Google does software deal with the Revenue (taxcareers magazine September 2007)

Google - in partnership with Capgemini - has signed a major new deal with the Revenue & Customs to supply tax software.

The IT services group will add Google's wordprocessing, spreadsheet and e-mail tools to the portfolio of software applications it offers to its clients. This is the latest expression of Google's ongoing rivalry with Microsoft, which has long dominated the desktop market with its Office portfolio of products, including Word and Excel.

Google unveiled a paid-for collection of rivals tools in February, offering businesses a bundle of web-based services, accessible over the internet, for $50 (£25) a year per user. Since then it has said that the product has been signing up more than 1,000 small businesses a day and has been adopted by more than 100,000 firms. Microsoft Office, however, has around 240 million users. The partnership with Capgemini is designed to broaden Google's exposure to large corporate customers as it pushes its software as a service (SaaS) model - under which clients pay subscription fees for tools hosted on Google hardware and supplied through a web browser.

Capgemini manages 290,000 desktops in the UK, across private and public-sector organisations. It deals with the personal computers of 110,000 staff of Revenue & Customs and of 60,000 workers at the Metropolitan Police.

Credit Crunch - Impact on in-house tax jobs?

I am now hearing from a few independant sources of recruitment freezes affecting the large corporations and global banks in London that are looking to recuit. This is all quite worrying, and it would seem that this time the banks are not being slow off the mark to bring down the recruitment shutters. Although I guess this time the potential financial crises is happening in their back yard, rather than being sparked by an Enron or dot-com crash, and so they should know when to stop hiring.

Bob Reynolds, editor of Tax Careers, comments in their latest issue that recruiters are in somewhat of self-denial about what may happen to jobs in financial institutions, and that their attitude seems to be stay calm, your jobs are safe, everything will be OK. Bob responds with 'The banks will make some cuts and then, if the global economy improves, attempt to recruit again'. I would tend to agree with Bob on that.

If this potential crises does end up hitting us all hard, then in terms of in-house tax jobs, I suspect that it will be the major top tier banks and corporate giants that will need to cut in some areas, but generally in-house tax teams tend to stay fairly resilient in down turns. Tax teams within second tier banks and most other FTSE companies should stay at roughly the same size through a turbulent time. Some stand-alone tax roles may be at risk, but I think it will depend on their particular corporate sector.

The current nervousness in the market could all blow over in the next few months, and us recruiters will be smiling again, but I sense that the next couple of years could be a bit more difficult.