Thursday, 29 March 2012
That's Business: Review 2011 of the French e-commerce customer expe...
That's Business: Review 2011 of the French e-commerce customer expe...: Since 2009, YUSEO surveys each year the French e-commerce market through the customer experience i...
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Crossbeam Survey: 94% of IT Personnel Identify Network Security as No. 1 Reason for Stalled Next Generation Data Centre Deployments
A new survey results from Crossbeam identify network security as the number one reason IT organisations are stalled in their efforts to transition to cost- and energy-efficient Next Generation Data Centres (NGDCs). The survey polled 529 IT professionals within large global enterprises and service provider organisations to understand how far along they are in transitioning traditional data centres to the NGDC model.
NGDCs are an evolution of the data centre in which virtualisation and other technologies are deployed to create an environment that is more dynamic, efficient and flexible, allowing organisations to easily scale and respond to changing business requirements. However, according to survey findings, among the three main technology areas of the data centre – application servers, storage infrastructure and network security – network security has not only become the greatest obstacle to the NGDC evolution, it is bringing many NGDC efforts to a halt.
According to the findings:
• 94 per cent of respondents cite network security as the top reason why NGDC deployments are stalled, with virtually no progress anticipated in the next 12-18 months.
• More than 40 per cent of respondents say that network security is the biggest obstacle to the successful deployment of NGDCs. This is compared to storage and application servers, which received merely 15 per cent and 14 per cent of the responses respectively.
The survey research note, a copy of which can be downloaded here, explains a key driver behind this problem is that network security technology remains mired in a “last generation data centre” approach, due largely to a lack of understanding of how to virtualise network security infrastructure as well as budgetary constraints.
“Organisations need to adopt a virtualisation strategy that enables network security infrastructure to be as dynamic as the rest of the environment, or they will wind up with many of the same cost and complexity problems that plague traditional data centres,” said Michelle Bailey, research vice president for IDC’s Enterprise Platforms and Datacentre Trends. “While virtualising network security is still a relatively new concept, it is clear that IT organisations need to be making investments in the right expertise and technologies if they want to avoid repeating the security mistakes of the past.”
“For all the documented efficiencies and green benefits of the NGDC, virtualised environments are much more fluid by nature, which opens the potential for threats due to the ease with which applications and data can be moved around,” said Jim Freeze, chief marketing officer of Crossbeam. “IT organisations realise that bringing network security into the NGDC must be a priority. Yet the survey results reveal a troubling lack of progress.”
To learn more about Next Generation Data Centres and to download a copy of the survey research note, please visit http://www.crossbeam.com/solutions/next-generation-data-cent....
Brian Robertson, Crossbeam’s product marketing manager, discusses the research findings in his blog titled Survey Results: Crossbeam Customers Closer to their Security Vision in the Next Generation Data Centre.
To register for one of Crossbeam’s upcoming NGDC Summits worldwide, visit http://www.crossbeam.com/ngdc-road-show/.
FACTFILE:
Crossbeam Systems®, Inc. offers a proven approach to deploying network security that meets the extreme performance, scalability and reliability demands of large enterprises, service providers and government agencies. Its leading X-Series security platform offers an open, high-performance architecture that easily provisions and scales multiple best-in-class security applications to meet the ever-changing threat landscape. Companies rely on Crossbeam to intelligently manage risk, accelerate and maintain compliance, and protect their businesses from evolving threats. Crossbeam is headquartered in Boxborough, Mass., and has offices in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. More information is available at http://www.crossbeam.com.
NGDCs are an evolution of the data centre in which virtualisation and other technologies are deployed to create an environment that is more dynamic, efficient and flexible, allowing organisations to easily scale and respond to changing business requirements. However, according to survey findings, among the three main technology areas of the data centre – application servers, storage infrastructure and network security – network security has not only become the greatest obstacle to the NGDC evolution, it is bringing many NGDC efforts to a halt.
According to the findings:
• 94 per cent of respondents cite network security as the top reason why NGDC deployments are stalled, with virtually no progress anticipated in the next 12-18 months.
• More than 40 per cent of respondents say that network security is the biggest obstacle to the successful deployment of NGDCs. This is compared to storage and application servers, which received merely 15 per cent and 14 per cent of the responses respectively.
The survey research note, a copy of which can be downloaded here, explains a key driver behind this problem is that network security technology remains mired in a “last generation data centre” approach, due largely to a lack of understanding of how to virtualise network security infrastructure as well as budgetary constraints.
“Organisations need to adopt a virtualisation strategy that enables network security infrastructure to be as dynamic as the rest of the environment, or they will wind up with many of the same cost and complexity problems that plague traditional data centres,” said Michelle Bailey, research vice president for IDC’s Enterprise Platforms and Datacentre Trends. “While virtualising network security is still a relatively new concept, it is clear that IT organisations need to be making investments in the right expertise and technologies if they want to avoid repeating the security mistakes of the past.”
“For all the documented efficiencies and green benefits of the NGDC, virtualised environments are much more fluid by nature, which opens the potential for threats due to the ease with which applications and data can be moved around,” said Jim Freeze, chief marketing officer of Crossbeam. “IT organisations realise that bringing network security into the NGDC must be a priority. Yet the survey results reveal a troubling lack of progress.”
To learn more about Next Generation Data Centres and to download a copy of the survey research note, please visit http://www.crossbeam.com/solutions/next-generation-data-cent....
Brian Robertson, Crossbeam’s product marketing manager, discusses the research findings in his blog titled Survey Results: Crossbeam Customers Closer to their Security Vision in the Next Generation Data Centre.
To register for one of Crossbeam’s upcoming NGDC Summits worldwide, visit http://www.crossbeam.com/ngdc-road-show/.
FACTFILE:
Crossbeam Systems®, Inc. offers a proven approach to deploying network security that meets the extreme performance, scalability and reliability demands of large enterprises, service providers and government agencies. Its leading X-Series security platform offers an open, high-performance architecture that easily provisions and scales multiple best-in-class security applications to meet the ever-changing threat landscape. Companies rely on Crossbeam to intelligently manage risk, accelerate and maintain compliance, and protect their businesses from evolving threats. Crossbeam is headquartered in Boxborough, Mass., and has offices in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. More information is available at http://www.crossbeam.com.
Excel Wins Award for a Second Year Running
The Network Computing Awards, which took place on 22nd March in London, have been running for 6 years and are particularly meaningful as they are voted for by the readers of Network Computing magazine - the people who use the products every day. They were set up to recognise the companies, products and services in the industry that have most impressed the readers.
Excel beat off stiff competition from Brand-Rex (runners up), TE Connectivity (formerly Krone), Belden, Nexans, Panduit and Systimax to take the award for a second year.
Andrew Percival, Managing Director, says, “Winning Cabling Supplier of the Year for a second year is a great achievement and we’re very thankful for all those that voted for us.” Andrew continued “Back in October 2011 we decided to give the Excel brand a complete re-fresh which not only improved the look and feel of the system but has really helped to position Excel as a leading player in the market place. Winning accolades such as the Network Computing award helps to reinforce this message and further demonstrates the considerable strength of the system.”
The award was collected on the evening by the Directors of Sales for the North and South, Ian Irving and John Twidell respectively.
For details on Excel visit www.excel-networking.com.
Revelation Software Announce the Release of OpenInsight Version 9.3.1
Revelation Software Limited] are pleased to announce the availability of the latest release of OpenInsight (OI). OI version 9.3.1 provides Revelation's OI developers with a number of enhancements and new features to further increase their productivity and to also enhance their end-user's experience.
The main highlights of this new release include:
OpenInsight for Web (O4W 1.3) - This latest version of O4W includes additional integration with the new Banded Report Writer, new support routines for RSS feeds and a brand new 'ad hoc' report builder. In addition, the release includes a number of additional mobile enhancements such as a mobile specific menu and report output. Through O4W's integration with jQuery Mobile (the companion library to O4W's jQuery), web pages can be created using "finger friendly" user interface elements and design.
OpenInsight for QM (OI4QM) - The OI4QM data connector enables MultiValue application developers to fully utilise the QM database from Ladybridge Systems Limited. Using this dedicated data connector, Windows GUI and Web 2.0 interfaces can be quickly created without any change being required to an existing QM database.
"With this latest release, we're proving our commitment to our Revelation and MultiValue community", said Mike Ruane, President/CEO Revelation Software, "They asked us for a connection to QM from Ladybridge, and we listened. Our users also gave us a list of enhancements and suggestions for the Banded Report Writer, and we've taken care of them as well."
Also included in the OI 9.3.1 release are a number of patches and enhancements for the Banded Report Writer, Table Builder, and Database manager.
"Mobile computing is an essential requirement for any application development", said Robert Catalano, Director of Sales, Revelation Software. "We are empowering the MultiValue community with one of the best mobile computing toolkits on the market that is affordable, familiar to MV developers, and connects to their existing database with no change."
OpenInsight Development Suite 9.3.1 is available from Revelation Software, or through their network of resellers.
The main highlights of this new release include:
OpenInsight for Web (O4W 1.3) - This latest version of O4W includes additional integration with the new Banded Report Writer, new support routines for RSS feeds and a brand new 'ad hoc' report builder. In addition, the release includes a number of additional mobile enhancements such as a mobile specific menu and report output. Through O4W's integration with jQuery Mobile (the companion library to O4W's jQuery), web pages can be created using "finger friendly" user interface elements and design.
OpenInsight for QM (OI4QM) - The OI4QM data connector enables MultiValue application developers to fully utilise the QM database from Ladybridge Systems Limited. Using this dedicated data connector, Windows GUI and Web 2.0 interfaces can be quickly created without any change being required to an existing QM database.
"With this latest release, we're proving our commitment to our Revelation and MultiValue community", said Mike Ruane, President/CEO Revelation Software, "They asked us for a connection to QM from Ladybridge, and we listened. Our users also gave us a list of enhancements and suggestions for the Banded Report Writer, and we've taken care of them as well."
Also included in the OI 9.3.1 release are a number of patches and enhancements for the Banded Report Writer, Table Builder, and Database manager.
"Mobile computing is an essential requirement for any application development", said Robert Catalano, Director of Sales, Revelation Software. "We are empowering the MultiValue community with one of the best mobile computing toolkits on the market that is affordable, familiar to MV developers, and connects to their existing database with no change."
OpenInsight Development Suite 9.3.1 is available from Revelation Software, or through their network of resellers.
Satellite and SES continue their growth path in Europe
SES has announced that satellite has become the leading TV infrastructure in Europe, ahead of terrestrial and cable reception.
Approximately 84 million European households have satellite (Direct-to-Home, DTH) as their primary TV reception mode, an increase of 22 percent over the last four years. In the same period, terrestrial TV lost nearly 16 million homes, while cable TV lost over 2 million. IPTV - the TV distribution over tele-communication networks in IP format - has grown from a very low level to some 16 million households.
These are the results of the year-end Satellite Monitor that SES presents annually and that is based on primary research in 35 European and North African countries. The study is based on more than 62,000 interviews, conducted by leading market research institutes under the lead of TNS Infratest, Germany.
The main growth markets for satellite in 2011 were the UK, Germany, Ukraine, Poland and Italy. The main growth drivers are the development of digital reception and High Definition (HD). Satellite today is the leading digital infrastructure, reaching nearly 44 percent of all 186 million digital TV homes in Europe. The digitalisation rate of satellite is 97 percent, compared to 70 percent in terrestrial reception and 48 percent in cable.
The new study that SES presented today in London also shows that ASTRA is extending its position in the European markets. Around 142 million TV households are served by ASTRA, 7 million more than the year before and 25 million more than four years ago. More than half of the European TV homes (57 percent) receive their signals from ASTRA. 73 percent of all European satellite homes are ASTRA households, a total of 62 million. As a leader of digitalisation and High Definition (HD), ASTRA is also the leading HDTV platform in Europe. Over 23 million of the total 29 million satellite HD households in Europe are ASTRA households. The ASTRA Satellite System transmits 267 HD channels.
Worldwide, SES broadcasts in excess of 1200 HD channels on its fleet of 50 satellites and reaches 258 million TV households.
"This success confirms our view that satellite reception is the most attractive and future-proof mode for households to watch TV", said Norbert Hölzle, Senior Vice President Commercial Europe, in London. "The trend in Germany, where satellite overtook cable for the first time in history, is confirmed in the UK as well as in Europe overall, where satellite outgrew the other reception modes. The number and variety of channels, the quality of the broadcast, and the large reach of satellite remain compelling arguments for households to decide for a satellite dish.
Approximately 84 million European households have satellite (Direct-to-Home, DTH) as their primary TV reception mode, an increase of 22 percent over the last four years. In the same period, terrestrial TV lost nearly 16 million homes, while cable TV lost over 2 million. IPTV - the TV distribution over tele-communication networks in IP format - has grown from a very low level to some 16 million households.
These are the results of the year-end Satellite Monitor that SES presents annually and that is based on primary research in 35 European and North African countries. The study is based on more than 62,000 interviews, conducted by leading market research institutes under the lead of TNS Infratest, Germany.
The main growth markets for satellite in 2011 were the UK, Germany, Ukraine, Poland and Italy. The main growth drivers are the development of digital reception and High Definition (HD). Satellite today is the leading digital infrastructure, reaching nearly 44 percent of all 186 million digital TV homes in Europe. The digitalisation rate of satellite is 97 percent, compared to 70 percent in terrestrial reception and 48 percent in cable.
The new study that SES presented today in London also shows that ASTRA is extending its position in the European markets. Around 142 million TV households are served by ASTRA, 7 million more than the year before and 25 million more than four years ago. More than half of the European TV homes (57 percent) receive their signals from ASTRA. 73 percent of all European satellite homes are ASTRA households, a total of 62 million. As a leader of digitalisation and High Definition (HD), ASTRA is also the leading HDTV platform in Europe. Over 23 million of the total 29 million satellite HD households in Europe are ASTRA households. The ASTRA Satellite System transmits 267 HD channels.
Worldwide, SES broadcasts in excess of 1200 HD channels on its fleet of 50 satellites and reaches 258 million TV households.
"This success confirms our view that satellite reception is the most attractive and future-proof mode for households to watch TV", said Norbert Hölzle, Senior Vice President Commercial Europe, in London. "The trend in Germany, where satellite overtook cable for the first time in history, is confirmed in the UK as well as in Europe overall, where satellite outgrew the other reception modes. The number and variety of channels, the quality of the broadcast, and the large reach of satellite remain compelling arguments for households to decide for a satellite dish.
The factual growth of satellite and ASTRA in the digital world confirms their leading role. It puts us in a strong position to compete with other networks and combine our strengths with DSL and broadband reception. The combination of both in the connected TV will be the best of all possible worlds for the TV viewer."
SES is a world-leading satellite operator with a fleet of 50 geostationary satellites. The company provides satellite communications services to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators and business and governmental organisations worldwide.
SES stands for long-lasting business relationships, high-quality service and excellence in the broadcasting industry. The culturally diverse regional teams of SES are located around the globe and work closely with customers to meet their specific satellite bandwidth and service requirements.
SES (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) owns and operates the ASTRA Satellite System. It holds participations in Ciel in Canada and QuetzSat in Mexico, as well as a strategic participation in satellite infrastructure start-up O3b Networks.
SES is a world-leading satellite operator with a fleet of 50 geostationary satellites. The company provides satellite communications services to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators and business and governmental organisations worldwide.
SES stands for long-lasting business relationships, high-quality service and excellence in the broadcasting industry. The culturally diverse regional teams of SES are located around the globe and work closely with customers to meet their specific satellite bandwidth and service requirements.
SES (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) owns and operates the ASTRA Satellite System. It holds participations in Ciel in Canada and QuetzSat in Mexico, as well as a strategic participation in satellite infrastructure start-up O3b Networks.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Point to Point Puts NATS on Flight Path to Success
Point to Point restores enthusiasm for NATS future workspace vision
Desktop, application and virtualisation specialists, Point to Point, have just announced the successful completion of a discovery project which will enable National Air Traffic Service (NATS) to move to a new virtualised desktop environment. NATS enlisted the help of Point to Point for the discovery portion of the project through the deployment of a slimmed down desktop virtualisation system designed to illustrate the tangible benefits of virtualisation to senior management.
NATS is a leader in air traffic management, providing air traffic control services for 15 major airports covering UK and eastern North Atlantic airspace. NATS was looking to improve the IT user experience by introducing greater flexibility and remote working facilities, while also future-proofing the IT environment to support the business’ growth ambitions.
Gavin Walker, Head of Information Solutions for NATS, comments: “We have 6000 employees across the organisation including operational, technical and general office workers, who all have varied user profiles in relation to their use of IT. Operational staff do not have dedicated desks, phones or PCs, but they do need access to IT services for general admin tasks. Technical engineering and development teams work across multiple sites and need remote access. The business also has an ambitious growth strategy, which includes expansion into new international regions, the introduction of new services and partners, and possible M&As. Therefore the ability to scale at a fast pace was also a key requirement.”
After careful consideration of the technologies available, NATS recognised that desktop virtualisation, which allows remote access to the corporate network from anywhere at any time, would be the right solution. Additionally, it was vital that the technology could be delivered through the cloud to enable the company to scale as and when required. The project would also include providing a connection to a role based computing view with integrated Identity Management to help the company deploy services and applications based on user profiling to further improve the user experience.
NATS started working with Point to Point in November 2011 and has now completed the planning and discovery stage of the project. Point to Point conducted a thorough examination of NATS IT environment, which involved testing applications, assessing the company’s long-term business plans and profiling the user-base to ensure the technologies suggested would be compatible with the IT environment.
Walker comments: “Point to Point worked very closely with us making site visits, talking to our staff, and didn’t just rely on empirical evidence to understand how we work. The discovery work was superb. Point to Point made it very clear what was achievable and what wasn’t, and presented us with various options along with supportive information outlining the different paths we could take. There was no pressure to choose one specific vendor or technology, they just gave us the pros and cons for each.”
Point to Point was also able to deliver a scaled down version of the planned desktop virtualisation system with Office 2010 called ‘Springboard’. Springboard was rolled out to 100 people across the organisation including the CEO and most of the executive team. “Getting stakeholder investment can be a challenge as IT is seen to be taking money away from the bottom line. Springboard helped us to demonstrate immediate results and provided an indication of what the system would be able to do once in place - and people have been raving about it! It has got the team enthusiastic about the project again which is fantastic.”
FACTFILE:
Established in 1992, Point to Point has been a Citrix partner since the 1990s and was one of the first Platinum Partners in the UK. Today, Point to Point is totally vendor independent and will give customers an informed but impartial view on their desktop and application strategy. It is involved in developing an organisation’s application and desktop management strategy and depending on the outcome, technology implementation may or may not be involved in the solution.
The Point to Point team is highly skilled and qualified. Over the years Point to Point has been first to market via a number of large-scale deployments involving desktop and application virtualisation, including the first mission critical Citrix implementation in Europe, which developed to also become the largest implementation in Europe.
Point to Point has the customer proof points to support its assertions and can demonstrate the value it delivers to organisations, including household names such as: Premier Foods, St James Place, Surrey Police, Easyjet, and Rabobank to name but a few.
To find out more please visit the Point to Point website at: www.ptop.co.uk. Or follow them on Twitter:
NATS is the UK’s major provider of Air Traffic Management (ATM) services, handling 2.1 million flights in 2010, covering the UK and eastern North Atlantic. NATS provides air traffic control from centres at Swanwick, Hampshire and Prestwick, Ayrshire. NATS also provides air traffic control services at 15 of the nation's major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow, together with air traffic services at Gibraltar Airport. NATS was the first ATM provider in the world to set an environmental target to reduce CO2 emissions for aircraft under its control by an average 10% per flight by 2020.
NATS is also the first ATM provider to develop and implement an environmental measure as part of its regulatory framework. The UK/Ireland Functional Airspace Block, established in 2008 as part of the Single European Sky initiative, has already delivered more than €43m in fuel savings and expects to deliver savings in terms of fuel burn and delay reduction exceeding €300 million by 2020. NATS has tested the “perfect flight” in which every element of the journey – from pushback, taxi and continuous climb to an optimised flight profile and continuous descent approach – was calibrated to achieve minimal emissions and delay, saving around 11% of the normal fuel burn. Raising the TA will provide more opportunity for this to be replicated in normal operations.
Desktop, application and virtualisation specialists, Point to Point, have just announced the successful completion of a discovery project which will enable National Air Traffic Service (NATS) to move to a new virtualised desktop environment. NATS enlisted the help of Point to Point for the discovery portion of the project through the deployment of a slimmed down desktop virtualisation system designed to illustrate the tangible benefits of virtualisation to senior management.
NATS is a leader in air traffic management, providing air traffic control services for 15 major airports covering UK and eastern North Atlantic airspace. NATS was looking to improve the IT user experience by introducing greater flexibility and remote working facilities, while also future-proofing the IT environment to support the business’ growth ambitions.
Gavin Walker, Head of Information Solutions for NATS, comments: “We have 6000 employees across the organisation including operational, technical and general office workers, who all have varied user profiles in relation to their use of IT. Operational staff do not have dedicated desks, phones or PCs, but they do need access to IT services for general admin tasks. Technical engineering and development teams work across multiple sites and need remote access. The business also has an ambitious growth strategy, which includes expansion into new international regions, the introduction of new services and partners, and possible M&As. Therefore the ability to scale at a fast pace was also a key requirement.”
After careful consideration of the technologies available, NATS recognised that desktop virtualisation, which allows remote access to the corporate network from anywhere at any time, would be the right solution. Additionally, it was vital that the technology could be delivered through the cloud to enable the company to scale as and when required. The project would also include providing a connection to a role based computing view with integrated Identity Management to help the company deploy services and applications based on user profiling to further improve the user experience.
NATS started working with Point to Point in November 2011 and has now completed the planning and discovery stage of the project. Point to Point conducted a thorough examination of NATS IT environment, which involved testing applications, assessing the company’s long-term business plans and profiling the user-base to ensure the technologies suggested would be compatible with the IT environment.
Walker comments: “Point to Point worked very closely with us making site visits, talking to our staff, and didn’t just rely on empirical evidence to understand how we work. The discovery work was superb. Point to Point made it very clear what was achievable and what wasn’t, and presented us with various options along with supportive information outlining the different paths we could take. There was no pressure to choose one specific vendor or technology, they just gave us the pros and cons for each.”
Point to Point was also able to deliver a scaled down version of the planned desktop virtualisation system with Office 2010 called ‘Springboard’. Springboard was rolled out to 100 people across the organisation including the CEO and most of the executive team. “Getting stakeholder investment can be a challenge as IT is seen to be taking money away from the bottom line. Springboard helped us to demonstrate immediate results and provided an indication of what the system would be able to do once in place - and people have been raving about it! It has got the team enthusiastic about the project again which is fantastic.”
FACTFILE:
Established in 1992, Point to Point has been a Citrix partner since the 1990s and was one of the first Platinum Partners in the UK. Today, Point to Point is totally vendor independent and will give customers an informed but impartial view on their desktop and application strategy. It is involved in developing an organisation’s application and desktop management strategy and depending on the outcome, technology implementation may or may not be involved in the solution.
The Point to Point team is highly skilled and qualified. Over the years Point to Point has been first to market via a number of large-scale deployments involving desktop and application virtualisation, including the first mission critical Citrix implementation in Europe, which developed to also become the largest implementation in Europe.
Point to Point has the customer proof points to support its assertions and can demonstrate the value it delivers to organisations, including household names such as: Premier Foods, St James Place, Surrey Police, Easyjet, and Rabobank to name but a few.
To find out more please visit the Point to Point website at: www.ptop.co.uk. Or follow them on Twitter:
NATS is the UK’s major provider of Air Traffic Management (ATM) services, handling 2.1 million flights in 2010, covering the UK and eastern North Atlantic. NATS provides air traffic control from centres at Swanwick, Hampshire and Prestwick, Ayrshire. NATS also provides air traffic control services at 15 of the nation's major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow, together with air traffic services at Gibraltar Airport. NATS was the first ATM provider in the world to set an environmental target to reduce CO2 emissions for aircraft under its control by an average 10% per flight by 2020.
NATS is also the first ATM provider to develop and implement an environmental measure as part of its regulatory framework. The UK/Ireland Functional Airspace Block, established in 2008 as part of the Single European Sky initiative, has already delivered more than €43m in fuel savings and expects to deliver savings in terms of fuel burn and delay reduction exceeding €300 million by 2020. NATS has tested the “perfect flight” in which every element of the journey – from pushback, taxi and continuous climb to an optimised flight profile and continuous descent approach – was calibrated to achieve minimal emissions and delay, saving around 11% of the normal fuel burn. Raising the TA will provide more opportunity for this to be replicated in normal operations.
Sunday, 25 March 2012
That's Business: Sceneric and hybris Help Stanley Gibbons Win Stamp...
That's Business: Sceneric and hybris Help Stanley Gibbons Win Stamp...: 72% increase in online sales sign of buoyant market for AIM-listed rare stamp, coin and autograph company Since opting for UK-based web c...
That's Entertainment News: SES and Samsung unveil Africa's first TV with inte...
That's Entertainment News: SES and Samsung unveil Africa's first TV with inte...: SES announced at the Samsung Africa Forum in Cape Town, South Africa, that it is collabora...
Thursday, 22 March 2012
That's Business: RFID technology enables brands to link users’ real...
That's Business: RFID technology enables brands to link users’ real...: Social Media World Forum Europe uses RFID solution that bridges real-life experiences with social media Next week’s Social Media...
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Akamai Introduces Terra Alta to Address the Evolving Complexities of Enterprise Application Delivery
Solution designed for changing enterprise IT requirements around end user mobility and development and deployment of complex applications in the cloud
Akamai® Technologies, Inc., a cloud platform for delivering secure, high-performing user experiences to any device, anywhere, has introduced Terra Alta, an enterprise-class solution designed to address the evolving complexities of application acceleration in the cloud.
Enterprises are increasingly turning to the cloud to reap economic benefits and effectively extend the reach of business applications to users outside the bounds of the traditional corporate network – both in terms of physical location and device type. At the same time, IT managers must find efficient ways to overcome issues of latency, availability, security and application control that can adversely impact web application performance and degrade the end user experience.
To help mitigate the performance challenges enterprises face when using the public Internet for application delivery, Akamai’s Terra Alta has been designed to enable an increasingly mobile enterprise user base. In addition, Terra Alta helps simplify the process of developing and deploying applications in the cloud, making it easier to optimise hundreds or thousands of applications with greater flexibility and control. As applications themselves evolve, Terra Alta helps accelerate complex applications that rely on multiple components, which may include business functions, modules, or web services from within other applications. Finally, Terra Alta can be easily deployed within an enterprises’ existing network architecture, allowing IT decision makers to avoid making changes to network equipment investments already made.
“Enterprises are increasingly extending their IT infrastructure outside of the boundaries of their own data centres – embracing cloud computing, as well as delivering content and applications over the Internet” said Lydia Leong, research vice president, Gartner. “However, they face a new array of availability and performance challenges that may impact end-user adoption, acceptance, and productivity, and need solutions for these challenges.”
At its core, Terra Alta takes advantage of the massively distributed Akamai Intelligent Platform™ to provide enterprises with an innovative set of capabilities aimed at improving the user experience for Internet-delivered applications regardless of where they are hosted. New features introduced with Terra Alta are designed to meet the requirements of enterprise and cloud readiness, increased performance and simplicity of deployment and use.
In the area of enterprise and cloud readiness, Terra Alta is intended to effectively map to the way enterprises are deploying and delivering critical business applications. Important new features in this area include:
• Enterprise EdgeSM: Recognising that web applications are hosted at the origin as well as in the cloud, Terra Alta enhances the reach of the Akamai Intelligent Platform by extending into the enterprise with Enterprise Edge. This virtual machine, running Akamai optimisation technology within a customer’s origin, allows optimisations from the Akamai Intelligent Platform to be carried from the Internet into the data centre, improving overall application performance across the entire delivery environment.
• Edge Load Balancing: For enterprises taking advantage of public cloud deployments, Edge Load Balancing is designed to ensure that application traffic can be load balanced globally across the web before traffic impacts an isolated single data centre.
• Enterprise DNS Mapping: Enables organisations to overcome the performance challenges caused by centralised DNS by dynamically adapting to user location and removing dependencies on enterprise DNS infrastructure re-designs.
With Terra Alta, Akamai is offering customers a 100 percent global performance improvement SLA over origin-alone applications. New features designed to deliver unrivaled acceleration capabilities across an extremely broad set of web applications include:
• Web Deduplication: This feature is designed to ensure that only differences in the objects that have already been sent by the origin are delivered, reducing bandwidth consumption required for application delivery and drastically increasing performance.
• Akamai Instant: Based on web analytical data, Akamai Instant retrieves what are assessed as the most likely pages to be next requested by the user, which can reduce long think times associated with web service calls, database lookups and other processing found in complex applications that can adversely affect application response times. This approach abstracts origin infrastructure challenges by leveraging Akamai’s Intelligent Platform to bring content closer to the user with fewer trips to the origin.
• Dynamic Page Caching: This capability allows pages that were previously considered dynamic and un-cacheable to be conditionally cached.
Terra Alta is designed to be easy to deploy and consume in a manner best mapped to business requirements. New capabilities designed to meet customer requirements for simplicity include:
• Streamlined packages that allow enterprises to buy sets of application slots that can be easily interchanged as dictated by business requirements – such as seasonality or proof of concept testing – supported by traffic levels designed to serve even the most demanding application needs.
• Mobile Detect and Redirect supports delivery of applications to mobile users by simplifying the process of addressing and delivering mobile business applications, which can significantly improve the user experience. The result is an enterprise-wide application optimisation platform that can be easily leveraged across any application – public cloud, origin and mobile – being delivered over the Internet.
• InstantConfig allows IT teams to quickly deploy and provision multiple applications – cloud or origin based – with a simple, dynamic, and instant configuration accomplished through the newly redesigned customer portal.
“Companies want to use the cloud as an enterprise application delivery environment because it’s the most effective and efficient way to reach the broadest set of users. Unfortunately, controlling the cloud can seriously erode the promises and expectations of cloud computing,” stated Willie M. Tejada, Senior Vice President & General Manager of the Enterprise Cloud Division at Akamai. “With the release of Terra Alta, we’re giving our customers powerful solutions specifically designed to provide the best possible performance for their entire portfolio of cloud delivered business applications.”
Terra Alta is available now with packages supporting sets of three, five and 10 applications.
The Akamai Solutions Portfolio
Terra Alta is part of the company’s new Terra Enterprise Solutions product family which is intended to empower businesses to leverage the cloud for application adoption without borders while eliminating costly networks and specialised hardware. Other solution sets leveraging the Akamai Intelligent Platform include Aqua Web Solutions designed to help customers grow revenue opportunities with fast, personalised web experiences and allow them to manage complexity such as peak demand, mobile devices and data collection; Kona Security Solutions which help organisations avoid data theft and business downtime by extending the security perimeter outside the data-centre and protect them from the increasing frequency, scale and sophistication of web attacks; Sola Media Solutions which allow businesses to engage audiences with interactive HD quality video, solve the challenges of multi-device consumption and reinvent the software distribution channel; and Aura Network Solutions which deliver the capability to operate a cost efficient network which capitalises on traffic growth and eliminates the complexity typically required to build a CDN and interconnect across providers.
FACTFILE:
Akamai® is a cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company's solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.
Akamai® Technologies, Inc., a cloud platform for delivering secure, high-performing user experiences to any device, anywhere, has introduced Terra Alta, an enterprise-class solution designed to address the evolving complexities of application acceleration in the cloud.
Enterprises are increasingly turning to the cloud to reap economic benefits and effectively extend the reach of business applications to users outside the bounds of the traditional corporate network – both in terms of physical location and device type. At the same time, IT managers must find efficient ways to overcome issues of latency, availability, security and application control that can adversely impact web application performance and degrade the end user experience.
To help mitigate the performance challenges enterprises face when using the public Internet for application delivery, Akamai’s Terra Alta has been designed to enable an increasingly mobile enterprise user base. In addition, Terra Alta helps simplify the process of developing and deploying applications in the cloud, making it easier to optimise hundreds or thousands of applications with greater flexibility and control. As applications themselves evolve, Terra Alta helps accelerate complex applications that rely on multiple components, which may include business functions, modules, or web services from within other applications. Finally, Terra Alta can be easily deployed within an enterprises’ existing network architecture, allowing IT decision makers to avoid making changes to network equipment investments already made.
“Enterprises are increasingly extending their IT infrastructure outside of the boundaries of their own data centres – embracing cloud computing, as well as delivering content and applications over the Internet” said Lydia Leong, research vice president, Gartner. “However, they face a new array of availability and performance challenges that may impact end-user adoption, acceptance, and productivity, and need solutions for these challenges.”
At its core, Terra Alta takes advantage of the massively distributed Akamai Intelligent Platform™ to provide enterprises with an innovative set of capabilities aimed at improving the user experience for Internet-delivered applications regardless of where they are hosted. New features introduced with Terra Alta are designed to meet the requirements of enterprise and cloud readiness, increased performance and simplicity of deployment and use.
In the area of enterprise and cloud readiness, Terra Alta is intended to effectively map to the way enterprises are deploying and delivering critical business applications. Important new features in this area include:
• Enterprise EdgeSM: Recognising that web applications are hosted at the origin as well as in the cloud, Terra Alta enhances the reach of the Akamai Intelligent Platform by extending into the enterprise with Enterprise Edge. This virtual machine, running Akamai optimisation technology within a customer’s origin, allows optimisations from the Akamai Intelligent Platform to be carried from the Internet into the data centre, improving overall application performance across the entire delivery environment.
• Edge Load Balancing: For enterprises taking advantage of public cloud deployments, Edge Load Balancing is designed to ensure that application traffic can be load balanced globally across the web before traffic impacts an isolated single data centre.
• Enterprise DNS Mapping: Enables organisations to overcome the performance challenges caused by centralised DNS by dynamically adapting to user location and removing dependencies on enterprise DNS infrastructure re-designs.
With Terra Alta, Akamai is offering customers a 100 percent global performance improvement SLA over origin-alone applications. New features designed to deliver unrivaled acceleration capabilities across an extremely broad set of web applications include:
• Web Deduplication: This feature is designed to ensure that only differences in the objects that have already been sent by the origin are delivered, reducing bandwidth consumption required for application delivery and drastically increasing performance.
• Akamai Instant: Based on web analytical data, Akamai Instant retrieves what are assessed as the most likely pages to be next requested by the user, which can reduce long think times associated with web service calls, database lookups and other processing found in complex applications that can adversely affect application response times. This approach abstracts origin infrastructure challenges by leveraging Akamai’s Intelligent Platform to bring content closer to the user with fewer trips to the origin.
• Dynamic Page Caching: This capability allows pages that were previously considered dynamic and un-cacheable to be conditionally cached.
Terra Alta is designed to be easy to deploy and consume in a manner best mapped to business requirements. New capabilities designed to meet customer requirements for simplicity include:
• Streamlined packages that allow enterprises to buy sets of application slots that can be easily interchanged as dictated by business requirements – such as seasonality or proof of concept testing – supported by traffic levels designed to serve even the most demanding application needs.
• Mobile Detect and Redirect supports delivery of applications to mobile users by simplifying the process of addressing and delivering mobile business applications, which can significantly improve the user experience. The result is an enterprise-wide application optimisation platform that can be easily leveraged across any application – public cloud, origin and mobile – being delivered over the Internet.
• InstantConfig allows IT teams to quickly deploy and provision multiple applications – cloud or origin based – with a simple, dynamic, and instant configuration accomplished through the newly redesigned customer portal.
“Companies want to use the cloud as an enterprise application delivery environment because it’s the most effective and efficient way to reach the broadest set of users. Unfortunately, controlling the cloud can seriously erode the promises and expectations of cloud computing,” stated Willie M. Tejada, Senior Vice President & General Manager of the Enterprise Cloud Division at Akamai. “With the release of Terra Alta, we’re giving our customers powerful solutions specifically designed to provide the best possible performance for their entire portfolio of cloud delivered business applications.”
Terra Alta is available now with packages supporting sets of three, five and 10 applications.
The Akamai Solutions Portfolio
Terra Alta is part of the company’s new Terra Enterprise Solutions product family which is intended to empower businesses to leverage the cloud for application adoption without borders while eliminating costly networks and specialised hardware. Other solution sets leveraging the Akamai Intelligent Platform include Aqua Web Solutions designed to help customers grow revenue opportunities with fast, personalised web experiences and allow them to manage complexity such as peak demand, mobile devices and data collection; Kona Security Solutions which help organisations avoid data theft and business downtime by extending the security perimeter outside the data-centre and protect them from the increasing frequency, scale and sophistication of web attacks; Sola Media Solutions which allow businesses to engage audiences with interactive HD quality video, solve the challenges of multi-device consumption and reinvent the software distribution channel; and Aura Network Solutions which deliver the capability to operate a cost efficient network which capitalises on traffic growth and eliminates the complexity typically required to build a CDN and interconnect across providers.
FACTFILE:
Akamai® is a cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company's solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Excel Launches Two New Patch Panels
The Excel 24 Port 0.5U Keystone Patch Panel delivers a high density offering with the benefit of a single row of keystone jacks. The single row of jacks means that the installation is straight forward and allows an individual jack to be removed if required. As the panel is only 0.5U in height it allows, by using two panels together, the ability to present 48 keystone jacks in 1U of rack space. Using two 0.5U panels ensures that the jacks are all aligned the correct way up.
Most 48 Port 1U panels require the bottom row of jacks to be mounted upside down.
The panel is supplied with a cable management bar and an earthing kit as standard.
The Excel 24 Port 1U Keystone V Patch Panel allows standard Excel keystone jacks to be presented in an angled patch panel configuration. The patch panel is designed to accept all of the Excel unscreened and screened standard keystone jacks from the Category 5e, 6 & 6A portfolios. This panel includes a rear cable manager to allow the cable to be dressed into the panel neatly and securely. The V shape of the panel presents the jacks at an angle to the front of the cabinet that reduces the strain on the jack that results from the patch lead. The patch lead is naturally routed to the cabinet/frame cable management reducing the requirement for rack mounted cable management bars. Earth bonding leads are supplied fitted to enable grounding if required.
Commenting on the new panels, Simon Robinson, Product Marketing Manager said "We are constantly listening to customer feedback and reviewing the Excel range to ensure that we have the right breadth of products, quality and competitive price point."
Simon continued "Excel already has an extensive range of panels to suit every requirement and these new models, utilising the Excel keystone jacks, provide even more choice to our customer base."
The Excel 24Port 0.5U Keystone Patch Panel is available from stock immediately, the Excel 24 Port 1U Keystone V Patch Panel will be available from the end of March 2012.
For further details on these and the full Excel range please visit www.excel-networking.com
That's Business: Fast-growing 848 lures leader from UK telco giant
That's Business: Fast-growing 848 lures leader from UK telco giant: Former BT executive Chris Ainslie strengthens young team The 848 Group , the cloud servic...
That's Business: NEW REPORT: E-invoicing failing to deliver
That's Business: NEW REPORT: E-invoicing failing to deliver: UK large enterprises deliver harsh truth as suppliers fail to adopt expensive and inefficie...
Leading Global Service Providers Identified by Independent Research Firm are hybris Partners
hybris, a leading provider of multichannel commerce and communication software, today announced that it is partnering with 11 of the 12 leading commerce service providers named in Forrester Research, Inc.’s latest Wave report on this market. Entitled “The Forrester Wave™: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012”, dated 24 February, 2012, the report follows the Company being named as a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: B2C eCommerce Platforms, Q4 2010”, dated 21 October 2010.
According to Forrester; “Today’s commerce technology projects are complex, and growing eCommerce revenues mean the bets are getting bigger …eCommerce will affect the entire business, whether that impact can be easily measured of not …. Not only does the implementation of a commerce platform and related technologies require a host of technical integrations, but these projects involve rethinking and designing a cross-touchpoint customer experience. …When multiple firms are involved to address all of these issues, companies risk missing requirements, having questions go unasked, seeing their vision and recommendations get lost in translation, and witnessing accountability go out of the window. As a result, eBusiness and technology leaders must seek services firms that can provide a wide range of capabilities...”
Frank Schoutissen, Vice President Channel at hybris, said; “Of the 12 companies identified by Forrester in its report, we are actively working with 11 of these. The purpose of this report was to evaluate these companies to help eBusiness, channel strategy and technology leaders determine the best service providers for their company to work with as they embark on programs to transform their company in the era of agile commerce.
"We believe this shows that hybris is working with the right companies across the globe to support its customers and ensure they get the best results from our multichannel commerce solutions.”
A copy of the report can be downloaded here: www.hybris.com/forrester-wave-2012-service-providers
According to Forrester; “Today’s commerce technology projects are complex, and growing eCommerce revenues mean the bets are getting bigger …eCommerce will affect the entire business, whether that impact can be easily measured of not …. Not only does the implementation of a commerce platform and related technologies require a host of technical integrations, but these projects involve rethinking and designing a cross-touchpoint customer experience. …When multiple firms are involved to address all of these issues, companies risk missing requirements, having questions go unasked, seeing their vision and recommendations get lost in translation, and witnessing accountability go out of the window. As a result, eBusiness and technology leaders must seek services firms that can provide a wide range of capabilities...”
Frank Schoutissen, Vice President Channel at hybris, said; “Of the 12 companies identified by Forrester in its report, we are actively working with 11 of these. The purpose of this report was to evaluate these companies to help eBusiness, channel strategy and technology leaders determine the best service providers for their company to work with as they embark on programs to transform their company in the era of agile commerce.
"We believe this shows that hybris is working with the right companies across the globe to support its customers and ensure they get the best results from our multichannel commerce solutions.”
A copy of the report can be downloaded here: www.hybris.com/forrester-wave-2012-service-providers
One in five tech firms has rejected a job applicant because of social media profile
Half expect to increase social media spend but unable to measure ROI
Almost one in five technology industry executives say that a candidate’s social media profile has caused them not to hire that person. This is revealed in the 2012 annual technology market survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide (www.eurocompr.com) the Global PR Network, in association with UK PR agency partner, Six Degrees (www.sixdegreespr.com).
The annual Eurocom Worldwide study has previously found almost 40 per cent of respondents’ companies check out potential employees’ profiles on social media sites, but this is the first evidence that candidates are actually being rejected because of them.
“The 21st century human is learning that every action leaves an indelible digital trail. In the years ahead many of us will be challenged by what we are making public in various social forums today. The fact that one in five applicants disqualify themselves from an interview because of content in the social media sphere is a warning to job seekers and a true indicator of the digital reality we now live in,” said Mads Christensen, Network Director at Eurocom Worldwide.
The Eurocom Worldwide survey this year also reveals that while nearly half (49 per cent) of technology executives say that their firm will increase their expenditure on social media in the next 12 months, over half (57 per cent) say they are unable to accurately measure the impact of the investment. By contrast, only 23 per cent say they can measure it.
The survey discovered that 74 per cent of respondents consider online PR to be very or quite important for their company’s search engine optimisation (SEO) with 37 per cent saying it is very important.
“The significant role of online PR in search engine optimisation is often underrated but clearly not by technology firms,” commented Amanda Hassall, Director at Six Degrees.
Social media content
Respondents to the survey were also asked about the primary source of social media content and messaging for their company. The majority (78 per cent) cite in-house sources with PR agencies the second most important source at 12 per cent. Digital marketing agencies and advertising agencies combined account for the remaining 10 per cent.
Of those respondents who work in companies that publish a blog, 57 per cent say that it is done in order to raise profile or create thought leadership. Nearly as many (55 per cent) state that the blogging aims to improve interaction with customers, while 37 per cent say the aim is to boost SEO and 36 per cent say it is to participate in industry debates. According to the responses, the main reason for not blogging is that it is ‘too time consuming’ cited by 42 per cent of those who don’t blog. One in five doesn’t see the value of it while 14 per cent fear a negative response.
The most popular social media platform for technology companies is:
• LinkedIn (74 per cent)
• Twitter - 67 per cent of technology firms tweet
• 64 per cent have a Facebook presence
• 56 per cent are on YouTube.
Only half of respondents surveyed say that their company has a formal process for listening to what is said about them in social media.
The Eurocom Worldwide technology confidence survey was conducted online by member agencies of Eurocom Worldwide during January and February 2012. A total of 318 responses were received with approximately 80 per cent from European countries and 11 per cent from the Americas.
Almost one in five technology industry executives say that a candidate’s social media profile has caused them not to hire that person. This is revealed in the 2012 annual technology market survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide (www.eurocompr.com) the Global PR Network, in association with UK PR agency partner, Six Degrees (www.sixdegreespr.com).
The annual Eurocom Worldwide study has previously found almost 40 per cent of respondents’ companies check out potential employees’ profiles on social media sites, but this is the first evidence that candidates are actually being rejected because of them.
“The 21st century human is learning that every action leaves an indelible digital trail. In the years ahead many of us will be challenged by what we are making public in various social forums today. The fact that one in five applicants disqualify themselves from an interview because of content in the social media sphere is a warning to job seekers and a true indicator of the digital reality we now live in,” said Mads Christensen, Network Director at Eurocom Worldwide.
The Eurocom Worldwide survey this year also reveals that while nearly half (49 per cent) of technology executives say that their firm will increase their expenditure on social media in the next 12 months, over half (57 per cent) say they are unable to accurately measure the impact of the investment. By contrast, only 23 per cent say they can measure it.
The survey discovered that 74 per cent of respondents consider online PR to be very or quite important for their company’s search engine optimisation (SEO) with 37 per cent saying it is very important.
“The significant role of online PR in search engine optimisation is often underrated but clearly not by technology firms,” commented Amanda Hassall, Director at Six Degrees.
Social media content
Respondents to the survey were also asked about the primary source of social media content and messaging for their company. The majority (78 per cent) cite in-house sources with PR agencies the second most important source at 12 per cent. Digital marketing agencies and advertising agencies combined account for the remaining 10 per cent.
Of those respondents who work in companies that publish a blog, 57 per cent say that it is done in order to raise profile or create thought leadership. Nearly as many (55 per cent) state that the blogging aims to improve interaction with customers, while 37 per cent say the aim is to boost SEO and 36 per cent say it is to participate in industry debates. According to the responses, the main reason for not blogging is that it is ‘too time consuming’ cited by 42 per cent of those who don’t blog. One in five doesn’t see the value of it while 14 per cent fear a negative response.
The most popular social media platform for technology companies is:
• LinkedIn (74 per cent)
• Twitter - 67 per cent of technology firms tweet
• 64 per cent have a Facebook presence
• 56 per cent are on YouTube.
Only half of respondents surveyed say that their company has a formal process for listening to what is said about them in social media.
The Eurocom Worldwide technology confidence survey was conducted online by member agencies of Eurocom Worldwide during January and February 2012. A total of 318 responses were received with approximately 80 per cent from European countries and 11 per cent from the Americas.
British Journal of Photography celebrates over 100,000 downloads of its iPad edition
British Journal of Photography has increased its readership over 12 times with the launch of its bespoke iPad app. Reaching out to a global audience for the first time in its 162-year history, the app has now been downloaded over 100,000 times - a figure which dwarfs the 8000 readers of its niche print edition, which was first published in 1854.
The first paid for edition of BJP’s app hit the Apple Newsstand in December last year and reached the number 1 spot as the highest-grossing app in the UK Photo & Video category in iTunes in less than 24 hours. It has now also hit the top 10 Newsstand apps in the US.
The tailor-made app has also met with critical success, included on the List of Best European Magazine & Newspaper Apps* alongside titles such as Wired, Mail Online, Metro Tablet Edition and Bild. In December, Apple highlighted the app as “New & Noteworthy” within the App Store in iTunes.
Issue 3 (Spring 2012), available from today, is an all-star affair, featuring interviews with some of contemporary photography's biggest stars - including Roger Ballen, South Africa's most idiosyncratic shooter, who talks through his journey from documentary to staged photography plus his latest project, a pop video for South Afrikan rap-rave group Die Antwoord. Also featured are Boris Mikhailov, Paolo Roversi, Lise Sarfati, Steve Pyke and Martin Parr.
The BJP app uses the Mag+ platform and also provides an in-depth analysis of the latest visual trends, spotlights on new talent and reviews of the latest technology. Maximising the iPad’s video capabilities, it incorporates unrivalled coverage of the emerging HDSLR video market, bringing together the best from stills photography and motion technology.
Up-to-the-minute live news from BJP-Online is also accessible at the click of a button, and users can share articles via email and social media.
Publishing director Marc Hartog states: "Our app has exceeded our wildest expectations , hitting over 100,000 downloads already and growing fast, which is more than twelve times our print readership, the iPad and newsstand present us with an opportunity to deliver our content to a global audience in an environment which we believe readers will see real value in. We had faith that people would pay a premium price for premium digital content delivered in an interactive and immersive environment, and this has paid off with several thousand subscriptions for our iPad edition in just the first few months of launch.”
Issue #3 of the BJP app can be downloaded now through iTunes for £6.99/€7.99/$9.99. A 50 page preview is also available to download free.
A six-month subscription is also available at the launch offer price of £9.99/€10.99/$13.99.
For more information, video previews and download details, visit www.bjpapp.com
SureVoIP Launches Innovative API
Aberdeen-based communications company SureVoIP has just launched an innovative API (application programming interface) which will provide an even better service for customers and partners and allow 100% self-service and interaction with the SureVoIP suite of products and services.
To ensure communications with other products and services, the company has just launched what is believed to be UK VoIP’s first publicly available and documented Application Programming Interface (API) beta of this kind.
Commenting on the move, SureVoIP managing director Gavin Henry pointed out: “It's vital for us to remain at the forefront of technology and it is anticipated that this API will further enhance our ability to provide the broadest possible spectrum to all customers and partners, existing or potential.
“The SureVoIP API can be used to send SMS messages, faxes, generate telephone calls, manage accounts and telephone numbers, subscribe to event notifications and use a feature called OAuth 2.0 which allows third parties to create Apps like those for Twitter and Facebook.
“Various partnerships have been put in place to maximise adoption and many of our existing customers are already incorporating this API into their Mobile App strategy. Because of this, SureVoIP has also started development work on its own mobile app for customers and partners as well as a long list of exciting new ways to make a telephone call.”
SureVoIP is regulated by Ofcom, is a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) and is a finalist in that organisation’s 2012 awards. The company is also the holder of an ITSPA Quality Mark accreditation. For further information visit www.surevoip.co.uk or call 01224 900123 or email sales@surevoip.co.uk
To ensure communications with other products and services, the company has just launched what is believed to be UK VoIP’s first publicly available and documented Application Programming Interface (API) beta of this kind.
Commenting on the move, SureVoIP managing director Gavin Henry pointed out: “It's vital for us to remain at the forefront of technology and it is anticipated that this API will further enhance our ability to provide the broadest possible spectrum to all customers and partners, existing or potential.
“The SureVoIP API can be used to send SMS messages, faxes, generate telephone calls, manage accounts and telephone numbers, subscribe to event notifications and use a feature called OAuth 2.0 which allows third parties to create Apps like those for Twitter and Facebook.
“Various partnerships have been put in place to maximise adoption and many of our existing customers are already incorporating this API into their Mobile App strategy. Because of this, SureVoIP has also started development work on its own mobile app for customers and partners as well as a long list of exciting new ways to make a telephone call.”
SureVoIP is regulated by Ofcom, is a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) and is a finalist in that organisation’s 2012 awards. The company is also the holder of an ITSPA Quality Mark accreditation. For further information visit www.surevoip.co.uk or call 01224 900123 or email sales@surevoip.co.uk
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
That's Health: Text Reminders Could Make Missed Dental Appointmen...
That's Health: Text Reminders Could Make Missed Dental Appointmen...: Research by the British Dental Association discovered at least three and a half million dental appointments are missed in England each year,...
Aldermore Bank uses ArchiveOne to achieve demonstrable compliance and easy retrieval
C2C, a provider of email, file and messaging management solutions has announced that Aldermore Bank has adopted C2C’s ArchiveOne to achieve compliance and retrieval. The Bank, that has fast become one of the UK’s emerging financial institutions’ despite the current recessionary climate, operates across ten offices with a head office in Peterborough. The Bank has 600 Microsoft Exchange mailboxes. Primarily an online bank with over 90% of all our business communication conducted via email, it is critical that email is optimised, secure and fully retrievable at all times.
Like most large institutions, Aldermore Bank were facing growth issues – it sends and receives approximately 250,000 emails each month, and experiences a 20% growth rate every 6 months in the size and volume of emails. Through the Bank’s ongoing success and acquisition trail, employee numbers and mailboxes are estimated to rise by a further 25% in 2012. Compliance has always been a strong concern for the Bank, with identification and retrieval on-demand an ongoing concern to successfully adhere to the compliance requirements of the Financial Services Act.
Although day-to-day email retrieval requests were relatively infrequent, Mark Lockwood, Senior Systems Administrator, explained that when they did come in, the team could spend hours locating files. If a whole mailbox restore was required, it could take an entire day. Successful retrieval was wholly reliant on specific identification of the mailbox user and exact timing of when the mail was sent.
Email Archive Solution Required:
Recognising the need to implement a powerful, easy to use archiving system, Mark identified three email management companies, including C2C Systems, to demonstrate their solutions.
“Only ArchiveOne had the ability to search both live data and archive data – the others could only search the archive. In a 24/7 environment, that’s of critical importance.”
Upon rollout, two policies were established to suit Aldermore’s requirement to keep all email in perpetuity. ArchiveOne was set so that any email over 4MB in size was automatically sent to the archive; and any email that was over 90 days old was also transferred to the archive. At the backend, 3 date-based email data repositories were initially established to suit the historical infrastructure of the company. Early user experience endorsed Mark’s initial findings that ArchiveOne was simple to use without over complicating the process.
One of the first notable achievements from ArchiveOne was to discover PSTs across all users: The PST files are a result of Microsoft Outlook’s AutoArchive feature prompting users to store email data on local drives or network shared drives, making backup and restore extremely problematic. With ArchiveOne’s PST auto-management feature, these files were automatically pulled into the archive.
Growth challenges have also been addressed:- “The growing strain on our Exchange servers has now disappeared.” comments Mark. “The demand for storage as we have successfully archived all areas of the organisation has decreased by more than 60%.”
From a user perspective, there has been no appreciable difference in email usage – a key requirement. Users still see emails listed in inboxes or folders, but annotated with an ‘A’ symbol, to indicate that emails are stored centrally on the archive.
Compliance is now enforced. ArchiveOne stores a copy of every email sent or received at the Bank into a secure repository, enabling rapid message restore and providing a full audit trail. The fast retrieval is critical for the Bank, where, for instance, personnel have left and transactions may be subsequently questioned.
Looking Forward
The Bank experienced a 60% reduction in the size of the data set and the IT department anticipates a knock-on reduction in the migration timescales and costs. With Microsoft SharePoint on the roadmap ahead, Mark intends to implement C2C ArchiveOne for SharePoint to aid capacity, compliance, eDiscovery and retention management of data from the Microsoft SharePoint server.
Mark concludes: “The use of ArchiveOne throughout the Bank represents a dramatic improvement in the management of email. It really is an excellent solution from a UK-based highly knowledgeable team that has met our expectations on every level.”
Like most large institutions, Aldermore Bank were facing growth issues – it sends and receives approximately 250,000 emails each month, and experiences a 20% growth rate every 6 months in the size and volume of emails. Through the Bank’s ongoing success and acquisition trail, employee numbers and mailboxes are estimated to rise by a further 25% in 2012. Compliance has always been a strong concern for the Bank, with identification and retrieval on-demand an ongoing concern to successfully adhere to the compliance requirements of the Financial Services Act.
Although day-to-day email retrieval requests were relatively infrequent, Mark Lockwood, Senior Systems Administrator, explained that when they did come in, the team could spend hours locating files. If a whole mailbox restore was required, it could take an entire day. Successful retrieval was wholly reliant on specific identification of the mailbox user and exact timing of when the mail was sent.
Email Archive Solution Required:
Recognising the need to implement a powerful, easy to use archiving system, Mark identified three email management companies, including C2C Systems, to demonstrate their solutions.
“Only ArchiveOne had the ability to search both live data and archive data – the others could only search the archive. In a 24/7 environment, that’s of critical importance.”
Upon rollout, two policies were established to suit Aldermore’s requirement to keep all email in perpetuity. ArchiveOne was set so that any email over 4MB in size was automatically sent to the archive; and any email that was over 90 days old was also transferred to the archive. At the backend, 3 date-based email data repositories were initially established to suit the historical infrastructure of the company. Early user experience endorsed Mark’s initial findings that ArchiveOne was simple to use without over complicating the process.
One of the first notable achievements from ArchiveOne was to discover PSTs across all users: The PST files are a result of Microsoft Outlook’s AutoArchive feature prompting users to store email data on local drives or network shared drives, making backup and restore extremely problematic. With ArchiveOne’s PST auto-management feature, these files were automatically pulled into the archive.
Growth challenges have also been addressed:- “The growing strain on our Exchange servers has now disappeared.” comments Mark. “The demand for storage as we have successfully archived all areas of the organisation has decreased by more than 60%.”
From a user perspective, there has been no appreciable difference in email usage – a key requirement. Users still see emails listed in inboxes or folders, but annotated with an ‘A’ symbol, to indicate that emails are stored centrally on the archive.
Compliance is now enforced. ArchiveOne stores a copy of every email sent or received at the Bank into a secure repository, enabling rapid message restore and providing a full audit trail. The fast retrieval is critical for the Bank, where, for instance, personnel have left and transactions may be subsequently questioned.
Looking Forward
The Bank experienced a 60% reduction in the size of the data set and the IT department anticipates a knock-on reduction in the migration timescales and costs. With Microsoft SharePoint on the roadmap ahead, Mark intends to implement C2C ArchiveOne for SharePoint to aid capacity, compliance, eDiscovery and retention management of data from the Microsoft SharePoint server.
Mark concludes: “The use of ArchiveOne throughout the Bank represents a dramatic improvement in the management of email. It really is an excellent solution from a UK-based highly knowledgeable team that has met our expectations on every level.”
Nexans customised ROV cable solutions ensure reliability at depths down to 7,000 metres
Nexans offers a wide range of cable designs customized to meet the changing needs of ROV manufacturers and operators for lift umbilicals and flexible tether cables.
Nexans, a worldwide expert in the cable industry, is at Oceanology 2012 to showcase its wide range of cable solutions developed to meet the specific needs of workclass ROV manufacturers and operators. Visitors to stand D250 can find out how Nexans is building on many years of experience in the subsea marine industry to utilize new designs and materials to produce tailor-made cables capable of deployment at ever increasing depths. Examples of some of the different types of ROV cables offered by Nexans will be on show, including lift umbilicals that can take the strain of onboard winching and flexible tether cables that ensure maximum mobility subsea.
ROV Umbilicals – for depths down to 7,000 metres
Nexans is a well established supplier of cables for the global ROV market, with the capability to draw on a wide range of standard electrical and fibre elements that, combined with customized armouring packages, create highly dynamic, torque balanced, compact solutions that deliver the essential reliability and robustness required for subsea applications.
Nexans’ specialized ROV cable manufacturing facility in Norway can produce steel armoured umbilicals for vehicles commonly used for trenching, ploughing, maintenance and drill support applications. The cables are typically designed with a two or three layer torque balanced armouring and 3 phase power supply, instrumentation and fibre optics. The typical depth rating is 2000 to 4000 metres.
Deep water umbilicals are designed for dynamic deep water applications rated down to 7000 metres and the conductors and fibre optics are armoured with special aramid yarns providing high strength. They are used typically in deep water mining.
The umbilical cables are easy to maintain in salt water environments through simple cleaning, hosing and greasing and offer the versatility to operate with complete reliability in harsh environments.
ROV tethers – designed for durability
Nexans flexible and durable TMS (Tether Management System) cables are designed for use with ROVs deployed in tethered applications or directly from the surface for smaller ROVs. They are strong, lightweight, neutral and positively buoyant and are suitable for use in a variety of underwater applications.
Layers of high strength, lightweight armouring yarns provide the ideal combination of tensile and torque strength.
Innovation through experience
Nexans is able to call on many years of experience in combination with a high level of technical expertise to work in partnership with ROV manufacturers and operators to develop the ideal cable solution for every application, with the emphasis on reliability, long-life and minimized TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). The development and manufacturing process is supported by extensive mechanical, electrical and optical testing in Nexans’ own in-house facilities and external facilities that are able to carry out additional qualification tests as required.
As part of its extensive service support package, Nexans can provide customers with training and advice on how best to handle and maintain dynamic ROV cables to ensure their reliability and longevity.
Spooling service
In response to the growing demand for a ready to use product, Nexans is now able to offer spooling on to a customer’s own winch drum for delivery direct to their operating vessel. This not only saves time, Nexans’ experience with handling ROV cables enables it to guarantee the quality of the spooling operation, eliminating the risk associated with third-party spooling.
FACTFILE:
With energy as the basis of its development, Nexans, worldwide expert in the cable industry, offers an extensive range of cables and cabling systems. The Group is a global player in the infrastructure, industry, building and Local Area Network markets. Nexans addresses a series of market segments: from energy, transport and telecom networks to shipbuilding, oil and gas, nuclear power, automotives, electronics, aeronautics, material handling and automation.
Nexans is a responsible industrial company that regards sustainable development as integral to its global and operational strategy. Continuous innovation in products, solutions and services, employee development and engagement, and the introduction of safe industrial processes with limited environmental impact are among the key initiatives that place Nexans at the core of a sustainable future. With an industrial presence in 40 countries and commercial activities worldwide, Nexans employs 24,500 people and had sales in 2011 of 7 billion euros. Nexans is listed on NYSE Euronext Paris, compartment A. For more information, please consult: www.nexans.com or www.nexans.mobi
Oceanology 2012
13-15 March
Excel, London
Stand D250
Nexans, a worldwide expert in the cable industry, is at Oceanology 2012 to showcase its wide range of cable solutions developed to meet the specific needs of workclass ROV manufacturers and operators. Visitors to stand D250 can find out how Nexans is building on many years of experience in the subsea marine industry to utilize new designs and materials to produce tailor-made cables capable of deployment at ever increasing depths. Examples of some of the different types of ROV cables offered by Nexans will be on show, including lift umbilicals that can take the strain of onboard winching and flexible tether cables that ensure maximum mobility subsea.
ROV Umbilicals – for depths down to 7,000 metres
Nexans is a well established supplier of cables for the global ROV market, with the capability to draw on a wide range of standard electrical and fibre elements that, combined with customized armouring packages, create highly dynamic, torque balanced, compact solutions that deliver the essential reliability and robustness required for subsea applications.
Nexans’ specialized ROV cable manufacturing facility in Norway can produce steel armoured umbilicals for vehicles commonly used for trenching, ploughing, maintenance and drill support applications. The cables are typically designed with a two or three layer torque balanced armouring and 3 phase power supply, instrumentation and fibre optics. The typical depth rating is 2000 to 4000 metres.
Deep water umbilicals are designed for dynamic deep water applications rated down to 7000 metres and the conductors and fibre optics are armoured with special aramid yarns providing high strength. They are used typically in deep water mining.
The umbilical cables are easy to maintain in salt water environments through simple cleaning, hosing and greasing and offer the versatility to operate with complete reliability in harsh environments.
ROV tethers – designed for durability
Nexans flexible and durable TMS (Tether Management System) cables are designed for use with ROVs deployed in tethered applications or directly from the surface for smaller ROVs. They are strong, lightweight, neutral and positively buoyant and are suitable for use in a variety of underwater applications.
Layers of high strength, lightweight armouring yarns provide the ideal combination of tensile and torque strength.
Innovation through experience
Nexans is able to call on many years of experience in combination with a high level of technical expertise to work in partnership with ROV manufacturers and operators to develop the ideal cable solution for every application, with the emphasis on reliability, long-life and minimized TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). The development and manufacturing process is supported by extensive mechanical, electrical and optical testing in Nexans’ own in-house facilities and external facilities that are able to carry out additional qualification tests as required.
As part of its extensive service support package, Nexans can provide customers with training and advice on how best to handle and maintain dynamic ROV cables to ensure their reliability and longevity.
Spooling service
In response to the growing demand for a ready to use product, Nexans is now able to offer spooling on to a customer’s own winch drum for delivery direct to their operating vessel. This not only saves time, Nexans’ experience with handling ROV cables enables it to guarantee the quality of the spooling operation, eliminating the risk associated with third-party spooling.
FACTFILE:
With energy as the basis of its development, Nexans, worldwide expert in the cable industry, offers an extensive range of cables and cabling systems. The Group is a global player in the infrastructure, industry, building and Local Area Network markets. Nexans addresses a series of market segments: from energy, transport and telecom networks to shipbuilding, oil and gas, nuclear power, automotives, electronics, aeronautics, material handling and automation.
Nexans is a responsible industrial company that regards sustainable development as integral to its global and operational strategy. Continuous innovation in products, solutions and services, employee development and engagement, and the introduction of safe industrial processes with limited environmental impact are among the key initiatives that place Nexans at the core of a sustainable future. With an industrial presence in 40 countries and commercial activities worldwide, Nexans employs 24,500 people and had sales in 2011 of 7 billion euros. Nexans is listed on NYSE Euronext Paris, compartment A. For more information, please consult: www.nexans.com or www.nexans.mobi
Oceanology 2012
13-15 March
Excel, London
Stand D250
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Tuesday, 13 March 2012
WaterField Designs Introduces The Muzetto Outback™ For The Apple IPad
The Outback is available in dark brown canvas that gains character over time, a choice of six accent colors and five sizes - two designed specifically for the new Apple iPad. The Muzetto Outback is available for pre-order today and will begin shipping by March 26, 2012. All WaterField Designs bags are made entirely in San Francisco.
Originally used for waterproofing sailing garments and popularized by mariners, gamekeepers, and outdoorsmen, waxed canvas is a naturally durable, time-tested fabric that brings a rugged and weathered look to the new Muzetto Outback. The bag is sewn in small batches to take full advantage of the material's unique characteristics; working the fabric during production brings out its distressed quality, making it an ideal match for the style-conscious, urban adventurer.
"What appeals to me about waxed canvas is the old world, retro look," explained Gary Waterfield, company founder. "It ages like leather, and each bag develops its own unique character. I like to think it's something a modern Indiana Jones would use for his new iPad tablet. Plus, scratches and marks can be softened by applying some heat from a hair dryer, giving it that handsome, well-worn look."
The Muzetto Outback is a vertical messenger bag with one main compartment to hold the iPad, a back pocket for easy-to-retrieve paperwork, a pocket under the flap, a zippered interior pocket for stashing cash, and an adjustable strap. A gold liner lights up the interior making it easy to see contents. To reduce shoulder and back fatigue, a removable, shoulder pad with a gripping underside keeps the strap firmly in place. The bag's flap length and angled sides add to a svelte look. The Outback's urban rustic style complements anything from casual work outfits to well-worn hiking boots.
Personalisation options include six accent colour choices and five sizes: the Personal Size for daily necessities including a wallet, cell-phone, digital camera, and a 'naked' iPad or an iPad in a minimalist case; the 10-inch Portable Size for the iPad within a protective case; the 11-inch for the 11.6-inch MacBook Air, the Laptop Size for up to a 13-inch MacBook and the 15-inch for the 15-inch MacBook Pro or similarly sized laptops—'naked' or within a SleeveCase. All size options are small enough to provide unrestricted motion yet large enough to stow essentials and digital gear.
Availability & Pricing:
Personal Size - $149.00 (Dimensions: 10.5" x 8.5" x 1.5")
10-inch Portable Size - $159.00 (Dimensions: 11.5" x 9.3" x 2.0")
11-inch Size - $169.00 (Dimensions: 12.25" x 9.75" x 2.25")
13-inch Laptop Size - $179.00 (Dimensions: 14" x 11" x 2.5")
15-inch Laptop Size - $189.00 (Dimensions: 15.5" x 11.75" x 2.7")
Colours: Distressed, dark brown, waxed canvas with colour accents in black, copper, pine, green, flame, or pearl.
Available now for preorder at www.sfbags.com. Shipping begins by March 26, 2012.
FACTFILE:
WaterField Designs manufactures custom-fitted, high-quality cases and bags for a full-range of laptops, tablets, cameras, and other digital gear. All products are manufactured to exacting standards entirely in San Francisco. More information available at www.sfbags.com/aboutus.htm.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
SwyxIt! Handset P280 is optimised for SwyxWare
Swyx, a market-leading vendor of Unified Communications (UC) for SMEs is to extend its product portfolio in the future with its own UC devices. The SwyxIt! P280 Handset represents the first time that the company has designed and manufactured a telephone itself.
The handset is optimised to work with its software-based UC-solution SwyxWare and represents the first in a series of further Swyx hardware devices. The SwyxIt! P280 Handset will be available in the second quarter of 2012.
HD sound quality and support of all Plug-in functions
As a flexible extension of the desktop, the SwyxIt! P280 Handset offers voice quality with HD audio, support for all plugin functions together with SwyxWare 2011 R2, as well as the possibility of additional headset support with Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7. Other benefits of the hand-set include hook functionality and features like open listening and hands-free mode. The integrated loudspeakers also allow individual call signalling. The P280 is powered via the USB.
“Customers demand devices with more sophisticated design”
“From our sales partners, we have seen an increasing demand for phones with more sophisticated designs, in line with rising customers’ expectations. We wanted to offer a modern telephone with a contemporary look and feel, which combined with rich functionality and was optimised perfectly with our communication software. The P280 represents the ideal telephone to take full advantage of Unified Communications”, explains Dr. Wolfgang Schröder, CEO at Swyx, regarding the decision to develop and produce its own devices.
Further phones planned - P280 is available Q2/2012
The P280 represents the forerunner in a series of planned devices: “We are planning the development and production of further devices, giving greater variety to our portfolio in the future. For example there will be a model that will facilitate the integration of mobile phones”, says Ralf Ebbinghaus, Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Service at Swyx.
For more information visit - www.swyx.com.
Tecvac Ltd supplies unique research machine to the University of Sheffield for aerospace, power generation and medical sectors
Tecvac Ltd of Cambridge, part of the Wallwork Heat Treatment (WHT) Group, has designed and built a unique, world class surface engineering research machine for The University of Sheffield as part of a £500,000 EPSRC project.Specifically designed for the Research Centre in Surface Engineering, led by Professor Allan Matthews (in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering) the new Tecvac IP70 machine uniquely combines two different Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) coating technologies in a single production scale vacuum chamber.
Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), it will be used both for fundamental research and for near-market applications in surface engineering, covering a range of ceramics, nano composite and glassy-metal plasma-based coatings - combined with a duplex substrate diffusion pre-treatment capability.
This will open up routes to new thin film and nano-scale processes which can support innovative medical and life science applications including tissue engineering. Projects using the new facility could include new types of anti-microbial coatings for Class 2 and Class 3 medical devices, surgeons' tools and operating theatre hardware, extended super long life implants such as knee and hip replacement prostheses and other highly wear resistant or lubricious applications throughout biotechnology The unique design of the new facility allows new coatings to be designed with fully controlled multiple and smoothly graded properties to ensure compatibility with metals and ceramics and other advanced bio-mimetic materials as well as with human and mammal tissues. A major long-term potential benefit is that these multi-property, and multi-functional, long-life coatings will support the development of devices and prostheses which can have lifetimes exceeding a normal human lifespan thus avoiding multiple and expensive revision surgery and related long-term patient trauma.
The highly-modified IP70 equipment design built to specifications developed by Prof. Matthews and his colleague, Dr. Adrian Leyland, allows research to be conducted on multiple layer surface coatings. It allows the research team to combine the use of electron beams and magnetrons in a single process to create complex coatings with ceramic, metal and carbon based constituents in an industrial scale environment. This in turn, allows coatings to be applied sequentially with a variety of elemental metals, ceramics such as titanium nitride and carbon based coatings if required. Users can have a choice of process atmospheres with combinations of reactive or inert gases such as oxygen, nitrogen or argon depending on the research objectives.
The design includes, for example, twin magnetrons, twin electron beam assemblies, a mass spectrometer and allied process controls, operating systems, data logging and display facilities. This retains freedom for the research team to plan, modify and apply all critical parameters of the coating process, while ensuring safety and process integrity.
"It opens up exciting areas of research for us," commented Prof. Matthews.
"We can now support a number of advanced projects far more effectively and further develop our materials property based approach to tribology, and design coatings for optimal ratios of elastic modulus and hardness. This will lead eventually to improvements in many engineering sectors, extending to aerospace, power generation equipment and medical devices. For example the IP70 also allows leading edge work on material grain size and orientation at the nano level - a critical feature in the design of long life biomechanical devices such as replacement knee and hip joints."
The ability to combine different types of PVD coating processes in the research machine is also expected to lead to much lower application temperatures for ceramic and other high performance coatings. In due course this is expected to lead to many new applications in medical, as well as aerospace and power generation products.
Tecvac provides ultra hard coating, heat treatment and vacuum brazing services from a custom built site near Cambridge, builds commercial and research PVD coating machines, and supports other novel applications of specialist vacuum equipment for customers world-wide. Tecvac surface engineering plant is installed in businesses and research facilities in more than 20 countries.
Monday, 5 March 2012
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Foviance appoints Ben Langdon as President
Foviance, the UK’s leading usability, user experience and web analytics consultancy, has appointed Ben Langdon to the position of President.
Ben Langdon, formerly CEO of Digital Marketing Group and European CEO of McCann-Erickson, joins the company on 5th March. Philip Hunt, Foviance’s current Executive Chairman becomes a Non-Executive.
Commenting on the appointment, Philip Hunt said: “We’re thrilled to have attracted Ben to come to Foviance. His knowledge of the digital space, his business acumen and his understanding of the wider world of marketing and communications will prove invaluable as we grow Foviance in the UK and overseas.”
Ben Langdon said: “I’m really excited to be joining Foviance. As brands engage consumers across multiple platforms, user experience is now becoming the critical battleground for client success. Foviance has unrivalled scientific knowledge and expertise, a blue-chip client list, a strong management team, and a huge opportunity to become the acknowledged global expert in this space. I see my role as helping the company to grow through the conversion of new business, creation of new revenue streams, and international expansion.”
Since resigning from Digital Marketing Group, Langdon has spent the last ten months building his own consulting business, Tradigital. He now sits on the board of several businesses in the areas of mobile, eCommerce and technology.
FACTFILE:
Foviance is a multichannel customer experience consultancy that helps some of the world’s best known global brands to deliver better customer experiences that drive improvements in customer satisfaction for increased customer loyalty and better financial performance.
Founded in 2000 and with a heritage in usability research and data analytics, Foviance delivers research and analytics-based consultancy to its clients about the effectiveness of their individual channels, such as mobile, web and call centre and how they combine in a cross-channel environment. For many clients, insight is provided not only in their home market, but also internationally through the Foviance extensive alliance network.
Foviance engages with its customers wherever they are in their product lifecycle, and provides insight so they understand how to improve, create and deliver excellent customer experiences.
Foviance boasts 43 of the UK FTSE 100 companies among its client roster, including Barclays, BSkyB, and Sainsbury’s. In addition Foviance works with International brands such as AstraZeneca, Dell and Nokia.
For further information please visit: www.foviance.com
Centrix Software Announces WorkSpace Universal™ 5.3, Delivering New Solutions for SaaS Governance and Private Cloud Application Delivery
Centrix Software, a leading provider of enterprise workspace computing solutions, today announced a new release of Centrix WorkSpace Universal, a workspace delivery platform that provides unified access to applications, desktops and content from any device and any location.
Part of the Centrix WorkSpace suite, Centrix WorkSpace Universal 5.3 provides a platform for unifying application service delivery in private cloud and hybrid computing environments. The release of WorkSpace Universal 5.3 brings new features for supporting the compliant use of software-as-a-service applications and dynamic application provisioning in private cloud environments. New features announced today include:
• Cloud pass-through authentication – enterprise users of SaaS solutions have to provide a set of credentials to SaaS providers that are different from their ActiveDirectory account credentials. WorkSpace Universal 5.3 provides pass-through authentication to SaaS applications, automatically supplying the required credentials to SaaS providers on behalf of users. This minimizes management overheads for the IT team, lowers helpdesk costs and improves quality of service for users.
• Content Launch Policy Control – as users are used to ‘launching a document’ rather than opening an application to access their file, this can present a problem to organizations adopting a virtualization and SaaS infrastructure. Content Launch Policy Control sets a flexible policy by which content, documents and files are dynamically associated with an appropriate application from a variety of provisioning options (local, virtual or SaaS). With this feature, WorkSpace Universal 5.3 enables users to get easy access to their files without having to search for an appropriate application while allowing IT to maintain a consistent application use policy.
• Admin pad – administration of WorkSpace Universal is greatly simplified by context sensitive Admin pads that provide easy, role-base controlled access to authorized administration functions.
• Launch pad – as users access WorkSpace Universal from any device and any location, Launch pads simplify the user experience with quick and easy access to key applications and content.
“New application delivery options bring great opportunities for organizations to drive more operational and service efficiency but also require new management approaches to traditional desktop provisioning. In addition, the influx of SaaS is increasing at a rate that requires IT to determine policies around the use and support of external applications,” said Paul Burke, director of products at Centrix Software. “With the release of Centrix Universal 5.3, organizations can create governance around new virtual and cloud-based service delivery while maintaining application availability and supporting existing infrastructure investments.”
“For organisations expanding their use of virtualisation or planning private cloud services, having the ability to control all aspects of application provisioning and delivery is vital. As the enterprise IT infrastructure moves towards a more hybrid and virtual environment, a service framework across application provisioning and access workspaces will be a necessity. This is also critical for controlling the emergence of SaaS as a major component of the enterprise technology operation,” said John Abbott, Chief Analyst at The 451 Group.
WorkSpace Universal is part of the Centrix WorkSpace suite. Centrix Software also announced today an update to its workspace computing analytics solution Centrix WorkSpace iQ™, providing deep analysis and management reporting for Windows 7 and desktop transformation projects – see http://www.centrixsoftware.com/press-releases/centrix-softwa... for more information.
Part of the Centrix WorkSpace suite, Centrix WorkSpace Universal 5.3 provides a platform for unifying application service delivery in private cloud and hybrid computing environments. The release of WorkSpace Universal 5.3 brings new features for supporting the compliant use of software-as-a-service applications and dynamic application provisioning in private cloud environments. New features announced today include:
• Cloud pass-through authentication – enterprise users of SaaS solutions have to provide a set of credentials to SaaS providers that are different from their ActiveDirectory account credentials. WorkSpace Universal 5.3 provides pass-through authentication to SaaS applications, automatically supplying the required credentials to SaaS providers on behalf of users. This minimizes management overheads for the IT team, lowers helpdesk costs and improves quality of service for users.
• Content Launch Policy Control – as users are used to ‘launching a document’ rather than opening an application to access their file, this can present a problem to organizations adopting a virtualization and SaaS infrastructure. Content Launch Policy Control sets a flexible policy by which content, documents and files are dynamically associated with an appropriate application from a variety of provisioning options (local, virtual or SaaS). With this feature, WorkSpace Universal 5.3 enables users to get easy access to their files without having to search for an appropriate application while allowing IT to maintain a consistent application use policy.
• Admin pad – administration of WorkSpace Universal is greatly simplified by context sensitive Admin pads that provide easy, role-base controlled access to authorized administration functions.
• Launch pad – as users access WorkSpace Universal from any device and any location, Launch pads simplify the user experience with quick and easy access to key applications and content.
“New application delivery options bring great opportunities for organizations to drive more operational and service efficiency but also require new management approaches to traditional desktop provisioning. In addition, the influx of SaaS is increasing at a rate that requires IT to determine policies around the use and support of external applications,” said Paul Burke, director of products at Centrix Software. “With the release of Centrix Universal 5.3, organizations can create governance around new virtual and cloud-based service delivery while maintaining application availability and supporting existing infrastructure investments.”
“For organisations expanding their use of virtualisation or planning private cloud services, having the ability to control all aspects of application provisioning and delivery is vital. As the enterprise IT infrastructure moves towards a more hybrid and virtual environment, a service framework across application provisioning and access workspaces will be a necessity. This is also critical for controlling the emergence of SaaS as a major component of the enterprise technology operation,” said John Abbott, Chief Analyst at The 451 Group.
WorkSpace Universal is part of the Centrix WorkSpace suite. Centrix Software also announced today an update to its workspace computing analytics solution Centrix WorkSpace iQ™, providing deep analysis and management reporting for Windows 7 and desktop transformation projects – see http://www.centrixsoftware.com/press-releases/centrix-softwa... for more information.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
ZTE Joins Global IT Leaders On Cloud Computing Standards Study Group
The ZTE Corporation, provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, today announced that it will join global information technology leaders on a cloud computing standards study group.
The group, formally called Study Group 13 (SG 13), is overseen by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Other companies in the group include Microsoft, France Telecom Orange and the Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Institute. ZTE is the only Chinese company in the group. SG 13's research includes work on standards related to interoperability of cloud services and portability of cloud data.
The group is derived from the Focus Group on Cloud Computing (FG Cloud), a temporary organization created by ITU-T in response to industry demand for standards. Companies from countries around the world participate in the FG Cloud through research activities.
In addition to its work for the ITU-T, ZTE has also been filing for cloud computing patents since 2006. According to statistics from China's State Intellectual Property Office, ZTE ranks No.1 within the country with 107 cloud computing patents.
FACTFILE:
ZTE is a publicly-listed global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions with the most comprehensive product range covering virtually every sector of the wireline, wireless, service and terminals markets.
The company delivers innovative, custom-made products and services to over 500 operators in more than 140 countries, helping them to meet the changing needs of their customers while achieving continued revenue growth. ZTE's 2010 revenue led the industry with a 21% increase to USD10.609 billion. ZTE commits 10 percent of its revenue to research and development and takes a leading role in a wide range of international bodies developing emerging telecoms standards. A company with sound corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, ZTE is a member of the UN Global Compact. ZTE is China's only listed telecom manufacturer, publicly traded on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ). For more information, please visit www.zte.com.cn.
The group, formally called Study Group 13 (SG 13), is overseen by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Other companies in the group include Microsoft, France Telecom Orange and the Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Institute. ZTE is the only Chinese company in the group. SG 13's research includes work on standards related to interoperability of cloud services and portability of cloud data.
The group is derived from the Focus Group on Cloud Computing (FG Cloud), a temporary organization created by ITU-T in response to industry demand for standards. Companies from countries around the world participate in the FG Cloud through research activities.
In addition to its work for the ITU-T, ZTE has also been filing for cloud computing patents since 2006. According to statistics from China's State Intellectual Property Office, ZTE ranks No.1 within the country with 107 cloud computing patents.
FACTFILE:
ZTE is a publicly-listed global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions with the most comprehensive product range covering virtually every sector of the wireline, wireless, service and terminals markets.
The company delivers innovative, custom-made products and services to over 500 operators in more than 140 countries, helping them to meet the changing needs of their customers while achieving continued revenue growth. ZTE's 2010 revenue led the industry with a 21% increase to USD10.609 billion. ZTE commits 10 percent of its revenue to research and development and takes a leading role in a wide range of international bodies developing emerging telecoms standards. A company with sound corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, ZTE is a member of the UN Global Compact. ZTE is China's only listed telecom manufacturer, publicly traded on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ). For more information, please visit www.zte.com.cn.
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