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Turquoise, the multi-lateral trading facility established by nine leading European investment banks today announced that it is partnering with AppLabs, the world’s largest independent testing, quality management and certification solutions company, to deliver the testing programme which will verify and ensure that the trading platform is fit for purpose.

As Turquoise’s test partner, AppLabs will design, develop and build the test strategy for the project. AppLabs will then extensively test the trading and surveillance functionalities to assure the quality of the delivery and ensure Turquoise launches successfully in September 2008.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Yann L’Huillier, Chief Technology Officer of Turquoise said: “We are ambitious for Turquoise and acknowledge that to achieve our goals we will have to assure the market place that the integrated trading platform is functionally reliable, robust and efficient and that it will perform to the highest standards. Bringing to bear the experience of AppLabs to thoroughly test the Turquoise platform will help us to achieve this goal."

Graham Smith, Head of Client Engagement, Europe at AppLabs said: “With our extensive testing experience and in-depth understanding of trading platforms, AppLabs will be able to ensure that the functionality and efficiency of Turquoise’s trading system will exceed the expectations of the marketplace at its launch.”

HP has secured a £340m deal with Unilever to manage technology infrastructure in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Turkey and the Middle East.

“In this space, HP has demonstrated a distinctive collaborative approach combined with a clear expertise in the delivery of global services,” said Neil Cameron, Chief Information Officer, Unilever.

HP will provide Unilever with an infrastructure capable of adapting to changing business needs by "standardising, virtualising and optimising" Unilever's enterprise computing environment.

“This agreement is a natural extension of our current relationship. The intention between both parties is to leverage HP’s scale, expertise and industry leadership to ensure Unilever has access to world-class technology at substantially lower costs.”

BAA has signed off on a five-year application management outsourcing contract with Logica.

Logica will take on 400 applications such as staff rostering and BAA's Oracle Enterprise Suite. It will work to streamline performance of its end-to-end application support, maintenance and development processes.

Commenting on the contract Richard Rundle, BAA IT Director, said: “Logica was clearly the right business partner to form part of our multi-vendor strategy. As a leading Applications Services provider in Europe, Logica demonstrated that it had the capability, experience, expertise and geographic reach to deliver lower-cost, high quality, enterprise-wide solutions. Through this contract BAA will be able to achieve a more consistent approach to its IT services and applications across the business. It will allow us to manage our applications at an optimal cost, whilst maintaining strong service levels.”

Logica’s strategy will involve 50 roles transferring to the company and the delivery of outsourced support services through an onshore-offshore model.

Forrester has today revised its previous estimates of global IT spending with a new figure of 6%. A previous report from the company estimated 9% growth for 2008.

"Our forecast is based on a mild recession in the US economy in the first two to three quarters of 2008," said Forrester Research Vice President Andrew Bartels. "While it is by no means certain that the US economy will in fact experience a recession, the risks of one are high enough to justify a more conservative outlook for the IT market.

The US remains the biggest user of IT goods and services but slowing growth across the pond will increasingly be felt around the world. US spending growth is estimated at 2.8%, down from its previous forecast of 4.6%.

Outsourcing industry stalwarts and NOA past and present directors Nigel Roxburgh, Rory Graham, and Rob Aylott today announce their appointment at Bluerock Consulting, where they have re-united to launch the strategic Source-to-Service practice for this UK based boutique consultancy that specialises in the management of change within the financial services sector.

Each adds over 20 years of sourcing experience to Bluerock. Much of their shared vision on Best Practice was developed together during their tenure on the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) Board. Their central positioning of the NOA opensource Best Practice framework at Bluerock bears testament to this background.

Outsourcing veteran Nigel Roxburgh is one of the founding members of the NOA and currently holds the position of Research Director, heading up this industry body's research initiatives into outsourcing business issues as well as running its thriving financial services Special Interest Group. Nigel has recently held senior positions at Accenture and Xansa and is a specialist in outsourcing in the banking, investment and insurance sectors.

Commercial strategist Rory Graham recently left the legal profession - having held Partner positions at a number of legal firms including Bird and Bird, and Baker McKenzie - to make his foray in the broader world of outsourcing consultancy at Bluerock. Rory is a past Board member of the NOA and held the position of Legal Director.

Seasoned outsourcing industry professional, Rob Aylott, was a sourcing practice leader at both KPMG and Orbys and brings a wealth of deal strategy and offshoring expertise and received an NOA lifetime achievement award in recognition of his industry standing.

Kevin Webb, Bluerock's Head of Technology, and former Partner and Consulting Director at KPMG comments: "With so much experience under their belts, having Nigel, Rory and Rob join Bluerock will get our new sourcing practice off to a flying start."

Additionally, Chief Executive, Julian Sawyer, puts this in its strategic context by commenting: "Bluerock has aggressive growth plans over the next five years and having a team which is highly knowledgeable about financial services sourcing will be crucial to achieve our vision. This represents another exciting step in our development."

NASSCOM, the premier trade body and ‘voice’ of the IT – BPO industry in India, today announced the key findings of their annual strategic review. The findings indicate software and services exports are expected to cross $40bn and the domestic market is expected to touch $23bn in FY08. Positive market indicators and a strong track record strongly support the optimism of the industry in achieving its aspired target of $60bn in software and services exports and $73-75bnn in overall software and services revenues, by FY2010.

Commenting on the key findings, Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, Chairman NASSCOM and Vice-Chairman, Cognizant, said “The robust growth of the Indian IT-BPO industry by over 33 per cent in the current fiscal year reinforces the confidence of global corporations in India. As we move towards 2010, trends indicate that the industry is firmly poised for broad-based growth across industries and service lines, thereby strengthening India’s leadership position as the primary sourcing location for software, IT infrastructure and business process- related services.”

Mr. Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM said, “The Indian IT industry has been rapidly evolving; growth is on track to achieve, if not exceed the targets for 2010. The trends are interesting and findings indicate that the domestic market is poised for growth with IT spends trending upwards, particularly by the Government. We also see an increasing level of specialisation within the industry both in IT services and BPO, exhibiting signs of a rapidly maturing industry. However, there are global macro economic challenges; talent, manpower and infrastructure issues will need to be addressed and resolved, collectively. The industry has shown resilience and has taken several steps to mitigate the impact.”

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Cognizant, a leading provider of IT and business process outsourcing services, today announced ia 41% jump in profits for the three months of 2007.

"We are very pleased with our fourth quarter and full year 2007 financial performance, which was driven by strong growth across our business segments, service offerings and geographic regions," said Francisco D'Souza, President and CEO of Cognizant. "Our results reflect Cognizant's ability to translate our investments in our global platform into new growth opportunities for the Company. Our leadership positions in key industry verticals resulted in strong revenue performance in our Healthcare and Financial Services business segments. We were also pleased to have closed the acquisition of marketRx during the quarter, which we anticipate will enable Cognizant to further enhance our strong market position in data analytics and the Life Sciences industry. Once again, I am pleased with our performance in Europe, where revenue grew 89%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2006."

Mr. D'Souza continued: "Looking forward, we remain focused on maintaining our industry-leading growth while continuing to improve efficiencies in our business and leveraging the scale of our operations through higher utilization. We intend to continue building distinctive positions in each vertical and horizontal service area, as well as expand our geographic footprint. In addition to building the infrastructure, processes and intellectual capital to allow us to scale the business, we remain committed to ensuring we have an environment at Cognizant where the best talent in the world can thrive. We are confident that our wide range of services, geographic footprint and strong pool of talent position us effectively to adapt to the changing economic environment, as we continue to capitalize on opportunities for the long-term growth of the business."

Despite ongoing problems EDS’ profits rose from £235m in 2006 to £358m last year, a rise of 52%. Full-year total revenue for 2007 increased by 4% to just over £11bn despite a continued reduction in new contract values.

EDS signed £3.1 billion in contracts in the fourth quarter 2007, versus £3.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. Fourth quarter 2007 signings included seven contracts with values greater than £50 million. Despite this 2007 total contract value was down 26% on 2006.

“EDS posted a solid fourth quarter to end a year of operational progress in 2007,” said Ron Rittenmeyer, EDS chairman, president and CEO. “We continued to improve our competitiveness and made progress toward our financial goals.” See News Analysis for more details.