This week’s announcement of a ‘global partnership’ between Fujitsu and UNIT4 is interesting news for both parties. The goal is to address the needs of large and medium companies seeking both hardware and software to support IT transformation initiatives, with Fujitsu and UNIT4 able to offer reduced costs to prospective clients through the partnership. For UNIT4, this sees yet another [...]

PAC attended UNIT4’s user conference yesterday at the ICC in Birmingham, UK, where a number of announcements demonstrated how the company is sailing a course toward joining the premier league of software firms in the UK market. For starters there are the numbers: UNIT4’s UK revenue increased by 16% in 2012, to reach over £75m. As PAC’s recently published figures [...]

Cloud et secteur public ne sont pas antinomiques. Dès aujourd’hui, de nombreuses organisations publiques françaises – collectivités locales et territoriales, établissements éducatifs, établissements de santé – ont déjà mis en œuvre des solutions de type SaaS, pour des raisons très pragmatiques. De la même façon que les entreprises ont externalisé les fonctions non « cœur de métier », les établissements publics, auxquels [...]

Situation in the commercial sector in the CEE region remains in a wait-and-see mode. With most of the large enterprises in the commercial sector having foreign ownership, local decision making loses power in the face of higher centralization of IT operations at HQ levels, with concrete examples in some of the most lucrative verticals such as Banking and Telecom. The [...]

The National Audit Office (NAO) has just released a report stating that two thirds of Police Forces have failed to outline savings plans that will enable them to meet the Treasury’s targets for 2014-15. This translates into a £500m shortfall against the £1.5bn target figure. A challenge for Police Forces is that the efficiency targets must come on top of [...]

Through by and large the Russian IT market is perceived to be an emerging market, but in certain industries, notably banking and telecom, the demand seems to have become sophisticated enough and the market seems to be attaining a certain level of maturity in 2011. Moreover, the IT implementations in the main retail players have reached some saturation, at least [...]

The UK’s coalition government has now had over 18 months in office. During this period it has been laying the foundations for transforming public sector IT: restructuring relationships with key suppliers and developing its ICT Strategic Implementation Plan. In 2012 it will be developing and implementing this vision. Key initiatives are now either imminent or underway. For example: the first [...]

Yesterday we wrote about the state of UK ICT education, and made a case for a National Curriculum that encompassed all aspects of ICT – from Microsoft Office to programming, via operating systems, devices, web design and content. An objection has been raised: surely programming is all done offshore these days? Why would any student in Europe (or the US) [...]

The Netherlands has been one of the most challenging markets in Europe for software and IT services suppliers in the last three years. However, the latest research from PAC shows that the market is making a small recovery in 2011.

Microsoft, in the past, has thought that the path to the cloud was going to be a 5-10 year progression for many companies. That timetable has changed and Microsoft is trying to become a beneficiary of the accelerated move to the cloud.