Release of third annual global survey by Thales and Ponemon Institute examining attitudes towards data protection, encryption and key management in the cloud

Cambridge, UK - April 24, 2014 - Thales, a world leader in Critical Information Systems and Cybersecurity, will be showcasing its high assurance cryptographic solutions for protecting cloud, mobile payments, public key infrastructures (PKIs), big data and cybersecurity at this year's InfoSecurity Europe, Earls Court, London 29 April - 1 May 2014. At the show Thales is releasing the third edition of its annual research report - Encryption in the Cloud. The study, produced in conjunction with the Ponemon Institute, is based on a survey of more than 4,000 business and IT managers from around the world regarding the use of encryption in the cloud.

As organizations increasingly rely on cryptography as part of their data protection strategy and to protect their critical systems, the trustworthiness of these crypto systems becomes paramount. This is particularly relevant in light of recent concerns over back doors, poorly implemented crypto systems, and key finding attacks such as Heartbleed. The increasing scrutiny arising from privacy mandates and risk management initiatives expose the impact of weak key management systems and create pressure to adopt a proactive approach. Thales can help organizations re-assess and re-evaluate their crypto security and key management infrastructure and deliver solutions that ensure their integrity and trustworthiness.

Thales will address the following critical topics at InfoSecurity Europe:

Do you trust your path to the cloud?
Strong encryption and key management are recognized as the most secure and effective way of protecting data in thecloud. In order for organizations that migrate sensitive and high-value data to the cloud need a high assurance, reliable key management solution to retain control of their keys, and therefore their data. The Thales portfolio protects critical data assets throughout their lifecycle - when in storage, passing over communications networks and while in use by business applications - all of which are vital aspects of a cloud security strategy.

Are your payments systems ready to go mobile?
The proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has dramatically expanded the payments ecosystem, creating new security challenges and new business models. Thales technology can help you incorporate mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) solutions as well as enabling secure mobile issuance and provisioning of payments credentials to NFC and other contactless devices coupled with host security for cloud based wallets and peer-to-peer payments.

Is your PKI secure enough for your business applications?
The number of applications in an enterprise that rely on a PKI for their basis of trust is ever increasing. Under strain to do more and more, does your PKI make the grade? It is of crucial importance that the chain of trust leading back the root certificate authority (CA) along with its signing keys is protected with the utmost security implemented using a hardware security module (HSM) such as Thales nShield to protect against both logical and physical attacks.

Can you secure Big Data?
Massive scale data collection and high-velocity decision making challenges traditional security models and forces an approach that is fundamentally data centric. Encryption infrastructure and access control systems protected by Thales key management solutions not only help protect sensitive data in big data analytical systems, but also ensure it remains accessible to meet your business needs.

Have you stepped up to the cybersecurity challenge? 
Over the past decade cybersecurity threats have significantly increased. Attacks are now more frequent, severe and harder to detect and being able to prevent an attack and mitigate the impact of any compromise is a vital part of enabling your business to return to normal operations as quickly as possible.

The Thales cybersecurity portfolio encompasses a range of technologies and solutions designed to help you fully understand a cyber-threat: reduce your cyber-risk, detect attacks in real time enabling deployment of rapid counter measures, or in the worst case scenario of an attack, offer a fast and direct solution to the issue.

Enterprise encryption: Where are you on the maturity curve?

Tuesday 29 April, 13.20-13.45, InfoSecurity Europe Business Strategy Theatre
Hear Richard Moulds, vice president strategy, Thales e-Security speak about global encryption trends, highlighting deployment challenges, budgets, corporate ownership and the role of encryption in cloud computing - enabling attendees to make informed decisions on encryption and key management as they move up the encryption maturity curve.

Visit Thales at stand F30, InfoSecurity Europe 2014, Earls Court, London, 29 April - 1 May 2014.

For industry insight and views on the latest key management trends check out our blog www.thales-esecurity.com/blogs

Follow Thales e-Security on Twitter @Thalesesecurity, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube

A new generation of network scanners from Kodak Alaris launch today to provide organizations with an easy to use walk up solution to simplify document sharing.

Taking Kodak Alaris' photo kiosk and scanner know-how and combining it in a compact, high performance, networked unit, the new KODAK Scan Station 700 Series, allows people to efficiently capture information from documents and route it into key business processes without the need for a dedicated PC. Walk up, use the built-in colour 9.7 inch[1] touch screen, and go - it's as straight forward as that. 

Up until now, many organizations have been unable to automate some paper-based business processes using  scanners because of the difficulty of installing PCs in the workplace. This could be where thin client terminals are used or if strict corporate policies are in place to ensure a unified computing environment which prevents the installation of dedicated hardware or software to support a standalone scanner. In other instances, companies may wish to install a pared-down scanning solution for employees - limited to performing specific tasks - so as to make it easy for non-technical people to use. The KODAK Scan Station 700 Series is ideal for all these scenarios. 

The KODAK Scan Station 700 Series connects directly to a network and sends data to multiple destinations simultaneously, including network drives, printers, FTP sites, email, and Microsoft SharePoint. It is designed to meet the needs of small businesses or branch offices of larger organizations in a variety of industries, including healthcare, finance, legal, government, manufacturing, travel and insurance.

Network scanners make information management easy
"Network scanners are ideal for companies who have multiple offices nationwide.  The Football Pools, for example, use our KODAK Scan Stations at 25 sites throughout the UK to digitise thousands of paper betting coupons received every week," said Martin Birch, EAMER managing director, Kodak Alaris' Document Imaging division. "Scanned coupons are transmitted to its head office in Liverpool within 24 hours so they can be processed, a dividend declared and ultimately punters paid.  Scan Stations have reduced the Football Pool's weekly bet processing turnaround time, simplified an intensive and time consuming operation for staff, with the investment paying for itself within six months."

Unlike traditional scanners or other multifunction devices, the standalone Scan Station 700 integrates network connectivity and imaging functionality to make scanning more accessible in a shared environment. The large, easy-to-navigate touch screen offers a customizable, intuitive user experience which increases user accuracy and a quicker path to proficiency. A remote administration utility allows administrators to manage, configure, and maintain multiple scanners from a central location.

Two models complete the series.  The standard Scan Station 700 for general use, and the 720 EX model which extends the solution's feature set with a built-in fax modem, KOFAX Front Office Server connectivity, and an integration-friendly architecture.

The Scan Station 720EX design allows highly specialised third-party business application integration to add value to existing capture processes, offering a powerful, customizable approach to elevate end-users' information management capabilities. Selected partners can create these applications to easily look up projects, confirm deliveries, provide feedback and check the status of projects in the system, saving time and reducing administrative costs for the end-user.

Performance to streamline your business workflows

• Work horses which gallop through workloads. Both the Scan Station 700 and 720 EX can process 50 pages per minute and have a recommended daily volume of up to 6,000 pages per day. They scan in A4, duplex, colour and can output at up to 600 dpi resolution.
• Graduate to the sound of silence. Based on customer feedback and demand,both new modelsare designed to be super quiet when in standby so ideal for offices where minimising noise is key.
• Clarity is king. Kodak Alaris' Perfect Page technology is included which automatically adjusts images without user involvement to ensure best quality scans every time, especially with mixed and low contrast documents which are difficult to scan.

Hauke Fast, Kodak Alaris' EAMER product marketing manager for document imaging, "We've totally revamped our existing network scanners with the launch of the Scan Station 700 series.  They're faster, quieter and easier to use.  Companies can save both time and money with them as they easily connect to other systems. Designed for either individual or multiple users, the Scan Station 700 advances the value proposition of document management by delivering many improvements across a variety of business processes."

The Scan Station 700 and 720EX also support additional accessories for greater versatility and ease of use, including the KODAK Scan Station Keyboard and Stand Accessory, and A3 and A4 [legal size] flatbeds.

Further Information

Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

Paris, France, April 24, 2014

Click to Tweet: Veeam Reports 150 percent growth in EMEA enterprise market, fuelled by ProPartners and new VMCE certifications

Veeam® Software, innovative provider of solutions that deliver Availability for the Modern Data Center™, today announced accelerated company success in the enterprise and midmarket segments in EMEA since the beginning of 2014, proving more enterprises are demanding solutions that enable the always-on business. PricewaterhouseCoopers, GAME, OEDIV Oetker Daten- und Informationsverarbeitung KG, SCOTT Sports, AMBU and REHAU AG + Co are just a few of Veeam‘s new enterprise customers this year.

Veeam closed Q1’14 with 150 percent year-over-year growth of new enterprise customers in EMEA, while growth of midmarket customers grew 82 percent over the same period last year. In addition, year-over-year growth of the number of enterprise deals closed in Q1’2014 compared to Q1’2013 grew 105 percent, while midmarket closed deals increased 72 percent.

“Our partners are experiencing an increase in the demand for the always-on business,” said Daniel Fried, SVP and Managing Director for EMEA at Veeam. “Veeam's capabilities in data center availability combined with virtualization, the cloud, and other enabling technologies, completes the modern data center and ensures that the critical applications of our more than 100,000 customers remain always on from any place, at any time, on any device. If partners aren’t selling Veeam, they are at a competitive disadvantage. So many enterprise and mid-size companies which are highly virtualized are looking for a solution such as Veeam to protect the data in their modern data centers.”

“Our growth in the enterprise and midmarket segments in EMEA is a testament to our recent VMCE certification program,” continued Fried. “It was specifically designed so that our partners are able to meet and exceed these new expectations of their enterprise customers, offering training that will enable the reseller to offer and deliver high quality professional services, further enabling the customer to optimize their investment in Veeam solutions for a much higher ROI and improved SLAs (Service Level Agreements).”

Launched in January 2014, the Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE) certification programs in EMEA were created to establish a more empowered and enabled channel and end-user ecosystem. The designation of VMCE establishes a level of expertise required to implement and configure Veeam software correctly and most effectively. This new certification program is designed to support the systems engineers of Veeam customers, as well as the pre-sales engineers of Veeam’s network of ProPartners, with high-level technical competencies through delivery of technical courses required to achieve VMCE certification.

“I found the VMCE course to be extremely insightful,” said Craig Braimley, Infrastructure Architect at Mirus IT Solutions, a Veeam Gold ProPartner and Gold Cloud Provider. “What impressed me the most was the many interactive labs which enabled me to test out my new Veeam skills in a range of simulated environments. I would definitely recommend anyone looking to improve their Veeam skills to take the Veeam Backup & Replication v8 course, as I now feel confident that I have the skillset to not only design, but install, configure and troubleshoot any Veeam product.”

Every VMCE class includes both lecture and hands-on elements that allow the students to learn about the technology and its configuration, and then experience the configuration in labs based on real-world customer scenarios. All VMCE candidates must pass a proctored exam as the final step in earning their certification. Veeam expects 1,000 – 2,000 engineers to earn the VMCE distinction within this year.

“I would highly recommend the VMCE course as it provides extensive labs for valuable hands-on experience and a highly trained instructor to walk through the best practices and theory required to configure Veeam to meet different requirements,” said Nicholas Dalby, Technical Consultant at Sofcat Ltd., a Veeam Platinum ProPartner.

“The course represents a good technical deep-dive and provides extensive knowledge of Veeam solutions,” said Andrea Mauro of Assyrus Srl, a Veeam Gold ProPartner. “There is a good balance between the materials and the labs. It’s exactly how a technical course must be”.

About Veeam Software
Veeam® enables the always-on business by providing solutions that deliver Availability for the Modern Data Center™. Veeam recognizes the challenges in keeping a business up and running at all times and addressees them with solutions that provide high speed recovery, data loss avoidance, verified protection, risk mitigationand complete visibility. Veeam Backup & Replication™ leverages technologies that enable the modern data center, including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, NetApp Storage, and HP 3PAR StoreServ and StoreVirtual Storage, to help organizations meet recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPOs and RTOs),, save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs. Veeam Backup Management Suite™ provides all the benefits and features of Veeam Backup & Replication along with advanced monitoring, reporting and capacity planning for the backup infrastructure. Veeam Management Pack™ (MP) extends Microsoft System Center monitoring to enterprise vSphere environments and also offers monitoring, reporting and capacity planning for the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure. The Veeam Cloud Provider Program (VCP) offers flexible monthly and perpetual licensing to meet the needs of hosting, managed service and cloud service providers. VCP currently has over 4,000 service provider participants worldwide. Monthly rental is available in more than 70 countries from more than 50 Veeam aggregators.

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 23,000 ProPartners and more than 100,000 customers worldwide. Veeam’s global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has offices throughout the world. To learn more, visit http://www.veeam.com.

ESET®, the global leader in proactive digital protection, announced today the launch of GoExplore.net, the new internet initiative which curates the best of the web’s content and encourages people to explore the web safely.

With the World Wide Web reaching its 25th birthday this year, ESET has launched GoExplore.net to celebrate all things Internet. The site creates a web portal for everyone who wants to explore the online universe, upload interesting content and contribute to curating content for their fellow web surfers.

GoExplore.net will offer exclusive interviews with high-profile internet heroes, how-tos, infographics and videos, as well as surveys and poll results.

“Our new site, GoExplore.net, celebrates the very best of the web and we’re excited to be connecting with people who feel confident checking out life beyond the first page of search and want to contribute to the great content that’s featured on GoExplore.net for others to enjoy,” said Ignacio Sbampato, GoExplore.net enthusiast and ESET Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. “Our mission at ESET is to help people enjoy safer technology, so our security software is engineered to protect consumers online and allow them to explore the internet with confidence, but even we can’t help protect people who use their smartphone while driving.”

Recent research by GoExplore.net, revealed some interesting findings when it comes to consumer web surfing behavior. In a survey of 2000 people in the United States and Great Britain, GoExplore.net uncovered the risks people take when surfing the web, as well as surprising behavioral differences between the sexes.

According to GoExplore.net’s research, almost a quarter of American men (23.1 percent) aged 25-34 admit to using the internet while driving a vehicle.

In Britain, 7 percent admitting to browsing the web while driving while UK female drivers in the same age range are twice as likely (14.3 percent) to be surfing behind the wheel.

Other GoExplore.net findings include:

• Americans are almost three times (2.8 percent) as likely to use their smartphones at a funeral or religious service than Brits, with US women being seven times as likely to surf at a service than UK women.
• 10 percent of internet users say they find it difficult to find what they want on the net.
• 12.3 percent of American men aged 25-34 say they risk taking their smartphone with them to the shower or bath.

About GoExplore.net
GoExplore.net is an internet initiative from security firm ESET.  Join the celebration at http://goexplore.net

About ESET
ESET®, the pioneer of proactive protection and the maker of the award-winning ESET NOD32® technology, is a global provider of security solutions for businesses and consumers. For over 26 years, the Company continues to lead the industry in proactive threat detection. By obtaining the 80th VB100 award in June 2013, ESET NOD32 technology holds the record number of Virus Bulletin "VB100” Awards, and has never missed a single “In-the-Wild” worm or virus since the inception of testing in 1998. In addition, ESET NOD32 technology holds the longest consecutive string of the VB100 awards of any AV vendor. ESET has also received a number of accolades from AV-Comparatives, AV-TEST and other testing organizations and reviews. ESET NOD32® Antivirus, ESET Smart Security®, ESET Cyber Security® (solution for Mac), ESET® Mobile Security and IT Security for Business are trusted by millions of global users and are among the most recommended security solutions in the world.

The Company has global headquarters in Bratislava (Slovakia), with regional distribution centers in San Diego (U.S.), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Singapore; with offices in Jena (Germany), Prague (Czech Republic) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). ESET has malware research centers in Bratislava, San Diego, Buenos Aires, Singapore, Prague, Košice (Slovakia), Krakow (Poland), Montreal (Canada), Moscow (Russia) and an extensive partner network for more than 180 countries. More information is available at the ESET Press Center.

Further Information

Account Manager
Tel: 07917594869
Email: chris.cowan@goodrelationsgroup.com

Epiq Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: EPIQ), a leading provider of managed technology for the global legal profession, today announced the general availability of version 1.2 of its eDiscovery software, Epiq Analytics™. Building on Epiq's proprietary software offerings for processing, hosting, document review, technology-assisted review, production and workflow management, Epiq Analytics enables legal teams to improve eDiscovery strategy decisions utilizing user-friendly early case assessment and analytics.

"It is important to make crucial case strategy decisions as early as possible in the eDiscovery process, whether during a litigation, regulatory review, or internal investigation," said Greg Wildisen, International Managing Director, Epiq Systems. "With Epiq Analytics, our clients can uncover and immediately identify relevant data with easy to use visual tools, and thus gain case insights that they can immediately act upon."

The latest release of Epiq Analytics includes:

• Enhanced user experience to easily view and analyze multiple data sets
• Enhanced domain analysis and domain analysis reporting
• Improved document clustering functionality
• Additional exportable reports
• SEC formatted exports
• Faster analysis

Epiq Analytics 1.2 is available to all current Epiq clients in both the US and UK, with additional in-country support for Hong Kong, Japan, Canada and the EU to follow. To learn more, visit http://www.epiqsystems.com/epiq-analytics/

Further Information

Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

GFT, a leading international IT solutions provider to the financial sector, today announced it is a Bronze sponsor of the ServiceNow® Knowledge14® conference, the largest gathering of IT professionals using cloud services for enterprise IT service automation. The conference will be held April 27th - May 1st at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

GFT is the only ServiceNow partner specialized in the financial services industry. It has a strong international presence with 32 locations in 8 countries and a proven global delivery model. As an authorized ServiceNow professional services and training partner with a world class team of business analysts, SysAdmin and implementation specialists, GFT provides a one stop shop for investment banking, retail banking and insurance companies harnessing the power of ServiceNow.

At Knowledge14, GFT will be showcasing its financial services prebuilt apps such as: trade reconciliation management, risk event management, business continuity management, testing, exception handling and reputational risk management / twitter/social media integration. Knowledge14 attendees within financial services can also book a free 45 minute consultation at the Booth.

Christopher Ortiz, managing director of GFT UK commented: "As an early practitioner of ServiceNow and a long standing sponsor of Knowledge14, GFT is looking forward to meeting existing customers and meeting other financial services ServiceNow customers. We are in the unique position of having deep domain experience with ServiceNow and the CreateNow development framework as well as a team of business and IT professionals who really understand what makes finance business tick. What business lines there are, how they interact, the workflows and the business processes. This is a powerful combination allowing us to help our customers unlock the real potential of ServiceNow in their environments - dramatically increasing efficiency and reducing costs within the business."

With over 6,000 registered attendees, Knowledge14 is a learning and networking experience for all service-centric IT professionals and the most valuable event of the year for the service-oriented enterprise. With more than 90 percent of sessions delivered by ServiceNow customers, it is the best way for IT professionals of all levels to learn from their peers and share their experience in implementing and expanding ServiceNow within their IT organization and across the enterprise.

GFT will be exhibiting on Booth #327.

Further Information

Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

Email campaigns integrated with Magento, increase conversion rate by 46% as part of firm’s lifecycle marketing strategy.

Office Spot, a leading UK & Ireland online office supplies company, has significantly reduced basket abandonment rates through its integrated email marketing from Bronto Software, the leading marketing platform for commerce. An automated follow-up email campaign to basket abandoners generated a 46% increase in sales conversions.

The Dublin-based firm’s initial campaign targeted customers who recently abandoned baskets to recapture lost sales and encourage further engagement. The Bronto Marketing Platform, integrated with e-commerce platform, Magento, played a key role in the success of Office Spot’s remarketing campaign. Bronto’s easy-to-use interface allowed in-house sales and marketing staff to create and edit engaging messages aligned with the brand, rather than relying on IT personnel.

The software’s automated capabilities also allowed Office Spot to trigger messages to individual abandoned basket customers, rather than scheduling reminder messages manually.

“Understanding why people abandoned baskets is more important than anything else,” commented Matthew Dean, Email Marketing Co-ordinator, Ireland and UK at Office Spot. “We weren’t even fully aware of our conversion rates before using Bronto and Magento.”

Reaching customers who did not complete purchases is the first stage in Office Spot’s ambitious email marketing strategy. Next it aims to leverage the Bronto and Magento integration to create a complete lifecycle marketing strategy including triggered reminders of relevant customer purchases.

“Building the idea that our brand is more than just an office supply company is crucial to us,” Dean continued. “Email is a great way to put this right in front of people, while at the same time catering to their individual interests.”

Georges Berzgal, Managing Director of Bronto Software Europe, added: “We’re very pleased with the success of Office Spot’s initial campaign and look forward to helping them build an even more comprehensive email marketing programme. On average, 68% of online shopping carts are abandoned, so remarketing to those customers represents huge profit potential. It also provides Office Spot with detailed customer information to develop their long-term lifecycle marketing strategy.”

About Office Spot
Office Spot online office supplies company trading in Ireland & the UK. We host over 20,000 products on our website and have access to over 150,000 office related products from our supply chains.

Our aim is to be one of leading online office stationery suppliers and the Office Spot website’s functions and features as well as our product pricing are geared towards doing just that.

For more information visit: www.officespot.ie

About Bronto Software
Bronto Software provides a cloud-based marketing platform for organizations to drive revenue through their email, mobile and social campaigns. The platform is used by over 1000 organizations worldwide, including Armani Exchange, Samsonite, Hostelworld, Direct Golf and Moda in Pelle. Bronto is listed as the leading self-service email marketing provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000. The company is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina with offices in London and Sydney.

For more information visit: bronto.co.uk

Twitter: @BrontoEurope

Prysmian Group, world leader in the energy and telecom cable systems industry, has been awarded a new contract worth in total approximately €40 million by ESB (Ireland), for the "Shannon River Crossing" project to provide electricity between Kilpaddoge and Moneypoint across the opposite banks of the river and along an underwater route of approximately 3 km.

The project involves supply, installation and commissioning of a High Voltage Alternate Current (HVAC) 220 kV power cable double-circuit connection, comprising 21 km submarine cable including spare lengths and fibre optic connection, network components and commissioning services. The cables for the "Shannon River Crossing" project will be manufactured in the Pikkala plant (Finland), one of the Group's centres of technological and manufacturing excellence for submarine cables.

Underwater cable installation will be performed by one of the Group's own laying vessels, Cable Enterprise, specialised in operations in extremely shallow waters and in offshore wind farm connections. The vessel is currently undergoing upgrade works to be converted from a moored cable laying barge to a DP2 ship that will allow the vessel to operate autonomously without the need of tugs during cable operations. Project completion is scheduled in early 2016.

Prysmian is particularly active in Northern Europe, namely in the entire Northern Sea region. The Group can call on full expertise in offshore wind farm connections and interconnectors and an extended ability to offer turnkey products and services (including design, manufacture and installation) to better serve Northern Europe's growing markets where Prysmian Group has already acquired and completed several projects such as Ormonde, Walney I and II, Greater Gabbard, Thanet, Gunfleet Sands, Robin Rigg, Gwynt y Môr and Teesside in the UK and BorWin2, Helwin1, Helwin2, SylWin1 e DolWin3 in Germany and Skagerrak IV in Denmark.

The Group is currently carrying out the submarine connection between Scotland and England Western HVDC Link. This project represents also the full acknowledgement of the Group's undisputed know-how and capability for innovation, as well as representing a milestone not only in terms of economic value, but also for its technological characteristics (with a record voltage of 600 kV and power rating of 2,200 MW).

Further Information

Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

Kerala, India (April 25, 2013). Boston IT Solutions (India) Private Limited, now in its 20th year as distribution partner for Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI), are proud to be a Gold Sponsor at the third annual Citrix Partner Huddle at the Leela Kovalam, Trivandrum, Kerala (April 25 – 27).  At this year’s event Managing Director, Mr. Manoj Nayee, will be discussing Boston’s cost-effective VDI solution that delivers storage, network and server infrastructure for under $120 USD per user. Mr. Manoj Nayee will be speaking on the main stage on Day 2 from 8:45 – 9:15am.

As VDI technology matures, its suitability for delivering desktops to a wide range of end-users is increasing. However, despite this, IT Managers still face difficulty in balancing the costs of delivering desktops in the traditional way against BYOD strategies and the security and management benefits of VDI. To respond to this dilemma Boston has partnered with Citrix, Mellanox and Supermicro to develop a cost efficient VDI solution based on a commodity hardware architecture that delivers a VDI solution at a price point lower or equivalent to that of a traditional PC.

Originally launched in March, the Boston VDI solution uses class-leading software components including Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 in combination with Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 and Windows Storage Spaces. The hardware stack incorporates Supermicro rack-mount servers equipped with two Intel Xeon E5-2600 V2 series processors and SATA 6Gb/s 7mm 2.5" SSD’s for servicing the Hosted Shared Desktop workloads, combined with Mellanox 10GbE controller cards and switches for ultra-low network latency. The VDI solution removes the need for a traditional SAN and instead uses a more cost-effective, simple JBOD that is managed by Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 utilising clustered file services for hosting user data.

Mr. Manoj Nayee says, “An increasing number of enterprises are beginning to look towards desktop virtualisation to help them respond to rising IT costs, security concerns, the user demands of BYOD and mobile working strategies. By partnering with Citrix India and leveraging commodity hardware by Supermicro, Boston has designed and validated a cost-effective yet robust virtual desktop infrastructure that is scalable from 500 – 10,000 users.”

In addition to the discussion Boston will be launching an exclusive whitepaper titled ‘Cost Efficient VDI: XenDesktop 7 on Commodity Hardware’. The whitepaper explains how Boston’s XenDesktop-based solution achieves the goal of delivering an enterprise-class VDI solution that maintains the cost-per-user at levels comparable to traditional desktop delivery methods.

If you would like to find out more about our work with Citrix please get in touch or download the whitepaper from here .

About Boston Limited
With nearly 20 years of trading within the distribution and OEM marketplace, Boston continues to lead the way in providing the latest high-performance, power-optimized technologies into the data centre, HPC, ISP, Military, VFX, Enterprise and Broadcast markets with multi-award winning server, storage, workstation and clustered solutions.  Since the successful launch of Boston IT Solutions (India) Private Limited in 2009, we announced the launch of Boston Server & Storage Solutions GmbH in 2010. Expansion into both regions has been driven purely by market demand for alternate vendors providing high-performance and high value-add systems. As our global reach continues to expand we plan on opening further global facilities to improve and expand the services we offer.  For more information about Boston, please visit www.bostonindia.in and follow @BostonIndia on Twitter.

To find out more and to download high resolution images, please visit:

• Whitepaper: Cost Efficient VDI: XenDesktop 7 on Commodity Hardware
• High resolution Boston logos

For more information and review samples please contact Apostolos Lambrianides, Marketing Manager, apostolos.lambrianides@boston.co.uk.

Despite the increased share of phishing attacks on online stores, the most frequently attacked category of organisation was still social networking sites (23.5 per cent). In March, users of LinkedIn risked giving away their personal data as a result of phishing scams. There were also many malicious attachments sent on behalf of various well-known financial organisations. These attachments often contained malware that stole browser cookies or passwords for email programs and sent the data to a remote server run by cybercriminals.

Phishing
Social networks were once again the organisations most frequently used in phishing attacks. March saw cybercriminals compromise LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network with 200 million members all over the world. A mass mailing with a St. Patrick's Day theme offerd users a free premium account with the networking site. To enter the account the recipient had to click a link that led to a phishing page rather than to the official LinkedIn site. The login and password entered by the user were forwarded to the fraudsters.

Second after social networks was the email and instant messenger services category (16.6 per cent). The share of search engines (14.4 per cent) and financial and online payment organisations dropped by 2 and 3.5 percentage points respectively, resulting in search engines leapfrogging financial services into third place. The proportion of phishing attacks on online stores grew by 8.9 percentage points, moving that category up two places to fifth (12.8 per cent).

The most widespread malicious email attachments in March

• Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen – a fake HTML page sent to users by email disguised as an important message from large commercial banks, online stores, software companies etc.
• Aspxor network worm - automatically infects websites, downloads and executes other software, and collects valuable data on the computer.
• Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.gt – an email worm that sends copies of itself to all email addresses found on an infected computer. The worm also downloads files from the Internet without the user’s knowledge.
• Zbot Trojan that specialises in stealing confidential information.
• The Bublik family of Trojan downloaders – downloads malicious files to user machines and then launches them.
• The Andromeda family of backdoors that allows cybercriminals to secretly control infected computers and add them to botnets.

Maria Vergelis, Spam Analyst at Kaspersky Labcommented:  “Suppose you get a notification about undeclared income or a message stating that a previously filed tax return was fake. The temptation to find out more is bound to be great, which is why many recipients open the attachments in emails like these. Instead of a financial report, the attachment usually contains a Trojan that steals personal information. Cybercriminals are very resourceful and are constantly coming up with new ways to trick users. Any messages from unknown senders, no matter how important they may seem, should be treated with a lot of skepticism.”

Sources of spam by country
China was the leading spam source with 24.6 per cent of all distributed spam, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from the previous month. The US was second (17 per cent; a decrease of 2 percentage points). South Korea came third having spread 13.6 per cent of the world’s spam, 0.8 percentage points more than in February. These three countries accounted for over half of all spam sent worldwide.

Mail antivirus detections by country – Top 3
US (12 per cent), UK (9.8 per cent) and Germany (9.1 per cent). 

Proportion of spam in email traffic
The percentage of spam in global email traffic in March decreased by 6.4 percentage points and averaged 63.5 per cent.

The full report is available at securelist.com.

About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 16-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 300 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.co.uk .

* The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2012. The rating was published in the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2013–2017 Forecast and 2012 Vendor Shares (IDC #242618, August 2013). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2012.

Further Information

account exec
Tel: 441189090909
Email: alice.collins@berkeleypr.co.uk

Pete Marsden, chief information officer at ASOS.com, and David Wright, director of professional services at the Service Desk Institute, are just two of the latest names confirmed to join Gartner’s Keynote panel debates at next week’s SITS – The Service Desk & IT Support Show; which returns to London’s Earls Court on 29-30 April.

Drawing on their extensive industry knowledge, Marsden and Wright will be going head-to-head in the show’s highly-anticipated CIO and IT leader relationship counselling session; taking place at 12.30pm on Wednesday 30 April.  Playing the role of counsellor is Jeffrey Brooks, Gartner’s featured lead analyst.

As the CIO of global online retailer ASOS, Marsden heads up a team of over 400.  With over 20 years’ CIO/CTO experience at organisations including Orange, BBC Worldwide and Royal Bank of Scotland, he’s well versed in developing tech strategy which both supports and enables long-term business growth.

“Large organisations tend to have that distance that builds up between technology and business teams they support and that is a real mistake – so it is very important that I do everything I can do to try and stop that from happening,” comments Marsden.

Without true collaboration between IT and the rest of the business, comes the possibility of a disconnect between the CIO’s office and the team responsible for executing the leadership’s vision.

This unique ‘therapy’ session seeks to address that disconnect and counsel both parties – CIO Marsden and IT Leader Wright (who until very recently was the UK Service Desk Manager at CGI) – on how to bridge this gap and build a better working relationship.  Demonstrating how a better understanding, through more active communication and alignment, can ultimately yield better service and support for the entire business.

Panel Debate: Which came first: the catalogue or the portfolio?
A popular speaker at last year’s show, Jeffrey Brooks has another busy two days ahead of him at SITS14.  Hosting four of the show’s six Keynotes, event organiser Diversified Communications UK is expecting capacity crowds once again.

Brook’s other sessions include Investing wisely on your ITSSM tools and Telling your story with Business Value Dashboards (explaining a fresh approach to metrics).  Plus a panel debate focusing on the relationship between the service catalogue and portfolio management – Which came first: the catalogue or the portfolio?

This lively panel session (chaired by Brooks) will examine why so many IT support operations are still struggling with the service catalogue.

Addressing whether the problem lies with the catalogue and portfolio concept, or the culture and approach of IT services as a whole, the expert panel – Angus Gregory, CEO of Biomni, Rosemary Gurney, vice chair at ITSMF UK, and Jim Blayney, product marketing director at FrontRange – will be offering their advice on how to make it work for businesses.

To view the full education programme, which includes six Keynotes, over 40 seminars (in three dedicated theatres), in-depth roundtable discussions, and essential breakfast briefings, please visit www.servicedeskshow.com/education.

Due to their expected popularity, event organiser Diversified Communications UK is urging prospective visitors wishing to attend any seminars this year to take advantage of the show’s advance booking option when pre-registering for SITS14 at  www.eventdata.co.uk/Visitor/SITS.aspx?TrackingCode=PR14.

Please note, free tickets for all seminars will be available on the day on a first come, first served basis from the Seminar Registration Desk at the show (from 9.30am).

SITS14 attendees also benefit from free access to Infosecurity Europe 2014, Europe’s No.1 information security event, co-located at Earls Court.

For further information, and to register free in advance, please visit www.servicedeskshow.com and quote priority code PR14 (www.eventdata.co.uk/Visitor/SITS.aspx?TrackingCode=PR14).

Please note, free advance registration closes at midnight on Monday 28 April (after which a £20 door charge may apply).

Media enquiries & press pass requests to:
Emma-Louise Jones, PR Manager
Editorial representatives of relevant trade and consumer media (including freelancers) are invited to apply for press passes to SITS14 via email to ejones@divcom.co.uk (please note, additional details may be requested to verify journalistic activity and all press passes are issued at the management’s discretion).
t: +44 (0)1273 645134
e: ejones@divcom.co.uk 
Twitter: www.twitter.com/DiversifiedUK
Website: www.divcom.co.uk

Exhibitor enquiries to:
Laura Venables, Group Event Manager
t: +44 (0)1273 645138 
e: lvenables@divcom.co.uk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/SDITS
Website: www.servicedeskshow.com

Notes:
The 19thedition of SITS – The Service Desk & IT Support Show took place at London’s Earls Court in April 2013, it attracted 4,362 visitors from 40 different countries.  91% of surveyed visitors rated their show experience as excellent/good.

SITS – The Service Desk & IT Support Show was shortlisted for Best UK Trade Show Exhibition (under 2,000m2) at the Association of Event Organisers (AEO) Excellence Awards in 2012.

High resolution imagery is available upon request:

• http://www.servicedeskshow.com/wp-content/uploads/Jeffrey-Brooks-Gartner-Keynote_hi-res.jpg
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• http://www.servicedeskshow.com/wp-content/uploads/SITS13-JOB1734W750-small.jpg

Diversified Communications UK Ltd (Diversified UK) is a fast growing trade event organiser and publisher based in Brighton and Nailsworth (Glos).  Diversified UK’s portfolio includes SITS – The Service Desk & IT Support Show; office*; Casual Dining (new for 2014); lunch!; Natural & Organic Products Europe; Nordic Organic Food Fair and Natural Products Scandinavia in Malmö, Sweden; Geo Business (new for 2014); Ocean Business (including Offshore Survey Conference & Ocean Careers); MARELEC Marine Electromagnetics conference in Hamburg, Germany; camexpo; Natural Products magazine; and the Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Diversified UK is part of Diversified Communications, a leading international media company with a successful portfolio of sector leading exhibition, conferences, publications and websites.

Westborough, Mass., – April 24, 2014 –  Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU), a global business consulting and IT outsourcing company that combines innovation, technology leadership and industry solutions to transform the customer experience, today announced that it has been named one of the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces™ by Achievers, the leader in Employee Success™ software. This award recognizes the top employers in the U.S. and Canada that display leadership and innovation in engaging their workplaces.

“We are honored to be named one of the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in the U.S.,” said Kris Canekeratne, chairman and CEO of Virtusa.  “This is directly attributable to the premium we place on innovation, now embodied in V+, our social business engagement platform that provides Virtusans with a distinctive Millennial experience. V+ combined with the dedication and hard work of our team members provides an inspiring work environment that transforms the way we work, learn, share and connect.”

Virtusa firmly believes that creating an engaged workplace starts at the top. The company’s leadership team was honored for creating best people engagement practices and clear communication channels that have helped to drive employee engagement, happiness and retention. The company was measured across eight key engagement parameters including leadership, communication, culture, rewards and recognition, professional and personal growth, accountability and performance, vision and values and corporate social responsibility.

“It’s no secret that engaged team members go the extra mile for the company they work for,” said Sundararajan Narayanan, senior vice president and global head of HR at Virtusa. “More than 86 percent of our employees are in the Millennial generation, and creating an environment that not only retains Millennials, but also engages and empowers them to do their best work is no easy feat.  We are proud to have successfully created an engaging workplace where all of our team members can thrive, and are honored to receive recognition for our accomplishments.”

“The Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces understand that employee engagement is not just a buzz word, but that engaged employees provide businesses with a unique competitive advantage. Companies that focus on employee success have better engagement and alignment with business objectives and company values,” said Patrick D. Quirk, CEO of Achievers. “These companies serve as role models for other businesses to engage their own employees and build success.”

Over the past two years, Virtusa has been recognized all over the globe with numerous HR-related awards including the International Business Award (Stevies) for Best People Practices for the 2nd consecutive year, the Asia Best Employer Brand Award for HR Excellence and the Golden Peacock Award for HR Excellence. Virtusa has also been ranked as the Top 5th IT Best Employers in India, according to the 2012 DQ-CMR survey.

U.S. companies recognized on the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces list were honored at a special ceremony on April 2 in San Francisco. To see a full list of winners, please visit http://www.achievers.com/engaged/winners-2013.php. Follow the conversation on Twitter at @Achievers or use #Achievers50.

About Virtusa
Virtusa provides end-to-end information technology (IT) services to Global 2000 companies. These services, which include IT consulting, application maintenance, development, systems integration and managed services, leverage a unique Platforming methodology that transforms clients’ businesses through IT rationalization. Virtusa helps customers accelerate business outcomes by consolidating, rationalizing, and modernizing their core customer-facing processes into one or more core systems.

Virtusa delivers cost-effective solutions through a global delivery model, applying advanced methods such as Agile and Accelerated Solution Design to ensure that its solutions meet the clients’ requirements.  As a result, its clients simultaneously reduce their IT operations cost while increasing their ability to meet changing business needs.

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Massachusetts, Virtusa has operations in North America, Europe, and Asia.

© 2011 - 2014 Virtusa Corporation.  All rights reserved. 
 
Virtusa, Accelerating Business Outcomes, BPM Test Drive and Productization are registered trademarks of Virtusa Corporation.  All other company and brand names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective holders.

Intelligent Telematics has made a number of key appointments in response to increased demand for integrated vehicle tracking and forward facing camera solutions. Errin McNamee and  Scott Humphrey have joined as Group Installations Manager and Group Operations Manager respectively to support the continued growth of the company in the UK and globally.

Errin will use more than 20 years of experience in the mobile telecommunications and vehicle telematics industry to enhance Intelligent Telematics installation process. This will include managing and overseeing the nationwide network of installation engineers; ensuring quality assurance and compliance to industry standards; and working directly with clients to ensure agreed timescales and specifications are met. He previously spent 14 years working for Chameleon Group, the UKs leading hands-free phone kit distributor, vehicle tracking and installation company, in a number of management roles across business development, after sales and operations.

In his new role, Scott will oversee the UK operation, working closely with the newly appointed Group Installations Manager and taking responsibility for the telecoms side of the business. His skills and experience in implementing complex systems and managing key partnerships will also provide invaluable support to international partners and offices as they continue to grow.  Scott has longstanding experience in the IT, vehicle security and insurance sectors working for a range companies including Churchill Car Insurance, CAD Consultants, RadioActive and Intelligent Solutions.

Sam Footer, Head of International Business and Strategic Development at Intelligent Telematics commented: “These latest appointment are part of our ongoing strategy to establish a global infrastructure to support our leading range of in-vehicle camera solutions. We are bringing together a team of industry experts form the telematics, camera and insurance industries to deliver unrivalled levels of quality, service and support to our customers.”

Will Services Scotland has opted for Virtual Practices (VP) hosted legal software after a period of strong growth.

Set up by managing director Franco Lazzeri in 2008, the Glasgow-based firm offers a will writing and estate planning service throughout Scotland.

Now it has signed up for Virtual Practices for document management in order to help manage its fast-growing client base.

“We were reaching the point in the business where our client database was getting too big for our system to cope with,” says Franco.

“I spoke to a few people who recommended Virtual Practices and had an online demonstration of its capabilities. I wanted new software for document and matter management, and VP was ideal. Paying by monthly subscription suited us and the team at VP was also able to tailor one or two other things to suit our needs.

“Overall the help and support we have received from them has been great – they really have gone the extra mile.”

Natalie Jennings, who heads up Virtual Practices, which is a division of legal software supplier Solicitors Own Software, said: “VP is adaptable enough for clients to be able to choose and tailor individual packages to suit their requirements, and this has been the case with Wills Services Scotland.

“More and more firms like Franco’s are turning to VP as part of an agile, low overhead business model.”

OWASP has announced four world-renowned keynote speakers for AppSec Europe 2014 that takes place at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK from 23-26 June and will put the spotlight on the latest threats and trends in web application security. Jacob West, CTO for Enterprise Security Products (ESP) at HP will present on Fighting Next-Generation Adversaries with Shared Threat Intelligence, while Dr. Steven J. Murdoch, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Security Group of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory will explore Anonymous Communications and Tor: History and Future Challenges. Wendy Seltzer, Policy Counsel to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) will address the audience on privacy, security, and social web standards; and Lorenzo Cavallaro, a Lecturer at the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, University of London will explore CopperDroid, an automatic VMI-based dynamic analysis system to reconstruct the behaviour of Android malware.

"Today, mobile devices and their application marketplaces drive the entire economy of the mobile landscape," says Lorenzo Cavallaro. "Android platforms alone have produced staggering revenues exceeding $9 billion but this inevitably attracts cybercriminals and malware is now hitting the Android markets at an alarmingly rising pace."

HP's Jacob West has been studying techniques for identifying, anonymizing, and sharing threat intelligence and exploring use cases ranging from DDOS to malware, where this approach can speed response times and prevent breaches. "Adversaries today are technically advanced, structured around an underground governed by market forces and using paradigm shifts in technology to compromise more victims," says West.

In his talk on the evolution of Anonymous, Dr. Steven J. Murdoch will describe some of the key changes in how the organisation communicates and what has motivated them. "The growing popularity of Anonymous communication systems has also led to commercial and political realities effecting how projects are run and software is designed, says Dr Murdoch.

AppSec Europe 2014 is expected to attract over 400 industry and government leaders, academics, security architects and developers to share the latest ideas, initiatives and advances in technology to improve the security of web applications and protect personal and corporate information. AppSec Europe is organised by the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) Foundation, an open-source organisation with over 45,000 participants from around the world, which provides free, vendor-neutral guidance, knowledge, tools and research around web application security. AppSec conferences run annually in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, with keynote presentations supported by group sessions, panel discussions, workshops, an exhibition and learning opportunities for developers, business owners and security experts.

Sponsors of AppSec Europe include Gotham Digital Science, HP, 7 Elements, Acunetix, BCC Risk Advisory, Checkmarx and Cigital. 

For more information on the agenda and speakers and to register, visit: https://2014.appsec.eu/

Further Information

Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

25th April 2014 - Ealing Hospital NHS Trust (EHT) has used Ascribe's integration consultancy services to provide core development work to migrate their clinical systems' interfaces from their existing McKesson "TotalCARE" PAS and "eGate" integration engine to the CSC/Silverlink iCS PAS used by the North West London Hospitals NHS Trust (NWLHT).

Ascribe's Consultancy team was selected by EHT to undertake this critical project based on their proven expertise with complex healthcare integration projects.

To ensure that clinicians would see no change in their access to clinical data, EHT had to replace their current McKesson eGate integration engine with their recently installed InterSystems "Ensemble" TIE (Trust Integration Engine) and migrate the ten operational interfaces. The project's go-live had to be managed in parallel with the migration of the PAS system and data migration to NWLHT's existing CSC/Silverlink iCS PAS.

EHT is using InterSystems Ensemble® integration engine platform to connect the Trusts' clinical systems. Ascribe worked with EHT to provide a robust interface development methodology, interface design, development and deployment using this platform, which will also be used for all future interface development across the trust.

Cost Savings

• EHT chose to move to a single Ensemble® Integration platform to enable a more strategic, flexible and scalable integration architecture, and to consolidate interfaces within the Trusts onto one consistent platform. This consolidated architecture provides EHT with a lower cost of ownership and the integration rationalisation will enhance flow of patient information securely and seamlessly across healthcare settings, ensuring increased safety of clinical data.
• By empowering the EHT IT staff through mentoring and co-working, Ascribe have enabled staff at the Trust to take ownership of future development requirements and implementation; with Ascribe support as and when is needed. This will result in lower support expenditure due to in-house interface support and reduced demand on support staff.

Neil Bridgeman, Assistant Director of Information and Systems at EHT, commented "Our strategic vision in merging the two Trusts has led us to integrate to one PAS and one integration engine; we are expecting to see benefits in improved service, performance and reduced costs through developing our in-house team's skills. We enjoyed working with Ascribe and Intersystems on this project."

Stephen Critchlow, CEO at Ascribe, commented "Ascribe have a strategic goal to integrate healthcare systems to improve clinical safety and performance. We were pleased to work with EHT and look forward to seeing the benefits they realise through their integration work."

The BrainBasket Foundation ( www.brainbasketfoundation.com/)has been initiated by Ukraine's leading IT companies and has gained full support of the government, in particular from Mr Pavlo Sheremeta, Minister of Economic Development and Trade for Ukraine.

Last week's launch event also received heavyweight support, literally, with Ukrainian politician and former world boxing heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in attendance.

The Foundation has already received great support from big national and international companies in Ukraine, such as Microsoft, Cisco, Ciklum and others, that are ready to provide their expertise, allocate funds, and help with organisational issues.

“This is an ambitious initiative to further develop Ukraine's IT industry, using the sector as a driving force for growth to help rapidly turn the economy from Europe's bread basket to brain basket,” said Torben Majgaard, CEO and founder of Ciklum, one of Ukraine’s largest IT services exporters.

The Foundation's main objectives are: to train an additional 100,000 IT professionals by 2020; generate more than $10 billion in export revenues; and to launch a number of strategic projects in the country, such as e-government.

Torben Majgaard added:  "Ukraine is already recognised as one of the leading outsourcing locations in Eastern Europe  The BrainBasket Foundation is looking for international companies and organizations to get involved with supporting Ukraine's drive. All support is appreciated, whether from existing customers spreading the word about the quality, or businesses investing expertise, resources or increasing the volume of services from Ukrainian specialists."

The BrainBasket Foundation will be managed by a President to be elected, and the members of its 19-person Advisory Board are listed on http://brainbasketfoundation.com/advisors.html

Photos of last week's launch in Kiev are available on DropBox from this link:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/am79goj9birsgxs/rMCumbDICc

Facts about Ukraine's IT sector:

• According to the Central and Eastern European Outsourcing Association, in 2013 Ukraine ranked first in the region in terms of "best market value in IT-outsourcing" and for "the largest number of staff employed in IT.”
• Research company Sourcingline, which conducts international market research, considers Ukraine the 26th in the world in the country's attractiveness for outsourcing.
• Ukraine currently exports  IT services of $1.5-£2 billion per year.

CM Group has confirmed it now provides the complete one-stop solution for large mobile learning rollouts. With the recent addition of full Windows 8 support alongside iOS and Android, CM Group’s Luminosity range of products now enables: 

• Responsive HTML5 authoring tools to produce high quality, fully interactive, responsive learning content optimised for smartphones and tablets.
• Cloud based mobile learning platform, which supports Tin Can and serves multiple different types of learning and support assets to learners wherever they may be.
• Full range of BYOD native learning and corporate communications Apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8, enabling full offline learning and activity tracking.

Tim Buff, Chief Learning Strategist at CM Group said, “We have now implemented these advanced solutions at scale in some of the largest companies in the world, proving the technology and the exciting educational benefits available with mobile learning. With our in-house content creation capability, CM Group are able to populate the technical delivery solution with really excellent learning materials and job aids, or clients can use the authoring tools themselves to create their own content”.

CM Group has recently announced a number of mobile learning projects, which combine imaginative training solutions and ground breaking Luminosity technology.

Buff added, “We are proud to include Microsoft, RBS, QNB, Three, EE and many other leading, innovative organisations as customers for our Luminosity products. Our customers like the full end-to-end solution approach and the fact that this industry leading technology has been adopted by such big trusted organisations.”

About CM Group
CM Group specialises in the design and creation of advanced learning solutions for large international organisations. Using Luminosity Studio, our advanced collaborative, rapid authoring software, we are the largest creator of bespoke HTML5 based eLearning courses in the UK. Our proven, end-to-end mobile learning solutions include responsive HTML5 content for tablet and smartphone consumption, cloud based hosting and delivery via our Luminosity Motion mobile learning platform, and the Luminosity Mentor range of BYOD Apps for offline consumption and tracking.

Our clients include Microsoft, RBS, QNB, Virgin Trains, NHS, Three, MOD, BAE and many more leading organisations.

For further information on CM Group, visit www.cm-group.co.uk, email: info@cm-group.co.uk, or call +44 (0)1454 269222.

London, UK – 25 April 2014: Retortal, social media tech start-up, has experienced exponential growth in the six months since it launched its unique white label social media marketing control panel and content generation service. Quarter on quarter growth has seen a surge of 345 per cent in global resellers.

The platform, the first of its kind on the market, is aimed at getting web, SEO, marketing, creative and PR agencies to offer social media management services to their SMB clients. It is brought to market through a network of resellers and allows them to sell a range of cost effective social media campaigns with a high profit margin.

Martin Button, managing director of UKV recently signed up as a reseller and is already enjoying the benefits. “We’ve set up an entire brand around this platform and it’s been a great way to create a fast increase in monthly revenue. It enables us to deliver a quality social media campaign at an affordable price for a small business.”

“This growth is really indicative of the appetite the market has for this type of solution,” says Richard Ells, director, Retortal. “It is a product that appeals to a wide segment of customers. It is a great way for our resellers to grow their own brands and gain visibility, while for the ultimate end user it makes practical and economic sense having someone manage your social media presence so you can focus on your core business.”

Retortal is expanding its staff complement in accordance with its tremendous growth figures.

“We’re in the middle of a recruitment drive for developers, content creators and creative team members and have already seen a 150 per cent increase in numbers over in the last three months,” says Ells.

For more information on the Retortal platform, please visit retortal.com

About Retortal
Retortal is a tech start-up established in 2013 to address a gap in the market for a white label,  easy-to-use, social media scheduling platform that provides quality content for SMBs. Content for both Twitter and Facebook can be provided, as well as stock photography and other relevant images. The company sells through a global network of resellers, including SEO, digital, marketing, creative and PR agencies.

For more information visit: retortal.com

Press contact
Leila Hrycyszyn
The Whiteoaks Consultancy
+44 (0)1252 727313
Email: leilah@whiteoaks.co.uk

23rd April 2014 – London, UK - Experian Data Quality (previously Experian QAS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the global information services company Experian, has today announced the UK availability of its new cloud-based email validation software, which offers faster validation speed, simplified response codes and significantly improved match rates over previous versions, allowing businesses to maximize return on investment and communication efforts through the email channel.   The solution comes at a time when businesses are facing more and more pressure to enhance customer retention while engaging with them through multiple devices and channels. Despite the growth in social media, email is still the preferred form of communication with 2.9 billion email accounts/users and188 billion emails sent daily*.  Email validation is therefore a crucial element of businesses’ wider communications strategy as they try to engage and maintain customers.   The enhanced email validation capability ensures an organisation’s entire customer and prospect list contains valid and deliverable email addresses, allowing them to better communicate with each party. Sending email to invalid addresses negatively affects a sender’s reputation and can leads to ISPs filtering and blocking email from that source.  In turn this significantly impacts the performance of future e-mail marketing and customer service communications.   This, in turn, leads to:-

• Loss of Earnings
• Bad customer relations
• Poor customer retention
• Regulatory and Compliance problems  

Experian Data Quality’s Email Validation service offers a number of key features to improve the efficiency and delivery rate of customer and email marketing communications:  

• Real-time validation at the point of collection - Experian Data Quality’s premium hosted email validation solution increases data quality at the point of collection. Whether organisations choose to implement on web forms, at a point of sale, or in a call centre environment, Experian Data Quality helps catch mistyped email addresses and prompts customers to make corrections ensuring only accurate and actionable contact information is captured.   
• Automated batch hygiene - Email address files are automatically uploaded to a secure FTP website on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis for validation. Within a few hours, the file and its results are put back onto the secure FTP site for customer retrieval.  
• Bulk list validation – Organisations can validate their entire email data list on a regular or ad hoc basis depending on their individual requirements. Experian Data Quality will process the file and provide a summary of the results.  

“At every point in the customer and prospect life cycle, the e-mail address is now more important than ever before – it's a critical link between brands and consumers,” said Joel Curry, Managing Director of Experian Data Quality. “Our new email validation enhancements are focused on helping clients efficiently and accurately capture contact data to enable downstream processes, analytics and cross-channel marketing, while improving the integrity of the email data they already hold.”  

Experian Data Quality’s email validation service is available in a number of deployment scenarios including Software as a Service in order to meet the individual needs of customers. For more information visit www.qas.co.uk/email.  

* Data source – The Relevancy group 11/2013.  

About Experian Data Quality
Experian Data Quality is renowned for assisting customers with their unique data quality challenges. Providing a comprehensive toolkit for data quality projects combining market leading software with a vast scope of reference data assets and services EDQ’s mission is to put customers in a position to make the right decisions from accurate and reliable data.  Established in 1990 with offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific, Experian Data Quality has more than 13,500 clients worldwide in retail, finance, education, insurance, government, healthcare and other sectors.  

About Experian Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients around the world. The Group helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.  Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2013 was US$4.7 billion. Experian employs approximately 17,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and São Paulo, Brazil.  

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com

Contact:
Experian
Victoria Melville
Melville Communications
Tel : +44 (0)1483 489009
victoria@melvillecommunications.co.uk   ​