The partnership will first focus on the UK, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, France, Belgium and Brazil.

Capgemini and Microsoft plan to offer accelerated cloud services in 22 countries

Capgemini Group, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and Microsoft Corp. announce a global plan that will bring the expertise of Capgemini’s consulting, technology and outsourcing services to help deploy customer solutions on the Windows Azure platform. As part of the agreement, Capgemini will market and deliver services around Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform, mobilizing Capgemini’s full lifecycle capabilities in orchestrating, designing, developing and running cloud-based application services.

As a business priority for both firms, the joint plan will offer Windows Azure solutions across 22 countries with a first focus on the UK, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, France, Belgium and Brazil. There will be targeted market offers across sectors including financial services, the public sector and energy & utilities. The Windows Azure platform delivers highly cost-effective development and deployment options on a flexible platform that offers increased speed to market. The joint plan will also provide advice to businesses on how to develop a cohesive, enterprise-class cloud strategy, giving new alternatives to deal with legacy and M&A challenges. Capgemini will furthermore work with Microsoft as an ecosystem coordinator among software providers that have created solutions on the Windows Azure platform for specific markets.

“Capgemini already has a very strong alliance with Microsoft and this further strengthens our relationship. We have a long history of customer collaboration and deep sector specific expertise and Microsoft offers innovative solutions to meet customer needs in the quickly growing domain of the cloud. Together we are well positioned to deliver cloud services that will help customers keep ahead of the technology curve, while at the same time reducing costs,” said John Brahim, Capgemini’s Application Services Europe Deputy CEO.

Capgemini and Microsoft will jointly invest in sales, technical training and various marketing activities. Together the firms have agreed to produce a future global study into the issues of data quality, security and sovereignty in the cloud. Capgemini will also:

• Train 1,500 architects and developers globally on the Windows Azure platform

• Develop a dedicated offshore center of expertise through building up the Windows Azure Center of Excellence in Mumbai, India

• Migrate selected solutions to the Windows Azure platform

• Actively drive ecosystems of third-party suppliers of Windows Azure-based solutions in targeted sectors

Source: www.top-consultant.com

Logica, a leading business and technology service company, has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to offer cloud solutions to clients. Utilising Microsoft’s public and private cloud offerings, it will deliver distinctive offerings across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. It is estimated the exclusive alliance will result in a 10% growth in Logica’s cloud revenue over the course of 2011.

Clients will be able to realize the benefits of cloud services by combining Logica’s business consulting approach and unique industry specific offerings with Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform, Hyper-V Cloud and Microsoft Office 365. These benefits include reduced cost, agility and business growth through collaboration. Logica and Microsoft’s alliance is already bearing fruit with three new clients: Talentsoft, Backelite and Ventadis are now working with both companies’ teams in France to use Windows Azure in their business.

The joint effort includes the launch of a new client program, where both organizations will partner with a select group of clients to design and launch cloud solutions. In addition, Logica will be featured in the Microsoft Cloud Power marketing and advertising campaign across Europe.

“Today’s alliance announcement is significant for our clients across the European region as they are now able to access the benefits of market leading cloud platforms combined with Logica’s unique understanding of their business. We have partnered with Microsoft because of their industry leading approach to cloud and we share a common desire to deliver business benefits to customers,” commented Andy Green, Chief Executive Officer, Logica.

The alliance between Logica and Microsoft shows a commitment by both companies to go to market side by side to satisfy the needs of mutual clients. As part of the agreement Logica architects and consultants will have early access to Microsoft cloud technologies and solutions, and will therefore be best placed to make recommendations to our clients. This will allow European clients to accelerate their business transformation while experiencing the reliability, speed and cost savings which cloud technologies can provide. Microsoft cloud solutions enable customers to cost-effectively enhance business results through productivity applications, application development and hosting, and private cloud infrastructure.

“We are currently at a critical juncture where enterprises are moving from consideration to adoption of cloud services. Our joint industry offerings will combine Logica’s in-depth client knowledge with Microsoft’s cloud solutions and expertise, including our Windows Azure platform, Hyper-V, and Office 365,” commented Jean-Philippe Courtois, President, Microsoft International. “This alliance will empower leading companies across Europe to start the journey to the cloud with confidence with Microsoft and Logica.”

“We are delighted with Logica’s adoption of the Windows Azure platform. Having worked together for many years, we have first-hand experience of Logica’s client intimacy and its very strong presence in all our key European geographies. Our industry solutions will combine Logica’s in-depth client knowledge with Microsoft’s cloud solutions and expertise,” commented Larry Orecklin, Vice President, Worldwide Specialist Sales, Microsoft.

“Our clients in the EMEA region are already looking to launch new industry-specific and horizontal capabilities based on Logica’s existing Cloud offerings.” added Amanda Mesler, CEO, Logica Business Consulting. “We have made a strategic decision to focus on the Windows Azure platform, Hyper-V Cloud and Office 365 to enable many of these initiatives. Logica wants to be synonymous with Cloud innovation and this deal supports that vision. We are completely focused on helping our clients to understand their business and its supporting architecture in order to create the right processes, technology and governance. This is our business consulting approach and will help guide our clients towards delivering business value from IT.”

Joël Bentolia, Chief Technical Officer from TalentSoft, commented: “We were looking to offer our customers greater agility in the international development of our portfolio of offerings and decided to migrate our application to the Cloud using Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Solution, Windows Azure. Logica added value by analyzing possible migration issues, defining and executing the migration, ensuring the stability of service to our customers and transferring skills to our team. We are already seeing benefits of moving to Microsoft’s Cloud Solution with significant reduction in management costs of the application and reduced deployment time from weeks to hours.”

The announcement extends Logica’s existing relationship with Microsoft, working together systematically to help our clients build their business for the future. Our broad set of vertical consulting, systems integration and outsourcing skills complements Microsoft’s business model, and the cloud agreement builds-upon our well-established solutions using Dynamics ERP and CRM, business productivity tools including SharePoint, and our extensive infrastructure capability.

Source:  Top-Consultant

Royal Mail Group Limited (RMG), the national postal service of the United Kingdom, has signed a six-year cloud computing contract with Capgemini UK plc. The deal aims to transform RMG’s business and consumer online services, help to reduce its annual website IT costs and support expansion and diversification into a wide range of new web-based business opportunities without the delays and expense of traditional IT.

With cloud computing systems can be quickly and easily reconfigured to support RMG in launching new business ventures and bringing new services to market as quickly as possible. Areas seen as strong candidates for expansion and diversification at RMG include services for personal and small or medium business customers, and high-quality, innovative parcel delivery services to meet the needs of the UK’s boom in online shopping. The new technology will also empower RMG to keep pace with the emerging technologies and media being adopted by today’s consumers.

Stuart Curley, Chief Technology Architect of RMG said: “This contract is great news for our business, our customers and our employees. Once the migration is complete, we will be paying for the IT we need as and when we need it, so that we can for the first time bring our IT costs firmly in line with revenues. Capgemini’s services integrator and ecosystem model can also provide access via a single point of contact to a wide range of reliable and pre-vetted IT providers, services and facilities. I am confident that this new way to buy IT also gives us a sound basis for cutting our ongoing IT cost while transforming services to customers and supporting new business ventures.”

Capgemini won the contract against competitive bids on the strength of its innovative and creative approach and ability to meet RMG’s security requirements and complex, dynamic business needs.

The deal centres on Capgemini’s Infostructure Transformation Services (ITS) and on Capgemini Immediate, its best of breed cloud computing solution. ITS is a Capgemini global service line which enables clients to address the fundamental design, build and running of their informational structure, or ‘infostructure’. Capgemini Immediate enables an ‘ecosystem’ of third party IT suppliers to provide services seamlessly within the overall solution, with Capgemini acting as services integrator and prime contractor. It also enables the ecosystem to evolve rapidly as RMG’s business develops in the future. Cloud computing removes the need for big investment in new hardware and software licences and allows services to be added or changed in days or weeks rather than the months or years typical of conventional IT. It reduces technology selection risk enabling IT solutions to be explored at high speed and low cost on a pilot basis before selecting the best solution roll-out.

Christine Hodgson, Senior Vice President at Capgemini and Member of the Group Executive Committee, said: “This important contract at RMG marks a coming-of-age for cloud computing in the UK and gives us the opportunity to show what this exciting new technology can do in terms of speed, cost-effectiveness, scalability and flexibility. We look forward to working with RMG to support its move into new and exciting areas of business.”

Source:  Top-Consultant News

Fearing that increased consolidation could lead to vendor lock-in, some users are looking to the cloud as a more open alternative.

Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld – At the onset of a stifling recession in the fall of 2008, the IT industry entered a new, rarely seen era in which merger activity virtually ground to a halt.

That turnaround came abruptly, less than a month after Hewlett-Packard Co.’s $13.9 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp. in late August of that year. On Sept. 15, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 504 points, and HP itself announced plans to cut more than 25,000 jobs.

By the first quarter of 2009, the value of tech deals was $3.1 billion — far less than usual, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

It took almost a year for major IT merger activity to resume. In back-to-back September 2009 announcements, Dell Inc. agreed to buy Perot Systems Corp. for $3.9 billion, and Xerox Corp. agreed to pay $6.4 billion for Affiliated Computer Services Inc. By January, Oracle Corp. had closed a $7.4 billion deal to buy Sun Microsystems Inc., and in April, HP completed its $2.7 billion acquisition of 3Com Corp.

While the renewed activity could prove beneficial to the economy, users fear that significant consolidation could increase vendor lock-in, and that’s prompting some to consider shifting to cloud-based systems.

Pros and Cons

“A world where there is not much competition is a problem, certainly for public-sector buying,” said Phyllis Koch, director of IT for the city of Boynton Beach, Fla. “I guess I’m torn. It’s easier as an IT director not to have lots of different products, because then I become the integrator, as opposed to the company being the integrator for me.”

Nonetheless, the Boynton Beach government has made limited cloud moves that Koch said should help the city avoid vendor lock-in and make it easier to implement new technologies.

For instance, Boynton Beach has hired SunGard Data Systems Inc. to run its AS/400-based ERP system, which could ease any move to a new platform such as the x86, she said.

“I’m not concerned as long as healthy competition remains,” said Jo-ann Olsovsky, technology services vice president and CIO at BNSF Railway Co. “We do our best to standardize and streamline the products we use, so certainly having fewer vendors can eliminate the complexity in our infrastructure.”

She noted that large vendors have been strategically acquiring technology via mergers for years.

Andy West, a principal in McKinsey & Co.’s merger management practice, predicts “a coming wave” of acquisitions, citing the relatively high number of public companies and today’s relatively low average sale prices.

Cross-segment acquisitions, such as a storage firm buying a networking company, are the most likely moves in a technology market that “continues to be ripe for consolidation,” he said.

This story was originally published in Computerworld’s print edition. It was adapted from an earlier version that first ran on Computerworld.com.

Source: Top-Consultant

CSC has signed an agreement with the UK’s Royal Mail Group to provide cloud computing information technology (IT) services. The new agreement expands the company’s current contract signed with Royal Mail Group in 2003 to maintain its desktop computers and manage and develop its servers, mainframes and IT processes.

The new contract is an industry first, with CSC being the first Microsoft partner to lead and win a cloud computing services agreement of this scale. Under terms of the contract, CSC will provide Royal Mail Group’s 30,000 employees with access to new IT services using Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), part of Microsoft Online Services. CSC will also provide first line helpdesk support.

CSC’s cloud services are designed to help businesses easily and securely adopt cloud computing solutions, allowing them to reduce the costs of managing and maintaining business systems while giving them access to the latest Microsoft Online Services including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

Royal Mail Group’s Head of Technology Service Delivery, Carol Olney, said: “This deal forms part of Royal Mail’s drive to invest in new technology to improve efficiency and customer service.”

“The Microsoft suite will give people across Royal Mail Group the tools they need to do their jobs more effectively, enabling our business units to collaborate with each other, partners and other external organisations more freely, easily and securely while securing cost savings.”

“We are pleased to expand our relationship with Royal Mail Group and deliver the benefits of cloud services,” said Kevin Brown, vice president and chief operating officer of CSC in the UK. “Working collaboratively with Microsoft, we look forward to helping Royal Mail Group lower operational costs and providing more flexibility in the management of its IT systems.”

“Public and private sector organizations, such as Royal Mail Group, are moving their critical applications to Microsoft Online Services in increasing numbers,” said Ron Markezich, corporate vice president at Microsoft. “Partners like CSC are important in helping our customers take full advantage of the enterprise-grade capabilities and flexibility Microsoft’s cloud applications deliver.”

Source: Top-Consultant