Load of Big Green for Microsoft: Lloyds Banking Group inks company-wide Managed Desktop deal

Microsoft and UK finance behemoth Lloyds Banking Group have signed a deal that will see the Windows giant manage the group's desktops and mobile devices. Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) is spanking the best part of £3bn on technology, and the Microsoft deal – whose value remains undisclosed – will see employees experiencing a " …

[Luke 11]

Cripes

So more tax dollars wind their way into tax havens and out of the U.K. Not surprising really but it ss rather sad. WOuld have been better were they to have acquired the skills and kept them in house. I can't see how this will save them money in the long run.

Google, Microsoft and AWS will eventually offer everything as as a service or platform and all the professional services work will move in house with a significant chunk being automated.

I'm not against progress but when it means so much power is concentrated in the hands of three large businesses it does make me wonder what the future holds.

[0laf]

Re: Cripes

Paper savings in the accounts. Great for execs who can translate that into real cash bonuses and share options. Plus they'll all be gone before the house of cards comes down.

If things go really bad the taxpayer can pick up the tab (again).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cripes

The UK government sold the last of its shares in LBG in 2017 so there aren't any tax dollars in play.

Lloyds don't really have many of those skills in house any more; the only difference here will be that the jobs are no longer done by Indians wearing IBM lanyards but by Indians wearing Microsoft lanyards.

[tiggity]

Spot on

" or perhaps a poster of an adorable puppy over the shuttered door of a closed branch"

Branch closures may cut costs but they make lots of customers unhappy, especially as online banking has a habit of falling over*

Caveat - don't do online banking, do things in branch & get a receipt /documentation of what occurred for when they screw up as don't trust online banking (don't do anything online tat could risk me anything more than a tiny bit of cash)

[Phil Kingston]

Re: Spot on

I'd put money, and issue a receipt, if in-branch transactions actually suffer a lower screw-up rate than online ones.

[tony2heads]

Re: Spot on

I do online banking, but from time to time need a real branch to fix various screw-ups.

My wife recently opened a bank account (at a different bank) and had far more screw-ups in a month than I have had in 10 years, because the staff did not know (or could not explain) their own products.

[phuzz]

Re: Spot on

That's great until they decide that they don't accept receipts.

Plus, do you really think that when you go into a branch to deposit some cash, that the staff behind the counter aren't using the exact same systems as the online banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck!

As the other half works for part of the Lloyds empire, I doubt even Microsoft could make things any worse than they already are if they're revamping the desktops in the call centres. If what she tells me is right, the "cost savings through systems integration" that get talked about when mergers take place were made by doing sod all and leaving staff having to log off one system so they could access another because the internal IT crew couldn't manage to link them together. Having worked for HSBC, it made them look efficient!

[The Pi Man]

Re: Good luck!

I’m absolutely sure the IT crew could have linked everything together, if they’d been asked to. Why bother when you can just leave everything alone and pay bigger bonuses to the execs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good luck!

Your other half doesn't work in IT thought, mundane things like mailboxes, ad accounts, Incident management, hr etc will all be integrated, sure plenty of things won't be but that's normally due to incompatibilities rather than lack of competence

[Anonymous Coward]

Office 365

Does the name denote that it will fail on years with 366 days (leap years) like this year?

By the way: Ladies - there is a tradition that you may propose to your partner on 29th February

[phuzz]

Re: Office 365

As elReg have extensively documented, 'Office 360' might be a more truthful name in any year.

(PS, As we're two decades into the twenty first century, ladies can propose to their partner whenever they damned well please.)

[quxinot]

Re: Office 365

Personally, I was hoping it'd be called 'Windows Managed Desktop' just for the acronym. But I'm petty like that.

[ITMA]

Re: Office 365

"As elReg have extensively documented, 'Office 360' might be a more truthful name in any year."

But IBM might have (may be they did) get upset due to similarities of the name to their IBM S/360 and OS/360.

[MrKrotos]

modern digital workplace

"Modern digital workplace" comes with some added "extras"

Windows update messing up a driver

Windows updating at really helpful times

Office365 app issues