Atos origin expanding e-ticketing business

Atos Origin is gearing up for its growth and expansion through its UK card payments and e-ticketing businesses. The company’s UK office has reported sales of £376m in the first half of 2008, which is a 12 per cent increase over last year. The profit margin has also increased by six per cent in comparison to the corresponding period last year.

Keith Wilman, the UK CEO of Atos, said that the performance was a result of transformation programme designed to focus a few main verticals, like government homeland security and environment; fast-moving-consumer-goods enterprise outsourcing; health business process outsourcing; rail and road transport; and mutual financial services pensions and insurance systems.

He also felt that one of the biggest areas of operations is payments in the transport vertical. They process roughly around £5bn per year in rail tickets payments. Thus the next step is to sell tickets. The company is also looking at deploying near-field-communication technology in the field of payments and ticketing. They also intend to grow in their payment and loyalty card transactions business.

They derive about £10m every year in revenues via their loyalty and payments cards operations but the company believes it has a potential to earn far higher revenue.

Web an important business channel for many high-street retailers

Online shopping is aiming to take a share of 20p out of every UK consumer pound by year end. Analysts believe that this will make the web an important business channel for many high-street retailers. As declared by IMRG Capgemini E-Retail Sales Index, UK shoppers now spend more than £26.5bn online. This is almost 38 per cent more from the same period last year.

Although the growth in online shopping fell in June, the report predicts that the economic downturn will coax consumers to spend more online looking for good bargains. Stores will have to change their business models as online sales become more popular. Retailers believe that that people will do more research online, but will still come to the store on a Saturday. So this may mean that they will reduce the products and display and invest in staff who will be equipped to help customers.

If the analysts are to be believed, then old school retailers who have so far ignored online sales will have to wake up and invest in revamping their model. If they do not take heed of the change, they will lose a large chunk of their customers.

Microsoft’s web-based Software Suites welcomed by users

Microsoft recently announced its plans for the web-based software suites that they have built for big companies. Microsoft aims to enhance productivity with its ‘deskless worker’ tools within the Microsoft Online Services line-up.

The idea behind the move is to push towards amalgamation of online and desktop software, and in the process, shifting much of the heavy lifting to the ‘cloud’. Microsoft’s web-based Software Suites have been welcomed with enthusiasm by users

Stephen Elop, the president of the Microsoft Business Division, said that Microsoft Online Services is a major element of the software plus services initiative. The business productivity suite offers an Outlook-integrated Exchange Online for e-mail and calendars, messaging via Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting video-enabled web conferencing.

All these services are available for a nominal monthly charge to a user. Users will also need to shell out a small sum every month for the Deskless Worker Suite that combines aspects of SharePoint Online and Exchange Online.

The SharePoint portal provides access to the internal company websites and search. The Exchange Online Deskless Worker includes calendars, Outlook Web Access Light, security filters and mail.

Viacom and YouTube reach agreement on user histories

A Google blog post on Monday, mentioned that YouTube would be allowed to hide important information of the users from records. It further added that Viacom and other litigants withdrew their demand for viewing YouTube user histories.

Viacom spokesman offered no comments on the blog.

The agreement is the fallout to a federal court ruling which directed Google’s YouTube to furnish usernames, viewing histories and IP addresses to Viacom. The ruling led to a controversy over privacy, forcing Viacom to adopt defensive approach.

Viacom had filed a lawsuit against Google’s YouTube last year alleging violation of its copy rights. Subsequent to the court order, Viacom was severely criticised for its attempt to intrude on users’ online privacy, though it insisted that it did not seek personal information details.

But the controversy does not seem to be over. Google has reportedly refused to pass on information to Viacom about the videos watched and uploaded by YouTube employees to the site. According to the sources Viacom could use this information to substantiate its charge that YouTube turned blind eye to the infringement of copyright on its site. Google also may demand Viacom to furnish similar records about its employees.