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High-tech
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Development charity enhances international collaboration and volunteer placement across 42 countries with video conferencing-as-a-service
London, UK – 8th March 2010 –mvision today announced that international development charity, VSO is using its managed video conferencing service to improve collaboration between international teams. New TANDBERG-based systems in Kenya, the Netherlands, Philippines and UK not only allow VSO to better co-ordinate the recruitment and placement of volunteers in some of the world’s poorest communities, but provide a superior platform for training and human resources.
Uzma Kazmi, Systems Manager at VSO explained, “Having face-to-face communication is proving increasingly important. There was an example recently where one of our medical teams was delivering training by video and was able to interpret facial expressions to know that one of the country teams had not fully understood it,” she continued. “Without that visual detail, they would not have immediately addressed the issue and overcome the language and cultural challenge.”
Terry Dwyer, Managing Director at mvision added, “VSO has over 1600 international volunteers working in 42 countries around the world, so effective team collaboration and communication are vital. User feedback to date is that the new systems which run on the dedicated mvision network are quicker and easier to use than their audio and web conferencing systems that quite often involved a connection delay of 10-15 minutes per meeting.”
Kazmi concluded, “Now we can do more frequent but shorter meetings that get us to our desired outcomes much quicker. The motivational gains we are experiencing with video conferencing have completely changed the way that we engage with each other that simply is not possible by phone. It will help to unify us as an organisation, but made us feel truly international and one global VSO at the same time.”
VSO selected a managed video conferencing service from mvision to avoid an increase in specialist IT headcount or resource to install and maintain the system. It was also well equipped to interface with the different end-points at VSO including TANDBERG, Polycom and Aethra. The specialists at mvision were quickly able to set up the whole system; configuring the bridge, integrating it with VSO’s network and data switch port speeds. |
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High-tech
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London – 8 March 2010 – Major industry leaders in the European data centre sector will meet at the sixth annual conference taking place April 22-23 at Sophia Antipolis near Nice, France. The high level content and debate will set the agenda on exploiting Green technologies over the coming year (www.datacentres.com/dce).
A high calibre line up of top speakers and experts includes data centre gurus, Christian Belady, Director of Hardware Architecture – Partner Extreme Computing Group, Microsoft Research, Michael Manos, Vice President, Service Operations, Nokia, Roy Zeighami, UCS Power and Cooling TME, Cisco and Laurent Vernerey, President & CEO IT Business, Schneider Electric; Europe’s data centre leaders, Anthony Foy, Managing Director, Interxion, Michael Tobin, CEO, TelecityGroup, Eric Schwartz, President, Equinix Europe, and Bernard Geoghegan, Senior Vice President of International Operations, Digital Realty Trust and Guy Willner, Chairman, Data Gardens Russia.
Special presentations will be made by Paul-François Cattier, Vice President France, Benelux & French speaking Africa, APC by Schneider Electric, on the results of a new study by the Data Centre Group in France, and Marion Howard Healy, Associate Consultant, BroadGroup on a new study of Private Cloud.
In addition the expert speaker academy includes Dr. Paolo Bertoldi, Principal Administrator, European Commission Directorate General Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Ellen Brigham, Director of Product Marketing - Juniper Networks, Candi Carrera, Director Client Service Operations, eBRC, Pieter Duijves, Managing Director, Parthenon Data Centres BV, Charlie Forte, Vice President, Global Operations and Infrastructure, BP, J. Clifford Gauntlett, Managing Partner, Solent Media Group, Peter Hannaford, Vice President, Datacenters & Alliances EMEA/LAM, APC by Schneider Electric, Andrew Harrington, Partner, AHV Associates LLP, Andrew Jay, Senior Director, CB Richard Ellis, Apostolos Kakkos, CEO, Lamda Hellix Data Centers, Andreas König, Senior Vice President and General Manager EMEA, NetApp Deutschland GmbH, Chad Lamb PhD, Director of Engineering, XKL, Bernard Lecanu, President, BLIC Consultants, Catalina McGregor, United Nations Agency ITU-T Liaison Officer to OECD and EC/EU, Rocco Panetta, Partner Panetta & Associati, Rome and Member of the Italian Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Commission, Alex Rabbetts, Managing Director, Migration Solutions, and Steve Wallage, Managing Director, BroadGroup Consulting.
The 2-day international meeting includes the content-led conference, annual prestigious Awards dinner which this year includes the European Green Initiative Awards which has been endorsed and will be presented by the Green Grid, an industry exhibition, and special workshops.
Sponsors and Partners include APC by Schneider Electric, Interxion, TelecityGroup, XKL, H2O Networks, Euclyde, Digital Realty Trust, eBRC, Migration Solutions, BL International Consultants, Equinix, Cadwin FM, Lamda Hellix Data Centers, ARUP, Scottish Development International, APL, Surf Telecoms, Stulz, Conteg, Microsoft, CBRE, Noodlesoft Technologies, The Colocation Exchange, Gimélec, Data Centres News Search, IX Consulting, IT One, Econference and Global Security Magazine.
(Savings of more than £200 are on offer for bookings for 6th Data Centre Europe 2010 on or before 12 March. http://www.datacentres.com/dce/register/)
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High-tech
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Woking, Surrey: 8th March, 2010 - Against strong competition, market-making, value-added distributor Wick Hill has won Channel Partner of the Year for the fourth year running at the Network Computing awards. The company was also a finalist in the Company of the Year category.
Wick Hill vendors, too, were winners with WatchGuard taking Hardware Product of the Year for its SSL 100 appliance and CRYPTOCard becoming Managed Service Provider of the Year.
Other Wick Hill suppliers, including Check Point, Barracuda Networks, LogLogic, M86 Security and Upsite Technologies, were finalists in a number of categories.
Ian Kilpatrick, chairman Wick Hill Group, commented: “There was intense competition for both the Channel Partner of the Year award and the Company of the Year award, so we are proud and delighted that our channel partners have voted for us and we would like to thank them for their support.
“The Channel Partner of the Year award recognises the great efforts we have made as a team to help our partners grow during what has been a very difficult recession, offering them a variety of services such as marketing programmes, flexible credit, technical and sales consultancy support, an innovative lead management system and free training.
“It is also, of course, a reflection of the considerable success that many of our channel partners have achieved themselves in growing their businesses, despite the serious downturn. Our own considerable sales growth reflects our partners’ achievements.
“Seen alongside the CRN and Microscope Security Distributor of the Year awards won recently, and the awards we have won from our vendors this year, the Network Computing award shows we are succeeding in our goal of delivering excellence to both our vendor and reseller partners. We remain totally committed to providing the solutions, services and support that our resellers want.
“The multiple finalist nominations for our focussed portfolio of suppliers, alongside the victories of WatchGuard and CRYPTOCard, also reflect the outstanding quality of our vendors, who are continuing to grow at well above industry-average rates.”
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High-tech
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IT Distributor Teams Up With Charity to Bring Customers a More Cost Effective, Rewarding and Unique Incentive
British owned IT Distributor Westcoast Limited have partnered with Microsoft to bring customers a unique World Cup incentive campaign that will be supporting local African charity Kick4Life.
Westcoast and Microsoft have used their marketing funds to make a donation to African Children’s charity, Kick4Life in exchange for a World Cup 2010 package and a unique experience where winning customers will be able to engage with the deprived children of Lesotho and see the charity in action.
Westcoast Marketing Director, Alex Tatham said ‘Kick4Life are providing us with a package greater than those on offer from the events specialists and all the profits are going back to the charity to support their excellent work. The Passion campaign is a great vehicle to communicate our core company values”.
This World Cup 2010 customer incentive is one element of the Westcoast and Microsoft Passion Campaign (www.westcoast.co.uk/passion) that encourages customer behaviour as well as incremental sales for Westcoast and Microsoft.
Westcoast will be taking 10 winning customers to South Africa for a 6 day trip that includes:
A Sightseeing tour of Johannesburg A World Cup group game at Soccer City in Johannesburg. A 5* luxury safari tour at Springbok Lodge Finished with a Westcoast sponsored event through Kick 4 Life, educating the children of one of the World's heaviest affected HIV countries on how to avoid HIV infection. The event finishes with critical life skills education in a football environment.
Microsoft Account Manager, Guy Harvey said “It is great to see Microsoft and Westcoast marketing funding spent in such a way. We are still offering our reseller partners an unforgettable experience. Football, Safari, History and the chance to see and make a difference to children that have suffered terrible loss through HIV. The opportunity to provide a World Cup trip with a significant donation to such a worthy charity was unmissable and already our customer reaction to this offer has been unprecedented”.
Westcoast’s marketing team are heavily promoting the Westcoast and Microsoft Passion Campaign to gain maximum coverage for Kick4Life. Other vehicles of the campaign include the creation of an AllAboutPassion twitter page, print and digital advertising and an all encompassing micro site. The incentive will run till the end of April and a live draw will be streamed on the internet on the 3rd of May 2010.
Westcoast customers can join the campaign and show their support at www.Westcoast.co.uk/passion
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