• The Identity and Passport Service, which will run the National Identity Register, admitted some of its staff had hacked into the computer system and accessed sensitive personal data. The government had claimed that the information held on the register could not fall into the hands of criminals. Three members of staff were sacked as a result.

• Aircraft maker Boeing has scrapped its in-flight broadband service because of a lack of demand. The Connexion project, launched in 2004, was intended to provide high speed Internet access during flights, and had been adopted on 70 aircraft, including planes from Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa. But the time and cost of retro-fitting aircraft with the Internet kit is thought to have put off other operators.

• PC manufacturer Dell had to launch the biggest ever recall of electronic products, after it became apparent that batteries used in some of its laptops were a fire risk. In total, Dell recalled 4 million Sony-made lithium-ion batteries. A fault in the batteries’ production process led to some laptops catching fire, although such incidents were rare.

• AT&T, the US telecom provider, revealed that hackers had gained access to the personal data of around 19,000 of its customers. The hackers had targeted customers buying DSL Internet items from online stores, which were quickly shut down. Customers were immediately notified of the security breech, and will be reimbursed by AT&T for any fraudulent transactions and for any consequential credit service costs.

• The world’s largest credit card companies are clubbing together to try to crack down on card fraud. MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover and JCB have formed the Payment Card International (PCI) Security Standards Council, an organisation which aims to develop and maintain data security standards for credit and debit card payments – the first time the major players in credit cards have agreed to work together towards a single, common security framework.

• Microsoft’s new version of Windows, called Vista, could face further delays because of the software maker’s dispute with the European Commission. The ongoing anti-trust dispute means that the planned November launch could be delayed in Europe. EC commissioners, who want Microsoft to release more interface information, seem unperturbed and say Microsoft could launch a compliant version of Vista if it wanted to.

• Telecommunication giant BT has announced the first steps to upgrade its UK customers to its 21st Century Network (21CN), as part of its move towards a pure Internet protocol (IP) network. Work will start in November 2006, with customers in the Cardiff area being the first to benefit from the network upgrade.

Infoconomy Index: Late summer surge

Growth in the global IT sector enjoyed a sharp upswing in August, fuelled predominantly by solid performances by many of the industry’s mid-sized IT players. As a result, the Infoconomy Global Index, which charts the rate of revenue growth at the world’s 200 most influential IT companies, grew by 0.8% over the month, to finish at 7.0%.

Similarly, the European Index, which tracks the performance of the subset of 50 European IT companies, recorded its fourth consecutive upswing, rising 0.3% to close the month at 9.9%. Again, the growth was driven by smaller vendors in the absence of European champions such as SAP and CapGemini.

Leading the global growth charge was networking systems vendor Cisco, where quarterly revenues rose by 21% and offshore services groups Wipro and Cognizant, which grew by 39% and 59%, respectively. There were also strong revenue surges at storage vendor NetApp (39%), middleware company BEA Systems (19%) and IT services firm Perot Systems (17%).

Those were countered, however, by below par performance at some industry heavyweights. Although representing a something of a resurgence for the company, Hewlett-Packard’s 5% trailed the industry growth rate by a couple of percentage points, as did Dell’s lacklustre 5% growth and IT services company EDS’s 4%.

The industry-wide growth rate was dragged down further by below-par performances from two other North American IT services players, notably Computer Sciences, where revenues shrunk by -1% and CGI Group, which contracted by 7%.

Meanwhile, a similar trend was evident on the other side of the Atlantic. Top of the European pile were mobile operating system vendor Symbian with a 54% revenue gain; financial trading software specialist Royalblue, sporting a 30% lift; and business applications vendor Unit 4 Agresso, with a 16% revenue rise.

The Infoconomy 200 Index measures the overall growth rate of the IT industry by tracking the financial results of the world’s most important publicly listed companies. For more details, go to www.information-age.com.