var date_1 = new Array(); var title = new Array(); var article = new Array(); var date_2 = new Array(); var title_2 = new Array(); var title2_2 = new Array(); var article_2 = new Array(); var image = new Array(); date_1[113] = "15/05/11"; title[113] = "Seraphim wins EBAN Early Stage Fund of the Year"; article[113] = "Seraphim is delighted to have been announced as the Early Stage Fund of the Year at EBAN's Annual Congress in Warsaw.

"; date_1[104] = "03/02/11"; title[104] = "Seraphim invests further in Pyreos"; article[104] = "Seraphim Capital – the early stage technology investor – has made its second investment into Pyreos alongside other existing shareholders including Siemens Technology Accelerator, Braveheart Investment Group PLC and Scottish Enterprise‟s Scottish Venture Fund. Seraphim previously led a £1.35m round in April 2010.
Pyreos has developed patented thin film technology with applications across the infrared sensor industry. This technology enables Pyreos to make infrared sensors at a fraction of the size and cost than is possible today whilst also offering improved performance, functionality and reliability. Pyreos therefore has the potential to disrupt the infrared sensor market in much the same way that the development of integrated circuits drove the electronics / microchip revolution 40 years ago.
Infrared sensors form the basis of several $billion markets including motion detection - used for energy conservation, building automation and security alarms - infrared cameras that can „see in the dark‟, gas detectors used to detect the presence of harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, and spectroscopy which uses infrared sensors to determine the chemical / molecular composition of samples for - amongst others - the pharmaceuticals, food and beverage and petrochemical industries.

With the current funding round Pyreos has now raised a total of £4.8m in equity funding over the last 3 years. The investment will be used to strengthen the Company‟s global network of channel partners and to respond to the growing demand for its technology from its 50+ existing customers.

An exciting recent development with the Company has been the appointment in of Tony Lear as Non Executive Chairman. Tony is a 40 year veteran of the electronics and semiconductor industries, having previously worked for Texas Instruments, Seagate and Philips where he was an integral member of the team that spun out NXP (Nasdaq GM: NXPI). Tony is also currently a non executive director of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE: FCS) – one of the pioneers in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing. Tony brings to Pyreos a wealth of experience within semiconductor fabrication and a deep knowledge of Pyreos‟ key Far Eastern markets."; date_1[88] = "15/07/10"; title[88] = "Flirtomatic raises $9m in Series C funding"; article[88] = "Flirtomatic (http://www.flirtomatic.com), the world’s #1 flirting company, has announced that it has raised $9 million in Series C funding from Nauta Capital and existing investors Doughty Hanson, Seraphim Capital and Chairman Avi Azulai. Flirtomatic will use the new funds to further its growth across the U.S. and Europe, and to expand its co-marketing efforts with partners that include: AT&T, MetroPCS, Virgin Mobile, T-Mobile, and the recent distribution deal with a multi-national operator, launching Flirtomatic across an initial eight countries, under a single payment and billing system.

This year, Flirtomatic, which has more than 2.5 million users in the U.S. and UK, also launched its iPhone, iPod Touch and Android apps, and this summer is making its service available via a Blackberry application and at the Ovi Store.

“Flirtomatic’s success is built upon ground-breaking monetization techniques coupled with a multi-channel distribution strategy. This new investment will allow us to accelerate investment in international markets, to continue to drive innovation, and build on our position as one of the most viewed mobile sites according to the GSMA and comScore,” said Flirtomatic CEO and co-founder Mark Curtis.

“Flirtomatic is the international market leader with a proven team, best of breed monetization, and high-profile distribution partners. The fundamentals are compelling and we are excited to be a part of the company’s extensive expansion,” added Javier Rubio, General Partner at Nauta Capital.

“We have been with the company since the early days and are delighted to be an ongoing part of its impressive success. Flirtomatic has really figured out how to attract and engage mobile consumers,” commented Ivan Farneti, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.

"; date_1[87] = "14/07/10"; title[87] = "Seraphim leads £1.35m investment in Pyreos"; article[87] = "Seraphim Capital – the specialist early stage technology investor – has led a £1.35m investment round in fabless semiconductor company Pyreos alongside existing shareholders including Siemens Technology Accelerator. Pyreos – which spun out of Siemens in 2007 following 15 years of intensive R&D – has developed technology that is set to turn the infrared sensor industry on its head.

Infrared sensors form the basis of several $billion markets including motion detectors used for energy conservation, building automation and security alarms, infrared cameras that can ‘see in the dark’, gas detectors which are used to detect the presence of potentially harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, and spectroscopy which uses infrared sensors to determine the chemical / molecular composition of samples for - amongst others - the pharmaceuticals, food and beverage and petrochemical industries.

The materials and manufacturing techniques currently used to make infrared sensors mean there are inherent limitations – both in terms of cost and performance – that have held back the industry over the past 25 years. Pyreos’ patented thin film technology addresses these issues by, for the first time, bringing the benefits of low cost semiconductor manufacturing techniques to the infrared sensor industry. This enables Pyreos to make sensors at a fraction of the size and cost than has historically been possible whilst also offering improved performance, functionality and reliability. By making infrared sensors at 1/100th of the cost and as little as 1/200th of the size of existing sensors, Pyreos’ technology has the potential to disrupt the industry, creating a paradigmatic shift in the industry’s cost model whilst also opening up entirely new applications. In this sense, the benefits of Pyreos’ technology for infrared sensors are comparable to the development of integrated circuits which drove the electronics / microchip revolution 40 years ago.

Pyreos has already established a presence in markets around the world through leading distributors. The Company has already signed several multi-million dollar long term customer supply agreements, working with many of the leading industry players in both Europe, America and Asia.

The funding will enable the business to continue to build out its sales resource in order to respond to the intense levels of interest currently being experienced from across a range of different market verticals.

James Bruegger, Investment Director, Seraphim Capital: “The IR sensor industry is ripe for disruption. It is amazing to think that making and assembling these sensors still requires handcrafting. Major players in the industry have spent much of the last 20 years trying and failing to find a way to make sensors that are smaller and cheaper. Pyreos’ technology is the culmination of over a decade of world-class R&D from Siemens and provides a solution to all these issues. We believe that the potential growth in the use of sensors generally is huge and that it has really only been cost and size that has held back the infrared sensor market. Pyreos therefore has the potential to radically alter what is already a very large industry.”

Jeff Wright, CEO Pyreos: “We built a relationship with the Seraphim team over the past two years and were delighted to bring them on board as shareholders. The business now has the resource to accelerate growth from our burgeoning pipeline of international customers.”

"; date_1[78] = "08/02/10"; title[78] = "Intamac Systems attracts £2m investment from Seraphim and Chandos"; article[78] = "Seraphim Capital has led a £2m investment alongside Chandos Fund into Intamac System Limited - a platform provider for next generation networked and connected home services.

Intamac has developed a web-based platform that enables a broad range of new products and interactive services for consumers to remotely monitor and control their home environment. This platform has been designed to work with a new generation of intelligent household devices, such as home security alarms, door locks, IP cameras, electrical appliances and even utility meters, which can send and receive information via a household’s broadband connection. The Intamac platform connects these devices in the cloud, and provides consumers with a simple web interface accessed via either a computer or a mobile phone through which they can manage all these devices and deliver innovative new services.

Intamac’s home monitoring offering is based around its revolutionary self-install ‘plug and play’ security alarm system, which includes a variety of wireless peripherals such as motion, smoke and water sensors, and integrates with IP cameras and electronic door locks. As the alarm system is connected via broadband to the internet, consumers can receive notifications via voice call, sms text message and email if their alarm is triggered, turn their alarm on and off remotely, and view images from cameras in their home through a computer or mobile phone. All this extra functionality is offered at a fraction of the cost of a traditional burglar alarm system.

The Company’s energy management offering enables consumers to monitor their household energy consumption in real time via the web, and remotely control lights and electrical appliances to reduce energy consumption. By connecting low cost in-home displays and intelligent device plugs to its platform, Intamac is able to offer a range of innovative web-based monitoring and control services, such as automatically switching off devices which have been left in standby mode. Such services have been shown to provide up to a 10% drop in energy consumption and are a valuable tool in efforts to reduce a households’ carbon footprint.

Intamac’s technology has already been deployed on three continents and the company has recently announced an exclusive partnership with D-Link, one of the world’s leading CE product manufacturers. The two companies have developed a new range of IP based, low cost, self install products and services for telcos and utilities looking to deploy new offerings as part of their respective quad play and Smart Grid strategies. By working together, D-Link and Intamac intend to make the benefits of home monitoring affordable to the mass market for the first time, through both service providers and mainstream retail channels. The new D-Link and Intamac home monitoring solution won a CEA Innovation Award when previewed at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Company is led by its founder CEO, Kevin Meagher, who won a Ruban d’Honneur for Entrepreneur of the Year at European Business Awards.

James Bruegger, Investment Director, Seraphim Capital: “As broadband has become commoditised, telcos around the world are now desperate to find new products and services to try and shore up declining revenues and combat churn. Having already been proven to reduce churn with some of the world’s leading telcos, Intamac’s technology is perfectly aligned with these needs. This is why we believe Intamac’s home monitoring and energy management products could be the killer apps that telcos have been looking for.”

Paul Cannings, Director, Chandos Fund: “We are excited to be backing Intamac to capitalise on the growing interest in their product offerings. There is clear momentum in the marketplace with telecoms operators, utilities and security companies all looking to bring innovative new broadband services to their customers. Intamac are attracting the interest of the major players in the market and the company’s partnerships with D Link and Thomson validate the strength of their offering.”

Kevin Meagher, founder and CEO Intamac: “Our business and industry have seen a dramatic spike in interest from both partners and consumers alike over the past year, We spotted the opportunity for cloud-based service delivery, and have worked with partners such as British Telecom, IAG and D-Link to launch solutions in the UK, Australia and the USA. This funding gives us an excellent basis to further grow our business, developing innovative and integrated solutions for home security, energy management, video, social care and remote control . In these difficult economic times, it’s great to have Seraphim Capital and Chandos Fund backing our vision for, and recognising the potential of, the fully connected home.”
"; date_1[76] = "02/02/10"; title[76] = "Seraphim Capital leads £2m investment in Celona Technologies"; article[76] = "Seraphim Capital – the specialist early stage technology investor - has led a £2 million round of investment in Celona Technologies alongside existing investors including Spark Ventures and Caledonia Investments.

Celona has developed a software platform to solve the problems of application data migration that blight many large enterprises when upgrading, changing or integrating enterprise software applications / systems such as Customer Resource Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Telecoms applications such as Billing.

Migrating data at the business application level poses significant challenges – particularly to large enterprises whose systems are typically very large, highly complex and interdependent. Any problems that affect one particular system are likely to have a knock-on impact on other systems. With the amount of data a typical large enterprise holds more than doubling each year, these problems are exacerbated even further. For these reasons, a single large data migration can take up to 5 years to implement and cost millions of pounds. On average, a FTSE100 company will have to undertake 5 major data migration projects every year.

Although a range of tools already exist to help businesses complete data integration projects, these tools have a number of limitations and are not purpose built for application data migration. Traditional data integration methods and tools are often not flexible, are high risk and cause periods of disruptive downtime, as the data has to be taken off-line. As a result many data migrations overrun on cost, timeframe or even fail as continuity between old and new systems is lost and business disruption is high.

For complex applications such as billing systems, which require business continuity (i.e. must work 100% of the time) such downtime poses major problems and is not acceptable to the business. Taking this approach to data migration means that success or failure of a migration programme is not known until late into the programme – if all the right data has indeed been migrated successfully, and whether all the complex links to all the other IT systems and processes have been maintained to allow the new system to be turned on.

Because of the complexity of the systems being migrated, data migrations done using these tools often hit problems. On average, current implementations only achieve 80% accuracy, meaning that 20% of all the data is lost during the migration. Also because it isn’t possible to know whether the migration has been successful until the end of the project, 60% of data migration projects currently overrun on time and budget. In extreme cases, failed data migration projects can result in prolonged periods of downtime during which time up to 10% of revenues can be lost.

Celona’s Evolve software platform takes a new generation approach to data migration and in doing so solves many of these endemic problems. Rather than taking data off-line, migrating all the data and then turning the new system on, Celona’s ‘Evolve’ platform sits between the old system and the new system allowing data to be moved on a bi-directional basis, between the old and the new system in real-time. This means there is no downtime and data can be migrated incrementally as the business chooses rather than all at once. The benefits of adopting this approach is that the overall data migration is significantly derisked and business continuity is maintained. Because the migration can be done incrementally, it also means that new systems can be implemented quicker and at a far lower cost with full compliance. Celona’s Evolve software platform has been proven to achieve 98% accuracy on major data migration projects in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of any other competing data integration method or tool.

Companies across the telecoms, financial and services industries including the likes of Telstra, Serco, and Swisscom have already realised the benefits of using Celona’s ‘Evolve’ software to implement major data migration programmes. The Company has also recently entered into a global partnership with Logica – one of the world’s leading IT and business services companies – to offer Celona’s software to their global customer base, as well as partnering with the likes of Amdocs and Oracle.

Celona – who recently won a Red Herring Global 100 Award - intend to use the proceeds from this round to build out resources to respond to the burgeoning interest in their unique software.
"; date_1[68] = "16/12/09"; title[68] = "Seraphim invests £1 million in Intamac Systems"; article[68] = "Seraphim has invested £1million in Intamac Systems – a platform provider for next generation interactive home broadband services.

Intamac has developed a web-based platform that enables a broad range of new products and interactive services for consumers to remotely monitor and control their home environment.

This platform has been designed to work with the new generation of intelligent household devices that have been emerging in recent years. These devices - such as alarms, locks, cameras, electrical appliances and even utility meters – can now send and receive information wirelessly via a household’s broadband connection. Intamac’s platform provides a simple web interface which can be accessed via either a computer or a mobile phone to manage all these devices and deliver innovative new services.

To date, the Company has been focused on two distinct offerings: home monitoring and energy management. Intamac’s home monitoring offering is a ‘plug and play’ alarm system comprising a variety of wireless peripherals such as sensors, security cameras and door locks that are designed to work straight out of the box. Unlike most alarm systems, consumers can set up and install the system themselves. Because the alarm system is connected to the internet, consumers can also receive notifications on their phone and email if their alarm is triggered, turn their alarm on and off remotely, and view live streamed video footage on their phone and PC from security cameras in their home. All this extra functionality is offered at a fraction of the cost of a traditional alarm system.

The Company’s energy management offering enables consumers to easily set up a system comprising of a low cost display for power monitoring and intelligent plug devices that allows them to monitor their household energy consumption in real time via the web, and also to control lights and electrical appliances. Such services have been shown to lead to a 10% drop in energy consumption and are therefore a valuable tool in efforts to reduce households’ carbon footprint.

Intamac’s technology has already been deployed in three continents. The Company has also recently announced an exclusive partnership with D-Link – one of the world’s leading modem/router manufacturers. The two companies have developed disruptive, low cost new turnkey products and services for telcos and utilities that are looking to deploy new offerings as part of their respective quad play and Smart Grid strategies. By working together, D-Link and Intamac intend to make the benefits of home monitoring affordable to the mass market for the first time.

The Company is led by CEO Kevin Meagher who won a Ruban d’Honneur for Entrepreneur of the Year at last year’s European Business Awards."; date_1[74] = "15/12/09"; title[74] = "Seraphim Invests £1.5 million in Celona Technologies"; article[74] = "Seraphim Capital – the specialist early stage technology investor - has led a £2 million round of investment in Celona Technologies alongside existing investors including Spark Ventures and Caledonia Investments.

Celona has developed a software platform to solve the problems of application data migration that blight many large enterprises when upgrading, changing or integrating enterprise software applications / systems such as Customer Resource Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Telecoms applications such as Billing.

Migrating data at the business application level poses significant challenges – particularly to large enterprises whose systems are typically very large, highly complex and interdependent. Any problems that affect one particular system are likely to have a knock-on impact on other systems. With the amount of data a typical large enterprise holds more than doubling each year, these problems are exacerbated even further. For these reasons, a single large data migration can take up to 5 years to implement and cost millions of pounds. On average, a FTSE100 company will have to undertake 5 major data migration projects every year.

Although a range of tools already exist to help businesses complete data integration projects, these tools have a number of limitations and are not purpose built for application data migration. Traditional data integration methods and tools are often not flexible, are high risk and cause periods of disruptive downtime, as the data has to be taken off-line. As a result many data migrations overrun on cost, timeframe or even fail as continuity between old and new systems is lost and business disruption is high.

For complex applications such as billing systems, which require business continuity (i.e. must work 100% of the time) such downtime poses major problems and is not acceptable to the business. Taking this approach to data migration means that success or failure of a migration programme is not known until late into the programme – if all the right data has indeed been migrated successfully, and whether all the complex links to all the other IT systems and processes have been maintained to allow the new system to be turned on.

Because of the complexity of the systems being migrated, data migrations done using these tools often hit problems. On average, current implementations only achieve 80% accuracy, meaning that 20% of all the data is lost during the migration. Also because it isn’t possible to know whether the migration has been successful until the end of the project, 60% of data migration projects currently overrun on time and budget. In extreme cases, failed data migration projects can result in prolonged periods of downtime during which time up to 10% of revenues can be lost.

Celona’s Evolve software platform takes a new generation approach to data migration and in doing so solves many of these endemic problems. Rather than taking data off-line, migrating all the data and then turning the new system on, Celona’s ‘Evolve’ platform sits between the old system and the new system allowing data to be moved on a bi-directional basis, between the old and the new system in real-time. This means there is no downtime and data can be migrated incrementally as the business chooses rather than all at once. The benefits of adopting this approach is that the overall data migration is significantly derisked and business continuity is maintained. Because the migration can be done incrementally, it also means that new systems can be implemented quicker and at a far lower cost with full compliance. Celona’s Evolve software platform has been proven to achieve 98% accuracy on major data migration projects in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of any other competing data integration method or tool.

Companies across the telecoms, financial and services industries including the likes of Telstra, Serco, and Swisscom have already realised the benefits of using Celona’s ‘Evolve’ software to implement major data migration programmes. The Company has also recently entered into a global partnership with Logica – one of the world’s leading IT and business services companies – to offer Celona’s software to their global customer base, as well as partnering with the likes of Amdocs and Oracle.

Celona – who recently won a Red Herring Global 100 Award - intend to use the proceeds from this round to build out resources to respond to the burgeoning interest in their unique software.
"; date_1[52] = "17/06/09"; title[52] = "Seraphim completes follow-on funding in Sirigen"; article[52] = "Seraphim Capital and Oxford Capital Partners have invested a further £1.2 million into Sirigen -the company applying ground-breaking, Nobel Prize winning light amplification technology for use in the diagnostic and life science sectors. The round follows the £2 million previously invested in April 2008.

Sirigen uses novel light harvesting polymers to amplify the signal in a wide range of instrumentation and detection platforms used across the diagnostics and life sciences industries.

The Company’s technology is used to enhance the sensitivity of tests and diagnostic assays by up to 100 fold and is being used by leading biomedical companies to both optimise existing diagnostic assays and to develop the next generation of diagnostic tools which will underpin the drive towards personal healthcare management.

The current round of investment has been completed as a result of the Company having achieved predetermined technical and commercial milestones.

With its core technology now fully developed, the Company has recently entered into commercial agreements with three leading global diagnostics companies.

This latest round of funding will enable the Company to optimise its production strategies to deliver upon customer specific applications each of which have market values in excess of $100 million.

Nick Kerton, CEO of Sirigen commented - 'In the last few months we have successfully hit all our milestones, overcoming the key remaining technical hurdles. We are already working with some of the world’s leading diagnostic companies who view our technology as being integral part of to their future growth. The strength of our current pipeline leads us to believe that our technology will soon become a ‘must have’ across the industry. This latest round of funding will help us deliver this.”

Mark Boggett, Investment Director at Seraphim Capital commented - “In spite of the impact of the adverse economic climate, Sirigen has made tremendous strides over the last 12 months, entering into commercial agreements with several global leading diagnostics companies. This is testimony to the strength of its game-changing technology which now stands at the forefront of the next generation of innovation within the diagnostics industry. We are delighted to continue to support the Company’s as it goes from strength to strength.”"; date_1[36] = "05/01/09"; title[36] = "Seraphim invests further in Testplant"; article[36] = "After record trading in the final quarter of 2008, TestPlant has secured another round of funding from existing investor Seraphim Capital supported by both Chief Executive George Mackintosh and Chairman Jon Richards. Funds raised now total £1,500,000 since the acquisition in September 2008 of Redstone Software Inc by TestPlant Limited which is registered in the UK.

TestPlant operates in Europe as TestPlant Europe and from 1 January 2009 the US business will be known as TestPlant Inc. The old Redstone operation has been fully integrated into TestPlant and the business now runs under one brand, one management structure and with one key “user interface testing” technology, eggPlant. A new office was opened in the City of London to support and develop European customers. The US office has been expanded and continues to be located in Boulder, Colorado.

eggPlant is used by many of the world’s top 25 IT and software companies and by most of the world’s top 10 defence contractors. Using a unique architecture for testing software and deploying clever image recognition technology, eggPlant offers a test solution that “sees” as the human eye sees and delivers better quality software, developed in less time and at lower cost to end users.

Commenting on the funding round, George Mackintosh said: “We’ve had a really good end to 2008.
We’ve proved that eggPlant can create a return on investment sometimes measured in weeks – even for smaller software development units. We secured first orders in the period from EMC, SAS and BAE Systems. Our strategy of concentrating on two major markets is working: first, Defence, Aerospace and Civil Aviation industries and second, the IT, Software, Mobile and Medical companies.

Unusually – and perhaps unfashionably! – we’re fully funded for 2009 and our
customer base and strong balance sheet will support our drive to take market share from the sector giants.”

James Bruegger at Seraphim Capital, with its investment partners in London and Washington DC, added: “We are encouraged by the way the management and staff of TestPlant have responded to the new structure. Customer acquisition and retention have been excellent and this all presents a tremendous springboard into 2009.

There’s solid organic growth potential for the business and wecontinue to look for opportunities to grow the operation by acquisition. Our latest decision to invest proves that well managed businesses with credible business models will always attract money”.

"; date_1[53] = "14/10/08"; title[53] = "MirriAd Secures £2 Million Funding"; article[53] = "MirriAd, the embedded advertising specialist, today announces the completion of a £2 million, second round of funding, designed to accelerate the deployment of its innovative advertising solutions in major markets around the world. Seraphim and existing investors each participated in the fund raising and were joined by Oxford Technology Enterprise Capital Fund (OTECF) which made one of its most significant investments to date.

MirriAd’s solutions have now been adopted in both Hollywood and Bollywood and agreements are also in place with a range of key partners in the TV and online content owner community worldwide. The new capital allows the company to power its intellectual property and technology development and support sales activity in New York, London and Mumbai.

MirriAd’s solution delivers a new advertising service that embeds advertising imagery into the content that is contextual and drives positive emotions from audiences. The imagery embedded can take the form of simple branded objects such as props, backdrops or signage to sophisticated dynamic ads with interactivity such as moving ads on plasma screens. Brand references appear as if they were filmed in the original production and they can be audience specific according to a range of variables including platform (e.g. traditional broadcast, Web or mobile), geography, date and demographic profile.

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd’s CEO added, “MirriAd successfully takes the concept of product placement, the only advertising format that can’t skipped by the viewer, and delivers a scalable and adaptable advertising solution that can be applied to any content, at any time and in any market. The end result benefits all – content free from annoying distractions, audience specific brand placement and a new means to monetise video assets.”

”The opportunities for MirriAd are enormous and this latest capital injection allows us to rapidly develop existing and new business in Europe, North America and Asia.”
"; date_1[1] = "02/09/08"; title[1] = "Seraphim Leads £1million investment into Testplant Ltd"; article[1] = "Testplant has recently been formed by a team of seasoned software entrepreneurs as a vehicle to make acquisitions in the fragmented software testing market.

Software testing entails running a series of diagnostic tests on a new piece of software. These tests are designed to try and help identify any defects (commonly referred to as 'bugs') that might have erroneously been created during the process of building a new piece of software. Given that software bugs cost the US economy alone up to $60 billion annually, finding more effective means of testing software is an imperative for the $200 billion global software industry.

Testplant has just completed its first acquisition in the software testing market. The Company has reached agreement with Gresham Computing plc to acquire one of its subsidiaries - Redstone Software Inc - for a consideration of £500,000.

Redstone has developed some unique software that automates the process for testing other software products. It does this by mimicking the actions of an end user, enabling it to test the software through the end user interface. This means that for the first time, highly manual elements of the software testing process - which account for up to 80% of all testing - can now be automated, reducing the time taken to test new software products but up to 80%.

Redstone's innovative software is already being used by some of the world's largest companies, including 16 Fortune 500 companies. Under the new ownership of Testplant, Redstone will seek to internationally expand its blue chip customer base. Testplant is led by serial entrepreneur George Mackintosh (CEO) and IT veteran Jon Richards (Chairman), who between them have successfully built up and sold more than a dozen software businesses over the last decade. Both are investing alongside Seraphim in this round.

As part of Seraphim's investment, a further addition is being made to the team in the form of David Harrison who is joining the board as a non executive director. David was previously the Managing Director (UK, Middle East and Africa) for Mercury Interactive - which grew to become the global market leader in software testing before being acquired by HP in 2006 for $4.5billion."; date_1[2] = "19/06/08"; title[2] = "Seraphim Wins Award For Best Deal"; article[2] = "Seraphim Capital has won the award for the best structured deal between a venture capital fund and business angels at the annual British Business Angels Associations award ceremony held at Brands Hatch race track on Wednesday evening.

The award was open to venture capital funds, business angel networks, angel groups/syndicates or individual investors who have successfully structured a deal including both venture and angel investment in an early stage business.

The judges were looking for evidence demonstrating that the investors had successfully structured a deal including both a VC and angel investment, and that the investors had added value to the needs of the entrepreneur. Commenting on their decision to give the award to Seraphim for its investment into MirriAd, the judges stated that they found that it was 'a very interesting combination of funding with a large number of angels involved with a strong lead angel investor in an interesting technology business.'

Seraphim led a £2million round of investment into MirriAd in September 2007. MirriAd is the developer of ground-breaking technology that is pioneering a new form of product placement by enabling advertisers to digitally insert virtual products / brands into any form of video content and vary the advertising according to where the content is being shown and according to who is watching it. MirriAd is already working with leading studios, broadcasters and advertising agencies across Europe, America and Asia.

Upon receiving the award, Mark Boggett commented that 'Seraphim is delighted to have won this award. Our investment in MirriAd was a great example of how our unique model can work to help deliver real benefits to exciting early stage companies. In every deal we do, we look to introduce a lead business angel with deep industry experience who can help drive the company's growth. In MirriAd's case we were fortunate enough to identify a real veteran of the virtual advertising industry who has joined MirriAd's board and has been instrumental in helping the company expand into the US'."; date_1[3] = "01/05/08"; title[3] = "Seraphim Invests £2million in Aria Networks"; article[3] = "Seraphim has led a £2million Series A investment in Aria Networks - a developer of next-generation artificial-intelligence software that is used to plan and optimise telecoms networks.

Aria's proprietary technology is based on software that more closely models the adaptive nature of the human brain than any other technique currently available. Aria achieves this by competing different artificial-intelligence algorithms - including networks of interconnecting artificial neurons which imitate the properties of the biological neurons in the human brain - to solve complex problems. This approach allows Aria's software to be self-learning and to continually evolve.

These capabilities represent the application of next-generation, world-class artificial-intelligence solutions. The power of Aria's software has already been successfully tested against some of the world's best modelling solutions, and was used by the company who mapped the Human Genome and by world-class pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, to investigate complex diseases and as part of their drug development programs.

Aria is now exploiting its advanced software within the trillion dollar global telecoms industry with a view to fundamentally changing the way complex telecoms networks are designed, planned and operated.

In an effort to win and retain customers in an increasingly competitive market, telecoms operators are rapidly expanding their service offering by seeking to provide 'quad-play' services comprising fixed and mobile voice services (including voice calls made over the Internet - known as VOIP), broadband Internet access, and television services over the Internet (known as IPTV or Video On Demand / VOD).

In order to provide these new services, telecoms operators around the world are building converged networks - called 'Next-Generation Networks'. BT for example is spending over £10billion on its '21st-Century Network'.

Next-Generation Networks are highly complex and require systems known as Operational Support Systems (OSS) to successfully operate them. It is within the $42billion OSS market - which is forecast to grow by 50% by 2012 - that Aria operates.

Aria's technology enables telecoms companies to design, plan, and optimise their Next-Generation Networks. Using its artificial-intelligence, Aria is capable of doing in minutes what it takes large teams of engineers and planners months to achieve. Furthermore, the functionality provided by Aria enables telecom operators to economically build their network and to reliably deliver services such as streaming video or music downloads.

Aria's technology is highly disruptive and has the capability to fundamentally change the economics of a telecom operator's business.

Aria is already working with Alcatel-Lucent - the world's largest telecoms hardware vendor, Amdocs - the world's largest OSS software vendor, and BT - one of the world's largest telecoms operators.

Aria is led by CEO Tony Fallows - a 20 year veteran of the telecoms industry - and Chairman Jon Richards - formerly CEO of the Anite Group PLC and a highly accomplished software entrepreneur in his own right who has been involved in the successful exit of ten other VC-backed companies.

The £2million investment enables Aria to expand its team to address its burgeoning pipeline of hardware and software vendors, systems integrators and telecom operators from around the world all of whom are queuing up to leverage Aria's world-beating technology."; date_1[4] = "30/04/08"; title[4] = "Seraphim Leads £2million Investment Round Into Sirigen"; article[4] = "Seraphim Capital has led a £2million round of investment into Sirigen - the company applying ground-breaking, Nobel Prize winning amplification technology for use in the biotech and life sciences sectors. Seraphim has co-invested alongside Oxford Capital Partners.

The £2 million investment will enable Sirigen to continue to exploit its technology across the $47billion biomedical industry.

Sirigen's technology is based on a novel form of conducting polymers (plastics) developed at the University of California Santa Barbara. These polymers have unique light harvesting properties which facilitate the amplification of light sources passed through them. So ground-breaking were these new generation conducting polymers that the acclaimed scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000. Sirigen has the exclusive rights to use this revolutionary technology in biological assays with a specific focus on diagnostic and other healthcare applications.

Sirgen's amplification technology is addressing a key issue facing the $47billion biomedical industry; modern science has now reached the point where testing equipment used in the field of Life Sciences and Clinical Diagnostics has already been optimized for sensitivity. Finding a means of magnifying the light output of test and diagnostic assays will therefore be the major catalyst for the next generation of personal healthcare management.

Sirigen's platform agnostic, enabling technology represents a quantum leap in detection capabilities, amplifying the sensitivity of a wide range of existing instrumentation and detection platforms by up to 100 fold. Sirigen's technology is applicable to a diverse cross section of the biomedical industry including the $6billion drug discovery industry which can use Sirigen to test the efficacy of new drugs, the $12billion life sciences industry which can use Sirigen to develop new detection platforms, and the $35billion diagnostics industry, which can work with Sirigen to optimise existing diagnostic techniques and to develop the next generation of diagnostic tools.

Sirigen has recently established it's Headquarters and commercial organisation in the UK to support a global business. In addition the company is well positioned to strengthen its ties to the European-based life science and pharmaceutical industry heavy-weights, such as Qiagen and Novartis, with whom the Company is already working.

Sirigen is led by its CEO Nick Kerton who previously was a member of the team which founded Celsis International - one of the first biotech companies ever to float on the London Stock Exchange. As part of the Seraphim investment, Drummond Paris will be joining the Sirigen Board as Non Executive Chairman. Drummond brings with him over 25 years experience of the pharmaceutical industry as the ex-CEO and President of Novartis UK and ex-Global Head of Novartis' Immunology Business."; date_1[5] = "27/09/07"; title[5] = "Seraphim Leads £2million Investment Round into MirriAd"; article[5] = "Seraphim Capital has led a £2million round of investment into MirriAd Ltd. Seraphim is co-investing alongside existing investors that include London Seed Capital, South East Growth Fund and Oxford Technology Partners. The transaction is Seraphim's fourth investment since the fund's launch one year ago

MirriAd has developed novel technology that could spell the end to the crisis currently facing broadcasters around the world. MirriAd takes technology that is already routinely used by Hollywood studios for special effects in blockbuster films such as Pirates of the Caribbean, X-Men and James Bond Casino Royale, and uses it to digitally insert branded objects into video content.

Now for the first time products, logos, posters or bill boards can be seamlessly placed into video streams post-production, across cinema, TV, DVD, mobile and online platforms delivering optimal presence for the brand whilst remaining in context with the content.

As such, MirriAd is set to turn the product placement industry on its head. Product placement currently entails a branded object being physically placed into feature films and TV shows during filming. Using MirriAd's technology it is now possible to digitally insert virtual products into the video content after filming has been completed, making them look like they were always there. This enables advertising to be varied according to where the content is being shown and according to who is watching it.

Faced by falling advertising revenues as a consequence of ever greater audience fragmentation and the advent of ad-skipping technologies such as Personal Video Recorders (PVR/DVR), broadcasters are currently facing a crisis which threatens to undermine the entire industry. Using MirriAd's technology, broadcasters and content owners now have a remedy for their ails, using 'virtual product placement' to generate new revenue streams. New cinema releases and TV shows can now regionalise their advertising content, whilst back catalogues of popular shows and DVDs can be monetised by retrospectively inserting new branded products and adverts into the content.

Physical product placement is already a tried and tested form of advertising having been commonplace in the US since the 1950's. Many major global brands have successfully undertaken product placement campaigns in leading TV series and blockbuster feature films. A typical blockbuster feature film currently contains up to 30 product placements. Globally, physical product placement is already a $6 billion industry, and is set to grow to over $14 billion by 2010, largely as a result of broadcaster's needs to find new, alternative revenue streams.

In recognition of the predicament facing broadcasters, the EU has recently passed a directive legalising product placement in Europe for the first time. This deregulation is expected to lead to triple digit growth rates in countries such as the UK, Italy and Spain in forthcoming years.

MirriAd is already working with some of the leading studios, broadcasters and advertising agencies in both Europe and America. Its technology is currently being used to insert different branded products for ten different regions on a forthcoming major Hollywood cinema release and as well as being used to insert virtual products into a leading reality television series.

The £2 million investment will enable MirriAd to address the current unprecedented levels of demand from around the world for its highly scaleable technology.

As part of the investment Seraphim is appointing Denny Wilkinson to MirriAd's Board. Having previously successfully built up and sold a US company that placed virtual advertisement into live broadcast sporting events, Denny has unrivalled experience of the virtual advertising industry."; date_1[6] = "04/09/07"; title[6] = "Seraphim Capital Completes £1.5million Investment Into Sharpcards Ltd"; article[6] = "Sharpcards is the pioneer of mobile greeting cards - a new form of content for mobile phones that is set to take the market by storm. Sharpcards takes the content of a typical paper greeting card and tailors it for mobile phones. Mobile phone users are able to browse Sharpcards' catalogue of greeting cards via their network operator's WAP portal before purchasing a card and sending it to another mobile phone.

As well as wishing someone good luck, saying happy birthday or saving someone's blushes with a last minute anniversary card, these greetings are being used by people as a more flirtacious and colourful extension to everyday text messaging. Sharpcards provides an immediately accessible, impulsive means of sending a small token of affection to your nearest and dearest.

They take the form of pictures, short animations or even video clips and are transmitted in the same way people send a picture taken with their camera phones - by using MMS (Multimedia Message Service). To date Sharpcards has sold more than 3 million mobile greeting cards.

Besides having relationships - many of them exclusive - with more than 70 of the most popular greeting card brand-owners, Sharpcards is also the supplier of mobile greetings to 19 of the worlds leading mobile network operators.

The average person in the UK already purchases 55 greeting cards per year. With 30% of all UK mobile phone users already using picture messaging and MMS, and with 2 billion people expected to be using their mobile phones to access the internet by 2011, Sharpcards is well positioned to grow mobile greeting cards into a mobile content category that could rival the ringtones market in its popularity.

The £1.5million investment will enable Sharpcards to address an exciting new opportunity to develop an application that will be pre-installed directly onto the mobile phone when it is manufactured. This application will provide a dynamic catalogue of mobile greeting cards directly on the handset, and will be integrated with the phone's messaging system, making it as easy to send a mobile greeting card as it is to send a text message. Sharpcards is already in advanced stages of developing the application and expects to launch it in the UK in conjunction with major network operators, handset manufacturers and retailers by Christmas."; date_1[7] = "15/06/07"; title[7] = "Seraphim Leads £2million Investment Round into Handmade Mobile"; article[7] = "Seraphim Capital has led a £2million round of development capital into Handmade Mobile Entertainment Ltd. Seraphim is co-investing alongside existing investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and Kiosk Services who seed funded the business.

Handmade Mobile operates Flirtomatic - one of UK's largest mobile internet sites and the first to serve gender-based advertising.

Flirtomatic is Europe's leading cross platform online flirting service, enabling people accessing the internet via both mobile phones and PCs to flirt with each other via instant messages. An instantly 'fun' service, Flirtomatic is a fusion between a social networking site and an online dating service.

Since its full launch in June 2006, Flirtomatic has grown exponentially, achieving 77 million WAP mobile page impressions in May (up from 53m in April) placing it within the UK's 10 most used mobile internet services.

Mobile usage of the service is growing at an unprecedented rate. Usage levels are currently 4-5 times higher than industry norms with mobile users on average visiting the site more than 8 times a day, and spending longer on it than users of mainstream social networking sites such as Facebook.

Handmade Mobile has also developed multiple different revenue streams covering both advertising and user paid-for value added services. With a highly defined user base 60% plus of which is 18-30 year olds, Flirtomatic is the first mobile service to serve adverts tailored to each user's gender.

With 15.5million people in the UK already accessing the internet via their mobiles, and with the mobile advertising market expected to grow to $11billion within the next few years, Handmade Mobile is well positioned to develop into one of the leading forces within the burgeoning mobile internet sector.

The £2million investment will enable Handmade Mobile to expand into internationally markets which have already experienced rapid, viral growth.

Mark Boggett who led the deal for Seraphim commented, 'we are backing a management team with an outstanding track record in the sector. Mobile advertising is poised for rapid growth and Flirtomatic are at the forefront of the market with a proposition that combines many elements of the leading internet business models.'

Mark Curtis (CEO) and Avi Azulai (Chairman) from Handmade Mobile stated that 'Over the last year we have validated our product in the UK and seen good growth, first in usage and now in revenues. Our next job - and the reason we raised further investment - is to take Handmade's product and further refine our advertising offer as the market starts to look for the promise of mobile customer targeting to be made real .After that, we'll be looking at how we can take the platform to open up yet more the potential for mobile commuinties. We're pleased Seraphim could see this so clearly and are backing us.'"; date_1[8] = "20/12/06"; title[8] = "Seraphim invests £1m in G-T-P Group Ltd"; article[8] = "G-T-P provides the trade and business services sectors with payment card services. The company supplies white-labelled trade cards to B2B distribution businesses and service providers such as builders' merchants, electrical distributors and retail chains.

Alongside branded payment cards, G-T-P also offers customers a range of services including account administration, online credit authorisation, transaction processing, payment collection, B2B telemarketing and loyalty schemes. G-T-P's solution enables customers to optimise working capital, improve cash flow and sales, reduce bad debts and internal overheads, whilst also enhancing customer loyalty.

The company has a strong existing client base that includes York International, Floors-2-Go and Brandon Tool Hire. Brandon recently won the European Hire Award for Innovation for their G-T-P trade card scheme.

The new funding will allow the company to build on its current success by strengthening its sales, marketing and support operation in preparation for partnering the likes of York International in a pan-European roll out of its trade card services. The company has an exciting pipeline with six major multinational customers due to commence their payment card schemes in Q1 2007.

The company also intends to use the funding to capitalise on several exciting opportunities in the gift card, voucher card, prepaid card and insurance replacement card sectors.

Mark Boggett from Seraphim Capital led the deal stated 'This investment will enable G-T-P to expand rapidly taking advantage of their first mover status in order to build a world class platform within their target market.'

Helen Child, G-T-P's CEO stated 'We are delighted to have the opportunity to work alongside Seraphim. Beyond their financial investment it is the mentoring brought by their lead investor - David Kendall - that really excites us. His experience as chairman of many public companies in a wide range of industries will be invaluable.'

Nick Aylwin from Katalyst, the Company's broker, stated 'G-T-P is a highly attractive business in a burgeoning new growth area of the economy. The company is on track to achieve very fast expansion.'"; date_2[132] = "20/01/12"; title_2[132] = "Intamac Systems launches Smart Energy service and announces partnership with Green Energy Options"; title2_2[132] = "Company"; article_2[132] = "Intamac Systems Ltd, market leaders in connected home technology, announces its Smart Energy service and partnership with Green Energy Options' (GEO) to connect in-home display (IHD's) to its web-based home monitoring platform. Intamac Systems Ltd. new Smart Energy service enables homeowners to visualise, monitor and interact with their energy consumption.

Intamac's Smart Energy solution is delivered via its unique web-based, managed service platform which already provides utilities, telco's and service providers with a range of added value services. Intamac has incorporated GEO's latest in-home display device - the Ensemble - into its connected home platform, replicating the display information online so that consumers can access and monitor the energy consumption and control appliances in their homes at any time, and from anywhere in the world.

Content is delivered over fixed and mobile broadband allowing end users to visualise the energy consumption in their homes. By delivering this information via internet & mobile, consumers can actively monitor and manage their energy consumption, realise cost reductions, and improve their home's energy efficiency. Intamac's 'life beyond the meter' approach allows new services to be developed, leveraging its platform capability to network devices in the home more effectively than ever before.

'The launch of our Smart Energy service signals a real milestone in providing customers with new connected home capabilities' comments Kevin Meagher, CEO Intamac Systems Ltd. 'Even before the infrastructure is in place to deliver Smart Meters and the Smart Grid network, consumers really need to be aware of how they can make a difference to their lifestyle and start reducing energy consumption today. Through this partnership with GEO, we are taking a big stride towards homeowners having a simple and cost effective way of interacting with their energy usage, identifying and making savings, and taking responsibility for the energy consumption in their homes'.

GEO offers a range of energy monitoring displays that bring energy information to the attention of those who are using it. Utilising colour graphics that are bold and eye-catching the displays provide visual alerts that encourage behavioural change. GEO aims to take what is complex, dull technical information and make it interesting and relevant. The energy monitors can provide itemised usage that pinpoints exactly where energy is being wasted. By doing this, the end user has the knowledge to adjust their behaviour and to significantly reduce their energy consumption and identify how to make their home more efficient.

The Ensemble is GEO's next generation in-home display that lets users see how much electricity they're using overall and to track up to six appliances. Connecting to the Intamac platform via an Internet bridge makes the Ensemble a truly smart device - users can control the appliances via a web portal or using an iPhone app, whilst a 'one-touch' lifestyle button can switch all six appliances off at once.

'GEO has always had a very simple objective; to make energy visible' Patrick Caiger-Smith, CEO Green Energy Options remarks. 'Through our work with Intamac we have delivered another medium for consumers to really engage with their energy consumption, at home and remotely. The launch of our connect-home model the Ensemble also adds functionality which allows consumers to increase the efficiencies within their home and control appliances, enabling them to adjust their life style and build a better relationship with their energy management system.'
" image[132] = "9" date_2[131] = "11/01/12"; title_2[131] = "MirriAd announces new on-premise ‘Hub’"; title2_2[131] = "Company"; article_2[131] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, announces the launch of the ‘Hub’, an integrated solution for broadcasters. MirriAd has developed a unique platform for the digital placement of branded imagery seamlessly into professional video that is scalable and can be managed by broadcasters directly. For the first time, broadcasters can enable large sales forces to sell product placement inventory whilst maintaining control of the content.

Leading brands have confirmed that previewing opportunities, understanding the context and knowing the precise size, position, and duration of the placement opportunity de-risks what can otherwise be considered a risky purchase.

The MirriAd Hub is a brand new concept and relies on a networked technology which empowers producer/broadcasters to cost effectively meet client needs for reliable and valuable placement in premium content. The Hub handles media logistics locally, analyses video content, creates inventory suitable for contextual placements and then places it in a secure portal or ‘walled garden’ for sale.

A Hub located at a broadcaster’s premises devolves total control of the creative and commercial decision making to the sales and production teams with fast turnaround at minimal overhead. The Hub is provided by MirriAd as part of the service business model, requiring only minimal initial capital outlay from the broadcaster.

Seven Network, a leading national broadcaster in Australia, deployed a Hub in late spring 2011. After initial trials, Seven launched the Hub Digital Product Placement service commercially in the middle of 2011, to great effect. Today, Seven is placing brands digitally into several top rated shows and long running series. The process is working seamlessly between production and sales organisations and has resulted in a fast growing new revenue stream for the network, having amortized the initial investment within the first six months of commercial operations.

The Hub uses MirriAd’s ZoneSense software technology running on local hardware central to which is a cluster of NVIDIA’s very high performance GPUs. This enables broadcasters to create inventory comprised of visuals at high speed combined with analytical and marketing data which can then be placed in an online Catalogue for sale to brands and agencies. The Catalogue is integrated directly into the MirriAd platform and supports all the producer/broadcaster editorial approvals and compliance processes, thus ensuring that inventory offered to brands and agencies is ready to go.

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd CEO, said:

“Seven is a fast mover with high standards for production values and commercial operations. They have deployed a new commercial process which fits seamlessly into their operations and the Hub is central to that. We will be launching our new services such as MirriAd Analytics and the MirriAd Catalogue within Seven early in 2012.”

Kurt Burnette, Chief Sales & Digital Officer, Seven Media Group said:

“MirriAd has proven to be the leading technology in digital product placement. The introduction of The Hub provides further ability for our customers to see exactly what, when and where integration can happen across Seven Network owned and produced properties, in advance and all in one place. Each program and opportunity can be carefully selected for its impact and relevance to the brand.

“MirriAd and Seven have been working together for 12 months and have fully developed the offer for the Australian market, ensuring the MirriAd and Seven offering remains the world’s best practice for advertisers.“
" image[131] = "4" date_2[130] = "12/12/11"; title_2[130] = "Guardian Selects Cognitive Match To Power On-Site Dynamic Creative Optimization "; title2_2[130] = "Company"; article_2[130] = " Guardian News & Media (GNM) - a leading news provider which publishes the Guardian and Observer newspapers, as well as the guardian.co.uk and guardiannews.com websites - has chosen Cognitive Match, provider of Dynamic Optimization solutions to boost its onsite commercial potential. As a result of this move, GNM's millions of monthly visitors will become more familiar with GNM's relevant commercial offerings on the site, including services such as Soulmates dating, holiday offers and the Masterclasses that are available. Cognitive Match provides an innovative technology solution that is able to predict and then target content that is most likely to inspire the individual user to action. This news comes after a successful four month trial.Chris Lawson, Marketing Director for the Guardian explains “As one of the biggest newspaper sites, with over 60 million uniques browsers per month, we are always looking for ways to better monetise and engage with our audience. Cognitive Match offers a great technological solution to provide our users a more targeted, relevant and sophisticated portfolio of commercial promotions.”Alex Kelleher from Cognitive Match said “The Guardian are a forward thinking online news provider, and it is fantastic to partner with them after doing an initial trial. They have clear goals about what they want to achieve and know how to get the best out of our SiteMatch technology. You only have to look at what the Guardian has done with new media from Podcasts to Facebook app, to know that they are industry leaders" image[130] = "8" date_2[128] = "28/11/11"; title_2[128] = "MirriAd launches online sales portal for digital product placement"; title2_2[128] = "Company"; article_2[128] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, is pleased to announce the launch of the ‘Catalogue,’ a B2B sales portal for digital product placement inventory. MirriAd will be launching the Catalogue in London and Brussels with a live webcast on Monday 28 November at 6.30pm GMT hosted by d-media.

MirriAd has developed a unique platform for promoting inventory available for digital placement of branded imagery into professional video that is both seamless and contextual within the original content.

In response to market demand from advertisers MirriAd has developed an important new extension to its platform which enables broadcaster/producers to analyse video content such as TV soaps and sitcoms and create contextual inventory suitable for digital placement of brands.

The Catalogue leverages MirriAd’s ZoneSense technology which allows Broadcaster/producers to create inventory comprised of visuals combined with powerful analytical and marketing data which can then be placed in an online secure portal ‘walled garden’ for presentation to brands and agencies. In addition to vital data about the content, schedule and demographics, the Catalogue offers inventory based on scenes, context, character and style e.g. product, video or signage or combination for different brand categories in different content genres.

ZoneSense also provides powerful predictive tools that can accurately assess exposure type and duration across a TV series. For the first time, brands will be able to search for inventory that meets their campaign needs of demography, campaign time period, preferred video genre and even specific context.

The Catalogue is integrated directly into the MirriAd platform and supports all the broadcaster/producer pre-visualization required for editorial and compliance approvals, thus ensuring that inventory offered to brands and agencies is ready to go. This pre-visualization makes a brand’s buy decision completely risk free as the exact exposure duration, size, location, scene will all be known at the time of purchase.

Broadcasters, producers, sales and compliance personnel can quickly create and agree saleable inventory and offer it to their clients. ZoneSense enables very rapid inventory assessment allowing the presentation of content inventory for sale within hours of the inventory being made available, reducing typical sales cycles by months. The MirriAd Catalogue is an enterprise class solution capable of serving multiple stakeholders with secure support for both large numbers of users and throughput.

Earlier this year, MirriAd provided digital product placement services to BskyB, inserting TRESemme hair products into ‘Britain & Ireland’s Next Top Model’ on Sky Living HD.

Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd, said:

”We have delivered a platform that can scale but we also needed to create a solution addressing one of the brands’ key issues – how to match brands to inventory quickly and effectively. We wanted to turn the entire process of contextually matching the right brand to the right show and the right audience in less than a day and then be able to preview the placement in situ to a client as well. This innovative, digital approach smashes the sales cycles involved compared to traditional physical placement where deals take several months to close and allows real-time planning for brand campaigns.”

Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of MirriAd, said:

“Product Placement can now mature into a proper airtime trading market – it represents a boost to brands, broadcasters and programme makers.”

Gina Fegan, CEO of D-Media said:

”It’s fantastic to see MirriAd grow from strength to strength and really push boundaries with both the technology and revenue generating capabilities.”
" image[128] = "4" date_2[125] = "16/11/11"; title_2[125] = "Cognitive Match selected for Project Beacon by leading US agency Hill Holliday"; title2_2[125] = "Company"; article_2[125] = " Cognitive Match has become a select Beacon partner. 'Beacon' is an agency initiative designed to promote collaboration, partnership and strategic counsel between Hill Holliday and the ad-tech community.Cognitive Match, the leading provider of Dynamic Creative Targeting, will be offered time, energy and access to deep partnerships with Hill Holliday’s clients. Hill Holiday will form a unique relationship with Cognitive Match in order to increase their knowledge of cutting-edge advertising technology and maximise the service for their clients. This will allow great marketing products to arrive much more quickly onto the market.“We’ve been working closely with startups for years, but Beacon formalizes our commitment to up and coming companies that can have an impact on our client’s businesses,” describes Shetty from Hill Holiday.

Alex Kelleher CEO of Cognitive Match said, “Cognitive Match is thrilled to be bringing its Dynamic Ad capability to Hill Holliday, and is looking forward to delivering improved return on ad spend to our combined Client rosters”" image[125] = "8" date_2[126] = "16/11/11"; title_2[126] = "Mirriad launches Product Placement Measurement"; title2_2[126] = "Company"; article_2[126] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, is pleased to announce integrated measurement and analysis for its unique digital product placement platform. Brands placed digitally will be assured of premium exposure and provable. MirriAd has developed unique technology for the digital placement of branded imagery into professional video that ensures placements are seamless, in context and now completely measurable.

MirriAd already delivers digital placements in video at quality and in volume. With the latest addition to its services MirriAd clients will benefit from very accurate measurement and tracking data on every placement executed for each brand by instance. The rich data set and supporting visuals, which include information such as exposure duration, position, size, level of integration and even orientation to the camera, is now produced automatically. The data allows the content owner, agency and brand to rigorously view all aspects of a placement or long term placement campaign with total accuracy at speed and on-demand.

An example of some of the highly accurate measurement of digital product placement now possible with MirrAd's platform. This kind of data is now available the moment a brand is placed in a show well before any transmission date. It is aggregated into overall campaign summary data reporting on overall performance of any series of placements.

The analytics services, part of MirriAd’s ZoneSense technology, also allow content owners to determine durations of available inventory in long running series giving brands confidence in committing to a campaign, in advance of that campaign. This completely mitigates a brand’s investment risk as exposure is both accurately predicted and reported on post-campaign as proof of performance. MirriAd will commence delivery of analytics services alongside digital placements from the end of November, globally. This new service is in addition to providing support for 3rd party service providers such as Repucom, a global leader in placement tracking and valuation.

As an additional option, MirriAd will be offering eye tracking analysis. Broadcaster/producers will be able to offer clients eye tracking analysis directly from the platform as an orderable item. This provides compelling proof of audience attention by providing compelling visual analysis comprised of audience eye tracking response data overlaid onto the content they were asked to watch. This service is proving critical in confirming audiences are visually engaging with brands in content. Research shows that audiences concentrate on faces and brands. Using MirriAd’s brand placement preview capabilities this can now be offered in advance as well as post airing.

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd CEO said, ‘we have already revolutionized how product placement manifests itself in the digital world. We have expanded our digital product placement offering from being scalable, controllable and integrated to now being targeted and highly measurable. We see our mission as providing our clients with the same or better on demand dashboard information from this new medium as with any other contemporary advertising platform’.

Hugh Geach, industry compliance and regulatory consultant, ‘apart from the obvious benefits for both advertisers and broadcaster/producers the new analytics services offered by MirriAd puts real science behind product placement. The analytical data gathered by the MirriAd platform will not only report on the exposure and integration of products within programmes, thereby supporting value for money, it will also provide a robust compliance tool for managing the prominence of products and brands within programming‘.

Mihkel Jaatma CEO. Realeyes said, ‘we have been working with MirriAd for the last six months to develop a fully integrated on-demand eye tracking solution. Our integration to MirriAd’s on-line platform means that broadcasters can order eye tracking in just one click. This makes this kind of solution very accessible for both pre and post analysis’." image[126] = "4" date_2[127] = "14/11/11"; title_2[127] = "Mirriad used for Coronation Street Product Placement"; title2_2[127] = "Sky News"; article_2[127] = "Please see the following link for full details and video commentary:

http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16109619 " image[127] = "4" date_2[129] = "06/11/11"; title_2[129] = "Aria Networks Announces Capacity Planner 1.1"; title2_2[129] = "Company"; article_2[129] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of capacity management and planning software solutions for next-generation networks, today announced the release of Capacity Planner 1.1. New features and deployment options make it even easier for users to quickly import their network data, model forecast customer demand, and plan cost-optimal resource upgrades.

The communications industry is going through a period of technology and service change. Service providers have the opportunity to evolve their network with increasing broadband speeds, 4G mobile services and flexible, capacious Ethernet and optical infrastructure. However the current economy means that capital expenditure on new network resources is not available unless it can be clearly justified both in terms of need and being capable of returning a profit.

Aria Networks Capacity Planner is the only OSS product able to model multi-technology networks, service policies, cost models and market-driven traffic forecasts to produce plans for optimised service design and profitable network upgrades.

Capacity Planner 1.1 further extends Aria Networks’ leadership in network analysis, planning and optimization.

New features include:
•A simple to use Excel interface for importing off-line network data, proposed network topologies, and forecast service demands
•New reports that provide common bill-of-material data on network resources requirements
•Configurable user interface menus that allow custom automation, analytics and scripts to be executed as easily as core functionality
•Deployment options now include quick installation on user workstations for individuals or small teams, as well as maintaining support for shared server-based IT resources

Tony Fallows, Aria Networks CEO, said, “Since announcing the first version of Capacity Planner in early 2010 there has been huge interest in its capability to address capacity management across many fixed-line and mobile use cases. This has led us to focus on making it quicker to deploy and easier to use in order to support the diverse range of service providers and users who need greater insight, control and assurance of their networks’ profitability.”

Since 2005 Aria Networks has been providing solutions for network analysis, planning and optimization. Our customers are able to predict how their network will support service forecasts for the next month, year or five years. Where capacity is needed, they are able to discover which infrastructure meets their needs, when and where it will need to be deployed.
" image[129] = "6" date_2[124] = "25/10/11"; title_2[124] = "Cognitive Match & Adnetik announce partnership "; title2_2[124] = "Company Website"; article_2[124] = "BOSTON and LONDON (October 25, 2011) – Today Adnetik and Cognitive Match, creators of the Dynamic Creative Targeting platform, announced a partnership to enhance the capabilities of the Audience Investment Management (AIM) system for display advertising. Building on AIM’s ability to help advertisers buy targeted display ads on an impression by impression basis, this new collaboration offers a real-time dynamic creative solution that targets different versions of creative to each user with the goal of increasing engagement, reach and overall campaign performance.

Alex Kelleher, CEO and Founder of Cognitive Match said, “Marketers are now successfully targeting the right audience profile with their display ad campaigns, but they still don’t know what elements within the creative are eliciting response from individual users. The collaboration between Adnetik and Cognitive Match means that advertisers can now target the right audience with the right creative at the right time. Every stage of the campaign lifecycle is now optimized.”

Advertisers who work with Adnetik can now easily turn on dynamic creative for their display ad campaigns.
" image[124] = "8" date_2[123] = "18/10/11"; title_2[123] = "Cognitive Match Integrates eXelate Audience Data "; title2_2[123] = "Company / eXelate"; article_2[123] = "eXelate, the engine that powers 60 billion real-time, privacy-compliant data connections each month for more than 200 publishers and marketers reaching over 300M unique users worldwide, today announced that Cognitive Match has selected eXelate's audience data to improve ad creative and content targeting.

The partnership between Cognitive Match and eXelate allows global advertisers and agencies to package eXelate's powerful audience data to generate ad creative and messaging optimized for online audience segments. The result is a truly customized advertising experience for online consumers.

'We make our clients' advertising and web content relevant to their customers,' said Alex Kelleher, CEO and founder, Cognitive Match. 'By integrating eXelate's targeting data with Cognitive Match's Dynamic Creative Targeting™ technology, we're enabling our clients to tailor a critical aspect of a consumer's browsing session: the message and creative within each digital ad. The additional audience insight provided by eXelate will fuel increased engagement, conversion and ROI for our clients.'

Cognitive Match is integrating eXelate's targeting data on both of its solutions – Dynamic Creative Targeting for Ads and Dynamic Creative Targeting for Sites. With Dynamic Creative Targeting for Ads, eXelate targeting data is used to uncover best matching targets while Cognitive Match's technology decides in real-time which version of the ad will maximize click-through and conversion, and then serves the best fitting ad creative. Dynamic Creative Targeting for Sites enables significantly increasing onsite conversions by matching targeted users via eXelate data with relevant content.

Taking a step beyond traditional audience targeting, the data integration will provide a seamless interaction between audience data, creative and content, thereby creating a better experience for consumers, publishers and advertisers.

As members of leading privacy organizations such as the NAI, TrustE and IAB as well as being part of the Evidon Open Data Partnership, eXelate remains on the leading edge of respecting consumer privacy demands while delivering unique, high performance data.

'Data driven technology is powering a more effective era in consumer marketing,' said Mark S. Zagorski, CEO, eXelate. 'We are seeing a growing number of large interactive marketers increasing their online ad spend based on the results they achieve by combining our rich, proprietary audience data with smart technologies that can leverage the full depth of the eXelate data set. Our partnership with Cognitive Match helps drive ROI to new levels by giving marketers the tools to make ads and ad content more relevant. eXelate data combined with Cognitive Match's ability to deliver relevant advertising will deliver a premium ad experience for consumers.'


" image[123] = "8" date_2[122] = "08/09/11"; title_2[122] = "TestPlant partners with Edista Testing Institute"; title2_2[122] = "Company Website"; article_2[122] = "TestPlant, the developer of robotic test tool product eggPlant, today announced it has partnered with Edista Testing Institute, a full subsidiary of QAI Global based in Florida, Orlando, USA. Under the partnership TestPlant will provide ETI the capability to market, support and build GUI test automation-training programs for ETI’s clients and partners across India and Asia.

eggPlant is the powerful testing tool that is relied on by more than 500 companies in media, entertainment, defense, security, and technology. Through an innovative non-invasive ‘search and compare’ functionality, eggPlant enables organizations to test applications simply, accurately and risk-free. eggPlant can automate screen testing for any screen-based device: PC, smartphone, or tablet.

Under the new partnership, ETI’s subject matter experts and consultants will provide eggPlant training, certification, and support to its clients across India. TestPlant will provide ETI with the required support, including tailored educational services. The partnership increases customer service, support and training to eggPlant’s growing Indian customer base.

ETI is focused on operational excellence and workforce development, with a specific focus on testing organizations. The company currently works with 54 clients and has trained over 4,000 professionals across Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

George Mackintosh, chief executive for TestPlant, said, “We are excited about this new partnership and the increased footprint it brings us in education, training and services to support our growing user base in India. I am also looking forward to working with the ETI team to share and demonstrate the relevance, speed and power of eggPlant as an automated test tool to India and other Asian markets.”

Pradeep Chennavajhula, CEO of ETI said, “Testing is a critical function and a growing business opportunity for numerous companies and IT service providers in India. While it is necessary, the challenges with automation have been many: price, features, implementation, and even ease of use. Many customers and service providers in the test automation space are in need of a simple, easy to learn, easy to use tool that complements and makes their current testing operations efficient. We see a great strength in eggPlant for ‘black box testing’, especially in mobile and rich internet applications. We are eager to begin work with TestPlant in pioneering the concept of GUI based automation for our clients and partners in India.”

" image[122] = "7" date_2[121] = "26/08/11"; title_2[121] = "MirriAd partners with ZEE for innovative digital product placement"; title2_2[121] = "Company Website"; article_2[121] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, is pleased to announce that it has partnered with Zee Network Europe, part of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited. This partnership provides digital product placement in ZEE’s leading shows including the award-winning drama Pavitra Rishta. The shows with digital product placement air from August 2011 on ZEE’s flagship channel Zee TV. ZEE, one of South Asia’s leading television, media and entertainment companies, has one of the largest footprints globally reaching over half a billion viewers across 168 countries.

The Zee announcement follows hot on the heels of recent deals for MirriAd in the UK with Sky and Discovery. Not to mention the first South Asian to spearhead the initiative in Europe. ZEE and MirriAd worked closely with the brand leader in Basmati rice, Tilda, to ensure their product was integrated seamlessly into several episodes of Zee TV’s prime-time drama Pavitra Rishta.

MirriAd will use it’s ZoneSense technology to manage the creation of sales inventory, digital placement and reporting locally to ZEE operations connected to the global MirriAd network. The deal will allow Zee Europe to offer brands lifelike digital placement in shows on demand with never seen before management controls and reporting.

MirriAd partners with broadcasters and brand owners to place branded products, signage and video digitally into existing media content. The company has developed ZoneSense, an IP protected and highly scalable software-based solution to integrate lifelike brand images directly into video content, post production. MirriAd’s proprietary system also solves the management of the sales process, facilitates online approvals by all stakeholders as well as measurement of the brand exposure. (For examples of MirriAd’s services and digital placement visit: www.mirriad.com )

Product placement is a rapidly expanding market worldwide and growing at a time other traditional advertising revenues are facing challenging times. In 2009, Global product placement spending – including North America, Europe, Asia and other regions-was $6.25 billion. The US sector alone grew by more than 25% a year between 2004 – 2009 (source: PQ Media). TV product placement is legal in most parts of the world and is now legal in all European media markets. The European market is poised to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.2% in the 2009-2014 period (source: PQ Media.)

Brand owners are seeking new ways to reach consumers and to integrate more with content as technology drives changes in how we consume our media. MirriAd is working with other major broadcasters on three continents, for whom its service has already been successfully tested.

" image[121] = "4" date_2[120] = "24/08/11"; title_2[120] = "Digital Technology and the Re-Birth of Product Placement"; title2_2[120] = "Wall Street Journal"; article_2[120] = "When you think of product placement on television you tend to think of cumbersome 1950s examples where the actor would cheesily turn to camera and hold up say a bar of soap—where do you think the sobriquet soap opera came from—to deliver his line.

Perhaps to save all of us the artistic murder, the practice was prohibited in Europe, but recently the prohibition has been relaxed and a U.K. start up is offering digital producers the chance to inject products realistically in post production with full directorial control.

The problem with existing physical product placement is that there are no clear business plans, and the process is incredibly slow. In Europe, legal constraints prohibit directors from re-writing scripts to include products, so any placement has to be done at the creative stage. “This means 9-12 months to get the result from the idea of introducing a brand into a show to broadcast,” says Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd.

“In the U.S. if a producer gets two products placed in a year, that is considered a good result. We are talking about products being naturally placed on a weekly basis.”

According to a report by PQ Media, the global product placement industry is worth some $14 billion. Mr. Popkiewicz’s company, founded four years ago, has the backing of some powerful hitters, including Peter Bazalgette, previously board director at Endemol, creators of the Big Brother franchise.

For three of its four years, says Mr. Popkiewicz, the company was building and perfecting the technology that allows it to process, in quicker than real time, video to identify opportunities to inject products after shooting, and the parallel technology to scan the product and inject it into the video unobtrusively.

The key to success is two fold: artistically how well the products blend into the movie, and commercially, how successful it is for the advertisers.

“One of the things that is fundamental is making sure that the right brand is associated with the right context. We track certain characters, we monitor the time of day, so for example you would have different products associated with a scene if it were a morning meeting or an evening one.

“When we create an opportunity for a brand it is highly contextual. There is more control for directors than there is with any other way. A director will have the final say. If they don’t like it, they can change it. They can change the way the brand is presented to fit with the ambience of the scene.”

Viewers don’t like ads

Testing people’s reaction to digital placement Mr. Popkiewicz said proved surprising. “They don’t want commercials, they don’t want pre-rolls, they don’t want overlays. Given the choice, the majority prefer placement to commercial breaks. From a broadcasters point of view that is a huge plus. It gives them far more inventory to sell without a penalty to the consumer or the audience.”

Valuing placement is a tricky business and one that Mr. Popkiewicz skirts around. “Ultimately it is up to the broadcasters. But if you do placement it will have value commensurate to a second of a 30-second commercial during the show. There is a linkage between the two.

“Actually a lot of people are arguing that the cost of a second in a show should be higher. Ratings for the show is invariably larger than the audience watching the commercials.”

That ability to track a rich stream of data also allows brands to measure their RoI.

It seems we are born to shop

“The system tracks everything; how big was the brand on screen, was it turned towards the camera, was it in the eye line or in the center part of the screen, was it near the actor? If you have a cup of coffee in a kitchen scene and, say, Nescafe is placed next to it, the audience will absolutely assume that that the character is drinking Nescafe. That is called integration. We measure that.

“We can also use eye-tracking software to demonstrate how people interact with the brands.” A video shows how effective this is. Blacking out everything but the “hotspots”, those areas on which audiences concentrate, shows how we are drawn to two things: very strongly to human faces, but secondly to logos. It seems we are born to shop.

Although MirriAd itself doesn’t offer the service, others can also track buying habits.

The company is already operating globally, with services in Australia, Japan, China, the Middle East, and the U.S.. Different countries approach product placement in very different ways. In India, for example, if you had a traditional TV game show, placement is not very subtle. “It would be perfectly normal to put a fridge freezer on the right of that presenter with equal prominence to the host, and maybe on the other side a washing machine. There will be three characters of stage and two of them will be white goods and they are just there.

“We started working in India two years ago. We have been placing brands relatively overtly, but with a lot more of the sophistication. That is paying off and brands are seeing a lot more RoI.”

" image[120] = "4" date_2[119] = "27/07/11"; title_2[119] = "TestPlant updates industry-leading robotic test tool, eggPlant, with optical character recognition (OCR) "; title2_2[119] = "Company"; article_2[119] = "TestPlant, the developer of robotic test tool
product eggPlant, has announced the release of its most advanced revision to date - eggPlant v11.
eggPlant is a powerful test tool that creates a visual depiction of GUIs and screens, enabling software
test engineers to automate the testing of screens through ‘search and compare’. This technique is
entirely non-invasive - a unique and invaluable feature for testers in industries such as defense, security,
media and medical devices.
The new version of eggPlant adds a number of new features that will enhance the ease and efficiency of
automation testing. These include a fully integrated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine driven
by ABBYY, the leader in commercial OCR; SenseTalk scripting improvements and script search
enhancements and full support for Mac OS X Lion.
George Mackintosh, chief executive for TestPlant said: “Software development and testing is an
extremely important, challenging and highly-specialist field that can be aided significantly by adding
intelligent automation wherever possible. However, test automation in itself isn’t an infallible solution to
the many pain-points experienced by software test engineers. That is why we developed the first version
of eggPlant, an intelligent robotic visual test tool that looks at and tests screens in a similar way to an
expert human eye. And that is also why we continue to revise and improve eggPlant with smart features
such as OCR and native Mac OS X Lion support that meet the exacting demands of the software testing
industry and make the lives of the engineers we value so highly that little bit easier.”
All existing eggPlant users will be able to upgrade within their existing contracts, with the OCR engine
automatically installed without the need for any reconfiguration. The new OCR feature in particular has
been added in direct response to heavy demand from eggPlant’s existing 500-strong user community.
TestPlant’s extensive beta testing has seen dramatic results for OCR across industries, including:
● Defense - Better cross-platform and secure end-to-end testing of mission critical systems.
● Mobile - Validating text across platforms is now easier and faster
● Finance - Better data driven testing of trading, forex apps and online banking
● Retail - Testing point of sale terminals. BI and ERP systems becomes easier
● Media and Gaming - Better text recognition in Flash applications
● Healthcare - Enhanced text recognition on healthcare devicesTestPlant Press Release
eggPlant v11 will be available in August 2011 on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. " image[119] = "7" date_2[118] = "25/07/11"; title_2[118] = "Digital Big Hitters Turn Out as Cognitive Match Launches in New York"; title2_2[118] = "Company"; article_2[118] = "Cognitive Match, the leading provider of dynamic creative targeting, announced the opening of their New York office on Wednesday with an event at City Winery in TriBeCa attended by ad industry leaders. Cognitive Match also announced the relocation of its headquarters from London to New York.

The event consisted of a networking reception, followed by dinner and a panel discussion with a group of industry experts. On the panel were Esther Dyson (advisor to Cognitive Match, board member of WPP), Ed Montes (CEO of Adnetik), Andrew Walmsley (Digital Pluralist, Board Member of Cognitive Match) and Martin Smith (CTO of TruEffect).

“We’ve been blown away by the level of interest in the US market for Cognitive Match’s Dynamic Creative Targeting, and are ready to meet that demand”, said Alex Kelleher, CEO and Founder of Cognitive Match.

Cognitive Match is the global leader in dynamic creative targeting for display ads and onsite content – helping customers increase the performance of their acquisition and conversion activities by improving the relevance of content across the funnel." image[118] = "8" date_2[117] = "26/06/11"; title_2[117] = "Mirriad featured in the Evening Standard"; title2_2[117] = "Evening Standard"; article_2[117] = "I've seen the future for TV, film and video, and it's not as bad as billed.

Mark Popkiewicz popped in the other day, complete with his laptop. Popkiewicz runs MirriAd, a UK company specialising in product placement or, to use its technical term, 'embedded advertising' - something that causes apoplexy among those of us who don't like to think we're being exploited and having sales (and profits) rammed down our necks. But what I saw was more than acceptable.

Popkiewicz ran a reel showing how, by using the firm's software, items can be digitally inserted into programmes and movies. It's easier and quicker than having the actual product physically present when a film is being shot - it stops the actor, cameraman and director lingering artificially over the brand because they feel they must and therefore seems more natural, and less forced and awkward.

The technology is very clever, so you would not know that the type of watch or cereal box was added later. And compared with bars and shops in soaps stocking non-existent labels, it appeared far more realistic.

The opportunities are enormous - product placement is still in its infancy here, but in the US it's already reckoned to account for 5% of total advertising spend, and rising. In movies it's happening more and more - Die Hard 4.0, the Bruce Willis blockbuster, contained placements for 36 separate products - and can cover a large proportion of the production budget.

Popkiewicz formed his company in 2007 as a tech start-up. It now employs 50 people and has just
done 'the UK's first digital product placement deal' with Sky to promote a pet food product, Pedigree Dentastix.

On A Different Breed, the Sky1 HD documentary, follows a cast of devoted dog owners and their pampered pets. During one episode, posters for Pedigree Dentastix are added to the background of a scene featuring a man walking his dog through a London street, and on the side of a phone box.

'It can be a huge contributor and it can be very easy for the audience to accept - provided it's done well,' says Popkiewicz.

He's right there. Research discloses that we react negatively to poor, clunky product placement
or fake items appearing in programmes when we would expect to see real ones. What I witnessed was not all that discouraging. Honestly.

" image[117] = "4" date_2[115] = "07/06/11"; title_2[115] = "New CEO for Handmade Mobile"; title2_2[115] = "Company Announcement"; article_2[115] = "Handmade Mobile Entertainment, the operator of Flirtomatic – the leading mobile social networking service around meeting new people - has today announced the appointment of Neil Goldberg as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Neil joins Handmade Mobile Entertainment with 16 years of leadership experience building global companies in the entertainment and technology industries, and a strong track performance - most recently helping grow SayNow from a Silicon Valley startup to a leading social, voice-based entertainment platform, culminating in a sale to Google. His expertise spans traditional and digital media as well as advanced technology products and services including mobile, social and consumer Internet.

It was with agreement from the Board that Mark Curtis decided to step down as CEO of Handmade Mobile Entertainment. Following the highly successful launch of Flirtomatic into the USA; successful completion of the 2010 funding round; and having made a number of new key hires; it was unanimously agreed that a new appointment was in the interest of the company’s next growth phase. This is an amicable departure, and Mark remains a shareholder in the business.

Mark Curtis said, “Handmade Mobile Entertainment has recently launched a wholly new Flirtomatic iPhone app - which is performing extremely well - and will shortly release a new Android version to market. In addition, the brand’s new look and feel has been very well received by the target customer base. We’ve attracted almost 2m users in America in less than 18 months, and indeed every territory we are moving into is showing promise. It’s with great pleasure that I welcome Neil to Handmade Mobile Entertainment, and wish him all the best in his new role. I’m looking forward to handing over the reigns and to watching the company go from strength to strength.”

Neil Goldberg said, “Handmade Mobile Entertainment continually impresses me with its innovative nature and ability to stay ahead of the curve. They understand the intersection of mobile, social, and entertainment - a space clearly poised for explosive growth around the globe. I’m delighted to join the team at such an exciting time.”
" image[115] = "0" date_2[114] = "25/05/11"; title_2[114] = "MirriAd signs deal with leading Japanese cinema advertiser"; title2_2[114] = "Company"; article_2[114] = "MirriAd, the market leader in digital product placement announces today that it has signed an agreement with CineBridge, the leader in the cinema advertising industry in Japan, to digitally place brand imagery into existing film, broadcast and web content.
Under the contract with MirriAd, CineBridge will have the exclusive right to sell digital product placement for Japanese films, TV shows and web content within Japan. CineBridge aims to start digital product placement from this Autumn and is signing up advertisers and content owners. The cinema advertising industry in Japan is valued at approximately 4bn Japanese yen, and CineBridge has a market share of around 25%. There are currently 3,412 movie screens in Japan showing a mixture of Japanese and foreign films, in total 716 in 2010. There are 129 terrestrial broadcasters.

MirriAd’s patented, end to end technology solution is named ZoneSenseTM, and allows advertisers to insert their brands quickly and affordably. This unique system inserts the images pixel by pixel, directly replacing existing content. This means the new image inherits all of the same characteristics as the original ‘space’ so the embedded image is of the highest quality and looks as if it has always been there.

Unlike traditional methods of product placement, advertisers are able to view relevant content opportunities from the MirriAd catalogue, select appropriate media based on audience demographics, upload the brand imagery and view sample footage, and view and approve online, anyplace, anytime.

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd CEO commented:

“We are excited to be the first provider of digital product placement in Japan. An agreement with such an important advertising provider as CineBridge is a great endorsement of the capabilities of our technology within what is a proven and rapidly expanding market worldwide.”

Manabu Hasegawa, CEO of CineBridge said:

“We believe a strong partnership with MirriAd will help us build a new bridge between brands and films and other entertainment content. We are very excited to be starting the innovative business of digital product placement for the first time in Japan.”

" image[114] = "4" date_2[116] = "24/05/11"; title_2[116] = "Aria Networks Announces iForecast 2.0"; title2_2[116] = "Company"; article_2[116] = "iForecast 2.0 is a desk-top application able to automatically discover patterns and relationships in data sources commonly found in service providers’ OSS and BSS environments. With just a few clicks, historic time-series data or before-and-after sample data are analysed by iForecast 2.0 to build a sophisticated, reusable forecasting model.

Many planners and product managers maintain or manipulate their data using spreadsheets. iForecast 2.0 has been enhanced to work seamlessly with this data to minimise preparation effort, avoid costly integration and ensure users have a simple learning curve before being able to benefit from actionable insight in to their data.

iForecast 2.0 is also tightly coupled with Aria Networks’ iVNT products enabling planning Scenario files to be used as the basis for producing network capacity forecasts. This has the added benefit of allowing the resultant demands, network plans and forecast network traffic to be visualised within iVNT and used as the basis for further planning or optimisation tasks.

iForecast 2.0 builds on Aria Networks’ extensive experience of artificial intelligence to produce a product that is an order of magnitude easier to use than the traditional analytic tools available today. iForecast’s self-learning and self-tuning software removes the need for expert users or a trial-and-error approach to finding the best answer.


Business Advantage in Operations and Business Support Systems

This capability allows service providers to move from having pockets of analytics experts to making forecasting part of day-to-day operational processes, strategic planning and ad-hoc reporting.

iForecast 2.0 can address a broad range of data analysis requirements. Examples include:

Accurately forecast trends in per-site equipment port exhaustion to ensure you meet procurement lead-times while minimising warehouse stocks
Predict how the introduction of LTE in a cell-site will impact RAN, backhaul and core capacity needs
Use historical service and traffic demands to accurately forecast future demands
Analyse customer propensity to buy, upgrade or churn when introducing or changing service offerings
Tony Fallows, Aria Networks CEO, said, “It’s no coincidence that we’re announcing iForecast 2.0 today, at Management World 2011. In recent years key note speakers at this event have highlighted the need to unlock the value in service providers’ data, to allow smarter business and operational decisions to be made and to provide insight in to customer behaviour. iForecast 2.0 is making it easier for service providers to ask more questions about their customers, network and services, finding answers in the OSS and BSS data they already have in their organisation.”

" image[116] = "6" date_2[112] = "17/05/11"; title_2[112] = "Sky and Discovery use Mirriad for first virtual product placements"; title2_2[112] = "Mediaweek"; article_2[112] = "Discovery Networks' Discovery Real Time has, this morning, become the first UK television channel to feature product placement added in post-production, while Sky1 is set to air its first show using the technique this evening.

Tommy's Fix It Yourself: Discovery runs the UK's first post-production product placementsThe Discovery Networks deal puts Kärcher products, including a DIY multi-purpose vacuum, into the background of episodes of the renovation show 'Tommy's Fix It Yourself' on Discovery Real Time, using technology provided by digital product placement specialist MirriAd.

The Kärcher product placement is part of a 12-month sponsorship deal which includes Discovery’s home and property programming across a number of Discovery channels including Real Time, Quest, Travel&Living, Shed and DMAX.

The deal, negotiated by Discovery Networks UK, Kärcher UK, ZenithOptimedia and Hurrell Moseley Dawson & Grimmer, is accompanied by an online bespoke microsite offering advice on home improvement.

Mark Penrose, sales and marketing director at Kärcher UK, said: 'The partnership with the Discovery Channel is a very important part of our current plans and reflects the wide appeal of our DIY products.

'In working with HMDG and their partners we have found another great opportunity to get our message out to an audience of DIY lovers, and in the process be part of some fantastic pioneering product placement technology.'

The Sky activity will see Pedigree Dentastix, an oral care product for dogs, feature in tonight's episode of 'A Different Breed', Sky1's observational documentary series that follows devoted dog owners and their pets.

The Pedigree deal was negotiated by Sky Media and ZenithOptimedia, who worked closely with the channel team at Sky1 and the production company Pulse. The product was added during post production by MirriAd.

Nadia Follon, marketing manager, snacks and treats, Pedigree, said: 'As the UK's number one dog food brand, we're always looking for new ways to engage with our consumers.

'In an increasingly digital environment, it's important we make the most of the new channels and technologies that are available. Digital product placement represents a great opportunity for us to communicate with our audience in an entirely new way.'

" image[112] = "4" date_2[111] = "12/05/11"; title_2[111] = "Tetsplant interviewed in Computer Business Review"; title2_2[111] = "Computer Business Review"; article_2[111] = "British-based TestPlant recently announced that its robotic test tool product, eggPlant, has secured a US patent for its method of controlling or testing a system from another computer using a communications link such as Virtual Network Computing (VNC). CBR editor Jason Stamper caught up with TestPlant CEO and serial entrepreneur George Mackintosh to hear more about the testing start-up that grew sales 104 per cent in 2010.

Q. I know from your biography that you are a former racing driver and that your family produces Extra Virgin cold pressed rape seed oil...

A. [Laughs]. Absolutely. I was brought up on a farm and I guess I had a choice whether I liked the animals or I liked the tractors. I liked the tractors.

Q. How did you come to be chief of a testing firm?

A. Jon Richards [now TestPlant chairman] and I had been working in the telecoms market and had seen the commoditisation of minutes in the telecoms space. We had this idea that we should look at enterprise software but it had to be a niche, a product rather than a service, and while we looked at a number of areas we decided it should be a tool. We didn't want to hit IBM or HP head on.

We believed that software is going increasingly mobile and that the viability of applications was going to be key. We thought a tool to satisfy the needs of these changing software environments - whether on phones, tablets, wearable computing devices and so on - would present a great opportunity.

We came across this tool called eggPlant owned by [private equity firm] Gresham, and we took it on. The eggPlant team was based in Boulder, Colorado, but was owned by a London company that saw it as non-core. We then created TestPlant as a vehicle to do the acquisition of eggPlant, and to be funded to do the necessary sales, marketing and development.

Q. Where did funding come from?

A. It was funded by me, Jon Richards and Seraphim Capital [an early stage venture capital fund that invests between £0.5 million and £2 million into high growth early stage UK businesses] which put in around £1.5m. But that was about 10 days before Lehman went bust, in September 2008! Let's just say 2009 was 'difficult'.

Q. But things started to pick up?

A. Yes; so in 2009 we found clients either saying 'let's not buy anything', or if they did they hammered down the terms. But in 2010 we started to see a real rebound - companies needed to buy this stuff - and they realised we were selling a product that was good and different. We grew the business 104 per cent in 2010.

Q. And you have kept this sense of dual nationality - a firm owned in the UK but with most of its development staff in the US, in Colorado?

A. Yes, I call it a 'micro-national': 80 per cent of our revenue is from outside the UK and our staff is equally split between the two locations.

Q. So tell us a little about what makes the eggPlant testing tool unique?

A. Well it's completely graphical so doesn't require coding, and focuses on the user experience.

Q. In which markets are you seeing traction?

A. Defence, GIS [geographical information systems], media and gaming, healthcare, finance. The BBC tests its iPlayer service using eggPlant for instance. Angry Birds [the addictive puzzle game developed by Finland based Rovio Mobile] is a client. Skype found during the evaluation of eggPlant that they had a serious problem which meant they just had to buy the product. It stresses the system repetitively to make sure it is working correctly, under load.

Q. How many clients do you have altogether today?

A. We have around 500 customers internationally, mostly in the US but also in the UK, India, China.

Q. As you know there are plenty of testing tools out there from the likes of HP [which bought Mercury Interactive], IBM, QualiSystems and so on. I'm still not clear how eggPlant is differentiated?

A. Because we can test over VNC we don't have to touch the back-end systems. We don't have to load anything onto the device itself. That also means we can do GUI testing for almost any device. We can test the GUIs of Mac, Linux, Windows, mobile devices.
But we can integrate to something like HP Quality Center, so HP doesn't really feel like competition. We have an informal integration with Rational that enables us to output eggPlant data into Rational too.

Q. Is the firm profitable yet?

A. This year we anticipate over 50 per cent growth and to be cash flow neutral.

Q. With the integrations you have described, and if you are to be believed that TestPlant has something the larger, cash-rich rivals do not, then presumably it is only a matter of time before TestPlant is acquired?

A. It's an obvious question. I've sold businesses before. But we are in no rush to sell. We are moving forward very nicely, we're doing well. All of our sales are subscription based - £5k per annum per seat - so we have a nice, predictable pipeline.

" image[111] = "7" date_2[109] = "14/04/11"; title_2[109] = "TestPlant launches eggPlant Manager"; title2_2[109] = "Company"; article_2[109] = "TestPlant announced the launch of eggPlant Manager, a powerful new solution for the control and management of eggPlant test environments. Power users will gain greater productivity from their existing use of eggPlant, the world’s leading graphic user interface - or GUI - automated test tool. With its patented image recognition technology and non-invasive architecture, eggPlant can “see” any screen on any device in any computing environment: “legacy” system, MAC,
Linux, Windows or mobile. Acting as a robotic tester, the software can be trained to recognize icons,
fields, text, colors and images. eggPlant spots bugs, sending test failure reports with screen images back to developers for repair before system or version release.
The software testing function is becoming ever more significant as the complexity of systems and their
integration into other equally complex systems increases. Bugs and crashes cost money and
compromise business reputations. The testing of the functionality and usability of software is traditionally a manual task which is inherently expensive, error-prone (by nature of its repetitiveness) tedious and
time-consuming. The automation of user interface testing helps reduce system delivery times, improve quality and cut costs by making test engineers more productive.

With some 500 user organizations around the world, the eggPlant community grows with the emergence
of power users deploying tens and hundreds of licenses in test sites and across enterprise networks.
This has created challenges for test engineers in keeping track of and sharing the number of eggPlant
licenses under their control. Furthermore, there have been user and management calls for a central
reporting system on test automation cases being executed by eggPlant. In a recent TestPlant user poll, 69% of respondents stated that a “dashboard” was of pressing relevance to their circumstances. Finally, as pressure and delivery deadlines mount on software QA teams, there is a need to be able to schedule tests to run “24/7” or to “follow-the-sun” in different time zones.TestPlant will begin shipping eggPlant Manager in May 2011. This follows an extensive user evaluation
and test period beginning in the summer of 2010 with a prototype installation in Ireland and two beta installations in the USA this year. The system, delivered as a web application on customer
infrastructures, is easy to deploy and available to, for example, QA managers in New York City with test
engineers in London and Beijing. TestPlant extends its current utility or term pricing model to this solution and charges are based on the installed number of eggPlant licenses under management.
eggPlant Manager offers cost and productivity benefits to users with as few as 6 licenses.
George Mackintosh, Chief Executive and President of TestPlant, said: “This is a big move forward for us reflecting the rise and scale of eggPlant adoption and the importance our major commercial and public sector users place on how system testing is professionally managed”.
TestPlant’s New Product Development Director, Jason Noble said: “eggPlant has grown-up since the
days in 2003 when some bright guys in Silicon Valley started using it. We had to come up with a solution to our current customer demands for a management system to allow shared and disciplined control over eggPlant assets while increasing the efficiency of their engineers.”" image[109] = "7" date_2[110] = "14/04/11"; title_2[110] = "BioLegend Releases Brilliant Violet 421™ Antibody Conjugates based on Sirigen Technology"; title2_2[110] = "PR Newswire"; article_2[110] = "BioLegend, Inc., a provider of antibodies and reagents for biomedical research, announced today the release of over fifty Brilliant Violet 421™ antibody conjugates for use in flow cytometry and microscopy. BioLegend developed these reagents using Brilliant Violet 421™, the first in a series of novel polymer-based fluorophores developed by Sirigen from Nobel Prize-winning chemistry. It is excited by the 405 nm violet laser, and detected with the 450/50 nm filter typically used for Pacific Blue™ and BD Horizon™ V450. Brilliant Violet 421™ antibodies provide exceptional brightness, stability, reliability, and improved signal-to-noise over Pacific Blue™ by 10-fold or more.

'Brilliant Violet 421™ will enable researchers to more clearly resolve populations in multi-color flow cytometry analysis,' said Gene Lay, CEO of BioLegend. 'The brightness of BV421™ is on par with that of PE, providing an excellent dynamic range and making it a new first choice for researchers using the violet laser.'

Brilliant Violet 421™ antibodies are fully compatible with currently used buffers and fixatives, and common cell staining techniques, suitable for both surface and intracellular staining of antigens. Its narrow excitation and emission spectra result in less requirement for cross-beam compensation and compensation into neighboring detectors. BioLegend plans to continue to expand this product line, providing more antibody specificities for mouse, rat and human research. For more information, visit www.biolegend.com/brilliantviolet.

" image[110] = "5" date_2[106] = "13/04/11"; title_2[106] = "iCyt Unveils Exciting New Flow Cytometry Reagents based on Sirigen technology"; title2_2[106] = "PR Newswire"; article_2[106] = "iCyt Mission Technology, Inc. (iCyt), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, today announced the introduction of its new line of 405nm-excited fluorochrome conjugated antibodies for flow cytometry. These new Brilliant Violet™ 421 products are part of the first commercial release of a novel, polymer-based fluorophore technology.

'This exciting new class of fluorescent probes will make significant contributions to the future of flow cytometry, by bringing new power and utility to the violet (405nm) laser,' said Gary Durack, CEO of iCyt. 'The new Brilliant Violet fluors offer dramatic improvements in brightness and signal-to-noise ratio over the current choices for the violet laser.'

In addition to being an order of magnitude brighter than traditional violet excited fluorochromes, this new dye offers greater sensitivity for resolving weakly expressed antigens, and requires less compensation for spectral overlap. Their compatibility with other popular fluorochromes and fluorescent protein combinations offers versatility that will further expand researchers' options for multi-color panels.

The initial iCyt portfolio of anti-mouse and anti-human conjugates have been optimized for use with iCyt's Eclipse™ analyzer and upcoming Synergy™ benchtop sorter, but are compatible with all major commercial flow cytometers equipped with a 405nm laser.

The new BV421 line will include an extensive antibody selection that combines consistent bright staining that is effective for surface and intracellular antigens, with simple, ready-to-use, low volume test size. The new probes are fixation stable and compatible with standard staining buffers.

iCyt intends to continually expand its new line of BV reagents, which complement its already broad portfolio of mouse and human monoclonal antibodies tailored for use in cell biology, immunology, cancer research, and stem cell research.

'iCyt and Sony are committed to leading the way in bringing innovative, new instrument and reagent technology combinations to market, that maximize performance and value for our customers,' added Durack.

" image[106] = "5" date_2[108] = "13/04/11"; title_2[108] = "Jeego App For BlackBerry Devices Now Available‎"; title2_2[108] = "PR Fire / Phone Review"; article_2[108] = "BlackBerrys are now the most popular smartphones with youth markets. It's the handset's social features, such as BlackBerry Messenger and free Facebook access that have drawn younger people in, so Jeego, the leading independent provider of mobile e-cards, has launched its personalised e-cards app for BlackBerry to add an extra splash of colour to messaging.

The Jeego app takes the social aspect of BlackBerry that you love to the next level. It allows you to send interactive and personalised messages, jokes and other e-cards from your BlackBerry handset. Messages can be sent via Facebook, MMS or email, adding to the fun and everyday banter you can have with your friends, wherever they are. No longer just a grey business tool, Jeego is letting teen users colour their 'berry' anyway they like.

As with the existing Jeego iPhone App, there are lots of fun and funky designs to choose from, with cartoons, pictures and graphics for a more vibrant message. To give your cards that extra personal touch, you can include your friends' names and other information about them. The app for BlackBerry also features the 'Love Meter', where Purple Ronnie predicts your love compatibly with whomever you have had your eye on.

So, if you want to wish your best friend happy birthday, congratulate your brother on passing his driving test or just to say Hi! to your mates, Jeego on BlackBerry lets you do it in a colourful and entertaining way “ and it's cheaper than sending a card through the post ” in fact for the cost of one standard card you have the app with an endless supply of constantly refreshed messages and pranks.

Will Walsh, CEO at Jeego, commented: 'We felt that BlackBerry was a great platform for the Jeego app. BlackBerry has a massive teen audience that has been drawn to handsets because of their social attributes. From text to BBM it is the messaging features that have made BlackBerry so popular with youth markets and Jeego is the logical progression of this. Our app allows young people to enhance the way they send messages and stay in contact with friends by adding a new dimension to what they are already doing. It might seem like an obvious thing to do, but developing for BlackBerry can be a tough prospect. If we can make Jeego work for the youth market then I'm sure we'll see a whole wealth of BlackBerry apps coming out and having huge success'.

The app is available for the BlackBerry Torch and Storm (operating system 5 or above) and Jeego are currently working on versions for other BlackBerry models that will be available soon. It will cost £2.39 ($2.99) for the full version.

" image[108] = "3" date_2[107] = "04/04/11"; title_2[107] = "Flirtomatic’s iPhone app introduces location-based time-travel flirting"; title2_2[107] = "Venturebeat"; article_2[107] = "Flirtomatic, the mobile flirting network with over 4 million members, launched a new iPhone app today that uses GPS and Google Maps to let members time-travel to flirt with others by location.

Flirtomatic’s app, which had connected members on the basis of preferences, interests, location and other information stored in their profiles, now includes a location feature and allows members to search for, and connect with, people who’ve been or will be in the same location at another time. For example, a user could reconnect with a college crush by setting their hometown as a past location, or could meet new people in the country they will be traveling to in the upcoming weeks.

The new app also includes tools to help customers improve their flirting abilities. A dashboard has real-time updates, notifications, and daily messaging trends, and allows members to see when their favorite friends are online. Members can also share feed updates on Twitter and Facebook and can check their own flirting stats with a new analytics tool
" image[107] = "0" date_2[105] = "14/02/11"; title_2[105] = "TestPlant Launches eggPlant Mobile Testing Solution"; title2_2[105] = "Company"; article_2[105] = "eggPlant is the world's leading robotic test tool for GUI testing used by many leading software companies, by significant defence, security and aerospace organisations and by global media broadcasters and on-line entertainment businesses. The mobile testing solution extends eggPlant's reach into software running on smartphones and tablets across the major mobile operating systems. The launch is in partnership with RealVNC, the original developer and leading provider of VNC(R) technology used by millions of computer users around the world.

Testing software or apps on mobile devices is a major pain point for app developers, for device manufacturers and for network operators. There has not been an effective in house automated solution to testing software on the full range of devices. Existing techniques are either manual, which is extremely tedious and error-prone, or electro-mechanical, which is limited, does not reproduce a real user experience test and can place IP outside the enterprise environment. eggPlant uses RealVNC's VNC Mobile Solution to connect directly to a device. A true user experience test is created as eggPlant is capable of recognising icons, colours, text and fields on any display. A test script is automatically generated as eggPlant is trained to move around an app using its image store to spot and compare display prompts. Multiple tests become effortless and eggPlant reports test failures with helpful screen images of the exact point of failure. An automated test script can be created on one device (or emulator) to be repeated many times on other devices.

" image[105] = "7" date_2[103] = "28/01/11"; title_2[103] = "Intamac Launches Next Generation Of 3G-Enabled Connected Home Services"; title2_2[103] = "Company"; article_2[103] = "Intamac Systems Ltd, a market leader in connected home technologies, today announced that it has enhanced its offering to include the capability to enable connected home services via mobile networks. Consumers can now adopt truly wireless home monitoring product and service solutions, without the need for a fixed-line broadband connection in the home. This will provide a simple way for mobile operators to enter the connected home market, and to provide their customers with a range of new added value services.

Intamac’s connected home control hub has an option for a SIM card, enabling primary communication to its cloud-based monitoring platform to be delivered over the mobile network. This capability makes Intamac’s range of connected home services available to many more homes.

The Intamac cloud-based platform employs open standards and offers simple APIs that allow operators to develop and deliver a range of interactive services to their customers. The consumer interfaces can be branded and integrated within existing back office systems. A wide range of service offerings are currently available through the Intamac platform, including applications such as Smart Energy, Home Security, Telecare, View, and Home Automation & remote control.

Up until now, customers required a broadband connection within their homes in order to access the web-based services that Intamac offers. The connected home control hub would plug directly into, and transmit data through, the broadband router in a consumer’s home. Now available with mobile connectivity, Intamac’s carrier grade cloud-based platform analyses and interprets incoming data from a customer’s property, and initiates response actions and messaging if required.
Already working closely with organisations such as Alcatel-Lucent and the ng Connect Program,which is committed to developing next generation services for emerging ultra-high bandwidth networks, this announcement further strengthens Intamac’s commitment to the development of mobile market and the move towards 4G and LTE networks.
“The ng Connect Program provides an environment where member companies collaborate to explore how next-generation networks will impact a wide range of industries and enhance the solutions and services they bring to market,” comments John Dillon, Vice President, Emerging Technology & Media, Alcatel-Lucent and a founding member of the ng Connect Program. “Intamac is an active member of the ng Connect Program and we’re pleased to see the continued enhancement of the company’s connected home offerings for current and future networks. The ng Connect Program welcomes the news that Intamac is taking further strides towards the future generation of mobile-enabled services.”
“The consumer is beginning to embrace the concept of the connected home.” comments Kevin Meagher, CEO, Intamac Systems Ltd. “Broadband is now a common service within the home, and continues to work well to transmit the relevant data for us to keep our customers informed about their home security, energy consumption and telecare activities. However with the growth in mobile services and Apps, and improvements in broadband speeds over mobile, we realise the advantages for consumers to have truly mobile communications from their home control hub. We feel as though this additional functionality opens up a clear opportunity for existing mobile operators to adopt a complete connected home product and service solution for their customers, delivering new revenue generating offerings which add value to their total service proposition, as well as helping reducing customer churn”." image[103] = "9" date_2[102] = "25/01/11"; title_2[102] = "Testplant granted US Patent"; title2_2[102] = "Company"; article_2[102] = "TestPlant, the London-based international software company with
operations in the USA and the UK, announced that its robotic test tool product “eggPlant” has been
granted a US patent. This is considered to be the first time in recent years that a complete and current
product in the $2.4bn global test tool marketplace* has been recognized by the US Patent and
Trademark Office as being sufficiently novel and innovative to deserve this distinction. Chief Executive
George Mackintosh noted: “In a marketplace dominated by giants HP, IBM, Micro Focus and Microsoft,
TestPlant now has the authority to describe its approach to user interface testing as truly unique”.

Testing is a crucial function in the production of software and worldwide spending on testing is estimated by PAC to be $105bn*. The elimination of bugs requires extensive review of programming code and exhaustive manual testing of the graphic user interface – the “GUI”. Such repetitive manual testing is tedious and prone to human error. eggPlant uses intelligent image-recognition algorithms to “see” the
screen on the system being tested and, by comparison with responses it has been trained to expect,
pass or fail the new or updated software version. With a flood of new and diverse computing devices
appearing on the market – smart phones, tablets, wearable computers, point of sale terminals, head-up displays – the test industry and its practitioners are faced with mounting demands to validate software performance across multiple browsers, devices, operating systems and networks. Consequently there is a surge of interest in automating as much of this process as possible. Automation in software testing
helps shorten system delivery times, improve quality and reduce costs.

The eggPlant patent application, filed in October 2003, refers to the method of controlling or testing a system from another computer, using a communications link such as VNC*. This allows eggPlant to “see” the screen on the system under test recognizing icons, buttons, message boxes, prompts, text, backgrounds and colors. eggPlant’s patent secures its position in the market as “testing or controlling
any computer through communications”. eggPlant creates a “visual depiction of the screen” and can intelligently search and compare while signalling test success or failure. The technique is “non-invasive” – another unique and valuable feature for testers in industries such as defense, security, media and medical devices.
" image[102] = "7" date_2[101] = "20/01/11"; title_2[101] = "Intamac Systems launches Smart Energy service and announces partnership with Green Energy Options"; title2_2[101] = "Company"; article_2[101] = "Intamac Systems Ltd, market leaders in connected home technology, announces its Smart Energy service and partnership with Green Energy Options' (GEO) to connect in-home display (IHD's) to its web-based home monitoring platform. Intamac Systems Ltd. new Smart Energy service enables homeowners to visualise, monitor and interact with their energy consumption.
Intamac's Smart Energy solution is delivered via its unique web-based, managed service platform which already provides utilities, telco's and service providers with a range of added value services. Intamac has incorporated GEO's latest in-home display device - the Ensemble - into its connected home platform, replicating the display information online so that consumers can access and monitor the energy consumption and control appliances in their homes at any time, and from anywhere in the world.
Content is delivered over fixed and mobile broadband allowing end users to visualise the energy consumption in their homes. By delivering this information via internet & mobile, consumers can actively monitor and manage their energy consumption, realise cost reductions, and improve their home's energy efficiency. Intamac's 'life beyond the meter' approach allows new services to be developed, leveraging its platform capability to network devices in the home more effectively than ever before.

'The launch of our Smart Energy service signals a real milestone in providing customers with new connected home capabilities' comments Kevin Meagher, CEO Intamac Systems Ltd. 'Even before the infrastructure is in place to deliver Smart Meters and the Smart Grid network, consumers really need to be aware of how they can make a difference to their lifestyle and start reducing energy consumption today. Through this partnership with GEO, we are taking a big stride towards homeowners having a simple and cost effective way of interacting with their energy usage, identifying and making savings, and taking responsibility for the energy consumption in their homes'.
GEO offers a range of energy monitoring displays that bring energy information to the attention of those who are using it. Utilising colour graphics that are bold and eye-catching the displays provide visual alerts that encourage behavioural change. GEO aims to take what is complex, dull technical information and make it interesting and relevant. The energy monitors can provide itemised usage that pinpoints exactly where energy is being wasted. By doing this, the end user has the knowledge to adjust their behaviour and to significantly reduce their energy consumption and identify how to make their home more efficient.
The Ensemble is GEO's next generation in-home display that lets users see how much electricity they're using overall and to track up to six appliances. Connecting to the Intamac platform via an Internet bridge makes the Ensemble a truly smart device - users can control the appliances via a web portal or using an iPhone app, whilst a 'one-touch' lifestyle button can switch all six appliances off at once.
'GEO has always had a very simple objective; to make energy visible' Patrick Caiger-Smith, CEO Green Energy Options remarks. 'Through our work with Intamac we have delivered another medium for consumers to really engage with their energy consumption, at home and remotely. The launch of our connect-home model the Ensemble also adds functionality which allows consumers to increase the efficiencies within their home and control appliances,
enabling them to adjust their life style and build a better relationship with their energy management system.'

" image[101] = "9" date_2[100] = "21/12/10"; title_2[100] = "MirriAd signs contract with Advertainment Media"; title2_2[100] = "Company Website"; article_2[100] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, is pleased to announce that it has signed a contract with GS Group’s newly launched product placement company, Advertainment Media. The contract will give MirriAd access to 30 markets across Eastern Europe, Asia, Middle East and Russia.
Advertainment Media has been set up by Guzel Sanatlar, a leading media and advertising group in Turkey which includes Saatchi & Saatchi and Zenith Optimedia, to provide digital product placement services in the region.

Advertainment Media is deploying the MirriAd platform in region together with local resources enabling it to provide digital product placement services at scale. It is already in advanced negotiations with top-tier advertisers and major TV broadcasters such as MBC, the largest broadcaster in the Middle East.

The appointment of MirriAd by Advertainment Media follows the announcement by Turkish Minister of Industry Nihat Ergun that new RTUK (Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council) laws will allow Product Placement in Television. Product placement is expected to be legalised in Turkey in January 2011, further enabling Turkish advertising spend to grow beyond 5 billion Turkish Liras by 2012.

Advertainment Media intends to become the market leader in Product Placement in markets whose total TV Advertising expenditure already exceeds 10 Billion dollars (Source: Zenith 2010). The company has already established a very strong technical and commercial team based in Istanbul, Dubai (Middle East) and shortly in Moscow.

Product placement is a rapidly expanding market worldwide. TV product placement is now legal in all European media markets with the remaining final codes of conduct set to be issued shortly. The European market is poised to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.2% in the 2009-2014 period (source: PQ Media.)

Brand owners are seeking new ways to reach consumers and to integrate more with content as technology drives changes in how we consume our media. MirriAd is working with other major broadcasters across three continents, for whom its service has already been successfully tested and researched.

MirriAd partners with broadcasters and brand owners to place branded products, signage and video digitally into existing media content. The company has developed ZoneSense, an IP protected and highly scalable software-based solution to integrate lifelike brand images directly into video content, post production. MirriAd’s proprietary system also solves the management of the sales process, facilitates online approvals by all stakeholders as well as measurement of the brand exposure.

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd’s CEO, said:
“This is another great contract for MirriAd and adds to the gathering momentum behind Product Placement as a viable and exciting new advertising revenue stream. Our platform allows brands to position their products with guaranteed and relevant exposure in key target markets, without deterring from the editorial integrity of shows aired. This contract enables MirriAd to enter a very important region and reach an audience of over 300 million people.”

Emre Tümer, Advertainment Media’s Board Member and General Manager, said:
“We are delighted to work with MirriAd whose experience and technical know-how will be fundamental to help Advertainment Media become the leading provider for Product Placement services in our region at a scale and quality not seen before. I firmly believe that we will be able to provide a powerful new revenue stream for our producer broadcaster partners with a great return on investment for brands”.

Yüsa Ünay, Advertainment Media’s Deputy Chairman said:
“We’ve finished the establishment of the Istanbul HQ and we are now finalizing our Dubai operation. We are very excited about leading the digital product placement revolution and creating an important new revenue opportunity for broadcasters and producers in such a huge and important region of the world”.

" image[100] = "4" date_2[98] = "14/12/10"; title_2[98] = "MirriAd signs up the Seven Network in Australia "; title2_2[98] = "Company"; article_2[98] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, is pleased to announce that it has signed an exclusive contract with Australia’s number one television network, the Seven Network, to stream content including shows like Home and Away and Packed to the Rafters which will telecast next year.
Seven will be deploying a MirriAd Hub in Sydney. This will allow Seven to manage the creation of sales inventory, digital placement and local reporting whilst connected to the global MirriAd network. The arrangement allows Seven to offer client brands lifelike digital placement within mainstream shows with never seen before management controls and reporting.

MirriAd partners with broadcasters and brand owners to place branded products, signage and video digitally into existing media content. The company has developed ZoneSense, an IP protected and highly scalable software-based solution to integrate lifelike brand images directly into video content, post production. MirriAd’s proprietary system also solves the management of the sales process, facilitates online approvals by all stakeholders as well as measurement of the brand exposure. (For examples of MirriAd’s services and digital placements visit: http://mirriad.com/gallery/showreel/

Product placement is a rapidly expanding market worldwide. In 2009, the Global product placement spending – including North America, Europe, Asia and other regions was $6.25 billion. The US sector alone has been growing by more than 25% a year between 2004 – 2009(source: PQ Media). TV product placement is now legal in all European media markets with the remaining final codes of conduct set to be issued shortly. The European market is poised to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.2% in the 2009-2014 period (source: PQ Media.)

Brand owners are seeking new ways to reach consumers and to integrate more with content as technology drives changes in how we consume our media. MirriAd is working with other major broadcasters across three continents, for whom its service has already been successfully tested

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd’s CEO, said:

“Product placement is about to be transformed into a new scalable advertising medium which delivers the right balance of audience enjoyment and guaranteed brand exposure with empirical measurement and all proven through extensive research. With this vision and knowledge we are thrilled to have won the confidence and backing of the Seven Network in Australia. They have a terrific track record of serving their viewers and being able to create new revenues to spend on new programming.”

James Warburton Seven Media Group Chief Sales and Digital Officer, said:
“Seven is recognised for its innovation in developing compelling marketing solutions for its clients. Our cross-platform and integration business, SMG Red, continues to be a powerhouse and our agreement with MirriAd allows to build on that success. We’re pleased to be working with MirriAd.”

" image[98] = "4" date_2[99] = "14/12/10"; title_2[99] = "Broadcasters given green light for product placement on British TV"; title2_2[99] = "Daily Telegraph"; article_2[99] = "Broadcasters are to be given the go-ahead for ‘product placement’ advertising – in which companies pay for their brands to appear within programmes – for the first time in British television history.
It means viewers could see stars such as Simon Cowell sipping Evian water or Coronation Street actors tucking into Kellogg’s cornflakes in less than three months’ time.
And by pressing the red button or following a link, digital viewers or those watching via the internet will immediately be able to order products they see on screen.


Top-rated shows such as The X Factor – which is expected to draw an audience of 20 million to its grand final tonight – are understood already to be in talks about product placement.
Television regulator Ofcom will announce next week that product placement must not impair editorial independence but will be allowed in films, entertainment and sports programmes on commercial channels.

The BBC would be banned from such deals but the technology exists to digitally insert products into its hit shows such as Only Fools And Horses or Life On Mars when they are repeated on advertiser-funded channels including UK Gold and Dave.
Until now brand names could appear on UK television incidentally but broadcasters could not accept money for the arrangement, nor give brands undue prominence.

Under the new rules, shows featuring product placement will be flagged up to viewers with a ‘P’ or ‘PP’ logo at the bottom of the screen at the beginning and end of the broadcast. However, it will be banned in all children’s, news, current affairs and religious programmes – but not shows such as The X Factor which are viewed by children but aimed at an older audience.

Product placement for tobacco, alcohol, gambling services and unhealthy foods high in fat and sugar will also be prohibited.

The move, a result of changes to EU legislation last year, is being welcomed by commercial broadcasters as it is expected to open up a market worth more than £150 million a year.
Product placement has been used in American television since the Fifties where it has become synonymous with heavy-handed endorse¬ment. It was satirised in the 1998 Hollywood film The Truman Show where star Jim Carrey’s character Truman Burbank discovers his life is part of a 24-hour reality TV show when his wife is seen name-checking big-name brands in asides to a hidden camera.

Liza Read, managing director of product placement firm One Place, said: ‘Although the new rules don’t come in until next year, brand partnerships are already being sought. Shows like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent are the ideal market for goods such as health and beauty products, fashion and electronic gadgets.
‘I don’t think we will see such blatant product endorsement as the Americans see because British audiences aren’t receptive to very overt sales tactics.
‘In the UK it will be more subtle. You’ll see the stylist or make-up artist on a show like The X Factor talking about how they’ve put together Cheryl Cole’s look and what products they’ve used. Viewers could then be given the option to purchase by pressing the red button or going to a show’s website.’
Product placement is reckoned to account for about five per cent of the total TV advertising revenue in America. However, Peter Bazalgette, chairman of specialist product placement firm MirriAd, reckons the market could grow substantially bigger. ‘Product placement could expand the television advertising market as a whole by considerably more than £150 million,’ he said.

It has been estimated that product placement could be worth £9 million a year to ITV’s Coronation Street alone. The soap opera is understood to have already tested technology to insert images of brands into scenes after they have been shot.

MirriAd already has contracts with broadcasters around the world to use the technology, including Australia’s Seven Network for its soap Home And Away.

Bazalgette said research commissioned by his company showed that most viewers thought product placement made no difference to their enjoyment of a programme, with about a third of viewers remembering the product placed and two-thirds doing so when prompted


" image[99] = "4" date_2[97] = "15/11/10"; title_2[97] = "Sirigen raises £3.8m in new funding"; title2_2[97] = "Company"; article_2[97] = "Sirigen has raised £3.83 million to bring its products to market and has appointed four new directors.

The money was raised from new backers IQ Capital, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and YFM Private Equity, as well as existing investors Seraphim Capital and Oxford Capital Partners.

It will be used to commercialise Sirigen's 'high sensitivity flourescence' technology, which is designed to enhance the performance of diagnostic tools used to analyse and manage diseases such as HIV and leukaemia.

In tandem with the fundraising, Sirigen has appointed a new chairman, David Evans, who was chairman of molecular diagnostics company DxS that was recently sold for up to $130 million (£80 million) to Qiagen.

Two new investor directors have also joined Sirigen's board, Ivan Griffin of NESTA and Max Bautin of IQ Capital, as well as an additional non-executive chairman, Arthur Cole, who previously held senior roles at Visible Genetics and Pharmacia Biotech.

Nick Kerton, CEO of Sirigen, comments, 'The collective experience of these individuals will be invaluable in building Sirigen’s business and significantly enhancing shareholder value.'

" image[97] = "5" date_2[95] = "14/09/10"; title_2[95] = "Testplant featured by TechMarketView"; title2_2[95] = "TechMarketView"; article_2[95] = "Picking up on a couple of recent themes – the health of the software testing sector, and the prospects for new and innovative UK companies – we recently met up with George Mackintosh, CEO of London-based TestPlant. TestPlant was formed two years ago when Mackintosh and Jon Richards (formerly CEO of Anite) took on the business of Redstone Software, the US-based testing software operation of Gresham Computing, backed by Seraphim Capital with funds coming from investors in London, Edinburgh and Washington DC.

Currently the company has a run rate of around £2m – up 75% on the prior year. George Mackintosh thinks that 50% growth next year is quite feasible, despite the continued market gloom. The portents are quite good: TestPlant launched into the teeth of the downturn, just as Lehman’s was closed down and the market dived, so management did well to navigate the choppy waters and come up smiling.

Redstone was based on the US West Coast, and hence TestPlant has its development group – around half its 20-odd staff – based in the US (the rest are in London). Also because of its heritage, around 70% of TestPlant’s business is in the US. Its clients there include Cisco, Ericsson and Raytheon. Most of its clients are in defence or aerospace – often the most demanding clients, technically – but that base is broadening.

A key selling point of eggPlant (TestPlant’s product) is its ‘non-invasive’ nature. It acts remotely on the system under test, allowing flexibility which is increasingly critical as cloud-based apps are designed to be accessed by a multiplicity of browsers and devices over the Internet, as well as obviating the need to embed test software into the operational systems. It can be trained to see screens in the same way a human eye would: this “image recognition” approach is very different to the market leaders’ approach.

We see TestPlant’s US base as a very big plus-point for the company: most UK companies start off addressing their domestic market and then struggle to break into the US. But to crack the US is a ‘must’ for infrastructure software companies, if they are not to remain niche or be gobbled up. TestPlant does have some good UK clients too – for example the BBC, which tests its iPlayer using eggPlant, plus BAE Systems and NATS.

With its technical prowess, dual US/UK bases and capable management we expect to be seeing much more of TestPlant in future. It confirmed for us that there is a living to be made from testing; but more important, it shows that even where there is a huge incumbent player (HP, in this case, plus of course IBM and Micro Focus) it’s still possible for innovative UK companies to hold their own and make headway in selling software tools. And they don’t have to restrict themselves to industry or geographical niches. We will be watching TestPlant carefully to see how it develops next.
" image[95] = "7" date_2[94] = "10/09/10"; title_2[94] = "Peter Bazalgette joins Mirriad as Chairman"; title2_2[94] = "Broadcast Now"; article_2[94] = "Former Endemol UK chairman Peter Bazalgette has been appointed chairman of digital product placement company MirriAd.


The appointment of Bazalgette, a long-time evangelist for TV product placement, comes after what the London-based company calls a successful funding round led by investment managers Oxford Capital and STV plc.

MirriAd, which was launched in 2007 by former director of BBC Ventures Mark Popkiewicz, partners with broadcasters and brand owners to place products digitally into existing media content. The company has developed software designed to integrate lifelike brand images directly into video content and in post production.

The company has already been successful in the US where it has grown by 25% a year and hopes to exploit upcoming changes to European law which will ease restrictions on TV product placement in the next few months.

Last year Bazalgette responded to opposition by then culture secretary Andy Burnham to the move by accusing him of “flying in the face of commone sense”.

“Television isn’t special any more,” he said. “In the Sixties it was fully regulated and piped straight into homes. Now we have online sources which aren’t regulated. There’s got to be trust in the public. If it’s done in a crass way, producers and broadcasters would be incredibly stupid, as it would devalue the whole thing.”

Bazalgette predicted that over the coming year product placement could be worth up to £125m.

He said of his appointment at MirriAd: “This is a seminal moment for product placement. With its legalisation in Europe, with the desire of brands to get closer to content and with MirriAd’s compelling digital solution I look forward to an exciting growth phase for the company.”

Colin Watts, Oxford Capital’s investment director, added: “As a specialist growth investor, we are pleased to be joining MirriAd at this inflection point in its development.

“With a clear product advantage, MirriAd is the leader in the European market. We’re attracted by the company’s robust business model and the potential for its applications, both in broadcast media and the online video market.”
" image[94] = "4" date_2[93] = "09/09/10"; title_2[93] = "Flirtomatic reaches 1m users in the US and 3m worldwide"; title2_2[93] = "Company Press Release"; article_2[93] = "Flirtomatic, the top flirting service in the world, today announced that it has hit the 3 million-user milestone globally and recently surpassed the 1 million-user mark in the U.S. This was achieved just as mobile flirting heated up over the summer: Flirtomatic accounted for 65 percent of the season’s audience for mobile dating, topping such traditional online sites as eHarmony and match.com, according to a study by the mobile media measurement firm Ground Truth.

“Flirting is as much a human instinct as laughing or eating – and we’re creating the most fun way on earth for people to flirt on their mobiles and the web,” said Flirtomatic CEO and co-founder Mark Curtis. “If you think about the number of people you flirt with compared to date, you can quickly see why this is so popular. We’re thrilled that this is proving to be the case in the U.S.”

The fast adoption of Flirtomatic by U.S. users, as demonstrated by the Ground Truth study and the 1 million-user milestone, enabled the company to recently raise $9 million in Series C funding to further growth in North America and Europe and expand marketing efforts with such partners as AT&T, MetroPCS, Cricket, and T-Mobile.

Flirtomatic lets its 3 million users – who fire off 53 million flirtations a month – discover profiles based on gender, age, location and flirting preferences. Mobile flirters can always chat for free or enhance their flirting experience by promoting themselves, sending virtual gifts or mass messages, or winking from afar to spark a conversation. Flirtomatic also allows users to find the most popular profiles, see who has checked them out and always see who is currently online and game for flirting. Flirtomatic users average six logins a day while its iPhone users check in nine times a day.

“With Flirtomatic, I don’t have to sit in a chat room full of people,” said Amber, 27, a Flirtomatic user from Boise, Idaho. “And it’s not one of those matching sites where you’re out to find your spouse or true love. You can just talk to people and make friends and laugh.”

“Flirtomatic has helped me discover the closet online flirt in me,” said Daniele Tsezana, a 40-year-old Flirtomatic aficionado in Seattle. “And you’re able to say things that you wouldn’t normally say in public in a social situation when you’re meeting someone for the first time. It’s easily the easiest service that I’ve ever put my hands on.”

" image[93] = "0" date_2[96] = "09/09/10"; title_2[96] = "Celona launches telecoms Master Data Management (MDM) migration solution "; title2_2[96] = "Company"; article_2[96] = "Celona, leaders in business-centric application data migration software today announced a new telecoms focused MDM migration solution utilising its market leading application data migration platform, Celona Evolve.

MDM enables an enterprise to link and consolidate its business critical data from disparate systems across the organisation, providing a single system of reference for all business processes. This allows data to be shared across personnel, departments, architectures and applications. The importance of MDM has increased as the use and complexity of O/BSS applications and levels of organisational transformation have grown in recent years. Consolidation and efficiency requirements are now driving the need for MDM frameworks amongst Communication Service Providers, however, the issue of application data migration from multiple applications and Legacy systems into any new MDM architecture presents a huge barrier, with high risk.

To solve the issue of Telecoms MDM migration, Celona’s solution focuses on the key areas of enablement for MDM, such as migration, transformation, mapping, modelling and synchronisation. The Celona Evolve MDM application data migration solution enables business and IT to manage data references across changing business environments and synchronise data between existing applications and the new MDM hub environment. Migrating data into an MDM framework involves data mapping, transformation and audit capabilities, as well as migration co-ordination. Celona Evolve software fully manages all of these elements whilst incorporating a single real-time audit trail to ensure no data loss. Full bi-directional synchronisation is also provided to maintain consistency between the MDM hub and associated systems, a pre-requisite for successful MDM.

Tony Sceales, CTO of Celona commented, 'Taking the decision to implement MDM is strategic for any business in the telecoms industry and one that is necessary in order to drive operational and business efficiency. The journey to realising MDM is not trivial and one that can be high risk and complex. Celona has responded to this requirement by providing a solution that enables and accelerates the implementation of MDM, providing a software solution that creates the migration infrastructure needed to ensure success'.

Celona Evolve for MDM enables organisations to accelerate their MDM goals and successfully navigate the journey to MDM, while managing the changing business and IT data landscape that continuously shifts in operational and business telecoms application environments.

" image[96] = "8" date_2[92] = "08/09/10"; title_2[92] = "Mirriad announces new investment from Oxford Capital Partners and STV"; title2_2[92] = "Company Press Release"; article_2[92] = "MirriAd Limited, the market leader in digital product placement, has completed a successful funding round, led by Oxford Capital and Scottish Television Group plc. The round was also supported by existing institutional and individual shareholders.
As part of the round MirriAd has appointed Peter Bazalgette as Chairman. Peter is one Europe’s most senior media executives having been a Board director of Endemol and Channel 4. He is best known for introducing Big Brother into the UK and for developing new strategies in the media sector.
MirriAd partners with broadcasters and brand owners to place products digitally into existing media content. The company has developed an IP protected software-based solution to integrate lifelike brand images directly into video content, post production. MirriAd’s proprietary system also solves the management of the sales process, facilitates online approvals by all stakeholders as well as tracking and valuing the brand exposure.
MirriAd is tapping into a rapidly expanding market for product placement worldwide. The US sector alone has been growing by more than 25% a year (source: PQ Media Annual Report). Meanwhile TV product placement is becoming legal in all the major European media markets over the next few months. Brand owners are seeking new ways to reach consumers and to integrate more with content as technology drives changes in how we consume our media. MirriAd is working with major broadcasters on three continents, for whom its service has already been successfully tested.
Peter Bazalgette, MirriAd’s Chairman, said : “ This is a seminal moment for product placement. With its legalisation in Europe, with the desire of brands to get closer to content and with MirriAd’s compelling digital solution I look forward to an exciting growth phase for the company.”
Colin Watts, Investment Director at Oxford Capital said, “ As a specialist growth investor, we are pleased to be joining MirriAd at this inflection point in its development. With a clear product advantage, MirriAd is the leader in the European market. We’re attracted by the company’s robust business model and the potential for its applications, both in broadcast media and the online video market.”
Anmar Kawash, Chief Operating Officer, STV Group plc, said: “STV is both a content maker and a national broadcaster offering solutions to advertisers and MirriAd’s products and processes provide an innovative way of adding value to both. We are excited to be involved with the market leader at this important time.”
" image[92] = "4" date_2[90] = "25/08/10"; title_2[90] = "Testplant featured in the Daily Telegraph"; title2_2[90] = "Daily Telegraph"; article_2[90] = "CHINA is not a nation of geeks. It may manufacture most of the world’s computers but it develops barely any of the software that runs on them. Instead, companies such as Microsoft and Apple have come up with their software
in Silicon Valley. If they then need to outsource the tiresome and timeconsuming coding process, they turn to India, where there is a large number of skilled and hardworking geeks. But George Mackintosh, head of TestPlant, a software testing company, says: “There is a bigger opportunity in China than in India. A couple of years ago, you would say India was the biggest
market for our products. I don’t
think it is now. What is happening here is going to rocket past India because software is going mobile.”
About 277m Chinese are now using
their mobile phones to access the
internet, according to the China
Internet Network Information Centre. More than half of China’s web users don’t have a computer. Instead, they are taking the cheap option of using their phones to get online.

“Those phones are computers,” says
Mr Mackintosh. “You can use them to
read a newspaper or get your executive reports.” For TestPlant, which licenses its program to help software developers test their products, it is a market that has emerged out of nothing. The complicated graphics on the
screens of mobile phones all need to be tested, and then re-tested, to make sure the programs work. “In the past this was all done by hand. This testing
represents between 30pc and a staggering 70pc of the cost of building the software,” Mr Mackintosh says.

“At the moment, all this testing is
largely manual. Our program is like a trained robot that can run through all the variations and possibilities for you repetitively.”

China’s 5m iPhone customers are
mostly running hacked or pirated
applications. Apple’s application store has been a failure so far, in terms of popularity. TestPlant has recently released a version of its program for iPhone applications. Meanwhile, the company, which already has deals with the BBC, Sky, the US Department of Defence and
the US Department of Justice, is
looking for a Chinese partner. “We
are entirely open to technology
transfer,” says Mr Mackintosh." image[90] = "7" date_2[91] = "25/08/10"; title_2[91] = "Mirriad to feature at the Emerging Companies Summit"; title2_2[91] = "Marketwatch"; article_2[91] = "A broad spectrum of technology companies and investors will come together next month to learn about ground-breaking applications that could transform computing and create new fields in consumer technology, entertainment and medicine.

The Third Annual Emerging Companies Summit, part of the GPU Technology Conference, will take place Sept 21-23, in San Jose, Calif. Building on the success of the two previous events, the Emerging Companies Summit will feature panels, sessions and technology demonstrations from 60 startup companies involved in visual computing, including Cooliris, Elemental Technologies, Milabra, Mirriad, NaturalMotion and Useful Progress. Mirriad -- one of the stars of last year's Summit -- has since received major funding to grow its business serving the entertainment industry with digital product placement.

CEOs from 24 emerging companies will have an opportunity to discuss their business strategy with panels comprised of technology executives from world-class companies, including Adobe, Cisco, Google and Microsoft, along with members of prominent investment firms, like Charles River Ventures, Interwest, Morgenthaler Ventures and Sutter Hill. The panels will be hosted by leading analysts from Creative Strategies, Enderle Group, Insight64 and Jon Peddie Research.

The event will also include an on-stage conversation with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang hosted by the national editor for Forbes magazine, Quentin Hardy.

The Summit will provide a rare opportunity to see how startups are utilizing graphics processing units (GPUs) to supercharge existing applications and create new solutions. Familiar sectors such as media and entertainment have already been fundamentally altered by the GPU. And new industries and applications are rapidly emerging in the fields of computer vision, real-time facial recognition, energy exploration, real-time medical imaging, hyper-realistic virtual worlds, and artificial intelligence.

Event sponsors include Citigroup, Churchill Club, Cooley, Deloitte, Silicon Valley Bank and Sutter Hill.

The GPU Technology Conference is where the world's foremost computing experts gather to talk about breakthrough work enabled by GPUs. GTC 2010 will feature more than 240 sessions of technical content targeted for researchers, developers and technologists.

'The Emerging Companies Summit was instrumental in Mirriad obtaining investment capital to help our business grow. We value NVIDIA's efforts in not only supporting development activity but in creating great opportunities for GPU-based businesses.' -- Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of Mirriad
" image[91] = "4" date_2[89] = "18/08/10"; title_2[89] = "Verizon Chooses Aria Networks"; title2_2[89] = "Company / PR Web"; article_2[89] = "Aria Networks iVNT will be used to assist Verizon network architects’ decision-making by comparing the capabilities of several candidate architectures which vary by technology, cost-model and configuration. The solution will allow Verizon to determine the ability of each candidate network architecture to meet forecast demands over various time horizons, along with an optimal cost estimate for each.

iVNT’s unique artificial intelligence allows multiple constraints to be evaluated while optimising a complete Verizon core network scenario in a matter of minutes. iCustomise, Aria’s scripting language, will provide automated, flexible, execution of multiple scenarios, comparing results and providing reports to Verizon’s network architects.

Selection of Aria Networks iVNT followed a proof-of-concept which suggested significant savings on equipments costs between the most and least cost architectures.

Aria Networks recognises that optimal allocation of capital expenditure is a major objective for modern communication service providers. Aria Networks’ highly scalable architecture and A.I.-based planning suite is the only solution able to meet the requirements of the largest service providers managing multi-layer, multi-technology networks.

Tony Fallows, Aria Networks CEO, added: “We are pleased to be working with Verizon and contributing to their network optimisation. Their forward-looking approach is a perfect match for Aria’s products, and one which we believe will offer Verizon significant benefits going-forward.'
" image[89] = "6" date_2[86] = "23/06/10"; title_2[86] = "Flirtomatic win Best Mobile Social Media at the Meffys for the 3rd year running"; title2_2[86] = "Company website"; article_2[86] = "Flirtomatic won the Best Social Media Award at the Meffy’ (http://www.meffys.com/) last night, for the third year running.

Since picking up the award in 2009, Flirtomatic has launched its iPhone and Android applications, placed in the top 10 most visited mobile sites in the UK according to data from GSMA and comScore, revamped its website, implemented further integration with Facebook, used its members to help predict the outcome of the British General Election, sold over a million virtual gifts and done a whole lot more behind the scenes.

The Meffy judges of the Social Media Award were looking for a company that has achieved success using innovative revenue models and relevant technology to create a genuinely immersive experience on mobile. The GSMA and comScore census level stats from February, might have helped Flirtomatic’s case with the judges, as Flirtomatic placed in the top 10 most visited mobile sites in the UK (http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/2010/4614.htm). The data also showed Flirtomatic had the highest user engagement by time and by pages, beating the likes of Facebook, Google and Microsoft to the top spot.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic commented: “To win this award for the third year in a row is an absolute honour and surprise. It’s something we never expected. We’ve got a fantastic team at Flirtomatic, who truly care about giving our users the best experience possible.”

Mark continued: “After this unexpected award win, rest assured we won’t be putting our feet up. We’re continuing our push in to new territories and aiming to bring the mobile experience of Flirtomatic to millions more people across the globe”.
" image[86] = "0" date_2[85] = "01/06/10"; title_2[85] = "Intamac and D-Link demonstrate a new generation of home monitoring solutions "; title2_2[85] = "Real Wire"; article_2[85] = "Connected Home specialist Intamac Systems Ltd has partnered with global CE device manufacturer D-Link, to develop a new range of IP based home monitoring solutions for global service providers. The companies will be demonstrating these innovative products and services at the CONNECTIONS™ Digital Living Showcase & Conference, on 8-10 June at the Santa Clara Convention Centre, CA. The D-Link products are supported by Intamac’s intelligent cloud-based platform to provide home security, energy management, home automation, video and telecare solutions. The companies are working together to offer service providers and utilities a complete turnkey solution which reduces the time taken to deploy these new value-added service bundles. Their solutions can be integrated with third party Zigbee or Zwave devices, allowing consumers to select from a broader range of products and interactive services to remotely monitor and control their homes.

The D-Link Home Monitoring Starter Kit is an easy-to-use home security system which can be self-installed in just 30 minutes. A range of in-home sensors wirelessly report data to the system control unit, which itself is connected to the home broadband router. The remote monitoring service is managed and controlled through a personalized web portal account powered by Intamac, which the end-user consumer can access at mydlink.com. A range of sensors such as infrared motion detectors, door/window contacts and more can be added to the system, and the kit’s control unit reports all information directly to the mydlink platform, with alerts instantly relayed by SMS, email and voice call to the consumer and their designated contacts.

A home video option is available with D-Link IP cameras, which can capture and record events with remote access to the footage available through the website or cell phones, and forthcoming Energy Monitoring capability with smart-plugs offering remote control to help reduce energy consumption in the home devices will also be previewed .

Kevin Meagher, Founder CEO of Intamac Systems, will also be a guest speaker on the ‘Energy Management as Key Application for Home Controls’ panel, scheduled for Wednesday 9th June at 1.30pm. He’ll be contributing to the discussion on how the surge in demand for energy management solutions can open up further opportunities for the wider connected home market. In particular, the panel will examine the critical factors to drive mass-market acceptance, including:

- Leveraging the momentum of energy management initiatives
- Integrating energy management with Home Controls
- Whole-home solutions including Security, home CCTV, Social Care and more.

“The Connected Home is fast becoming a reality,” said Kevin Meagher from Intamac: “Consumers want to be able to control all appliances and services in their homes, from wherever they are and from their fixed and mobile devices. Our partnership with D-Link has allowed us to develop and commercialise a range of innovative new products and services, at previously unavailable price points. The flexible nature of our platform gives consumers an entry level connected home proposition, which they can easily expand to suit their individual needs”.

" image[85] = "9" date_2[84] = "23/04/10"; title_2[84] = "Flirtomatic's Matt Dicks featured in New Media Age"; title2_2[84] = "New Media Age"; article_2[84] = "The arrival of the iPad and the renaissance of tablet computers in general raises questions for cross-platform advertisers, with the tablet app model forecast to be an increasingly significant one over the next five years.

Advertisers like cross-platform advertising to be simple, ideally delivering from one ad server to all platforms. However, it’s critical to identify the kind of platform a user is on. Whether it’s web, mobile internet or app will have a significant impact on the kind of experience an advertiser wants to deliver.

While the iPad may offer more opportunities for creativity, it’s not clear whether the device wants to be an apps or web platform. While apps have been a convenient way of getting around the smaller screen sizes of mobile, no one really knows how they’ll translate to larger form factors. Scaling existing apps to double their size looks like an unconvincing solution.

If the iPad ushers in a browser-based ecosystem, will it really be the full-fat web in your hand, or will developers start building websites that are optimised for tablets? Will this encompass mobile advertisers or internet advertisers? What will be the knock-on effect for brands?

For a service like Flirtomatic, it’ll be interesting to see whether the iPad drives people to our iPhone app, the web or our mobile-optimised site. As we’ve worked hard to make sure people have an almost identical experience, with no loss of functionality, no matter what platform they access Flirtomatic on, this will obviously dictate what ads will be seen.

What about the operators? Questions have been raised about whether the mobile industry as a whole is even ready for the increased data consumption the 3G version of the iPad could generate. AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega famously complained that iPhone users were using too much data on their unlimited mobile plans. With a larger screen and a faster processor, this consumption is only going to increase.

To some, Apple’s iAd announcement confirmed it would be operating a walled-garden approach to ads on its devices, excluding inventory from established networks such as AdMob. If this is applied to the iPad, what would it mean for large media companies with established cross-media digital ad sales teams? Many, such as Sky, have seen their popularity grow through offering Apple apps, but will being restricted further on advertising see them bite the bullet and switch to Android?

For people who like stuff simple, that’s quite a lot to deal with.

" image[84] = "0" date_2[83] = "22/04/10"; title_2[83] = "Aria Networks announces Capacity Planner"; title2_2[83] = "Company Website"; article_2[83] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of optimisation and planning software solutions for next-generation networks, today announced Capacity Planner, extending their product suite to offer the telecoms industry an unrivalled solution for accelerating planning cycles and increasing efficient capital expenditure.

Service providers’ network planning teams are tasked with answering a broad spectrum of questions about their network, from the technical to the commercial, and the immediate to the long-term. Getting the right answer is time-consuming or, frequently, impossible with existing data sources and tools. When the answer has a direct impact on capital expenditure and customer revenue, any sub-optimal capacity planning process will cost the business millions annually.

Aria Networks Capacity Planner offers a new way for service providers to get more accurate answers far quicker than has previously been possible.

Aria Networks recognises that optimal allocation of capital expenditure (CAPEX) is a major objective for modern communication service providers. This is being driven by a number of factors including budgetary constraints and a need to maximise return on investment of existing network capacity.

Optimisation of networks and services must take in to account the availability of infrastructure, devices, equipment and other resources. Service planners need to understand which resources can be used to support customer requirements. In the event of a short-fall in available resources, the most economical means of upgrading the network must be identified.
Uniquely, Capacity Planner uses a data-driven description of how services’ demands for resources (for example equipment, bandwidth, connections, and quality of service) are fulfilled by available or deployable network assets. This allows communication service providers to see how planned services consume resources such as optical channels, VLANs, devices, cards and ports, delivering far more accurate cost estimates for service plans and allowing the generation of optimal bill-of-materials for network upgrades.

This market-leading capability enables planning processes that previously may have taken hundreds of staff several months to complete, to be automated and completed in a matter of hours. The solution also enables capital expenditure to be more precisely allocated, with cost-optimal answers resulting in significantly less need to build in contingent capacity.
From an operational perspective, Capacity Planner ensures that network planners can develop accurate strategic plans as well as react quickly to tactical questions from the sales team. Feasibility of fulfilling large service orders can be determined quickly, reviewed and reworked as the bid progresses. Key to this activity is a clear understanding of the return-on-investment. Capacity Planner provides an optimised and detailed cost of delivery, giving the sales organisation maximum confidence in their ability to generate a profit.

Capacity Planner compliments service providers’ wider asset management processes and systems. List of materials generated by Capacity Planner can be used to validate CAPEX business plans, for long term planning, or can be passed directly to ERP systems or procurement to satisfy immediate service fulfilment needs.

This launch further extends Aria’s lead over competitive products. Other fulfilment and planning tools fail to meet this requirement: Inventory-based fulfilment solutions contain a detailed record of available assets, but due to their procedural approach to service design they do not have the ability to perform global optimisation of services across technology domains; GIS-based planning and engineering tools lack a logical model of the network, so are unable to plan asset updates in relation to demands on bandwidth.

A further differentiator of Capacity Planner is its data-driven approach. Resources can be rapidly modelled along with allocation rules for different service demands. This is both quicker and more expressive than relying on traditional programmatic approaches. Capacity Planner’s first project deployment already supports capacity models for Alcatel Lucent, Cisco, Ciena, Fujitsu, Juniper, Hatteras and Huawei. Service models have been implemented to support consumer, business and whole-sale services such as Ethernet and VLANs.

Tony Fallows, Aria Networks CEO, said, 'I am very excited about Capacity Planner. This is new capability developed in conjunction with a tier-one service provider. It delivers exactly what we believe the market needs to address the cost and complexity issues faced by the industry’s continuous business and technology change. The prospect of reducing CAPEX and improving the predictability of service plans already has a number of major service providers interested in learning more about the product.”

Aria Networks’ highly scalable architecture and AI-based planning suite is the only solution able to meet the requirements of the largest service providers managing multi-layer, multi-technology networks.

" image[83] = "6" date_2[82] = "16/04/10"; title_2[82] = "Celona announce new certified partners"; title2_2[82] = "Company Website"; article_2[82] = "Celona, leaders in business-centric application data migration software today announced a set of new certified alliances with leading data management industry integrators and consultants. The alliances combine the Celona Evolve application data migration software platform with the proven consulting and integration skills that enable enterprises to significantly reduce the transitional business risk associated with their application data migration programmes including for Mergers and Acquisitions, Break-ups, Transformations, Legacy application consolidation into new strategic environments, and application upgrades.

Data migration has been a long standing problem area for enterprises spanning Telecoms, Financial Services, Utilities, Manufacturing and Public Sector, with over 60% of migrations overrunning in time and cost*, many programs of which result in failure across business sectors. The rise of business process-centric applications such as CRM and ERP and new application architectures has increased the complexity and issues of data migration. Therefore the need for both competence in the IT and business environments, and purpose built software tools for application data migration that can be successfully utilised at a business control level to de-risk and remove enterprise migration costs, has never been so high.

The emergence of business process-centric applications has created a clear requirement for new generation software and professional services data migration offerings that can provide the technical and business level enablement to meet today’s needs for agility in the changing enterprise landscape.

The new partnerships include:

Clarity Integration – who provides consulting, delivery and software services for Information Management solutions that enable their clients to improve operational efficiency, monitor performance and change processes, maintain competitive advantage in their market and introduce a greater insight within their organisation.

Computaris – who specialises in consultancy, system integration and software development for the mobile telecoms industry in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. They provide the highest level of expertise in the domain of communications BSS. Computaris Know-how is behind solutions deployed at 64 telecom operators worldwide.

MphasiS – who delivers global Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing, Applications Services Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing services through a combination of technology know-how, domain and process expertise. MphasiS brings to their clients a credible and experienced global leadership team driving service delivery through the next generation global delivery model.

AlTion – who delivers network support system software products and services to telecommunications network providers. Founded in 1992 AlTion has developed in-depth technical expertise in the development and deployment of service provisioning, service activation and network inventory solutions. AlTion have successfully delivered Network Inventory solutions for Fixed Line, Mobile and Satellite operators.

Charles Andrews, CEO of Celona, commented, 'We are delighted that Clarity Integration, AlTion, Computaris and MphasiS have recognised that Celona Evolve software offers their clients a new generation and business-centric approach to application data migration. Celona Evolve software removes application data migration from the critical path by removing the transitional risk of application migrations, with less cost, earlier results and by creating business agility.'

" image[82] = "8" date_2[81] = "08/04/10"; title_2[81] = "Testplant launches Eggplant for Windows"; title2_2[81] = "Company Press Release"; article_2[81] = "TestPlant has announced the much anticipated Windows version of eggPlant, their world leading robotic test tool. eggPlant for Windows joins eggPlant for Mac launched in 2002 and eggPlant for Linux, which was released exactly one year ago on this same date, to complete the full set of platform variants. All three products are built on the new v10 development platform from which eggPlant can automate the testing of interfaces [“GUIs”] on any software system irrespective of its operating system, age or function. This announcement confirms eggPlant as the universal automation tool for GUI testing. By automating traditional manual testing procedures, the deployment of eggPlant improves systems quality, reduces delivery times and lowers costs. eggPlant is already used by many of the world’s smartest software developers in most of the largest IT companies and those in security, aerospace and defense organizations. It is also being rapidly adopted as the best and often the only technology capable of testing in the on-line entertainment and gaming
industries. The software uses image recognition to “see” the interface on whichever device is being tested. This means that any icon, text or image, which can be viewed by the human eye, can be
recognised and remembered by eggPlant. Once trained by the test operator, eggPlant can robotically
repeat simple or highly complex test procedures time after time, reporting failures by capturing screen images of that point of failure and thus speeding-up bug detection and repair. TestPlant introduced the v10 development platform with the launch of eggPlant for Linux in 2009 and the
porting of legacy eggPlant for Mac to the new architecture at the same time. The construction of the v10 platform with its support of eggPlant in Mac, Linux and Windows versions represents an extraordinary achievement from the collaboration between the TestPlant team and the GNU Step open source software development cooperative. eggPlant users can switch testing between Apple, Microsoft and Linux operating platforms while retaining the ability to use the invaluable test scripts produced using eggPlant’s easy-to-use language “SenseTalk”. Systems or devices which can be tested by eggPlant include mobile phones, point-of-sale terminals, head-up displays, air traffic control screens, sat nav
systems, gaming machines, on-line audio and TV entertainment, home energy “smart meters”, automotive in-car control and entertainment systems, training simulators and highly graphic social networking web sites.

George Mackintosh, Chief Executive of TestPlant, said “Now we can offer our customers – current and
future – a tool which covers all the bases: it can be used on whichever platform is preferred by test teams and to deploy on whichever system or device they need to test. Businesses want to replace tedious, repetitive and error prone manual testing with automated procedures. The price of any tool is dwarfed by the adoption cost (training etc) and time investment in building test scripts. eggPlant is now
the easy-to-use universal tool in GUI testing. TestPlant delivers our software as a service providing
complete and long term service delivery assurance to our customers.”" image[81] = "7" date_2[80] = "16/03/10"; title_2[80] = "KPN goes live with Celona"; title2_2[80] = "Company Press Release"; article_2[80] = "Celona, leaders in business-centric application data migration software together with Logica, a leading IT and business services company, today announced the ‘go-live’ of a major OSS network inventory application data migration. This latest customer deployment combines the Celona Evolve zero downtime application data migration software platform with Logica’s recognised industry expertise, deep understanding of client’s business and IT environments, and proven ability to deploy complex programmes for major organisations. The combined expertise of Logica with Celona’s ground breaking software has enabled KPN to run a business-centric migration with minimal disruption and risk to their business and ensure multi million euro cost savings.

Without need for any downtime and consequences for the daily business, KPN has been able to migrate business process specific network inventory management (NIM) data from their existing live NIM system, copy that data in real-time to their new live NIM system and keep the two instances in real-time synchronisation for as long as needed to support KPN’s business processes.

Data migration has been a long standing problem area for Telecoms providers who are undertaking OSS/BSS application transformation, consolidation or upgrade. Application areas spanning Billing, Network Inventory, CRM, Order Management and others have grown increasingly complex, with business processes that cannot be disrupted without a severe impact on the business. Therefore the need for software tools purpose built for application data migration that can be successfully utilised at a business control level to de-risk and remove enterprise migration costs, has never been so high.

Aging tools and methods which have their roots in data warehousing are not suited to OSS/BSS critical business application migration. This has created a clear requirement for new generation software that can provide the technical and business level agility to meet today’s needs in the changing Telecoms landscape.

Sicco Wiersma, Manager Innovation Networks of KPN commented, 'Simply consolidating everything into a single instance of a COTS application isn’t always something you can realise easily in the OSS world. KPN is constantly looking to optimise its business processes and increase automated provisioning. This creates better customer service, lower costs and more revenue for KPN. Because Celona Evolve enables us to copy the data to the new platform and enable new automated processes, while allowing us to still keep the old system fully synchronised, we can realise the business benefits without needing to make a large investment to consolidate the two platforms. This allows us to transform by moving business processes and be ROI driven rather than being forced to do ‘big bang’ consolidations that require huge upfront investment and are high risk for our daily business'.

Charles Andrews, CEO of Celona, commented, 'Application data migration is now arguably the key success factor in the deployment of new OSS/BSS applications and we are delighted to support KPN in this key OSS application data migration in partnership with Logica. The long associated risks, disruption and costs of migration can now be removed and our software is achieving that for Telecoms providers such as KPN, giving control and agility to the business'

Rob Leijn, Managing Director Energy, Utilities & Telecoms Logica The Netherlands, said, 'Understandably Telecoms companies want to be in control of their operations, especially when undertaking a critical application data migration. Enabling business agility when it comes to the migration process, rather than having it determined by IT capabilities, allows this to happen. Logica’s alliance with Celona now offers clients the opportunity to dramatically reduce business risks and project timeframes in OSS/BSS application migrations.
" image[80] = "8" date_2[79] = "16/02/10"; title_2[79] = "TestPlant wins best new exporter at the London Export Awards"; title2_2[79] = "Company"; article_2[79] = "TestPlant has won a major award at the London Export Awards 2010 held at the Piccadilly headquarters of BAFTA. As Best Newcomer, TestPlant’s remarkable achievements in selling its unique software testing tool, “eggPlant” around the world were recognised by the august panel. The prize was presented by Vivek Ramachandran, Managing Director, Barclays Bank and Lord Davies of Abersoch the UK government’s Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business and accepted by the company’s Chief Executive George Mackintosh. The annual awards celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit and achievements of the UK capital’s exporters.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:
'I want to congratulate all the winners of the London Export Awards 2010 - and all the companies who entered - on their international trade achievements. Their initiative underlines the role exporters have to play in maintaining the return to economic growth seen in the last quarter of 2009. I hope their success will encourage even more London businesses - of all sizes - to follow their example.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Lord Davies, Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business, said:
“I am incredibly proud of companies that have taken part in this competition. They are shining examples of what can be achieved if you take your business international. They also demonstrate that the UK is strong across many sectors.
“Export is one of our most powerful weapons as we emerge from the worldwide recession. Exporting is great for business, generating new ideas, processes and products. And UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) can give businesses the best advice on how to access overseas markets.”


The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said:
'Less than a century ago London was the world's market place with nearly every commodity passing through the city's docks and trading floors, generating great wealth for the capital and country. Now, more than ever, London's exporters are the key to driving us through this downturn and onwards to sustained economic prosperity.
'I am staggered by the quality of this year's entries which showcase the incredible talent and creativity we have in this city. This combined with inspired business knowledge is a sure recipe for success and gives me huge confidence that we are in a great position to exploit many more lucrative and emerging overseas markets.'
Vivek Ramachandran, Head of Cash and Trade, Barclays Corporate said:
'The achievements of the exporters recognised through these awards are magnified by the incredibly challenging economic circumstances in which they have succeeded. They should be applauded and offer an example for other UK businesses to follow.
“The depth of nominees is testament to London’s strength as an export centre.”
The UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) organised awards, supported by the Mayor of London and sponsored by Barclays Bank, were open to London-based SMEs registered within any of London's 33 boroughs
The awards judging panel consisted of respected UK entrepreneurs and business authorities. They included:
• Chris Blackhurst – Evening Standard City Editor
• Anthony Browne - Mayoral Policy Director for Economic Development
• Martin Broughton - Chairman of British Airways
• James Caan - investor, entrepreneur and television personality
• Sir Andrew Likierman - Dean of the London Business School
• Roger Mavity – CEO of the Conran Group
• Vivek Ramachandran - Head of Cash & Trade, Barclays Plc
• Susan Searle - Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Innovations
" image[79] = "7" date_2[77] = "08/02/10"; title_2[77] = "Aria Networks Releases new product for intelligent network planning and NGN evolution"; title2_2[77] = "Company Website"; article_2[77] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of optimisation and planning software solutions for next-generation networks (NGN), today announced the introduction of iVNT TDM, extending their solutions to offer the telecoms industry unrivalled support for SDH/SONET and multilayer networks.

iVNT TDM provides the solution to communication service providers’ needs for planning and optimising SDH/SONET networks and introducing NGN services. iVNT TDM’s unique artificial-intelligence-based approach ensures return on investment in SDH/SONET is maximized while offering predictability for service evolution and migration activities.

Time division multiplexing (TDM) technologies, such as SONET and SDH, have found their way in to the majority of communication service provider networks thanks to their reliability, manageability and high bandwidth. By the end of the 1990s TDM was supporting core, backhaul and access networks to deliver fixed-bandwidth services to customers.
Demand for data services boomed at the start of the 21st Century. So did the service providers’ need for greater flexibility in bringing communication products to market. As a result demand for IP-based next generation networks (NGN) increased.

Today, service providers are faced with the task of managing a mix of network and service technologies. TDM continues to be used extensively. The operational environment is often more challenging now than it has ever been. Deployment of IP, MPLS and Ethernet alongside TDM requires management of hybrid networks, with each network layer putting dependencies on the other. The delivery and management of customer services also faces new issues as some services are migrated to IP while others are delivered by ‘emulated’ SDH/SONET pseudo-wires.
Aria Networks recognises that service providers must efficiently manage their TDM networks for the foreseeable future, but can no longer perform this task in a ‘silo’, separate from their data networks.

At the heart of iVNT TDM is the principal that service and circuit routing is the fundamental activity of a communication service provider. Optimal routing creates flexibility and results in efficient use of network resources. Aria Networks iVNT TDM satisfies the SDH/SONET planning, optimisation and analysis needs of communication service providers with an OSS application that understands how best to use the network.

When combined, Aria Networks’ suite of iVNT products for TDM, IP, Ethernet, Optical, MPLS-TE delivers multi-layer optimisation and planning. Through the application of industry-leading artificial intelligence techniques the iVNT suite is able to offer global optimal solutions for service routing that evaluates resource availability, technical constraints and business rules on all layers of the network. This capability is also applied to other analysis challenges including re-optimisation of existing services, ‘what-if’ scenarios, and network failure analysis.
“TDM remains an important technology and will likely still be in existence and evolving over the next decade,“ said Tony Fallows, CEO of Aria Networks.”Networks will not be IP only. They will comprise layers of technologies to best suit the service providers’ business requirements. For example, many TDM systems are used in the core of a network, to support long-haul structures, and to satisfy demands for strict service-level agreements. IP is important, but is only part of the complete solution.”

Planning and optimising TDM networks is now, more than ever, an exercise in reducing CAPEX while continuing to support high-value services in a hybrid, multi-technology network. Aria Networks iVNT TDM offers service providers the best solution for making the most of available resources while supporting the evolution to NGN.

Please visit www.aria-networks.com to learn more about the iVNT suite of products." image[77] = "6" date_2[75] = "01/02/10"; title_2[75] = "TestPlant launches US public sector, defense and security distribution"; title2_2[75] = "Company Press Release"; article_2[75] = "TestPlant Inc, the maker of the world-leading user interface automated test tool “eggPlant”, has announced the appointment of Spectrum Systems, Inc. as the exclusive GSA authorized distributor of their unique technology. The relationship between TestPlant and Spectrum provides all US federal, state and local organizations with “most favored” pricing and terms and complete access to pre and post sale support from TestPlant’s personnel in the US.

eggPlant is already deployed in the US Army and in other Department of Defense and Department of Justice operations. eggPlant is the only commercially available tool which can test the actual graphical user interface (the “GUI”) by “seeing” the PC or mobile device screen. This method of testing software before release or during live operation is more effective than traditional manual testing. By automating this extremely tedious and repetitive task eggPlant improves quality, reduces build times and lowers costs.

Spectrum Systems specializes in enterprise-level Application Lifecycle Management and Information Assurance solutions which help public and private organizations build applications, manage systems, leverage information and secure IT Assets. Spectrum has been a GSA Schedule holder for over two decades and has extensive experience working with procurement officers and end-users at federal, state and local government levels. Spectrum is also a Member of The Coalition for Government Procurement.








The appointment of Spectrum Systems by TestPlant followed an extensive review of government resellers undertaken by Focus Investment Bankers. Managing Directors Gerald Turner and Eric Oganesoff, led a team which identified Spectrum as best positioned in experience and quality of service to partner with TestPlant.

George Mackintosh, president of TestPlant Inc said “The time is right to embark on this new partnership in the US. We’ve established eggPlant’s credentials as a unique tool by proving its effectiveness to the leading IT companies and then in 2009 delivering it to some of the most significant – and demanding! – government customers. And the concept of using a tool to test a hitherto untested aspect of software applications is fast catching on. eggPlant sees the screen just as the human eye does, and by automating that process, mission and time crucial systems and systems known as C4I, ATC, GIS and “intel” are made more reliable and safer!”

Ron Segal, president of Spectrum Systems, Inc. stated that he was delighted to be TestPlant’s chosen partner. “We have many years experience of government procurement practices and as many in the supply of development and test tools to the public sector. We work with the biggest players in this market and manage relationships with all the leading US agencies. My team quickly understood the many unique features of eggPlant and are leveraging our contact base to support TestPlant’s North American business and introduce an innovative, effective and cost saving tool to our customers”.
" image[75] = "7" date_2[73] = "22/01/10"; title_2[73] = "Flirtomatic sells 28,000 virtual gifts in five days"; title2_2[73] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[73] = "Snowwomen outsold Snowmen by almost two to one. Snow, really

In the five days between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, the social network sold over 54,000 gifts, averaging out to selling around 233 gifts per hour. The Vodafone UK free data promotion between Christmas and New Year spurred a six fold increase in new users.

One of the most popular gifts over Christmas was the Flirtomatic Christmas Stocking, which was also one of the most expensive, selling over 16,000 and a third of those were bought within the first three days of the item being on sale.

Other hits included Candy Canes (just under 9,000), Mistletoe (around 8,300) and Rednose Reindeer (over 7,000).

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, said: “There’s no doubt that when done correctly, virtual gifts have helped encourage more people to make micro payments using their mobile and by doing so, has built up their confidence in using their phone to pay for things.”
" image[73] = "0" date_2[72] = "20/01/10"; title_2[72] = "Celona awarded Red Herring Global 100 Award"; title2_2[72] = "Company"; article_2[72] = "Celona, the leading provider of Application Data Migration software, announced that it had been selected as a winner of the Red Herring Global 100 Awards, given in recognition of leading private companies from North America, Europe and Asia, celebrating innovations and technologies across a number of industries. Significantly, Celona is the only UK enterprise software vendor represented in the internationally recognised Awards.

Red Herring’s Global 100 list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising new companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Google, Yahoo, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.

'Choosing the best out of the previous three years was by no means a small feat,' said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. 'After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed down our list from 1,200 potential companies to 200 finalists. Trying to get it down to 100 companies was a task upon itself. The top 100 companies who were chosen should be extremely proud, the competition was difficult.'

'Celona’s selection as part of the Global 100 winners list is a prestigious award, and shows that trailblazing IT solutions are not the sole property of Silicon Valley,' said Charles Andrews, CEO, Celona. 'Data migration is becoming more of an issue for enterprises and organisations, particularly with growing numbers of recent mergers and acquisitions and the drive to more efficient, cost effective business applications and architectures. Celona is proud to be at the forefront of innovation in this sector and our software provides a solution to the long associated problems of application data migration.'

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the 'buzz' and make the list an invaluable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the greatest business opportunities from around the world.

" image[72] = "8" date_2[69] = "15/01/10"; title_2[69] = "Flirtomatic Launches iPhone Application"; title2_2[69] = "Business Wire"; article_2[69] = "Flirtomatic (www.flirtomatic.com), one of the most popular social mobile services used by young adults, makes flirting easier and more fun than ever with the release of Flirtomatic for the iPhone. Available for free at the Apple iTunes Store, the award-winning service is now available to all iPhone and iPod Touch users to meet, flirt, and have fun online.

“Customers have told us they want to flirt everywhere and anywhere,” said Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic. “We already have a web presence and partnerships with major carriers around the world. Now we are taking flirting to the world’s most talked-about smart phone. We’re excited about the application and hope that customers can go global with their flirting.”
" image[69] = "0" date_2[70] = "10/01/10"; title_2[70] = "Intamac wins two CES Innovation Awards for D-Link home monitoring kits"; title2_2[70] = "Company"; article_2[70] = "UK-based connected home provider Intamac Systems and its partner, networking solutions provider D-Link, have won two CES Innovation Awards for the D-Link Home Monitoring Starter Kit and the D-Link Home Energy Monitoring Starter Kit, being launched at CES in Las Vegas.

The products are powered by Intamac’s intelligent cloud-based service platform to provide home security, energy management and telecare, which communications service providers and utilities can offer as value-added services at an affordable price.

The D-Link Home Monitoring Starter Kit is an easy-to-use, cost-effective home security solution that allows homeowners to remotely monitor their homes. The D-Link Home Energy Monitoring Starter Kit allows consumers to monitor and control their energy consumption, helping to reduce carbon emissions and utility bills.

Intamac is providing the managed service and user interface for D-Link’s offerings through its Home Manager platform. Home Manager is a web-based system that can push and manage content via mobile devices and social networking sites to give consumers an up-to-the-minute connection to their home." image[70] = "9" date_2[71] = "07/01/10"; title_2[71] = "Intamac joins forces with D-Link to launch home monitoring kits at CES"; title2_2[71] = "Company"; article_2[71] = "Connected home provider Intamac Systems has partnered with networking solutions provider D-Link to launch two home monitoring kits at CES on 7-10 January in Las Vegas. The products are powered by Intamac’s intelligent cloud-based service platform to provide home security, energy management and telecare which communications service providers and utilities can offer as value-added services at an affordable price.

The D-Link Home Monitoring Starter Kit is an easy-to-use home security system which can be self-installed in just 30 minutes. It offers enhanced features found in more costly security systems, and uses IP to offer an improved range of services and functionality in homes without traditional phone lines (POTS). It connects to the home broadband router and is remotely monitored and controlled through a personalized web portal account powered by Intamac at mydlink.com.

A range of in-home sensors report wirelessly to the control unit and the user can add up to 20 additional sensors such as infrared motion detectors, door/window contacts, keypad, personalized key fobs, and fire, carbon monoxide and water leak detectors. The kit’s control unit reports all information directly to the mydlink platform and alerts are instantly relayed by SMS, email and voice call to the consumer and their designated contacts.

Applications include informing parents when their children get home safely from school, and messaging relatives or carers if someone isn’t out of bed and moving around their home by a certain time in the morning. A home video option is available with D-Link IP cameras which can capture and record events with remote access to the footage available through the website or cell phones.

The Home Monitor can be expanded with the D-Link Home Energy Monitoring Starter Kit, one of the first products that enables consumers to measure and control energy consumption. When linked to the Home Monitoring Starter Kit, consumers can use the mydlink portal to program devices to power-down when the home is empty, helping reduce carbon emissions and utility bills.

The kit is equipped with two power-usage sensor adapters (additional sensors can be purchased separately) that plug into the home’s wall sockets. By plugging appliances directly into the kit’s sensor adapters, users can access energy consumption data on their mydlink.com webpage, including real-time power usage levels; daily, weekly and monthly breakdowns; cost conversions and graphical analysis. The product allows utilities to offer users incentives based on their history of energy conservation.

“The D-Link systems offer turnkey solutions for service providers and utilities looking to deploy new services as part of their quad play and smart grid strategies,” said Kevin Meagher, CEO, Intamac. “The connected home represents a unique opportunity for service providers and utilities to broaden their services and enter new markets. By enabling homeowners to monitor and control their energy use, we’re taking the smart grid beyond the meter and into the home, making smart metering truly ‘smart’.”

" image[71] = "9" date_2[66] = "15/12/09"; title_2[66] = "Telstra completes major Telecoms data migration with Celona"; title2_2[66] = "Company Website"; article_2[66] = "Celona, leaders and pioneers of zero downtime application data migration, today announced that Telstra Corporation, Australia's leading telecommunications company, completed a major Operational Support Systems (OSS) network inventory management migration using the Celona Evolve application data migration platform.

The Celona Evolve platform will enable Telstra to deliver enhanced applications and business processes by utilising concurrent synchronisation and zero downtime capabilities.

'Telstra’s focus on building the best possible environment for both customers and employees is fully supported by Celona’s business-centric approach to application data migration. The Celona Evolve software platform ensures that IT‘s business priorities will be aligned and supported during the data migration process,' said Charles Andrews, CEO Celona.

Andrew Young, Director OSS at Telstra commented, 'Telstra’s vision is a simpler IT environment that involves partnering with world class suppliers using proven off-the-shelf solutions. With Celona Evolve, we are utilising a data migration platform that provides minimal impact on our business operation while migrating data to our OSS Logical Inventory solution.'

Celona Evolve’s Application Migration Framework (AMF) has delivered flexible transformation modelling and rapid connectivity to Telstra’s Network Inventory Management platform provided by AMDOCS OSS. The migration has been achieved using a range of ‘Progressive Migration’ strategies enabled by the Celona Evolve platform which reduces risk and maximises the positive impact on the OSS/BSS operation.

Celona Evolve is a software platform specifically designed to meet the data migration requirements of today’s changing business environments for business applications such as NIM, CRM, Billing and ERP. Celona Evolve is proven to directly lower costs, risk and time-to-value, while minimising disruption for application data migrations.
" image[66] = "8" date_2[67] = "14/12/09"; title_2[67] = "Celona and Logica announce partnership"; title2_2[67] = "Company Press Release"; article_2[67] = "Celona today announced a new alliance with Logica, a leading IT and business services company. The alliance combines the Celona Evolve real-time application data migration software platform with Logica’s recognised industry expertise, deep understanding of client’s business and IT environments, and proven ability to deploy complex programmes for major organisations. The combined expertise will ensure effective execution of application data migration projects for clients across all industries and enable companies to significantly reduce business risk associated with their application data migration projects.

Data migration has been a long standing problem area for enterprises spanning Telecoms, Financial Services, Utilities, Manufacturing and Public Sector, with over 60% of migrations overrunning in time and cost*, many programs of which result in failure across business sectors. The rise of business process-centric applications such as CRM and ERP and new application architectures has increased the complexity and issues of data migration. Therefore the need for both competence in the IT and business environments of the client, and specialist software tools for application data migration that can be successfully utilised at a business control level to de-risk and remove enterprise migration costs, has never been so high.

Aging tools and methods which have their roots in data warehousing are not suited to organisation critical business application migration. This has created a clear requirement for new generation software and professional services data migration offerings that can provide the technical and business level enablement to meet today’s needs for agility in the changing enterprise landscape.

The partnership follows successful cooperation on several projects in the telecom and financial services sectors.

Charles Andrews, CEO of Celona, commented, 'Data migration can no longer been seen as just an IT issue. Rising enterprise data volumes, greater complexity of business applications and an increasing trend in IT/Business transformation programmes, driven by Mergers & Acquisitions, divestment and the requirement for increased business agility, makes data migration a board level business issue. We are truly excited by the benefits that this partnership with Logica will bring to clients. '

Craig Boundy, Chief Executive, Global Operations, Logica, said, 'Understandably businesses want to be in control of their operations. Putting the Board back in the driving seat when it comes to the migration process, rather than having it determined by IT needs, allows this to happen. Logica’s alliance with Celona will bring significant benefits to clients, allowing them to dramatically reduce business risks and project timeframes.
" image[67] = "8" date_2[63] = "26/10/09"; title_2[63] = "Flirtomatic signs first US opco deal"; title2_2[63] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[63] = "Becomes preferred mobile social network for MetroPCS Wireless

This is Flirtomatic's first US carrier deal, following an off-deck launch earlier this year.

It should boost the 1.5m registered user base the firm has achieved via launches in the UK, Germany and Australia.

Metro PCS users who use 3G will be able to connect to the Flirtomatic WAP delivery platform across all their handsets. Web access is also offered as an alternative way to flirt at any time and from anywhere.

“We’re delighted to be working with MetroPCS as our first major partner in the United States,” said Gary Cohen, Flirtomatic’s vice president and general manager of North America.

“Flirtomatic has demonstrated in other countries that our model is very popular and we are excited to launch with the nation’s leading provider of unlimted, flat-rate, no-contract service. We have seen that as U.S. consumers get to know our service they adopt, use and spend Flirt Points even more than in other parts of the world.”

" image[63] = "0" date_2[64] = "26/10/09"; title_2[64] = "Sharpcards sees mobile silver lining to UK postal strike"; title2_2[64] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[64] = "Mobile ecards firm Sharpcards says its service was boosted last week by the UK postal strike.

Specifically, the company says it saw a 103% increase in visitors using its mobile app, and a 63% increase in unique buyers compared to the monthly average.

Traffic was highest last Thursday, on the first day of the national strike. Sharpcards also says that it saw an 82% spike in visitors and 64% increase in buyers during a three-day London postal strike in July.

'We've seen considerable growth over the last 12 months, but demand has truly rocketed during the strike periods,' says CEO Will Walsh.

'If similar industrial action takes place over the festive season this could clearly be a major turning point for mobile greeting content in the UK.'

" image[64] = "3" date_2[65] = "26/10/09"; title_2[65] = "MirriAd Named “One to Watch” at NVIDIA Emerging Companies Summit"; title2_2[65] = "Company / NVidia"; article_2[65] = "MirriAd’s end to end system, which seamlessly places brand images in video and monetizes content, was highlighted on the “Ones to Watch” list at the NVIDIA Emerging Companies Summit. The second annual ECS, held from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, brought together 475 attendees and featured presentations by 60 start-up companies from 15 countries, discussing how they utilize graphics processing units (GPUs) to deliver innovative solutions in areas ranging from cloud computing and computer vision to gaming and image processing. A three-member panel selected five companies for the award, based on technology value, market opportunity, impact, and ‘wow’ factor.

“With the explosion of video being viewed online, MirriAd had to develop a truly scalable platform capable of monetizing content and meeting the needs of content owners. MirriAd’s platform and business model would not be possible without the GPU. Thanks NVIDIA for making our technology possible and for recognizing MirriAd as ‘One To Watch.’” -Mark Popkiewicz, CEO, MirriAd
" image[65] = "4" date_2[62] = "16/10/09"; title_2[62] = "Flirtomatic Land 2 More Awards"; title2_2[62] = "Company"; article_2[62] = "Flirtomatic have won 2 further award, landing the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2009 and Best Social Media Award at the Mobile Entertainment Awards 2009.

Flirtomatic beat off stiff competition from around world to win the Smaato award and as a result, has won flights and accommodation to Mobile World Congress 2010 and booth participation at the event. And a host of other pretty cool things too.

Matthaus Krzykowski, mobile writer at VentureBeat and jury panel member for the awards said about Flirtomatic: “You don’t find too many mobile websites with a working business model. Also, building an organisation to grow a mobile community is an art and these guys are proving that they can do it.”

Over 200 companies and developers entered the awards and Flirtomatic’s Gary Cohen was in San Francisco to pick up the award.

Gary is VP General Manager for Flirtomatic North America and said: “It’s an honour to be picking up this award and to have been recognised by such an esteemed panel of our mobile peers from around the world.”

Gary continued: “We’ve been experimenting with a lot of different functionality in the service this year and our users have taken to most of it. But every day we learn something new about our members and the aim remains the same. To give our users the best experience possible.”

Flirtomatic secured the Best Social Media Company at the Mobile Entertainment Awards 2009 for the second year in a row.

Flirtomatic have now won 5 major industry awards in 2009." image[62] = "0" date_2[59] = "20/09/09"; title_2[59] = "G-T-P is now a MasterCard and Visa Prepaid Issuer"; title2_2[59] = "Company"; article_2[59] = "G-T-P Group Ltd is now one of only two Issuing Financial Institutions within the UK that can offer the choice of both MasterCard and Visa Prepaid Cards.


The news represents a significant milestone in G-T-P’s evolution as a market-driving card solutions company and coincides with the official unveiling of the company’s new brand identity. The re-branding includes the change to a fresh, modern logo and new company website to reinforce G-T-P’s card heritage and innovative solutions.

The move to become both a MasterCard and Visa Issuer is a logical progression for G-T-P, who have simply expanded the skills and expertise that have been at the core of their business for the last ten years. “G-T-P’s core culture and focus is built around 100% accurate clearing, settlement and reconciliation, detailed compliance and fraud prevention - the same skill sets you need to be a good issuer,” comments Helen Child, G-T-P’s Chief Executive and one of the company’s original founders.

G-T-P will be launching their first MasterCard and Visa Prepaid Cards for clients ahead of Christmas, including a MasterCard Prepaid Card aimed at corporates that will use G-T-P’s exclusive retailer affinity club.

“Becoming an Issuer of both MasterCard and Visa Prepaid Cards, fits perfectly within our strategy of owning the value chain. It gives our Clients the freedom of choice, ensuring that they are not shoehorned into a less than perfect solution,” adds Helen. “This is an exciting phase of development for G-T-P, which has also seen us as finalists in both the Card Awards and the forthcoming Prepaid Awards.”

" image[59] = "1" date_2[60] = "15/09/09"; title_2[60] = "Aria Networks Appoints Paul Kelly As VP of Worldwide Sales To Drive Aggressive Expansion Plans "; title2_2[60] = "Company "; article_2[60] = "Aria Networks, the emerging leader in the provision of capacity planning and optimisation software solutions for Next-Generation Networks, today announce the appointment of Paul Kelly as VP of Worldwide Sales.

Paul brings a wealth of experience in senior sales leadership and management roles with both early stage and larger organisations. Paul has held senior director roles at Sequent Computers (now IBM Inc), Portal Software (now Oracle Inc), and Quadstone (now Portrait Software) and more latterly IM Global. Paul has an outstanding track record in selling to large enterprises with major wins recorded in organizations such as BT, Vodafone and KPN.

“I am delighted that Paul has joined the Aria team. His drive, focus and large enterprise experience will take us forward so we can address the growing market demands for our unique Network Planning solution” said Tony Fallows, CEO of Aria Networks.

Paul Kelly commented, “Given the current economic climate, Aria is perfectly placed to help Communication Service Providers address the growing demands on their complex networks whilst at the same time minimizing costs and maximizing ‘capital efficiency’. I am looking forward to an exciting time in helping grow Aria Networks.”
" image[60] = "6" date_2[61] = "10/09/09"; title_2[61] = "PizzaExpress Gift Card shortlisted for the Prepaid "; title2_2[61] = "Company / Pre Paid Awards"; article_2[61] = "G-T-P is pleased to announce that the PizzaExpress Gift Card has been shortlisted for the Prepaid Awards 2009 in the category of Best Prepaid Gift Programme.


G-T-P launched the Gift Card in November 2007 to replace PizzaExpress' existing paper voucher and reaching the final four recognises that the card continues to stands out from the competition. PizzaExpress' ambition was to lead the way in developing and maximising the restaurant gifting opportunity and launching the UK's first restaurant Gift Card was a major step towards realising this ambition. The Gift Card also features balance enquiries via the terminal, something which had never previously been achieved in the UK.

Since the card launched, PizzaExpress and G-T-P have continuously used innovation to broaden the Gift Card programme and grow sales. The Gift Card has been used as an inventive marketing platform, with offers in conjunction with the Times, Sainsbury's and Ticketmaster, including the current Summer Pass promotion.
The Gift Card has significantly increased gifting sales for PizzaExpress, ensuring that they remain industry pioneers. The card opened up a valuable new channel to market via Gift Card Malls. The card (and the PizzaExpress brand) is now sold in 2,651 retail locations and viewed by millions of prospective customers (to which PizzaExpress would not previously had access). The Gift Card has reduced back office administration for PizzaExpress by 60% compared with their paper voucher, saving time and money.

The winner of the Best Prepaid Gift Programme will be announced at the prestigious Prepaid Awards ceremony, taking place on Tuesday, 13 October 2009 at the Sheraton Park Lane, London. Over 300 key people from across the European prepaid industry are expected to attend to celebrate the best in prepaid.

'PizzaExpress is delighted to have been shortlisted as a finalist for this year's Prepaid Awards,' comments Rebecca Farrer, Head of Brand Activation for PizzaExpress. 'The shortlisting recognises that we see the PizzaExpress Gift Card as a valuable marketing tool and not just a piece of plastic.'



" image[61] = "1" date_2[58] = "20/08/09"; title_2[58] = "Flirtomatic teams with ninemsn in Australia"; title2_2[58] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[58] = "The agreement will see Flirtomatic initially launched on-deck with operators using existing ninemsn content relationships.

Ninemsn will also handle all advertising sales, while its 5th Finger subsidiary will handle SMS messaging.

Flirtomatic’s launch in Australia is its third in the last year beyond the UK following expansion into the US and Germany.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, said: “Obviously we’re delighted to be opening up in another new territory and to be approached by an online media giant such as ninemsn, is a great reassurance for us and the work we’ve done so far.

'We’re looking forward to seeing what kind of virtual gifts partners can come up with to satisfy the Australian market. We naturally want to go a little deeper than the stereotypical koala bears and hats with corks.”
" image[58] = "0" date_2[57] = "02/07/09"; title_2[57] = "Flirtomatic Featured in New Media Age"; title2_2[57] = "New Media Age"; article_2[57] = "Flirtomatic may have raised some eyebrows as it walked away with this year’s nma Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix last week but the mobile social network was a worthy winner.


It beat off stiff competition from a range of entries, including industry favourite Compare The Market. But without dissing the meerkat, Flirtomatic amounts to more than a clever creative idea that has been superbly executed across multiple platforms.

The mobile-centric social network, which also has an online element, was rewarded chiefly for combining thorough ROI activity with innovations to continue growth. It totals 1m unique users who send 25m messages each month and delivered 1bn ad impressions last year.

But the business is just as dependent on real revenue from members who buy flirt points and gifts as it is on fickle ad revenues.

In an interview for the new media age podcast, recorded directly after Flirtomatic’s win, its commercial director Matt Dicks likened the network to a day trip to the park. “You can come to the park for free,” he told me, “but if you want an ice cream you’ll have to pay for it.”

This analogy underlines the reason for Flirtomatic’s success: it has kept one eye firmly on making money but has been careful to maintain the user experience throughout.

Flirtomatic has also been quick and brave enough to invest in new opportunities, such as mobile display and search advertising, and seen its customer acquisition costs fall by four times as a result of clever use of analytics, helped by its media agency Agenda21.

It has been quick to do savvy deals, particularly with operators when the opportunity has arisen, and hasn’t been afraid to spend.

It may not yet be Twitter or Facebook in terms of size or awareness, but Flirtomatic does have a functioning business model which arguably make it as valuable as either online giant.

" image[57] = "0" date_2[55] = "24/06/09"; title_2[55] = "Flirtomatic Wins 3 Awards In A Week"; title2_2[55] = "Company"; article_2[55] = "Flirtomatic have won the 'Social Networking' award at the 2009 Mobile Entertainment Forum in London, becoming the first company to win the same award 2 years in a row. The “Meffys” are the mobile industry benchmark for measuring success and rewarding innovation for the most influential companies around the world. Previous winners of Meffys include AdMob, Bango, Nokia, Orange and Digital Chocolate. MEF’s Executive Director, Rimma Perelmuter, said; “Congratulations to Flirtomatic for the exceptional achievement of scooping a Meffy for the second year running. “

Flirtomatic followed up their success at the Meffy’s by landing 2 awards at the prestigious New Media Age Effectiveness Awards. The company won the award for “Best Use of Mobile” and then went on to take the “Grand Prix” prize which is the top award for the best of the award winners. Notably, Flirtomatic are the first mobile company to win the Grand Prix prize.

These 3 awards follow swiftly on the heels of Flirtomatic recently being named as on of the top 5 fastest growing digital media companies at the Media Momentum Awards." image[55] = "0" date_2[56] = "24/06/09"; title_2[56] = "Sharpcards Wins Industry Accolade"; title2_2[56] = "Company"; article_2[56] = "Sharpcards won the 'Innovation in Messaging' award at yesterday's Gloval Messaging Congress.

Sharpcards saw off stiff competition from the likes of funambol and vringo to win the award.

Other winners at the Congress included RIM (Blackberry) and Spinvox." image[56] = "3" date_2[50] = "14/05/09"; title_2[50] = "Flirtomatic CEO Mark Curtis featured in the Financial Times"; title2_2[50] = "Financial Times"; article_2[50] = "Many predicted that mobile advertising would suffer in the downturn, as marketers looked to allocate shrinking budgets to more proven media.

But that hasn’t prevented the UK market from almost doubling in size last year, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Internet Advertising Bureau.

PwC’s Eva Berg-Winters said that growth of 99.2 per cent was greater than she had expected. “We have now passed the tipping point where things start moving in the mobile internet,” she said, adding that mobile was taking off faster than internet advertising did at a similar stage of its development in the late 1990s.

Nonetheless, at just £28.6m, the market remains tiny, especially considering the UK’s total online adspend is £3.4bn, just under a fifth of the total advertising market. Advertisers are spending just £2.60 to market their wares to each of the UK’s 11m mobile internet users.

And there’s bad news for operators, who remain the biggest players in the market. While PwC thought that operator portals would make up the majority of mobile advertising, they were surprised to learn that search ads already make up half of the market.

Mark Curtis, chief executive of Flirtomatic – which marries social networking with dating and is among the UK’s most popular mobile sites – admits the medium remains “in the rounding error category”.

“It is still difficult [for mobile] to get the full attention of agencies and clients,” he told the FT. Mr Curtis estimates the recession has delayed by six months the time when mobile is a regular fixture in advertisers’ media plans. Until next year, only mobile operators and mobile content vendors will be making regular use of mobile ads.

But he insists it is effective as a medium. “We spend quite a lot on mobile ads every month and they deliver very good returns for us,” he said. “If we could buy more cost effectively we would.”

Indeed, buying at scale remains a problem for mobile advertising. Multiple handsets and operators make the market highly fragmented.

Perhaps with that in mind, Velti – a London-listed provider of mobile marketing technology – has today acquired Ad Infuse, a US provider of mobile advertising services.

Velti last year saw revenues increase 156 per cent to €52.5m with pre-tax profits of €5.5m, but according to VentureBeat, Ad Infuse has not been so successful. It put itself up for sale after raising $18m from venture capitalists, but analysts at RBC Capital Markets estimate Velti snapped it up for “a few single-digit millions of dollars”.

For investors as with advertisers, mobile is still proving a tricky medium to monetise.
" image[50] = "0" date_2[51] = "14/05/09"; title_2[51] = "Flirtomatic named as Top 5 fastest growing digital media company"; title2_2[51] = "Press Association"; article_2[51] = "Ticket exchange website Seatwave has been named as the world's fastest growing digital media company.

The company's site, which allows fans to trade theatre, sport and music tickets, has seen its revenue rise 2,203% in the past two years.

Any tickets purchased from the site are guaranteed to arrive in good time for the event.

Seatwave tops a table of the top 50 fastest-growing digital media companies compiled by investment bank GP Bullhound.

Also in the top five are travel experience site Isango (which grew by 1836%) online shopping community BuyVP, (651%) lead generation specialist LeadPoint UK (629%) and mobile flirting Flirtomatic (580%).

Manish Madhvani, partner at GP Bullhound commented: 'The Media Momentum Top 50 league table has become a key barometer for the health of the digital sector and this year's impressive results reaffirm the importance of the industry to both the UK and EU economy.

'We are seeing inspiring entrepreneurs driving growth, innovation and job creation across the sector and pure-play firms offering a range of services from e-tail to online gaming challenging the dominance of digital agencies in the Media Momentum Top 50.'
" image[51] = "0" date_2[49] = "06/05/09"; title_2[49] = "Sharpcards seal deal with Sony Ericsson Iberia"; title2_2[49] = "Mobile Europe"; article_2[49] = "Sharpcards, a rich media messaging specialist, today announced it has struck an exclusive deal with Sony Ericsson Iberia.

The deal means that Sharpcards' enhanced mobile messaging application (EMMA) will be integrated into the main messaging menu of new Sony Ericsson handsets in Spain and Portugal, allowing users to send Ecards almost as easily as a text.

Users will have instant access to premium branded Ecards developed in partnership with top media owners such as Disney, Hallmark, King Features and Cartoon Network. The service enables a richer, more intimate way of communicating with friends; they can now express their emotions with more feeling than a simple text message or phone call.

Ecards are dynamically updated to give customers access to time-relevant and seasonal content as well as everyday favourites for fun and flirting.

Will Walsh, CEO said: 'To be embedded on Sony Ericsson devices across Spain and Portugal is very exciting. Sharpcards is shaping the way for emotional messaging and we're proud to be partnering with Sony Ericsson to deliver a truly compelling alternative to SMS.'

Magnus Ahlqvist, General Director of Sony Ericsson Iberia added, 'Sony Ericsson is a very young and dynamic brand that enjoys a great reputation within the Spanish market thanks to its continuous innovation. The new agreement with Sharpcards fortifies this strategy to offer to our users this type of added value on our handsets.'

" image[49] = "3" date_2[48] = "24/04/09"; title_2[48] = "Aria Networks Enhances Optical Network Planning Capabilities"; title2_2[48] = "Aria Networks"; article_2[48] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of forecasting, planning and optimisation software solutions for Next-Generation Networks (NGNs) today announced enhancements of its support of Wavelength Division Multiplex (WDM) network planning within its iVNT Optical software.

Transparent optical networks, based on WDM with ring or mesh architectures and dynamic control and management, offer the potential for telecoms operators to reduce equipment and operational costs, better leverage their network assets, and improve the availability of services to their customers. Fully leveraging these optical networks requires sophisticated planning software that can cope with the complexity of balancing many simultaneous routing parameters, many complex network rules and policies, and can cope with the increasing scale of optical networks. Telecoms operators are turning to integration of such planning systems with their network inventory systems, optical network control planes (such as provided by GMPLS and ASON), and activation systems to fully realise the business benefits.

Aria’s iVNT-Optical has been enhanced to extend the support of equipment types deployed in today’s optical networks and to provide additional policy control of wavelength-based services, enabling flexible combinations of user-defined or preference-based network policies. Aria has also extended the support of iVNT’s proven multi-processor routing engine to the optical domain, providing iVNT Optical with the performance required to handle the largest and most dynamic optical networks in the world.

Aria has also fully integrated iVNT Optical with its existing iAdapt and iCustomise frameworks to provide easy integration with third-party systems and flexible, customisable planning. This enables Telecom operators to rapidly federate iVNT Optical with existing management systems, network control planes and other products from Aria's iVNT Suite to realise an end-to-end and automated planning capability.

“Since the initial development of iVNT Optical through our collaboration with KDDI, iVNT Optical has been used to plan some of the largest and most complex next-generation WDM networks,” said Dr. Jay Perrett, CTO at Aria Networks. “We have leveraged the experience of working on networks with hundreds of thousands of wavelengths and enhanced iVNT Optical to ensure it can stay ahead of the challenges these networks present – such as the need for more control, more performance, more integration and an ability to customise and automate planning tasks. Planning systems can’t operate in isolation, they need to be effectively and easily integrated in to the existing operational support systems and control or management planes.”

iVNT Optical enables Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) for WDM network infrastructures to be effectively deployed at the right time and the right place, and reduces Operational Expenditure (OPEX) by removing manual and labour intensive processes. iVNT Optical can operate with networks that use no control or management plane, or can optionally be integrated with dynamic management and control plane architectures such as those provided by GMPLS or ASON.

" image[48] = "6" date_2[47] = "06/04/09"; title_2[47] = "Testplant Launches Linux Version of eggPlant"; title2_2[47] = "Company"; article_2[47] = "eggPlant, the world’s leading user experience automated test software, has been launched today in a Linux version by TestPlant. eggPlant for Mac was the original and first graphics-based test tool which came to market in 2002. Together these products form the new eggPlant 'v10' release. Built on the 'newStep' cross-platform technology base, eggPlant v10 will soon also include eggPlant for Windows, enabling companies to deploy eggPlant technology throughout the enterprise on the platform of their choice.

eggPlant is used by many of the world’s top 25 IT and software companies and by most of the world’s top 10 defense contractors. Using a unique non-invasive architecture for testing software and deploying clever image recognition technology, eggPlant offers a test solution that “sees” as the human eye sees and delivers better quality software to end users, developed in less time and at lower cost. eggPlant can test any user interface – or GUI - many of which major competitive products ignore. Now users can choose a Linux platform on which to run eggPlant as well as on the traditional Mac based product. The Windows version is expected in summer 2009.

The newStep technology on which eggPlant v10 is built is an extraordinarily innovative technique for moving software from one platform to another without the need to re-write the code from bottom up. This has considerable benefits for users as they suffer almost none of the risks involved in deploying new software. eggPlant for Linux has been extensively tested in Beta form in civilian and military applications by TestPlant’s partner IDT www.idtus.com . newStep is based on an Open Source collaboration which again offers security of ownership to TestPlant’s important technology and government customers.

George Mackintosh, Chief Executive of TestPlant, said “This is a major event for us. eggPlant is regarded as unique but it’s acceptance has been constrained in some organisations by its original design requirement to sit on the Mac platform, even though it has always been able to test any user interface – PC, smart phone, heads-up display or point of sale terminal. Our customers in the defense, security and media sectors wanted a Linux version – and we’ve delivered! All eggPlant versions on newStep will be uniformly updated under v10 annual licensing. This is a huge housekeeping benefit to our customers and will allow them to swap invaluable test “scripts” between all v10 products. Challenging economic times...but software still makes the world go around…and eggPlant continues to make better software in less time and at lower cost. And the ownership costs of eggPlant will reduce under our new v10 terms!” " image[47] = "7" date_2[45] = "30/03/09"; title_2[45] = "Endemol extends global embedded advertising footprint with MirriAd"; title2_2[45] = "Mirriad"; article_2[45] = "MirriAd , the embedded advertising specialist, today announces it has extended its global partnership reach with Endemol to exploit embedded advertising opportunities. The new deals follow MirriAd’s joint venture with Endemol India and cover the Latin American and Hispanic markets, and Spain. They are expected to produce revenues approaching $1m in the first year.
We are in an environment in which traditional advertising revenues are falling, largely due to consumers using Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) and a variety of VOD services and viewing content online rather than on a TV. Endemol is using MirriAd’s embedded advertising technologies and expertise to create a compelling advertising environment in which the viewer is fully engaged. The brand references (e.g. props, signage, logos, videos and animations) are digitally inserted into existing video content to appear as if they were part of the original shoot. They can’t be skipped or ignored and, crucially, can be changed to suit different markets giving advertisers more flexibility and surety of viewer engagement. Using MirriAd’s online services, content owners have full editorial control of what, when and how a brand reference appears.

Endemol Latin America (Endemol LatAm), Argentina’s largest independent production company and MirriAd will jointly identify opportunities for the seamless insertion of branded imagery into new or existing video owned by Endemol, and third party content providers and broadcasters. In particular, MirriAd will develop a complete embedded advertising inventory for Endemol’s award-winning soap, ‘Mr. Pells’, which will cover more than 100 episodes. Endemol’s international hit ‘Wipeout’ game show will also feature embedded advertising in the most brand-attractive moments and will join other brands like Fanta, Renault, Coca-Cola and Unilever that worked with Endemol LatAm’s branded entertainment division in 2008, generating significant revenues.

In addition, MirriAd has signed an exclusive one-year partnership with Endemol Spain to exploit embedded advertising opportunities in the region and expand Endemol’s existing branded entertainment offering to include online video, as well as broadcast, to form a combined brand called ‘Tattoo’.

In 2008, Endemol Spain’s Gestmusic and Zeppelin TV production houses led the Spanish branded advertising market with programmes such as the popular talent show, ‘Operacion Triunfo’, and reality show ‘Grande Hermano’ (Big Brother). Teaming up with MirriAd will not only add a new product placement revenue stream that Endemol can sell, but will enable the company to embed advertising into online video, meaning it can also monetise content on its own web community portal, Portalmix.

Toni Cruz, CEO of Endemol Spain, comments; “We have been working with brands in the broadcast space for a while and generating significant revenue from branded entertainment on TV, but the partnership with MirriAd means we can build on our experience and extend our business to include branded entertainment online as well as broadcast, which opens all kinds of incremental revenue opportunities for us.”

Under the terms of the deals Endemol will market embedded advertising opportunities identified by MirriAd using its patented ZoneSenseTM technology. Using MirriAd’s online services, potential advertisers have full editorial control and will be able to view an inventory of video files to identify content that matches their campaign requirements. Brand references are then tested in a low quality stream before a commitment is made, and the brand references are inserted into the source content as if they had been included in the original production. Those insertions may be static or dynamically linked to the content so that they move or ‘morph’ in response to on screen action.

Mark Popkiewicz, CEO at MirriAd adds; “These deals with Endemol further establish product and brand placement as a new and complementary way for broadcasters and content owners to extract value from existing and new assets. And because MirriAd’s technology allows advertisers to see what their video will look like before they commit to a final version, we can offer a flexible, low-risk way of achieving brand awareness and attachment at a time when ROI needs to be tracked and guaranteed.”
" image[45] = "4" date_2[44] = "18/03/09"; title_2[44] = "MirriAd and Repucom Partner to Provide Measureable ROI for Embedded Video Advertising"; title2_2[44] = "PR Newswire"; article_2[44] = "Embedded advertising specialist MirriAd, and Repucom, the global brand analysis agency have entered into an agreement to enable content owners, brands and their agencies to easily assess the value of embedded video advertising opportunities. The companies will now integrate their platforms to enable preview of seamless digital placements (embeds) in existing video assets (props, logos and video) together with a corresponding measure of value. A post-campaign return on investment (ROI) analysis will also be available.

The unified platform will provide all the support material needed by brands to launch embedded advertising campaigns across all platforms - broadcast television, online, home entertainment and mobile. MirriAd's existing platform allows advertisers to preview potential embeds as a low quality stream so that they can see exactly how the finished product will appear. Repucom's brand analysis tools complete the picture by providing a measure of on-screen duration, exposure size, media equivalency, and value. The process is designed to remove any risk for the advertiser and deliver powerful metrics on demand, before and after the event.

MirriAd and Repucom are at the forefront of the standardisation of valuation and ROI for embedded advertising and have previously cooperated in the assessment of campaigns in the highly developed Indian market. In 2008, Hindustani Unilever embraced embedded advertising to promote its brands, and a comprehensive report from Repucom validated the campaign by revealing radically higher return on investment relative to traditional television advertising.

Commenting on the agreement Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd CEO said, 'Embedded advertising is an emerging but already highly developed approach. It answers many of the difficulties an environment in which consumers now regularly avoid traditional advertising raises. The advertising placements are seamlessly incorporated - exposing brands to consumers without detracting from the core content and this agreement with Repucom allows to demonstrate the value up front.'

Danny Townsend, President of Repucom EMEA and South Asia, continued, 'We've experienced first-hand the potential of embedded video advertising to address the rapidly changing needs of the industry, and the potential is clear. Repucom International, via its use of proprietary image detection technology and global accepted valuations of in-programme branded content have been working with over 350 brands and content owners globally for the past 4 years. Whether our clients need a pre-campaign assessment of the likely returns, or a post-campaign follow up to validate and tailor their ongoing campaign requirements, we can now deliver the detailed data and intelligence.'

" image[44] = "4" date_2[46] = "12/03/09"; title_2[46] = "G-T-P Launches Travelodge Business Account Card "; title2_2[46] = "The Paypers"; article_2[46] = "Prepaid and account card issuer G-T-P Group has entered an agreement with UK budget hotel chain Travelodge to launch a new Business Account Card aimed at customers seeking budget accommodation for business travel.


Under the terms of the deal, corporate customers who sign up for a Travelodge Business Account card are also provided with access to an online account which allows them to manage their travel expenses via the internet. To this end, the Travelodge Business Account Card employs G-T-P’s Capture application processing system as well as the GTPnet account management service.

Cardholders can also chose to enrol in a rewards program developed in collaboration with UK general-goods retailer Argos, in which they can earn rewards points for room bookings and purchasing food and beverages in Travelodge hotels.
" image[46] = "1" date_2[42] = "16/02/09"; title_2[42] = "Aria Networks and Aircom International Announce Partnership "; title2_2[42] = "Aria Networks Press Release"; article_2[42] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of forecasting, planning and optimisation solutions for fixed-line and mobile network carriers has today announced a partnership with leading independent network planning and optimisation consultancy, AIRCOM International.

Under this partnership AIRCOM will market, distribute and support Aria's iVNT software suite to its partners and mobile telecoms customers around the world.

Backhaul transmission infrastructure transformation is an important part of most mobile operators' strategies, but the planning and optimisation of these networks is complex, time-consuming and requires highly skilled staff. AIRCOM, with over 3.5 million man hours experience of network optimisation and design will leverage Aria's iVNT suite to provide products and solutions that will enable its customers to reduce the complexity and time it takes to plan the backhaul network.

'In this current economic climate and with the ever-increasing demand from the user to provide high-speed data access, operators need to ensure that their backhaul network cost-effectively meets the demands of their customers. AIRCOM is increasingly seeing the need from our customers for the planning and optimisation of the entire network infrastructure - from the handset to the core, but with a new focus on the transformation of the capital-intensive mobile backhaul infrastructure,” said Ricky Watts, AIRCOM’s Director of Solutions and Innovation.

“Having spent many months evaluating the currently available products in the market, AIRCOM has found in Aria's iVNT suite an ideal extension to its’ own extensive ENTERPRISE product portfolio. Through the joint AIRCOM/Aria partnership, mobile operators will be able to plan and optimise all parts of their fixed-line and radio infrastructure with solutions directly available from AIRCOM. We can better help our customers save capital expenditure and bring operational efficiency to these backhaul networks,' Watts continued.

Aria's iVNT is an intelligent and flexible, multi-technology planning suite that enables AIRCOM to offer its customers an advanced set of planning capabilities. It provides design, planning and optimisation support for technologies including IP, MPLS-TE, WDM, GMPLS, Ethernet, SONET/SDH, and VPNs and has advanced multi-layer capabilities.

'AIRCOM is regarded as the leading provider of planning solutions to the mobile market with an extensive world-wide customer base,' said Tony Fallows, Aria's CEO. 'This partnership means mobile carriers can fully benefit from our unique iVNT product suite, as AIRCOM can market, implement and support our solutions to customers who are currently beyond our reach.'
" image[42] = "6" date_2[43] = "10/02/09"; title_2[43] = "Sharpcards plays Cupid as MMS grows by 30% "; title2_2[43] = "TMC Net"; article_2[43] = "Sharpcards, the world's largest provider of mobile ecards is gearing up for mobile messaging's busiest times of the year. This Valentine's Day Sharpcards has an exclusive range of premium branded ecards on offer to its loved up users.

The mobile messaging market raked in around $130 billion in revenues by the end 2008, and is on target to increase that to $224 billion by 2013. Although the majority of this is made up by SMS, the popularity of MMS has been increasing steadily over the past few years. In 2009 MMS is expected to generate over $31 billion worldwide, $1 billion more than SMS was generating five years ago. MMS is also being predicted to pass 115 billion messages by the end of 2011*.

In 2008 Sharpcards sold over 1.5m mobile personal greetings worldwide, with around 20% of those sales (300,000) coming from Valentine's Day alone. Key trends from last year:

40% of mobile ecards were bought in the four hours between 08:00 and 12:00 (around 30,000 greetings sold per hour) 56% of sales occurred before midday and less than 2% after 22:00 - there are some of us who obviously like to live dangerously It seems that most people in the world are soft at heart, with cute and cuddly outselling kinky cards by 3-1 in 2008 Sharpcards sent 363 marriage proposals through mobile ecards on Valentines Day 2008: Perhaps not the most traditional way to 'pop the question' but unfortunately Sharpcards doesn't know whether there were 363 'yeses'!

Will Walsh, Sharpcards CEO said: 'In the last year, MMS has grown by 30% and with 10 million picture messages sent a week (NMA - Aug08) it's clear that people want to put more emotion and personality into their messages. Obviously Valentine's Day is a time, more than any, when people like to share their emotions. Sometimes you just can't get your feelings across in text or a phone call, which is why people are turning to mobile greetings
as the old saying goes, ' a picture is worth a thousand words'.'

Will continued: 'We pride ourselves on the quality, variety and originality of our content. By having partnerships with some of the world's biggest brands, such as Disney, Hallmark, Cartoon Network and American Greetings, we can offer our customers the most exciting content around.'

Sharpcards currently runs enhanced messaging services for Orange, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, H3G and other major carriers around the world.

" image[43] = "3" date_2[37] = "29/01/09"; title_2[37] = "US Expansion for Flirtomatic"; title2_2[37] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[37] = "Flirtomatic will try to chat up the American market with the launch of a mobile beta.
This will be the second big international gambit from the UK firm, which is one of the big success stories in the mobile communities space. It has already launched in Germany.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, believes the time is right. He said: 'We're certain that there is a demand that we can meet over in the US. Even though this is the launch of our mobile beta, we've always had consistently high usage from the US via the web, with a user base that has grown virally thus far.

'We're really looking forward to seeing what we can do out there and how the users respond to our mobile service'.

Flirtomatic is now on deck with operators in the UK and Germany, and has 1.3 million members.

" image[37] = "0" date_2[35] = "22/01/09"; title_2[35] = "Aria Networks launches Revolutionary Intelligent Analytics Solution"; title2_2[35] = "Aria Networks Press Release"; article_2[35] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of optimisation and planning software solutions for Next-Generation Networks (NGN) today announced the introduction of iForecast, an intelligent business analytics and decision-support solution for the Telecoms industry.

Predicting the future is an essential part of running any business. But in the data-rich world of Telecoms, the volume and variety of information available overwhelms conventional data analysis techniques. As a result, Telecoms companies can fail to uncover critical patterns in their data, resulting in incorrect and expensive decisions on anything from network investment to customer retention programs.

Launched today, Aria Networks’ iForecast product, is set to revolutionise business decision-making in Telecoms by applying artificial intelligence techniques to large and complex data sets, revealing - and explaining - hidden insights.

iForecast is an intelligent and flexible business analytics and decision-support software product that has been developed specifically for the telecommunications industry. iForecast exploits the vast amount of data in Telecoms companies to provide accurate and rapid forecasting of NGN infrastructures, the customer services that operate over these NGNs, and the capital and operational costs of operating NGNs and delivering services.

“Executive management in telecoms is demanding increased confidence and accuracy in its investment and strategic decisions in all parts of their business,” said Tony Fallows, CEO of Aria Networks. “iForecast offers the accurate and flexible business analytics and decision-support capability that enable them to fine-tune their decisions and at the same time give full insight in to the factors that are influencing their business. iForecast not only provides insight in to what is happening, but also how and why.”

iForecast is already in use for complex forecasting scenarios in world-class Telecoms companies, and is built using an Intelligent Forecasting Engine that has been in use for several years in the life-sciences and pharmaceutical industries by world leaders such as GlaxoSmithKline (LONDON: GSK) and Celera Diagnostics (NASDAQ: CRA), to predict complex disease development and the impact of introducing new drugs.

iForecast uses leading artificial-intelligence techniques to determine all patterns, relationships and correlations in the data, ensuring it is more accurate than traditional solutions that often use over-simplistic trend-based forecasting, which can lead to large errors, particularly in times of rapid change or economic turmoil. iForecast also uses techniques to reduce the impact of noisy and spurious data to build robust models that are less prone to error than competitive solutions.

iForecast can be used as a standalone application or can be integrated with Aria’s iVNT suite of planning and optimisation products. iForecast is easy to use and automatically generates reusable models based on the information presented to it.

" image[35] = "6" date_2[34] = "08/12/08"; title_2[34] = "Aria Networks Announces Breakthrough in Telecom Operating Efficiency"; title2_2[34] = "Aria Networks Press Release"; article_2[34] = "'Just-in-time' capacity planning solution to revolutionise operational excellence for next generation telcos

Aria Networks, a leading provider of forecasting, planning and optimisation solutions for Next Generation Networks (NGN) today announces the industry’s first “Just-In-Time” solution to revolutionise the capacity management of Next-Generation Telecom networks.

Aria’s just-In-Time (JIT) Capacity Planning solution provides the ability to improve profitability and strengthen Telecom operators’ business models by emulating the operational-excellence, processes and inventory management that transformed operating performance in other industries such as Manufacturing and Retail.

Telecom operators have historically been forced to operate a “just-in-case” approach to managing their network capacity and resources, often resulting in excess capacity and expenditure. While next generation networks have promised greater efficiencies in principle, the inability to accurately forecast new service and customer demand, the complexities inherent in the planning process, and the long lead times of equipment and plant have forced Telco operators to maintain their “just-in-case” approach, resulting in expenditure levels being consistently higher than expected from their original NGN-based business models.

Aria’s newly released JIT Capacity Planning solution is an integrated solution based on Aria’s customisable iVNT planning suite that enables Telecom operators to more accurately forecast where and when to add new capacity. It removes the expensive and labour-intensive process of planning network capacity and smoothes the process of generating the required vendor-specific equipment orders and work instructions to ensure more timely delivery of the required network resources.

“Telco networks are typically over-built or under-built with negative consequences for CAPEX, OPEX, and an ability to support services or customer growth effectively,” said Paddy Bell, Sales Director of Aria Networks. “The sustained competitive advantage of companies such as Toyota and Wal-Mart, brought about by accurate and lean JIT inventory management, can now be emulated by Telco operators through the use of Aria’s Just-In-Time Capacity Planning solutions.”

Aria CEO, Tony Fallows, added: “The challenges of a tough new economic environment provide an opportunity and create a necessity for Telecom operators to embrace new solutions that will enable them to re-emerge as leaner and more competitive. The application of the unique network and service intelligence in the iVNT planning and optimisation suite provides the capabilities for our customers to effect this change and see a rapid return-on-investment.”

Aria’s JIT Capacity Planning solution supports the planning of physical and logical capacity and is enabled by a combination of iVNT planning modules, iAdapt to federate with other OSS or BSS components, and iCustomise to support process-flow.

" image[34] = "6" date_2[38] = "19/11/08"; title_2[38] = "MirriAd strikes deal with Comcast "; title2_2[38] = "Mirriad Press Release"; article_2[38] = "A deal struck today between Comcast Networks and MirriAd now means advertisers can get straight to the eyeballs of the consumer with new product and brand placement opportunities available on E!, Style, VERSUS, GOLF CHANNEL and G4. The deal takes advantage of patented technology developed by embedded advertising specialist, MirriAd, and will see product placement and promotional messages digitally inserted into existing video content as if they were included in the original production.
In an environment in which television audiences now have access to digital video recorders that allow them to ‘skip’ traditional advertising slots, Comcast Networks recognises that new approaches are required to put advertisers in touch with consumers. MirriAd’s embedded advertising technologies and expertise deliver that new approach by exposing brands to their target audiences in an environment in which the viewer is fully engaged. An advertiser’s presence can’t be skipped, but instead of detracting from the core content, they are fully integrated to maintain an uninterrupted viewing experience.

“Successful content production and broadcast today demands fresh thinking to address a rapidly changing environment. In this new digital age, in which the viewer is increasingly in control, we need to investigate fresh ways to deliver the advertising opportunities that underpin the industry” said Dave Cassaro, President of advertising sales at Comcast Networks. “Traditional advertising still has its place but MirriAd’s innovative embedded advertising solutions enable us to realise new revenues from brand owners, without compromising the viewing experience.”

MirriAd CEO, Mark Popkiewicz, commented, “Product placement has traditionally been implemented pre-production and that approach is complex, expensive and uncertain. Nevertheless it is an advertising model that has always had the potential to produce significant returns for brands, content owners and broadcasters. MirriAd removes the complexity, expense and uncertainty by allowing for the identification, preview and assessment of opportunities prior to the relevant brand references being inserted. It is a sophisticated approach for what is an increasingly sophisticated broadcast and advertising environment.”

" image[38] = "4" date_2[39] = "17/11/08"; title_2[39] = "MirriAd and Endemol join forces to deliver embedded advertising in India "; title2_2[39] = "Mirriad Press Release"; article_2[39] = "Embedded advertising specialist MirriAd, and Endemol, one of the world’s largest independent television production companies, have launched a joint venture to exploit embedded advertising opportunities in the Indian broadcast television market. Endemol’s broadcasting partners will now be able to deliver product and brand placement opportunities that are fully incorporated within core programming.
MirriAd’s patented ZoneSense™ solution will be used to insert simple branded objects such as props, backdrops and signage, or sophisticated dynamic ads incorporating video and interactive elements, into video content. The brand references are seamlessly embedded and appear as if they had been incorporated in the original production. Embedded advertising provides broadcasters and advertisers with an entirely new way to expose brands to target consumers. It creates a compelling advertising environment in which the viewer is fully engaged. The brand references can’t be skipped or ignored - they are an intrinsic element of the viewing experience, rather than a distraction.

Endemol India’s head of corporate development & strategic business development Ankush Patel, commented, “Traditional product placement is a very well established and successful model in the Indian broadcast market but it is time consuming, the returns are difficult for advertisers to assess in the pre-production phase and the value inevitably diminishes over time. In contrast, embedding advertising within existing content takes us to a higher level of sophistication and removes the uncertainty and expense associated with the established model.

“MirriAd’s technology enables placement opportunities to be identified automatically and gives advertisers complete control over where and when their brand references appear. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to time insertions according to campaign requirements, just as they would with ‘slot’ based advertising.”

“Endemol’s credentials in the Indian market are very well established,” said Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd. “Its ‘Bigg Boss’ and ‘Fear Factor’ productions are the flagship content that have taken Viacomm18’s ‘Colors’ channel to the number two spot in India in just ten weeks. That sort of success, and their established relationships, make Endemol the ideal partner to bring embedded advertising to one of the biggest broadcast television markets in the world.”

MirriAd’s unique ZoneSenseTM technology allows any video to be automatically scanned for suitable advertising zones. These zones are then tracked frame by frame for the duration that they are visible, being tracked for motion, blur and brightness for every pixel within the frame. Any brand or image inserted into one of these pre-tracked zones inherits all of the same blur, reflection and brightness attributes of the original material, making the insertion look real and as though it was part of the original shoot.

Advertisers can view an inventory of video files looking for the video, or set of videos, that best meets their campaign needs. Using MirriAd’s highly secure online services an advertiser may select their preferred zones, insert their brand images and view a low quality stream of the embedded advertising video before they commit to a final, high quality version.
" image[39] = "4" date_2[9] = "01/09/08"; title_2[9] = "Flirtomatic Partners With Sharpcards"; title2_2[9] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[9] = "Sharpcards has negotiated a strategic partnership to bring its messaging content to Flirtomatic's 900,000 registered users. The deal will give Flirtomatic customers access to over 15,000 items of licensed content from brands including Purple Ronnie, Cartoon Network and Forever Friends.

The agreement will cover all of Flirtomatic's registered users in the UK and Germany. They will be able to purchase Sharpcard content such as creative messages, virtual gifts and mobile greetings from the 'Flirtshop.'

'Teaming up with Sharpcards means that our users now have access to even more high quality content which we can refresh on a much more frequent basis,' said CEO of Flirtomatic, Mark Curtis." image[9] = "2" date_2[10] = "18/08/08"; title_2[10] = "Sharpcards hires ex Sony Ericsson president"; title2_2[10] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[10] = "Miles Flint, former president of Sony Ericsson, has joined the enhanced messaging specialist Sharpcards.

He's been appointed as a non executive director and will bring his insights to Sharpcards as the company focuses on international expansion. Sharpcards will shortly launch its ecards service in conjunction with handset manufacturers and operators . The firm has already sold millions of mobile greetings from operator decks, but the new launch makes the ecards services accessible when the users is sending a text.

Will Walsh, CEO of Sharpcards, said: 'Sharpcards is offering carriers around the globe the next big opportunity in mobile messaging. Crucial to this is a close relationship with the handset manufacturers and given Miles' experience, we are thrilled that he is joining the team.'" image[10] = "3" date_2[11] = "05/08/08"; title_2[11] = "Orange Unveils Single Mobile Platform for Social Networkers"; title2_2[11] = "Brand Republic"; article_2[11] = "Orange is launching a mobile social networking service that will allow advertisers to target users of Facebook, MySpace and Bebo via a single platform. The mobile network operator is bringing together the most popular functions from Europe's leading social networks into its Orange World portal. Orange has signed revenue share partnerships with Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Flirtomatic in the UK to allow mobile users to view profile updates, emails and recently uploaded pictures in one place.

Advertisers will be able to target social network users via banner ads and other display formats on the Orange World portal. The mobile company plans to share the revenue generated via the initiative with the individual social networking sites.

The new Orange World service works by displaying the most popular functions from multiple social networking sites side-by-side so that they can be accessed from a single mobile web page. Previously, mobile users would have had to log into individual sites to send and receive messages, upload photos and check status updates. Orange plans to upgrade the service over coming months, embedding it as an application accessible from the homescreen of Orange- branded handsets. " image[11] = "2" date_2[12] = "25/07/08"; title_2[12] = "AdMob launches ad marketplace for iPhone apps"; title2_2[12] = "Total Telecom"; article_2[12] = "Mobile advertising firm AdMob is getting into iPhone in a big way, launching a new global iPhone advertising marketplace that'll cover both native iPhone apps and iPhone-friendly websites. The company has also announced plans to give away $1 million worth of advertising to developers who sign up for its new program.

Its iPhone ad units offer eight specific actions, allowing advertisers to drive users direct to iTunes or the App Store, access audio or video, initiate voice calls, launch maps and visit iPhone websites. App developers already signed up include AccuWeather, MovieTickets, Mippin, Flirtomatic and Loopt, while brand advertisers include Ford, EA, Land Rover, Jaguar and Universal Pictures.

AdMob has been running ads on iPhone sites for some time now, and served 51.8 million of them in June alone. Diversifying into adverts within native apps is sure to interest games publishers, whose titles have been among the most popular downloads from the App Store." image[12] = "2" date_2[14] = "07/07/08"; title_2[14] = "Aria Networks Announces OEM Integration with Amdocs"; title2_2[14] = "Company"; article_2[14] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of planning solutions for Next Generation Networks (NGNs), today announce an OEM agreement with Amdocs (NYSE: DOX).

This agreement will enable Aria's iVNT product line to be fully integrated with Planning Engine, a part of the Amdocs Operational Support Systems (OSS) portfolio. Amdocs will market, distribute and support the integrated solution to its partners and telecommunications customers around the world.

'With the introduction of Aria's iVNT product into the Amdocs planning solution, service providers will be able to more finely tune their capacity requirements, so that they can optimize their capital expenditure (CAPEX), and improve their operational efficiency in deploying and operating Next Generation Networks' said Charlie Born, Vice-President at Amdocs.

Next Generation Networks (NGNs) are an important part of most telecoms companies' strategies, but the planning of these networks is complex, time-consuming, and requires highly skilled staff. Amdocs will use Aria's iVNT product to enable their customers to reduce the complexity and time it takes to plan next-generation networks and services. The Amdocs planning solution will help Service Providers meet their network capacity requirements without overbuilding the network allowing them to more proactively manage their infrastructure investment.

Aria's iVNT is an intelligent and flexible, multi-technology planning suite that enables Amdocs to offer its customers an advanced set of OSS planning capabilities. It provides planning and design support for technologies including IP, MPLS-TE, WDM, GMPLS, Ethernet and VPNs and has advanced multi-layer traffic-engineering and path computation capabilities.

'Amdocs has a formidable reputation in the OSS market and we are excited about the possibilities the Amdocs relationship brings,' said Tony Fallows, Aria's CEO. 'This agreement means that service providers can fully benefit from our unique product and business strategy because iVNT is now part of a complete OSS solution.' " image[14] = "6" date_2[15] = "03/07/08"; title_2[15] = "Flirtomatic Confirms German Launch"; title2_2[15] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[15] = "Flirtomatic is to launch in Germany, marking its first expansion outside of the UK.The company has teamed up with Germany's SevenOne for the project. SevenOne Intermedia is the multimedia unit of broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Group, which owns Germany's largest family of commercial TV channels. SevenOne will promote Flirtomatic via its TV, web and mobile platforms.

A German language version has been developed specifically for the market and Flirtomatic will be supporting local users with German customer care.

Flirtomatic runs a mobile and online service that invites members to 'meet' and flirt. It's free, but users can buy flirt points that they redeem for gifts that they can send to their friends." image[15] = "2" date_2[16] = "12/06/08"; title_2[16] = "Aria Networks Announces Industry's First Multiprocessor-Based Path Computation"; title2_2[16] = "Company"; article_2[16] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of optimisation, planning and advanced path computation solutions for Next-Generation Networks (NGN) today announce the industry's first multiprocessor-based path computation capabilities.

Path computation enables service paths to be established across NGNs and is a complex but important part of delivering services, such as video-on-demand, VPNs and VoIP. When services are required to meet a myriad of different criteria, for example, cost, capacity, reliability and quality-of-service, 'multi constraint-based' path computation establishes the optimal service paths to meet the customer's needs. Aria Networks is the world-leader in multi constraint-based path computation and is now extending that lead with the introduction of multiprocessor support.

NGNs and services being deployed by Telecom companies around the world are growing rapidly. NGNs transport millions of complex service paths on network infrastructures that comprise inter-connected equipment at tens of thousands of locations. Due to the challenges of scalable path computation, Telecoms companies historically compromised on the number of constraints that define and influence a service, resulting in sub-optimal networks and services. Telecoms companies, equipment vendors and OSS vendors require scalable, carrier-grade path-computation that is capable of establishing one or many service paths in a fraction of a second.

'Multiprocessor-based path computation provides the scale, performance and fault-tolerance required to deploy complex point-to-point and multipoint services for traffic-engineered packet and optical networks,' said Dr Jay Perrett, VP of R&D at Aria Networks. 'With the power of Aria's multiprocessor-based path computation Telecoms companies can now define each and every service with many constraints and rapidly and accurately compute complex service paths as well as solve multi-layer capacity planning and optimisations in a time-efficient manner.'

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is currently developing Path Computation Element (PCE), a standard for a path computation architecture and implementation, reflecting the growing importance of path computation to Telecoms Companies.

Aria's unique artificial intelligence-based iVNT software architecture lends itself well to distributing path-computation capabilities across an unlimited number of processors. This capability will ship with Aria's latest iVNT MPLS-TE optimisation, planning, and path computation software, and will be available next quarter in all other iVNT products. iVNT is available for Windows, Linux and Solaris operating systems and can be deployed as a standalone software suite or embedded in Network Management Systems (NMS), Operational Support Systems (OSS), or Path Computation Elements (PCE) of third parties using a variety of robust interfaces" image[16] = "6" date_2[17] = "09/06/08"; title_2[17] = "Flirtomatic hooks up with iPhone users"; title2_2[17] = "NetImperative"; article_2[17] = "Mobile and online flirting service Flirtomatic has released its Alpha version of Flirtomatic for the iPhone and the iTouch. The Alpha version is available worldwide and has a new mobile interface which has been built for the iPhone and iTouch user. There are currently estimated to be over 800,000 iPhone users in the UK. The feature set includes registration, login, chat, search, rating and the ability to send and receive gifts. Further functionality including location search will be available shortly.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, said: 'We have made great strides in our development and our future vision for the service by launching the iPhone version. Among other things, we are excited by the enhanced user interface that has been developed. This has brought the Flirtomatic experience to a new level that we will look to implement to other handsets in the future. This launch underscores our commitment to innovation and rapid evolution.'

Flirtomatic has nearly 400,000 mobile users in the UK alone. In May, over 1 million messages a day were sent between users, generating 21 million web page views and 115 million WAP page views." image[17] = "2" date_2[19] = "15/05/08"; title_2[19] = "Sirigen featured in Real Deals"; title2_2[19] = "Real Deals"; article_2[19] = "The prevailing wisdom among European venture-backed businesses is that the route to riches lies in hightailing it state-side. Once domestic critical mass has been reached, young businesses are too often inexorably drawn to the vast homogeneous market, thriving VC ecosystem, and big spending trade buyers of the US.

Doughty Hanson and 3i-backed Garlik, a provider of solutions for ID theft; Comvest and SRPE-backed Telemedicine company T+Medical; and VirtenSys, a virtualisation software developer backed by Scottish Equity Partners, Celtic House and GIMV, have all made the leap across the pond over the past year. But tellingly the traffic is not all one way. Several companies have recently opted to relocate to Europe after achieving embryonic growth in the US.

DEWB-backed Nanda Technologies is one such business. The company, which is developing optical, non-contacting inspection systems for process control in semiconductor manufacturing, has put its faith in the old continent by opting to base itself in Munich, despite close ties to Silicon Valley.

Amplification technology developer Sirigen, which is backed by Seraphim Capital and Oxford Capital Partners, has also set the wheels in motion for moving its headquarters from Santa Barbara, California, to Dorset this month. Both companies believe Europe best fits their needs.

For optics specialist Nanda, this is partly a facet of being close to suppliers. 'Germany is number one in the world in the optical industry,' said Marco Scheidler of DEWB.

The customer, of course, is also key. Around 80 per cent of Nanda's target customers are based in Asia, so attracting a client base in the US was of less concern. The business was able to cut North America out of the equation and to exploit the close ties and more reasonable time zone differences that Europe has to offer.

The location of the customer was also an important motivator for Sirigen. European pharma giants such as Qiagen and Novartis are among its most important contacts, according to Seraphim's James Bruegger.

Sector strengths

It is not just in the optics and diagnostics industries that Europe can have an edge over the US, however. The region is also attracting early-stage companies in the wireless and mobile space. OpenCloud, a service delivery platform for telecommunications carriers, which has its origins in New Zealand, was recently brought over to Europe by Advent Ventures.

'A few years ago they would have moved to the US, but I think the wireless market is far more mature in Europe,' said Advent Ventures' Frederic Court. 'A lot of companies want to be close to Vodafone, Orange and Dutch Telecomm, for example.'

Some European online companies have also been scaled much faster than their US equivalents, particularly in the area of e-commerce. Gaming is another European strength, while the region is also more than keeping pace with its US cousin in the burgeoning area of cleantech.

'We've got much more social, economic and political enthusiasm to allow these markets to develop and provide opportunities for start- up businesses,' said Nigel Grierson, managing director at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. 'Cleantech for start-ups might be what Silicon Valley was for IT.'

Despite its strengths in certain sectors, a lack of experienced entrepreneurs and managers has historically been one of European venture's biggest inhibitors. But tellingly, Seraphim found all the talent it was looking for in the UK.

A significant reason for the move was that the managing director, financial director and the incoming chairman were all UK-based, according to Oxford Capital's Rebecca Todd.

'The CEO and CFO, Nick Kerton and Clive Minihan, are an experienced team who have worked together before. I think it is good news for the UK that we have sufficient management talent to attract inventors and entrepreneurs to commercialise their technologies over here rather than in the US.'

Nanda was also able to choose from a rich pool of experienced professionals in Germany when putting together its management team. Chief executive Lars Markwort's previous positions include leading business development at Zeiss SMT and NaWoTec, which was aquired by Zeiss in 2005, while chief financial officer Johannes von Borries was previously principal at Wellington Partners, and chief financial officer at start-up MobilePress. Both have a first-class network within the financial sector, as well as key industry suppliers in Germany.

Fund fair

With suppliers, customers and managers in place, the final, but possibly most vital, piece of the venture capital puzzle is attracting funding. And this is where Europe has really struggled, particularly over the earlier part of this decade.

And yet for both Nanda and Sirigen, access to capital was taken into consideration when the location decision was being made. And in neither case did it deter the companies from setting up home on this side of the Atlantic.

'We didn't actually look for funding in the US, but certainly believe that getting capital in Europe is no more difficult,' said von Borries.

The sentiment is mirrored by Sirigen chairman Nick Kerton.

'We approached a number of companies in the US and in the UK. The UK investment community moved dramatically faster - Seraphim and Oxford moved so fast that we didn't have to go anywhere else,' he said.

Kerton added that as Sirigen was looking for only limited funding - certainly, in comparison with average US rounds - it made sense to target fundraising energies on VCs whose investment sweetspots matched its needs.

US VCs were more interested in investing larger amounts of money in the company, he said - sums that Sirigen would have had trouble using effectively. 'Twice as much money wouldn't have necessarily halved the development time.'

There is little doubt that European venture has endured a protracted period of downturn. Institutional investor funding has been tight and - with notable exceptions - returns tighter.

The faith that Sirigen and Nanda have placed in the region's VC industry is therefore a most welcome signal that this beleaguered industry has finally weathered the worst." image[19] = "5" date_2[18] = "12/05/08"; title_2[18] = "Aria working with KDDI R&D"; title2_2[18] = "Total Telecom"; article_2[18] = "Aria Networks, a leading provider of Intelligent Software solutions for planning of Next Generation Networks (NGNs), today announce that it has developed iVNT (intelligent Virtual Network Topology) software with KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc. of Japan for planning and designing of transparent optical networks.

Aria Networks' developed its iVNT-Optical product to provide flexible and extensible traffic engineering and path computation capabilities for transparent optical mesh networks based on wavelength switching and GMPLS (Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching), and to quickly and easily integrate into other operational support systems.

iVNT offers advanced planning and optimization of networks and services and enables rapid and accurate planning of complicated transparent optical mesh networks ensuring the network can meet future service demands, deliver exceptional quality of service, and exceed required service levels.

'KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc., recognises that for planning of transparent optical mesh networks, multi-constraint-based path computation and planning tools are key elements to process many simultaneous parameters and handle the complex issues of optical constraints and lambda continuity. Furthermore, the integration of control and management together with sophisticated planning and activation systems is mandatory in the future network operation.' said Tomohiro Otani, a senior Manager at KDDI Lab. 'We are very impressed with iVNT's capabilities, and believe it has the intelligence to cope with all of the complexities of planning transparent optical networks to allow us to deploy them effectively and efficiently and to easily integrate into other operational support systems in the future.'

'Transparent optical networks with mesh architectures and dynamic control/management offer the potential to telecoms carriers to reduce equipment and operational costs, better leverage their network assets, and improve the availability of services to their customers,' said Tony Fallows, CEO of Aria Networks. 'These business benefits can be realised by using iVNT-Optical to reduce the time, cost, and complexity of planning and operating transparent optical networks.

iVNT-Optical is a part of Aria Networks' family of iVNT products." image[18] = "6" date_2[20] = "09/05/08"; title_2[20] = "Flirtomatic wins prestigious mobile industry award"; title2_2[20] = "Company"; article_2[20] = "Flirtomatic have been named as the winners of the Meffys Communities & UGC Award at the Mobile Entertainment Awards 2008 in Cannes. The Meffys is the mobile industry benchmark for measuring success and rewarding innovation for the most influential companies around the world. Previous winners of Meffys include AdMob, Bango, Omnifone and Digital Chocolate.

Flirtomatic was seen as the best example of a mobile community and user generated content - creating an engaging and interactive experience for the consumer. Key criteria in the award were innovation, ease of use, evidence of building user communities, quantifiable business benefits and proven success in the market through number of subscribers, stickiness and ARPU. Flirtomatic beat stiff competition from Dada, Gofresh, Juice Wireless and UTEL" image[20] = "2" date_2[21] = "02/05/08"; title_2[21] = "Flirtomatic runs billionth ad"; title2_2[21] = "Mobile Entertainment"; article_2[21] = "Flirtomatic, the UK mobile flirting service, has run its billionth mobile advert in less than a year.

The social network serves over 56 million text and banner ads a week, Its ad revenue grew 31 per cent in 1Q 2008 over the previous quarter. Advertisers include O2, Orange, Vodafone, Yahoo, Samsung and MSN. They can target users by gender, age and location by postcode.

Matt Dicks, head of sales and marketing at Flirtomatic, is delighted that the advertiser base is moving away from purely mobile-related brands. He said: 'The trend is changing very slightly and more brands are testing mobile advertising.

With the increase in users, the advertising model for mobile is likely to change, moving away from standard banners and text advertising to a more integrated and targeted system as consumers begin to engage more and become familiar with the technology.'

As an added sweetener to brands, Flirtomatic offers a branded mobile profile page for promoting products, delivering brand awareness, driving footfall to stores plus mobile ticketing and coupons. " image[21] = "2" date_2[22] = "20/03/08"; title_2[22] = "Aria selected as finalist for Red Herring 100 Europe 2008 awards"; title2_2[22] = ""; article_2[22] = "Red Herring today announced that Aria Networks was named a Finalist of Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year.

'This year's impressive list of submissions from companies demonstrates Europe's growing role as a major center of innovation in the global technology sector,' said Red Herring Editor-in-Chief Joel Dreyfuss. 'The exceptional accomplishments of European technology startups and entrepreneurs are a testament to the rapid advancements being made in building the European innovation ecosystem.'

Red Herring's lists of top private companies are an important part of the publication's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. Companies like Google, eBay, and Skype were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and touted as leaders that would change the way we live and work.

Red Herring's editorial staff rigorously evaluated several hundred private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

Red Herring will honor the Red Herring 100 Europe Finalist companies at its Red Herring Europe 2008 event. Scheduled for April 14-16, at the Westin Dragonara Resort, this intimate, three-day event is themed 'The Pursuit of Disruption' and will explore how European firms are leading the charge in many technology sectors, gaining the competitive advantage, and driving entrepreneurial success in ways that create business opportunities for challengers and incumbents alike. " image[22] = "6" date_2[23] = "11/03/08"; title_2[23] = "Flirtomatic announces on-portal deal with Orange"; title2_2[23] = "Company"; article_2[23] = "UK flirting service Flirtomatic has announced its first on-portal deal with Orange which will see it promoted on the operator's mobile and online channels.

Whilst Flirtomatic has previously advertised on a regular basis with mobile network operators for the last year, the new deal will see them permanently on-deck with banners, text ads and round-the-clock visibility in Orangeworld's lifestyle area.

The deal will operate on a revenue-share basis, using income generated by Flirtomatic's successful mix of ads and premium services.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, says 'This is a huge step up for us. We've achieved a lot since our launch two years ago, just being off-deck. We currently have 640,000 members - 230,000 of whom registered on mobile alone - largely through viral, ads and word-of-mouth. With a 24/7 presence on Orange's online and mobile portals, we expect to see a substantial rise in user numbers. It's great Orange is getting behind UK mobile specific start-ups.'" image[23] = "2" date_2[24] = "05/02/08"; title_2[24] = "MirriAd goes to Bollywood"; title2_2[24] = "Company"; article_2[24] = "MirriAd, the world's leading embedded advertising specialist, has today announced that it is now working with Indian-based P9 Integrated, the leading film-marketing company from Percept Holdings, which markets over 80 percent of Bollywood's total movie releases, and also represents multiple large local and multinational brands, including Unilever, ITC and Sony Playstation.

The deal will see MirriAd using its unique embedded advertising technology to digitally integrate brands within existing content that is marketed by P9 Integrated across India. Such content will include Bollywood film trailers produced for cinema, television and online, whereby specifically selected and relevant brands will be digitally integrated, after production has been completed.

The agreement with MirriAd will enable P9 to generate additional revenue through embedded advertising. Unlike other forms of advertising such as overlay, interstitial or pop-ups, MirriAd crucially maintains the viewer's positive experience due to the unintrusive nature of the technology. MirriAd enables the monetisation of digitally placed content and interactive technologies across the entire media value-chain, and can operate on a range of platforms, from online and user-generated content to studio quality content.

Navin Shah, CEO of P9, says: 'Embedded advertising is a really exciting development because it represents a totally new revenue stream for businesses. What's more, it does not interfere with the viewer experience in any way, whilst delivering great value for the brand. The venture with MirriAd makes it possible to embed brands within Bollywood content for the very first time'.

Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd, says: 'Bollywood is recognised as a world leader in commercial film production. This partnership is significant because brand owners can now target audiences through popular Bollywood content using MirriAd's embedded advertising platform. It is fantastic that P9 has recognised the ability of MirriAd's business model to open up new revenue streams for the film industry.'

MirriAd has also established a local presence in Mumbai, India, to more effectively serve the Bollywood industry and the wider Indian market." image[24] = "4" date_2[25] = "12/09/07"; title_2[25] = "Flirtomatic surpasses 100 million monthly WAP page"; title2_2[25] = "Company"; article_2[25] = "Flirtomatic, the UK based mobile and online flirting service, today announces a sharp rise in mobile usage rates, with more than 100 million WAP impressions for the month of August - making it one of the UK's most popular mobile destinations.

This represents a 100-fold increase since November 2006. Flirtomatic's mobile advertising revenue has also grown rapidly within this period as a direct result of the influx of new users and page impressions.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic says, 'The capabilities and potential of online entertainment services, combined with the feature of mobility, can unlock a wealth of opportunity for new brands - provided you get it right.'

The company launched in the UK last year as the first cross-platform flirting network and has quickly built a registered user base of over 400,000. The free service, of which 75% of users are between 18-30 years of age, enables members to connect, meet and flirt.

The number of Flirtomatic visitors per month has swelled almost 100 times since August 2006 and this surge in consumer take-up can be largely attributed to tailored initiatives established by Flirtomatic to drive usage to and from the mobile. The introduction of Value Added Services (VAS) in April 2007, have resulted in a six-fold increase in Flirtomatic's monthly revenues since March 2007.

'These figures highlight the fact that it is not necessary to be affiliated with portals to drive high usage rates on the mobile.' adds Mark Curtis. 'So long as dedicated initiatives are put in place to grow a customer base on mobile, there is now sufficient mobile Internet volume to quickly develop a strong take-up. However, the opportunities available to operators are clearly underlined and such partnerships could result in even greater revenue opportunities.'

Avi Azulai, Chairman of Flirtomatic says, 'The introduction of Flirtomatic is increasingly attracting mobile users to online entertainment services. We have also seen a dramatic increase in the demand for mobile advertising space, which the company is in a strong position to take advantage of. Flirtomatic is now a major mobile brand in the UK.'

Following the clear demand for its services and the consumer interest from outside of the UK, Flirtomatic is researching the US market entry for expansion over the coming months.



In June 2007 Handmade Mobile Entertainment, the holding company of Flirtomatic, closed a £2 million funding round led by Serpahim Capital who co-invested alongside existing investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and Kiosk Services who seed funded the business." image[25] = "0" date_2[13] = "//"; title_2[13] = "GTP wins PC World Business contract"; title2_2[13] = "Company"; article_2[13] = "G-T-P Group Ltd has been awarded the DSGi Business contract for managing Direct Debit payments for the PC World Business Remote IT Management service.

The Remote IT Management Service (RITM) is a virtual IT department that offers PC World Business customers an IT helpdesk; a secure, fast and reliable network and 24-hour network monitoring, allowing customers to focus on their core business. Opting for G-T-P's Direct Debit Facilities Management solution (DDFM™), will result in reduced internal administration and costs for DSGi Business, allowing them in turn to focus on their core business.

G-T-P will set up Direct Debit Instructions (DDI) for customers over the phone using G-T-P's existing Paperless Direct Debit licence and AUDDIS (the Automated Direct Debit Instruction Service). AUDDIS will enable G-T-P to automate the sending of DDIs resulting in fewer errors.

G-T-P will also manage any unpaid or cancelled Direct Debits on behalf of DSGi Business. DDFM™ uses ADDACS (the Automated Direct Debit Amendment and Cancellation Service), which is the quickest and most accurate method of communicating information on invalid instructions and will minimise the risk of error, number of unpaid Direct Debits and resulting indemnity claims.

'From a customer perspective the transition to DDFM™ will be seamless,' comments Helen Child, Chief Executive of G-T-P, 'We will operate behind-the-scenes as an extension of the DSGi Business team, reducing their workload and providing the highest level of service to their RITM customers.'" image[13] = "1"