E-Plus picks network partner

Dutch mobile-phone operator E-Plus has selected Comarch as a strategic outsourcing partner for next-generation network planning, reports Billing World.

The companies have signed a letter of intent and intend for the five-year partnership to officially begin by the end of February 2010.

Comarch will deliver the OSS platform, covering the areas of planning and configuration management for the radio access and transport network, as well as migrate the existing data to the new platform. The platform will be delivered in a managed service business model.

Xhead = Capita denies £75m overcharge claim

British outsourcing group Capita has denied an allegation that it overcharged schools for IT services by £75 million (R918 million), saying it had a good relationship with its clients, according to the New York Times.

School software provider Bromcom said in a statement it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading over Capita's Children's Services business.

Bromcom said it had made the complaint over what it called anti-competitive practices, including tying and bundling together software products which should be sold separately and charging inflated annual software maintenance charges to schools.

After the US, it is the UK which is seeing protests over the entry of foreign IT workers, states Digital News & Analysis.

A UK staffing association, the Association of Professional Staffing Companies, has alleged that IT firms from outside the UK are using the intra-company transfers route to bypass UK IT workers.

The association has urged the UK Migratory Audit Commission to undertake a review of regulations related to intra-company transfers. As per regulations in the UK, firms are not required to tap the UK labour market before they can transfer workers from overseas through intra-company transfers.