UK police forces select Unisys HOLMES to manage major investigations
The UK's police forces have combined to selected Unisys to implement the latest version of the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System (HOLMES) for major criminal investigations and incident management. HOLMES will be delivered to more than 40 UK police forces through a browser-based application hosted in a secure cloud service, the company says. Each force has signed a separate contract to use the HOLMES solution, with the new contracts representing the first procurement of a national policing system completed using the UK Government's G-Cloud procurement framework and the Digital Marketplace (formally CloudStore). The application will help UK Police Forces lower the cost of IT and share intelligence more easily, Unisys says. HOLMES also gives senior officers a real-time view of live operations to facilitate efficient decision making and the effective deployment of police resources, it says. There is also functionality for tasking, alerting, reporting, messaging, analytics and document and records management. In a statement Mike Barton, chief constable of Durham Constabulary, said: "The cost and resourcing benefits we hope to achieve with HOLMES will support our efforts in the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review and the solution's improved functionality will help us to meet the Government Information and Communications Technology strategy of reducing the number of Police systems."
Pictured: Sherlock Holmes plaque at 221b Baker Street by Mschlindwein / Wikimedia Commons
Unisys: www.unisys.com
Envitia launches Discovery 3.0 geospatial data management
Envitia has launched Discovery 3.0, the latest edition of its suite of tools that enable organisations to automate the management, processing and distribution of geospatial intelligence and data to their users. The suite includes configurable tools covering cataloguing, conversion, transformation, packaging, publication and visualisation of geographic data. Users of the Discovery web portal are able to rapidly search, discover, visualise, and download geospatial data into external applications using open standards interfaces. Discovery supports a wide range of standard and specialist geospatial data formats, ranging from all standard GIS formats to specialist formats such as CADRG, DTED and S-57. The latest release adds additional formats including MrSID, JPEG200, ECRG, DBDB- V 6, WVS and DVOF, as well as high-quality preconfigured product visualisations for many complex geospatial data formats such as ENC. Envitia Discovery is built on the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards.
Discovery 3.0: www.envitia.com/discovery
Councils among winners of KANA CONNECT 2014 Customer Awards
Oxford City Council and Wyre Council are among winners of awards issued by customer service solutions specialist KANA Software to users of its software. Oxford won "Best web experience" for its citizen portal, which includes more than 100 options for online self-service and integration with back-office systems. About one-third of visitors to the council website are now doing so using mobile devices. "Technology innovator of the year" was won by Wyre Council in Lancashire for allowing citizens to plot the location of their issues online using a Google Map integrated with KANA case management software, providing officers in the field with details for resolving issues. Service provider Serco won a commendation for its use of KANA solutions on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council including a citizen reporting tool that integrates with mapping and back-office systems to simplify highway issues, helping ensure defects are reported quickly to the right team.
KANA: www.kana.com
