Short takes on this week's news
Iceland Foods extends comms deal with BT
Iceland Foods has signed a seven-year, £18.4m deal with BT to
improve its network performance and cut costs. The contract extends
BT's existing relationship with Iceland by five years and adds
networked IT services that will deliver "significant" cost savings
by putting the retailer on the path to voice and data
convergence.
www.computerweekly.com/221589
Emergency services link into Tube comms
system
London Underground's Connect digital radio system is to be
linked to the police and emergency services under a £115m contract
between London Underground and O2 Airwave, which manages the police
network. The linking of the networks will give the Metropolitan
Police and other UK forces Airwave radio coverage at all
Underground stations by 2008.
www.computerweekly.com/221592
UK defence network to use Juniper routers
The UK Defence Fixed Telecommunications Service (DFTS) project
will be based on routers from Juniper. The BT network will connect
240,000 users at more than 1,500 sites across the UK and overseas.
The DFTS has consolidated all existing defence networks to deliver
unified voice, data, Lan and Wan services for the Royal Navy,
British Army, Royal Air Force and MoD Centre.
www.computerweekly.com/221583
Oracle launches version 12 of flagship ERP
system
Oracle has launched the latest version of its E-Business Suite
ERP package. Release 12 is designed to help firms manage globally
to lower costs and improve performance. It has a central financial
architecture that enables higher levels of control and transparency
while supporting diverse local accounting, tax and employee
regulations.
www.computerweekly.com/221558
Building group underpins its patching
system
The Kier building group has migrated 4,500 desktops and laptops
across 28 offices to Microsoft Office 2003 and strengthened its
patching system. The upgraded productivity suite is now supported
by a unified patch management policy.
www.computerweekly.com/221563
Peugeot Citroën to use Linux on 20,000
desktops
Car manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroën is to use Novell's SuSE
Linux Enterprise Desktop on 20,000 PCs and the supplier's Linux
software on 2,500 servers.
www.computerweekly.com/221499
Comms managers report gaps in UK broadband
Broadband is still not available to all UK firms, the
Communications Management Association's annual survey of its
membership has found. Some 73% of respondents who wanted an SDSL
link could not get it where they needed it.
www.computerweekly.com/221510
Insurers split on whether to upgrade or
replace
Insurers are split over how best to update legacy systems and
deal with the widespread lack of IT integration that affects the
industry, according to research by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Of those questioned, 37% plan to upgrade legacy systems and 42%
would rather adopt new ones.
www.computerweekly.com/221581
DWP signs £400m printing services deal
The Department for Work and Pensions has awarded a £400m
printing services contract to a consortium led by Xerox. The iON
consortium, which includes EDS, Accenture, Ceva Logistic, Remploy,
the Stationery Office and TNT, will provide services for seven
years.
www.computerweekly.com/221582
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