According to a new report from IDC Britain was ranked in third place in the 'Green IT' index - the ICT Sustainability Index.

The report puts the UK  behind Japan and the US but in third place with Brazil, France and Germany.

The report evaluated the volume of greenhouse gases in the world then looked at the role of ICT in reducing those emissions.

Following the reduction in outsourcing prices in 2009, analysts are predicting further falls in 2010. The price drops are not just the effect of the recession, other factors include price pressure from customers, increased use of offshore services, and de-scoping of outsource vendor services.

One school of thought suggests that if the economy begins to grow again some outsourcers will try to recoup some of the concessions they have had to make. This, however, is unlikely given increased competition from offshore.

In an effort to reduce carbon emmissions the UK government is introducing the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) in April 2010. This legislation applies to all UK companies consuming over 6,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year.

Whilst this legislation is a laudable effort to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions, it could have the unfortunate effect of disadvantaging the UK outsourcing industry and favouring offshore outsourcing operations.

Interesting times ahead for systems integrators and outsourcers as cloud computing becomes more mainstream. At the moment the majority of deals are around desktop applications (eg CSC's recent deal with the Royal Mail), but as the market matures more powerful corporate applications will emerge.

CSC claim to be the first Microsoft partner to win a large cloud computing services agreement with a recent deal with Royal Mail.

Using Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) CSC will give Royal Mail's 30,000 users access to new IT services.

CSC will also provide first line support.

Businesses using Cloud Computing could face loss of control over their data, legal risks and difficulties in proving compliance according to the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).

For example, legal risks could be created as data is moved between data centres in different legal juristictions.

Recent research of 350 European heads of IT by Portio Research found that over half were not familiar with Cloud Computing, with the public sector being the least informed.

The majority of those who were aware are actually rolling it out.

A different survey highlights that users are sceptical of the hype and are concerned that the growth in Cloud Computing is driven by vendors and not by demand.

An important change to VAT rules could potentially increase offshore service costs for EU businesses from 1st January 2010.

Under current VAT rules the basic place of supply rule for VAT purposes is the country where the supplier is based. This means that offshore suppliers outside of the EU charged no VAT - giving them a substantial commercial advantage.

From 1 January 2010 business customers will have to account for the reverse charge to VAT on the costs of these services.

Cloudforce London is on the 8th December 2009.

This is a great chance to meet the Salesforce.com exec team, hear user presentations and meet salesforce.com partners.

The event is free and you can get further details here Cloudforce London

In a recent survey less than 50% of CIO’s said they would invest in technology and systems which weren’t proven elsewhere. In another survey 30% of CEO’s were critical of their CIO’s ability to talk to the business about the innovative value of new and emerging technologies.

It is clear that many CIO’s adopt a cautious approach and focus on process improvement and cost efficiency, but very few talk about their role in innovation to develop the business.

There are many reasons behind this: