• Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO of embattled electronics and computing giant Siemens, announced that he is to stand down later this year. His resignation comes in the wake of allegations of bribery, which have tainted management at the highest levels of the company. German police continue to investigate claims that Siemens officials bribed government officials in order to win contracts.
  
  
• UK high street bank Barclays revealed that it is to provide customers of its online banking service with ‘chip and PIN’ authentication terminals for use in the home or office. Before the end of 2007, more than half a million PINsentry devices will be sent to customers. Initial recipients will be those that frequently approve transactions from their online accounts to third party businesses or people.
  
  
• Supermarket giant Tesco announced plans for a massive business process management (BPM) project, aiming to standardise business processes and IT functions across 2,000 stores in 14 countries. The project is designed to cut costs and simplify its IT operations by replacing its many national IT departments with one central department.
  
  
• Online media companies including Microsoft and TimeWarner called upon antitrust regulators to closely scrutinise search giant Google’s planned $3.1 billion acquisition of online advertising broker DoubleClick. The companies have complained that the acquisition will create what will soon become an overly powerful advertising giant that will have too much sway over advertisers.
  
  
• Social security officers in the UK are to deploy voice-risk analysis software in a bid to root out benefits cheats. The UK’s Work and Pension Secretary, John Hutton, said the so-called lie-detection software will be trialled by Harrow Council from May, and could be will be rolled out to job centres nationwide later this year. The technology picks up and flags minute variations in callers’ voices that might indicate lies.
  
  
• The City of London authority turned on an area-wide WiFi network, providing high-speed wireless Internet access to anyone within the Square Mile. The project is being seen as a testbed for the demand for municipal WiFi. A network of 127 nodes placed on lamp posts provide Internet access capabilities to the 350,000 people that pass through London’s Square Mile each work day. But unlike many municipal WiFi roll outs, users will have to pay – £12 a month for unlimited access.
  
  
• French IT services company Atos Origin revealed that it is has hired a group of investment bankers to advise it on a possible sale. Company leaders remain adamant that it has yet to receive an offer, but they have acknowledged it has received some “expressions of interest”.

Infoconomy Index: IT  sector's growth accelerates

April proved to be another strong month for the global IT industry. The Infoconomy Index, which tracks the performance of the top 200 IT companies, grew by a full percentage point to hit 11% – its highest level since early 2004.

Even the subset of European companies in the Index – a group that has lagged in recent months – is showing signs of buoyancy. The European index rose from 8.6% to 9% in April.

Powering the overall growth were strong results from some of the industry’s largest companies. Information management giant EMC chalked up 17% growth in its latest quarter, while thin client champion Citrix hit 18%, and India’s IT services giants, HCL, Infosys and Wipro, enjoyed further stunning growth rates of 44%, 46% and 41%, respectively.

By far the biggest influence on the industry-wide rate, however, was the 32% quarter-on-quarter growth at Microsoft. Its $14.4 billion revenues were lifted by early sales of the Vista operating system.

Others who were a little below par still showed a positive performance. Server, storage and Java company Sun confirmed it has bounced back from years of shrinking sales with a 3% rise in quarterly revenues; all-rounder IBM reported a strong 7% growth rate; and even NCR, the financial services technology and data warehousing giant that has of late been in the doldrums, turned in a credible 5% growth rate.

There were some laggards, of course, pulling the index down. Chipmakers Intel and AMD, suffering from the slowing of PC demand and price pressure in some regions, reported sales down 1% and 7%, respectively. Lower revenues were also a factor at services giant Unisys, where the shrinkage was 3%.

Among the European companies, SAP was the clear drag on overall growth. Germany’s ERP giant showed a below-average 6% rise in revenues. That was offset by strong growth at French systems integrator Business & Decision (60%) and Israel’s Check Point (23%).

In any case, the outlook remains strong for coming months, with the industry-wide growth rate likely to climb towards 13%.

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 IT companies.