Quotes of the Week 3 Dec 2010

Government procurement, Google's market clout and NHS payments to BT were among the hot topics this week

Quotes of the week

"Technology is inherently getting cheaper. So contracts awarded three or four years ago on the basis of competing prices then, are worth less now, just by the nature of the way costs are being driven down in the industry."

Fujitsu's UK and Ireland CEO Roger Gilbert explains how the government supplier is able to meet demands to slash prices, but argued that improvements in the government-supplier contractual process are required to deliver value for money.

"To argue that Google has some form of obligation to its advertising competitors goes quite far. This would not be expected under normal market conditions. To some extent this is Google being undone by its success."

Gustaf Duhs, head of competition for law firm Stevens & Bolton, explains that the EC case against Google for anit-competitive practices is far from watertight.

"We can confirm that the National Audit Office (NAO) will be providing a memorandum for the Public Accounts [into the NPfIT] following a request from MP Richard Bacon."

A NAO spokesperson reveals that the body is set to investigate the NHS (NPfIT) payment of £546m to BT amid speculation that the Department of Health had paid a premium to keep BT on board.

"Although the final decision has not been made, the pay system will not be an impregnable paywall like that of The Times. It will be a metered system or, less likely, micropayments."

The Financial Times cites a source who claims The Telegraph will set up a paywall, but parent company Telegraph Media Group (TMG) denies any decision has been made.

"The NHS is sharing this information out liberally and the users don't know it and couldn't opt out of sharing even if they did."

Mischa Tuffield, security expert and blogger, discovers that NHS is sharing the data of its site's users with Facebook and Google.

"We will look at whether the Oracle suite would be a suitable replacement for Hyperion and we may also investigate other technologies, including SAP BusinessObjects for the same purpose. Analytics software allows us to work out where to put vehicles for the best rental returns, and where demand is coming from."

Avis CIO Adam Gerrard tells Computing about the decisions he has to make on business analysis software, claiming it is vital to Avis's strategy, with yield management crucial to the car hire industry.

Reader comments

A reader's comment following a story that described the National Audit Office's plans to investigate NHS payments to BT.

"The NAO is investgating this rather ridiculous (or it would be if it did not involve so much money and a trusted public sector arm) affair and rightly so."

Respective CEOs at Sovereign Business Integration and Eclipse Group Richard Barker and Gary Waylett give their views on why firms are wasting £10.6bn annually on supporting IT applications that deliver little or no value, and how to avoid wasting such sums.

"The real questions senior management should be asking are: what are the business requirements, what IT solutions do we require to achieve these, and which combination delivers the greatest business value?" said Baker.

"There are always times when new software is required. But this should be the last, not the first choice. To make best use of a limited systems budget, Financial Directors and IT Directors should forget about the march of technology and instead ask what aspects of their business have altered since the original system was implemented," added Waylett.