FreeAgent secures place in GetApp hitlist of cloud apps

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 16:00:27 GMT

FreeAgent has been listed among the UK's top business apps by a leading industry reviewer.

Comparison website GetApp, which reviews and compares thousands of the world's best cloud apps for small businesses, has included FreeAgent in the top five in its June list of the UK's business apps.

In addition, the cloud accounting software provider was also listed in 19th place on GetApp's worldwide June recommendations, making it one of the coveted top 25 apps that the website suggests small businesses should consider. It scored an impressive 9/10 rating from user reviews on the site.

Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of FreeAgent, said: "GetApp is a trusted name for reviewing and comparing the best apps for small businesses, so we're delighted have been named as one of their top apps for June. The fact that we appear on their worldwide list, as well as their UK top 5, is great news and a real testament to how FreeAgent is helping to make it easier and more intuitive for small businesses and freelancers to manage their finances.

"We're also very happy to have achieved such a high score on their site from user reviews. I'm sure we will see even higher ratings following on from our recent redesign, which had been very warmly welcomed by our users."

- ENDS -

About FreeAgent:
Edinburgh-based independent FreeAgent has pioneered online accounting since the launch of its service in 2007. It has rapidly grown a loyal community of freelancers and small businesses, who pay either monthly or annually for access to its software offering many easy to use features.

In a survey, 99.5% of FreeAgent users said they would recommend the software to others, and the service won the prize for Best Newcomer at the 2009 SIFT Media Software Satisfaction Awards. In 2010 it won the SIFT SME Accounting and Finance Software Satisfaction Award, beating all of its desktop and web-based competitors to take the title. The company also offers a free accountancy software trial to those who may be interested in the company's products. More information can be found at www.freeagent.com.

Text to Speech expert CereProc collaborates to give the Austrian Postal Service a voice

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:19:58 GMT

Global leader in text to speech technology, CereProc, has created the world’s first Austrian language text to speech (TTS) voice together with Telecommunications Research Centre Vienna (FTW), partnering with Voice Business to deliver an advanced track and trace system for the Austrian Mail Service.

Working with FTW for two years as part of the Viennese Sociolect and Dialect Synthesis (VSDS) project, CereProc created the Austrian text to speech voice - named Leopold - from voice recordings and clippings, before being deployed and subsequently integrated - in partnership with Voice Business - for use across the country.

Marking a successful partnership and effective project delivery, Dr. Matthew Aylett, CTO of CereProc explained:

“We’re very proud of the Leopold voice, and the way in which it is being used in such an innovative and purposeful employment to such fantastic reception. With all partners involved in the project offering their respective expertise and resources efficiently and with enthusiasm, it has been a real pleasure to work alongside each team to deliver the final track and trace system on time, and on budget.”

Being one of the first of its kind and handling more than 30,000 calls each month, CereProc’s Leopold voice technology - delivered by Voice Business, under prime contractors Telekom Austria and Siemens - is being used to effectively ‘answer’ telephone calls from customers seeking to track and trace their parcels throughout the Austrian postal network.

“As is the case among all strong cultural groups, people clearly enjoy the engaging nature of experiencing natural and characterful native voices in automated communication systems. We’re looking forward to exploring further sectors across the Austrian market, while examining further potential text to speech voice creation projects across the globe. It gives us great satisfaction to provide the less spoken languages - but no less important - of the world with a cost effective and natural TTS voice!” Aylett continued.

A highly effective IVR deployment of CereProc’s multichannel TTS cServer and MRCP Connector to service the over 8 million strong population, the innovative system processes identification numbers to compose a summary of all status messages which is then delivered to the caller as a dynamic summary using the natural sounding Austrian voice, Leopold.

Commenting on the creation of the voice, Michael Pucher, Senior Researcher at the Telecommunications Research Centre Vienna, Austria, said:

“When we decided to commercialize our research results we were happy to have CereProc as an industrial partner with its competence in voice building and software development. Together we built the first high-quality Austrian German synthetic voice, which is now successfully used for reading websites, in spoken dialog systems, and for screen readers. “

CereProc’s collaboration with FTW and Voice Business has strengthened the text to speech expert’s position at the forefront of global TTS technology industry as a full service key partner for voice creation, deployment and integration of innovative and viable speech synthesis solutions for commercial purposes.

Notes to Editors

As the UK's only text-to-speech (TTS) solutions company, CereProc produces speech synthesis systems that offer voices with character and personality. Having developed the world's most advanced TTS technology, with consistent international commercial and academic success, the Edinburgh-based company is a recognised leader in all aspects of speech technology.

Founded in 2005 by a leading team of speech experts, CereProc works with a raft of companies and academic institutions to develop innovative TTS systems, designed to provide an engaging user experience, delivering realistic, emotional, custom built voices in multiple languages.

Available on platforms from mobile and embedded devices to desktops and servers, CereProc's core synthesis engine, CereVoice, remains at the forefront of TTS technology. Recently granted a patent for Emotional Speech Synthesis, the global TTS experts are relentlessly committed to innovation in research and development, continually pushing market boundaries to expand their product range and service areas.

CereProc offers its customers, from consumers and high profile individuals to world renowned institutions and brands, a wide range of solutions including multichannel TTS software for servers, application development tools, and custom built branded voices, alongside voice bundles for resale and individual voices for direct download.

Micro Focus reports UK Businesses Risk £36.7 Billion Due to Website Failures

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:21:02 GMT

Micro Focus has revealed new research which shows businesses in the UK risk losing up to £36.7 billion in revenue per year if their websites fail during peak periods.

This is according to a new report by the UK tech firm Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, software testing and requirements management solutions, and the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), which found that nearly £100 million of British e-commerce revenue is already lost due to website failures and outages every year.

The report shows that the UK's e-commerce industry is worth £320 billion per year and growing at an unprecedented rate of 20 per cent year-on-year. The market is likely to grow even faster in the next ten years, as the proliferation of smart phone usage fuels more online transactions, meaning they stand to lose significant revenue and market share to rival firms if their websites fail.

David Valentine, general manager at Micro Focus, commented: "As a result of website failures, almost £100 million of e-commerce revenue is already lost every year. If businesses don’t ensure their e-commerce applications can handle the extra loads experienced during peak times, such as July and the run-up to Christmas, the cost could reach £36.7billion.

"Businesses must not only protect against this potential loss of revenue in the short term, but also protect their brand and reputation in the longer term by ensuring a better customer experience," continued David Valentine. "Making sure that websites and the applications that run on them are tested for the highest volume of anticipated users has traditionally been expensive and difficult to manage but new, scalable cloud-based testing services make this much more cost-effective."

Ensuring that e-commerce sites can withstand peak loads is a challenge because traffic can vary from 5,000 transactions per hour at normal times to 50,000 during a promotion or peak period. Traditional approaches to load testing required a large investment in infrastructure to replicate the peak volumes, but Micro Focus’ cloud-based model removes the need for this overhead. Instead of investing in hardware that is not used for a large portion of the time, businesses can use Micro Focus SilkPerformer CloudBurst on demand to test for peak user volumes only when they need to. In addition, CloudBurst lets website and software quality teams rapidly launch any size peak-load performance test, from any location in the world, without the burden of managing complex infrastructures, and offers diagnostic tools that locate the root causes of performance issues and fast-track their correction. When integrated with the SilkPerformer family it even lets IT teams test enterprise applications that have mixed internet and internal-facing aspects.

The Statistics:
-£320 billion per year: the size of the e-commerce market
-£28 billion per year: the size of internet retail sales
-One quarter: the proportion of large UK enterprises that gain revenues through online channels
-One fifth: the proportion of small and medium UK businesses that gain revenues through online channels
-£94.1million per year: the amount of e-commerce revenue lost to the UK economy as a result of website failures
-£1.0 billion: the amount of online revenue that will be lost due to website failures by 2020 if the status quo remains
-£36.7 billion: the revenue that stands to be lost each year if website failures occurred during peak periods - July and the run up to Christmas (September to December)
-Testing-as-a-service is estimated to grow by over 33% each year between now and 2013, meaning that the market for cloud-based testing tools will reach over $700 million by 2013

About Micro Focus:
Micro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus enterprise application modernisation, testing and requirements management software enables customers' business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk.

SCC software business expands as integrator becomes UK's leading reseller of IBM, Symantec and Oracle products

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:51:34 GMT

SCC has unveiled a record set of results for the group's expanding software business, reporting year-on-year sales growth well in excess of 100% as the technology integrator emerges as the UK's leading reseller of IBM, Symantec and Oracle products.

Following a year of rapid development, Europe's largest independent technology solutions provider has grown to become IBM's biggest UK reseller with a market share of more than 50% year to date, the culmination of a 30-year relationship that this week saw the company honoured at the computing giant's Partnership Awards. Also lining up as the country's leading Oracle Business Partner on the back of exponential growth that has seen orders this year outstrip total sales for the preceding three years, SCC has simultaneously established itself as Symantec's largest UK reseller in their FY2011.

"Strengthening our software business has been a key plank of the group's growth strategy for some time now, and we're delighted to be talking about a level of performance that has seen us become the single most important UK reseller for not one but three of the world's most trusted brands. That success has been based on an assured approach that offers our customers confidence and security, together with a long-term vision designed to deliver value throughout the chain from publisher to independent vendor," said Peter Spreadbury, Director of Enterprise Partners.

"The overriding message for the market here is that although customers may not be spending big they are spending smart and any business that can help them work faster and better with reduced costs will prosper in the current environment."

SCC, which plans to publish learnings derived from the experience of its IBM, Oracle and Symantec partnerships over the course of the summer, cites multiple factors contributing to the strong performance of its software business. The company has invested heavily in attaining gold-standard technical accreditations covering virtually every area of its operations and has attained a new level of credibility reflecting its growing experience in the sector.

Such activities reflect a track record of working closely with its software partners over an extended period. Last week saw IBM celebrate its 100th anniversary, and at a ceremony celebrating the centenary recognised SCC as one of it's best and longest established UK partners after three decades working together.

Peter Spreadbury added: "Whereas once SCC may once have been seen as the new kid on the software business block today we're very firmly playing in the premier league, racking up a series of major wins with household names across the commercial and public sectors. Much of this is due to the investment we've made in training, certifications and accreditations but everything we do is ultimately and simply a reflection of the results we deliver for our customers."

SCC is Europe’s largest independent technology solutions provider around the infrastructure, and is part of Specialist Computer Holdings (SCH) plc. The Group has regional operations in seven different countries, employs over 7,000 professional staff and has delivered sustained, profitable growth for some 35 years, with annual turnover exceeding £2.5 billion.
Long term partnerships with the world’s leading solutions providers combine with SCC’s services capabilities to create a rapid return on an investment in IT. It has an enviable track record of successfully helping European-based companies and Government organisations better manage their technology infrastructure, remove cost and create business advantage.

SDG unveils purpose built Solutions Centre

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:09:34 GMT

Specialist European Distributor SDG has unveiled a purpose built Business Solution Centre designed specifically for resellers to demonstrate, educate and architect the very latest infrastructure solutions from leading technology vendors.

Built to cope with today's typically varied computing environments, the seven-figure Solutions Centre provides resellers with the opportunity to design infrastructure solutions containing multiple technologies , enabling them to meet their customers’ technical and commercial requirements. The centre enables customers to benchmark real world performance in the safety of a simulated environment in readiness for solution deployment.

"Virtually every company in Britain operates over an IT infrastructure that uses a rich variety of technologies, and with over 80% of UK businesses having more than one vendor on their network, implementing changes or switching to new platforms can be an enterprise fraught with difficulties. We developed the Centre specifically to address that issue and allow resellers to access a wide range of services to enhance their capability and solutions portfolio.” said Dan Cartter, SDG Head of Services.

The Solution Centre's launch underlines SDG's determination to reinforce its leading position in the UK distribution channel. In July 2009 the group acquired IQ-Sys Limited - the distribution market leader with Citrix in the UK - to create a combined entity accounting for over 60% of UK sales, less than a year after the £2million 2008 purchase of ISI, Britain’s largest distributor of IBM and Lenovo products.

"Very few players out there can match our expertise across the whole range of business solutions, which is why we've created a custom built centre that provides access to technologies that have been traditionally beyond the reach of many resellers; so we're delighted to be in a position where we can offer partners the facility to optimise infrastructure solutions before deploying them into a customers environment." added Cartter.

ENDS

For further information please contact:

Dan Cartter (SDG Head of Services): 0845 155 7766 / daniel.cartter@sdgroup.eu.com

Judy Groves (Marketing Director): 0121 766 2594

Iain S Bruce (Media Contact): 0845 130 8992

Global Graphics reveals organizations deploying enterprise-wide free software in 2010

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:21:13 GMT

Global Graphics latest research has revealed that around half of large organizations (51 per cent) will deploy more enterprise-wide free software in 2010. The trend is partly driven by the pressure on enterprise IT budgets; with two thirds of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) saying their budget is the same - or less - than in 2009.

The full report is available at the Global Graphics website.

Commissioned by Global Graphics, a developer of edocument and printing software, the research also shows that three quarters (76 per cent) of large organizations already use free software across the enterprise. Indeed, over half (54 per cent) of large organizations use more than 10 different free software products. The findings are based on interviews with 400 CIOs from organizations with over 1000 employees across the US (300 CIOs) and the UK (100 CIOs).

The most deployed piece of free software is Adobe Reader PDF software which is used by 78 per cent of organizations (at an enterprise or departmental level), with Java Runtime Environment and Adobe Flash Player completing the top three. QuickTime, OpenOffice, Google Docs, Skype and Microsoft Save as PDF also make the top 10 most used free software applications.

The main driver for using free software, cited by 47 per cent of CIOs, is to complement existing desktop applications to extend functionality to users that could not be provided using paid-for software. The replacement of Adobe Acrobat was cited by 38 per cent of CIOs, while 24 per cent are looking to free software to replace Microsoft Office.

"Free software is a critical part of large organizations' IT strategies," said Gary Fry, Chief Executive Officer, Global Graphics. "Large organizations are perfectly prepared to use free software where possible, and upgrade to a full paid-for version of the product where it makes sense for them."

Global Graphics - which develops software for Agfa, Quark, Fuji Xerox, Kodak, HP - is fighting for a place on the corporate desktop alongside Adobe, Google and Microsoft by providing enterprise-level productivity applications.

"That's why we created a free multi-format document viewer and creation product - gDoc Creator - as part of our freemium strategy," added Fry. "It provides a free alternative to a lot of what is offered by Adobe Acrobat, a paid-for application that 38 per cent of CIOs are looking to replace. That creates a real opportunity for us."

Free software is used throughout organizations but is most prevalent at the desktop (82 per cent) and application level (78 per cent), although 35 per cent of large organizations are also deploying free software within the data centre.

Global Graphics recently launched the most comprehensive enterprise-level free PDF creation and viewing software; gDoc Creator. The easy to use free PDF creator which allows users to convert from many file formats, including Word to PDF and XPS, is available for download by individual office workers and consumers, and can be obtained under a corporate licensing plan for the enterprise.

About Global Graphics
Global Graphics is a leading developer of e-document and printing software. Its customers include Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), system integrators, software developers and resellers and number the world's leading brands of digital pre-press systems, digital presses, multi-function copiers and printers for the office market, as well as a wide variety of market leading software applications.

iSLI researcher wins Student Engineer of the Year 2009 for third year running

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:38:17 GMT

An iSLI student has achieved outstanding success in the European Electronics Industry Awards, winning the prestigous Student Engineer of the Year prize at a ceremony in London this week.

The award - which celebrates exceptional students in electronics and software - went to Simon Brown, who judges praised for an exceptional research project that demonstrated a combination of both technical knowledge and practical application of skill. Brown's win, which carried the day in a hotly contested category, marks the third year in a row that an iSLI student has won the coveted title.

"I am delighted and honoured to have been presented with this award. Full credit must go to my tutors at iSLI however. The guidance they have given me over the course of my time at the Institute has been invaluable, and in all honesty I don't think I would have enjoyed this level of success without their help and advice," said Brown.

Brown's achievement continues the successful legacy established by previous iSLI EngD students - Carol Marsh and Nazish Aslam - who walked away with the Award in 2008 and 2007. Currently on placement at Teledyne Defence in Shipley, Simon has been working on a radar threat warning receiver seen as a ground-breaking product due to being smaller, lighter and less power hungry than any other system on the market.

iSLI's latest success has been amplified by the winning of the 1851 fellowship, won this year by another EngD student, demonstrating the calibre of research projects iSLI coninues to support and their relevance to industry. Providing the critical link between the academic and commercial engineering worlds, iSLI prides itself on producing highly skilled design engineers and researchers through postgraduate education and research.

"We are extremely pleased for Simon, who has displayed great skill and expertise throughout his time with us. This recognition is well-deserved for such an outstanding mind, while the fact that his success completes a hat trick of Student Engineer of the Year wins for iSLI students serves to underline what a talented group of young engineers we have here," said Siân Williams, EngD Centre Manager at the Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI).