News

Database software

October 19, 2012 19 Oct'12
Case study: Novus Leisure doubles sales after IT upgrade

Bar chain Novus Leisure has moved its IT infrastructure into the cloud, boosting sales through lower costs and scalable IT
October 18, 2012 18 Oct'12
Oracle pushes proprietary systems to avoid expensive IT consultants

Oracle is pushing its combined hardware and software product range as a way for CIOs to avoid costly consultant fees
October 17, 2012 17 Oct'12
O2 drops Ericsson after outage

Mobile network O2 blames Ericsson’s central user database for the faults last week and in July, telling customers it will drop the software
October 17, 2012 17 Oct'12
Mike Lynch: Firms happy with 95% IT functionality should move to cloud

Former CEO and founder of Autonomy, Mike Lynch, believes cloud is right for a number of applications, but says ERP will always stay in house

October 16, 2012 16 Oct'12
Cornell Cern project plumps for NoSQL DBMS

Physicists in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern are benefitting from a MongoDB NoSQL database management system that gives them unified access to data from a range of databases.
October 15, 2012 15 Oct'12
Did IT problems force Santander out of RBS deal?

Spanish bank Banco Santander has pulled out of its £1.7bn agreement to take over 316 RBS branches because of IT integration problems
October 11, 2012 11 Oct'12
CERN sees surge in job applicants after turning to social media

CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has seen a surge in job applicants for hard-to-fill vacancies, after using social media to recruit
October 11, 2012 11 Oct'12
Job prospects improving for IT graduates, says HECSU report

Job prospects for IT graduates have improved for the first time during the recession, says the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU)
October 09, 2012 09 Oct'12
The latest tech preserving Bletchley Park's past

Bletchley Park is embracing a range of modern technologies in order to boost visitor numbers, Iain Standen, CEO, tells Computer Weekly
October 08, 2012 08 Oct'12
How French Connection automated stock replenishment to cut costs

Fashion retailer French Connection cut costs by deploying a stock replenishment automation system

October 05, 2012 05 Oct'12
Payment errors could undermine Sepa advantages

European firms might lose billions of Euros through payment errors when the Single European Payments Area comes into force in 2014
September 19, 2012 19 Sep'12
Government spends £638m on universal credit IT, says minister Mark Hoban

Government has spent £638m on universal credit IT, with £441m going on design and development, employment minister Mark Hoban reveals
September 18, 2012 18 Sep'12
White House deputy CTO praises NHS open-data strategy

The deputy CTO of the White House, Chris Vein, is working with the NHS to pass on experiences of making data more open in the public sector
September 17, 2012 17 Sep'12
E.ON outsources applications to Capgemini

Utility giant E.ON has outsourced application services to Capgemini as part of a five-year restructure of its IT services in a deal worth about €50m
September 17, 2012 17 Sep'12
DWP hits back at criticism over Universal Credit IT systems

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has hit back at calls to delay its flagship Universal Credit scheme because of IT concerns
September 12, 2012 12 Sep'12
IT system cuts visa abuse across Schengen Area

An IT system integrating disparate national border controls has reduced visa abuse across the borderless Schengen Area of continental Europe
September 11, 2012 11 Sep'12
Allianz signs deal for customer database technology

Insurance company Allianz has signed a deal for a database system it expects will create millions in sales by creating a single customer view (SCV)
August 20, 2012 20 Aug'12
More than 1,000 school application details leaked on the internet

Personal information about more than 1,000 children has been published on the UK Independent Schools Guide website after an alleged cyber attack
August 14, 2012 14 Aug'12
How has banking IT changed after the industry's Armageddon?

Five years after Northern Rock was forced into privatisation, what effect have the many changes in the financial sector had on IT?
August 09, 2012 09 Aug'12
NHS sees £100m reduction in exposure to CSC contracts

The Department for Health’s financial exposure to its contracts with troubled supplier CSC have decreased by £100m in just three months.
August 06, 2012 06 Aug'12
Cloud Industry Forum aligns standards for easier procurement

CIF's latest code of practice aligns with ISO standards to simplify certification and make purchasing cloud services easier
August 02, 2012 02 Aug'12
NHS Scotland rolls out shared services for 22 boards

NHS Scotland has started the roll out of a single shared services platform for finance across its 22 health boards.
August 02, 2012 02 Aug'12
HP wins battle with Oracle for continued Itanium support

A California court has ordered Oracle to continue support for the Intel Itanium chips used by Hewlett-Packard in a number of its servers
August 01, 2012 01 Aug'12
Six London councils deploy shared services ERP to cut £18m

Six London councils are using an Oracle shared services implementation, in a move expected to save £18m over four years.
July 31, 2012 31 Jul'12
Newham spends £400,000 on ChildView software

The London Borough of Newham has spent £400,000 on case management software to help join up its disparate children’s services databases.
July 31, 2012 31 Jul'12
Interview: Denise McDonagh, government G-cloud director

Denise McDonagh talks about the challenges of the G-cloud programme and how the government is reducing dependence on large outsourcers.
July 25, 2012 25 Jul'12
Facebook on the hunt for London-based engineering team

Facebook announces 22 job openings on its London-based team, which will focus mostly on mobile and platform
July 24, 2012 24 Jul'12
SuccessFactors boosts SAP's cloud performance

SAP’s cloud business is growing, thanks to the acquisition of SuccessFactors, according to the company’s latest financial results.
July 19, 2012 19 Jul'12
Co-op uses Lloyds managed service in branch acquisition

The Co-operative bank will switch to Lloyds TSB's IT platform when it buys the 632 Lloyds TSB and Cheltenham and Gloucester branches
July 17, 2012 17 Jul'12
Border Agency’s IT system runs £28m over budget and a year behind schedule

The Border Agency’s £385m Immigration Case Work IT project is £28m over budget and one year behind schedule, says the National Audit Office
July 17, 2012 17 Jul'12
IT consultancy rises in construction and transportation sectors

Finance and the public sector remain IT consultancies' biggest clients but the construction and transportation sectors are increasing their use
July 16, 2012 16 Jul'12
DCLG sticks with same old system integrators for IT refresh

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) will contract a single outsourcing giant for its desktop management services
July 13, 2012 13 Jul'12
SAP expects strong second quarter

Software provider SAP expects a strong second quarter, with revenues up 18% on last year to €3.9bn (£3bn).
July 13, 2012 13 Jul'12
DWP loses £3.2bn in error and fraud, finds NAO

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates that total benefit overpayments due to fraud and error in 2011-12 were £3.2 billion.
July 13, 2012 13 Jul'12
What next for government open data?

Campaigners are worried that plans for further data releases and their promised £16bn stimulus to the economy are being derailed
July 12, 2012 12 Jul'12
Katie Davis steps down as health informatics chief

Katie Davis is to step down as managing director for NHS Informatics at the Department for Health.
July 10, 2012 10 Jul'12
Eurotunnel selects QlikView over SAP for business intelligence applications

Eurotunnel, which runs Le Shuttle, is using business analytics applications built with QlikView to analyse data from its SAP system
July 09, 2012 09 Jul'12
Gartner: Tech in business will drive consulting growth

Gartner has predicted a slight increase in IT services spending for 2012, driven by businesses becoming more technology-based
July 06, 2012 06 Jul'12
Majority of hospitals seek electronic records post NPfIT

Most hospitals are seeking electronic patient records outside the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), according to Computer Weekly research
July 06, 2012 06 Jul'12
Business analytics software aims to cut gun crime

A European Union funded project has created a prototype using business analytics software from SAS to tackle gun crime.
July 03, 2012 03 Jul'12
Cloud computing underpins Uefa business strategy

Uefa outsourced its IT infrastructure to a supplier-built private cloud to cope with demand and free up in-house resources for contingency action
July 03, 2012 03 Jul'12
Exeter University automates overseas student processing for UKBA compliance

The University of Exeter is using IT to replace manual processing overseas students in compliance with UK Border Authority (UKBA) rules
June 29, 2012 29 Jun'12
Universities deliver HPC for business via the cloud

The University of Cambridge and Imperial College are pooling their resources to create a high-performance computing (HPC) service that will offer some of the UK’s fastest computer resources to industry through the cloud
June 26, 2012 26 Jun'12
Water company United Utilities implements data governance software

Water company United Utilities has implemented data governance software to manage its £8bn IT hardware estate
June 22, 2012 22 Jun'12
Nationwide banks on virtual testing of online services

Nationwide uses a virtualised environment for testing new internet banking services to cut costs and development time
June 21, 2012 21 Jun'12
NHS Trusts tender for £300m clinical systems

Some 29 NHS Trusts across London and south England have issued a framework tender, worth £300m, for clinical information systems
June 21, 2012 21 Jun'12
Banks break with in-house software in move to commercial systems

Increased regulation, reduced profits and customer demands are driving banks to replace home-grown software with off-the-shelf alternatives
June 20, 2012 20 Jun'12
Enterprises increase software application spending to $120bn in 2012

Global spending on enterprise application software will reach $120bn this year, according to the latest Gartner research
June 20, 2012 20 Jun'12
Aston Martin implements Microsoft for accounts

Car manufacturer Aston Martin implemented an ERP system from Microsoft when it required a new accounting system
June 19, 2012 19 Jun'12
Oracle reports strong profit growth

Oracle reported an 8% increase in profits on a 1% increase in sales for the fourth quarter of its 2012 financial year
June 18, 2012 18 Jun'12
US Sequoia machine takes title of fastest supercomputer

The US has overtaken Japan in the race for the world’s fastest supercomputer, with the Sequoia computer achieving 16.32 petaflop/s
June 18, 2012 18 Jun'12
Asian scientists call for government action on supercomputers

Scientists in India, China, Japan, Korea and India have called on their governments to collaborate on supercomputer technology
June 14, 2012 14 Jun'12
Microsoft pushes Azure as cloud infrastructure on demand

Microsoft is now offering Azure as on-demand cloud infrastructure, supporting both Windows and Linux workloads
June 14, 2012 14 Jun'12
Beware what you ask of big data – you might just get the answer

One of the perils inherent in big data projects is not knowing what to do with the results
June 12, 2012 12 Jun'12
IT must use cloud to improve business processes

The cloud will grow exponentially in business and CIOs must use it to enable business processes and make companies more agile
June 07, 2012 07 Jun'12
University black box cuts student visa processing time

Lancaster University is automating record keeping and information cross checking for oversees students that register at the organisation.
June 06, 2012 06 Jun'12
CSC refuses to play ball over NHS Lorenzo deal

Troubled IT supplier CSC is continuing to drag its feet over a proposed deal by the Department of Health to free trusts from contractual obligations to use its Lorenzo software .
June 06, 2012 06 Jun'12
HP eyes EMC’s storage market

HP has released a StoreOnce data deduplication back-up system, which it claims can ingest data at 100TB per hour – three times faster than EMC’s recently launched Data Domain 990
June 01, 2012 01 Jun'12
Microsoft softens July licence blow

Microsoft has lowered the price hike planned for July, but businesses still face paying up to 25% more for their software.
May 31, 2012 31 May'12
Met Office says open source is ‘backbone of our operations’

Open source has become critical to the operations of the Met Office with Linux used in the organisation for a decade.
May 31, 2012 31 May'12
William Grant & Sons opens datacentre for ERP consolidation

Distiller William Grant & Sons opens a UK datacentre to consolidate its global ERP operation
May 29, 2012 29 May'12
Home Affairs Committee slams police IT plans

The Home Affairs Committee has expressed serious concerns over the privatisation of police IT procurement
May 29, 2012 29 May'12
CIO interview: Rex Johnson, IT director of Confused.com

Insurance comparison site Confused.com decided to move to a single Microsoft platform to speed up development of its products.
May 28, 2012 28 May'12
Universal Credit systems go live early in Manchester

Universal Credit systems are to go live in the Greater Manchester and Cheshire region in April 2013, six months before the national roll-out
May 24, 2012 24 May'12
The Facebook IPO – so much for supply and demand

During the frenzied build-up to the Facebook IPO over the past couple of weeks, emotions overwhelmed good common sense
May 24, 2012 24 May'12
Analysts attack HP’s decision to axe Lynch

Analysts have attacked HP’s decision to axe Mike Lynch from heading up Autonomy within the company, as part of its restructuring programme which will see 27,000 jobs get canned by 2014.
May 24, 2012 24 May'12
One question to clinch a software deal with Angel Trains

Angel Trains asked shortlisted software suppliers one question, which resulted in a deal to take a suite of software from Oracle
May 23, 2012 23 May'12
Overrun in big IT projects leads to one in three failures

One-third of big IT projects are likely to get derailed after they have been running for two years, according to research.
May 21, 2012 21 May'12
Interview: Giles Wilmore on the NHS Information Strategy

Giles Wilmore,owner of the Department of Health’s information strategy, discusses plans for a health portal and IT standards post-NPfIT.
May 21, 2012 21 May'12
Patients records to go digital by 2015

Patients will be able to access their own health records electronically and book appointments with GPs online by 2015.
May 16, 2012 16 May'12
Leeds Teaching Hospitals consolidates IT

NHS trust Leeds Teaching Hospitals simplifies its applications platform in £37m IT investment plan to enable clinicians to access data more easily
May 10, 2012 10 May'12
Troubled RPA systems to be replaced by 2015

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is to roll out a new payments system for the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) by 2015
May 09, 2012 09 May'12
Nevada gives Google's driverless car the green light

Google's driverless car has passed its driving test in Nevada, where licences for autonomous vehicles came into effect on 1 March 2012
May 04, 2012 04 May'12
UK Border Agency to introduce postal visa system following IT failure

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) may introduce a postal visa service for foreign nationals, following the outage of its ID card computer system.
May 04, 2012 04 May'12
Cisco snaps up analytics firm Truviso

Cisco has acquired real time data analytics firm Truviso for an undisclosed amount.
May 03, 2012 03 May'12
What is the top priority for IT execs in 2012, and why?

Why, given a choice of 14 IT concerns, including cloud computing, did application performance management (APM) come out on top?
May 03, 2012 03 May'12
European copyright ruling good for IT innovation, say lawyers

The top European court's ruling on copyright is good news for innovation, say lawyers
May 02, 2012 02 May'12
Oracle zero-day patch should be applied with caution, warns Qualys

Oracle has released an out-of-band patch for a zero-day vulnerability, but security firm Qualys warns against rushing to apply it
May 01, 2012 01 May'12
Interview: Oracle president Mark Hurd

Eighteen months after leaving HP in controversial circumstances, Mark Hurd discusses what cloud, mobile and big data mean to Oracle
May 01, 2012 01 May'12
Open Data Center Alliance focuses on big data collaboration

The Open Data Center Alliance, a group of 12 major IT users, is collaborating with industry on big data architectures
April 27, 2012 27 Apr'12
Oracle Secure Cloud to launch in the summer, says Mark Hurd

Oracle will release its Oracle Secure Cloud offering in an official launch this summer, according to company president Mark Hurd.
April 27, 2012 27 Apr'12
Amazon results demonstrate commitment to cloud

Amazon's AWS cloud business made $500m in sales in the first quarter of 2012, comprising 3.79% of Amazon's Q1 business
April 26, 2012 26 Apr'12
Train firm replaces bespoke software off-the-shelf

Angel Trains is preparing itself for massive changes to the rail industry by replacing bespoke applications with Oracle software.
April 25, 2012 25 Apr'12
SAP reports double-digit growth

SAP has continued where it left off last year with an 11% increase in sales in the first three months of 2012.
April 23, 2012 23 Apr'12
What is the future of open source in government?

While the pace of the move to open source in the public sector has been slow so far, a number of factors are converging to determine the blueprint for its future use in government IT.
April 20, 2012 20 Apr'12
BBC wants to build a cultural API

With over 80 years of cultural information in its archive, the BBC is looking at making programme metadata available
April 19, 2012 19 Apr'12
IT staff lack understanding to succeed with big data

IT professionals lack the skills to truly understand the big data opportunity for business and government
April 19, 2012 19 Apr'12
Amazon launches software marketplace on AWS

Amazon claims its new online store will make it easy for customers to find, compare, and start using cloud software.
April 17, 2012 17 Apr'12
NHS institute roll outs Skydox document-sharing platform

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement has deployed a document-sharing platform from Skydox
April 13, 2012 13 Apr'12
Financial companies leading race to digitisation

Financial companies are embracing digitisation faster than other sectors of the economy, says Booz&Co.
April 11, 2012 11 Apr'12
SAP takes on Oracle in database war

SAP is making Sybase its core relational database technology in a move towards challenging Oracle's dominant market position
April 11, 2012 11 Apr'12
Mining company AngloGold Ashanti hosts global ERP in UK

Gold mining company AngloGold Ashanti is moving to a single global SAP ERP system, based in the UK and managed by Fujitsu
April 05, 2012 05 Apr'12
HMRC slammed for IT system shutdown at end of tax year

HMRC has told businesses it is shutting down IT systems just weeks before the end of the financial year, due to a complex systems upgrade
April 03, 2012 03 Apr'12
HMRC awards IE6 upgrade contract to SME and saves £50m

HMRC has cut the cost of an IT project by nearly £50m after awarding the contract to a start-up, rather than a traditional systems integrator
April 02, 2012 02 Apr'12
Gartner: Business intelligence still highest priority for CIOs

Analytics and business intelligence is the number one technology priority for CIOs in 2012, according to analyst firm Gartner
March 29, 2012 29 Mar'12
Case Study: The Guide Dogs' BPM modernisation

The Guide Dogs has undergone a major modernisation and restructuring business process management (BPM) programme.
March 28, 2012 28 Mar'12
Cabinet Office negotiates £75m saving on Oracle deal

The Cabinet Office has signed a deal with Oracle to save £75m by 2015 across central government, the emergency services and the NHS
March 21, 2012 21 Mar'12
'Big data' wades into mainstream

“Big data” is gathering interest beyond high-tech companies. But there is much confusion, a lack of governance and a skills shortage that won’t go away soon.
March 21, 2012 21 Mar'12
Oracle beats third quarter estimates with strong software sales

Oracle Corporation has reported $9.1bn revenues for the third quarter, up 3% from the same period a year ago, beating analysts' expectations
March 19, 2012 19 Mar'12
Case Study: US Xpress deploys hybrid big data with Informatica

US Xpress is using a suite of data tools and integration products from Informatica to boost its fleet management