Dear visitor.

There has been no maintenance done on this website for a very long time. People and moderators have been mostly busy with their own personal projects and has left the forums for quite a while already.

I have been seriously considering closing down this website for the past few months.

I am still thinking about it, but the ending of the current form is inevitable in the next few months.

Hopefully something good will replace this website after closure, but nothing is concrete yet.

I with to thank you for posting interesting topics in the forums over the years that this website has been in operation.

If you have any ongoing topics in the forums, please make plans to move these threads to another forums as soon as you can.

Regards
Kenneth.

txtNation to reward clients for new business wins

txtNation, the mobile billing and messaging specialist says anyone that recommends its services will receive a bonus of five per cent of whatever revenue their referred accounts generate. And all the cash will come from come from txtNation, not from the newly referred clients.

To benefit, existing clients need to be logged into the control panel, which comes with a menu listing ways to invite people – such as email, banners, text based links and even snail mail.

txtNation’s mPUSH brand delivers content straight to the paying customers mobiles, whereas the mFUSION brand runs mobile campaigns such as competitions, voting, alerts, reverse auctions, bulk messaging, VCards to name but a few, the mBILL platform aggregates connections through one API to allow clients to build their own mobile services and then there is the mENABLE platform providing a very powerful billing solution for online websites. All of these solutions run on premium shortcodes which available in over 45 countries worldwide, the latest of which to go live was China which has produced astronomical results.

Michael Whelan Director, txtNation “This has been several years in the making, fine tuning a referral’s wants and needs. This is a serious affiliate program that converts.”
txtNation have provided many ways for their existing client's to invite friends, business colleagues or acquaintances to join and begin reaping the extensive benefits that txtNation has to offer and to do this existing client's will need to be logged into the control panel. Once logged in, the affiliate menu with a list of ways to invite people will be clearly marked, making this an easy painless way of potentially generating extra revenue, for example; simply enter the e-mail addresses of those who are being referred and txtNation will generate an email that will then be sent out to their referral providing them with instructions on how easy it is to sign-up with txtNation and how txtNation can launch their business awareness tenfold and how they can soon also be enjoying the benefits of this scheme also.

Banners can be placed on web pages with links back to the affiliate sign-up form, text based links and non-electronic means, such as sending out letters and business cards along with the clients’ unique referral code are all examples of available methods of referral, so the only question left to ask is 'what are you waiting for?'
For more information, please visit: http://txtnation.com/contact_call.php.

Fujitsu Services, one of Europe’s leading IT services companies, was a winner at the recent itSMF Awards with Steve Denham, service delivery manager for the Post Office, taking home the Service Management Champion of the Year award. The theme of the Awards was “Driving Real Value”.

Fujitsu has invested heavily in the development of its staff over the last three years, with more than 15,000 people across Europe having now participated in the Reputation programme – a series of workshops which focus on delivering value to customers.

Ann Sinclair, head of customer experience for Fujitsu Services, comments: “We are now really starting to see results from the Reputation programme, and this award demonstrates that admirably. Steve is a great example of the sort of attitude the programme instils – constantly striving to improve our service and deliver a better experience to the customer.”

Shaun White, branch systems advisor, UK for the Post Office comments on Steve’s win “Congratulations, well done and well deserved! On a personal note I think you have an exceptionally positive impact on the service relationship. Your drive and enthusiasm, and that of your team, shines through creating a true partnership approach which has been key to improving service and driving down costs.”

Richard Morgan, chair of the itSMF awards comments, “Steve has won through a very high standard of candidates for this award. Every itSMF award brings recognition and publicity to the winner and we’re proud to be able to shine a light on the IT Service Management industry, those like Steve who deliver the best practices which are DRIVING REAL VALUE”.

Richard Bull, director of customer services and head of the service delivery management community within Fujitsu Services comments, “Steve displays the attributes that go into making a great service manager in that not only does he understand process, he knows how to make sure it can be applied to deliver the best outcome for both the Post Office and Fujitsu. His manner is always collaborative and he knows how to exploit best practice and technical know how in both an effective and efficient way.”

Fujitsu’s relationship with the Post Office began in 1993 and since then Fujitsu has delivered a £1.4 billion programme over a ten-year period which installed a networked counter system to manage the customer experience in the Post Office’s 12,000 branches.

Steve has been with the company for 9 years and has been leading the Post Office team at Fujitsu for the last two. Since implementing the contract, the Post Office has seen a 30% increase in online transactions and serves an average of 28.8 million customers per week.

For less than £60 per laptop Bracknell Forest Borough Council has protected against data loss

Newbury, UK: November 20th, 2008 – The biggest security challenge that organisations face when it comes to preventing data loss and security breaches is knowing exactly what data and devices they have and need to secure, according to security specialists, Absolute Software.

Data loss hasn’t been out of the headlines throughout 2008. Some of the UK’s most data sensitive organisations have been victims of it, but have been equally guilty of inadequate management of sensitive information that should have been stored responsibly.

One organisation that took a strategic decision to take positive action and protect against data loss was Bracknell Forest Borough Council. It activated ComputraceOne from Absolute Software on its laptops. ComputraceOne is a unique software solution that is used to manage mobile devices, and in the event of a device being lost or stolen can track and recover it and ‘self destruct’ any sensitive data to stop it being used for malicious purposes.

Richard Dawson, IT Services Manager at the Council said: "For less than £60 per laptop over its life, ComputraceOne has provided not only value for money, but it has ensured that our data has not gotten into the wrong hands. In the last three months alone, we have been able to deactivate and remove all data from three decommissioned laptops as well as recover a stolen laptop.

"Had it not been for our wise decision to activate ComputraceOne from Absolute, we would not have been able to retrieve our assets.”

Every effort should be taken to protect against data loss including:

• Security policy - Have a security policy that is understood and adhered to by every staff member where appropriate
• Authorisation - Make sure that only authorised staff have the ‘keys’ to access sensitive data and, more importantly, the ability to copy data to devices
• Management - Know exactly how many devices including mobile phones, laptops and PDAs are used by the organisation to go about its business
• Accountability - Be able to account for devices that are decommissioned and retrieve devices from employees leaving the company
• Tracking - Have the right technology to track and recover lost or stolen devices and if necessary ‘self destruct’ sensitive data contained on them

Security specialist, William Pound at Absolute Software said: “Organisations need to take responsibility for the data on their mobile devices as the information often can be about customers or partners, so the consequences of a breach are far wider than just the organisation itself. To take responsibility there needs to be policy and traceability.

“Asset management is key. Knowing who has a device and, if necessary, where it is. This is particularly important if a device is lost. Tracking software will trace the device and allow it to be recovered. More than that, with this technology installed onto a device, sensitive data files can be deleted, preventing it from being used maliciously.”

For more information on Absolute and its range of Computer Theft Recovery, Data Protection and Secure Asset Tracking™ solutions, please visit www.absolute.com/emea

New research highlights the importance of more traditional recruitment factors in attracting the top emerging talent

LONDON, 20 November 2008 – In an age of Web 2.0 speculation, the career aspirations and wants of Generation Y are more traditional in focus than many realise, according to a new research report entitled ‘Understanding Emerging Talent’, by Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS), the recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) specialist.

Despite the Web 2.0 hype, in an independent survey of 2000 graduates, traditional influences, such as 'choosing an organisation that was good for my career’ was seen as the most important factor when making applications by 71% of respondents, with 66% citing the ‘quality of an organisation’s people’ also being important. For Oxbridge and London graduates, working alongside the right people was the most important factor overall according to 75%, and seen as a ‘deal making’ requirement. These factors highlight a more strategic approach being taken by today’s graduates than commentators suggest. But it is how these traditional values of professionalism are communicated in a Recruitment 2.0 environment that is making the difference.

Martin Cerullo, Director of Resourcing Communications at Alexander Mann Solutions, comments, “There is a trend at present to see graduates as a new, unknown entity. Like any demographic group, they have similar characteristics, which need to be recognised, but they also have expectations similar to previous generations when it comes to work. Graduates today are tech-savvy and expect ongoing communications at every level. But constant and consistent communication must appear at each step of the recruitment process, not just on a flashy website, if companies are to recruit the cream of the crop. It is essential that more traditional elements, such as the final interview, be presented in the same way if organisations are to gain a competitive edge. Even in a downturn, companies need to be thinking about how they attain the top talent of tomorrow.”

Key findings from the research show:

- Financial pull – This is no longer a defining factor when its comes to choosing a job, with respondents ranking pay and benefits (59%) lower down the list of ‘must haves’ than the calibre of colleagues.

- Not all 2.0 – Today’s graduates expect face-to-face contact, plenty of feedback and the opportunity to get under the skin of prospective employers, along with instant 2.0 communications. 68% ranked the tangible aspects such as the final round interview to have the biggest impact on their overall perception of a company’s recruitment process, compared to the online application experience with 39%.

- Individualism - Most (63%) rated the professionalism of an organisation or its caring culture (62%) as its most important characteristics, while hot topics such as a potential employer’s environmental or social responsibility was of interest to under half (44%).

To gain the attention of high calibre graduates, these messages need to be communicated in the right way. Containing both style and substance, it has to be experience-led, brand-savvy and delivered through multi-media channels. 81% cited the company website as the primary channel for influencing the decision to submit an application, compared with only 14% for a presentation and 23% for a recruitment brochure. Graduates also listen to their friends with 70% being influenced by recommendations.

Cerullo, comments, “When assessing the effectiveness of its graduate attraction strategy, an organisation needs to ask itself what graduates are looking for, how are we perceived, how can we differentiate ourselves and what are the most effective ways for communicating – constantly benchmarking its entire recruitment process.”

He continues, “Ultimately, to snap up the leading emerging talent, organisations need to achieve a truly ‘joined-up’ recruitment process. This will be characterised by high-touch candidate management and communication delivered with a consumer edge and embracing Web 2.0. But it must also convey a company’s level of professionalism throughout the recruitment process all the way through to the final interview stage. If organisations are looking to achieve a competitive edge, they must mix the more traditional influences with recruitment 2.0.”

·      7,000 m2 data centre now operational—first phase 70% pre-sold
·      Second phase build-out accelerated
·      Data centre 100% powered by renewable sources

Interxion, a leading European operator of carrier-neutral data centres, announced today that the first 1,200 m2 of its new 7,000 m2 Amsterdam data centre—its fifth Amsterdam-area centre—is now operational. 70% of the first phase has been pre-sold to online retail, finance, and ICT customers. Growing customer demand has accelerated the construction of an additional 1,100 m2 of equipped space that is scheduled to be completed in May 2009.  Interxion now operates 24 data centres in 11 European countries.

The new facility is a totally green energy facility—all power comes from renewable sources such as wind, biomass, or hydro generation, and the centre has been designed using Interxion’s energy efficient modular architecture, with free cooling and maximum-efficiency components as standard. The data centre offers 2N UPS power and N+1 cooling as well as advanced alarm and monitoring systems and supports the latest high-density power configurations.

“In Interxion’s ten-year history of providing high-level infrastructure in the Amsterdam area, we have never experienced such strong demand for a new facility,” said Michel van den Assem, Managing Director, Interxion Netherlands.

“The new data centre has industry-leading energy efficiency credentials, and with two fully-redundant 10 MVA grid connections, it provides exceptionally high power density configuration options. This power availability, combined with a connectivity-rich community, creates an ideal environment for mission-critical and web-enabled applications.”

- Active Operations Management International (AOMi) embeds Cordys to enhance their Software as a Service business model –
Cordys, a global leader in next generation Business Process Management, has entered into a Software as a Service (SaaS) OEM agreement with Active Operations Management International (AOMi).

Established in 2005, AOMi provides the leading methodology for clerical operations management through a mixture of training, consultancy and its proprietary, web-based operations planning and control application - Workware™.

The Cordys Business Operations Platform enables organisations to dramatically improve their business agility, enabling rapid changes and allowing them to fundamentally alter the way they innovate their business operations to embrace a true customer-centric philosophy. Customers across the globe are achieving significant business performance improvements including increased productivity, reduced time to market and faster response times to ever-changing market demands.

Under the terms of the agreement Cordys will be implemented at the communications layer within Workware to enable integration of AOMi’s Software as a Service (SaaS) solution with client processing systems.

With the increased uptake of On Demand Computing, the SaaS market is forecasted to grow to $19.3 billion by 2011 according to research firm Gartner. With this in mind, the newly formed strategic partnership between Cordys and AOMi is ideally positioned to meet this burgeoning demand head-on.

Richard Jeffery’s, Managing Director of AOMi, stated: “The AOM methodology is being adopted as a corporate standard for Operations Management by leading global companies because of the transformational impact on their productivity and reliability of performance. It is only through successfully bringing people, processes and technology together, that real business benefits are realised. Technology is only one critical element, addressing the cultural issues within an organisation is just as important to the success of the project. In reality this involves a mix of training, consultancy and the introduction of Workware.

“The appeal for our customers is immediate as it will provide them with the proven Cordys Business Operations Platform in an off-the-shelf model, enabling them to integrate data seamlessly into Workware without having to build the interface from scratch or manually input data. For our customers this means that data integrity remains intact, accurate and reliable, as well as offering access to the broader capabilities of the Cordys platform” he continued.

Jon Pyke, Chief Strategy Officer of Cordys, added: “We are bringing together best of breed technology, which in combination with AOMi’s methodology expertise delivers a fully integrated solution that helps customers looking for resolution of issues such as capacity planning and performance reporting, based on a Software as a Service business model”

Extremely Easy To Use: Paradial Improves User Experience Of Voice/Video-Over-IP Application

Deutsche Telekom Voice/Video-over-IP application now works well behind firewall and NAT devices due to integration of Paradial’s RealTunnel Firewall/NAT solution.

Oslo, Norway – November 20, 2008.

Deutsche Telekom has enhanced the Voice/Video-over-IP application Internet-Telefon with Paradial’s Firewall/NAT traversal solution. The enhancement enables users to use services like placing and receiving high quality audio and video calls, chatting, sending and receiving files, even when located behind strict private, public and corporate firewalls.

Deutsche Telekom will provide customers with the best communication and support services to create a positive user experience. The advanced design and easy to use Internet-Telefon let customers call the whole world from nearly all kinds of network configurations.

"RealTunnel’s comprehensive and carrier grade connectivity and security capabilities allows Deutsche Telekom to deliver the type of quality users expect from operators," said Ingvar Aaberg, CEO, Paradial. "Making it simple to use the Internet-Telefon from anywhere, we hope to make users’ Voice/Video-over-IP experience even better and to increase the number of subscribers who use the Internet-Telefon."

Braben to partner with WebMission 09

London, 20 November 2008: Braben, the public relations consultancy specialising in increasing audiences and building revenues for media brands, has announced that it is partnering with WebMission, an initiative designed to showcase the UK’s Web Entrepreneurs.

WebMission is an annual competition that takes 20 of the top UK web-based start ups to San Francisco to share experiences with leading web entrepreneurs, extend their businesses and meet some of the world’s leading venture capitalists. The partnership will see Braben providing ongoing media relations support for WebMission 09, its sponsors and those businesses that are selected to participate.

This year’s competition is being launched in London on 19th November, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, at an event that will be attended by senior Government and Industry leaders. Sponsors and partners already supporting WebMission 09 include Oracle, UK Trade & Investment, UK Technology Strategy Board, Web 2.0 Expo (O’Reilly and TechWeb), TechCrunch and Library House.

Matt Bourn, Managing Director of Braben said: “The current economic climate fosters entrepreneurship. The change in circumstances that arises through a downturn means people and businesses have new problems to overcome and web entrepreneurs are seizing the opportunity to offer solutions to these. As a media specialist Braben’s clients are leaders in digital environments and, whether it is driving audiences or attracting commercial partners, Braben is well versed in using PR to optimise fast growth digital brands.”

James Lawn, co-founder of Polecat and WebMission added: “We looked hard at a number of consultancies when seeking a partner for WebMission 09. We found Braben offered the greatest levels of insight into the challenges facing digital brands, as well as the media knowledge to be able to build the profile of the event and support the participating companies and sponsors.”

Mid-market companies benefit from enterprise level recruitment process outsourcing

LONDON, 20 November 2008 – Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS), the largest independent provider of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) solutions to blue-chip companies worldwide, today launches AMS OnDemand, a new service targeted at mid-market companies. Using the expertise and processes it has honed through its global RPO infrastructure, AMS has developed and combined a core set of best practice RPO services to benefit mid-market organisations for whom RPO had not previously been a viable option.

Businesses will be able to quickly tap into the benefits of a FTSE RPO function and maximise the effectiveness of sourcing channels without the need for large volumes of hires or significant up front investment. The AMS OnDemand service will be delivered through a scalable, standard technology platform, which can provide customers with best practice permanent recruitment services that support both internal mobility and external hiring throughout the entire recruitment lifecycle.

GeoServices, a leading upstream oilfield services business, is already realising the benefits of deploying AMS' OnDemand solution to focus on the hiring of around 200 Technicians a year. Commenting on the programme, Franck Thibault, HR Development Director says he is delighted with both the results and the relationship. “Not only has working with the OnDemand team been completely transparent and open, they have simplified the recruitment process for us so that it is easy for our hiring managers to undertake their recruitment whilst significantly reducing cost.”

AMS OnDemand has been developed to benefit mid-sized organisations or specific divisions or geographies of larger organisations with annual recruitment volumes between 50 and 500 hires per year. It will allow organisations to effectively scale recruitment activity to facilitate rapid headcount growth, or to enable a reduction in reliance on preferred supplier lists or a master vendor. Importantly, AMS OnDemand is client branded, ensuring the organisation’s identity and culture is mirrored, helping to increase penetration of the organisation’s brand into the candidate marketplace.

Business Benefits Summary:
• World class recruitment processes – AMS OnDemand customers leverage best in class recruitment processes developed for and delivered to national, international and global organisations across Alexander Mann Solutions’ global organisation
• Control, visibility & transparency – AMS OnDemand customers will be able to view and control the end-to-end recruitment lifecycle with a series of reports detailing recruitment spend, time to hire, and the number and status of candidates in the recruitment process
• Time – AMS OnDemand customers will achieve industry leading time to hire figures
• Cost – AMS OnDemand customers will benefit from cost efficiencies, including a substantial reduction in the usage of expensive sourcing channels, generally leading to cost per hire figures of 50% of the UK average*
• Strategic – AMS OnDemand customers will be able to remove the recruitment administration burden (and cost) from their HR teams
• Agile – AMS OnDemand customers will easily be able to adapt in line with changing demand or recruitment service needs and deliver against them

Steve Leach, Managing Director for AMS OnDemand at Alexander Mann Solutions comments, “This is a real step forward in helping mid-market organisations to overcome a number of challenges in recruiting talent into their teams. We have always aimed to make our clients self sufficient from a recruitment perspective, this latest innovation allows us to take everything that we do for our major global clients and package it in such a way that it delivers significant benefits to mid-market organisations.”

Availability
AMS OnDemand is delivered from AMS Global Client Service Centres including the UK, Poland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the US. It is fully client-branded, and linked to the client's career site. This service can be purchased on an annual basis through a simple, transactional commercial model.

For those requiring extra information on the AMS OnDemand product, Alexander Mann Solutions are holding a breakfast briefing event on Thursday 29th January 2009. For more details on the event and to register, please contact Gemma Ellis on 0207 832 2734 or by email: gemma.ellis@alexmann.com.

* CIPD Annual Survey Report 2008