology management, has announced that it is strengthening its longstanding partnership with Nissan and is assuming the management of Nissan Human Information Service (NHIS), Nissan’s shared services center for human resources (HR) operations based in Yokohama, Japan. NHIS has operated as a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Ltd. since 2000 and currently handles HR functions for 54,000+ Nissan employees worldwide.

This collaborative relationship also includes a seven-year agreement, whereby Genpact will provide payroll, benefits, staffing, training and other key HR services to Nissan, leveraging its deep expertise in enhanced HR processes.

"This transaction makes sense given our strong relationship with Genpact and their proven business process and domain expertise, operational excellence and strong delivery capabilities," said Nissan HR. "Nissan is confident that Genpact will streamline the NHIS operations to best-in-class levels and provide exceptional learning and growth opportunities for NHIS employees. The business outcome will be the delivery of outstanding services to our customers which is of utmost importance."

Camwood Limited, the UK-based specialist in application logistics, has announced the launch of Application Lifecycle Manager™, a cloud based service enabling access to real time information on the status of a single application, groups of applications or an entire portfolio.

Designed for the requirements of project and application teams, Application Lifecycle Manager tracks, monitors and manages the status of applications, be it part of a normal lifecycle or part of a key migration project, where business continuity is paramount.

Bhadresh Sachania, head of PMO for Tube Lines commented: “Camwood ALM is an immensely powerful tool that provides immediate and accurate visibility on the status of all our applications, enabling us to understand how they are being used and by whom. It also highlights the application interdependencies that exist, enabling us to plan our migrations effectively.”

The Capita Group Plc has annouced that it has acquired Beat Systems Limited (BSL) for an undisclosed sum. BSL is a leading provider of secure mobile data solutions to UK policing.

Alongside Capita’s recent acquisition of SunGard Public Sector, now the secure information systems business of the Capita Group, the acquisition brings new market opportunities to Capita, particularly in the area of outsourced services to police authorities and Home Office criminal justice organisations. BSL’s largest clients include Cleveland Police, Nottinghamshire Police, Lincolnshire Police and the British Transport Police. The company has developed innovative mobile technology for police forces and other public sector clients.

Commenting on the deal, Andy Parker, joint chief operating officer of the Capita Group said: “This acquisition adds both innovation and breadth of solution to our secure information systems for police forces, introducing new customers and opening up new markets for the wider Capita Group. This is a key new area for Capita and, given the cuts in funding which the sector faces, one which provides real opportunities for the Group to drive down costs, improve customer services and add value.

BSL, which will become part of Capita’s secure information services business, has around 30 employees, mainly based in Glasgow.

The Prime Minister has committed to publishing key data on the National Health Service, schools, criminal courts and transport.

The new data will reveal clinical achievements and prescribing data by individual GP practices, the performance of hospital teams in treating lung cancer and other key healthcare conditions, the effectiveness of schools at teaching pupils across a range of subjects, criminal sentencing by each court, and data on rail timetables, rail service performance, roadworks, current road conditions, car parks and cycle routes in an open format for use by all.

The new commitments, set out in a letter from the Prime Minister to Cabinet colleagues, aim to provide the public with more information about the performance of services they use every day, and to help to drive modern, personalised and sustainable public services. The new data are also expected to drive economic growth as they promote the creation of new services and applications.

NIIT Technologies Limited, a leading IT solutions organization, has announced that it has signed a multi-million GBP contract with Eurostar, the high-speed passenger service between the UK and mainland Europe, to provide infrastructure management services for its core business applications. NIIT Technologies was chosen to support the drive to improve efficiency as part of Eurostar’s ongoing focus on service quality.

Christophe Lemaire, CIO, Eurostar said “Many global businesses face challenges to reduce cost and drive efficiencies, with the aim of providing a superior customer service. We are looking forward to benefiting from NIIT Technologies’ extensive experience and comprehensive portfolio of managed services which will allow us to focus on our core competencies, improve productivity and enable business innovation”.

NIIT Technologies secured the deal amidst stiff competition from global IT consultancy giants, firmly positioning itself as a long-term strategic managed services partner to Eurostar International. The Company was selected as the partner of choice due to its proven track record of agile, business-driven IT infrastructure projects in Europe, coupled with a comprehensive range of complementary services and innovative technical practices.

Sunil Surya, President, NIIT Technologies Europe said “Our vast experience and established domain skills in Transportation has been instrumental in our selection. We are delighted to serve Eurostar International as it reinforces our European footprint where the Company already has a strong presence of multi-year collaborations with marquee clients in the Travel and Transport industry”.

NIIT Technologies is ranked No.1 in travel by Datamonitor Black Book of Outsourcing and has held this position for three consecutive years. The Company continues to strengthen its position in becoming a significant IT services player in the European Travel and Transport markets.

Atos, an international IT services company, and Siemens announced that both companies have completed the transaction pursuant to which Atos has acquired Siemens IT Solutions and Services, the holding company of all Siemens IT activities. All conditions precedent for this transaction have now been completed, the last step was the approval of the transaction by Atos shareholders at the Atos Extraordinary Shareholders meeting.

As consideration for the contribution, Siemens has received shares of Atos representing 15% of the share capital of Atos as well as bonds convertible into new or existing shares of Atos representing a nominal amount of €250 million, and a cash payment of €176 million.