Global Dispatches

NZ Post to Add Google Apps

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- The Postal Services Group of New Zealand Post expects to save $2 million Australian ($1.6 million U.S.) by replacing its Microsoft Outlook, Exchange and perhaps SharePoint software with Google Inc.'s hosted Google Apps software.

The New Zealand Post unit awarded a contract to Google partner Fronde Systems Group Ltd. to roll out the Google Gmail, instant messaging, video chat, Google Docs and Sites services to its 2,100 workers.

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NZ Post to Add Google Apps

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- The Postal Services Group of New Zealand Post expects to save $2 million Australian ($1.6 million U.S.) by replacing its Microsoft Outlook, Exchange and perhaps SharePoint software with Google Inc.'s hosted Google Apps software.

The New Zealand Post unit awarded a contract to Google partner Fronde Systems Group Ltd. to roll out the Google Gmail, instant messaging, video chat, Google Docs and Sites services to its 2,100 workers.

Tracy Voice, general manager of business capability for the Postal Services Group, said the bulk of the savings will come from cuts in infrastructure costs.

Voice said that a 10-week proof-of-concept project allayed concerns about the security of the hosted systems.

- Rob O'Neill,Computerworld New Zealand

Lloyds to Cut 659 IT jobs

LONDON -- Lloyds Banking Group PLC last week announced plans to lay off 659 members of its IT staff.

The cutbacks are the latest since the company was formed earlier this year from the merger of Lloyds TSB Group PLC and HBOS PLC. More than 8,700 positions have been cut at the bank in the past 12 weeks.

Lloyds said it will cull 400 of the roles by the first quarter of next year, mostly from offices in Edinburgh, Southend and Halifax.

- Leo KingComputerworld U.K.

Briefly Noted

SAP AG last week agreed to buy SAF Simulation, Analysis and Forecasting, a Taegerwilen, Switzerland-based developer of retail forecasting software, for €63.7 million ($90.6 million U.S.). Walldorf, Germany-based SAP already resells SAF's analysis tool as part of its ERP software family.

- Peter Sayer,IDG News Service

This collection of international IT news briefs originally appeared in Computerworld 's print edition.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.