Search through our UKHotViews and UKHotViewExtra articles plus complete research reports
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can download IndustryViews Corporate Activity, our new-look summary of corporate activity in the UK software and IT services market, right here.
Posted by Anthony Miller at '10:07'
Microsoft’s Yammer acquisition will immediately establish it as a business social media player but that is only the starting point. There is a lot to be done before it can benefit - and profit - from the purchase. Timing, and the depth of integration with the Microsoft portfolio are key factors in the success or failure of this move. TechMarketView subscribers can read about the social challenges Microsoft faces and the impact of this acquisition on the sector in HotViews Extra Microsoft steps onto a social tightrope with Yammer.
Posted by Angela Eager at '19:58' - Tagged: acquisition socialmedia software
Despite (or perhaps because of!) the woes in the industry, we are proud to say that the prospects for TechMarketView look exceedingly bright. So, we need more analysts to write great research for our ever-increasing subscription client base.
If you are an industry analyst in the tech sector with at least five years solid experience, then we’d be interested in hearing from you.
We are a small team that punches well above its weight and our reputation is everything. Therefore we are only looking for incredibly dedicated people who write incredibly good research to incredibly tough deadlines! We mingle among the great and the good in the IT industry at the very highest levels so you need to be comfortable meeting and impressing client CEOs with your knowledge of the sector.
Most importantly, you will be working mainly from your own home – we have no office. If you haven’t done this before, then it’s probably best you cut your teeth with another company as it takes real discipline and self-motivation and does not suit everyone. But for those that it does suit, the benefits of very flexible working hours are tremendous.
Once you have proven yourself, there will be plenty of opportunity to take on more responsibility. And with responsibility comes the sort of reward that only a successful, privately-held research firm can offer.
If you think you are up to the challenge – and we’re talking about the long haul, here, not just a ‘career stepping stone’ – then please drop a line to our managing partner, Anthony Miller, with your CV.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '10:00'
There’s no denying the big news of the last fortnight! That’s right. In case you needed reminding, our very own Richard Holway was deservedly awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (see here). However, in all the excitement, we did manage to put down our champagne glasses and continue to deliver more top quality research.
The whole team has been knee deep in numbers in order to deliver the latest update to TechMarketView’s forecasts for the UK software and IT services (SITS) market, which will be published this week. If you are a TechMarketView subscriber, watch this space! In the meantime though, our PublicSectorViews team has published a sneaky preview of what suppliers to the UK public sector market can expect. Following Francis Maude’s launch of the Civil Service Reform report, as well as numerous financial analyst reports pointing to an imminent boom in the public sector outsourcing market, Georgina O’Toole proffered her opinion on the outlook for the market in ‘UK public sector outsourcing: heading for a boom or a trickle’. In addition, Tola Sargeant provided an update on the key messages being conveyed by the Cabinet Office in ‘The Cabinet Office’s message to technology suppliers’.
Other research over the fortnight included Anthony Miller’s regular review of the Indian offshore services scene in ‘Offshore players: Will it be an annus horribilis?’ And of course, we continued to offer a deeper dive into some of the hot topics of the moment in UKHotViewsExtra. BusinessProcessViews’ Research Director, John O’Brien, took a closer look at Serco’s acquisition of Vertex Public Sector and compared it with Capita’s previous acquisition of Vertex Private Sector. In ‘Serco pays £55m for Vertex Public Sector (update)’ he answers the question: who got the better deal? John also analysed Liberata’s latest financial results in ‘Liberata: revenue & profits decline (update)’. Meanwhile, Phil Codling asked ‘How Computacenter got contract indigestion?’ following the company’s profit warning, and SoftwareViews Research Director, Angela Eager looked at Oracle’s hybrid on/off premise strategy in ‘Oracle delivers in fiscal 2012’.
The trade press has continued to pick up on commentary from all of the team. Following the publication of our UK SITS rankings, Information Age looked at the findings, while other publications continued to pursue our opinion on the future for two of the ranking players: Logica and HP. The list of press mentions is too long to mention but highlights include Anthony on Sage’s Brazilian acquisition (Computerworld) and on Logica/CGI (Information Age); Tola on Civica/Gateway Computing (Computing, Channelweb); Angela on Salesforce/ChoicePass (BusinessCloud9); and John on Serco/Vertex (CFOWorld, PC Advisor, and CIO Magazine).
As you can see, plenty recently published and plenty to come. So if you’re not yet a subscriber, you really should be contacting Deb Seth to find out how to put that right!
Posted by HotViews Editor at '22:02'
This week Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude launched his report on Civil Service reform. In doing so, he reiterated the Government’s support for joint ventures, employee-owned mutuals and partnership with the private sector. In addition, we suspect many outsourcing companies were frothing at the mouth with excitement as several city financial institutions pointed to a huge boom expected in the UK public sector outsourcing market.
But are we at risk of getting over-excited? Will the promises translate into growth for the UK public sector ICT and business process outsourcing market? In the latest research note from TechMarketViews’ PublicSectorViews team, Georgina O’Toole considers whether we are indeed heading for a boom. Or whether it will be more of a trickle.... Eligible TechMarketView subscribers can read the conclusions from today. Everyone else should contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '11:04' - Tagged: publicsector markettrends outsourcing trends
As we noted in HotViews (see Oracle: rushed results but still doing the business) Oracle had a good 2012. It was particularly notable for its upward marching margins, growth in new application sales and the size of its cloud business. Flat new licence sales in its database and middleware heartland were a blemish that needs monitoring and will surely give encouragement to rival SAP’s database ambitions. TechMarketView subscribers can read further analysis of Oracle’s year in HotViewsExtra Oracle delivers in fiscal 2012.
Posted by Angela Eager at '08:01' - Tagged: results cloud software
We are delighted to report that TechMarketView’s Chairman, Richard Holway, has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
The Citation reads “Chairman, The Prince’s Trust Leadership Groups. For services to young people”.
The Prince’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity helping disadvantaged young people.
In 2002, Richard was one of the early founding members of the Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group which has raised over £13m for the Trust since. Richard’s annual speeches have themselves raised £1m to help disadvantaged young people. Richard served as the Chairman of the Group from April 07 to March 09. In 2009 he was appointed as Vice Chair of the Development Board. He then founded the Internet & Media Leadership Group which itself raised over £1m in the last year. In 2011, Richard took on the Chair of all the Trust’s Leadership Groups (Technology, Internet & Media, Retail & Consumer, Construction & Business Services and Insurance & Financial Services), which now collectively raise over £7m pa for the Trust, and was appointed to the Prince’s Trust Advisory Board.
Richard said “I feel greatly honoured to receive this award. I am just one of many people involved in the Prince’s Trust Leadership Groups who have helped raise such significant amounts over the last ten years and I would like to think that this award is recognition for all their efforts as well.”
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:42'
Last quarter ended with more of a whimper than a bang for some of the top India-based offshore services players. It wasn’t so much that the numbers were that bad—though growth was disappointing for some. It was more the depressing tone of the outlook statements that unsettled the markets.
In the latest edition of TechMarketView OffshoreViews, we summarise how the major India-based fared during the quarter and how they saw their prospects for the year. Plus of course you can see our summary table for the players’ key operational metrics, and we have an interview with Shankar Narayanan, as he approaches his first anniversary as head of TCS UK.
OffshoreViews is available for download here for eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '11:41'
We were fortunate to spend Monday at Intellect’s ‘World-class Public Services’ conference, hearing from a range of public sector speakers including the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General Francis Maude, new Government CIO Andy Nelson, Chief Procurement Officer John Collington and Bill Crothers, Executive Director for Supplier Relationships at the Cabinet Office. In our latest PublicSectorViews research note we distil their messages to suppliers and provide an update on key elements of the government’s ICT strategy. Eligible TechMarketView subscribers can download ‘The Cabinet Office’s message to technology suppliers’ from today. If you don’t currently subscribe to PublicSectorViews, Deborah Seth would be very pleased to provide more details on that and our other research streams.
Posted by Tola Sargeant at '19:09' - Tagged: publicsector
Once again TechMarketView has been in high demand for comment in the broadsheets. This time the big story was Logica’s surprise takeover by Canadian IT services firm CGI Group (see CGI/Logica – Can We Deliver and Be Brilliant together?, and work back). Chairman Richard Holway was quoted in two stories in the Financial Times (see here and here) and in The Guardian (see here) for his views on what the loss of the UK’s last remaining ‘major’ IT services firm would mean for the UK SITS market. With managing partner Anthony Miller, TMV was also widely quoted in the trade press – see Computing, ZDNet, This is Money and Computerworld.
Even with the extended bank holiday for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (see Jubilee), the research team published one of TechMarketView’s anchor reports for the year, UK SITS Rankings - 2012. We revealed that the Top 20 suppliers grew their aggregate headline UK SITS revenues by 6% in 2011, to almost £26b. But if you discount the effects of M&A (around 2%) and inflation (4.5%), then organic growth in real terms was at best flat. Information Age picked up some of the findings here. The report itself provides a lot more detail and analysis on the top players across each of the horizontal SITS sectors. We will be publishing another anchor report, UK SITS Market Size and Forecasts 2012 in the coming weeks.
As usual we have been busy publishing UKHotViewsExtra articles to provide subscribers with a deeper dive behind the headline comment. Research director Phil Codling provided his analysis on Colt’s reinvention of itself as an IT infrastructure ‘deliverer’ (see Colt stands and starts to deliver), and also on infrastructure player Iomart’s strong growth drivers (see (Iomart impresses with growth from the mid-market). Research director John O’Brien also delved behind the full year results of insurance business process services (BPS) provider The Innovation Group, following a conversation with CE Andy Roberts (Innovation Group delivers 9% organic growth (update)).
As always there will be much more research over the coming weeks, exclusively for TechMarketView subscribers. But if you're not yet 'on the list', do contact Deborah Seth, who will be only too happy to help.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '00:00' - Tagged: roundup
HP once again tops the charts of the leading suppliers of software and IT services (SITS) to the UK market, even though revenues slipped back a tad last year.
The Top 20 suppliers grew their aggregate headline UK revenues by 6% in 2011, to almost £26b. But if you discount the effects of M&A (around 2%) and inflation (4.5%), then organic growth in real terms was at best flat. That said, this was a distinct improvement on last year’s Top 20 (-3%) and actually a little better than we had anticipated. Nonetheless, this is no time for celebration – our soon to be published report on UK SITS Market Trends & Forecasts will not make jolly reading for many players!
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients see all the ranking tables, along with our usual no-holds-barred opinions on the leading players, in our latest CompanyViews report, UK SITS Rankings – 2012. And if you are not yet a client, Deborah Seth can easily fix that for you!
Posted by HotViews Editor at '09:52'
