February 01, 2012
Top Stories
IBM ACQUIRES WORKLIGHT...In a move that will help expand the enterprise mobile capabilities it offers to clients, IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire Worklight, a privately held Israeli-based provider of mobile software for smartphones and tablets. Financial terms were not disclosed. With this acquisition, IBM's mobile offerings will span mobile application development, integration, security and management. IBM says Worklight will become an important piece of its mobility strategy, offering clients an open platform that helps speed the delivery of existing and new mobile applications to multiple devices. It also helps enable secure connections between smartphone and tablet applications with enterprise IT systems.
XEROX JOINS SMB CLOUD FRAY...Xerox Corporation has introduced a new suite of cloud services form small-and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). The services will be sold through Xerox’s value-added resellers (VARs) and include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for midrange and Intel systems; Cloud Backup; and Disaster Recovery services. Xerox says the services also manage workload demand and are priced to serve SMBs that have annual revenue of $10 million to $250 million.
Separately, Xerox announced that it is retiring the name Affliated Computer Services or ACS and the business process and IT company it acquired two years ago will now be known as Xerox.
SALESFORCE INTRODUCES DESK.COM...Salesforce.com has launched Desk.com, a customer help-desk dashboard that integrates Facebook and Twitter feeds alongside more traditional corporate channels such as email. As with all Salesforce services, this newest one is cloud-based; subscriptions start at $49 per seat per month. The target audience is small to midsized businesses (SMBs)that heavily rely on Twitter and Facebook to field customer complaints and service queries.
UNISYS FINANCIALS...Unisys Corporation reported fourth-quarter 2011 net income from continuing operations of $94.3 million, or $1.94 per diluted share. This compared with fourth-quarter 2010 net income from continuing operations of $95.2 million, or $2.20 per diluted share. For the full year of 2011, Unisys reported pretax income of $206.0 million and net income from continuing operations of $120.5 million, or $2.71 per diluted share. The results included $85.2 million of pretax charges related to debt reduction. This compared with full-year 2010 pretax income of $222.9 million and net income from continuing operations of $158.9 million, or $3.67 per diluted share.
BUYINGTEAM TO REBRAND AS PROXIMA, LAUNCHES MICROSITE...buyingTeam, Europe's leading provider of end-to-end procurement services, announced that it will transition to a new brand and from February 20, 2012, will be known as Proxima. The move reflects the scope and range of services that the company now offers its portfolio of blue-chip multi-national clients, driven by the growing importance that businesses place on procurement as a strategic corporate function in today's challenging economic environment. Details can be found at the company's new microsite.
Cognizant is doing good and doing well. The technology consultancy wants to stem the tide of slowly degrading technical education in the U.S. It has just made a $1 million grant over three years to bolster the technology and engineering portions of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. Read more...
New Deals
The U.S. Navy has awarded CSC a task order to instruct naval aviation simulator training programs as part of its ongoing national defense mission. With an estimated $60 million total value, the task order, awarded during CSC's fiscal 2012 third quarter, has a one-year base period and four one-year options.
The Basque Regional Government has selected Accenture to develop a strategic cost transformation program for the Department of Internal Affairs responsible for policing and public safety. Accenture will provide management consulting services to drive rapid cost reduction and operational efficiencies across the department's fleet management activities.
CGI Federal Inc.(CGI), a wholly-owned U.S. operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc. has been selected by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) for its five-year, US$20.76 million cloud modernization project led by the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT).
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