HP tops UK Defence spending

Despite facing tougher economic conditions in the UK, Hewlett-Packard's (HP) 2008 acquisition of Texan services giant EDS continued to produce massive revenues from the UK's public sector, last year netting it £806 million ($1.3 billion) from the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

HP Enterprise Services earned £750 million more than rival IT services giant, IBM, which netted just £52 million from the MOD last year, according to documents obtained by UK government IT news publisher, Kable.

HP was the MOD's fifth largest supplier by revenue last year, behind military equipment and logistics suppliers such as BAE systems and the NATO agency.

The services division was also key supplier for the MOD's £7.1 billion Defence Information Infrastructure program which provided computing services to around 300,000 personnel.

While holding pole position in the UK's public service, HP has recently shed thousands of jobs from its services arm as the country faces recession and the public service moves to reduce IT spending.

In October HP signed a memorandum of understanding with the UK Cabinet Office as part of its attempt to cut public service spending by £6.2 billion (AU$10 billion) by 2010-11.

HP Enterprise Services also continues to deliver large revenues from the Australian public sector despite several of its agency-wide contracts being broken up over the past five years.

The Australian Taxation Office - a top three public services spender on IT along with the Department of Defence and Centrelink - this month retained HP Enterprise Services under a five year deal for its centralised computing bundle.