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The report says;

“In a way, the fundamentals of CSR are embedded in Zen’s corporate DNA. Its founder Richard Tang named the company Zen Internet to reflect his Chinese ancestry, which goes back 30 generations. While Richard is not a Zen Buddhist, many of his beliefs fall in line with Eastern values.

Recently he felt inspired by a visit to Bhutan, a country whose values most closely match his own for Zen. Just as Bhutan puts Gross National Happiness ahead of Gross National Product, Zen’s most fundamental long term objectives in order of priority, are happy staff, happy customers and happy suppliers. The order of these is very important yet very simple and underpins the company’s mission to provide the best ISP service in the UK.

“For Zen, CSR doesn’t represent a shift in the way we do business. It’s always been at the heart of what we do and how we operate. We are determined to be a good neighbour, work together with our employees, our customers our suppliers and the community around us to ensure that any impact we make on the world is for the better,” said Richard Tang, Managing Director.

“Whether that involves ensuring employees are rewarded for the work they do, providing customers with the highest levels of service, building our relationships with suppliers or supporting charitable events and coming up with new ways to be greener,” added Richard. Zen has created a working environment where its employees can flourish and fulfil their potential supporting its Happy Staff ethos. In 2009 Zen introduced a scheme to recognise the contribution, effort and loyalty of long term employees and the role this has played in the company’s success.

After 10 years of continuous services employees receive a gift of their choice and are invited to a celebratory lunch with Richard Tang. To date 20 employees have received the award, with five employees reaching the milestone during 2011. Gifts have ranged from flat-screen TVs and dishwashers to a boxed set of Domesday books.

Zen is committed to developing and retaining its employees and has a dedicated in-house Learning and Development team. In the last 12 months, through the development of its employees, 40 (10%) of Zen’s employees have successfully secured a position in another department or moved to a more senior position as a result of internal recruitment.

Zen provides products and services to meet its customers’ requirements now and in the future. With its 80 strong highly-skilled Technical Support team, customer experience is Zen’s number one priority as it doesn’t operate in a traditional call centre environment. Zen regularly wins independent awards that are voted for by its customers, including Which? Recommended Broadband Provider, Zen’s twelfth Which? endorsement in seven years and this year PC Pro Best ISP for the eighth year running.

Suppliers are chosen that the company believes share its mission and its values. These strategic partnerships play a vital role in its continuing success. Zen’s supplier relationships are built on values of openness, honesty and integrity and include important suppliers like BT.

Zen is committed to its local community. The company was founded in Rochdale and has stayed firmly rooted in Rochdale where its heart lies. It is committed to investing in the future success of the North West, offering opportunities to individuals and supporting charities.

Last Year Zen employees voted for Dr Kershaw’s as the company’s chosen charity and raised nearly £7,000 through its various fundraising activities, this year its charity is Boomerang based in Bury. Zen is also the Hallé orchestra’s technical sponsor for this year. Zen doesn’t just look at ways it can provide financial support or products and services. Zen employees have donated more than 95 pints of blood in the last twelve months alone.

The company has provided assistance with the IT Diploma to both students and teachers of schools in the local Rochdale area, as well as giving work placements to students wanting work experience. Over the past twelve months Zen has offered ten work placements for periods of between one day and six weeks, totalling 116 days helping students get the experience they need.

Zen’s also has a Technical Training Programme aimed at re-training applicants for entry level roles in its Technical Support department. The last programme saw three out of ten attendees offered jobs, with the other seven leaving with new skills and renewed confidence.

Zen understands that its activities affect both the environment and the communities in which it operates. In the past 12 months it has achieved a reduction of 8.5% in paper usage, reduced its CO2 emission by 8.4% and recycled 87.1% of its total waste.

Although this is the first CSR report for Zen, since the company was established in 1995 it has always been at the heart of everything it does and the way it operates. The company credits its employees, customers and suppliers for helping it to be a responsible business.”

Once a copy of the decision is received, Etisalat will work closely with EDB’s management and legal counsel to understand the judgment, its ramifications on the operations of EDB, particularly its customers and employees as well as its right to a review of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The Supreme Court decision relates to events that occurred in January 2008, well before December 2008 when Etisalat invested in Swan. Etisalat has no knowledge of what occurred in the license application process for Swan, far less did it have any involvement. The license applications were entirely conducted by the promoters and their associates who subsequently marketed the Swan investment opportunity to Etisalat through a well known international investment bank.

Etisalat has an excellent record of abiding by all of the laws and regulations in the 17 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa where it operates and continues to move forward with its growth strategy. We remain committed to becoming one of the world’s top 10 telecommunications companies.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, M5 shareholders will receive approximately $84 million in cash and 9.5 million shares of ShoreTel stock, which equates to a total of $146.3 million in initial consideration based on a ShoreTel’s average stock price over the prior 30 trading days. In addition, M5 shareholders may receive additional contingent consideration of up to $13.7 million. The contingent payments are payable over the two years after closing and are based upon the achievement of certain revenue performance milestones for the year ended Dec. 31, 2012.

The acquisition of privately held M5 enables ShoreTel to expand its solutions into the cloud and reach a large and growing market segment of customers that are looking to deploy IP communications through a hosted model. Industry trends such as cloud computing, virtualization, data center economics and the flexibility of services-based models are driving the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) market, which provides businesses another way to bring unified communications to their workforce.

“The acquisition of M5 positions ShoreTel as a leader in the fast-growing cloud UC market and delivers a suite of hosted telephony solutions that is unmatched in the marketplace,” said Peter Blackmore, CEO of ShoreTel. “This acquisition is a critical step in our evolution and enables the company to capitalize on trends in cloud computing and advance our enterprise communications strategy.”

M5 pioneered hosted UC in 2000 and today provides more than 2,000 companies with enterprise-grade communications on a subscription basis. This acquisition positions ShoreTel to be a leading provider in the emerging UCaaS market, enabling it to extend its technology and industry-leading customer satisfaction that are the hallmarks of its value proposition into the cloud through a hosted offering.

According to a report by Gartner, the IP Voice as a Service market is expected to show a 36 percent compounded annual growth rate in North America through 2015 to $2.2 billion. With this acquisition, M5 brings the specialized knowledge, infrastructure and skills to give ShoreTel rapid entry into the hosted UC market while maintaining its focus on growing its traditional premise-based UC business.

ShoreTel is acquiring M5’s entire operation including its customer base, distribution capability, and proprietary network, and will be extending offers to substantially all of its employees.

Following the close of the acquisition, M5 will be operated as a ShoreTel business unit and will be led by M5 CEO Dan Hoffman, who shares ShoreTel’s brilliantly simple approach to unified communications, and an intense focus on customer satisfaction. Hoffman will become president and general manager of the new business unit.

While the engineering teams will remain separate they will cooperate and coordinate in order to leverage the innovation and best practices of both groups so that both product roadmaps will benefit from the combined capabilities. The current ShoreTel Champion Partner reseller program will evolve to include the ability to offer hosted services once the reseller has been qualified and certified.

“M5 is proud to be one of the leaders in the UC cloud market. We have achieved this position with a very strong management team and an excellent product offering that is the simplest in the industry,” said Dan Hoffman, CEO of M5 Networks. “Joining forces with ShoreTel enables us to reach our ambitions of scale and cement our position in the hosted UC marketplace.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by the end of March 2012. Arbor Advisors acted as financial advisor to M5 Networks, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisor to ShoreTel.

Remote patient monitoring, using the smartphone as a hub, will also lower the cost of mHealth services by reducing the need for costly tailored devices.

The new Juniper report finds that the monitoring of cardiac outpatients is currently leading the field, as insurance reimbursement in the US market plays a key role. However, in time the management of diabetes and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder) and other chronic diseases will play an important role in the remote patient monitoring market.

“Remote patient monitoring will step in to reduce the cost burden of unhealthy lifestyles and aging populations,” says report author Anthony Cox. But while remote patient monitoring is already showing both positive medical outcomes and cost savings over outpatient care, more trials would still benefit mHealth in order to further convince the medical establishment of its benefits, finds Juniper Research.

Further findings from the report include: Mobile Healthcare and medical App downloads will reach 44 million in 2012, Rising to 142 Million in 2016; Clarification from the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on which mHealth apps will require FDA approval is still required but is expected to add further impetus to the market; Developing markets continue to benefit from SMS-based education programmes and stand to benefit in medium term from app-based healthcare services such as mobile ultrasound that are now being developed; EHR (electronic health records) have yet to gain significant traction even in developed markets but in the long term will become an important component of mHealth offerings

Now, SMS services and infrastructure vendor Telsis is first in the world with an all-phones service, DriveSafe, that can lessen the temptation many people feel to text while they are behind the wheel.

While the phone user concentrates on driving safely, DriveSafe automatically replies to any text messages with a short operator-branded reply such as ‘I’m driving at the moment. I’ll read your text as soon as it is safe to do so.’

DriveSafe went live in a network for the first time this week, available free of charge to Vodafone New Zealand’s 2.5m customers in time for the February long weekend holiday when hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders take to the roads.

Vodafone’s director of sales Grant Hopkins says DriveSafe is aimed at helping New Zealanders use their mobiles safely. “Vodafone DriveSafe is designed to take the pressure off when you’re driving and you get a TXT message. It lets the sender know that you can’t reply immediately, without you needing to take your eye off the road. We’re pleased to be able to bring innovations like this to New Zealand and hope it will help drivers think carefully about their actions to reduce the road toll.”

New Zealand Automobile Association motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon welcomes the introduction of Vodafone DriveSafe. “One of the worst things about texting and driving is that drivers know they shouldn’t do it but in many cases just can’t seem to stop themselves when they hear a message arrive.

“Vodafone DriveSafe is a simple tool that can help drivers to leave the phone alone. The driver can relax knowing the person who texted them has been sent a reply and, as a bonus, it is spreading the message that texting and driving are a potentially lethal mix. Any distraction is dangerous when driving but texting is especially bad because not only is your mind focusing on the message but your eyes are off the road and at least one of your hands isn’t on the wheel either.”

The launch has been endorsed by the New Zealand Transport Agency. "Texting while driving became illegal two years ago but it remains a significant and unwelcome cause of too many crashes, so it's great to see Vodafone's initiative giving people another option to make a safe choice when they are travelling," says the NZTA's chief executive, Geoff Dangerfield.

"The NZTA encourages all Vodafone customers to subscribe to DriveSafe and to use it. But we hope this sort of innovation does not stop with one company. Telecommunications has a huge base of customers who use texting to stay in touch. Expanding an innovation similar to DriveSafe can only have a positive impact on safer journeys for all of us."

Using Telsis’ innovative SMS technology, DriveSafe is a network service, not a handset app, so it works for any type or age of phone. It requires no downloads or configuration by users, and is simply “always there” for every customer of any mobile network that deploys it. DriveSafe is enabled simply by texting a short command such as ‘drive on’ to a short code, and turned off by sending ‘drive off’.

Jeff Wilson, Telsis CEO and founder said: “Studies around the world show just how widespread the problem of texting while driving is and how seriously it affects the reaction times of people who persist in doing it. DriveSafe makes it easier for people to avoid the temptation to text and drive. We predict that operators deploying DriveSafe will be applauded by motoring organisations and governments for exercising their social responsibility, and for making it easier for phone users, and other road users, to stay safe.”

Telsis DriveSafe is designed to be quick and easy for mobile operators to install. It works alongside messaging network infrastructure and requires no integration with billing or provisioning systems. Operators will benefit from being able to brand automated DriveSafe responses, and by the service attracting customers from rival networks.

Christian Buch, Head of Billing & International Roaming, TELE Greenland, commented: “By partnering with MACH and deploying its Roaming Implementation Service, we have been able to rapidly expand our roaming business in a cost-effective manner. MACH’s end-to-end management of the entire process has required minimal in-house resource from us, while at the same time allowed us to maintain full visibility of all activity and complete control over our overall roaming revenue business. The increased traffic and revenue which we have experienced as a result demonstrates the strong ROI of the solution within a relatively short timeframe and we anticipate even more benefits over the next three years.”

With MACH’s service, TELE Greenland is benefiting from support for every single step of the roaming business expansion process, from initial strategy setting and the establishment of new roaming relationships (including the mandatory IREG and TADIG testing), to contract negotiation, roadmap advice, business analytics and re-rating. The business analytics functionality of the service has highlighted missed revenue streams, such as prepaid roaming, while the ability to optimise the roaming rollout list has also helped to increase traffic.

Philippe Ribonnet, Chief Operations Officer, MACH commented: “By working closely with the team at TELE Greenland and building up a strong partnership, we have helped the operator achieve rapid roaming coverage expansion in the most cost-effective way and with minimum in-house resources, boosting its roaming traffic and increasing its roaming revenues. Through this partnership, TELE Greenland has benefited from our extensive expertise and knowledge in the roaming implementation space, as well as from our all-important operator relatonships and negotiation skills, to guarantee rapid expansion of its roaming business.”

With the largest number of roaming relationships in the industry, MACH is well positioned to offer its strategic advice and implementation expertise to operators like TELE Greenland who are looking to grow their global roaming businesses. MACH’s Roaming Implementation Service offers operators a customisable solution which can be scaled up or down to suit individual needs. The service allows operators to quickly and cost-effectively expand their roaming businesses, driving down in-house resource and costs, while maintaining full visibility of activity and control over revenue.

The Ofcom research found that in November 2011, half of consumers who had paid for an ‘up to’ 8Mbit/s broadband package only received an average speed of 3Mbit/s or less. While half of consumers who had paid for an ‘up to’ 20/24Mbit/s service received average speeds of 5Mbit/s or less.

The Panel believes that the new CAP guidance, which comes into force from April, doesn’t go far enough. It requires that speed claims should be achievable by at least 10% of an ISP’s customers, and only where a significant proportion of customers are unlikely to receive a speed sufficiently close to that advertised should further qualifying information be included.

“This additional qualifying information must be equally prominent to consumers when they are thinking about which broadband package to buy. Consumers can only make an informed choice if they can easily compare different packages and providers. We will be watching carefully to see if the new guidelines are effective.”

Until now, using a mobile to call a traditional Freephone number, such as those starting with 08 , meant having to pay up to 46 pence per minute for the call, now Channel Islands based telecommunications company, JT , has introduced the first working five digit voice short-code number which is free of charge to mobile callers and works on all networks.

JT’s MVSCs will be welcomed by those businesses that wish to offer Freephone facilities to their customers as part of their marketing strategy. In 2011 Ofcom reported that 48% of mobile callers believe it is the company they are calling that is responsible for setting the charges of the call so if the calls are free this reflects well.

Paul Bullock, head of JT Group’s Wholesale Division, explained the importance of the launch: “For a while now we have been looking to enter the UK market with something fresh and exciting and because of our investment into our fixed and mobile networks, we are now uniquely positioned to provide this new service to UK businesses ahead of the competition.

“With growing mobile usage MVSCs are an important innovation and we are absolutely delighted to be the first to deliver the service to banks, travel agents, insurance companies or indeed any call centre requiring a dynamic Freephone service. By extending the Freephone service to mobile users with an MVSC we are quite literally changing the way customers communicate with companies and how companies communicate with their customers. Our MVSC can be used at anytime from any location in the UK and companies can now confidently send SMS alerts to customers to provoke or maintain two way communications, which is now an effective marketing tool for businesses in a number of sectors.”

This announcement is the latest development in the JT Group’s five year growth strategy and demonstrates the company’s commitment to becoming the partner of choice for global telecoms innovation by making the latest technologies accessible to customers around the world. Through acquisition of ekit.com JT Group extended its global reach and now has operations as far afield as Australia and Boston. It also operates the largest Tier 1 telecommunications infrastructure in the Channel Islands delivering world class hosting facilities to the global finance and eGaming industries.

Talking about entering the UK mobile market Mr Bullock added: “This is the first of many new products and services JT Group’s Wholesale Division is working on along with the JT Group’s Gigabit Isles initiative which is bringing the world’s fastest broadband to the Channel Islands and the opening of the first CI based global telecommunications research, development and training facility.”

JT Group’s Wholesale Division delivers a number of global services including the successful Direct Connect SMS which is an automated SMS messaging service which is used by companies based as far afield as Malaysia, New Zealand and the USA, and which in 2010 delivered 650 million messages.

Fragger delivers hours of exploding fun. Players unleash their shooting abilities to kill enemies and unlock perks. The game features 370 different levels and 12 different worlds. Grenade launching experts can compare scores with the millions of other users that play Fragger on Android and iPhone. Starting 31st January 2012 Android users can download Fragger for Android for free at www.getjar.com.

“GetJar is a great partner for us. Their global presence is what drew us to them when looking for a launch partner for Fragger,” said Rob Small, CEO of Miniclip.com “We want to preserve the factors that lead to Fragger’s 100 million plays on Miniclip.com, namely that it’s free. GetJar is well known as the destination for free apps.”

“To work with an industry giant like Miniclip really tells us that we’re doing something right,” said Ilja Laurs, CEO and Founder of GetJar. “We’re glad to have Miniclip launch Fragger exclusively on GetJar.”

Founded in 2005, ioSafe’s patented technology provides unparalleled physical security protection against fire, flood and theft for thousands of homes and businesses. Like an aircraft black box, ioSafe adds physical security and protection to irreplaceable data.

“The vast majority of data from family photo albums to critical business data, sits vulnerable in local pockets all around the world. Because data growth exceeds internet bandwidth growth, data created locally will be forced to be stored locally,” says Robb Moore, ioSafe CEO. “ioSafe technology provides a ‘disaster plan-in-a-box’ solution for terabytes of data wherever it sits vulnerable. Our backup hard disk and solid state drives, combined with our Data Recovery Service protect not only against fires, floods and water damage but hard drive failure and accidental deletion. We are on a mission to protect local data from loss no matter where it might be stored. We’re hugely excited about bringing our technology to the UK and our partnership with Micro-P to deliver this solution to the masses.”

With a fast growing global reputation for quality and innovation, ioSafe offers an extensive series of award winning products, suitable for the consumer right up to the most data conscious enterprise. With extensive options ranging from the portability of the ioSafe Rugged Portable, available in both HDD and SDD options, designed to withstand the most extreme conditions, through to the ioSafe SoloPRO SSD complete with armorplate military grade drive casing. All backed by the industry's best warranty and ioSafe's unique Data Recovery Service (DRS) which provides up to$5,000 towards the cost of third-party forensic data recovery services if required for any reason.

Stuart Hatch, Micro-P Business Manager, comments: “We’re delighted to welcome ioSafe onboard. It’s a fantastic addition to our increasing storage portfolio and gives our customers access to a solution that offers unbeatable protection for their data. Data storage is one of the fastest growing categories in IT and we are seeing more and more interest in people not just looking at capacity, but also questioning their data recovery exposure. ioSafe addresses this head on.”

In mature markets where the installed base of PNDs is already high, the device category is facing increasing competition from smartphones and low-cost in-dash navigation systems. Aftermarket navigation systems will be the largest segment for several years to come and many customers, especially in Europe and North America, are likely to use more than one navigation capable device for different occasions in the future.

However, growing shipments of PNDs in markets such as Brazil, China, India and Russia are not likely to compensate for the decline in Europe and North America. Global PND shipments are forecasted to decline to about 23 million units in 2016. The number of mobile subscribers using a turn-by-turn navigation app or service on their handset doubled in 2011 and reached 130 million worldwide. The subscriber base is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.9 percent to reach 340 million users worldwide in 2016.

Broad availability of GPS handsets and attractive pricing are key factors for widespread adoption of mobile navigation apps. “The global active installed base of smartphones surpassed 700 million units at the 2011, which is approximately 15 percent of all mobile phones in use”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight.

He adds that about half of the current mobile navigation subscriber base uses free apps and services that are bundled with handsets or service plans from mobile operators. A growing number of mobile operators worldwide are switching to bundled freemium navigation services to offset the cost for end users in response to free navigation apps for smartphones from Google and Nokia. Navigation app developers and mobile operators are trying to monetise services by introducing premium feature and content add-ons that allow users to customise navigation apps to suit their personal needs.

“Since relatively few users need turn-by-turn guidance on a daily basis, complementary features such as traffic information, speed camera alerts, parking space information and local search become increasingly important means to drive usage”, commented Mr Malm. Stimulating usage is also important for developers and mobile operators that seek additional revenues from location-based advertising and local offers.

Inmarsat’s new ‘FB Multi-voice’ capability will greatly increase the flexibility of FleetBroadband by adding the ability to deliver simultaneous calls. The company will deploy Metaswitch Universal Media Gateways and the MetaSphere Multimedia Telephony Application Server (MTAS) at network hubs in Western Europe and the Pacific Rim, with control from Inmarsat’s global headquarters in London.

“Metaswitch is the best fit for our increased feature requirements, plus we have been very impressed with the quality of the technology and the worldwide support organization,” said David Kingdon-Jones, Director, Product and Service Management at Inmarsat. “Our maritime services have a trusted reputation in the shipping industry and are sold by a large number of partners worldwide. Now we can provide even better communication services for users.”

“We are very pleased to help Inmarsat launch Voice over IP services,” said Richard Dorey, vice president of sales for EMEA at Metaswitch. “By using Metaswitch’s exclusive quality assurance tools, Inmarsat will be able to maintain their reputation for superior customer service.”

In November 2011, the average actual UK residential broadband speed was 7.6Mbit/s, compared with 6.2Mbit/s in November/December 2010, and 6.8Mbit/s in May 2011.

This increase was mainly as a result of consumers moving onto higher speed packages. In November 2011, for the first time more than half (58 per cent) of UK residential broadband connections had a headline, or advertised speed of above 10Mbit/s, up from 48 per cent in May 2011.

However, more than 4 in 10 broadband consumers remain on packages with speeds of 10Mbit/s or less even though many of them would be able to get a higher speed at little or no extra cost if they switched package or provider.

This is Ofcom's sixth report of UK broadband speeds which aims to measure the performance of residential broadband in the UK.

Previous reports highlighted how there can be a significant difference between advertised speeds and speeds actually received by consumers. This confirmed the need for the Advertising Code-writing bodies, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP), to review the use of ‘up to’ speed claims in broadband advertising to ensure that advertisements do not mislead consumers.

Following this review, CAP and BCAP published guidance in September 2011 on the use of speed claims in broadband advertising, which will come into force in April 2012. Among other things, it requires that speed claims should be achievable by at least 10 per cent of the relevant internet service provider’s (ISP) customer base, and where a significant proportion of customers are unlikely to receive a speed sufficiently close to that advertised, further qualifying information, such as the speed range obtainable by those customers, should be included in the advertisement. In addition, any claim should be based on robust and reasonably representative data.

In line with this new guidance, using data from Ofcom’s latest research, the industry average speed based on the 10 per cent availability criteria would be 6Mbit/s for services currently advertised at ‘up to’ 8Mbit/s, and 14Mbit/s for services currently advertised at ‘up to’ 20/24Mbit/s. As indicated above, advertisements for these packages would also have to supplement headline speed claims with information such as the median speed or the typical speed range achieved by half of customers around the median.

Of the 13 ISP packages covered, Ofcom’s research found that the fibre-based and cable broadband technologies were fastest. Virgin Media’s ‘up to’ 50Mbit/s continued to have the highest average download speeds of approximately 49Mbit/s.

BT’s fibre-based service (BT Infinity) delivered average download speeds of around 36Mbit/s, up from approximately 34Mbit/s in May 2011. The service also achieved the highest average upload speeds of 8.8Mbit/s. All other ISP packages did not change significantly from May 2011.

Ofcom is committed to ensuring that consumers have access to clear information about their broadband speeds. The Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds was introduced in December 2008 to inform prospective broadband customers of their likely maximum speed before signing up to a service, and a strengthened Code came into force in July 2011.

Ofcom has recently commissioned mystery shopping to look at whether ISPs are adhering to the spirit of the Code and aims to publish the findings in the spring.

Ofcom Chief Executive, Ed Richards, said: “It is encouraging that speeds are increasing and that consumers have a real choice of broadband service. There is a real opportunity for consumers to look at the packages and deals in their area in order to receive the best value, speeds and performance available to them.

“We can look forward to further increases in UK broadband speeds over the next few years. Most households in the UK can now access superfast broadband services, and these services are set to get faster still as Virgin Media aims to double the speeds of most of its cable services and BT aims to double the speed of its fibre-to-the-cabinet service from 40Mbit/s to 80Mbit/s.”

Enterprises focus on getting maximum efficiency and performance from their virtual private networks (VPNs), which are provided by communications service providers such as Belgacom to complement the capabilities of the enterprises’ own dedicated networks. Applications that run too slowly or do not perform with sufficient quality can negatively impact both business operations and customer relationships.

To date, the ability to ensure the performance of applications has been limited, and this problem is particularly acute with cloud-based services. Belgacom’s deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Assurance solution will help give enterprises the confidence that the applications they rely on – from both their own dedicated network and the cloud - are operating at optimum efficiency. For instance, if the Application Assurance solution shows that network performance is affected negatively by employees accessing non-business-related services during business hours, then access to those applications can be limited or restricted to non-critical times and the performance of the enterprise’s VPN will be improved.

Tom Wuyts, director WAN, Internet & Security (Enterprise Business Unit) at Belgacom said: “With the Alcatel-Lucent Application Assurance solution, our enterprise customers will have clear insight into how much bandwidth various applications are using – this is a key element of our ‘Smart Networking’ initiative, which is geared toward bringing greater intelligence to our networks for the benefit of our customers. On the whole, enterprises are very concerned about the performance of applications they access from the cloud – this new solution will help eliminate those concerns, and put enterprises in a better position to take advantage of the cost and flexibility benefits that the cloud has to offer. As importantly, our customers can take advantage of the service quickly and cost effectively, because there is no need for on-site equipment.”

Luc Defieuw, CEO Alcatel-Lucent Bell in Belgium said: “Enterprises are increasingly interested in cooperating with their service providers to enhance visibility and performance of business-critical applications running over their network. Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Assurance solution directly addresses that need – Belgacom’s enterprise customers will always know exactly how their services are performing and will be able to make critical adjustments as needed.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Assurance solution is offered on top of the industry-leading Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router (SR) and 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS). The solution is based on the Multiservice Integrated Service Adapter (MS-ISA) - which extends the intelligence of the 7750 SR and 7450 ESS - in combination with the 5670 Reporting and Analysis Manager (RAM), which provides extensive tools and capabilities to analyse and process detailed, application-level statistics per-subscriber.

The new PSCEU is made up of four business divisions:

Communication Solutions including professional scanners, multifunctional printers, telephony systems and HD video conferencing systems.

Visual System Solutions including projectors, interactive whiteboards, presentation aids and displays. Panasonic is the European market leader in the System & Installation category of projectors (>5000 Lumen excl. D-Cinema) with a 28% global revenue share.

Professional Camera Solutions including professional audio visual, security and integrated machine vision (IMV) technology. Panasonic is one of the top two professional camera vendors in Europe.

Computer Product Solutions including the Toughbook range of rugged notebooks, Toughpad business tablets and electronic point of sales (EPOS) systems. Panasonic Toughbook is European rugged notebook market leader with 62.9% market share in 2010

The new organisation is structured around customer needs. It is capable of integrating services and third party products into custom solutions and Panasonic can provide project management for multi-site or multi-country rollouts. Project management can also include coordinating Panasonic partners.

Masaki Arizono, Managing Director of Panasonic System Communications Company Europe, said: “Panasonic products have always helped make our customers’ working lives better. With our new organisation, we also make our customers’ lives simpler and can add more value through services and solutions. No other company in Europe has such a capability in our market.”

"With large and growing vendor investment in PaaS, the market is on the cusp of several years of strategic growth, leading to innovation and likely breakthroughs in technology and business use of all of cloud computing," said Yefim Natis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Users and vendors of enterprise IT software solutions that are not yet engaged with PaaS must begin building expertise in PaaS or face tough challenges from competitors in the coming years."

PaaS is a common reference to the layer of cloud technology architecture that contains all application infrastructure services, which are also known as "middleware" in other contexts. PaaS is the middle layer of the end-to-end software stack in the cloud. It is the technology that intermediates between the underlying system infrastructure (operating systems, networks, virtualisation, storage, etc.) and overlaying application software. The technology services that are part of a full-scope comprehensive PaaS include functionality of application containers (servers), application development tools, database management systems, integration middleware, portal products, business process management suites and others — all offered as a service.

Gartner analysts said 2011 was a pivotal year for the PaaS market. As Gartner predicted last year in the report "PaaS Road Map: A Continent Emerging", the broad vendor adoption in 2011 amounted to a sound industry endorsement of PaaS as an alternative to the traditional middleware deployment models.

In 2012, the PaaS market is at its early stage of growth and does not yet have well-established leaders, best use or business practices or dedicated standards. The adoption of PaaS offerings is still associated with some degree of uncertainty and risk.

"However, PaaS products are likely to evolve into a major component of the overall cloud computing market, just as the middleware products — including application servers, database management systems (DBMSs), integration middleware and portal platforms — are the core foundation of the traditional software industry," Mr Natis said. "The tension between the short-term risk and the long-term strategic imperative of PaaS will define the key developments in the PaaS market during the next two to three years."

Some of the newly announced PaaS offerings will reach general availability late in 2012, and by the end of 2013, all major software vendors will have competitive production offerings in the PaaS market. By 2016, competition among the PaaS vendors will produce new programming models, new standards and new software market leaders. However, until then, users will continue to experience architectural changes to technologies, business models and vendor alignments in the PaaS market.

As vendors continue to invest in PaaS services, and the major software vendors look to deliver comprehensive PaaS service portfolios, activity in all segments of PaaS will accelerate and the fast pace of growth and change in the PaaS market will create confusion, making user adoption decisions more difficult.

"While there are clear risks associated with the use of services in the new and largely immature PaaS market, the risk of avoiding the PaaS market is equally high," said Mr Natis. "The right strategy for most mainstream IT organisations and software vendors is to begin building familiarity with the new cloud computing opportunities by adopting some PaaS services now, albeit with the understanding of their limitations and with the expectation of ongoing change in the market offerings and use patterns."

1 February 2012

Vidyo will demonstrate its award-winning multipoint video conferencing software on Amazon's new Kindle Fire, today at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2012 in Amsterdam. The company will also showcase the latest platform support for its VidyoMobile HD video conferencing software client: Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ running on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smart phone. This new Android mobile platform will be part of a live, multi-point, global video conference connecting an extensive variety of endpoints on iOS and Android mobile devices including the Kindle Fire, laptops, and a six screen VidyoPanorama system.

It will feature the VidyoMobile client running on some of the most popular iOS and Android tablets and smart phones, including the Kindle Fire, iPad2, iPhone 4S, in addition to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smart phone running Ice Cream Sandwich. All of these devices will be connected live with one another and a VidyoDesktop system located across the world, in a multipoint, HD video conference, over wireless and public Internet networks. “Easy-to-use, universal business-to-business communication is the holy grail of enterprise video conferencing," said Ofer Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of Vidyo. "Traditionally, the challenge has been interoperability among companies who use different video conferencing vendors and endpoint devices. Vidyo’s software based approach offers a solution to this problem by providing high definition video conferencing over a multitude of off the shelf devices and interoperability with legacy systems. No other vendor can demonstrate what we are showing today.” VidyoMobile supporting Android versions 2.2 through 4.0 is available for Vidyo users with accounts on either an enterprise VidyoConferencing system or through an authorized Vidyo service provider, in the Android Market Place as a free app.

Both companies have been working together since 2007, continually evolving the service to the current high levels where customer experience and retention have been significantly improved.

Smartphones account for a large percentage of sales and play an ever increasing role in our day to day lives, customers can find themselves struggling with new software platforms, settings or applications when upgrading or taking a Smartphone for the first time. The technical support offered by ANOVO guides the customer through this difficult transition keeping them connected with easy to understand technical advice.

Dave Ware, Associate Merchandising Director at Phones 4u says ‘Phones 4u strive to always ensure our customers have the best support when it comes to product related user issues and that is where ANOVO comes in. ANOVO has extensive experience in the technology space and we are pleased that they are providing technical support to our customers and over 580 Phones 4u retail stores’.

What started out as a service to avoid the return of handsets has evolved into a retail technical support service ensuring customers understand their new phone and avoid an unnecessary trip back to the store.

Kevin Coleman CEO ANOVO UK says ‘I am personally delighted at the signing of this new contract with Phones 4u. This is a key service offering and one that forms a major part of our services strategy moving forward’.

Amit Klein, CTO of Trusteer, said “In addition to stealing bank account data, these Ice IX configurations are capturing information on telephone accounts belonging to the victims. This allows attackers to divert calls from the bank intended for their customer to attacker controlled phone numbers. I believe the fraudsters are executing fraudulent transactions using the stolen credentials and redirecting the bank’s post-transaction verification phone calls to professional criminal caller services (discussed in a previous Trusteer blog) that approve the transactions.”

In one attack captured by Trusteer researchers, at login the malware steals the victim’s user id and password, memorable information/secret question answer, date of birth and account balance.

Next, the victim is asked to update their phone numbers of record (home, mobile and work) and select the name of their service provider from a drop-down list. In this particular attack, the three most popular phone service providers in the UK are presented: British Telecommunications, TalkTalk and Sky.

To enable the attacker to modify the victim’s phone service settings, the victim is then asked by the malware to submit their telephone account number. This is very private data typically only known to the phone subscriber and the phone company. It is used by the phone company to verify the identity of the subscriber and authorize sensitive account modifications such as call forwarding. The fraudsters justify this request by stating this information is required as a part of verification process caused by "a malfunction of the bank’s anti-fraud system with its landline phone service provider".

Amit Klein, CTO of Trusteer said, “As Trusteer discussed in a recent blog, fraudsters are increasingly turning to these post-transaction attack methods to hide fraudulent activity from the victim and block email and phone communication from the bank. This allows attackers to circumvent security mechanisms that look for anomalies once transactions have already been executed by the user.”

Deterministic detection security mechanisms like Trusteer Rapport, which search for specific malware Crime Logic footprints before transactions are submitted and allow the online banking application to stop fraud by changing business flows (block money transfers, decline add payee, limit amounts, etc.), are not vulnerable to post transaction attacks.