Barclays' own cloud technology 'will slash 90 per cent of IT costs'

Bank is also starting to use the Linux operating system

Barclays will reduce its IT spending by billions of pounds through the development of its own cloud-based technology, The Sunday Times claims.

The Sunday Times reported that the firm could reduce costs by 90 per cent but failed to cite any sources.

According to the report, the bank is also beginning to use Linux, and this is the most interesting part of Barclays' decision to move its IT back in-house, according to Tristan Rogers, CEO of collaboration software provider ConcretePlatform.

"Barclays decision to move to Linux is the real news in this story, as it is a better reflection of what it is actually doing with technology development, rather than a simple move away from any vendor such as Microsoft," Rogers said.

Rogers claimed that private clouds that are purpose built, like the one that Barclays runs, will save the bank money by ditching Microsoft and Oracle operating systems, meaning that it can then re-invest the money for application development.

"However, for the most part, this switch is primarily focused around B2C (business to consumer) applications such as Pingit," he added.

Rogers went on to explain that the area that remains unexplored is the platform for internal working within the extended enterprise.

"Here, Microsoft will still have many licences of Exchange, SharePoint, SQL, MS Office and various other additions, all employed in the interests of internal productivity. The vast quantities of digital content emanating from these tools will then be sprayed across the organisation on thousands of Windows-enabled servers and shared drives in myriad folders and archives," he said.

It is for this reason that Rogers believes Microsoft and Oracle will continue to do good business among enterprises for the time being, but he warned that they could face a bleak future.

"While it is great to hear a large enterprise such as Barclays taking a more intelligent route towards B2C application development, I believe the bulk of the Microsoft and Oracle iceberg remains beneath the waterline in B2B enterprise productivity usage. When we start reading about large enterprises using cloud for this, that is when I believe the software establishment have really got something to worry about," he said.

Barclays' chief operating officer, Shaygan Kheradpir (pictured) told Computing last year that a Barclays cloud app provides everything staff need to work and communicate.

He said that he wanted to increase staff mobility and flexibility by enabling tablet use in the office and that his vision was for end users and developers to freely mingle, share ideas and feedback.

He spoke of creating an internal app store that would allow staff to download software that will let them carry out core business functions and network with one another.

"It's for business-focused apps that employees need for their daily activities, but also for internal social networking and collaboration," he said.