Industry news

The UK's mob-busters, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), has agreed a 10-year, £157m IT outsourcing deal with the i2d consortium of services firm Logica.

Over the course of the contract, Soca aims to consolidate its datacentres, networks and desktops to reduce its operating costs in line with government cost-saving targets.

But Soca will also be hoping that the deal will improve its case management and data analysis capabilities.

"It will improve secure collaboration with our partners and make everything run more smoothly," a Soca spokesman told Computing.

As previously reported by Computing, Soca completed an overhaul of its IT systems in 2009.

But with the coalition government's laser sharp focus on delivering better services at lower costs, it was always likely that Soca would need to revise its IT strategy, said Anthony Miller, managing partner of market watchers, TechMarketView.

"Public sector IT spending may be squeezed, but as this deal clearly shows, it's far from moribund," he added.

"This contract secures an efficient and sustainable IT platform which will enable us to modernise and enhance our technological capabilities in fighting crime and improve the effectiveness of UK law enforcement in dislocating criminal markets," said Trevor Pearce, director general of Soca in a statement.

The i2d consortium comprises Logica, QinetiQ, Detica and Cable & Wireless.

Source: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1936128/soca-signs-gbp157m-outsourcing-deal

In the past 24 hours Microsoft, AMD, and Capita have seen top executives step down from their positions.

Robert Muglia, president of Microsoft's server and tools business, is set to leave the company in the summer after chief executive Steve Ballmer decided that the division needed a new leader.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Ballmer took responsibility for the decision yesterday in a letter to employees after conversations with Muglia about "the overall business and what is needed to accelerate growth".

The division Muglia headed up was seen to be performing well, with an operating profit during its fiscal year ended 30 June of $5.49bn (£3.53bn), up 14 per cent on the previous year.

This announcement comes after a string of leadership changes at Microsoft. In the past year Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, Stephen Elop, business division president, and Robbie Bach, devices division president, all left the company.

Microprocessor manufacturer AMD also saw a change in management yesterday as CEO Dirk Meyer handed in his resignation.

The board of directors has appointed senior vice-president and CFO Thomas Seifert as an interim CEO. Seifert joined AMD in 2009.

The company has also launched a CEO search committee, which is being headed up by AMD's chairman of board of directors, Bruce Claflin.

"Dirk became CEO during difficult times. He successfully stabilised AMD while simultaneously concluding strategic initiatives such as the launch of GlobalFoundries. He also helped with the successful settlement of our litigation with Intel, and helped deliver Fusion APUs to the market," said Claflin.

Meanwhile, business process outsourcing company Capita has appointed Vic Gysin and Andy Parker to the group board as joint chief operating officers; the move will see current COO Simon Piling step down.

Piling joined the group board in 2006 and has served as both a joint and sole chief operating officer.

"These changes to the board are being made to support the next stage of our continued growth," said Paul Pinder, chief executive of Capita.

http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1936161/execs-leave-microsoft-amd-capita

Cognizant, a leading provider of business, technology and consulting services, today announced it is increasing its North American service delivery center capacity to accommodate continuing rapid growth. Cognizant recently crossed the 100,000 employee mark and continues to hire talent aggressively within North America as well as Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia.

Cognizant's new delivery center in Phoenix will accommodate over 1,000 employees, replacing its existing 500-person facility. Cognizant will provide a full range of services from the new center, including consulting, application services, IT infrastructure services, and business and knowledge process services.

In addition, Cognizant continues to expand employment in its existing delivery centers in the United States. In addition to the Phoenix delivery center, Cognizant operates an enterprise analytics center in New Jersey; a global Network Operations Center (NOC) in Massachusetts that supports Cognizant's IT Infrastructure Services business; and delivery centers in Arkansas and Illinois that provide application development and maintenance, testing, and packaged software implementation services. Other rapidly growing North American locations include delivery centers in Canada and Mexico.

"We are proud to have grown to 100,000 employees in just 16 years, with over 17,000 professionals in North America. We are making substantial North American investments in people, facilities, systems, and processes to meet continued strong demand for our services," said Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer at Cognizant. "Our distributed delivery center model, globally and locally, helps us attract and retain the world's best talent, both from leading universities and the professional labor market, enabling our customers to address structural changes brought about by the reset economy."

In 2010, worldwide IT spending totalled $3.4 trillion(£2.17 trillion) and this year spending will be US$3.6 trillion (£2.3 trillion), according to a Gartner report titled 'Forecast Alert: IT Spending, Worldwide, 4Q10 Update'.

The research firm says that this amount represents a 5.1 per cent increase from 2010 and negates its previous forecast of 3.5 per cent growth.

Apparently, the IT industry is performing better than what Gartner expects and according to research firm's analysts, currency exchange rate fluctuations have continued to affect the U.S. dollar-denominated forecast.

Businesses experienced about 2.2 percentage point increase in IT spending growth in 2010, and out of this, about 1.6 per cent is attributable to the recent devaluation of the U.S. dollar against other currencies.

Macroeconomic uncertainty

Commenting on the forecast Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner said global IT spending growth is expected to exceed five per cent in 2010, aided by favourable U.S. dollar exchange rates.

However, a similar level of growth in 2011 is far from certain, due to continued macroeconomic uncertainty. Noting the improving global economic situation, Gordon said the recovery is slow and hampered by a sluggish growth outlook in the mature economies of the U.S. and Western Europe.

Gordon continued: "There are also growing concerns about the ability of key emerging economies to sustain relatively high growth rates. Nevertheless, as well as a fundamental enabler of cost reduction and cost optimisation, investment in IT is seen increasingly as an important element in business growth strategies. As the global economy repairs itself in the coming years, we are optimistic about continued healthy spending on IT."

Telecom equipment market

Readers of the Gartner quarterly IT spending forecast gain a unique perspective on IT spending across hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications segments. These predictions are meant to help Gartner clients understand market opportunities and challenges.

The newest report shows that the telecom equipment market is set to experience the strongest growth in 2011. Gartner says it had to revise its forecast due to strong sales of mobile devices in the third quarter of 2010, driven by smartphones in mature markets and white box devices in emerging markets, as well as stronger local currencies.

Although the computing hardware segment is forecast to grow 7.5 per cent in 2011, vendors face possible challenges, particularly in the area of PC growth. Gartner analysts said this is because of weak economic growth through the first half of 2011.

Source: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3256300/gartner-global-it-spending-to-total-23bn-in-2011/

Christine Hodgson has been appointed to the position of Chairman at Capgemini UK plc, part of the Capgemini Group, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. She is also a member of the Capgemini Group Management Committee and chairs the Capgemini UK Sustainability Board.

Having worked at Capgemini for 13 years, her previous roles with the company include Chief Executive Officer, Technology Services North West Europe, and Chief Financial Officer for both Capgemini UK plc and the Global Outsourcing Division, a role in which she won Finance Woman of the Year at the First Women Awards.

Prior to joining Capgemini, Christine was Corporate Development Director at Ronson Plc after working for Coopers & Lybrand where she specialised in corporate finance. She gained a first-class honours degree in Accounting and Financial Management before going on to qualify as a Chartered Accountant.

Christine sits on the Board and Finance and Risk Committee of Business in the Community, a Prince of Wales charity. She is also a Board member and Audit Committee member for MacIntyre Care, a leading charity providing services for individuals with learning disabilities. She is married and has one son.

Oracle is conducting a cloud computing road show that will hit roughly 80 cities around the world, according to its website.

Attendees will hear from experts who "will share real-world best practices, reference architectures, detailed customer case studies, and more," according to a statement. "You'll learn how to transform IT into a superior service provider with a strategy and roadmap for building, deploying, and managing an enterprise cloud."

Oracle conducted a similar tour in 2010, but this year's plans seem significantly more ambitious in scope.

The British Council is to advise government-funded bodies on how to cut costs and outsource jobs to India.

The council successfully moved its finance and IT departments to Delhi last year, creating 180 jobs there, and now wants to take its experience to the rest of the public sector which is facing severe cuts under government austerity measures.

Martin Davidson, the chief executive of the British Council, said: "Over the past two years the British Council has made itself significantly more efficient. We have maintained our international cultural and educational work for the UK at a time when our purchasing power overseas has been hit hard by the fall in the value of the pound and increased costs overseas.

"Our drive to reduce costs is also partly in preparation for reduced grant funding, currently a third of our income, following the spending review.

"The first stages of this move have been a great success, and consequently the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, have shown an interest in our experiences. We are open to more informal sharing of our learning and, where it makes financial sense, to working closely with other parts of the public sector over the coming years."

Engineering group Costain says it has "significantly" increased its bid in a takeover proposal for outsourcing company Mouchel.

The move comes after Mouchel rejected an earlier approach last month.

Costain said its fresh approach valued Mouchel at £150m, 27.6% higher than the original bid proposal.

The deal would be "highly attractive" to shareholders of both companies, it said, but added there was still no certainty it would make a formal bid.

However, Costain chairman David Allvey said his board continued to believe that there was "a compelling strategic rationale" for combining the firms.

Government spending

Mouchel was founded in south Wales in 1897 by Frenchman Louis Mouchel. Today it has its headquarters in Woking.

Prior to the initial bid approach, Mouchel's shares had slumped last year as a result of the UK government and local authorities cutting spending on the new infrastructure developments that the company provides.

Mouchel's current operations include half-ownership of Enterprise Mouchel, which has motorway maintanence contracts with the Highways Agency and grits roads on behalf of some local authorities.

Costain was established in Liverpool in 1865, but is now based in Maidenhead. It was involved in building the Channel Tunnel and the Thames Barrier.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12125696

Outsourcing giant Capita has repalced current chief operatingf officer Simon Pilling with joint COOs. Vic Gysin and Andy Parker will take their new roles immediately.

Vic Gysin joined Capita in 2002 and is currently the divisional director for its Insurance and Investor Services division. Prior to this he headed up the Integrated Services Division, which runs many of Capita's major central government contracts.

Andy Parker joined Capita in 2001 and is currently divisional director for its ICT, Health and Business Services division. Previously he was also Senior Divisional Finance Director of all of Capita's non-regulated businesses, and has also held executive roles at Phoenix IT and Misys.

The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has launched a review on the government's IT strategy.

In a paper entitled Good Governance: the effective use of IT Issues and Questions, the committee invites responses to questions around the strategy so far. This has included cuts of £95m to central IT spending ,announced in the emergency budget; a moratorium on new contracts greater than £1m; steps to centralise IT procurement; and renegotiation of contracts with suppliers.

Key questions include: have past lessons from NAO and OGC reviews about unsuccessful IT programmes been learned and applied, and what role should IT play in a ‘post-bureaucratic age'?

Relevant parties should respond to the paper by noon on 21 January.

Source: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1935576/select-committee-feedback-government-strategy#ixzz1Acxmt6YO