The Open IPTV Forum, the pan-industry initiative that was established to take IPTV to the mass market, has published the detailed system and protocol specifications – Release 1 IPTV Solution Specifications – which will enable the widespread deployment of IPTV services.

IPTV – digital television received through the same technologies used for computer networks, using Internet Protocol – will revolutionise the way people experience television. IPTV will provide new interactive services; in addition to the ability to interact with scheduled programmes, such as voting with their remote control, IPTV also provides Content on Demand, where users select content items they want to watch at a time of their choosing. IPTV can be integrated with communication services such as presence and text messaging, allowing users not only to see if their friends are online, but also to chat or share information about the show that they are watching on TV, or receive on-screen notifications about incoming calls or requests for video chat. IPTV will also allow the integration of mobile and fixed TV.

With the publication of Release 1, the Open IPTV Forum is delivering on its promise to open up access to the interactive and personalised services offered by IPTV. Together with the profiles that will be delivered in spring 2009, these new specifications will allow the industry to deploy IPTV networks and devices that interoperate, while at the same time offering an evolution path for the future. Such networks and devices will enable IPTV services that are easy to use as well as attractive to the end-user.

Release 1 is contained in seven volumes of specifications:
• Volume 1 – Overview
• Volume 2 - Media Formats
• Volume 3 - Content Meta Data
• Volume 4 – Protocols for Home Network, User-Network and Network-Network interfaces
• Volume 5 – Declarative Application Environment
• Volume 6 – Procedural Application Environment
• Volume 7 – Authentication, Content Protection and Service Protection

These are accompanied by an updated version of the Functional Architecture specification for Release 1. The documents can all be downloaded from the Forum’s website at:
http://www.openiptvforum.org/downloads.html

The Forum will now begin work immediately on Release 2, which is scheduled for completion by the end of 2009, and will address the issues of interoperability testing and profiling. The Service and Platform Requirements for Release 2, which will guide the Forum’s work for the coming year, are also available at http://www.openiptvforum.org/downloads.html

A revised version of the Forum’s White Paper, which describes the world of IPTV in general and the vision of the Open IPTV Forum, now includes a section explaining the new specifications.

Yun Chao Hu, Chair of the Open IPTV Forum, commented:
“I am confident that IPTV Release 1 will contribute to the global growth of IPTV deployment in the near-term. And I am very pleased to be able to say that the OIPF is already working on its next release of specifications – the direction for this work has been set by the publication of the Service and Platform Requirements for Release 2. It is exciting to see the new enabling features to be included in this Release, which will further increase the end-user value of IPTV solutions."

Diversified technology company, 3M, has announced that it has started a six month pilot with Bridgeall Libraries at the University of Sunderland. The pilot will investigate the combined power of Smartsm software and 3M Digital Library Assistants (DLAs).

As a component of the 3M RFID System, the ergonomically designed, cordless, hand-held DLA instantly reads 3M RFID Tags on library materials, turning activities such as shelf-reading, shelving, sorting and exception-finding into routine tasks.

Smartsm was created to help improve the performance of stock, allowing libraries to meet the standards demanded by today's high-quality service culture. The software provides comprehensive analysis, proactive advice, and effective performance monitoring of current stock and proposed purchasing. It help identify stock to be removed from a collection and provides suggestions on intelligent rotation of both fiction and non-fiction collections based on demand. As the DLA can hold information on more than one million items, downloading action plans generated within Smartsm is quick and simple.

Paul Woolvine, 3M UK & Ireland Sales & Marketing Manager for Library Systems, said: “With the advent of the Smartsm application it is now even easier than ever for library staff to run routine stock management tasks and export these onto handheld devices. At the click of a button it is now possible for any library to take advantage of all the benefits that RFID stock management brings.”

Reinforcing the collaboration, 3M was pleased to jointly exhibit with Smartsm at the Westminster, QE2 event – RFID in Libraries. For the first time in public, the stock management solution of Smartsm and the 3M DLA were demonstrated alongside the latest 3M RFID Selfcheck Systems, with integrated ‘Fines and Fees Cash Payments’.

Ian Downie, Commercial Manager at Bridgeall Libraries said, “This was the first public viewing of the stock management solution working with 3M’s Digital Library Assistants (DLAs). The power of Smartsm when combined with the DLA is phenomenal. There was a great deal of interest in the solution and the event was a real success for us. Smartsm is clearly a unique and powerful application in the field of stock management and the benefits it brings when added to 3M RFID results in a truly compelling stock management solution.”

For more information about the 3M Library Systems solutions, visit www.3M.co.uk/library.

For more information about Smartsm, visit www.smartsm.com

Workers In Danger If Businesses Make Cutbacks In Health And Safety – Warning From Leading QC And British Safety Council

As the recession tightens and businesses across the UK look at ways of reducing costs in order to stay afloat, the British Safety Council (BSC) and a leading lawyer in the field of personal injury have issued a stark warning to business leaders that reducing spend on controlling risks to workplace health and safety could endanger lives and cost companies an average of £30,000 per claim along with significant reputational damage.

“There is a danger with the credit crunch that firms will cut back on health and safety planning and implementation, leading to an increase in personal injuries at work,” says Grahame Aldous QC of 9 Gough Square Chambers, “This may provide more work for lawyers, but the reputational and internal ethos damage to firms may be considerable if they let this area of their operations go.  Despite the myth of a compensation culture, personal injury claims have been reducing, but firms should not be surprised if that reverses if they let health and safety go to cut costs.”

Research conducted last year by the BSC, a leading authority on work-related health and safety, revealed that despite long established laws on health and safety, two out of three UK employees have had little or no safety training, while barely half of their bosses had arranged a safety audit or had a health and safety management system in place.  The annual bill for employers in payouts and costs for accidents and injuries at work is £7.8 billion[1] which is the equivalent of £250 a second (source: HSE).

Brian Nimick, BSC Chief Executive, said:  “Last year 229 people were killed at work. If businesses now choose to reduce their spending on health and safety training and management, there is a very real danger that employees are going to be at far greater risk of injury or ill health.

“Health and safety at work is about protecting people’s lives and well-being and helping to make sure that they go home to their loved ones and families at the end of the working day as fit and well as they were when they went to work that morning.  Businesses need to recognise the consequences of not investing the resources necessary to prevent needless deaths and harm.”

Whether a global business, a small business, a public body or a charitable or voluntary organisation BSC is urging all organisations to ensure that their staff have the right training and information to understand and appreciate the risks they face at work and are taught how to manage the risks effectively. It is essential that workers are trained and where appropriate qualified to identify and manage the risks they face in the workplace.  The legal, moral and business justification for such an approach is overwhelming.

San Jose, CA – January 8, 2009 – DeviceAnywhere, the leading provider of end-to-end solutions for the mobile development life cycle, was named the #1 tool for mobile banking development of 2008 by Mobile Banking, a widely respected blog by mobile banking guru Brandon McGee. Awarded for positive feedback based on user experience, McGee this week placed DeviceAnywhere in the company of mobile banking pioneers and industry leaders Verisign, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and CitiGroup’s Mobile Money Ventures.

Jihoon Shin, Vice President of Product Development at CitiGroup’s Mobile Money Ventures, commented: “By using DeviceAnywhere’s platform for mobile application development, we were able successfully to test in San Francisco, mobile devices used for accessing mobile banking services in the Hong Kong market. We were pleased with the quality and efficiency rendered by the product.”

DeviceAnywhere is a revolutionary online service used by thousands of mobile organizations and their developers. It provides access to real mobile handsets that are each connected to live networks. These devices are accessible remotely over the Internet, allowing users to interact in real time to ensure all development, porting, testing, and monitoring needs are met. The DeviceAnywhere service uses actual, physical handsets to provide developers with the same experiences as having the devices in hand. 

Technosummits announces attendance of “Media Guru” at Media Content World Summit
 
London, United Kingdom, 08 January 2009 – Technology events company, Technosummits, has today announced that former Creative Chief of Endemol will be interviewed live on stage by Channel 4 News presenter, Jon Snow, at the 2nd Annual Media Content World Summit taking place in February.

Peter Bazalgette, also known as the ‘Media Guru’ who previously worked for Endelmol - the creators of popular television shows such as Big Brother and Deal or No Deal – will perform a live interview titled ‘Straight Talking’ with Jon Snow at  the summit which takes place on 26 February, 2009, at the Courthouse Hotel Kempinksi, London.

The Straight Talking interview will highlight issues on commercialising digital media and how stakeholders in the industry can maximise broadband deployment to its advantage in the wake of the economic crunch and downturn.

Commenting on the issue, Bazalgette said, “The good news is that, compared to traditional media, the digital sector is still growing, albeit more slowly. This is still a time of opportunity for people with the right ideas. But radical new approaches to the likes of advertising and intellectual property are needed for the sector to prosper.”

Joseph de Villiers, managing director of Technosummits, said “I am very pleased with our speaker’s line up for the February event and the Bazalgette should prove to be an interesting one.

“The economic downturn will certainly affect everybody including broadcast and media companies, but it is imperative to provide a discussion platform in finding ways to monetise digital media and perhaps save companies from the monetisation malaise. This event will attempt to find some answers and perhaps provide a sounding board for all the participants to interact and get involved with.”

The overall focus of the 2nd Annual Media Content World Summit is on “commercialising digital media” and line-up of speakers on the morning panel moderated by Screendigest’s Richard Broughton, include Myles Macbean of Walt Disney Internet Group, Alain-Gabriel Courtines of Intel Capital, Errol Barran of Channel 4, Stuart Collingwood of Slingmedia and Richard Gale of Playboy TV.

The afternoon Panel, moderated by Sharifah Amirah from Frost &Sullivan, will focus on Monetising the “E” on QoE delivery, including how social media affects broadband usage. The panel members include Alessandro Petazzi of Fastweb, and Ashley Mackenzie of Myvideorights.com

Rory Sutherland, vice-chair of Ogilvy Group UK, will be delivering the inspirational talk asking the question of how advertising people could have a much better life on far less money. The Conference is chaired by Sebastian Moeritz, President of MPEG Industry Forum and industry supporters include MPEG Industry Forum, OPA, BWA, ACT and IAB Europe.

Keynote Speakers include Rory Sutherland, Vice-chair of Ogilvy group UK, Ross Biggam, General Director of Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT),

Solution provider presentations will be delivered by Geir Bjorndal COO from Conax, speaking about “How to secure the future of digital media” , Tony Scarfo, Chief Strategy Officer of ECI, who will be dealing with the “Challenges of the bandwidth crunch” and a senior figure from Level 3 Communications on “Powerful Connectivity, Powerful Delivery”.

For further information on the event or to register, please contact +44 (0) 207 610 9908 or email info@technosummits.com

Confirmit Partners With Magnetic North to Deliver Software-as-a-Service Telephony

New York, NY and Oslo, Norway – January 8, 2009: Confirmit has partnered with Magnetic North to deliver a hosted telephony platform that enables Global 5000 Enterprises and Market Research organizations to reduce the cost of telephone research projects and feedback programs and avoid the need for dialer hardware installation.

This advanced telephony service will be integrated with Confirmit’s new software platform, scheduled for launch in Q1 2009. The resulting combined solution will become the world’s first complete multi-channel, on-demand platform, suitable for any size and complexity of feedback program or market research survey.

Using Magnetic North’s Hosted OnDemand outbound dialing and call recording technology, Confirmit will provide users with preview, progressive and predictive dialing, autodialing, call recording, and real-time audio-visual monitoring of telephone agents. These functions enable faster telephone research, higher interviewer productivity, and better cost control, as well as centralized management of each of these components.

Pat Molloy, Chief Strategy Officer at Confirmit, explains the core benefit for customers: “For the first time, users will be able to run a fully-distributed call center platform without the need to buy and maintain any in-house infrastructure. This dramatically reduces set up costs and, in most cases, removes the need for involvement from IT departments to install the software. This is therefore an ideal solution for any organization looking to minimize costs and speed up their time to market.”

Confirmit and Magnetic North’s telephony solution is particularly well-suited to geographically diverse operations such as distributed call centers and those employing home workers, since it enables work to be outsourced easily via the Internet. To conduct research projects, interviewers simply need an Internet connection and telephone line or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) connection. This process reduces complexity, minimizes survey costs, and enables faster turn-around of interviews.

In addition, the solution provides easy ‘burstability’ for call center operators and other telephone operations: new interviewers can be added instantly to the system without the need to purchase and install new hardware.

Dominic Gray, Managing Director at Magnetic North, comments: “We have worked closely with Confirmit to develop a tailored telephony system that answers the specific needs of the Market Research and Enterprise Feedback Management markets they serve. The result is a highly-scalable and cost-effective solution.”

Molloy concludes: “Magnetic North’s focus on Software-as-a-Service delivery aligns perfectly with our own business model. Together, we have developed a best-of-breed, on-demand telephony solution that can bring measurable cost and time savings to call centers and other telephone operations worldwide.”

Further information about Confirmit’s full multi-channel platform will be available at launch in Q1 2009.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, 8th January, 2009 Voxbone, a leading provider of local telephone numbers to communications services providers and businesses worldwide, today announces it has been highly commended in the Best VoIP Innovation category of the ITSPA awards, December 2008. Voxbone has been recognised for its work in using Voice-over IP (VoIP) to deliver inbound services.

The UK VoIP Industry’s trade body, The Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association (ITSPA) represents network operators, service providers and other businesses involved with the supply of VoIP services to business and residential customers. Their much-coveted awards, hosted by Ian Taylor MP and Derek Wyatt MP and held in the House of Commons, recognise today’s pioneering technologies that will shape tomorrow’s communications. Judged by a group of independent judges the UK’s top VoIP products were stringently evaluated on the basis of reliability, user-friendliness, design, innovation, price and value for money. In each category the judges selected a winner and highly commended a finalist.

Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone, said “We are delighted to have been highly commended by ITSPA for this award. It is a great testament to all of the staff here at Voxbone, who have worked so hard in the development and day-to-day running of Voxbone’s inbound services. With the recent launch of iNum; an area code for Earth, Voxbone continues with its commitment to enabling outstanding innovations in VoIP as we move into 2009”.   

For the latest updates on iNum, participating carriers and rates, please see www.inum.net.

New Bamboo and Tourdust launches interactive website to bring back the magic of personal travel experiences

...Networking site created using Ruby on Rails and Agile methodology...

Thursday 8th January 2009, New Bamboo, the specialist in bespoke software development using Ruby on Rails, has partnered with Clearleft to develop a new interactive travel website for Tourdust. A beta version of the site went live in December 2008 and aims to bring together a wide range of authentic and local tour operators from around the world with independent travellers that are looking for ‘off the beaten track’ travel experiences.

Users can navigate around the website www.tourdust.com by selecting the region they wish to travel (Africa, Asia, Europe, South Pacific) or the activities they are interested in such as wildlife, culture, food, cycling or snorkelling. The site also encourages travellers to post their own local finds, review products on the site and add their own photos.  Experienced providers are also encouraged to link up with each other to offer complimentary products to interested travellers.

Ben Colclough, Co-founder and Director, Tourdust said: “Our site is all about our passion for authentic travel experiences.  Our ultimate goal is to bring together all these hard to find unique experiences into one place, to give the providers the tools to create inspiring and great looking listings and to promote them to travellers around the world. A key part of this is to create a community of travellers that share our passion.”

“Once the development process started and the site started coming together we found we had loads of new ideas, including a changed business model.  The Agile methodology allowed us to reprioritise and make refinements to our web project without impacting on our schedule or cost. We found the combination of Ruby on Rails and Agile hugely powerful, flexible and cost effective.  The New Bamboo development team was extremely supportive and brilliant at guiding us through the development process to ensure that we got the best results.  They were always on hand to give advice and challenge our decisions, drawing on their impressive experience and oodles of common sense.” Colclough.

Max Williams, Co-Founder of New Bamboo said: "We are seeing a trend towards Agile as companies recognise it as a means of achieving better results which fit the needs of the business much more effectively. It is a lean process which gets the most return from limited resources. It actively encourages prioritisation and avoids wasted effort."

“By partnering with Clearleft, we were able to ensure that the entire web experience, from navigation to the design interface was a positive experience for all users. Tourdust is an excellent example of an interactive service and  brings together individuals around the world” adds Williams.

Tourdust offers a number of varied personalised travel experiences from Tapas tours of Seville, Kayaking in the Scottish Islands, and riding on a fynbos reserve in the Western Cape of South Africa.

New Bamboo has several industry-leading clients in market segments that include business consultancy, global publishing and international not-for-profit organisations.

 
London – January 8, 2009 – Attenda Limited, the Always On managed services company, today announced that it has been selected to become a member of the VMware Partner Community for SAP Solutions.

Attenda is the first UK partner to join this community, which VMware has built around partners who can help mutual customers virtualise their SAP environments and share in VMware initiatives focused on SAP.

As a VMware Authorized Consultant (VAC) partner, a founding member of the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) and an SAP Hosting Partner, Attenda brings to the VMware Partner Community for SAP Solutions a proven track record in the design and deployment of virtualised hosting infrastructures based on the industry-leading VMware virtualisation platform.

Voted VMware EMEA Hosting Partner of the Year at VMworld Europe 2008, Attenda adds the strength and depth of hosting expertise to the program with its growing base of clients who are adopting virtualised hosting environments for their business-critical applications.

Commenting on Attenda joining the VMware Partner Community for SAP Solutions, Christoph Reisbeck, director, SAP alliance for VMware, said, “Attenda’s proven SAP track record and commitment to best practices and standards helps ensure the delivery of highly available IT services.  With its strong customer base and expertise in VMware virtualisation, Attenda is a valuable addition to the VMware Partner Community for SAP Solutions.  Attenda possesses the experience and resources required to deploy VMware-virtualised SAP solutions not only in development and test but in live production environments.”

For SAP users, VMware Infrastructure offers a cost-effective platform for SAP production, pre-production, development and training environments, providing greater flexibility and agility with the additional benefit of economical and reliable disaster recovery.

The new VMware Partner Community for SAP Solutions gives Attenda access to VMware SAP experts and a forum to communicate with other partners in the community. Through its community membership, Attenda will also have access to intellectual property for configuring, architecting, deploying and operating SAP solutions in VMware environments.

Simon Hansford, Vice President of Products & Marketing at Attenda, added, “We provide all of our clients with best practices, people skills and technology to ensure that our environments deliver superior design, transition, operations and service improvement. This provides our SAP clients with confidence in IT certainty and agility for their business.”

Telcordia Video Provides Insight, Expertise on Managed Evolution Approach

Piscataway, NJ. January 7, 2009 – Telcordia (www.telcordia.com) has released the latest addition to its “Elements in Motion” video series, Elements in Motion: Managed Evolution.  The latest installment explores how communications service providers (CSPs) can rapidly and cost-effectively evolve their networks, operations and support systems to remain competitive through the delivery of profitable and scalable services.

With communications changing, business models are disintegrating and CSPs are taking an evolutionary approach to extract the tremendous value inherent in their existing network and support systems. Telcordia’s Managed Evolution approach helps CSPs drive revenue and differentiation while mitigating risk and leveraging otherwise-stranded assets. The Elements in Motion video can also be seen on You Tube and Telecom TV.

Through the Elements in Motion video series Telcordia continues to deliver compelling information in the digital era, using a fun and engaging view on the hottest topics facing the communications industry. The previous videos, Elements in Motion: Integrated Inventory  and Elements in Motion: Real-Time Charging and Policy are currently available for download from www.telcordia.com, YouTube and TelecomTV.

This approach is also discussed in Telcordia’s newest white paper, Managed Evolution: Scaling, Operating and Supporting New Technologies, which discusses how employing the principles of managed evolution, Telcordia estimates a typical Tier 1 CSP’s operating expenses could be cut by in excess of $100 million per year.

To read, “Managed Evolution: Scaling, Operating and Supporting New Technologies,” please visit http://www.telcordia.com/solutions/managed-evolution/index.html.

For more information on Telcordia’s products and solutions visit www.telcordia.com. Also, be sure to listen to Telcordia’s latest podcasts at www.telcordia.com/podcasts/index.html.

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OpenSymmetry appoints Anthony Hutchins as of Director of Sales committed to drive the SPM consultancy business forward

London, U.K., January 07, 2009 — OpenSymmetry, an independent leader in highly specialised consulting for Sales Performance Management (SPM), today announced the appointment of Anthony Hutchins as Director of Sales for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa).

Anthony will be responsible for driving sales and growing OpenSymmetry’s SPM consulting arm of the business. He will be heading up the marketing and sales team and will be involved in all stages of customer liaison; from identifying potential clients and managing sales to ensuring the post-sales transition into the consulting stage runs smoothly.

“These are certainly exciting times for OpenSymmetry. Even in this turbulent business environment the demand for performance management services remains high and we are predicting strong growth next year.  Anthony brings a wealth of SPM experience and knowledge which will ensure we continue our expansion and reach our objectives.” commented John Stuart, Partner and Director of Business Development at OpenSymmetry 

Having worked in the area of SPM and business intelligence throughout his career, Anthony brings around 11 years of experience to the table. Before joining OpenSymmetry, he was the Solution Consulting Director at Aiimi (formerly Re-think). Prior to that, he worked at Callidus, one of OpenSymmetry solution partners, for seven years. At Callidus he last held the position of Director pre-sales in EMEA and APAC, where he gained extensive knowledge as integration consultant and product manager for the TrueComp Enterprise suite of products.

“We are delighted to welcome Anthony to the OpenSymmetry team as Director of Sales. His background and experience in the SPM arena neatly dovetails into the rest of the UK organisation making him a natural addition to our management team. I am sure that his experience and enthusiasm will be a real asset to driving us forward to great new heights in 2009 and beyond.” Says Jon Gingell, Senior Partner & Director of Operations at OpenSymmetry.

Anthony adds: “I am looking forward to being part of OpenSymmetry’s strong team and helping the company to continue its extensive growth in 2009. SPM has never been more critical for organisation to focus on. Strengthening the performance of their sales organisation and optimising sales resources will give them a competitive advantage in these tough times. That’s why I believe next year will be an exciting one for the SPM software and consultancy industry.”

Gartner research predicts that sales incentive compensation management software market is growing by at least 15% year over year and that it could save mid-sized firms £65 billion a year in lost sales.

Silsoe UK, 07.01.2009: Cardiff Community Housing Association (CCHA) has chosen the HR Unity range from Carval Computing www.carval.co.uk  to manage its HR, and training processes and to introduce browser based, self service data access for all staff. An in-depth casestudy of the CCHA installation is available at: http://www.carval.co.uk/downloads.html

The Association has been widely acclaimed, recently, for its high service standards, managing a housing stock of over 2500 properties and employing over 100 staff across 3 locations. CCHA prides itself on maintaining an excellent relationship with its staff and its innovative “Better Balance” flexible working policy allows employees to have a measure of control over when, where and how they work. Managing this relationship falls to the Association’s forward thinking HR team and the systems they use.

After an extensive review of the market, Carval was chosen as their SQL based HR Unity range provides the closest match to the Association’s business requirements and core values. Carval could, for example, provide bespoke versions of their self service HR and Time & Attendance systems to record the appraisal process and to manage CCHA’s flexi-time. By deploying self service throughout the system, CCHA staff can also access essential data remotely, using browser technology, wherever they are and whenever they need it.

Staff can use the self service feature to book leave, or search competencies and objectives. Users can also assess the risks of particular tasks including site hazards or lone worker concerns. In addition, the system enables the HR team to manage home working, compressed working and start and finish time variants more effectively. HR reporting is also greatly enhanced.

Jim Sweeney, ICT Manager of CCHA, believes the system will have a huge impact over time noting, “We needed to build in specific functionality that met our specific needs. To do this effectively, the chosen supplier had to understand the needs of the HR team in supporting our core values. Carval has demonstrated a very clear understanding of CCHA needs and we have worked well together putting bespoke solutions in place.” 

For his part, John Ovington, Sales and Support Director of Carval noted, “CCHA is widely recognised as a guiding light in the housing association sector. Their HR team too seek to mirror the latest developments in best practise. They needed an integrated solution that delivered a single point of management control whilst allowing far broader staff access. Naturally, therefore, we are delighted that CCHA has chosen Carval to support the work they do to such a high standard.

OGCbuying.solutions appoints PageOne as one of the official suppliers for its £170million mobile framework agreement
 
London, 7th January, 2009 – PageOne, the UK’s leading provider of mobile messaging solutions to the public and enterprise sectors, today announces that it has been chosen by public sector procurement body OGCbuying.solutions as one of the official suppliers for its £170million Mobile Solutions (II) framework agreement, to be launched in January 2009.

OGCbuying.solutions is making a range of mobile voice and data services available to public sector bodies, and PageOne has been chosen as a supplier of mobile messaging solutions.

Chris Jones, CEO at PageOne commented, “PageOne was subjected to a rigorous tender process by OGCbuying.solutions and we are absolutely delighted that our proposal has been accepted and successfully meets the needs of the government agenda. This contract is a significant one for PageOne as it illustrates our commitment to supporting the needs of this key market sector and our desire to continuously innovate our products and services.”

Management World 2009 to focus on impact and opportunities of the current economic climate

MORRISTOWN, NJ – January 7, 2009 – TM Forum, the world’s leading industry association for improving business effectiveness, today confirmed seven distinguished keynote speakers and more than 20 summit keynote speakers, including C-level executives from across the global information, communications and entertainment industries, to speak at its flagship Management World event taking place in Nice, May 4-8, 2009.

Keynote speakers confirmed include:
- Sanjiv Ahuja, Chairman, Orange UK;
- Albert Hitchcock, Global CIO, Vodafone;
- Simon Wright, CEO, Virgin Entertainment;
- Kevin Peters, Executive VP: Global Network Operations, AT&T;
- Matt Desch, Chairman and CEO, Iridium;
- Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi, Chairman and CEO, 2020 Venture Partners;
- Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy Group.

Following on from last year’s record-breaking event, Management World 2009 moves up another gear with a new format. Five focused summits will address key issues for the industry, with summit keynote speakers including NBC Universal, Google, Thomson Reuters, GroupM and MySpace.

- The Business Transformation Summit will explore outsourcing and managed services as well as next generation transformation; what we have learned and what is next in the migration to next generation all IP enterprises. Cloud computing and cloud storage business models will be discussed as will the role of regulation and how we can eliminate risk through change management and business process models;
- The Technology Transformation Summit will focus on how technology is playing an important role in transforming the entire value chain. It will address industry standards and frameworks along with new technologies and architectures that complement and underpin developments in TM Forum’s Solutions Frameworks (NGOSS) and how they are helping to deliver profitable new services to market, faster, for less;
- The Digital Media Value Chain Summit will examine how mobile, fixed line, and cable service providers are working with the advertising, media and entertainment industries to create and define new business opportunities –  examining new business models, and how to profit from new services;
- The Charging & Revenue Management Summit will examine important aspects of charging and gathering revenue for a new generation of services. It will focus on personalized revenue models, online charging, revenue assurance best practices, combating fraud, benchmarking and performance KPIs. New and different charging models which enable revenue to be collected in a multitude of ways will also be debated.
- The Customer Experience Summit will discuss how customer data can be used wisely and effectively to enable all the players in the value chain to offer quality, timeliness and relevance in all the services they offer – exceeding their customer’s expectations and creating long-term loyalty.

Management World 2009 will once again bring the industry together to discuss, explore and solve critical business issues. With a theme of ‘Strategies & Tactics for Tough Times’ the conference will focus on the impact and opportunities the current economic climate presents, providing the perfect arena to discuss how to drive up new revenues, increase customer care, retain business and drive down operating costs.

Mark your calendar now to join the leading companies in the industry at this year’s Management World 2009 to be held at the Acropolis Convention Centre, Nice, France, May 4-8, 2009.

For further details on the conference and each of its summits, visit the Management World 2009 homepage.