That was October 2010: CIOs at Lloyds, Boots and HP to cull technical staff

Oct 1stHewlett-Packard kicked off a busy month of boardroom upheavals by appointing former SAP CEO Leo Apothekeras its new president and chief executive. Apotheker replaced Mark Hurd, who quit abruptly amid scandal in September. He isn’t the only new CEO in town as Twitter’s Evan Williamshanded over to COO Dick Costolo as part of the microblogger’s drive towards turning popularity into revenue, Tony Bates left Cisco to become CEO of Skype and another former SAP-er, Gary Kovacs, took the hot seat at Mozilla.

BTunveiled a £132m project that will ensure every resident of Cornwall and the Isle of Scilly has a broadband connection. The telco also announced it would be giving the public a say in the installation of its fibre broadband network. BT’s survey, The Race to Infinity, will canvas UK residents’ views on fibre technology, and promises that the five exchanges that garner the most public support will be converted to fibre by 2012.   6th The Ministry of Defence (MoD)has warned employees not to use Facebook’snew geo-location service, Places. According to a leaked MoD document, staff could put themselves at risk by drawing attention to their whereabouts. “This application is almost creating a one-stop-shop targeting pack, which could potentially be used to target military personnel, family and friends,” the document read.  11thMicrosoft unveiled the Windows Phone 7 OSfor handheld devices, taking a step forward in the company’s efforts to strengthen its position in the smartphone market.  “With WP7, Microsoft is trying to catch up to everyone else in mobile,” said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group. “In many ways, I think they’ve missed the mobile window. Windows Mobile has left a bad taste in people’s mouths and trying to get customers to try Microsoft and WP7 again will be difficult, especially with the popularity of Android and Apple.”  12thHewlett-Packard’s plans to trim 1300 jobs in the UKwere condemned by union officials as part of a “hell-bent” effort to “butcher” the country’s high-tech workforce. The reductions are in addition to 900 HP layoffs due by the end of October, according to Unite. Lloyds Banking Group is set to cut 4500 IT jobs in the UK and India, representing 40 per cent of Lloyds’ IT workforce, according to the Lloyds TSB Union. IT staff at Alliance Boots are also at risk after the pharmacy chain announced it was cutting 900 back-office jobs. The cuts will all be made at Boots’ Nottingham HQ. 19th The G-Cloud will help the public sector standardise and simplify its ICT, saving it £1.2bn a year, according to UK Government CIO John Suffolk. He told the SIIA OnDemand Europeconference in London that the government would achieve these savings by 2014/15. “Much of what we do is common and standard and simple, so we are absolutely ideal for a cloud-based model,” he said. “Cloud computing is very important to us. The back end of a technology stack is a little irrelevant. The stack is not what I buy. I buy the outcome that I’m looking for.” 20th The Coalition Government announced its Comprehensive Spending review, a series of cuts to the public budget in order for the UK to pay down its deficit incurred when the former government had to rescue major banks such as RBS for poor financial management. 27th Major retailer The Co-operative Group said recent changes to the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) to encourage organisations to be more energy efficient had become an extra tax burden on companies as the revenue raised by the CRC, which the Labour government intended to put towards environmental plans will now go straight into the treasury. 28thThe Boston Consulting Group released its The Connected Kingdom report which revealed that the internet contributed £100bn to the British economy, more than construction, transportation and utilities.