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Southern Photonics Strengthens International Presence in Japanese Market

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Auckland New Zealand – November, 27 2012 Southern Photonics, a New Zealand based leading photonics technology company, has announced their newest partnership with I-Wave Corp in Japan.

The new partnership strengthens Southern Photonics’ established reputation in the photonics industry, and working with I-Wave will enable them to provide local channels for sales and support to the Japanese market.

Andy Stevens, COO of Southern Photonics says: “We are really excited to be announcing this new partnership as we understand how important developing relationships in growing markets are in the current climate. I-Wave’s customer base fits perfectly with our product portfolio and will enable us to create a strong presence and provide our products to new customers in the Asian market.”

The equivalent-time based Optical Modulation Analyzer (OMA) IQScope, which is revolutionizing the OMA market with its unique technology, will be among the products that I-Wave will be offering to their customers.

I-Wave, is an importer and exporter of ultra high-speed optical transmission and access products in Japan, and is an important partnership for Southern Photonics as it continues to expand out of New Zealand into the international photonics market.

Koichi Shimada, CEO of I-Wave added: “It is an exciting time for us to be able to work with a leading technology company like Southern Photonics in a marketplace where the technology developed by them is new and emergent. Our vast exposure in the Japanese market can ensure Southern Photonics will benefit from this partnership and will most definitely benefit our customers.”

www.southernphotonics.com


Ingram Micro to Introduce Aleratec Products to "Prosumers" in the UK

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Chatsworth, California – November 27, 2012 – Ingram Micro’s new agreement with Aleratec Inc. will make Aleratec’s products, including professional-grade duplicators for hard disk drives, USB flash drives, and optical discs, in addition to mobile and tablet accessories, available to Ingram Micro customers across the UK market.

For over a decade, Aleratec has served as a leading provider of duplicating and sanitizing solutions for specialized markets including government agencies, educational facilities, IT departments and many more. Aleratec’s products are also essential tools for many system integrators and builders. Aleratec recently expanded its line to include high-quality mobile and tablet accessories designed to enhance productivity. Aleratec’s commitment to quality and its customers has resulted in products that regularly win industry accolades for their innovation, reliability and ease-of-use.

Darren Tobin, Head of Apple, Displays and Peripherals Division, Ingram Micro UK, stated, "Having enjoyed brilliant success working with Aleratec throughout North America, we are excited to expand this relationship to the UK. Aleratec has been a leader in offering professional-quality duplication and sanitization solutions and, with the addition of the mobile accessories line, continues to develop reliable products that increase productivity. Our reseller partners will find substantial sales opportunities with Aleratec’s high quality, well-designed solutions.”

“Expansion into the UK is the natural next step in building on our great relationship with Ingram Micro,” said Perry Solomon, Aleratec President and CEO. “We look forward to introducing our product lines to Ingram Micro UK’s network of partners and supporting their needs.”

Solomon noted that the agreement between Aleratec and Ingram Micro UK is an extension of an important strategic and growing relationship. Ingram Micro began offering Aleratec in the United States in 2002, and then in Canada starting in 2004.

Learner analytics and financial management top of the bill on Serco Education and Learning stand

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Best-in-class school information and finance management is top of the bill on stand D180 where Serco Education and Learning is launching Progresso Analytics, a sophisticated analytics tool that can be used to track behaviour and attendance, investigate trends or issues within any cohort of learners, explore patterns in attainment data, track the impact of interventions over time and demonstrate clear evidence of progress.

Also new is Progresso Finance PLUS powered by Corero Resource, recognised market leader of finance and accounting software in the education sector. Seamlessly integrated into Serco’s Progresso Management Information System, this new module is designed to help schools control costs and improve cash flow.

www.sercolearning.com   Tel: 08456 888 500

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Innovative chat tool for jobseekers created on free software

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United Kingdom –November  28 , 2012 — A solitary developer has created a unique real-time collaboration engine for one of the biggest and fastest job sites in the UK on free open source database MongoDB.

Job Basket’s fully mobile solution, called GuideCast, will be run in partnership with universities and colleges to help job seekers access a wide range of live webinars, chats and presentations.

The tool will be free to all users as it was created with an open source philosophy, inspired by companies like 10gen, the MongoDB company.

“Imagine a hybrid of a forum and a real time chat app, that’s not spammy,” explained Alex McAuley, co-owner of Job Basket and the developer behind GuideCast.

“The universities and job centres absolutely adore the idea as do the career advisors and recruitment consultants. And we’re offering it for free. We think it’s going to be a great way to help job seekers engage potential employers and attract them to the site.”

Having recently rebranded from being The UK Jobsite, Job Basket was created in 2010 and now gets more than 250,000 monthly unique users and the site’s infrastructure is developed almost entirely on MongoDB.

The efficiency of the database has lead to Job Basket being arguably the fastest job site in the UK and research from Google has shown time and again how important a site’s speed can be to its success.

As part of a push on IT skills 10gen, the MongoDB company, announced free online training so thousands more developers can have access to the skills that helped Alex create GuideCast.

“This is a perfect example of what happens when a creative and talented person has access to powerful open source tool,” said Joe Morrissey, vice president EMEA at 10gen.

“At a time when millions of Britons can’t find employment, we know that companies struggle to find fully skilled developers to create tools like Alex has made here.  It’s something we’re hoping to help address with our free online courses.”

For Alex McAuley, the open source philosophy behind 10gen, the MongoDB company, was key to why he wanted to use the platform and also why he wanted to offer GuideCast free to users.

“This is my take on open source. It’s something I’ve developed on free open source software and I want to give that back and pass on the open source philosophy to the job market,” added McAuley.

“We could not have created this in SQL without a humongous server, that’s why MongoDB was perfect. I’m a speed freak, I like things to be fast and I really don’t like inefficient code.

“I want to create applications for the masses, I want them to be able to scale, I want to build an app that can easily deal with 10,000 queries a second without spending thousands of pounds on servers and MongoDB lets me do just that.”

About 10gen
10gen (the MongoDB company) leads MongoDB kernel development, builds community, and provides commercial services for MongoDB.  MongoDB is an open source document-oriented database helping tens of thousands of companies quickly and easily deliver, scale, and operate applications. Founded by DoubleClick’s Dwight Merriman and Eliot Horowitz and led by seasoned technologists, 10gen is funded by Flybridge Capital Partners, NEA, Sequoia Capital and Union Square Ventures. 10gen global customers include Disney, eBay, foursquare, Craigslist, Intuit, Shutterfly, Telefonica, UK Government Digital Services, and over 500 others. 10gen has dual headquarters in New York and Palo Alto with offices in Dublin, London, and Sydney.  For more information, visit www.10gen.com.

Media Contact:
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+44 (0)207 802 2626
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Trinity Mirror selects Maxymiser to increase online and mobile customer engagement

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Trinity Mirror will use Maxymiser to help increase engagement through the adoption of an online and mobile content optimisation strategy.

Maxymiser will initially be working with Trinity Mirror to identify and execute a series of MVT campaigns.

Through thorough testing and the analysis of customers’ real-time behaviour, Trinity Mirror will increase customer engagement with its brands by offering highly relevant content across its digital portfolio. This will be achieved through rules based behavioural analysis and segmentation.

Ultimately, more relevant content for users will lead to increased performance across the publisher’s newspaper websites and mobile platforms.

Malcolm Coles, Digital Product Director, Trinity Mirror, said: ““We are delighted to be working with Maxymiser as we recognise that a more measured, evidential approach will help to put the customer at the heart of the decision-making process and increase engagement with our brands.”

Maxymiser will be working across Trinity Mirror’s online and mobile newspaper platforms, offering both consultancy and design to help identify where the initial MVT tests might deliver maximum benefit and conduct the analysis on those tests to ascertain performance baselines.

As well as MaxTEST™, Maxymiser’s multivariate testing solution, Trinity Mirror has also employed MaxSEGMENT™ and MaxMOBILE™ from Maxymiser to further enhance the customer experience through segmentation and the optimisation of the mobile channel. It was the comprehensiveness of Maxymiser’s optimisation offering, and the company’s track record in MVT, segmentation and personalisation as well as its full service consultancy, that formed the core of Trinity Mirror’s decision to engage the CXO specialist.

Cabot Credit Management Invests in Respond

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28 November 2012:  Cabot Credit Management (CCM), the UK’s leading acquirer and manager of consumer debt, has selected Respond, from Aptean (www.aptean.com) to centralise and automate its complaints management processes.   

The system, which went live in September 2012 is used to register and manage all in-bound customer complaints.

“Respond is already significantly reducing the administrative time and complexity of management and compliance reporting.  The ability to produce reports automatically with the knowledge that all the statutory data is included, and any potential issues have long been addressed,  is invaluable to a highly regulated business such as CCM,” said Deborah Langley, Compliance Manager, Cabot Credit Management. 

CCM is the parent company of Cabot Financial and Apex Credit Management who merged in April 2011. The company inherited two largely manual systems so decided to upgrade to help meet the ever increasing demands from regulatory bodies on fair customer complaints management.

Langley added: “Before the final decision was made we conducted our own research of complaints management systems available on the market.  We arranged to see Respond in a similar business and the feedback was very positive.  This, coupled with some of the teams’ previous in-house experience of Respond, drove our decision to invest in it rather than to build our own complaints management platform. Additionally, its open APIs mean we can integrate the platform with our existing information system very easily.”

Respond has been modified to interface seamlessly with the advanced debt management system currently under development. It is highly flexible and can interface with most CRM systems.  The ability to port customer information between Respond and CCM’s debt collection platform will dramatically cut the time and cost of case administration, whilst significantly increasing the efficiency and time to successful complaint resolution for client and customer. 

This sharing of information and single-point data input will also guarantee that the data needed to ensure the fair treatment of customers is always available and presented the right way.  This is essential to ensure regulatory compliance not just for CCM, but also for its contingent clients to whom CCM must report.  CCM and its financial services clients are regulated by the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) respectively.

Langley concluded: “Regulators are driving consumer fairness.  As independent businesses we have always been highly compliant.  As a merged entity it’s vital this continues, but we can only achieve this with absolute visibility across the business.  We need to know ahead of time if we face a potential compliance issue and put changes in place if we do. “

Integral to Respond is Root Cause Analysis (RCA).  CCM will use the resulting analysis on an on-going basis to pinpoint areas of the business that require review, not only to guarantee the most efficient steps to resolution and compliance for CCM and its contingent clients, but also for customers, as laid down by the FSA in its Treat Customers Fairly (TCF) principles.

As a result of Respond going live in September, CCM’s reporting processes have become automated.  Respond populates pre-set templates automatically, ensuring that all the data required for individual reporting and the mandatory bi-annual FSA compliance reports, is included.

The Aptean professional services team worked closely with CCM to ensure that Respond was personalised to meet the exact business requirements of the company.  The same team will meet periodically with CCM moving forward to ensure on-going performance excellence as the business grows and regulatory changes inevitably transpire.

About Aptean
Aptean, a global leader in enterprise application software (EAS), gives businesses of all sizes a competitive edge. We empower people and businesses with end-to-end, industry-specific solutions to address complex business challenges more effectively. Our software applications and professional business services enable more than 9,000 customers, in more than 100 countries, to more successfully manage their business. Software built specifically for our target markets, aligned with deep knowledge across vertical industries, allow businesses to satisfy their customers; operate most efficiently; and stay at the forefront of their industry. For more information, visit www.aptean.com.

About Cabot Credit Management
Cabot Credit Management is a market leading acquirer and manager of consumer debt.  Divided into four specialist businesses, Cabot Financial, Cabot Financial Ireland, Apex Credit Management and Apex Discovery Solutions, it covers debt purchase, contingency collections and customer tracing.

Cabot Credit Management has purchased assets of £7.5bn, managed assets of £1bn, cash collections of circa £20m per month and a 13 year unbroken track record of steady growth.

The Group employs over 700 people with offices in Kings Hill, Stratford-upon-Avon and Dublin. It prides itself on its ethical values and high standards and has an impressive list of accolades. These include Investors in People Gold award (accredited for three years) for Apex Credit Management and Investors in People Bronze award (accredited for two years) for Cabot Financial which also has achieved a Quality Management System ISO 9001 since 2008.  In addition both Apex Credit Management and Cabot Financial have been included in the Sunday Times Buyout Track Top 100 best companies to work for.

NGD Helps Channel Partners with Speedy Colocation Installation

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Newport, South Wales, November 28, 2012 – Next Generation Data (NGD) announced today a rapid network connectivity deployment service aimed at helping channel partners co-locating at its NGD Europe mega-data centre to confidently build, configure and test their new implementations prior to moving in.

Instead of waiting for full network services becoming available from their chosen providers, NGD’s new Transition and Transformation Platform is a free-of-charge service for three months and provides fast deployment of essential network services direct to partner premises for rack configuration and testing purposes.

This follows the recent opening of NGD’s new colocation hall at its giant data centre facility near Newport, South Wales, providing channel partners with a highly secure, scalable and price competitive solution to housing single or multiple racks.

“One of the challenges of a new installation is that lead time for network services can be very long,” explained Steve Davis, NGD’s sales director. “To avoid this we can offer our partners some immediate bandwidth on a short term basis to allow their racks to be fully loaded, tested and ready to go just as soon as their network service goes live.”

As part of the company’s channel launch promotion, resellers installing racks by 28th February will also receive a three months rent-free period plus a free tablet PC.

Purpose-designed for allowing racks to be easily installed and operational within hours, the new hall also offers a number of other benefits including an unprecedented supply of power for allowing high density solutions, the latest cooling and energy management systems, and a wide choice of on-site high bandwidth connectivity.

Supporting in excess of 130 racks, the new colocation facility is the ninth data hall to be completed at the giant 750,000 sq ft NGD Europe data centre which opened three years ago. All previous halls in NGD Europe have been custom built for major global enterprise organisations requiring individual self-contained facilities.

About NGD Europe
NGD Europe is able to support High Density Environments for such power-hungry and intensive applications as Cloud Computing, Big Data, Super Computing and Grid Computing; and is ideally suited to corporate, government and service provider organisations wishing to consolidate their existing space- or power-restricted data centre operations.

NGD Europe is a purpose-built carrier-neutral Tier 3 facility offering 750,000 sq feet (gross internal area) of highly secure and cost-effective space housing up to 19,000 racks that can be arranged into self-contained data halls of various sizes all with independent services, resilient power and cooling systems. NGD Europe’s environmentally-friendly high level technology infrastructure has been designed to meet and exceed the ever increasing demand for more computing power. Among its many features are a high capacity 180 MVA power supply direct from the super grid and sourced from 100 per cent renewable energy; and a variety of on-site high-speed, low latency carrier interconnects.

MLL Telecom Awarded £800k Contract To Provide The Borough Of Gateshead With Ongoing Wireless Service

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Marlow, UK, 28 November 2012 – MLL Telecom, one of the UK’s leading providers of fully managed networks, has today announced that following a full OJEU (The Official Journal of the European Union) procurement process, it has been awarded an £800k contract to extend the on-going supply, installation and support of wireless services around the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council for up to a further four years.

The fully managed service contract includes licensed and light licensed radio based WAN connectivity with ‘point to point’ and ‘point to multi point’ technology, to support the council’s high speed connectivity needs of up to 1Gbs. During the term of the contract, MLL Telecom will be responsible for updating the core network infrastructure and providing innovative new technology solutions to areas such as the council’s school estate to ease congestion and reduce operational costs. 

“Radio technology is an important aspect of our network service delivery and is used by the council to deliver high speed links cost-effectively to areas where fibre is not readily available or would otherwise be too expensive. We have also worked with MLL Telecom to consider 300Mb wireless services to sites that have outgrown their current 100Mb fixed line service but that can't reasonably justify the increased cost of a 1Gb fixed circuit rental. The radio solution provides us with a very cost-effective option when addressing the challenge of delivering increased bandwidth within a reduced budget,” explained Roy Sheehan, ICT Service Director at Gateshead.

“We selected MLL Telecom for its well-known capability and expertise in providing ingenious solutions that resolve connectivity problems cost-effectively. We are extremely happy with the service they continue to provide.”

The new contract will extend the existing relationship between MLL Telecom and Borough of Gateshead up to 10 years in total.

“We are delighted that the Borough of Gateshead has chosen to extend our relationship for a further four years. We strive to provide local authorities with flexible solutions that meet their specific network requirements cost-effectively and efficiently. By utilising our own spectrum we are capable of providing high speed interference-free networks to council offices, libraries, schools and other public buildings in shorter timescales and more cost-effectively than standard spectrum licencing procedures through Ofcom,” said Darrin Chadwick, Sector Director Regional Public Service, MLL Telecom.


Tata Consultancy Services wins multi million contract from the United Kingdom's Home Office

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London/Mumbai, November 28, 2012: Tata Consultancy Services (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading IT services, consulting and business solutions firm, has announced that it has won a multi-million, multi-year contract from the Home Office, a key department of the United Kingdom government to manage the technology needs and support services of the newly formed Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

TCS will implement a programme to transform DBS, including the introduction of electronic applications and improved online services to enhance user experience. The company will provide end-to-end process, technology and operations support for an initial period of five years, as per the agreement. The two organisations, DBS and TCS, will also collaborate to update the organisation’s business processes to help improve decision making and reduce processing times. TCS will also build new integrated case management system to support seamless integration and information gathering between disclosure and barring services.

Shankar Narayanan, Country Head, UK & Ireland, TCS said, “Our proposed IT solution supports the UK Government’s ‘Digital by Default’ initiative and fully meets the business objectives of DBS to modernise and transform its business. Delivering technology enabled business transformation is at the heart of TCS’ work and we look forward to bringing our expertise in helping DBS to achieve operational efficiencies, an enhanced customer service and a new digital channel for citizens and employers.”

John O'Brien, Research Director, Tech Market View, a leading analyst firm, notes, “TCS’ engagement with the Home Office underpins the investment it continues to make in growing its presence in the UK public sector. It follows an engagement with the National Savings and Employment Trust (NEST), which was a landmark contract in terms of size and scale for an Indian headquartered company with the UK Government. This latest contract awarded by the UK Government signals confidence in TCS’ capability to provide technology-enabled transformation programmes aimed at helping the public sector to deliver services efficiently to UK citizens”.

TCS’ engagement with the UK public sector market over recent years has seen it participate in multiple technology-enabled transformation programmes. TCS combines government specific domain expertise with a world-class set of delivery capabilities to enable service transformation for some of its key government clients in the UK, such as, National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), Cardiff City Council, Child Maintenance Group (CMG is a division of DWP) and The Big Lottery Fund, amongst others.

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Experian Accelerates Time-to-Market for New Application Functionality with Compuware APM®

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London, U.K.--November 28th 2012--Compuware Corporation (Nasdaq: CPWR), the technology performance company, today announced that Experian, a leading provider of global information services for businesses, has implemented Compuware APM® — dynaTrace — as its solution for application performance management (APM). With Compuware dynaTrace®, Experian is able to reduce time-to-market and improve the quality of new applications and services by quickly pinpointing the source of performance issues during the early stages of development and quality assurance cycles. This enables Experian to launch new services in shorter time periods, which is a key business objective for their data and analytics specialist.

“We need to deploy the latest and most advanced services for our customers as quickly as possible, and this is where the information delivered by dynaTrace offers the highest value,” said Paul Hill, head of support and quality assurance at Experian. “By implementing dynaTrace, we have the ability to dig down into application code on a granular level during the quality assurance (QA) stage, identifying the source of any performance problems picked up during load testing.”

“With our software architects, development and testing teams based in a number of locations across different time zones, it’s important that communication is as clear and as detailed as possible,” said Hill. “With dynaTrace, we are able to identify exactly where performance issues originate and share transaction snapshots that different teams can utilise consistently. This helps us to remedy the root cause of any problems quickly and effectively, allowing us to bring our latest services to market much faster, and ultimately deliver the best customer experience possible.”

Experian has grown rapidly over the past few years, both organically and through acquisitions. Coupled with the nature of its business, this means that Experian’s services are based on a number of complex applications that are pulling information from multiple internal and external systems to provide users with the intelligence they need. This model has been hugely beneficial in helping Experian to maintain its competitive edge through delivering new services to its customers quickly.

“For organisations like Experian, reducing time-to-market while improving the user experience of online applications is a key objective,” said David Cooper, U.K. Regional Director for Compuware’s APM business unit. “In order to maintain a competitive edge, companies now require more information about exactly where performance issues are occurring during the testing and development stage—not just after the service has been deployed. With dynaTrace’s end-to-end approach, Experian gets actionable insight into where its applications can be improved, ensuring their customers receive the best user experience possible.”

Compuware APM® is the industry’s leading solution for optimizing the performance of web, non-web, mobile, streaming and cloud applications. Driven by end-user experience, Compuware APM provides the market’s only unified APM coverage across the entire application delivery chain—from the edge of the internet through the cloud to the datacenter. Compuware APM helps customers deliver proactive problem resolution for greater customer satisfaction, accelerate time-to-market for new application functionality and reduce application management costs through smarter analytics and advanced APM automation.

With more than 4,000 APM customers worldwide, Compuware is recognized as a leader in the “Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring” report. To read more about Compuware’s leadership in the APM market, click here.

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Compuware Corporation
Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, makes technology make a difference by providing software, experts and best practices to ensure technology works well and delivers value. Compuware solutions make the world's most important technologies perform at their best for leading organizations worldwide, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. Learn more at: http://www.compuware.com.

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 2012 was US$4.5 billion. Experian employs approximately 17,000 people in 44 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.

Centrastage Freemium Launches

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Reading UK, 28 November, 2012:   CentraStage, the leading IT management software provider, has revolutionised the IT asset management and remote support market by launching CentraStage Freemium, a cloud based service that offers complete control and visibility of an IT estate at no charge.

CentraStage Freemium offers 500 free ‘agents’ which when added to a device, perform a full IT audit every seven days, allowing IT support staff total visibility of their IT estate and the power to help locate, connect and optimise technology.  The new service also offers ten hours of remote takeover for up to five managed devices, allowing IT staff to support  and update devices should  problems arise.

The innovative new service model is designed to allow MSP’s to enter new markets and launch new service models without risk.  There are no set-up fees and there is no pre-defined limit to the length of time MSP’s can support their customers through CentraStage Freemium.

Christian Nagele, CEO of CentraStage commented, ‘MSP’s and IT Support Providers need to continue to expand and grow their services but often lack the resources to invest in new technologies.  CentraStage Freemium offers a no risk approach that allows MSP’s to offer new service models to their customer base, helping them to grow their business and offer new services.’

Nagele continues, ‘Today’s IT Manager is faced with a range of challenges such as auditing and compliance, mobile device management and the growing trend of BYOD.  CentraStage solve each issue with a manageable, safe and secure application, designed to expand or contract in-line with any organisation and provide visibility, information and support to and IT infrastructure.’

Beyond the freemium model, CentraStage offer an upgraded service that includes automated software rollouts, pro-active monitoring and pre-packaged scripts through ComStore, CentraStage’s enterprise application store.  The expanded range of services and functionality cover a range of deployment, installation, reporting and policy issues that help organisations understand the status and performance of their IT estate.

CentraStage wins BCS & Computing UK IT Industry Award

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Reading UK, 28  November, 2012: Amidst a plethora of giants in the cloud computing space, CentraStage has taken the Cloud Provider of the Year award at this week’s BCS & Computing UK IT Industry Awards.

Up against BT Cloud Compute, HP Autonomy, Salesforce, Northgate and Microsoft, the specialist in cloud IT management technology stunned the industry as its solution took the coveted award for its single solution providing asset management, monitoring, software deployment, and remote support and reporting.

Christian Nagele, CEO of CentraStage enthuses: “It’s incredible to win this accolade against such vaunted competition, and I firmly believe it is our ability to apply innovation to a crowded marketplace that makes us stand out.

There are numerous IT management platforms out there; some even claim to be ‘in the cloud’. However it is only CentraStage, leveraging the AWS infrastructure that is truly harnessing the power of elastic computing to deliver extraordinary flexibility and efficiency savings to the modern enterprise. Hopefully this award will further raise awareness of what we can deliver to organisations battling with the challenges of managing a growing and increasingly mobile IT estate.

This award is testament to the fact that in today’s technology economy the size of your business doesn’t matter; it’s what you do with it that counts. We have a small but brilliant team, and this award goes to them, for their hard work and seemingly limitless brainpower.”

The announcement comes in the wake of the company’s monthly registrations increasing by 330 per cent since the launch of its On Demand service in [month], which provides asset management and remote support for free, for up to 500 devices.

London Grid for Learning supported CentraStage’s award entry and benefits from the On Demand service. Brian Durrant, CEO, explains “By including CentraStage’s asset management and remote support technology in our LGfL 2.0 service portfolio free-of-charge, not only are we offering a marketing leading IT management solution to our customers, but we are also able to deliver to London schools a truly secure network.”

David Clarke, MBE, Group Chief Executive Officer of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, says: “On behalf of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, I would like to congratulate all the winners, those who were highly commended and those who were finalists. Our Awards celebrate the professionalism and innovation that exists in the IT profession and demonstrates the extent to which IT is the enabler in so many businesses in the UK today. To qualify as a finalist is tremendous - to win one of our prestigious Awards is a fantastic achievement.”

Stuart Sumner, Editor of Computing comments: “I would like to congratulate the winners and those who were highly commended on their achievements. The UK IT Industry Awards are rigorously judged and truly celebrate innovation and best practice in IT today.” 

The BCS & Computing UK IT Industry Awards provide a platform for the entire profession to celebrate best practice, innovation and excellence. In total, this year’s Awards featured 23 categories which covered: project, organisation, technology and individual excellence. The categories were open to organisations and individuals involved in IT across the public, not for profit and commercial sectors.

UniServity launches new Life Learning Cloud VLE for school clusters, training and summer camp option

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‘Meeting your online statutory requirements’ and ‘Online learning – do we really need it?’ are just two of the presentation sessions to be introduced by UniServity on stand F100 at this year’s BETT – with free train travel home being offered to all schools signing up to training at the show.  Two hours free consultancy will also be offered to Academies keen to get their learning platform really working for them.  In addition, there is also an opportunity to win one of six Kindle Fires and to celebrate the appointment of new CEO, Dawn Mulholland, with a glass of bubbly at 4pm each day.

Also featured for the first time will be:

  • LifeConnect a simple, grass-roots, easy-to-manage website that allows schools to promote themselves effectively and to communicate with parents. School registering at BETT will qualify for UniServity’s special BETT launch offer of only £299 per school per annum.
  •  LifeCollaborate an innovative new version of the Life Learning Cloud VLE, designed to help clusters of schools collaborate with their peers and share ideas, information, data and knowledge - priced at just £499 for the duration of BETT
  •  LifePath, a simple, engaging and effective summer school and transition programme for pupils moving from primary to secondary school priced at just £199. Availableonline, LifePath is designed to provide schools with all the resources and materials required for Year 6 and 7 students. 

For more information on UniServity please visit – www.uniservity.com

Eugene Kaspersky Featured in Foreign Policy's 100 Top Global Thinkers 2012

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Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions, announces that Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of the company, has been selected as one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Top Global Thinkers for 2012. Eugene and the other “top thinkers” will be honored at an official ceremony on Thursday, November 29, in Washington, DC.

Eugene was included in the new annual list of Top Global Thinkers for his contribution to IT security awareness on a global scale, along with such important and influential personalities as Barack Obama, the Clintons, the Gates, Angela Merkel and Warren Buffet. He’s the one who keeps spreading the word around the world about the dangers that define the digital age - threats to economies, governments, and the personal security of every one of us - namely, privacy violations, cybercrime, cyberwarfare and hacktivism.

Commenting on his being placed on FP’s prestigious list, Eugene Kaspersky said: “IT security is a relatively new global concern, which previously has gone largely overlooked. As leaders in the IT security industry, we at Kaspersky Lab have the vast expertise needed to enable us to stay abreast of today’s ever-changing threat landscape, and have the clearest understanding of the urgency and overall importance of global cooperation in combatting threats. I feel it’s extremely important to keep talking about these issues - to get the message across to governments, business and the general public. My being named as a top global thinker by FP shows that not only is my message being heard, but it is one that is being taken very seriously on a global scale. For this I am extremely grateful.”

For the full list of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top Global Thinkers of 2012, please visit www.foreignpolicy.com/2012globalthinkersTo read the related contributed piece by Eugene Kaspersky, please visit: www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/cyberscary_4_digital_threats_to_worry_about

Business Professionals Ignoring E-Mail Security Risks

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Business professionals will find it easier to meet increasing demands for secure communications with clients from today with the launch of a foolproof, simple and cost effective email encryption solution.

Estimates are that around 144 billion emails are sent a day globally by 2.1 billion users and demands are growing for those handling sensitive information to take increased steps to ensure it does not fall into the wrong hands.

In the US, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently admitted not using email because of security concerns, while in the UK the Information Commissioner’s Office, which has the power to levy penalties of up to £500,000 for security breaches, has fined organisations from police forces to the NHS for being lax on data security.

In the UK, some insurance companies are avoiding email dangers by even switching back to fax for sending documents.

New cloud-based Mkryptor is a low cost and easy to use email encryption solution across devices from PCs and Macs to smartphones. It is expected to help raise the pressure on professionals in many different sectors to tighten up email security amid growing concerns that at present they do not take it seriously enough. Mkryptor is already being successfully used by some in the IT industry, recruitment companies, accountants, law firms, and private medical practitioners.

Mkryptor (www.mkryptor.com) requires no software or special keys at the recipient end. No extra software is required on either the sender or recipient device – and now with the cloud based version that is a simple few clicks process. Prices start at £9.99 for cloud and whole organisations can be protected from as little as a £5k one off fee.

In the UK, the Information Commissioners Office believes email users should always consider encryption of sensitive material but professional bodies are routinely e-mailing confidential client advice and unsecured information. This can add to the risk of identity theft, loss of intellectual property and ultimately litigation against the offender who sent the data unprotected.

Simon Freeman, Director of Fresh Skies/Mkryptor, describes this inactivity as “madness”.

Freeman points out that many professionals across a wide range of sectors appear to be content to merely append disclaimers at the bottom of e-mails. “Many parts of industry are getting to grips with the problem but there are still those who remain exposed and also consider it OK to expose their customers in terms of confidentiality risk.

“Think about how ridiculous this is,” he claims. “You would not think it OK to not bother putting locks on your doors of your house to prevent a burglary, but instead put up a small sign in the house saying 'in case you find yourself inside my house without permission please do not steal anything and leave immediately'.”

Freeman adds: “Which will be the responsible authority that will come to their senses and stop the madness. Who will legislate and make sure we all wear the proverbial e-mail helmets? The regulators out there are doing a very poor job.

“The Financial Services Authority does and is starting to get some traction among the organisations that it covers, but by and large the Government is silent and inactive.

“We used to drive cars without seat belts often with our children in. We used to ride motorbikes without helmets and we used to be allowed to smoke indoors in public places. Likewise we will soon look back and see how crazy it was to send confidential information by unencrypted email.

“For many, that statement will come after a career ending e-mail incident or when your business folds under the legal costs and reputational damage of such privacy or confidentiality breach. Madness. What were we thinking? Next time you send confidential information by email unprotected ask yourself what you are going to tell your customer if their data turns up on the internet somewhere?”

The concept of email encryption is not new but existing encryption products fail the usability test as they were designed by software designers who didn’t think to make them simple enough for the average user and client. The result, few people use the existing products and email communication remains insecure.

Says Freeman: “Mkryptor delivers you peace of mind by ensuring that your company’s confidential information stays that way; it not only lowers your risk of non-compliance to data protection legislation and upcoming EU data protection legislation, but also provides a clear audit trail. And it takes just a few seconds to use.”

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New High-Speed Internet For African Research Cooperation Unveiled

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Lisbon, Portugal, 28 November 2012: DANTE, the operator of GÉANT, the pan-European research and education network; and UbuntuNet Alliance, the regional research and education network for Southern and Eastern Africa, today announce the launch of the UbuntuNet network, a high-speed Internet network connecting scientists and academics throughout Southern and Eastern Africa to peers in the region and to Europe, the first network of its kind in Africa.

UbuntuNet is being launched in Europe at the 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT (an event for those with an interest in Euro-African collaborative projects on ICT) on November 28-29, 2012, and is organised by EuroAfrica-P8 at the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) in Lisbon, Portugal. This follows a similar launch event in Africa held in Dar es Salaam at the UbuntuNet-Connect 2012, which featured dancing, drumming, speeches and a launch video featuring the types of advanced research that the network will facilitate. The video, which has also been shown in Lisbon, is available at http://www.africaconnect.eu/MediaCentre/Pages/Launch-Event-Video.aspx

The initiative is being financed under the AfricaConnect project, which is co-funded by the European Commission and beneficiary countries. The network will dramatically accelerate the development of the Information Society in Africa, providing advanced data communications infrastructure and enabling African researchers to collaborate more easily in advanced international research projects.

The Honourable Eunice Kazembe, Malawi’s Minister of Education, Science and Technology said of the new network, “With the opportunities offered by the AfricaConnect project, this unique regional network will transform our higher education and research, with collaboration being at its core. Access to higher education will be expanded.  Participation in high level scientific projects and teams will be so much easier. Medical research and healthcare delivery will be enhanced.”

AfricaConnect expands the existing network managed by the UbuntuNet Alliance, which initially connected Kenya, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia to Europe. The network has now been extended to offer connectivity to many more countries in the Southern and Eastern African region. This expanded, more resilient and secure high-speed network offers greater connectivity between African countries, as well as high-speed links to the pan-European GÉANT network, providing access to 40 million users in 8,000 institutions. GÉANT is co-funded by the Directorate General CONNECT (Communications, Networks, Contents and Technology) of the European Commission under the EU’s 7th Research and Development Framework Programme.

“We are delighted to see the UbuntuNet network in place,” said Cathrin Stöver, DANTE’s Chief International Relations and Communication Officer. “DANTE continues to develop connectivity in regions around the world, and we have built on our experience to support research and education networks as together they transform the research environment in Africa. We are fortunate to be working with the UbuntuNet Alliance, the African and European NRENs on this important initiative.”

Eng. Dr Francis Tusubira, CEO of the UbuntuNet Alliance agrees: “The engagement of the EC has been critical to the success of the UbuntuNet’s implementation - we’ve been able to establish much needed regional connectivity in a huge geographical area, and on a more individual level, ensured that each NREN has the human capacity to set up and operate their national network.”

The UbuntuNet network is partly funded by the European Commission’s DG Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid, in the framework of the ‘ACP Connect’ programme of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), which has injected €11.8M of the total €14.75M cost of the project through the AfricaConnect project.  The remainder has been contributed by the African partners in the project.

“Since the EC gave its official approval for this project in 2011, we’ve made great strides in procuring the right network,” said Victor Reijs, network development manager at HEAnet, the Irish National Research and Education Network that provided valuable technical support to the implementation of UbuntuNet. “We needed to ensure the network topology provides cost benefits to participants and a highly resilient, secure network that can continue to operate if a connection goes down.”

Denis Salord, Head of Unit, Regional Programmes Sub-Saharan Africa and ACP wide (Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid) European Commission said, "The European Commission is pleased to contribute to the development of this important regional higher education and research network. I am confident that African researchers now have an additional instrument to improve communication and exchange information among them and with their colleagues in Europe. Increased connectivity is our common goal. Together with the ACP Secretariat, we are doing our best to succeed." The AfricaConnect project is expected to last until 2015, after which time the African Project Partners will ensure the sustainability of the intra-regional African research network and its direct connection to GÉANT.

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Wick Hill Named 'Security Distributor Of The Year' At The 'Computing Security' Awards

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Woking, Surrey: 28th November, 2012 - Wick Hill has been named ‘Security Distributor of the Year’ at the 2012 Computing Security awards, held recently at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London. This is the third year in a row that Wick Hill has won the award.

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman Wick Hill Group, commented: “We’re delighted to win this award. It’s a tribute to the strong commitment of our staff in working closely with both resellers and vendors. We’re especially pleased to have won the award for the third year in a row, as it shows that we’re maintaining our success over time, in a very difficult trading environment.”

The Computing Security Awards were set up to recognise the best in IT Security. They provide recognition for products and services as well as for impressive work carried out.

Winners of the "Editors Choice" award and "Security Project of the Year" award were decided by Brian Wall, the Editor of Computing Security magazine. Finalists and ultimately winners of all of the other awards were determined by an on-line nominating and on-line voting process, typically by individuals who buy, specify and use security solutions in their working lives.

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Tullow Oil Chooses FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications for Software License Optimisation

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Maidenhead, UK  – November 28, 2012 - Flexera Software, the leading provider of Application Usage Management solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced today that Tullow Oil plc, Africa's largest independent oil company has selected FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications as their Software License Optimisation solution of choice.  FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications delivers the most complete and meaningful insight into application usage to efficiently manage concurrent software licenses.  It is used by six of the ten largest oil and gas companies in the world.  Within a matter of only a few weeks, Tullow Oil’s investment in FlexNet Manager has already paid for itself in software license cost avoidance, maintenance savings and improved user productivity.

Eliminating Costly Software Overspend and Denials of Service
Core to Tullow Oil’s business is its ability to discover and extract oil and natural gas from underground fields.  This activity is facilitated by engineers who use sophisticated and costly geotechnical software that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per license.  Like many engineering applications, these run on a concurrent licensing model, which means that if all the licenses are in use and someone else tries to launch the application, they’ll be denied use.  According to Tim Burke, Head of Global IS Operations at Tullow Oil, this was happening too frequently – and it was causing expensive problems:  “Our engineers are very important to Tullow’s business and their downtime is costly.  Denials of service cost the business money and slow down our ability to find, appraise and produce hydrocarbons.”

But because Tullow Oil had limited visibility into their software license estate to analyse use, the company had limited means to assess how many licenses were actually needed – and whether denials of service were due to lack of sufficient licenses or something else.  As a result, with significant pressure to minimise denials of service, Burke’s team could only be reactive, which often meant purchasing costly additional licenses that, in retrospect, often were not always needed.  “Line managers would come to us and say, ’We need a new license.’  Without the historical data to show actual usage trends, we’d have no way of knowing whether the need was legitimate –so we’d buy the license to prevent downtime.”

Burke knew the situation wasn’t sustainable, especially given Tullow Oil’s rapid growth – the company has been doubling in size every three years.  He started searching for a solution, and quickly realised that FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications was the right choice.  “I’d worked with Flexera Software previously, and understood the power of their tools for managing licenses across the entire software estate and providing intelligent reporting.”  Moreover, FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications was already used by many of the top oil and gas companies in the world.  Wanting a best-in-class tool, they moved quickly to purchase the system, and were up and running in only a couple weeks, including integration with Tullow Oil’s other geotechnical systems.

100% ROI within weeks
Within only a few weeks of having implemented, FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications value was tested. A line manager approached someone on Burke’s team asking for an additional license for an important geo-technical application, which cost around $200,000.  An analysis of that application using FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications revealed that utilisation was actually only at 60%, but that some engineers were logging in and not logging out, resulting in the denials of service.  “Having this information allowed us to have a conversation with our engineers about best practices to avoid these denials of service,” explained Burke.  “As a result, we changed bad habits and secured an agreement to change behavior, created more capacity for the licenses, and avoided having to purchase more.”

In another denial of service situation shortly thereafter, using FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications Burke’s team discovered that the problem arose from consultants using the system, who were only working for the company temporarily.  “We were able to manage the peak and rent a license for the time the consultants were in – again being able to avoid purchasing a costly license and maintenance.”

Right out of the gate, FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications was field-tested, and delivered on its promised benefits.  “Within a few weeks our investment had paid for itself by allowing us to avoid new purchases and drive better behavior amongst the user community,” said Burke.  “The ROI is high.”

Increased User Satisfaction
Perhaps an unexpected benefit from implementing FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications was the credibility it provided the IS team in the eyes of the engineers.  With data in hand, Burke’s team is now able to have a conversation with line managers about why denials of service are happening, and discuss very easy steps users can take to avoid them.  “Having the data gives you the confidence to have the business conversation with the line manager, because you can show you know exactly what’s going on,” said Burke. 

In fact, Burke was recently forwarded an email from an engineer to a line manager, in which Burke’s team was complimented for their excellent work and the noticeable improvements in software availability.  “They’re impressed that we have the information and are in control of software license management,” said Burke.

NComputing Partners With Top Regional Distributor To Accelerate Growth In Middle East Market

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Hemel Hempstead, UK – November 28, 2012 – NComputing, the leader in end-to-end desktop virtualization solutions, today reinforced their continued commitment to the channel by announcing the appointment of Metra as a distributor for its desktop virtualisation solutions in the Middle East.

NComputing provides innovative desktop virtualization solutions for large and mid-sized enterprises, small businesses, as well as public sector and education customers based on its thin client and virtualization software portfolio of integrated offerings. This includes centrally managed next generation high performance HDX Ready System-on-Chip thin clients built from the silicon up specifically for Citrix environments. With both thin clients and software clients, NComputing virtual desktops make PC replacement dramatically less costly, enable seamless mobile and BYOD capabilities, allow organizations to make use of legacy PC’s, and enable more computing per budget dollar.

The new distribution partnership with Metra will enable NComputing to accelerate its market growth plans for the region. The company will take full advantage of Metra’s extensive sales and distribution network operating in 11 countries, state-of-the-art support centres and access to over 5000 resellers.

Maurice Johnson, regional director for NComputing, Middle East said: “Virtual computing offers Middle East customers major benefits in improved performance, ease of use and management, and we see great potential in the region. Metra gives us a powerful way to rapidly and substantially grow our presence through their unrivalled distribution network and deep understanding of the technology. We’re extremely excited to be adding another global partner within our fast developing channel strategy to support our vSpace and N-Series business.”

Mr. Mohamed Eissa, executive vice president, Metra said, “NComputing is a great addition to the portfolio of enterprise technology solutions that we can offer our partners and their customers. With virtual computing becoming critical to how businesses and governments deliver and manage IT services it is a natural step for Metra to forge a partnership with a leader in this exciting field.”

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Active Risk Launches ARM 6, a new release which makes Enterprise Risk Management Simple & ...

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Maidenhead, UK. November 28, 2012 - Active Risk today announced the global availability of ARM 6, the latest release of its award winning Active Risk Manager (ARM) software. ARM 6 is a game-changing release that makes it simple to engage more employees in the risk management process, visualize connections between risks, and graphically report risks more effectively.

Loren Padelford, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Active Risk said, “Risk Management is often portrayed as complex. After listening to feedback from hundreds of customers, we’ve developed ARM 6 to make risk management simple, valuable and personal.

ARM 6 delivers effective Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) capabilities that will transform organizations, helping them to focus on the risks that really impact business strategy and performance.”

New in ARM 6:

  • ARM Core – enhanced globalization features, including multi-currency and multi-language enablement, and deeper project management integration
  • ARM Risk Connectivity – the unique ability to identify hidden ‘catalyst risks’ which can have major cross-functional impacts
  • ARM Risk Performance Manager (RPM) – the fastest way to create personalized, graphically-rich reports and dashboards, without the need for IT resources
  • ARM Apps –  easy-to-use Apps for risk and incident management designed specifically for front-line employees
  • ARM Unplugged – a simple, offline risk application with synchronization to ARM’s corporate risk register eliminating disconnected spreadsheets

Padelford said, “ARM 6 provides a simple way to involve more employees in the risk process and makes it personal to the role they play. It turns risk-related data into a valuable corporate resource to drive strategy and performance. ARM 6 is the first and only ERM solution that helps organizations visualize the interdependency of risks. You can pinpoint catalyst risks and take action to protect your project, reputation and shareholder value.”

ARM 6 addresses risk management needs at all levels of the business, from individual projects, programs and up to the enterprise level.

For more information or to sign up for a demo on ARM 6 visit www.activerisk.com/solutions/.

About Active Risk
Active Risk makes Risk Management simple, valuable and personal by providing the world’s first Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) software that drives business performance by enhancing visibility, accountability and confidence. With Active Risk you have a truly comprehensive view of your organization’s risk and opportunities, enabling you to make better-informed decisions and leverage risk to create a competitive advantage. 

Active Risk is the Enterprise Risk Management software provider of choice for the world’s leading companies in aerospace and defense, engineering and construction, energy and mining, government, and other industries. Customers include London Underground, Crossrail, Lockheed Martin, EADS, US Department of Homeland Security, UK MOD, Saudi Aramco, Rio Tinto, Bechtel and Skanska.

Active Risk has offices in the UK, USA and Australia, servicing customers worldwide directly and through a growing network of partners. Active Risk is listed on the FTSE AIM Index. For further information and a detailed view of Active Risk's products and services visit www.activerisk.com  or call +44 (0)1628 582500 (EMEA/Asia Pacific), +1 703 673 9580 (Americas) or +61 2 9037 0150 (Australia).

North America Contact:
Rachel Colello, Zer0 to 5ive
+1 773-697-7481
rachel@0to5.com

EMEA/APAC Contact:
Mary Phillips/Andreina West, PR Artistry
+44 (0)1491 639500
mary@pra-ltd.co.uk

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