IT specialist Blue Chip is celebrating its eighth year as Technical Partner and sponsor of the Voltcom Crescent Suzuki World Superbike (WSB) team, topped off by Eugene Laverty's win in the opening race of the World Superbike 2014 Championship at Australia's Phillip Island.

Blue Chip MD Richard Cook said: "We have worked with the team over the years across MotoGP, British Superbike and World Superbike as well as providing IT infrastructure and support to the Crescent Suzuki retail business. 2014 is set to be a very positive year with riders Eugene Laverty and Alex Lowes on board, already with a win in the first race of the season by Eugene."

As Technical Partner, Blue Chip hosts the team's technical infrastructure on its cloud platform and provides 24/7 international support and communication links, as the team travels to 14 different circuits throughout the World Superbike season.

Voltcom Crescent Suzuki Team Manager, Paul Denning, said: "Eugene's win has shown what we are capable of this year and with Blue Chip as very much a part of the team, playing a pivotal role in our communications and IT over the last eight years, we share this success with them too."

The next race takes place in Aragon on Sunday 13th April 2014.

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SMEs and sole traders operating in 22 UK cities could between them account for claims worth up to £100m under the government's new Superconnected Cities scheme.

The initiative, which is backed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, offers business owners a £3,000 voucher towards the cost of leased line and superfast broadband installation.

But according to Paul Barnett, Director at ICUK, the scheme doesn't go anywhere near far enough.

"The UK's connectivity infrastructure needs a bigger boost," he stated. "Speeds are still slow in the countryside while high business demands still need to be met in cities.

"As a registered supplier, we are pleased to see an initiative which could get more businesses thinking about leased lines, but there's a gap to be filled in the superfast market and this doesn't come close."

Barnett claims that even with upfront costs covered by this voucher many businesses will feel the pinch when it comes to paying around £400 a month for the ongoing contract.

"Of the businesses we've spoken to, this scheme is not feasible and will not represent a good return on investment," he commented. They would be far better off with a FTTP solution, offering plenty of speed and reliability, albeit without a service level agreement.

"Rolling out more fibre solutions that will benefit every business is undoubtedly a better solution than what amounts to a short-term cost reduction for a long-term expense."

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The Jabra BIZ 2300 headset has been awarded the Red Dot Award 2014, an international award within the world of design.

Museum Director and Professor, Anne-Louise Sommer of Designmuseum Denmark, said: "Getting an industry design award like the Red Dot is a cause for celebration for any designer or design department. The pieces awarded usually show a balanced coherence between aesthetics, form and function and can often be seen as either highlighting an industry trend or, in more mature markets, making a design benchmark for the industry."

The BIZ 2300 headset has been created with the large-scale customer support centres in mind and marks a change in the way Jabra headsets are developed and designed.

"With the BIZ 2300 we challenged ourselves to reinvent the corded headset. This has resulted in a headset which, in terms of functionality and aesthetics, satisfies the requests and demands of the end-user and the industry alike. We are very excited that our efforts have been recognised by Red Dot," said Holger Reisinger, Jabra Vice President of Marketing, Products and Alliances.

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IT directors and CIOs are playing a greater role in the strategic direction of UK businesses according to a report by Vodafone UK.

While the traditional image of IT departments was one of a cost sink-hole, living a separate existence to the rest of the company, they are now more important than ever to the strategic direction of UK businesses.

That's according to 'The New IT Crowd', part of Vodafone's Perspective series, which aims to provide insights into the UK workplace. The report explores the ever increasing importance of senior IT professionals in today's workplace.

The research, which surveyed 300 IT directors and 300 non-IT business leaders, found that IT is now recognised as a strategic priority (86%) at board level, with the IT team now expected to think about the 'bigger picture' (88%). This comes at a time when the IT department is also expected to manage an increasingly complex technology and communications estate, becoming a key driver in business performance.

The rapid pace of technological change is one of the main reasons for the shift in fortunes of the IT department. IT is now seen as a key part of organisational innovation and transformation, rather than just being viewed as a tool for reducing costs and remaining competitive. Nearly nine out of 10 respondents stated that IT is now an important enabler of change and three quarters said that it has changed the nature of the competition they face.

Jonathan Kini, Enterprise Commercial Marketing Director, Vodafone UK, commented: "Far from being the problem child of old, IT departments are now absolutely critical to the growth and strategic direction of businesses in the UK."

However, despite their newfound importance, many IT Directors and CIOs are failing to live up to these expectations in the eyes of the rest of the business. Over one third of non-IT directors think that their IT counterparts need to hone their communication skills (39%) and communicate effectively with other functions (35%).

Some heads of IT are also struggling to keep pace with this rapid change of responsibility, with two-thirds worrying about remaining up to date with their knowledge of technology (63%). With a new generation of digital natives bringing their own devices into the workplace (BYOD), security remains a live issue for many, with 59% reporting that they are worried about increased and more complicated security risks.

"The research points to a new generation of IT professionals who are a powerful, multi-faceted breed, thinking ahead, thinking bigger. For some, this will be second nature, for others it will take some time to get there," says Jonathan Kini. "Collaborating across functions and with other organisations - whether it is suppliers or customers - sharing knowledge and keeping on top of both business and IT developments will help develop this new mindset."

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Top performing Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise premium partners spurred the vendor to grow its UK&I data business by 27% in 2013.

All premium partners in the region contributed to growth last year, and most notably Freedom Communications collected the Europe Achiever Award for growth in data as well as an Excellence Award.

The vendor also orchestrated double digit growth in managed LAN across EMEA in 2013, as well as showing significant growth in the wireless LAN market where the company claims to have grown over three times the market rate in EMEA.

Product developments in Unified Access and the Enterprise OpenTouch solution also proved to be significant drivers for growth, supported by the company's channel strategy.

Key customer wins in 2013 were bagged across all market sectors including hospitality, healthcare and the public sector with big data orders including St. Anne's College Oxford, the National Physical Laboratory and the NHS North Bristol Trust.

Peter Tebbutt, Country Sales Director, UK&I, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, said:?"All of our UK&I partners that focus on data with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise have grown over the last 12 months.

"We have seen a significant increase in uptake of our data switching technologies in particular which has equally helped to grow our business. We will continue to focus on data as an area for growth in 2014."

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US-based data governance specialist STEALTHbits has appointed Mark Pilgrim to drive its sales and operations across Europe and the UK as new Vice President of Sales and Operations for EMEA market.

He joins from NComputing where he served as VP EMEA and prior to this he had worked at Quest Software as a Regional Director for the UK and Ireland.

Pilgrim has been hired to support sales of STEALTHbits' data access governance solutions for unstructured data and Microsoft Infrastructure management solutions to large enterprises across Europe and North America, the company says.

"We view Mark's appointment as a sign of our commitment to serving the UK and EMEA markets the right way," said Ed Hand, Vice President of Worldwide Sales for STEALTHbits.

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The full potential of the ISDN replacement market (ISDNoIP) can only be unlocked if certain preconditions are met, according to Stripe 21 MD Steve North.

ISDNoIP leverages new technology to drive down costs by up to 40%, but only if it is delivered with the same guarantees as the established 20CN ISDN technology it replaces, noted North.

Anything less than 20CN ISDN levels of reliability will only lead to failure, he believes.

"Reliability is crucial to sustainable, recurring revenue," he stated.

"When selecting a ISDNoIP supplier it is crucial that they offer a SLA which exceeds 99.99% availability. Similarly, the ISDNoIP service must be fully managed end-to-end as standard."

North also believes that Ofcom's uplift of 74% in CPS charges plays into the hands of resellers wanting to side-step the margin squeeze and potential CPS price war associated with the watchdog's attempt to encourage resellers to adopt a SIP and hosted strategy, which also raises security and reliability issues if the system relies on the Internet to carry part of a call.

"However, leveraging a ISDNoIP service bypasses CPS and offers guaranteed quality of service," added North. 

He argues that the upsides of such an approach are undeniable, citing the benefits of no change to existing telephone numbers or customer CPE, and therefore no additional costs to the customer. 

"Number porting must be seamless and transparent, and one-off setup costs must have the option to be amortised over the contract term," added North.

"There is also no risk of losing the customer as a result of migrating to the new service. ISDNoIP should cost no more than £8.00 per month per channel and be cost-effective from six channels upwards, either ISDN2e or ISDN30e. This vastly increases the reseller margins on both rentals and call charges, but requires zero effort from the customer."

To motivate the market for ISDNoIP Stripe 21 is offering a free ISDN30e installation to all new and existing resellers on orders placed before 30th June 2014.

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Annodata has secured two more northern footholds following the opening of regional offices in Leeds and Edinburgh.

The new offices add to Annodata's Manchester sales operation, and the extension into Leeds was driven by the appointment of Northern Regional Sales Manager Max Kay along with a new sales team.

Andrew Harman, founder and MD of Annodata, said: "As a result of our current sales and projected growth, Scotland is demonstrating a strong platform for developing deeper relationships with current and prospective clients.

"We're excited to have a more permanent presence in this large and growing market."

The company also has an expanding office in Glasgow and the additional presence builds on Annodata's strong Scottish client base, coupled with strong partnerships in the 'Third Sector' and the Housing Association marketplace.

Harman added: "We are a different size and shape organisation to the one that was present five years ago. We've grown notably in the last three years and need the space and infrastructure that can accommodate our exceptional expansion."

Annodata was established in 1988 and has 12 regional offices,6,400 client partnerships serviced by a team of over 400 sales, service and support specialists.

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UK Prime Minister David Cameron has posted a special YouTube endorsement for The Twin Town Challenge, the Top Gear style Anglo-French charity driving extravaganza linking Witney and Le Touquet organised by STL Communications boss Brendon Cross.
?See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6txFOSqZxE

The challenge, which runs from 23-26 May 2014, will raise funds for Oxfordshire charity SpecialEffect, which helps people with disabilities benefit from the fun and inclusion of video games. A number of teams from the comms industry have entered and Cross is hoping more will take part.

"This type of event is a perfect team-builder and networking opportunity," he said.

The teams will provide and drive their own car, costing no more than £500, from Witney in Oxfordshire to Le Touquet in France. They'll take on the iconic race circuits of Brands Hatch, Le Mans and Croix En Ternois en route, and enjoy a VIP send-off from Cornbury Park in Charlbury, a civic reception in Le Touquet and an unforgettable finish line celebration event in Witney.

To enter a car visit http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/twin-town-challenge-2014

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Sales of SpliceCom's soft PBX family have double over the past three months according to Business Development Manager for the UK and Ireland Stuart Bell.

Enhanced by the introduction of the S716 Soft PBX for smaller businesses in late 2013, SpliceCom's range of IP Telephony platforms, for native and virtual computing environments, now scales from a five user starter bundle to 1,000-plus extensions.

"Several factors have conspired to make this the year of the soft PBX," said Bell.

"Many end users now view voice as an IT application that needs to fit into their computer environment, whatever form that might take, alongside the rest of their apps.

"This is particularly true of those who view Unified Communications as integral to their overall IT strategy.

"These organisations are demanding soft PBXs from their suppliers. They won't even consider hardware based IP PBXs. We're seeing a near 50:50 split between native Linux and virtualised environments, mainly VMware and Windows Hyper-V, when it comes to our soft PBX installs meeting this type of requirement."

Bell also noted that finding potential partners who are more comfortable addressing this type of need are 'beating a path' to SpliceCom's door.

"We're now getting far more approaches from those with a background in computer networking, operating systems, apps and virualisation," he added.

"They talk the same language as CTOs and IT Directors, so our Soft PBX strategy fits in with what they're already doing.

"Finally, there's the Soft PBXs role in the other big growth market - hybrid systems. Add all of these points together and its easy to see just why the recent growth in our soft PBX sales has been so spectacular."

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