Vigitrust: Effective Security Management for the Hospitality Community Page 46
DCG Software Value Ltd.: A Guiding Hand for Software Development Optimisation Page 48
EDITOR’S NOTE Welcome to the September issue of TMT Magazine. The digital age has for some time been approaching a new threshold – a generational crossover, of sorts, which is felt across the myriad industries and markets that fall under the technological umbrella. On the one hand, you have a generation of career technophiles, who were used to a certain procedure before witnessing the astronomical evolution of technology, once thought only possible in the works of sciencefiction. They have seen the world transformed by its ability to ease communications and generate millions upon millions of terrabytes’ worth of data every day. Then, contrasting them, are those that were born into this techno-revolution – including yours truly. People of my generation are constantly surrounded by the torrents of data, and are arguably better able to adjust to the new innovations that continue, inexplicably to find a niche to exploit. It’s a sort of bizarre privilege to watch as the forces of technology, media and telecoms continue to swirl around one another. The team of TMT Magazine are offered a privileged glimpse into its intricacies, and we take it upon ourselves to give our readership that same opportunity. In particular, we see a lot of efforts to ensure that a more technologically-informed world maintains a high level of unshakeable trust.
g.millar
In a world where everybody has the potential to create and distribute new software, certain assurances are required to ensure that paying customers are getting the service that they expect. While cybersecurity software providers such as Vigitrust find themselves well placed to guarantee user safety on the Cloud, others, like DCG Software Value Ltd., focus more upon disseminating valuable knowledge across the market, in an effort to make successive generations more aware of the potential pitfalls and the endless possibilities of increasing capabilities of smartphones. These represent but a couple of this month’s featured articles who are very much at the forefront of technology, and are taking strides to control its direction and input into modern society. Meanwhile, others take a humbler approach, and adopt an obligation to help bringing the past into the present. Alive Studios represents a determination to keep the past relevant, and cater not only to businesses and institutions, but also to families, by converting and storing old film footage to newer, digital formats, in a process that is deeply respectful, private, and guided by a healthy dose of technological enthusiasm. We hope that you enjoy this month’s issue of TMT Magazine, and are as inspired in reading it as we are to bring it to you. Contact the Editor: George Millar George.millar@ai-globalmedia.com +44 (0) 203 725 6842
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NEWS 4-7
ADVERTISING
12 THE MARKETER’S GUIDETO MOBILE AD FORMATS 14 92 PER CENT OF EUROPEAN CONSUMERS DEMAND 15 DATA-LED TECH COMPANY VE INTERACTIVE ACQUIRES
GAMING
44 YANDEX BROWSER BOLSTERS SECURITY WITH MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHM AND ADBLOCKING FEATURES
SOFTWARE
46 ESTABLISHING ACCOUNTABILITY AND SECURITY 48 A COMMITMENT TO INTEGRITY 50 CLEARWATER INTERNATIONAL ADVISES TOTALSOFT SHAREHOLDERS ON CROSS-BORDER SALE TO LOGO SOFTWARE INVESTMENT SA
16 BUYGAMECREDIT SELECTS FONIX FOR XBOX & PLAYSTATION CONTENT PAYMENTS
51 RED EVOLUTION TO MOVE INTO MI-HUB
IT
TECHNOLOGY
20 BUSINESS TRENDS IN THE IT RENTAL MARKET
56 2016 CTO OF THE YEAR - CANADA & SCIENCE AND ENERGY
22 SILVERFINCH HOSTS INAUGURAL PRIIPS EVENT
58 A PASSION FOR THE PAST
18 2016 CTO OF THE YEAR – API SYSTEMS, INC.
MEDIA
52 2016 CTO OF THE YEAR - UK
60 UTILIZING TALENT AND BOLSTERING RESEARCH
24 MORE ANSWERS, LESS THEORY FROM BIG GUNS AT BIG DATA LDN
62 IT IS ROCKET SCIENCE: HOW MANNED SPACEFLIGHT IS THE NEW FRONTIER OF INNOVATIO
26 BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME
64 START-UP’S GAME-CHANGING VIRTUAL WORKSTATION FOR 3D SOFTWARE BACKED BY TECH GIANTS
28 PROMAXBDA UK PRESENTS ‘THE NEW NORMAL’ TELEVISION PROMOTION AND MARKETING
MOBILE APPS
30 COLOUR ME CRAZY WITH A FUNKY PHONE APP
66 THE BOLD WAR TO STAY CONNECTED: MOVADO LAUNCHES SMARTWATCH ENGINEERED BY HP INC. 68 NEW E-NOSE SNIFFS OUT RARE PROGRESSIVE LUNG DISEASE
32 REDUCED BUYER FRICTION - KEY TO OS-PAY SUCCESS
TELECOMS
33 IS YOUR APP A MEDICAL DEVICE? IT’S HEALTHY TO KNOW: REGULATOR ISSUES UPDATED GUIDANCE
72 GBI: THE BRIDGE TO THE SMART FUTURE
70 LETTING EUROPE TALK MORE FOR LESS
34 VIELOCO: BREAKING THE MOULD OF DATING APPS
74 ALTFIELD ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER BUYING JOURNEY WITH MOBILE SOLUTION POWERED BY MICROSOFT DYNAMICS NAV
ROBOTICS
75 BRIGHTHOUSE MAKES SURE THE CUSTOMER COMES FIRST WITH NEW SMS AND MOBILEBASED PAYMENTS
36 ABB’S YUMI COLLABORATIVE ROBOT NAMED “2016 BEST INDUSTRIAL ROBOT” 38 THE SKY IS THE LIMIT FOR GLASGOW FM FIRM 40 DO DIAGNOSTIC ENGINEERS HAVE A FUTURE WITH THE IOT? 41 VROBOTS TAKE OVER ELECTRONIC BUNDLING AT LAMBETH
SECURITY
76 CAR GIANT DRAMATICALLY BOOSTS SALES USING NEW SMS TECHNOLOGY 78 APRIL SIX WINS O2 80 TELE2 KEEPS QUALITY UNDER CONTROL 81 TEOCO ENABLES EARLY 5G MODELLING WITH ASSET DESIGN NETWORK TOOL
42 OSIRIUM MAPS OUT ITS NEW TECHNOLOGY 43 POSITIVE TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH CONFIRMS ALL SS7
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NEWS
DEAL BOOSTS INVESTIGATION SOFTWARE FIRM Glasgow-based Altia Solutions Ltd acquires ABM United Kingdom Ltd
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ltia Solutions Ltd, the fast-growing investigation software firm, has acquired ABM United Kingdom Ltd - providers of software for law enforcement and intelligence sectors around the world. Altia Solutions will now embark on a comprehensive customer-led development programme to further tailor the combined services and products of the enlarged business. The acquisition, which completed on Tuesday August 9, marks the most significant expansion for the Glasgow-based firm - whose clients include every police force in the UK and government departments including HMRC - since its inception in 2002. The combined business will double the size of Altia Solutions while retaining the staff and operations at the Glasgow HQ and at ABM’s Nottingham base. Ian Watson, Managing Director at Altia Solutions, said: “This deal represents a great opportunity to extend our market share in the UK and abroad, and is an excellent fit with our business. It’s not just about expansion, it is about evolution of the products and services. “ABM has a terrific and proven track record, and by fusing the knowledge, skills and experience of the people of both Altia Solutions and ABM we are creating an environment that will allow both companies to continue to develop their market leading investigative software tools and assist investigators in their continuous fight against crime.” Altia Solutions provides investigation and fraud products to both public and private sector customers. Beyond the UK, its products are being used by the Canadian and Australian police and tax authorities as well as the authorities in South Africa, Hong Kong, Central and South America.
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ABM United Kingdom Ltd supplies covert investigation management software to the majority of UK police forces as well as forces and investigation authorities in Canada and Australia. Altia Solutions was advised in the deal by Johnston Carmichael. Lyn Calder, director in the firm’s corporate finance team, said: “Altia Solutions is a great example of a Scottish tech company with a terrific product and a robust strategy, and this acquisition is an important element of delivering its bold vision for growth.
“This puts the Altia team in a prime position in the UK market with a scalable proposition for customers providing a strong platform for taking the business further into the UK and international markets.” The deal was funded by Santander, led by structured finance director Roddy Kilpatrick. He said: “We are delighted to support the ambitious team at Altia Solutions in providing growth capital funding to support the ABM acquisition. The transaction brings two highly complementary software businesses together and we are proud to play an important role in Altia’s exciting growth strategy.” The value of the deal has not been disclosed.
About Altia Solutions Altia Solutions is the expert in the development of investigation and fraud detection software solutions. Its software allows law enforcement authorities to record every detail of a criminal investigation; interrogate and analyse fraudulent financial data and also manage document integration with the Home Office’s own investigation system. It works with public and private sectors in the UK and internationally, with the objective of allowing the focus to remain on investigative work. For more information or interviews with Ian Watson, contact: Mike Findlay, The BIG Partnership 07889 536657 / mike. findlay@bigpartnership.co.uk Bryan Garvie, The BIG Partnership 07863 208045 / bryan. garvie@bigpartnership.co.uk
NEWS
BOUYGUES TELECOM ENTREPRISES CHOOSES MITEL TO MEET CUSTOMER DEMAND FOR ADVANCED CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS A market-leading French Carrier has entered the UCaaS market by unifying communications for two million professional and corporate users through Mitel’s MiCloud. Aimed at delivering a single, seamless managed service experience for medium and large enterprises, Bouygues hopes to optimise the modern workforce with UCaaS solutions that break down barriers of communications, and enable closer collaboration and conferencing for medium and large businesses.
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itel announced today that Bouygues Telecom Entreprises, the third largest enterprise carrier in France, chose Mitel UCaaS solutions to deliver real-time communications, collaboration and conferencing to medium and large businesses. A global market leader in enterprise and mobile communications powering more than two billion business connections and two billion mobile subscribers every day, Mitel helps businesses and mobile carriers connect, collaborate and provide innovative services to their customers. Our innovation and communications experts serve more than 60 million business users in more than 100 countries, and 130 mobile service providers including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers in the world. That makes us unique, and the only company able to provide a bridge between enterprise and mobile customers. Bouygues Telecom has 14 million customers and its Enterprise division handles over two million professional and corporate users. As a result of this partnership, it will now also be able to offer medium and large-sized businesses the many benefits of Mitel MiCloud. These solutions can easily and quickly be adapted according to the companies' changing needs, no matter their size. For the growing mobile enterprise, Bouygues Telecom Entreprises now offers its customers advanced communications tools and services that are accessible from any device. These include feature-rich voice, video and collaboration tools with telepresence, chat, audio and videoconferencing capabilities, screen and desktop sharing.
This brings businesses increased profitability and labor efficiencies with offices and individuals that are seamlessly connected to support real-time collaboration while also bringing customers closer. "Bouygues Telecom Entreprises has always set itself the objective of bringing the latest technological advances to the largest number of people," said Thierry LabbĂŠ, Managing Director of Bouygues Telecom Entreprises Division. "We have chosen to partner with Mitel due to its leadership position within the UC market and its ability to provide a future-proof solution for both our customers' business and our own business."
"We're moving to a mobile-first world for enterprises, workers and consumers. Demand for unified and cloud communications keeps growing," said Bernard Etchenagucia, Mitel VP Sales, Southern Europe, and Managing Director, Mitel France. "As such, partnering with Bouygues Telecom Entreprises will help their customers seamlessly tie mobile and office environments together for greater speed and simplicity."
More than two million cloud business communications subscribers trust Mitel to provide their cloud communications needs; it has become the fastest-growing provider of cloud business communications in the world with the number one market share position based on total cloud users globally. Mitel is also is the only brand across five Gartner Magic Quadrant Reports for business communications. Since 1997, Bouygues Telecom has offered businesses fixed, mobile, Internet, networks and cloud communication solutions. Today over 2 million professionals and businesses trust Bouygues Telecom, including companies such as AIR FRANCE, La Poste (French Post Office), TOTAL and LAFARGE. With its fixed national IP fibre network, and the quality of its Mobile 4G network currently covering 75% of the population, which will increase to 82% at the end of 2016, companies can take full advantage of its technological innovations from its almost 20 years in the market. The company is present in Paris and its regions, and with 900 employees Bouygues Telecom support their customers in choosing, installing and monitoring of their telecom and IT solutions. It relies also on more than 70 certified distributors across France. Atomic Rebecca Ramchandani Account Executive 020 3861 3847 07983571280 Holborn Gate 26 Southampton Buildings London WC2A 1PN
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NEWS
TMT INVESTMENTS IN 2016 H1 2016 proved to be fairly disappointing in terms of the volume and value of announced deals targeting the telecommunications, media and technology sector as declines were recorded on both fronts. According to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk, some 11,429 transactions worth a combined $469,313 million were signed off over the course of the six months.
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here is nothing unusual in the fact that the TMT sector is not producing the same number of deals as in 2015 as this is a trend being witnessed across many industries. Since the beginning of July 2016 there have been 3,290 transactions worth a combined $177,069 million signed off. Based on these figures and if deals continue to be announced at the same rate until the end of December, we can expect to see an increase in aggregate value for H2 2016 when compared to H1. However, unless some deals with extremely high values are unveiled in the ensuing period, it is unlikely that aggregate considerations will reach the same dizzy heights as the second half of 2015 ($692,397 million). North America has accounted for a considerable chunk of all TMT investment thus far in 2016, having attracted deal making of $296,251 million. This represents almost 46% of total value for the sector in the first eight months of the year. Other industries which notched up considerable deal making levels include the Far East and Central Asia with $180,348 million, while Western Europe placed third with $130,320 million. Thus the TMT sector appears to have been affected by the same overall decline in deal making levels, as with many other industries this year. However, if results do indeed continue on the same trajectory, and an improvement is recorded in H2, it could be the beginning of another upturn in deal values. Company: Bureau van Dijk E-Mail: bvd@bvdinfo.com Web: www.bvdinfo.com
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GCSE RESULTS REVEAL THAT GIRLS PERFORM BETTER THAN BOYS IN IT, BUT VERY FEW CHOOSE THE SUBJECT
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he latest GCSE results reveal that too few females are still choosing technology subjects, despite systematically getting better results than boys, according to global tech recruitment firm, Empiric. The latest data published by the Joint Council for Qualifications today highlighted that a minority of girls chose tech subjects, with just 1 in 5 GSCE computing entries coming from female students – a figure which Empiric claims falls short of requirements. Looking at further breakdowns of the results, the firm – which spearheads the Next Tech Girls campaign – found that girls clearly outstripped their male counterparts in terms of grades. The percentage points difference between the genders achieving A* - A for computing was 4.7 and for ICT was an impressive 9.2. Steve Brown, Programme Manager at Next Tech Girls and Director at Empiric, comments:
“When we consider that the IT and digital arenas are facing a massive dearth of skills, the idea that over three quarters of female students choose not to take ICT and computing at GCSE
level is quite simply concerning. Unless more girls are encouraged to choose this route, the sector will fail to meet the ever-growing demand for talent that is already prevalent.” “Given that the test results show that girls are ahead of boys in terms of grades, the idea that women aren’t good at IT is made redundant. Instead, we believe that girls aren’t choosing this option due to the incorrect assumption of what the work involves, the variety of options available to them and what the routes to such a career are. If more females were aware of the fantastic and varied opportunities available through a career in tech, it’s likely that we’d see the percentage of female GCSE entries increase significantly.”
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NEWS
EXTREME NETWORKS AGREES TO ACQUIRE WIRELESS LAN BUSINESS FROM ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIES It announced on Wednesday 14th September that Extreme Networks had agreed to acquire the wireless LAN (WLAN) business previously owned by Zebra Technologies Corporation in an all-cash transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016 (the second quarter of Extreme Networks’ fiscal 2017), subject to customary closing conditions of regulatory approvals.
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he practical upshot of this transaction solidifies Extreme’s position in the WLAN market with a combined third-place share of its target enterprise campus market; it also enables Zebra to enhance its own strategic focus on its market-leading categories, so as to deliver innovative Enterprise Asset Intelligence solutions. “Combining Zebra’s WLAN technologies and marquee retail, transportation and logistics, and hospitality customers with Extreme Networks’ wired and wireless capabilities, recognized as visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, creates the industry’s number-three WLAN enterprise campus powerhouse,” said Ed Meyercord, President and CEO of Extreme Networks. “WLAN is the fastest growing segment in the networking industry. Our heritage of delivering innovative and pioneering technology is reinforced with today’s announcement, underscoring our commitment to providing customers worldwide with unified visibility and control across their wired and wireless networks.”
“This transaction enables us to increase our focus on delivering the best Enterprise Asset Intelligence solutions, in collaboration with our partners, that give our customers real-time visibility into their operations so they can make smarter decisions. We continually evaluate our business to ensure we are focusing on the areas which generate the strongest growth and highest return profiles, and today’s announcement exemplifies that commitment to our shareholders.”
Now in his second year at the head of the company, the move highlights CEO Ed Meyercord’s commitment to strengthening Extreme’s position in the enterprise campus market, and the WLAN business, which was previous owned by Motorola, will form a lynchpin in that ongoing strategy.
This acquisition will strengthen and expand Extreme Networks’ end-to-end, wired and wireless softwaredriven networking solutions and complements its vertical market focus. According to a leading industry analyst firm, the combined WLAN business will be the third largest provider in its combined target markets and fourth largest by market share. Extreme will acquire customers, personnel and technology assets from Zebra.
“The WLAN business is an ideal fit with Extreme Networks as a pure play networking company, and we are proud of our WLAN employees for the contributions they have made to Zebra and will make in the future,” said Anders Gustafsson, CEO of Zebra Technologies.
Zebra WLAN customers will benefit from Extreme Networks’ entire portfolio. The acquisition positions Extreme Networks as a leader across the hospitality, education, healthcare, manufacturing and state and local government markets and extends the company into new
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verticals such as retail, transportation and logistics, and broader hospitality, creating additional opportunities for growth. All WLAN customers in each vertical market served, regardless of the solutions they own, will have access to Extreme Networks’ award winning ExtremeWorks™ services offerings. Extreme Networks’ best of breed mobility solutions will be offered to all registered resellers under the Extreme Partner Network program. Extreme Networks will continue to invest in the newly acquired technology which will bolster the company’s software-driven solutions portfolio which includes ExtremeWireless™, ExtremeManagement™, ExtremeControl™, ExtremeAnalytics™, ExtremeSwitching™ and ExtremeCloud™. With significantly broadened capabilities, these solutions will leverage the acquired business’ software technologies including the WiNG wireless operating system, NSight advanced network troubleshooting, service assurance and vendor-agnostic AirDefense solutions. Through the acquisition, Extreme Networks will add in-house Managed Services’ capabilities to its existing offerings, providing broader options for all customers of the combined business. Extreme Networks expects the transaction to be accretive to cash flow and earnings for its fiscal year, and expects to generate over $115 million in annualized revenue from the acquired WLAN assets. The sale of the WLAN business is expected to have an immaterial impact to Zebra’s adjusted EBITDA margin.
NEWS
The company anticipates the transaction will be dilutive to earnings in the fourth quarter of 2016. Net proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down debt. Zebra expects to provide any updates to its full-year outlook during its third quarter earnings release in November. Zebra will continue to offer customers a complete endto-end solution – from mobile computers and scanners to specialty printers, RFID, software and services – for identifying, tracking and managing critical assets, people and transactions. Zebra’s broad range of differentiated products, deep understanding of its customers and continued investment in R&D ensure that the company offers highly relevant solutions globally that help customers take advantage of key technology trends including the Internet of Things, mobility and cloud computing. Zebra has the industry’s most comprehensive go-to-market channel network of value-added resellers, integrators, independent software vendors, distributors and original equipment manufacturers. To facilitate more in-depth discussion of this announcement, Extreme Networks hosted a conference call at 8:00 a.m. Eastern / 5:00 a.m. Pacific on the same morning that the acquisition was announced. The conference call was available to the public through a live audio web broadcast, and a replay of the call became available on the website through September 14, 2017.
Some of the details that emerged from this event uncovered Extreme Network’s plans for concluding the acquisition, setting the purchase price at $55 million. Extreme expects to fund the transaction with a combination of cash on hand along with fully committed financing available under its credit facility, which is being expanded in connection with this transaction. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including certain regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016 (which is the second quarter of fiscal 2017 for Extreme Networks). Extreme expects to file a Current Report on Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission later today providing further details regarding the terms of the transaction. Adam Lodowski Senior Client Executive, Racepoint Global T: +44 (0) 20 8811 2139 | M: +44 (0) 7886 730 967 adam.lodowski@racepointglobal.com
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NEWS
SAPIENS DECISION ANNOUNCES PLANNED COMPONENT Sapiens International Corporation, a leading global provider of software solutions for the financial services sector, announced on Thursday 15th September, at its Sapiens Client Conference 2016 event, that the Sapiens DECISION Suite roadmap includes a DECISION Analytics component.
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apiens International Corporation has a growing presence in the financial services sector, offering core, end-to-end solutions to the global general insurance, property and casualty, life, pension and annuities, reinsurance and retirement markets, as well as business decision management software. The company has a track record of over 30 years in delivering superior software solutions to more than 200 financial services organizations. The Sapiens team of over 1,800 professionals operates through our fully-owned subsidiaries in North America, the United Kingdom, EMEA and Asia Pacific
“Sapiens DECISION plans to expand upon our existing capabilities by introducing a pre-integrated component called ‘DECISION Analytics’ to the Sapiens DECISION suite within the coming year,” said Rami Doron, managing director, Sapiens DECISION. “Our vision is to deliver not only a consistent set of analytics tools, but also choice and linkages from leading third-party analytics providers into our suite. Key capabilities we are investing in include descriptive, forensics, simulation and optimization capabilities.” 10
This will be the next step in Sapiens DECISION’s natural evolution. Sapiens DECISION Manager laid the foundation for the discovery, validation, testing and execution of structured logic to manage applications and systems. Sapiens DECISION InfoHub added powerful data virtualization, integration and mapping capabilities to bring all relevant data to the DECISION Manager Suite in a faster, more efficient manner. And DECISION Analytics will signal the next frontier of Decision Management: the ability to predict, report and prescribe in advance, and against, decision execution results. “The planned advanced analytics and auditability capabilities will enable our clients across all industries to proactively improve processes, adjust logic and recommend actions, which will drive digital insights and eventual transformation,” said Kramer Reeves, vice president of product marketing at Sapiens DECISION. The suite will offer common representation of all execution data and results, so that advanced analytics can be applied to generate insights on the impact of the business logic on an application, system or set of systems. Sapiens DECISION has launched a customer partnership program for DECISION Analytics and encourages users to join the program to guide the component’s development and prioritization.
NEWS
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ADVERTISING
1608RB12
THE MARKETER’S GUIDE TO MOBILE AD FORMATS By Mark Rosner, Chief Revenue Officer, AppLovin
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he mobile ad industry has come a long way since millions of primitive, low-res, untargeted banner ads first started being served across mobile screens. Those simple, crude, ineffective ads, which produced mostly accidental clicks, paved the way for the multitude of sophisticated mobile ad formats that present themselves to marketers today. Old-form online media buying has been superseded by sophisticated, data-driven buying designed to milk every last drop of ROI out of mobile ads. The mobile advertising opportunity for brands is phenomenal - last year alone online ad revenues generated a staggering $60 billion, a whole 20 percent increase on 2014. Mobile ad revenue grew by more than 66 percent whilst desktop advertising increased by only five percent. Despite this booming opportunity, research clearly shows that brands are critically under-spending on mobile relative to how much time users are spending on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. To help marketers make sense of our brave, new, mobile ad-driven world, we’ve pulled together what we know are the hottest mobile ad formats today. Mobile Video Ads Video ads are an ideal platform for increasing brand awareness, supporting lead generation and increasing engagement. This format shows no sign of abating: In the US alone digital video ad spending is forecast to reach $28.08 billion in 2020, up from an already impressive $9.90 billion in 2016. Digital video ads empower advertisers to build stronger connections along the route to purchasing on mobile, with highly targeted content across many digital
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channels and different devices like smartphones and tablets. Video ads tend to offer better lifetime values than competing formats because they qualify users before they reach the advertiser and deliver rich, visual experiences. Video ads are good vehicles for many types of brands including upcoming movies, food, music, retail products and, of course, games. To succeed, brands need to have a clear understanding of their audience profiles and align video content with user interests. To increase retention and ROI, all video ad content should be actionable with clear value and calls to action displayed early on in the ads.
Playable Mobile Ads This inventive format is an advert that is a game that people can actually play. Increasingly considered as a new and effective route to mobile app discovery via gaming demos, playable ads provide a great way for consumers to sample content before installing an app. You can really engage audiences like casual gamers (or anyone else for that matter) with playable content. These ads blur the boundary between apps and ads, offering rich experiences where consumers can spend more valuable minutes interacting with ads.
ADVERTISING
Whilst being fun in the moment, playable ads also deliver key benefits for marketers. Firstly, playable ads typically deliver better conversion rates - because they’re interactive they convert much faster than normal ads. Playable ads also offer better lifetime values. They cleverly qualify consumers before they reach the advertiser as they offer deeper experiences; these users engage at an increased rate than those received from other ad channels like native and display. Graphical interstitial mobile ads These are full screen ads which stay on a screen for a few seconds until users are given the option to close the ad, usually by clicking on an ‘x’ in the corner. They are great for increasing brand awareness and making use of the whole mobile screen real-estate instead of just a small portion of screen. With proper placement, the interruptive nature of interstitials can be held to a minimum. In an age of diminishing attention spans, interstitials are a potent way to grab the complete attention of users, thereby increasing engagement, click-through
and conversions. They also don’t take as much time and engagement as video or playable ads and for certain areas in an app, a faster ad experience can be better. There are downsides though: As interstitials often force users to stare at them until they’re allowed to click out, lots of users find this quite irritating if shown at an inopportune time. Great care should be taken to display interstitials only in a proper context like between levels on a game, at natural breaks in the app, or at the end of a session or specific app function. Native Mobile Ads Native advertising is paid content which matches the app’s “native” format, hence delivering a less interruptive experience for users. Native ads have the same design elements, copy layout, UI and buttons as the app. Mobile marketers need the following six ingredients to deliver native mobile ads: URL, thumbnail, headline, description, brand logo and brand name. By delivering ads that appear to be in the same format as the publisher or outlet, they’ve proven to be effective at generating higher click rates than traditional mobile ads.
Native ads are extremely popular with brands: Chiefly because click-through rates are often much higher when compared to traditional ads, plus engagement is much greater. However, there is a danger that some consumers could feel native mobile ads are misleading, damaging both the reputation of the publisher and the brand. To avoid this, publishers should always conform with MMA guidelines for native ads. Conclusion For mobile marketers to succeed, it is vitally important they understand their user tastes and preferences and create marketing strategies around them. There isn’t just one ‘best’ mobile ad format for all - the choice of format deployed depends on a number of variable factors such as the game or app in question, the context, where the ad is placed and the frequency of placements. With the proliferation of mobile devices, with smartphones in particular being the preferred device for consumers, it is essential that organizations deploy the right ad format strategy to leverage mobile platforms to help further drive revenues.
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ADVERTISING
92 PER CENT OF EUROPEAN CONSUMERS DEMAND IMPROVEMENT TO ONLINE VIDEO ADVERTISING New research indicates video ad experience could be improved by shorter, better targeted, more interactive ads
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ine out of 10 (92%) European consumers agree that changes need to be made to current online video advertising in order to improve the viewer experience, according to a new survey of 4,000 consumers in the UK, France and Germany, which was commissioned by online video solutions provider, Brightcove Inc. (NASDAQ: BCOV). When asked to pinpoint their specific objections to video advertising, consumers cited irrelevancy, volume and poor delivery – with 67% choosing to stop watching their selected content as a result of one of these issues. Additional questions around the online video advertising experience revealed that: • • • •
73% have experienced poor video ad delivery (i.e. buffering, failing to load) More than half (51%) are frustrated by the number of online video ads 74% have had a negative experience with the content of an online video ad Over a third (36%) rarely or never see an ad relevant to their personal interests
The findings – published in Brightcove’s The Ad-Verse Consumer: European Video Advertising Tolerances in a Digital Age – highlighted that, while many respondents agree that the range (54%) and quality (47%) of online video content has improved in the last year, video advertising has struggled to keep pace: • • •
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73% say the quality of video ad content has remained unchanged or declined 72% say the range of video ad content has remained unchanged or declined Nearly a quarter (23%) say the volume and frequency of video ad content has worsened
Against a backdrop of increasing adoption of ad-blocking technologies, the findings suggest that publishers need to change their approach to monetising online video content or risk losing out on viewers and associated revenue. However, with 50% of consumers admitting that they are not willing to pay for any type of online video content, simply switching to a subscription model does not appear to be the answer.
When asked for their opinion on the top improvements that could be made, participating consumers called for the following:
Mark Blair, Vice President of EMEA at Brightcove, explained, “at Brightcove, we believe that consumers absolutely have the right to avoid broken, annoying and intrusive ad experiences but, at the same time, companies have the right to monetise and promote the content they put a lot of money into producing. The key to marrying the two is finding a balance – improving the user experience so they are more willing to accept ad content.
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“It should encourage the industry that two thirds (66%) of the consumers who participated in the study say they understand and agree that it is fair for publishers to use online ads to fund free content. But with only one in ten (11%) saying they always have positive experiences with the online ads they are served, the room for improvement is clear.”
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57% would like video ads to be shorter 41% would like the ability to fast forward through the ads 21% would like video ads to be more targeted at them 58% would be more likely to tolerate an online video ad if it is interactive
Harry Langdon WE Communications for Brightcove hlangdon@we-worldwide.com +44 (0)207 632 3800
ADVERTISING
DATA-LED TECH COMPANY VE INTERACTIVE ACQUIRES VIDEO ADVERTISING COMPANY OPTOMATON FOR €5.13MIMPROVEMENT TO ONLINE VIDEO ADVERTISING Ve Interactive, the leading data-driven technology company specialising in conversion enhancing technology and digital advertising, has acquired video advertising company Optomaton for the sum of €5.13m, in a deal comprised of cash and shares.
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ptomaton is a digital advertising technology and services company working across all aspects of programmatic media buying with a particular focus on video. At Optomaton’s core is its proprietary video Demand Side Platform (“Volvelle” )—a tech stack built for the realities of video advertising on the European continent. Offering a proprietary tech stack built exclusively to deliver video advertising, Optomaton’s “Volvelle" Video Demand Side Platform was designed by online video veterans who saw increasing fragmentation and the lack of independent Video DSPs in the marketplace and wanted to deliver the highest quality video inventory available. Using industry-leading verification to ensure ads are shown on select inventory and seen by human eyes, as well as partnering with state of the art technology, Optomaton’s video DSP is a holistic global platform with local foot print delivering high quality video, cost savings and results in the marketplace of online video. The company, which has three offices in Copenhagen, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, has a unique and in-depth understanding of the digital advertising ecosystem, allowing it to source key video inventory, reduce fees and combat fraud for its clients. The acquisition of Optomaton’s video demand side
platform (DSP) and its highly experienced team will increase Ve Interactive’s exposure to the rapidly growing video programmatic market, further broadening its existing digital offering to its clients. In addition, the consolidation of these digital advertising methodologies into Ve Interactive’s data-led platform will enable greater efficiency for the end-user. Adding video to an expanding portfolio places Ve Interactive in a strong position within what is a rapidly evolving market. The acquisition will also allow Optomaton to gain access to Ve’s data-driven platform which combines conversion enhancing technology with digital and email advertising – all led by an intelligent data framework.
are producing anything that works as efficiently as Ve Interactive’s technology. Having worked with them on several campaigns in Scandinavia, we knew much more could be achieved through a closer partnership and were delighted when Ve suggested we become part of their global family.
“By joining Ve, we now have the opportunity to further unlock the power of their data by applying it to video campaigns across the globe, improving our own reach and maximising the return for our clients.”
David J Brown, CEO and co-founder of Ve Interactive, said, “we always strive to continually innovate and evolve our proposition for the benefit of our clients. The acquisition of Optomaton puts us at the forefront of programmatic video technology and with over 40% of programmatic buys expected to be in video by 2018, we are very excited to welcome the Optomaton team and their proprietary “Volvelle" video technology into our business.” Josh Mortenson, Director at Optomaton, said, “data has been a hot topic in the media for years but few companies
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GAMING
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BUYGAMECREDIT SELECTS FONIX FOR XBOX & PLAYSTATION CONTENT PAYMENTS Mobile payments and messaging specialist Fonix, has been selected by Microsoft Partner BuyGameCredit.com, to enable players to purchase Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Network subscriptions, Gift Card credit and games instantly, using their mobile phone. The bespoke solution from Fonix combines both SMS and Carrier Billing, to deliver a seamless on-brand experience.
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uyGameCredit, from Irish company Phonovation, allows players to purchase Xbox Live and PlayStation Network subscriptions, and content simply by sending an SMS text message. Customers then receive a text message containing their content code, with the cost of their purchase being charged to their mobile phone bill. Alternatively, customers can enter their mobile phone number and network to complete a purchase. Using this method, it’s also possible to deposit funds into the BuyGameCredit wallet. Fonix provides a direct mobile operator billing layer for merchants allowing products and services to be acquired by consumers. Their technology allows frictionless, impulsive purchases across a wide range of tariffs for both single transactions and subscription services. Buying Xbox and PlayStation content via mobile has proved to be an extremely popular channel with gamers. In fact, in a recent BuyGameCredit customer survey, 93% said they’d never buy games credit using any other payment channel than mobile. Fonix has direct connections to all the UK mobile networks and is also a Vodafone Platinum Partner and EE Performance Partner. This has enabled Fonix to maximise commercial and operational efficiency, ensuring Phonovation, a Micrsoft Partner, receives the most competitive rates alongside a robust and reliable service.
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The bespoke solution from Fonix combines both SMS and Carrier Billing, to deliver a seamless on-brand experience. Anthony Baladi, Commercial Director of Fonix, said: “We’re really excited to be part of the BuyGameCredit service, as from the research it’s clear that 93% of customers prefer the simplicity of mobile as their primary payment method.”
“We’ve worked extremely hard with our network partners to create a competitive solution for Phonovation, to provide great value, reliability and efficiency.” Gavin Carpenter, CEO, Phonovation, added: “BuyGameCredit has proved to be a huge success for Xbox and PlayStation and a real hit with gamers, who now prefer to buy content via mobile, than any other channel.” “As a result, we’re really pleased to be able to work with the team at Fonix to ensure that the service continues to deliver the levels of convenience and efficiency consumers have come to expect.”
GAMING
Barone Firenze Shutterstock.com
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IT
2016 CTO OF THE YEAR – API SYSTEMS, INC. API Systems is a comprehensive IT Solutions, Services, and Staffing firm focused on taking our customers to the next level of their IT transformation. With a business centric IT services model, API specializes in Cloud Computing, Virtualization, End-User Computing, and Managed IT Services. Our clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 enterprises, and span across a wide variety of sectors including Health Care, Telecommunications, Financials, and more.
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ark Knouse represents the technological vision behind the company, and boasts 15 years of experience in leading IT operations across the company, accomplishing a number of projects and solution designs. He describes his role in the company thusly: “I attend tech conferences, sit up front in every session, ask questions, and always network with the presenter. While at these conferences, I talk to as many people as I can. I then build this relationship via social media. I maintain a list of tech bloggers and subscribe to new post notifications on topics relevant to me. “I also spend a lot of time with our partners. As we are under NDA with all of our partners, I participate in private beta programs, knowledge share and bug testing and also provide feedback for future feature releases. These features are always driven by a customer need and it gives me a two-way relationship with the right technical parties. “API’s product is our solutions and services. We don’t make a lot of the technology we use, but we have the expertise to make it better, and ensure our clients get the most out of their IT investment.” Throughout his career, Mark has been on a continuing journey of self-improvement to reach the position that he currently holds. Since first discovering his technological abilities through commanding Computer Numerical Control (CNC) devices to create optical devices for military defence systems, Mark’s formative years saw him develop a hunger for network knowledge.
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Growing through various roles ranging from Server Administration to participating in large scale IT projects, he has led technical teams for large scale technology product implantations – like PeopleSoft, SAP, Citrix and VMware – and has successfully built a business from the ground up and scaling to 2MM yearly revenue and 6 employees in 2 years. While Mark certainly wishes that he could say that all of his challenges had been simply technical ones, they were not. In fact, the major ones were, as he describes it, wholly related to organizational culture, tribal dogma, and letting polices and bureaucracy, and a certain amount of uncertainty, get in the way of enabling the business to grow. “Books, training and certifications do not teach everything you need to know to survive in enterprise information technology. It was a challenge for me to learn some of these much-needed soft skills. “Luckily, I found mentors that shared their social wisdom with me, allowing me to look much farther down the road then what was glaring in front of me. A major obstacle I overcame during my career was championing change in an organization that needed change but didn’t necessarily want it. I learned to make hard decisions for the sake of the business and sometimes it is best to end something than to continually try to fix it for the sake of fear of the unknown. A triumphant re-emergence from these testing times has imbued Mark with some hard-won business principles, by which API Sytems continues to thrive today. Most significantly, the lifeblood of the company is to stay abreast on all technology trends.
“I’m constantly challenging my team to bring new and innovative solutions to the table. We’ve been able to successfully balance not only being on top of cutting edge, but also bleeding edge technology. I’m fortunate to have people on my team that are technology innovators and early adopters. Being a technology expert is a lifestyle, so we live and breathe all things tech.” Furthermore, Mark places a great amount of trust and value upon his employees. To him, if the staff’s welfare can be placed at the forefront of the company’s agenda, then he can feel secure in the knowledge that the clients will be automatically taken care of. “My staff has made API Systems into what it is today. We use a very team-centric approach here and feed off of one another’s drive and focus. I never let titles get in the way of work; instead we’re a unified team of technology experts. Cultivating our current team took me years, but I am confident in their abilities. Our team is composed of talented individuals at all levels and who are focused on constantly growing, learning, and moving up the technology ladder. “Because of this, I keep motivated by spending time with team members and listening to their goals. I enjoy helping make those goals happen. Staying positive is a blend of knowing when to step back and take a break from work and staying grounded to family. In addition, ensuring the people around me are there to add and multiply, not subtract or divide. “As a leader, I’m constantly challenging my team and I put a lot of value on employee development. In the end, I’m only as successful as my team.”
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Looking ahead about five years into the future, Mark sees himself more of an advisory role with the current firm. “Nothing would make me happier than to see the current team members grow into leadership roles and take this firm into the next iteration. In addition, I would like to take the leadership skills I learned from mentors and roles and apply it towards helping others in the public sector.�
Besides his own personal ambitions, Mark’s hopes for API Systems remain focussed around its continued drive towards greater market penetration and scaling of a marketing presence. As the company grows, a sustained effort to seek quality talent will be guided by a determination to mentor the current organizational talent.
Company: API Systems, Inc. Email: sales@apisystemsinc.com Phone: 973-328-3328 Web Address: www.apisystemsinc.com Address: 301 Gibraltar Drive, Suite 3D, Morris Plains, NJ 07950
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IT
BUSINESS TRENDS IN THE IT RENTAL MARKET We’ve all been there: a last-minute meeting, client review or training session crops up and we need to impress pronto. That’s where IT rentals can save the day. Hire Intelligence take a look at business trends in the IT rental market and gain a better insight into how the industry meets the demands of businesses that rely on technology. IT Rental Business Trends The IT rental market is booming. As the B2B industry continues to evolve, it’s never been so important for your business to keep up in order to fulfil the industry’s needs. The ERA Market Report 2015 states that the UK equipment rental sector grew by 15% in 2015 to £5,679 million and that this will increase by a further 3.7% in 2016. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the other business trends to date in IT hire. Business Benefits of Renting IT Equipment Research shows that there are a whole host of reasons why businesses choose to rent their IT equipment as rather than buying it outright. 81.1% of businesses state that IT rentals provide good value for money. The primary benefits of renting include: • Reducing business expenditure • Avoiding technical issues • Fulfilling on-demand requirements • Accessing the latest technology Popular IT Devices Whether you need to rent to make an impact at a client review, company meeting, conference or internal training session, IT equipment can help you to present professionally and make your session a memorable one. So which IT devices are most popular for UK businesses? The most popular item hired is the desktop PC. In fact 42.1% of businesses surveyed stated that desktop PCs were their go-to piece of kit when it came to hiring IT devices. Second in line, with 31.6%, were laptops PCs.
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Other popular IT devices include: • 28.9% iPads • 21.1% Plasma/LED Screens • 15.8% iPhones • 15.8% Projectors • 15.8% Servers What does this tell us about the behavioural patterns of UK businesses? These figures reveal that the fixed workstation remains a popular choice for many businesses. However, the high number of laptop PCs and iPads being rented shows an increase in mobile working. This enables flexible working in other offices and locations, as well as on the move. iPads also allow users to showcase data in a more engaging way.
Number of Devices Hired Research shows that 42.1% of UK businesses hire between one and three items each year. Most devices, such as projectors and screens, play a supporting role for others, so these findings make sense. Alternatively, businesses may just be in need of numerous pieces of tech to get them fully operational, for example start-ups. It’s clear that there’s a trend for renting more than one IT device at a time. 18.4% of businesses surveyed stated that they hire between 10 and 12 items on an annual basis. 2.6% said that they rent 19 items or more every year. These numbers reflect the size of the company so those that hire in greater volume are likely to be the larger businesses, corporations and organisations.
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Why Business Choose to Rent Businesses choose to rent IT equipment for a whole host of reasons. When we surveyed a number of UK professionals, the top reason for renting was for conferences, in-house training and internal projects (34%). Further reasons for renting were: • 26.3% exhibitions • 26.3% trade shows • 21.1% staff presentations • 10.5% disaster recovery • 5.3% moving offices Popular Rental Periods Rental equipment provides businesses with the flexibility they need. Whether this is for last-minute, on-demand rentals or essential pieces of conference tech hired well in advance, your business needs will be met. The most popular IT rental periods are monthly (9.6%) and annually (9.6%). So how long are businesses keeping their devices for? 23.1% of businesses say that they used their hired equipment for a week before returning it. To stay ahead, it’s clear that flexibility is key and, luckily, the IT rental market is responding to the needs of consumers and businesses. Value of IT Rentals So how much is the nation spending on IT rentals each year? 15.8% of respondents said that their business spends between £1,501 and £2,000 on hired equipment annually. The same figure, 15.8%, also told us that they spend between £501 and £1,000 on IT tech hires each year. 7.9% of businesses stated that they spend £5,001+ on renting IT equipment each year. The figures are relative to the size of each business but show that there is huge demand out there for IT rentals, whether on-demand or long-term. Conclusion The IT rental market shows no sign of halting, so it’s more a case of what’s next than when will it stop. As wearable and virtual technology becomes more commonplace, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if we started to see virtual meetings taking place much more frequently in years to come. Now that you’ve seen the statistics, would your business benefit from renting or buying IT equipment?
Matthew Corley / Shutterstock.com
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IT
SILVERFINCH HOSTS INAUGURAL PRIIPS EVENT Silverfinch, the leading look-through and data distribution utility for client regulatory reporting, hosted an inaugural dedicated PRIIPs event in order to explore and discuss the regulatory landscape and industry preparation. This event took place on Tuesday 13th September at Gibson Hall, right in the heart of the City of London.
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ilverfinch is the leading look-through and client regulatory data distribution platform for fund providers. A product of the MoneyMate Group, Silverfinch launched its Solvency II look-through platform in 2014 and quickly expanded into other regulations such as VAG, GroMiKV and PRIIPs to help its clients address their client reporting requirements under a consolidated standard framework. At their Gibson Hall event, panel debates were in full swing, featuring leading industry figures including The Investment Association, the ABI, EY and Club Ampere. These panellists examined the uses of the data that PRIIPs will produce, how the industry can best work together to create an agreed standard and what lessons can be learnt from the UCITS KIID journey. The event followed Silverfinch’s recent expansion of its data model to include the KID data for PRIIPs, allowing asset managers to efficiently share their data with insurance-based investment product manufacturers across Europe and subsequently enable their insurer clients to trade under the new regulation. John Dowdall, Managing Director of Silverfinch said, “PRIIPs regulation will have a massive impact across both
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the insurance and asset manager industry. Following the recent decision to possibly delay the implementation of PRIIPs, the panellists will examine how this gives firms time to alter their business plans and ensure that they are well placed to be ready for the new rules.
“While the potential delay provides welcome breathing space for businesses, it’s now even more important to press ahead with the steps to be PRIIPs compliant. We hope that this event, bringing together delegates from across the financial services spectrum, will help provide guidance on what information will be needed and how best to share this data.” Gug Kyriacou Director, Silverfinch Gug.Kyriacou@fwdconsulting.co.uk 020 7623 2368 / 07956 570 350
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MEDIA
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MORE ANSWERS, LESS THEORY FROM BIG GUNS AT BIG DATA LDN Big Data practitioners unite in London for UK’s first delegate-led independent tech conference.
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ig Data LDN, the first delegate-led independent Big Data event in the UK, today launched its 2016 programme. This new event, which is held at Olympia London between November 3rd and 4th, seeks to help businesses debunk Big Data myths with real-life case studies. The free-to-attend conference is expected to attract 3000 attendees over two days to hear about the latest and greatest Big Data best-practices from 70 tech leaders and many more end-users. The conference and seminar programme will showcase how Big Data challenges can be overcome. By having experts sharing tried-and-tested practical steps, not just the theories other Big Data events preach, attendees will gain detailed insight to improve their organisations’ overall performance. Speakers from leading data exponents such as MariaDB, Cloudera, Tableau Software and Talend will be examining contemporary schools of thought, providing one-to-one access to expert advice and demonstrating the range of new technologies available from Internet of Things to Machine Learning. Delegates span a range of organisations, from Financial Services and Telecoms juggernauts to Local Government authorities. The attendees also represent a variety of job functions, from C-Level executives to those who work with Big Data on a daily basis as Data Architects and Head of Insight. The conference has two streams; a C-Level Strategy Conference and Four Technical Education tracks covering the data themes of harvest, meld, mine and govern: 1.
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Harvesting data - The days of simple corporate Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS)
2.
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and Data Warehousing architectures are over. This track will guide delegates on the best tools to harvest and manage a wide range of data feeds from social media and the Internet of Things (IoT). Melding data - IT teams are being asked to undertake data integration, cleansing and blending across an increasing range of disparate data streams. This track discusses the new generation of API management, Extract, Transform and Load (ETL), data integration and preparation tools which simplify and automate the task of melding and wrangling data into shape. Mining data – The stable world of Business Intelligence (BI) has been transformed in recent years by a riot of innovation, enabling pioneering organisations to benefit from new self-service data visualization tools, predictive analytics and machine learning tools. This track will focus on the understanding of modern analytics tools so users can match their business needs with the most effective solutions. Governing data – How can IT and governance teams ensure sensitive data is protected whilst providing non-expert users with the data access they need? With so many current and new regulations relating to how data is protected coming into force, this track covers all the questions which look into how data is classified, secured, transferred and stored.
Bill Hammond, Event Director for Big Data LDN, said, “Tech powerhouses such as Amazon and Google have long shown how effective Big Data can be. We are seeing more and more businesses talking a good game about being data-driven enterprises, only to find themselves faced with a host of stumbling blocks. From my experience working with data-driven enterprises, I’ve heard many questions such as Where to start?
What are our rivals doing? What works? Big Data LDN will provide the answers, focusing on the practical steps and technology to adopt. Our speaker line up is world class and delegates can expect to leave with the benefit of their hard won lessons on what works and what to avoid.” Justin Mullen, Datalytyx Co-Founder, said, “As you can imagine, I have been to many Big Data conferences. So the reason why Datalytyx will be at the inaugural Big Data LDN as a founding partner is because we are excited by the prospect of discussing real-life solutions to the next generation of Big Data challenges. We look forward to catching up with our partners, meeting new friends and hearing new voices at Big Data LDN.” Joanna Grimmond, Senior Marketing Manager, UK and Ireland at Tableau, added, “Tableau helps people see and understand their data, whether it’s about disease research, industrial efficiency or government spending. Big Data London is a great platform in the UK to explain how real people, in real organisations are using data to its full potential.” Stephen Line, Regional Vice President at Cloudera, said, “The Big Data market continues to evolve rapidly as businesses of all sizes across all industries recognise the opportunity to get maximum value from their data. Cloudera is enabling its customers to address board-level objectives as they migrate towards a more digital and data-driven approach. We took the decision to be one of the founding partners at Big Data LDN as it represents a great opportunity for the UK data and analytics community to come together. We look forward to sharing our experiences with attendees and discussing how Cloudera and our partner ecosystem can help them drive innovation and get value from all of their data.”
MEDIA
"Tech powerhouses such as Amazon and Google have long shown how effective Big Data can be."
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MEDIA
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BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME Adam Varley, Head of Office Agency at national commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH), explores the property fundamentals behind Leeds’ burgeoning technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector.
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ast month the Centre for Economics and Business Research published a report forecasting that the future of the UK’s digital economy lies with the Northern Powerhouse, highlighting that by 2020 one job in every eleven in the North of England will be in the creative and TMT sectors. Furthermore, the report predicts that by 2020 the total number of digital jobs in the North of England will outnumber that of London by more than 60%. Employment figures recently released by the government suggest that this isn’t simply wishful thinking – particularly across Yorkshire and Humber. The region saw employment in the TMT sectors rise 18% from 2014 to 2015 – the highest growth across the whole of the UK, including London, over this period. Moreover, from 2011 to 2015, employment in the TMT sector across Yorkshire and the Humber grew by 30%. This rapid growth has led to a marked rise in employment in the sector across region, resulting in significant occupier demand from TMT businesses. Leeds, for example, is already home to 8,500 TMT companies employing over 70,000 staff and contributing £3 billion GVA to the regional economy. Three of those firms, SkyBet, Emis Group and Callcredit, were recently quoted as having a worth in excess of $500m in a survey by technology investment bank, GP Bullhound. As a result, the city’s TMT occupier market is booming. Findings from LSH’s Northern Powerhouse Office Market Report highlighted that, across the whole of the city last year, take-up from TMT companies represented 28% of all occupier deals in the city – the highest take-up of any sector. All the fundamentals are in place for this demand for space to continue. Leeds is the only city in the UK that has declared internet independence from London, while the city region has direct access to one of Europe’s most significant higher education clusters with an annual pipeline of 41,500 graduates,
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20% of whom are in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The continuing challenge for the real estate market across Leeds and the wider Yorkshire and Humber region is to keep pace with this demand. Last week Leeds City Council tabled the idea of the creation of an innovation district within the city incorporating the University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University and the General Infirmary within the Arena Quarter of the city. The idea would be to bring together some of the city’s most creative and innovation institutions and continue to build on the success of the Leeds Innovation Centre, as well as the potential that the development of the £40m, 10,000 sq m University Innovation and Enterprise Centre (UIEC) will bring. But LSH’s Q2 2016 Leeds Office Market Pulse highlights that grade A office space accounts for only 22% of the total available stock across Leeds and, while 540,000 sq ft of new build space is set to complete in 2016, it tends to be the wrong type of space, in more established ‘traditional’ business locations. Investors and developers therefore need to adapt to the growing requirements of TMT businesses before they are lost to other major UK cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. To do this, it is important to understand businesses in this sector. For them, the building which they occupy can’t merely be an envelope, it’s what happens inside that makes a difference. Occupiers in the TMT sector typically look for more flexible office accommodation capable of supporting creative activity, clustered around other like-minded businesses allowing for greater collaboration and sharing of ideas to undercover opportunities, which is reflected in the location, size and type of space leased. Fewer workstations give way to more informal work places. The boundaries between client space and work
space are much less defined than in more traditional, corporate office environments with large floor plates of circa 20,000 sq ft. Grand reception desks that create a barrier between a business and its visitors are superseded by lounge areas that provide a more welcoming experience. Landlords that have designed buildings to accommodate this growing sector of the market have seen the best results. A recent success storey is Allied London’s Leeds Dock, a part of the city which has been through a significant transition, having struggled to establish its identity previously. Following Allied London’s acquisition, the scheme is being reinvigorated and has already attracted global brands Sky & Google’s Digital Garage. The South Bank offers a unique proposition for Leeds in its commitment to be the best city in the UK by 2030. The creation of the Yorkshire Hub through major infrastructure projects like HS2 and HS3 (or Northern Powerhouse Rail) will play an important part, both in connecting the city to a larger more mobile workforce, but also in acting as a catalyst and focus for further development. Leeds’ vibrant cultural scene, abundance of retail and leisure, and cost-effective housing is unrivalled in the North. Companies looking to attract bright, young talent will continue to locate here as long as they have the right space. We, as a city region, need to continue to make sure that happens. Charles Font Redwood Consulting 49 Greencoat Place London SW1P 1DS T: 020 7828 5553 M: 07808 870 704 W: www.redwoodconsulting.co.uk
MEDIA
"The continuing challenge for the real estate market across Leeds and the wider Yorkshire and Humber region is to keep pace with this demand."
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MEDIA
1608DA03
PROMAXBDA UK PRESENTS ‘THE NEW NORMAL’ TELEVISION PROMOTION AND MARKETING PromaxBDA UK, representing the UK television and digital marketing & design community, is presenting The New Normal, a new breed of promotion and marketing conference featuring insightful talks and live demonstrations from some of the most renowned names in media, marketing and technology, to be held on 3rd November 2016.
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esigned to turn the traditional conference on its head, PromaxBDA UK’s The New Normal offers attendees an innovative, thought-provoking and immersive experience, including a stellar speaker line-up includes experts from BBC, ITN, NBC Universal International, Sky, Channel 4, Facebook, Amazon, ManMadeMusic, BRaVe Ventures, MiMo Brands, Laduma and Kaltura. The event features a stellar speaker line-up, TED Talk-style – forget typical panels, think high-powered conversations, which will be vividly illustrated in real-time by talented scribers, along with a live band providing some on-stage surprises. Q&As will be held in a concurrent Chatroom so you can get up close and personal with your speakers in a way conferences rarely offer. The talks range from offering a “View from the Top” with industry leaders advising on where we are and where we are going, all the way through to “The New Normal” with those pioneers who are currently paving the way for us all. Entertainment and insight into how technology can be used and manipulated to effect will come in the form of a masterful iPad magician, a giant physical Virtual Reality installation that gives you the experience without wearing a headset, a spectacular outdoor display combining flying camera drones and pyrotechnics masterminded by the same team behind the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, and the latest out-of-this-world VR demonstration by Samsung. During the event attendees can relax on bean bags and sofas in a space designed to promote conversation, discovery and networking. There is a state-of-the-art
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Creative Lounge showcasing the best digital work that pushes the boundaries of creativity, and what you can achieve with AR, VR, mobile and social media. The gallery will show digital art forms used in ways you have never seen or imagined to fire up your own creativity. You may even bump into the Gillmor Gang on site who will be producing podcasts live from the event. Every attendee also walks away with a prized, tech-laden goody bag as a souvenir from the event to further inspire their creativity. On 4 November, the action moves to the Hilton Park Lane for the PromaxBDA UK Awards 2016, a black-tie gala dinner hosted by comedian Kathryn Ryan, and sponsored by ENVY Post Production. PromaxBDA Chair, Frank Radice comments, “today we are in the midst of a seismic shift in the way we create and market to best achieve our goals across a multitude of new platforms. What used to be is no longer. Emerging businesses are now competitive industries – a part of our way of modern life. This new paradigm is The New Normal and London is the best place on the planet to explore these creative opportunities because it is filled with some of the greatest creatives in the world.” PromaxBDA Vice-Chair, Marc Ortmans added, “broadcasting is no longer linear and one-way, it is interactive and everyone is participating. With this comes campaigns that consist of multi-channel narratives that go beyond the 30-second promo, often adding immersive and interactive experiences which the consumer now craves. PromaxBDA UK ‘The New Normal’ Conference will anticipate the future and change the way you think.”
PromaxBDA UK ‘The New Normal’ Conference 2016 Tickets: £300 excluding VAT per person £170 excluding VAT per person (freelance rate) Location: PromaxBDA UK conference Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London E20 3BS PromaxBDA UK Awards 2016 Tickets: £300 excluding VAT per person £3,000 excluding VAT per awards table (seats 10) £500 excluding VAT per person (conference and awards) Location: PromaxBDA UK awards Hilton Park Lane, 22 Park Lane, London W1K 1BE To purchase tickets, visit www.promaxuk.com MEDIA CONTACT kate.lam@staturepr.com / lucy.toms@staturepr.com 0207 100 0853 / 0207 100 0856
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"Broadcasting is no longer linear and one-way, it is interactive and everyone is participating." 29
MOBILE APPS
ME160009
COLOUR ME CRAZY WITH A FUNKY PHONE APP I
t’s time to sit back and add a splash of colour to snapshots from your life with a phone app that lets you get creative with personal photos.
Whether you want to test out a crazy hairstyle, tie dye your favourite T-shirt or even give Big Ben a new lick of paint, the free Colorscape app lets you transform any image and colour it in as you please.
Colorscape was launched late last year and is already turning heads in the world of digital with more users now jumping on board to give the photos on their phone a revamp. It is free to download from the app store but with the option of additional in-store purchases such as the inkdropper tool, and is usable for both the iPhone and iPad.
Users can even create their very own personalised colouring book of themselves, their friends and their family by snapping and downloading pictures from their day-to-day lives.
This makes it a great tool to plonk in front of the children to keep them busy, while you take a breather and make a cup of tea, away from the usual video games and television programmes.
Colouring is no longer an activity just for kids. In the past two years, the world has gone colouring crazy with more and more books published for adult fans to get creative with.
But it’s not only getting the creative mind whirring that makes colouring such a beneficial activity – it has also been said to relieve stress and anxiety. By setting aside time outside of work to sit down in a calm and relaxed setting with a picture to colour, it has been proved to be a cathartic escape from everyday stresses.
From stills snapped from movies including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight, to animals in the depths of the sea and jungle, the colouring trend is in full-flow and budding artists can now easily purchase a black and white design to take to with their pencils and pens. Those who download the app can either take a snap there or then or use a photo from their library. After uploading the photo into the app, it then quickly turns it into a simple black and white sketching that can be used for colouring. There’s no need to worry about running out of ink or sharpening with the app – it can be done there and then using your finger and the vast selection of digital colours, or printed out to colour at your own leisure. The lines on each photo can also be adjusted depending on your preferred intricacy and love for detail, making the app easy to tailor to both children and adults.
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Another reason as to why colouring has become so popular is by reminding adults of their childhood. Nothing is more quintessentially childish than a traditional colouring book, and adults can now become a kid again with a range of sketches ready to explore. And for those users that want a quick arty snap or pattern to test out, the app has a free library of photos to delve into and download. This includes images of animal cartoons, floral designs and iconic buildings such as the Hollywood sign, the Sydney Opera House and the Statue of Liberty. After completing the colourful handmade design, the picture can then be shared across social media sites including Facebook and Instagram to show off to your friends.
A spokesperson for Colorscape said,
“we were very excited to get the app up and running because we knew how popular it would be among users – especially those who love to get arty and creative. “Colouring has become a very popular way for people to relax and have some fun at home, and this way they can personalise their own snapped photos. “We’ve seen some great examples so far and we’re always keen for people to show us their artwork. The more colour – the better!” To download the app, follow this link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/colorscape-turn-yourphotos/id1054822637?mt=8
MOBILE APPS
Company: GoingClear Interactive Email: contact@goingclear.com Phone: 617-649-7200 Web Address: www.goingclear.com Address: Suite 1, 175 William F. McClellan Highway, Boston, MA 02128, USA
Marcio Jose Bastos Silva / Shutterstock.com
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REDUCED BUYER FRICTION - KEY TO OS-PAY SUCCESS As a combination of in-app purchases and website retail payments is projected to drive annual spend via Apple Pay and Android Pay to $8 billion in 2018, up from $540 million this year, new findings from Juniper Research claim that the value of digital and physical goods purchased through mobile ‘OS-Pay’ platforms will increase by fifteen times in the next two years.
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he new study, Mobile & Online Remote Payments for Digital & Physical Goods: Opportunities & Forecasts 2016-2021 found that the integration of OS-Pay into apps will prove to be a ‘no brainer’ for developers looking to reduce buyer friction, where password entry on smartphones remains cumbersome. Staples, for example, has already reported that over 30% of its iOS app users make in-app purchases through Apple Pay. Meanwhile, despite the continued contraction of the consumer tablet market, more than 85% of remote goods payments are forecast to be made using mobile devices in 2021. “It is clear that even in markets where PCs and laptops have a high installed base that the smartphone is playing an increasingly important role where remote goods purchases are concerned.” noted research author Steffen Sorrell. “For merchants, this means that the buyer experience must be made as frictionless as possible – from product search and discovery to purchase.” Apple has recently signalled its intent to offer Apple Pay to online merchants by the end of 2016, offering a similar
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payment mechanism to PayPal. The research anticipates that this move will be welcomed by most merchants as long as integration into their storefronts is made simple and rates are competitive. Meanwhile, Juniper expects the entry of Android Pay into this space once further country expansion has been achieved. This will no doubt boost the market further in terms of merchants who may have been undecided where Apple Pay is concerned. These OS-Pay solutions are likely to pose a threat to PayPal’s Western dominance, although Juniper does not anticipate that combined sales via Apple Pay and Android Pay will approach those via PayPal within the next 5 years at least. The whitepaper, OS-Pay to Shake Up Remote Retail is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full research. Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.
MEDIA
IS YOUR APP A MEDICAL DEVICE? IT’S HEALTHY TO KNOW: REGULATOR ISSUES UPDATED GUIDANCE From counting steps to helping healthcare professionals prescribe treatment for burns injuries, healthcare apps and stand-alone software are a part of everyday life. You might not realise depending on an unregulated app to provide a diagnosis or recommend treatment could have potentially unforeseen consequences.
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he Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued updated guidance today to help identify the health apps that work as medical devices and make sure they comply with regulations and are acceptably safe.
It is important that apps which are medical devices comply with medical device regulation and work as expected. Apps that give incorrect diagnoses or prescribe inappropriate treatments may have severe, potentially life-threatening consequences.
The guidance is presented as a step-by-step interactive PDF. App users can use this guidance to check if their health app is a medical device, and what to look for to make sure the app is safe and works.
John Wilkinson, MHRA’s Director of Medical Devices said,
Software and app developers can use the guidance to identify if their product is a medical device. It will aid developers in navigating the regulatory system so they are aware what procedures they need to have in place to get a CE mark which indicates acceptable safety standards and performance, and what their reporting responsibilities are when things change or go wrong. Many apps and pieces of stand-alone software currently on the market are classified as medical devices. These are apps which gather data from the person or a diagnostic device, such as diet, heartbeat, or blood glucose levels and then analyse and interpret the data to make a diagnosis, prescribe a medicine, or recommend treatment.
“we live in an increasingly digital world, both healthcare professionals, patients and the public are using software and stand-alone apps to aid diagnosis and monitor health.
“Patient safety is our priority. We continue to encourage people to report any safety or performance issues involving medical devices, including apps, to MHRA via our Yellow Card Scheme online.”
“Where apps or stand-alone software make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment, people should check for CE-marking before using their apps and developers should make sure they are complying with the appropriate medical device regulations. 33
MEDIA
VIELOCO: BREAKING THE MOULD OF DATING APPS June 2016 saw the launch of VieLoco, a social app that allows users to find love and friendship through a shared sense of adventure.
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iterally translated as ‘Crazy Life’, VieLoco is a far cry from pre-existing matchmaking apps, pairing users romantically or platonically. Users can select from hundreds of ‘passions’ ranging from: artistic interests, favourite destinations, cultural pastimes, sporting preferences, social habits and languages spoken, amongst many others, even featuring ‘Crazy Passions,’ where users can highlight the passions they are truly crazy about in order to refine their search for the right match. The app helps to further build genuine relationships through the use of its other key functions: detailed searches by passions, location and preferences, live video streaming and virtual gifting. Real gifting will also be coming soon for those looking to treat matches with chocolates, candles, flowers, Champagne, whilst shared experiences such as Nobu Sushi Masterclass, Golfing days, Tuscan Wine Getaways, Spa & Pampering, or even, for the more daring and adventurous, Private Space Travel, are already available to purchase via the app.
“Understanding someone as a moving, breathing person and not a static image paired with some text helps users to avoid those dating app horror stories we’ve all heard about, and also helps to ensure a safe environment from the word go.”
In-app functionalities allow users to narrow down searches via geo-location, helping to build a network of new and exciting relationships based on shared passions in life, be they a new tennis partner in New York, a potential love interest in Paris, a party pal in Ibiza or a theatre friend in London. The VieLoco user is often well-travelled, thrives on living life to the fullest and is always in the moment. They would “love like they have never been hurt, work like they don’t need the money, and dance like no one is watching”.
Nora Lee Notzon, VieLoco’s co-founder, says, “as a single American native in London, I realised that my unique background, passions and lifestyle choices were incredibly important when it came to finding a potential partner. I’m crazy about dancing, skiing, tennis, cooking, family and travel, and I found other apps lacked the key components I wanted to know about a man. To me, the other apps come across as soulless - and I could never find enough information to “swipe right!” The idea behind VieLoco was to mimic real life and understand how people really spend their time, as that defines what they value in life. Ultimately, VieLoco allows me and others to meet fascinating people with shared interests no matter where you are in the world. Life is about people
Unlike other apps, VieLoco users don’t swipe left and right, but up and down. The team behind VieLoco says, “Swiping down ‘towards your heart’ or up ‘and away from you’ allow users to make more considered choices to further matches and, eventually, take relationships out into the real world.” As the first app to offer live video streaming between matches, the app facilitates bringing conversations to life and allows users to experience something genuine before deciding to move things further.
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In a digital age of transience, VieLoco brings back the art of courting with innovative in-app gifting, both virtual and real (with real life gifting going live later this year). Users can unlock chats instantly by sending gifts - gifts for the romantics seeking old-school courtship, or gifts simply to congratulate a transatlantic friend on a promotion. Recipients of gifts have the option to refuse or accept and, at all times, personal details are kept strictly confidential.
Katie Blackwood Katie@wickerwood.com
MEDIA
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ROBOTICS
ABB’S YUMI COLLABORATIVE ROBOT NAMED “2016 BEST INDUSTRIAL ROBOT”
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BB today announced that its YuMi robot solution, the world’s first truly collaborative robot, was honored with a Golden Finger award as one of the best industrial robots of 2016 at the China International Robot Show (CIROS) in Shanghai, China. CIROS is organized by the China Machinery Industry Federation and the China Robot Industry Alliance, and is one of the three largest robot technology events in the world. 2016 was the first year for the Golden Finger awards, which were jointly setup with CIROS and China’s Machinery & Electronics Business newspaper as part of the beginning of the country’s 13th Five Year Plan and Made in China 2025 Strategy. The strategy aims to transform China into a global manufacturing leader; robots will play a key role in improving productivity and shifting the country’s manufacturing focus from being ‘big’ to being ‘strong.’ One out of every four robots sold today is sold in China, which is the world’s leading robotics growth market. According to the International Federation of Robotics, some 68,000 units were sold in China during 2015, which is a 17 percent increase over 2014. In industries such as personal electronics, the need for more customized products and higher quality expectations are changing the nature of manufacturing. Production is shifting from mass producing the same product for a long time to producing small lots of more diverse products for a shorter business cycle. Robots offer the flexibility and agility to remain productive and improve quality while adapting to meet increasingly diverse consumer needs. ABB’s YuMi robot solution was specifically designed to help consumer electronics meet these challenges by unlocking innovative new collaborative manufacturing solutions where people and robots safely work together on shared tasks.
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“There is an exceptional passion for innovation here in China. ABB is working closely with its customers to help transform their manufacturing and find new ways of unlocking the flexible, efficient ‘factory of the future,’ today. Collaborative automation will certainly play a large part in this journey,” said Sami Atiya, President of ABB’s Discrete Automation and Motion division. “It’s a great honor for ABB to receive this recognition here in China and among distinguished peers at of the world’s most important robot technology events.” In April 2016, ABB’s YuMi robot solution was recognized for outstanding achievements in commercializing innovative robot technology with the prestigious Invention and Entrepreneurship Award (IERA) during the Automatica trade fair in Munich, Germany. ABB (www.abb.com) is a leading global technology company in power and automation that enables utility, industry, and transport & infrastructure customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in roughly 100 countries and employs about 135,000 people.
ROBOTICS
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ROBOTICS
THE SKY IS THE LIMIT FOR GLASGOW FM FIRM Glasgow-based facilities management firm Aerial FM are off to a flying start by using commercial drone technology to provide fast and effective services and solutions in the FM sector. But why is the ability to pilot an unmanned aircraft important to a facilities manager or property manager?
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rones help Grant Currie, Managing Director of Aerial FM, and his colleagues to quickly and efficiently carry out building assessments and surveys or obtain stunning images that can be used in marketing a property for sale or lease. When surveying high-level or high-risk areas, drone flying is safer and less expensive than hiring access equipment and calling out a contractor to inspect. Using a combination of hightech photography, 4K video and thermal imaging, Aerial FM can diagnose and report on roof leaks, storm damage, roof defects and weathering issues quickly and cost-effectively. Grant has spent over 20 years in the FM sector at a senior level, managing UK-wide shopping centres, commercial office buildings, distribution and storage warehousing, manufacturing plants and retail outlets. Grant worked for Segro Plc and BAA McArthurGlen, before developing and managing contracts with Dalkia Energy & Technical, OCS Integrated Services, Cosmo FM and CBRE Managed Services. He is now channelling his experience into Aerial FM to build a brand that supports the FM sector with a range of quality support services. Grant Currie said, “We’ve heard about multinational companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon using drones to do jobs such as mapping, providing Wi-Fi services and delivering packages, but what about the FM sector? “An unmanned drone can access the external envelope of a building more quickly, safely and cost-effectively than other forms of access, in terms of obtaining data, they can be a lot easier and more flexible.
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“A drone can be used to conduct a general video or photographic assessment of the roof to identify any accelerated weathering, dislodged slate or stone tiles, damaged flashing and the condition of guttering and downpipes.” “In 2014-15, falls from height accounted for 50% of all deaths in the workplace in the UK, according to HSE statistics. If we are able to remove the need to initially access a roof for inspection, remove additional access expense and assess the roof more quickly using unmanned aircraft technology, then we make it easier, quicker, cheaper and safer to assess fragile and unsafe roofs, chimneys, guttering, building fabric, glazing and roof mounted plant. “Aerial thermal technology is now widely available for unmanned aircraft that allows energy assessors and landlords to obtain detailed thermal assessments of their building’s energy loss, and assist with the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) process. The ability to fly over a building at height and scan the thermal properties of the roof, building fabric and glazing is another significant advancement within our industry and makes for a quicker and less intrusive assessment.
“My hope is that we will continue to see this incredible technology being widely used throughout our FM sector to advance our industry and make it significantly safer.”
ROBOTICS
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ROBOTICS
DO DIAGNOSTIC ENGINEERS HAVE A FUTURE WITH THE IOT? Senseye, the Uptime as A Service company, will be revealing how it is making diagnostic engineers a thing of the past at the NMI Future World 2016 “Deep Tech” conference, to be held in London, UK over the 15th-16th of September.
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enseye develops PROGNOSYS, cloud-based software that automates condition monitoring diagnostics and prognostics to predict failures in machinery months in advance. Senseye brings over 40 years of real world industry know-how, combined with deep expertise in machine learning and data science to a robust and scalable approach to helping companies to reduce downtime and save money. Senseye’s product PROGNOSYS is revolutionising predictive maintenance by automating analysis of condition monitoring and enabling prognostics – diagnosing current and future failures, automatically. The software is cloud-based and easy to use, already trusted by Fortune 100 companies to help forecast failure, lower unplanned downtime and save operational costs. The Industrial Internet of Things generates huge amounts of machine condition information but this has been largely untapped due to human and technical limitations. Senseye will discuss where the disciplines of Condition Monitoring and Prognostics have come from and how they are being shaped by advances in cloud-computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, making the traditional role of the human diagnostic engineer a thing of the past. Robert Russell, CTO of Senseye says “We’re excited to discuss with our peers how advances in AI and Machine Learning are helping manufacturers in the real world; the IIoT we’ve been promised for some time is finally arriving!”
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“Senseye are a great example of a growing UK tech company that can exploit know-how in machine learning to deliver high-value solutions - in this case, helping to take manufacturing technology and capability to a new level.” Says, Alastair McGibbon, CTO at NMI.
Future World is a conference for entrepreneurs and businesses engaging in “Deep Tech”. These developments are consistently introducing disruptions across domains from agriculture to medical, industrial to fashion. Senseye is offering a free assessment of how much manufacturers could save with their cloud-based, easy to use diagnostics, prognostics and condition monitoring product. For further information, see www.swyx.com
ROBOTICS
ROBOTS TAKE OVER ELECTRONIC BUNDLING AT LAMBETH Following a customer enquiry from the London Borough of Lambeth, Zylpha, the UK’s leading innovator of electronic document bundling technology, has launched a ‘Bundling Robot’. The new system is the latest addition to the company’s widely acclaimed range of integration tools for LexisNexis Visualfiles.
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eadquartered in Southampton, Zylpha is an innovative specialist offering tools for the legal profession, including court bundling, integration with the MOJ Portal, and the secure electronic document production and delivery. The company, which was founded by CEO Tim Long, has won widespread acclaim in both the legal and local government sectors for its systems that transform secure communications for court and case management bundles. The bundling robot is the brainchild of Zylpha’s widely recognised Visualfiles Developer Andrew Gooding, in response to a customer enquiry from The London Borough of Lambeth. Gerard Kamath Business Manager of Legal Services for Lambeth had spotted an opportunity for a robotic approach, to assembling bundles in the background, that would not only save time but also allow Visualfiles users to progress with other matters simultaneously.
paginated PDF bundle; whilst enabling users to work away on other issues in the meantime. “In response, Andrew and the Zylpha team have developed a bespoke bundling robot. This can produce the bundle on a different machine rather than the specific end user’s pc, which remains unaffected. The bundle robot also places the completed bundle back into the client matter and schedules a task in the users to do list. “We are absolutely delighted with the Zylpha bundling robot for Visualfiles. It is such a fantastic piece of development and greatly appreciated by the legal team here at The London Borough of Lambeth.”
For his part Andrew Gooding welcomed Gerard’s comments, adding: ‘The team Gerard heads up is incredibly innovative and far sighted. So when he posed the robot question, we naturally jumped at fulfilling this opportunity. As a product of the long-standing relationship between Zylpha and The London Borough of Lambeth we have been able to create an agile and easy to use enhancement that is available to any of our clients that have the Visualfiles integrated version of our bundle software. This is a real step forwards and we expect demand to be extremely high.” Leigh Richards The Right Image 0844 561 7586 / 07758 372527 leigh.richards@therightimage.co.uk www.therightimage.co.uk
The new robot enables high-speed background bundling automation within Visualfiles, whilst allowing the system’s users to carry on with other pressing matters simultaneously. This saves the user a significant amount of time, whilst dramatically expanding the system’s capacity. Commenting on the new system Gerard noted: “Zylpha’s electronic document bundling solution had already greatly improved our document bundling process significantly. However, I could see enormous benefits if Zylpha could engineer a solution that allows for both the rapid automation of creating the final indexed and
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SECURITY
OSIRIUM MAPS OUT ITS NEW TECHNOLOGY Osirium Technologies, a UK-based cyber-security software provider that protects critical IT assets from cyber-attacks directed at Privileged Accounts, has recently announced the immediate availability of its new Management Application Proxy Server (MAPS). An industry-first approach, MAPS has been designed in response to rising demand for a solution that reduces the management complexities associated with using legacy management tools for legacy software.
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he new MAPS technology essentially enables SysAdmins (system administrators) to simply select the platform or application they need to manage, leaving Osirium to determine which version of the management tool they need and then project its window to their workstation. Osirium then also delivers single sign on using either known, personalised or mapped accounts. Credentials never enter the workstation environment and therefore stay secure, ensuring digital hygiene is maintained even in the case of third party access. The critical issue facing businesses without the MAPS technology in place is that SysAdmins are then forced to work across different versions of management tools, or install specific versions on Jump Boxes and then access those. This is resource intensive, and a security risk, because Jump Boxes are only accessible via a dedicated desktop, which is often shared by team members and so leads to privileged access management problems. In addition to the enhanced level of security, the Osirium solution also retains the ability to know who accessed the network, where, when and did what, which strengthens compliance and auditing capabilities. With Osirium identifying each user it means they arrive as an identity and leave as a role, whether that role maps to a shared administrator account, a personalised account, or a privileged version of a normal account.
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“The best way to describe our MAPS technology is to say it is like a Jump Box on steroids,” said Kev Pearce, CTO at Osirium. “By delivering a central management application that works in this way we also reduce compatibility and dependency issues which is another significant benefit for those businesses experiencing cost or resource pressures. Osirium can now containerise management applications and removes the administration headache typically associated with running legacy machines.” Also accessible by third parties and outsourcers, Osirium’s profile scheme records when systems are added with a defined access role, and time windows can be defined by a profile enable/disable condition. These profiles can then be added, or deleted, as required, guaranteeing that the access is granted and revoked in real time.
This new product launch closely follows Osirium’s recently announced contract win with a leading global asset management company which has over £300 billion of assets under management and offices in c.30 countries. The contract is expected to deliver a material financial contribution in the current year and will run over a three-year term. It is, to date, the largest single contract negotiated in the Group's history. Clare Shephard Maillot Jaune Communications Tel: 07736 793332 Email: clare.shephard@maillot-jaune.co.uk
SECURITY
POSITIVE TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH CONFIRMS ALL SS7 CELLULAR NETWORKS TESTED FOUND EXPLOITABLE Operators urged to employ additional security measures to better address these threats with SS7 security a priority to building a global cellular defence.
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esearch published on 23rd August by Positive Technologies reveals that all the Signalling System No.7 (SS7) cellular networks it tested could be exploited, turning a mobile phone into an open book. With access to SS7 and a victim’s phone number, an attacker can listen to a conversation, pinpoint a person’s location, intercept short message service (SMS) messages (allowing access to third party services – such as bank and social media accounts), impersonate a user to send texts and make phone calls from the user’s mobile number, plus a number of other attacks. This problem is not just a consumer one as the mobile operators are also in a position of losing multi millions of dollars through fraud and operational issues as well as the risk of the impact on their brand and reputation. The techniques can be used by intelligence services and also hackers. Alex Mathews, Technical Manager EMEA, of Positive Technologies explains, “as our research shows the SS7 system is riddled with security vulnerabilities. While many will argue that this does not pose a risk to subscribers or operators, as it is a closed system with access restricted, that simply is no longer true. “Originally created in the 1970s, the network was designed to interconnect fixed telephony. Over the years it has evolved in both size and supported protocols encompassing not only fixed telephony, but also facilitate GSM/3G/LTE communications offered by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and extended to value added service providers (MVNOs) plus IPBX services. Today it allows the use of IP networks to transfer signalling messages and, with this innovation, the network stopped being isolated. We all need to wake up to the realisation that SS7 exploits can turn a cell phone into an open book, allowing an attacker to read SMS
messages, locate where a handset is, eavesdrop and even record conversations. “Our research has also identified that hackers could compromise an operator’s network to perform a massive denial of service attack, affecting its entire network and preventing it from providing any and all of its services to users. Perhaps of greater concern is that our research indicates the problems aren’t limited to SS7, with these legacy flaws also present in newer 4G networks, plus new vulnerabilities may have been introduced. “Mobile communications cannot be allowed to remain vulnerable. People and industries will continue to use and depend on these communication networks and we all need to work together to find a way to make these networks robust and secure, to stop exacerbating the problem in the future.” Recognising the risks of SS7 manipulation the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST- the US federal technology agency that works with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements, and standards) is no longer recommending two-factor authentication systems that use SMS. In the latest draft of its Digital Authentication Guideline it advised that: "Out of band authentication using SMS is deprecated, and will no longer be allowed in future releases of this guidance." Positive Technologies’ security analysis examined the SS7 networks of various operators ranging in subscriber base from sub 10 million and in to the 10’s of millions of subscribers and found all were exploitable. With multiple SS7 vulnerabilities and equipment configuration errors, these flaws offer a wide surface for a potential attack. Its analysis showed that each and every SS7 network tested
was susceptible to multiple attacks (nine on average). Many had more than three vulnerabilities that could be exploited due to an inability to check whether a subscriber belonged to a particular network. In most cases these flaws are actually critical to the systems functionality. As expected, small mobile operators were less protected against outsider threats. However, even the leading cellular carriers were unable to provide a sufficient level of security, and the percentage of successful attacks was significant in all cases. The study found that 80% of DoS attacks, 77% of leakage attacks, and 67% of fraudulent actions were successful. Mr Mathews concludes, “obtaining access to the SS7 network is relatively easy. For example, an attacker can purchase access through the black market for several thousand dollars or even obtain an operator’s license in countries with lax laws. A rogue engineer, that works within an operator, may abuse their access to SS7 connections- typically via a laptop with specialist software installed or perhaps a raspberry PI device. In order to reduce risk, operators must employ a global approach to SS7 protection. At a minimum this means conducting regular security audits of the signalling network and developing appropriate measures to mitigate risk based on vulnerabilities as they evolve. Just as users expect their voice calls to be clear and their internet connection reliable, their communications should also be secure as standard.” Dulcie McLerie/Elizabeth Nikolova SmileOnFridays Email: ptsecurity@smileonfridays.com Tel: +44 (0)207 1 832 837 www.ptsecurity.com
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SECURITY
YANDEX BROWSER BOLSTERS SECURITY WITH MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHM AND AD-BLOCKING FEATURES Yandex, a leading mobile and internet search provider, has introduced a new, enhanced protection against data theft for Yandex Browser users. The browser’s built-in comprehensive internet security technology, Protect, will detect if a website is unsafe and will immediately warn internet users about the risks of entering bank card information.
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andex provides user-centric products and services based on the latest innovations in information retrieval, machine learning and artificial intelligence research to a worldwide customer audience. This latest news follows the company’s previous announcement of the launch of a user-complaint button as an alternative to ad blocking software, highlighting the company’s continued stance towards addressing the imbalance between user and advertiser interests by putting users in control of ads they want to see by enabling them to automatically filter out ‘malicious’ advertisements. With this new development, Yandex lend further credentials to their user-centric focus by aiming to protect them not only from frustrating advert content, but the far more serious danger posed by data theft. They hope to achieve a golden mean between the interests of publishers and users, which has thus far been an admittedly elusive target. Yandex Browser automatically assesses the safety of a website the moment the internet user enters information similar to that of a bank card number. Yandex will immediately issue a warning to the user about the danger to prevent the malicious website from stealing the user’s bank or card details. The browser utilises Yandex’s pioneering machine learning algorithm to trawl through millions of safe and malicious pages and learns to tell them apart in order to warn the user about a fraudulent website. The algorithm takes into consideration hundreds
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of factors, including the authenticity of a website’s security certificate and when the website was created, before assessing the authenticity of the bank’s URL address. For additional peace of mind users can manually discover the exact details of any third party payment system which might support a website by simply clicking a button in the browser. Victor Karpov, Head of Security at Yandex Browser, said: “Bank card protection is the most recent step in Yandex’s continued efforts to make the internet as safe a place for its users as possible. Global ecommerce is expected to reach around $1,506 billion by 2018, and as the role and influence of ecommerce evolves, big steps need to be taken to ensure that online users around the world can shop online with confidence. We believe that machine learning marks a huge step forward in the fight against personal data theft, and the distribution of malicious code. Our goal is to use the power of artificial intelligence to give ordinary web users peace of mind about the authenticity of a website where they’re disclosing bank details.” For additional security Yandex Browser automatically switches to protected mode, which uses more stringent requirements for SSL certificates and disables all extensions to safe-guard personal data as soon as a user logs into any online banking website.
In addition to enhanced shopping and banking security, Yandex Browser offers built-in automatic antivirus and malware software, data protection on public WiFi networks, password theft prevention, and warns users about signing up to unwanted subscriptions. The latest version of Yandex Browser for Android alpha version can be downloaded for free through Google Play. The Browser comes in versions for desktop computers, iPad, iPhone, Android smartphones and tablets. Its daily user audience on mobile was about five million in July 2016. Yandex’s Browser is the most popular unbundled mobile browser in Russia, according to LiveInternet.ru. Rebecca Ramchandani Account Executive, Atomic 020 3861 3847 / 07983571280 Holborn Gate, 26 Southampton Buildings, London WC2A 1PN www.atomicpr.co.uk
SECURITY
Our goal is to use the power of artificial intelligence to give ordinary web users peace of mind about the authenticity of a website where they’re disclosing bank details.�
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SOFTWARE
1608RB02
ESTABLISHING ACCOUNTABILITY AND SECURITY VigiTrust is a GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) software provider specializing in Cloud-based security compliance portals, providing education and awareness training, online security assessments and testing based on the VigiTrust Five Pillars of Security Framework©. VigiTrust clients span more than 90 countries in hospitality, transportation, healthcare, financial services, retail and government sectors.
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igiTrust’s target clients are large distributed organizations with multiple locations, multiple currencies who are multi-lingual with many card present transactions or many transactions with customer data (insurance, healthcare, hospitality, telecommunications etc.). It looks for companies where compliance is crucial, Cyber Security is a concern and who have a PCI Program Manager. VigiTrust has been especially dominant within the hospitality industry and is helping large hotel groups to achieve and maintain compliance across multiple countries and in multiple languages. VigiTrust’s flagship solution, Merchant Compliance Portal (MCP), is a midmarket solution aimed at merchant aggregators such as franchisors, acquiring banks, chains and trade associations. This is complemented by a Fraud Management and Security incident module, which allows aggregators to securely collect relevant data to understand the correlation between security levels, compliance status and fraud/incident levels. In this fast-paced, changeable environment and, of course, with the growth of technology as a whole, regulations and standards are updated, amended and implemented on a regular basis. So far this year we have seen the introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as the publishing of PCI DSS 3.2. which will both have a notable effect on compliance strategies across the board.
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The main areas of change for organizations from a GDPR perspective will be in Data Breach Notification, the role of the Data Processors, the much discussed sanctions that are to be imposed, the appointment of Data Protection Officers and the ‘Right to be Forgotten’. In order to move towards compliance for many of these obligations, organizations will need to put in place clear policies and procedures around data security breaches, establish a framework for accountability, embrace privacy by design, analyse on a legal basis the use of personal data – especially in cross-border data transfers – and ensure that your privacy notices and policies are transparent and easily accessible. The hospitality industry faces very specific challenges as it has a lot of data to process and manage. Hotels collect and store credit card data, personal data and even health information. VigiTrust has fully understand this complex mix of data security and compliance mandates and has helped the hospitality industry to effectively manage their security.
SOFTWARE
A Guide to Cybersecurity - Vigitrust
Company: VigiTrust Ltd Email: Mathieu.gorge@ vigitrust.com Phone: 00 353 1 453 9143 Web Address: vigitrust.com Address: 130 Cunningham house, Francis Street, Dublin 8, Ireland
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SOFTWARE
A COMMITMENT TO INTEGRITY DCG Software Value has been helping its clients identify, measure and improve the value delivered by their software development organization since 1994. Its mission is to make software value visible for its clients, which the firm fulfils on an international level, operating from offices in the U.S. and the U.K. Michael Harris, the company CEO, reflects on his achievements in establishing DCG as a trusted and well-respected firm in the industry.
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ichael stresses with pride that he did not take the traditional career path; rather than ascribe to the old concept of a career as a series of planned progressions, his resume boasts a plethora of different, challenging and interesting experiences throughout his career thus far. “My first degree was in electronic engineering from the University of Southampton in the U.K. and I was fortunate indeed to have Plessey, who made radio systems for the U.K. military and export, as my sponsor,” he begins. “As a part of my training during my gap year and university holidays, I worked in a number of departments at Plessey and learned to get on with many different types of people. “When I graduated, my first job at Plessey was running an automated production line with about a dozen operators, involving management and new technology, which was quite a challenge. My subsequent jobs included working in mobile radio R&D and spectrum management for the U.K. government – during which time I became a Chartered Engineer, chip card research at Barclaycard, and deputy head of the Engineering School at Nene College.” It was during his time at Nene that Michael took his Master’s degree in computer-aided engineering. It was also at Nene that he was invited by a German chip card company to leverage his experience in chip card research at Barclaycard in a consulting contract for MasterCard in New York. Michael reflects on the staggering fortune: a short consulting contract had led to an offer of more permanent work in New York. Michael moved his family to Philadelphia, and eventually became the SVP of Global Chip Card for MasterCard. As he describes, it wasn’t long before he set his sights even higher still. “Since the MasterCard role was global, and I was spending a lot of time away from home, I looked for a job nearer to
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home. I took on the role to reorganize and lead the software development group for a banking software product provider, Sanchez Computer Associates.” “When I began working for Sanchez, we had about 40 active clients, but only a couple would give us references because our delivered quality was poor. I needed not just to fix the quality issue, but fix it demonstrably, so I decided to seek CMMi Level 3, a recognized software process quality standard. The owners of DCG at that time won the RFP to help my team at Sanchez with that project and we succeeded after 15 months.” Some years later, in 2006, after helping Sanchez transition through an acquisition by FIS, Michael found that he was in the right place at the right time to buy DCG. “I was a client before I bought the company,” he regales, “so I knew the founders pretty well. In fact, they invited me to join their Advisory Board, but the only meeting I attended was about how to sell the company so they could retire. As one of their clients, I had first-hand knowledge of the value their services offered so I knew it would be a good business venture for me to step into. That drove my decision to buy the company and we’ve been helping our clients maximize the value from their software development initiatives ever since.”
“For example, I hate having to tell people that the financial circumstances of the company mean that we have to let them go. This experience has taught me to be constantly mindful that a company is about more than just making money for me, but it’s about keeping as many people as possible in jobs. It has helped me to be focused and ruthless about managing the finances. “My overriding principle is to ‘do as you would be done by’. I have managed people since I left university, and the first lesson I learned was that most experienced people know more about their job than I could ever know. The key is to create an environment in which they want to do their job as well as they can and tell you when they are running into problems. It’s a constant challenge and I don’t always get it right.” One particular ongoing challenge that Michael readily acknowledges is the persistent evolution of technology in his line of work, and the need to keep on top of its ever-progressing curve. “It has been essential for me throughout my career to keep up to date with technological advances; it was a key part of my early post-university training at Plessey and in the Home Office.
“Today, I am the CEO of a relatively small company, so my duties range from ensuring that our strategy is appropriate for survival and growth through to checking that everyone is doing the best job we can for our clients to being the last one out of whichever of our offices I am in that particular day.”
“To supplement my understanding of technology and its application in my line of work, I have been a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) from the age of 18, and I still read their journals every month. I am also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and read their publications frequently, as well as some more specific articles on the Internet and in other journals, to keep my general knowledge up.”
Citing his source of inspiration, Michael uncovers a love of problem solving. “The biggest challenges have come when a problem does not have a win-win solution,” he explains. “Fortunately, these scenarios are rare, but they do happen and they usually involve people.
Armed with this knowledge, Michael is able and willing to disseminate information to the wider industry: “I do webinars, I speak at conferences, and I write articles and books – I am currently working on a new book called The Business Value of Software, due to be published in 2017.
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“One of my most prominent means of contributing is through a monthly publication from DCG that I help to edit. The series is called DCG Trusted Advisor, and while it is free to read for all, a small group of ‘subscribers’ help us by adding industry questions to our website and then voting on one particular question to be researched each month. One member of the DCG team writes a first draft which is then edited by the rest of the team before publication at the end of the month. We have been doing this for over three years now and it seems to have a good following. “I would also say that it’s easier to keep up with market trends than it is to be familiar with everything new in the market. For example, I am continuously aware of the development and increasing capabilities of smartphones without being intimately familiar with all the latest versions of all the various brands.” As an early adopter of Agile software development, Michael has become a great believer in the Lean Start-up approach to innovation. “I believe in creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), testing it on the market and learning from the results to improve the MVP or kill it. The business model, the amount to be invested to get an MVP and the ease with which the MVP can be tested, are all essential components to the process of investing in new ideas.” In recent years, Michael has shifted the focus of the firm from generally helping its clients to improve their software development, towards a much stronger imperative based around improving the delivery of value from software development. “This is in part a recognition of what has made us successful over the years and partly a personal mission to get software developers to prioritize the flow of business value through software development.”
Company: DCG Software Value Name: Michael Harris Email: M.harris@softwarevalue.com Web Address: www.softwarevalue.com Address: 270 W Lancaster Ave, Suite B-2, Malvern, PA 19301 USA / 17 Winslow Court, Cullercoats, Tyne & Wear, NE30 4AE, England
As a final remark, Michael adds, “I’d like to take this opportunity to challenge readers to identify how much business value they delivered this year through their software development. They should be able to measure it and have strategies and tactics in place to maximize it. It will help them be viewed as a value centre, rather than a cost centre, by the business units they support and by the executive management of their organization. That’s an important factor during budget cycles.” Stressing the importance of thoughtfulness and a willingness to indulge in controlled experiments on the business, Michael’s first ten years at the head of DCG Software Value have provided a solid platform from which to continue building the firm, and strive for a vision in which the value of every software initiative is visible to his clients’ businesses.
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CLEARWATER INTERNATIONAL ADVISES TOTALSOFT SHAREHOLDERS ON CROSS-BORDER SALE TO LOGO SOFTWARE INVESTMENT SA Clearwater International has advised Greek private equity house Global Finance, the majority shareholder of TotalSoft, in addition to other shareholders, on its sale to Logo Software Investment S.A. (Logo) – a 100% subsidiary of Logo Yazılım Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. Logo has acquired 100% of TotalSoft shares for an enterprise value of €30m.
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learwater International focuses on providing corporate finance advice for mid-market transactions including M&A, private equity, debt advisory and restructuring services. The business has completed over 1,200 transactions worth an aggregate value of €46bn. Ten integrated international sector teams covering automotive, business services, consumer, energy and utilities, financial services, food and beverage, healthcare, industrials and chemicals, real estate and TMT, as well as our debt advisory, private equity and special situation specialists provide in-depth knowledge and industry experience to every project. The business has 15 offices, 42 partners and more than 200 staff across Europe, North America and Asia. According to market reports, the Romanian enterprise application software (EAS) market is expected to grow significantly over the next 5 years. TotalSoft is a leading player in this market and is one of the few companies offering endto-end services. TotalSoft reported a revenue of over €20m in 2015 and its international sales made up 23% of the overall total. In 2016 the EBITDA is expected to reach in excess of €4m. The acquisition of TotalSoft offers many synergies to Logo. It will enable Logo’s growth in international markets, and help it gain a competitive position in specialised vertical markets such as finance, leasing, medical and agriculture, as well as providing an opportunity to tap into the highly qualified R&D pool of
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Romania and to transfer Logo’s SME know how into Romania. The Clearwater team was led by Partner and head of TMT Carl Houghton, supported by Director Karen Edwards, Emma Rodgers, Director of TMT Intelligence and Senior Associate Richard Ellis. George Kourtis, Partner, Global Finance added, “the successful exit from TotalSoft showcases our commitment to value appreciation through growth of sales, new product and services development and regional expansion. We assisted TotalSoft’s strong management team to focus on the Charisma product suite and excel in selective vertical markets with high potential for success internationally. Despite the financial crisis, TotalSoft grew over 50% in sales since 2010 and continued to develop innovative applications for its corporate clients.” Carl Houghton, Partner, Clearwater International said, “this deal was all about international ambition. A Romanian IP owner with Greek investors, already driving revenues into wider CEE and the DACH and a high quality and ambitious listed Turkish buyer extending its footprint in CEE brought to the table by a pan-European advisory firm. We’re delighted to be part of such a European success story.” Lily Brock, Clearwater International, 0845 034 4776.
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RED EVOLUTION TO MOVE INTO MI-HUB Web developers and those in the lead generation business are sometimes accused of not reading the platforms they have created. This is certainly not the case for business owner David Robinson from Red Evolution. Not only did he develop Share My Office, but he spotted a new co-working space called mi-HUB in Whitechapel, London, set up by Rafael dos Santos.
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i-HUB is located in Batty Street near Aldgate East Underground Station and provides the necessary training to migrants to run a successful company as well as offering an exciting Migrant Business Accelerator programme, giving migrants the best start. Rafael dos Santos was born in 1981 and is a Brazilian-British multi-award winning entrepreneur who has lived in London since 2002. In 2015 Rafael decided to support migrant entrepreneurs in their quest to start and grow their businesses.
A leading generation expert, David explains, “we’re pretty diverse for a small business. The revenue comes from helping other businesses generate leads from their website. However, we also develop our own projects.” The web developers at Red Evolution created sites such as Share My Office, the platform on which Red Evolution and mi-HUB were introduced, and Alertise, a strategic planning Software as a Service (SaaS) product.
The business works with a large IT support company and a car finance business in London. Red Evolution currently services a wide range of clients including an exhibition stand specialist, an environmental charity and a professional broadcasting organisation. David Robinson’s advice to small business owners is to outsource non-core activities for example, having a good accountant. He describes this as, “things that will consume your time and especially things you’re not likely to be good at”.
Founder of mi-HUB, entrepreneur Rafael dos Santos said: “I am absolutely delighted! It makes me smile that our first new tenant who has responded to our marketing drive lives in Scotland.” David Robinson, who lives in Aboyne, North East Scotland, is looking to expand his business. He chose mi-HUB because he is a fairly new entrant into the London market and believes it would be good to enjoy the journey with like-minded people. David founded Red Evolution in 2003 when he left Fifth Ring, a marketing communications agency. He hired his first employee in 2006 and has grown Red Evolution organically from there. He bridges the gap between the technical and the nontechnical people and loves helping them "get" the web to do more business using it. Red Evolution has a flexible package with the new business hub of which different team members will be able to use the facilities. Their ideal clients are businesses who are confused about the web and believe that they could do more with it.
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2016 CTO OF THE YEAR - UK With over 25 years’ experience, Collinson Group is a global leader in shaping and influencing customer behaviour to drive revenue and add value for their clients. Employing over 2,000 talented individuals across 25 global locations, and managing over 20 million end customers in 170 countries, they have more than 800 clients, including MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and British Airways. Leading the charge on providing pioneering technological solutions is CIO, Chris Lord.
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hris’ impact upon the customer technology industry has been going from strength to strength ever since his first foray into data analysis as an interest-rate trader. At Thomson Reuters, he was responsible for covering the full range of hardware & software support, QA and development. Chris eventually made his way to the CTO position at Dunnhumby, the developers of the ground- breaking Tesco Clubcard. The technology platforms that he implemented helped Dunnhumby to deliver an analytics system which mined information on over 250m baskets from 400m households globally each week, to deliver valuable insights in consumer loyalty behaviour and spending patterns. Year upon year, this reaped a 15 per cent revenue growth. Chris also draws attention to his key role of defining and implemented a joint SOA and Enterprise App Store strategy. This was designed to support development of solutions by client-facing staff, and generated incremental revenues of over £10 million, and led him to implement a top-down restructuring of the company’s 300-person global team. Speaking of his progression during this time, Chris displays an unwavering sense of passion for his work. Since he first attended Bristol University to read Geology and Geophysics and discovered his interest in computers, he gives no indication that he has ever had cause to look back. “My career development has been driven by my desire to work within companies that place technology at the centre of a customer driven model, making it a function that is aligned to and influential on the customer agenda, and where technology is seen as a differentiator to achieve success. “I have aspired to run the full breadth of a technology function for many years, particularly for a company with a strong global structure, and I am doing just that here at Collinson Group.”
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18 months on, since first taking on the task of leading Collinson Groups’s 200 technologists in eight offices, Chris has taken naturally to the helm, and cites his main focus as “bringing all our global technology assets together to create services that deliver superior digital experiences to fast moving mobile customers. “My strategy is to balance innovation and efficiency and to grow a team that can anticipate demand and new ideas. My role is key in defining and driving the strategy to partner with nimble specialists and start-ups in the FinTech and Travel space to achieve speed to market and further extend our impact.”
“I really believe that the key is passion about the power of technology. My ethos is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, where the collective team can be a powerful force in driving innovation, given one condition – a clear sense of company vision and desired outcomes. More prosaically, my background in Project Management has honed my ability to identify a problem before it becomes an issue.” Working at a number of notable companies has certainly given Chris the range of experience and skills to build dynamic and pragmatic solutions, but he also acknowledges the efforts of his team in giving him something to work towards. “I have a great team and that motivates me, because I can tap into their enthusiasm if I start to flag. I take great pride in our collective success and desire to build excellence.” As a CTO, with hundreds of employees under his wing,
and looking to his technical expertise and technological vision for the company, Chris upholds a robust set of values when it comes to managing his staff. “I believe in multi-faceted teams with diverse and complementary personalities and strengths and an open collaborative approach towards decision-making and problem solving. This leads to faster and better solutions to opportunities and issues, and also helps to foster a supportive and innovative company culture.” Chris’ emphasis on team dynamics and a collaborative, open company culture derives from his own previous experiences. He expands upon the challenges associated with this aspect, as well as his own methods of resolving them. “I have seen projects and programmes under-deliver or even fail when teams lost the cohesive view of their contribution or when poor leadership did not embrace the inevitable nature of change that is implicit to technology. Behind technology is the human resource that drives it, and it is people that make the biggest impact on successful technological development, implementation and support. So, ultimately, providing a clear vision and supporting reward structures – that exist to connect the key actions and deliverables to that vision – is critical to success. “When I started at Collinson Group, I had the opportunity to create my leadership team to optimize the talent within the business at the time, as well as adopt a longer-term approach to bringing in specialist skills for our growth ambitions. Separating the Supply and Demand functions has enabled us to build teams to better serve our internal and external stakeholders and clients along with supporting personal development goals. Being a truly global enterprise means that people with different backgrounds and approaches are thrown together and I like that diversity and the challenge management have in maintaining the cohesiveness of an expanding global team.
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“Furthermore, I believe in personal integrity - openness and transparency are very important to me and honesty is key. I encourage an environment where anyone can be recognized for a good idea and where colleagues respect each other. Mostly I see success when goals are clearly defined and owned. Therefore, I like to ‘trust and verify’ with high-impact projects as I believe that it gives a great balance between allowing people to grow and making sure that surprises are generally contained.” Collinson Group prides itself on being a very entrepreneurial company, with deep connections to the Travel and FinTech markets due to the different capabilities it provides; that way, Chris and his team get to leverage that entrepreneurial spirit and those connections. In this sense, it is easy to reconcile how Collinson Group has been so successful in delivering seamless experiences for end-users, helping their B-2-B clients grow in the process. Indeed, to Chris, technology is no longer just about technology. Now, and in the future, it is about driving business growth. “To me, it is about harnessing data and digital to anticipate customer expectations and deliver superior experiences. Technology helps business to stay ahead of rapidly evolving customer expectations, anticipating and influencing them. Exploiting technology to create a world where people feel empowered is close to my heart.” Needless to say, this earnest drive to take advantage of new technologies places Chris, and Collinson Group, on the vanguard of innovation. The ability to aptly predict new trends in the market is another facet to this job that adds a significant continuous learning curve, but it is one that Chris is not intending to shy away from. “It is always very important to keep up with new trends but it has become critical in the new world of start-ups as they create and leverage new technologies in interesting ways – effectively creating an enormous ecosystem of test and learn. Keeping up to date on industry and tech trends is one thing, and is best achieved through leveraging the excellent events available and by networking. However, it is becoming more important to connect with start-ups and scale-ups directly, as it is increasingly vital to look outside
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your own company. In these days of hyper-connection, the greatest new ideas seem to come from connecting and enriching one set of data with another.” This open approach to innovation has enabled the Collinson Group to remain at the forefront of the provision of products and services that enhance the relationship brands can have with their customers. We hear more and more frequently about customer data breaches, phishing scams and online fraud – the global threat of ID theft is growing – last year alone over 707 million records were leaked. Given the noted increase in reported fraud crimes in national statistics, suggesting ways of protecting the identities of customers represents just one of Collinson Groups’ latest creative solutions to address changing market dynamics. Whether discussing the need for a shift in brand-customer relationship as loyalty programmes evolve to deliver more personalised and tailored rewards and benefits, or exploring ways of overcoming apathy and establishing trust in banking, technology is instrumental to delivering the seamless digital experiences customers are demanding. Chris embraces the opportunity to develop platforms that address these demands and support brands to motivate the right behaviour from their valued customers. As a result of their prophesying view of technology and inventive solutions, Collinson Group is growing enormously, at a rate of over 20% year on year; as it does so, it continues to acquire companies that complement its own core capabilities and expertise, whilst also working more with start-ups. Chris is tremendously excited to see what Collinson Group will look like in 5 years’ time.
“I am certain that my role will evolve in that time too, giving me a chance to continue to grow with a great global company. If I can find the time, I would like to explore Advisory and NonExecutive Director roles so that I can both extend my range of impact into new companies and markets and also bring that experience back into the Collinson Group.”
Company: Collinson Group Email: info@collinsongroup.com Phone: 0203 715 0161 Web Address: www.collinsongroup.com Address: Cutlers Exchange, 123 Houndsditch, London, EC3A 7BU
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2016 CTO OF THE YEAR - CANADA & SCIENCE AND ENERGY Kam Biotechnology, Ltd. is a Canadian corporation, and one of the largest producers of biochemical products for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and environmental applications. Now in its 36th year, it is well known in the production of biological additives, cell culture, hyaluronic acid, enzymes and co-enzymes as a catalyst for the production of high performance biochemical formulations. It is also the brainchild and domain of CTO Professor Mongi Ferchici, whose management skills, ability to motivate his researchers and willingness to provide them with the necessary tools and scientific guidance, have been instrumental to the company achieving their objectives.
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aving received his PhD from Stanford University in Molecular Biology in 1978, and then a Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1979, he is the author and co-author of 24 patents and over 124 scientific publications related to a number of cutting-edge areas within the field of biochemistry. A brief selection of the topics with publications bearing Ferchichi’s name related to them are as follows: production of biohydrogen from biomass; production of bioethanol from agri-waste; production of hyaluronic acid through biotechnology; enhanced microbiol recovery of gold and oil. Professor Ferchichi is also the Chairman of the Scientific Board of KAM Biotechnology, Ltd. Canada, in their headquarters in Vancouver – he has held this position for the last 25 years. What’s more, he is in charge of 38 doctors in the R&D centre, and heads up the projects carried out by the Technical Department across the globe. Professor Mongi Ferchichi started his professional career in 1990 as Vice President Technical and CTO with British Petroleum (BP) in Canada. In 1992, he was promoted to the position of Chief Technical Officer with authority over BP’s global research department. During this time, KAM Biotechnology, Ltd., first emerged as a research and development-oriented company, in 1981. Initially focussing down a path of bioremediation and biological additives, Professor Ferchichi set off with a mission to lead the market in developing and commercialising ecologically sound products and technologies. In January 1996, he was appointed as CTO of KAM Biotechnology, and the company has since expanded to the stage where it is now manufacturing a variety of ecologically-sound, biochemical cleaners, degreasers, and biosolvents.
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These products have been used in a wide spectrum of industries as a means of minimizing atmospheric emissions, controlling the production of waste, and ensuring clean operations. Use of KAM products, Professor Ferchichi boasts, allows companies to stay competitive whilst still living up to their environmental responsibilities.
To accomplish this, Professor Ferchichi gains valuable insights into the industry by attending seminars, reading about new development, and conducting experiments to improve the existent products. All of these are important factors in his drive to continue innovating. In his words, “studying the need of the market is vital in our business.”
As his company has continued to grow in the years since, so too has Professor Ferchichi’s profile. He has been privileged to be a visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Seoul National University and Malaysia Medical College. In 2004 he was retained by Med Cell Clinic as head of Stem Cells treatment department, whilst continuing his challenges with Kam Biotechnology.
“Innovation is a big factor in order to keep our rank in the Biotechnology arena. We always keep in touch with the market to identify the need of new and innovative products to keep up with the evolution of the technology.”
Throughout his time with KAM Biotechnology, Professor Ferchichi has come to solid conclusions about his place as a significant contributor to such a prestigious, fast-paced industry.
“There is no end in the scientific arena,” he says. “We have had to keep up with the evolution in the biotechnology field, and every day we are learning about something new in our field. Such new developments create new challenges for us. I, however, am always looking for new invention and new challenges to achieve my goal and materialize my dream.”
Even after having built his career and company from the ground up, overseeing major accomplishments across an array of high-profile organisations over the last 26 years, Professor Ferchichi shows no signs of slowing in his ambitions. “I want to see Kam Biotechnology in the Fortune 500,” he proposes. “In five years, I will be focussing the development of the new generation of bio-products based around nano-biotechnology. “Now, we know that spring is not automatic,” he concludes. “Now, we know that the responsibility is ours to restore and maintain the health of the biosphere.” KAM Biotechnology are in good stead to further develop new game-changing ways to employ biotechnology.
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Company: KAM Biotechnology Email: mferchichi@ kambiotechnology.com Phone: +1-604.888.4336 Web Address: www.kambiotechnology.com Address: #101-9710-187th St., Surrey, B.C. V4N 3N6 Canada
2016 CTO of the Year - Canada
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A PASSION FOR THE PAST Located in Devon in the South of England, Alive Studios have consolidated a position as a highly professional studio dedicated to film scanning and image processing, specialising in the transfer and restoration of old film and images. Having worked for museums, TV companies, documentary makers, archive facilities, historians and members of the general public, Alive Studios form a crucial juncture between the old and the new through their work.
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live Studios’ client base serves as a true reflect of the importance of their work. The 20th century was a transformative time whose story is told across millions of miles of reels, and Alive Studios have emerged at the forefront of the endeavour to preserve these works, so that future generations can easily access digital versions of old footage and recount the lives of their grandparents or great-grandparents. Alive Studios came into being in 1996 under Steven and Jennie Flowers, born out of their interest in film-making and experience from the computer gaming industry. During the transformative early ‘Noughties’, with the Internet booming, the Apple Macintosh platform opening new graphical doors, and the Phoenix System offering the first true frame-toframe scan of 8mm film – the next three years saw the launch of the 16mm and 9.5mm models. The dawn of High Definition saw yet more innovation as Alive Studios were the first company to offer cine film in true HD to the UK - and were so taken back with the results, they abandoned all Standard Definition technology in 2012, to concentrate solely on HD. As well as working with companies such Thomas Cook, the Co-Op and Shell on transferring advertisements from 16mm cine film dating back to the 1960s, Alive Studios regard themselves as privileged to have received the custom of the Austrian Royal Family, having restored and transferred archives of cine film, camcorder tapes and videos. One of their most prominent projects saw Alive Studios team up with the Imperial War Museum, to transfer old archive cine reels into high definition, allowing these historic images to be exhibited to the public as well as loaned out to documentary makers. Today, while Alive Studios has a number of successful business-to-business projects under its belt, their most
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faithful customer remains families with old archives of footage. As new technology is continually outdating predigital formats, Alive Studios fills a crucial role in allowing people to relive their old family memories, through their reels of VHS, Betamax and Super 8 Ciné film.
and fire alarm systems with quality control procedures and security measures, on-site meetings are available by prior arrangement only, as the studios are not open to the general public – such is the care afforded to the film reels stored inside.
Not only that, but Alive Studios also caters to those that want to preserve old slides. Using a high-end, low-noise 3-line CCD sensor, built specifically for 35mm slides, Alive Studios is capable of achieving full high resolution scans in JPEG format – the vertical scanner scans each slide four times at alternating angles to achieve the best possible image. These digital versions are then supplied on a USB memory stick, so that clients can print and share as they choose.
Providing such peace of mind is central to the Alive Studios vision.
The last 12 months alone have seen Alive Studios expand their range of services, allowing them to touch the lives and memories of their customers, and restore more formats to higher-quality digital formats; they now offer 4K Ultra HD scans for 8mm, 9.5mm, 16mm, Super 8, and Super 16 film. Looking to the near future, the company aims to introduce reel-to-reel video helical scanning in HD expand their Karishma Cloud service to Apple TV.
Jennie Flowers comments.
Their online service bears testimony to the effects of their work, with clients uploading footage from their old home videos for all to see. The Karishma Cloud service introduces a well-ordered management system for clients to organise and share their digital records at will, even streaming it through their TV. Doubtless to say, the sensitive handling of these precious old filming formats is among the highest priorities for Alive Studios. Their impressive studios were chosen with the specific purpose in mind of bringing security to their work, ensuring the safety of their clients’ material. Using a stateof-the-art security system, incorporating monitored burglar
“We see family movies as a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, and the things you never want to lose,”
“We treat your films with the respect they deserve and carry out our work to the highest standard possible with today's technology. This is why we refuse to do cine film in Standard Definition.” Alive Studios certainly fill an important gap in the market. The sharp takeover of digital formats that has occurred in the last twenty years has meant that many high-street film production outlets are unable to provide the crisp, high-definition digital conversion services that modern, discerning customers are demanding. The practices adopted by Alive Studios eliminates the uncertainty about the process, beginning with free collection and delivery, allocated to a specific one-hour window, an approachable phone service, affordable prices, and a secure studio facility.
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Company: Alive Studios Email: admin@alivestudios. co.uk Phone: 0800 0830561 Web Address: www.alivestudios.co.uk Address: ALIVE STUDIOS, 21 Gilbert, Avenue, Teignmouth
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UTILIZING TALENT AND BOLSTERING RESEARCH Founded in 1982, Global Prior Art (GPA) is an IP research and analysis firm which is widely known by its trademark, ‘The Most Trusted Name in IP Research’. GPA is an established leader in the field of world-wide prior art searches, with a proven record of success in thousands of high stakes cases. Our combination of in-depth technical expertise, search approach, and intimate knowledge of the best sources for highly relevant art in each technical category is unrivalled.
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PA’s efforts include FTO, invalidity, licensing due diligence, patent portfolio (white space) analysis, and corporate innovation strategy. GPA's Engineering division comprises its Software & e-Commerce, Semiconductors & Electronics, Telecommunications & Networking, and Mechanical Engineering & Manufacturing Groups. In addition, GPA has strong expertise in the Life Sciences, including experts in Biotechnology, Chemistry & Pharma, and Medical Devices. We work with leading law firms, companies, and VCs in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Korea. As Managing Director, Bruce Rubinger oversees GPA’s Engineering Division comprised of the Electronics and Semiconductors Group, Telecommunications and Networking Group, Software & E-Commerce Group, and Mechanical Engineering & Consumer Products Group. “I created GPA in 1982,” he regales. “Before that, I was employed with Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, before then working for another large organization engaged in development of the Air Traffic Control System. “My thinking process was shaped by this experience, and I soon came to the realization that most companies do a very poor job of utilizing technically talented employees, and fail to provide a stable environment and the chance for employees to have impact. It was a very searing experience to witness massive layoffs at Hughes, which put many good people on the street since management failed to obtain a government contract. “In contrast, the company that I have built, GPA, is a very flat organization where the teams work in a collegial manner
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and everyone has the opportunity to interact with clients. It is also a very stable environment; we have never laid off staff in a downturn given the commitment to our staff.
complex, large IP space. More than 700 critical patents were identified as relevant and analysed based on 40 technology features and security options.
“I view running a company as balancing three obligations: an obligation to clients that they will receive strong support within the budget and timelines; an obligation to our staff that they will have a stable and nurturing environment; and the obligation of our staff to the company and clients.”
“Our overall mission is to be pioneers and thought leaders,” Bruce states, using his company’s impressive resume as evidence. GPA created the concept of accurate and actionable IP landscapes more than 20 years ago, and their systems and methods have continued to evolve over time.
Bruce’s team encompasses more than 60 full time specialists, including staff in Japan, Germany, Russia and China who cover critical art in their native language. “Our staff is the most critical asset of Global Prior Art,” he comments, “and they encompass technical and IP expertise, client management skills and vast institutional knowledge. The key to a successful business is: recruit strong performers; provide an environment where there is challenge and great satisfaction; nurture the continuing development of staff, and promote individual learning along with organizational learning.” Currently, Bruce is also leading an initiative to create several new IP services, which will be introduced this year. For instance, GPA will introduce a major new service this month addressing patents and security technologies associated with the Internet of Things (IoT). Clients developing products and services utilizing the Internet asked Bruce to create this service given the need to understand this
The third generation IP landscape software was introduced in 2006. Over the last five years in particular, Bruce and his team have worked at the intersection of technology, intellectual property, and strategy, identifying critical synergies that have allowed clients to more effectively exploit the opportunity space and guide their innovation activities. “We are also assisting companies to ward off assaults by patent trolls and competitors, allowing them to emerge as financially successful innovators. “Our clients are constantly addressing issues surrounding the latest technologies (patent ownership, Freedom to practice, portfolio strategy) which has the consequence that GPA is constantly dealing with the latest technologies and the opportunities they represent.” As a technology research firm, the work that GPA undertakes entails, by nature, an ongoing process of learning about new technologies. The new IoT security service is a fine example of this commitment. GPA also has a culture of learning, and our employees are continually educated in the evolving methodology of IP research and analysis.
TECHNOLOGY
Top 25 in IP
Company: Global Prior Art, Inc. Email: rubinger@globalpriorart.com Phone: +1 (617) 574-9574 Website: www.globalpriorart.com Address: 21 Milk Street, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02109
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TECHNOLOGY
IT IS ROCKET SCIENCE: HOW MANNED SPACEFLIGHT IS THE NEW FRONTIER OF INNOVATION CPA Global Innovation Intelligence Services launches an in-depth patent analysis on manned spaceflight innovation, to make it easy to gather commercial insights and visualisations based on IP data.
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PA Global is the world’s leading IP management and technology company. We believe that ideas change the world. Trusted by many of the world’s most respected corporations and law firms, CPA Global empowers a global IP community to achieve excellence in IP management and realize the potential of ideas. CPA Global does this by supporting the day-to-day delivery of IP tasks globally and providing the right information at the right time, enabling professionals to make better IP decisions for the future. CPA Global’s integrated suite of IP software, services and information is underpinned by an outstanding global team of over 2,000 IP professionals, working together to help customers deliver strategic value. Analysis of patent information in the manned spaceflight industry has revealed the speed of innovation growth in the area of rocket science. Nations with active manned space programs – the United States, China and Russia – represent three-fifths of all patent protection with a worldwide total of more than 4,300 patented space innovations filed since 1960. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth in 1961, but during the following 55 years, fewer than 600 people have since travelled into space. The aim of commercial spaceflight is to increase this number by making space travel cheaper, safer and commercially viable. To pave the way for commercial spaceflight, companies are focusing on less expensive methods of lifting people and cargo
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to orbit. The highest volume of patent applications to date concentrate on technologies that guide and control spacecraft, provide a life supporting environment, and develop docking systems that allow astronauts to disembark in orbit. To better understand who is leading the trends and developments in manned spaceflight innovation, CPA Global’s Innovation Intelligence team has released a detailed Technology Intelligence Report, using in-depth patent analysis that identifies the nations and companies spearheading technology advancement. The report recognises emerging entities in space innovation including Blue Origin – a private spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. This marks a change from traditional government contractors, such as Boeing, supplying launch services to the government, to private corporations developing launch systems for their own commercial uses. Ed White, Vice President, Innovation Intelligence Services at CPA Global comments: “Rocket science is the definition of technology. Since sending the first man into orbit in 1961, manned spaceflight has been at the forefront of innovation. There is no shortage of public and private entities dedicated to developing the spacecraft and technology needed to secure safe passage in human space travel.”
TECHNOLOGY
“Navigating intellectual property in an industry like manned spaceflight can be daunting, particularly if you are looking to obtain insight from vast amounts of patent data. CPA Global’s new Innovation Intelligence Services make it easy to gather commercial insights and visualisations - based on IP data - that inform and guide R&D and IP strategies.” Ideas have always changed the world, but the pace of change has never been this fast. CPA Global’s Innovation Intelligence Services offer commercial insight and powerful intelligence to successfully navigate the everchanging world of innovation. For more information, visit link here.
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TECHNOLOGY
START-UP’S GAME-CHANGING VIRTUAL WORKSTATION FOR 3D SOFTWARE BACKED BY TECH GIANTS ebb3 redefines how 3D design and innovation operates with the launch of its state-of-the-art virtual workstation technology, as a part of their mission to transform and simplify the way in which people use technology and applications, enabling work to take place from any device, anytime and anywhere.
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s of August, ebb3, in partnership with NEC, Cisco, NVIDIA, NetApp, APC, Microsoft and Citrix, has launched the High Performance Virtual Computer (HPVC), an innovation in virtualisation for 3D software applications. The HPVC offers a cloud based platform for 3D software, enabling multiple professionals to collaborate remotely over long distances and on any device.
The HPVC outperforms many physical workstations in specification, while saving businesses an average of 40% in maintenance costs compared to traditional workstations. It reduces power consumption and time pressure to update software, and while physical workstations allow a single user to utilise 3D graphical applications, the HPVC provides software access for up to 50 users at any one time, from any location.
Andy Bowker, ebb3’s executive founder, commented, “before now, those using 3D graphical software like AutodeskR AutoCadR were confined to a workstation in a fixed location. We designed the HPVC to push new boundaries, making it possible to deliver 3D graphics to 4K screens, and to give access to 3D graphical applications smoothly and seamlessly, wherever there’s an internet connection.”
Flexibility is in high demand. With the increase in productivity that working remotely provides, flexible working has been a significant factor for businesses seeking a Virtual Desktop Interface, with 48% of firms citing potential for mobile and remote working as the main factor behind their adoption of a virtualised solution. 85% of firms report satisfaction with the mobility and flexibility provided by virtually hosted software and data.
3D graphical applications are used across a huge variety of industries, including the computer games industry for design and development, film and television for CGI, engineering for CAD/CAM. 3D applications range from software such as AutodeskR AliasR Surface, which is used by manufacturers globally on projects such as Tesla Motors’ design of the groundbreaking Model S, and Petrel, which is used by the oil and gas industry to visualise subsurface and seismic data in 3D. These applications require powerful hardware to run smoothly. Workstations require a significant amount of power to run at peak performance, contributing to an average running cost of just under £30,000 per year for organisations with 5 mid-range workstations. Traditional workstations are fixed to one location, and only allow one user to access the software.
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The HPVC was developed by Andy Bowker with co-founders Ben Jones, Mark Vickers, Simon Cottrell, Paul Williams and Chris Brassington when they identified multiple challenges faced by companies using 3D visualisation applications. ebb3’s “A Team” are experienced technology innovators and entrepreneurs. They have held senior positions at Cisco, HP, BT, NCR and Capgemini, and have worked on infrastructure projects such as The London Olympics. Co-founder Bowker commented, “with the HPVC, product designers can show prospective clients 3D wireframe models on an iPad instead of a printout, or collaborate on a project while one partner is in London and one is at a conference overseas, without lag or performance issues. This is a game changer for the industry.”
TECHNOLOGY
Angela Yore +44 (0) 7738 822 956 / angela@skyparlour.com Rob Baker +44 (0)7957611834 / +44(0)844 2939 / rob@ skyparlour.com Charlotte Cloud charlotte@skyparlour.com
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TECHNOLOGY
THE BOLD WAR TO STAY CONNECTED: MOVADO LAUNCHES SMARTWATCH ENGINEERED BY HP INC. Movado and HP Inc. announce the launch of Movado BOLD Motion. Movado BOLD Motion unites Movado’s legacy of artistry and design with HP Inc. engineering excellence and pioneering vision for wearable technology. Infused with Movado’s modern design aesthetic and harnessed with Engineered by HP technology, the Movado BOLD Motion interprets digital connectivity with design inspired ingenuity. Compatible with iOS (8+) and Android (4.4+) software, the Movado BOLD Motion retails for $695 and is offered in two different unisex styles.
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he history of the Movado company, along with its famous Museum Watch, is woven into the birth of the modern design movement, and the group of international artists that founded the Bauhaus School in 1919. Embracing a dictum of “simplicity, tastefulness, function”, one of its purest expressions was the black watch dial defined by a single gold dot, designed by American artist Nathan George Horwitt in 1947. Fast forward 70 years, and Movado has retained its distinctively minimalist aesthetic, whist permitting it to mature with the times to incorporate new design elements and materials; the BOLD Motion is the very epitome of this realisation, joining the burgeoning trend of integrating digital technology with a fundamentally simply design.
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“The launch of Movado Bold Motion marks a new pinnacle in Movado’s history, perpetuating our long-time commitment to design innovation and creativity in time technology,” said Efraim Grinberg, CEO and Chairman of the Movado Group. “We are very proud to partner with HP Inc., an innovative partner that executed the concept in the style and manner we envisioned.” An illuminating design for the modern world, Movado BOLD Motion is ‘always on’ maintaining up to a full-week of smart module battery life. Combining beauty of design with exceptional performance, the BOLD Motion synthesizes Movado’s quest for design innovation with the Engineered by HP vision for inventive technology that seeks to change the way we live and work.
“An analog watch paired with smartwatch technology elevates time through subtle vibrations and visual cues that keep the user discreetly connected – always in motion, the Movado BOLD Motion monitors daily steps and tracks progress, notifies users of incoming phone calls and texts and manages time and priorities through app-enabled functionality. “Smart technology in a simple way, Movado’s interpretation of connectivity puts design first. “Wearable tech isn’t just about features, it’s an expression of our unique personal style – how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us,” said Sridhar Solur, General Manager, Wearables and Smart Platforms at HP Inc. “Engineered by HP is enabling Movado to deliver a vision of what today’s consumers want – customizeable ‘smart’ features set in a beautifully designed timepiece.” A reinvention of time and experience, the Movado BOLD Motion is crafted in two variations; stainless steel with a black PVD-finish or all-black PVD finished stainless steel. The Motion sports a substantial 44mm round case with ceramic bead-blasted finish. The black dial is illuminated by a vivid teal blue or striking white LED open-circle signature dot at 12 o’clock, tonally filled hands and twelve tone-ontone stick hour markers punctuated by teal or white LED markers. Presented on a matte black silicone strap with a 3M reflective material lining and classic tongue buckle, the Movado BOLD Motion is water-resistant to 50 meters. Amanda Ferrari / Amanda@Blackdiamond.co.uk
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TECHNOLOGY
NEW E-NOSE SNIFFS OUT RARE PROGRESSIVE LUNG DISEASE A
n e-nose used to detect cancer has been adapted for early detection of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), a rare form of high blood pressure, by Université Paris-Saclay in partnership with the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
They created an international associated lab between Inserm, the Technion, and Université Paris-Sud, made and published the proof of concept of the detection of PAH using the e-nose. It’s built from gold nanoparticles coupled with chemical modules.
The artificial nose can sniff out PAH on a person’s breath as the disease alters its signature.
A large clinical trial sponsored by the public hospital system in Paris, Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Paris, and headed by Professor Marc Humbert from Université Paris-Sud, renowned expert in pulmonary hypertension, is now ongoing in PAH for validation.
As cases are often diagnosed late, patients suffering from PAH have just a five year life expectancy after diagnosis. It causes cells to obstruct small pulmonary arteries that pump blood from the heart to the lungs, impairing blood flow and increasing blood pressure within the lungs. Symptoms include shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness and eventually right-sided heart failure. But the disease can be managed with the right diagnosis. The earlier, the better. A team at the Technion, working in nanotechnology and headed by Professor Hossam Haick, initially invented the e-nose to diagnose cancer. Doctor Sylvia Cohen-Kaminsky from Université ParisSaclay contacted Haick to apply his technology to PAH – which has some similar characteristics to cancer. They are setting up a device dedicated to the diagnosis of the devastating disease.
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“The gold standard for the diagnosis of PAH is right heart catheterism, which can make the right diagnosis, but it is invasive, risky and unsuitable for widespread screening,” says Cohen-Kaminsky. “The e-nose is a non-invasive and safe detection method that means general screening of PAH could eventually be made available.”
TECHNOLOGY
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TELECOMS
LETTING EUROPE TALK MORE FOR LESS peoplefone is a pan-European Voice-over-IP (VoIP) Provider, founded in 2005 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Since its foundation, it now has affiliates in six prominent European countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania. peoplefone is especially known for its 100-per-cent own-developed VoIP Swiss platform, its in-house support, treated by all employee, and its indirect sales approach through installations partners.
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eoplefone’s main objective is to ensure top quality combined with high stability thanks to the continuous optimization of its VoIP platform. Their focus is to bring flexibility at reasonable price to every installation partner and company, through an open system that is fully compatible with all VoIP PBXs and SIP devices. Christophe Beaud, Group CEO and founder of peoplefone Ltd and all its affiliates, commented upon the dedication of the company’s staff to provide a service that demonstrates the very best of the pan-European vision. “All our employees belong to a big “family” and act as it would be their own company. We believe in the strength of a close and personal relationship with our installation partners. Our main challenge is to accompany our strong growth with top quality in all our telecom services. And the only way to have success is through recruitment of the best people.” Not only that, but being involved in a highly fluid industry, where it is important to be up to date with telecommunications technology, peoplefone are on a constant learning curve, with which they must strive to be on par. Christophe reflects on this by making reference to Andy Grove, commenting, “only the paranoid will survive”. Christophe maintains that in his case, this is an accurate sentiment – “it is particularly true in our high competitive telecommunication industry – if you do not constantly adapt your technology, you just disappear. We involve all employees and installation partners in the search of new technologies.”
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Fortunately for Christophe, the job of maintaining their technologically-informed position is not impossibly challenging, “as we have a very close relationship and daily dialogue with our installation partners and SME clients; we have a direct and fresh feedback of their needs and wishes."
“We want to be the best European VoIP provider for all installation partners where we operate.”
Best European VoIP Provider
This is definitely not an impossible task for Christophe to aspire to – as the importance of online connectivity is only growing across the European Union, and the possibilities of using data as a means of conversing over the phone continue to expand, peoplefone’s presence across six European countries is a firm starting block upon which to build in future years.
TELECOMS
Company: peoplefone Ltd. Email: info@peoplefone.com Phone: +41 44 552 20 00 Website: www.peoplefone.com Address: Albisstrasse 107, 8038 ZĂźrich, Switzerland
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TELECOMS
GBI: THE BRIDGE TO THE SMART FUTURE GBI is a global cloud and managed services provider that owns and operates a multilayer carrier neutral network connecting the East to the West through the Middle East
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TELECOMS
TMT Innovation Award for Network Infrastructure
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ulf Bridge International (GBI) is a global cloud and managed services provider that owns and operates a multilayer carrier neutral network connecting the world to the Middle East. The GBI network connects the Middle East to Singapore towards the East and Egypt on the West, using two alternative terrestrial routes to protect traffic, crossing the Mediterranean to Italy into major European cities. Ensuring diversity by establishing its North Route, this new link from the Gulf to Europe via Iraq and Turkey added an ultra-low latency link from the GCC straight to the heart of Europe. GBI provides four major categories of services: Capacity Services • Wavelength • SDH Ethernet Services • EoMPLS • EoSDH • Cloud-Connect: This service allows customers to get connected to key global cloud platforms such as AWS, IBM Softlayer, and Azure. • IX – Connect: This service allows customers to get connected to multiple internet exchanges through a single port.
• GBI’s carrier-neutral network connects the Middle East to APAC and Europe • GBI runs a multi-system network that offers a diversity of routes with ultra-low latency and protection • GBI is a partner of choice for key global players
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Finance Connect: This service allows customers to get connected over the express route- lower latency to run sensitive applications. Content-Connect: This service provides access to a rich pool of global content owners/providers.
Managed Hosting Services • Colocation in EMEA • Connectivity • FLM • 24x7 Monitoring & Management • Backup/ DR IP Services • IP Transit • Enterprise Internet Access (EIA) • Clean Pipe (DDOS Mitigation/Managed DDOS) • Content Transit • IP VPN
• GBI offers a wide range of flexible and tailored products and solutions that meet different customers’ requirements • GBI has presence at key global Internet Exchanges in Europe and the Middle East
Company: Gulf Bridge International Website: www.gbiinc.com Email: sales@gbiinc.com Address:GBI, Office 109, 1st floor EIB-04 Building, Dubai Internet City PO Box: 500577, Dubai, U.A.E. @GBI_Network www.facebook.com/GBI.Profile www.linkedin.com/company/gulf-bridge-international
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TELECOMS
ALTFIELD ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER BUYING JOURNEY WITH MOBILE SOLUTION POWERED BY MICROSOFT DYNAMICS NAV Altfield, purveyors of luxury interiors, have selected Dynamics NAV and MobileNAV from The NAV People as their new mobile and enterprise resource planning solution. Since deployment Altfield have increased operational efficiency achieving greater workloads with existing headcount through process automation and enhanced the customer buying experience through the integration of MobileNAV.
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ltfield wanted a solution designed to meet their current needs, which included having all operations within the business on one comprehensive system. Additionally, Altfield wanted a solution that could add value to their sales team’s interactions with customers and enhance the customer buying experience in their London showroom, which serves as a showcase for the high end fabric, textiles and wall coverings they distribute along with the fine furnishings and decorative accessories. MobileNAV, an integrated and highly configurable new user-interface solution for smartphones and tablets, has delivered the functionality they sought. Caroline Aylward, Operations Manager at Altfield explains; ‘The sales team can access real-time stock and pricing information from mobile devices while walking around the showroom with customers. Previously they had to note down the details of the item and return to a computer screen to access the information. Today, we can deliver a more professional and modernised customer experience.’
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MobileNAV is able to operate without an internet connection, enabling system usage when remote working. The application records every modification in offline mode then synchronises the modifications with the Dynamics NAV server when the user is next online. Caroline comments; ‘Providing the sales people with a mobile solution has not only enhanced their interactions with customers but improved our data governance. All system users can use the system, whether online or offline, so there is no need for any data to be recorded and stored outside of the solution.’ Altfield have accelerated operational efficiency since deploying Dynamics NAV by simplifying and automating many tasks across sales order processing, financial accounting and customer service. Over the last three years, this automation has enabled them to absorb an increased workload without increasing headcount. ‘The NAV People worked with us to finely tune the solution and tailor to our requirements. This did cause us to forgo one of our users licence during any
development stages however. I am sure many of their customers say this about them but they are a genuinely nice company to deal with, knowledgeable, professional but also really personable. In a long term business relationship, what more can you ask than to work with professional people that you like?’ concluded Caroline Aylward. Ian Humphries, Managing & Product Director at The NAV People commented; ‘Altfield were clear on their objectives for a new solution, they wanted to utilise technology to benefit both their customers and employees. This matches our ethos at The NAV People; we fundamentally believe that technology innovation should improve working environments and we are pleased to have delivered a solution that matched Artfield’s aspirations.’
TELECOMS
BRIGHTHOUSE MAKES SURE THE CUSTOMER COMES FIRST WITH NEW SMS AND MOBILE-BASED PAYMENTS Fast-growing customer engagement leader VoiceSage has announced that BrightHouse, the UK’s leading rent-to-own retailer, has introduced a new self-service mobile payments system to help customers make payments promptly and conveniently.
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ounded in 2003 and with offices in the UK and Ireland, VoiceSage delivers proactive customer engagement solutions that help companies streamline and add value to their high-volume, outbound contact activities. Blue chip customers include Argos (Home Retail Group), Capital One, Thames Water, AXA Insurance and Shop Direct. BrightHouse has built their proactive customer service using the VoiceSage Visual Pay mobile payments solution, in combination with personalised automated SMS, in order to make it as convenient as possible for customers to make frequent and easy payments. Customers are reminded that an imminent payment is due by proactive reminders, letting them do the rest via an SMS with a bespoke web link, pre-filled out with their individual, customer-specific details (e.g. name, payment amount, due date). As a result, making a payment couldn’t be simpler as customers fill in their debit card details, allowing them to pay at a time that is convenient for them, and in a wholly secure way.
The simplicity and power of the Visual Pay service, linked to a standard but personal medium like SMS, supports the core BrightHouse value of giving customers total flexibility and control over their relationship with the company. An important element of the project was speed to market, as BrightHouse needed to be up and running quickly and not a huge IT project. Through VoiceSage’s managed service and use of agile development techniques, the whole BrightHouse mobile payments solution was up and running in under six weeks. Within eight weeks of deployment, no less than one in four in the BrightHouse target group for the service had switched to using mobile payments. “That shift exceeded our expectations,” said Alasdair Skeoch, BrightHouse Head of Credit Operations, who adds that ease of use is consistently cited as the biggest single attraction of the new system. “There is always a chance with doing something different and new that customers may not warm to it, but in this instance, that didn’t happen: ‘easy
way to pay,’ ‘idiot proof’ and ‘simple’ were standout elements of the positive feedback we received from our customers. It’s fair to say that we and our customers love it.
“Innovation is at the heart of what we do, which is why we partner with the best. VoiceSage enables BrightHouse to take our customer engagement to the next level – and having the best solution provider has been crucial in ensuring we always get the most from its chosen technology.” Commenting on the project, VoiceSage’s Sales and Marketing Director Steve Robertson noted, “BrightHouse’s use of great proactive customer engagement solutions is a powerful role model for other retailers and credit organisations looking to deliver excellent customer service in a cost-efficient but competitive way.”
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TELECOMS
CAR GIANT DRAMATICALLY BOOSTS SALES USING NEW SMS TECHNOLOGY A mobile marketing specialist has boosted a car retailing giant’s sales with a new innovation in text messaging.
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ookers, one of the top five motor vehicle retailers in the UK representing 31 vehicle manufacturers, from 391 sites across the UK and Ireland, already use a variety of tactics to contact customers, but were experiencing poor returns from social media and email promotions.
“They asked us to deliver a solution that helped them reward customer loyalty with special offers to generate sales and insight and our innovative SMS ticketing was the answer.”
Textlocal.com, experts in mobile marketing and SMS communications, stepped in to help Lookers drive up their customer engagement and sales. Textlocal, devised a bespoke solution, using innovative SMS messages ‘Ticketing’, for four dealerships in the North West to drive sales of two Vauxhall models.
SMS can be a more effective engagement tool for business than email or social media, because the open rate is so much higher. The average open rate across all industries is less than 23 per cent, while 99 per cent of all texts are opened and nine out of 10 are read within three minutes.
‘Ticketing’ is a new type of SMS message which offers multiple benefits to the dealer and customer. Through Textlocal’s online platform, Lookers were able to create and send individually coded tickets that could be saved to any mobile phone, each of which were personalised for 80,000 customers across the North West region. The SMS tickets contained special offers on two specific Vauxhall models and links embedded in the texts directed customers to web pages with more information about the cars. These pages were hidden from search engines so only those who received the message could see the website pages. Jason Palgrave-Jones, Managing Director at Textlocal, said: “While Lookers already use SMS to reach their customers for MOT and service reminders, they were finding that email and social media were giving poor response rates. They needed to test an alternative way of driving bigger campaigns to success.
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Mr Palgrave-Jones added, “companies of all sizes are beginning to understand the power of text messaging as an instant and highly effective communication platform. SMS is now more than just delivering words, it can deliver vouchers, surveys, attachments and, in the case of Lookers, tickets. “The results were excellent. The rich content of the SMS ticket drove a huge level of customer engagement, with Lookers selling 76 cars as a direct result of this special local campaign, representing for them a return on investment of 4,000%.” Textlocal.com have been listed as a Media Momentum Top 20 fastest growing digital agency for consecutive years, awarded a DMA Honours for innovation, as well as being awarded a place in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and Sunday Times Tech Track 100. Since 2005 over 165,000 happy clients have sent more than one billion SMS using Textlocal’s award-winning Messenger platform. SMS offers businesses the chance to build relationships through instant communication. Whether it’s a courier providing
tracking information, a doctor delivering appointment reminders or a restaurant or retailer enticing people back with special offers; the range of uses for this opt-in technology is vast. The Messenger platform revolutionises the way businesses of all sizes and industries communicate with their customers by offering a communications method that achieves a 98% open rate followed by a 32% redemption rate, all for under 5p per contact. Through Textlocal’s platform, Lookers were also able to track which customers had clicked links, giving them great intelligence in their customers’ interests and levels of engagement.” Paul Craft, Divisional Online Sales & Performance Manager at Lookers, said:
“Textlocal’s brilliant, but simple, SMS ticketing was the solution to overcome the barriers that we had been experiencing in communicating with our customers. Not only were we able to offer genuine benefits to our customers, but also generate sales and crucially for us gather important information for the future.” Jonathan Caswell, Influential caswell@thisisinfluential.com 07515 999 422
TELECOMS
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TELECOMS
APRIL SIX WINS O2 B2B Agency of the Year appointed to deliver creative and strategic marketing programme for O2’s UK enterprise and public sector audiences.
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ward-winning global technology marketing agency April Six, part of The Mission Marketing Group (the missionTM) has been appointed by O2 as its creative and strategic marketing partner for enterprise and public sector audiences in the UK. Under the new three-year contract, April Six will help O2 demonstrate its broader ICT capabilities and proficiency supporting customers who want to take a ‘mobile first’ approach to technology convergence. The move reflects an increasing demand from organisations in the UK to consolidate their technology infrastructure into a single ICT strategy with mobile at the centre. The programme also represents a new approach to marketing for O2. It will now connect its enterprise, public sector and consumer campaigns together for the first time, creating a single seamless approach to communicating its value as an ICT service provider. April Six was chosen to support O2’s new marketing direction based on its proven blend of strategic analysis, inspirational creative thinking, and a 16-year heritage in B2B technology marketing for both mobile and broader ICT services businesses including T-Mobile, Orange Business Services, Microsoft, Cisco, Nortel and VMware. For the agency, the appointment by the current Chartered Institute of Marketing ‘Team of the Year’ and recognition by such a major UK technology brand demonstrates why April Six continues to enjoy a story of growth and success in the B2B technology marketing industry. “April Six represents the combination of skills and experience we want from a long-term marketing partner,” explains Paul Stevenson, Head of Enterprise Marketing Services. “To achieve our objectives we need a very specific type of agency, one that thinks like us and reflects our values and culture. April Six’s ability to combine strategic analysis and guidance with truly inspirational
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creativity as well as a proven ability to impact the pipeline is exactly what makes them the B2B Agency of the Year and we are delighted they will be a critical part of the next chapter in our marketing story.” One of the first projects April Six will design is an enterprise-focussed extension of O2’s ‘More for you’ campaign. This requires an adaption of the existing consumer story into a compelling campaign for business audiences. April Six’s strategy will revolve around O2’s ability to understand the growing need for broader digital solutions, which span far beyond a traditional mobile network. “O2 is one of the UK’s premier technology brands and being a part of its first steps into a bold new marketing strategy is something we are very proud to be supporting,” said Sinead Woodley, April Six UK MD. “This programme embodies the rare combination of precision strategy and inspiring creative that makes April Six a unique proposition for technology businesses around the world. Working with O2 is a huge opportunity for us to demonstrate once again why we have been named B2B Agency of the Year and why some of the biggest technology brands in the world choose us as their strategic and creative marketing partner.” April Six will also deliver a campaign for O2’s Internet of Things (IoT) team, designed to demonstrate how O2 has some of the strongest capabilities in the UK for building innovative new IoT solutions and commercialising them as mainstream products and services. Bryony Chinnery, Account Director, AprilSix Proof bryony.chinnery@aprilsixproof.com
TELECOMS
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TELECOMS
TELE2 KEEPS QUALITY UNDER CONTROL Tele2, an alternative mobile operator, has integrated SITE, the test environment for assessing the quality of connections. The system monitors voice, data and VAS on 2G, 3G and LTE networks.
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ele2, an alternative mobile operator, has integrated SITE, the test environment for assessing the quality of connections. The system monitors voice, data and VAS on 2G, 3G and LTE networks. To monitor the quality of services, Tele2 is using SITE − the SIGOS Integrated Test Environment. Its architecture includes central server data bases, SIM Multiplexers and test probes supporting 2G, 3G and LTE technologies. Test units located in regions of Tele2 operations provide consistent and reliable testing of the company’s services. Each day the SITE system is making over 50 thousand tests. Tele2 infotainment and base services account for around 50% of all measurements. For example, the system is assessing the correct function and accessibility of popular services such as Gudok and Geopoisk 24/7. In each region, the system is monitoring the voice quality, SMS/MMS delivery, performance of USSD and the accessibility of the company’s online services. If a certain test case shows a failing or degrading service, SITE will automatically report the issue to the support desk. In addition, the test system is used to check accessibility of domain names and website references restricted by Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media). Such data access tests reflect 30% of all measurements carried out by SITE. When the system detects any errors or malfunction, employees in charge rectify routing mistakes and block the content forbidden under Russian law. While rolling out high-speed wireless Internet, the company is striving to provide a high quality of data services. The integrated test environment is launching a special application that emulates the interaction of an Internet user. The program is downloading different content using 3G and 4G networks, testing data
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speed and accessibility of each datalink. Based on the monitoring results, the support desk is correcting or adjusting server operations. SITE is monitoring the quality of interconnection and international roaming on a real-time basis. Combining SITE with the SIGOS GlobalRoamer system, Tele2 has access to test its services on over 780 mobile operator networks in 200 countries. The system is evaluating call success rate, voice quality, data speed and time of message delivery. Experts can emulate any test scenarios freely, e.g. configuring the subscriber’s home region, the country of his stay, services used and other variables.
The latest, up-to-date SITE installation allows the operator to effectively manage the labour needed to test new tariffs and services. Thanks to SITE, Tele2 has now access to accurate data collected 24/7, equivalent to around 5,000 hours of labour work per week. Integration, technical support and training of Tele2 personnel are carried out by DMTel – the official distributor of SIGOS in Russia.
TELECOMS
TEOCO ENABLES EARLY 5G MODELLING WITH ASSET DESIGN NETWORK TOOL New features enable operators to run dimensioning scenarios for next-generation 5G networks based on expected network characteristics
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EOCO, the leading provider of engineering, assurance and analytics solutions to communications service providers (CSPs) worldwide, today announced that ASSET Design, its automated network design tool, can now be used by operators to evaluate 5G deployment scenarios based on current and forthcoming network technologies. ASSET Design’s features now enable operators to both optimize the performance of their existing 4G networks, and to also design early 5G networks - all in a single, seamless process. TEOCO is the leading provider of Engineering, Assurance and Analytics solutions to communication service providers (CSPs) worldwide. Our solutions provide CSPs with unique insights into business, customer, network and device metrics by harnessing big data analytics. We are a trusted partner to the world’s leading CSPs who rely on our mission-critical solutions. Since 1995, TEOCO has helped over 300 of the largest service providers around the world to manage and evolve their businesses efficiently and profitably, while enhancing the customer experience. TEOCO is widely recognized for its commitment to principled entrepreneurship, business ethics and employee ownership with a particular emphasis on its core values of alignment with employees, clients and community.
The features of the new ASSET Design tool allow operators to create new 5G network designs that take into consideration ultra-dense, low-power sites that use frequency bands ranging from 3.5 GHz to 60 GHz. Operators can select and create these sites according to a range of complex criteria, including financial ROI information on a per site basis: existing 4G geo-located traffic, existing backhaul sites, and very accurate propagation modelling that uses high resolution map data and building information. ASSET Design can also assess the anticipated effect of 5G frequency bands in relation to the number of cells needed in order for the network to run efficiently and effectively. For example, it can estimate the number of sites required at 3.5GHz versus those required at 28GHz. As a result, network operators can use TEOCO’s 5G ASSET Design tool to structure and plan 5G networks to reach specific key business and technical objectives, for example: •
•
Although it’s early days, operators are already thinking about their 5G network strategies,” said Daniel Ramirez, Director of Planning Products at TEOCO. “5G will largely be an evolution of today’s LTE networks. However, a significant difference is that 5G networks will be much denser and more complex. With ASSET Design’s powerful features, it is possible to perform early modelling of 5G networks that will enable operators to get ahead of the curve in preparing for and planning their next generation networks.”
Offloading traffic – automatically offload or redirect traffic when breaching pre-set network traffic limits, maintaining maximum coverage and minimising interference on the operator’s network Capture revenue – capture the traffic from revenuerich locations in the network where subscriber APRU levels are highest
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