Red Hat Lands a Global Agreement with Telefonica

Telefonica Business Solutions, a leading provider of a wide range of integrated communication solutions for the B2B market, has selectedd the 11111Red Hat Mobile Application Platform as the global reference platform for operators within the Telefonica Group to mobilize the business processes of its customers on their path to digital transformation.

The Red Hat Mobile Application Platform has been used by Telefonica in some markets since 2012.

“Telefonica's decision to establish the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform as its reference platform for mobile development aligns with our strategy to deploy multitenant, multi-operator solutions based on open standards. Our aim is to help expand our ecosystem of application developers, enable them to reuse code and foster greater cooperation between Telefonica’s operators around the world,” stated Juan Manuel Moreno, Telefonica Business Solutions’ Cloud Director.

http://www.redhat.com

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TELUS Sells 35% of International Ops to Baring Private Equity Asia

Baring Private Equity Asia, which advises funds that manage over CAD13 billion (US$10 billion) in assets, will acquire a 35 percent stake in TELUS International, a global provider of customer service, IT, and business process services.

The agreement values TELUS International at CAD1.2 billion, with TELUS Corporation shareholders retaining a 65 percent interest in the business. In alignment with the company’s top priority of delivering client service excellence, TELUS intends to retain a long-term majority ownership position in TELUS International.

TELUS said it plans to use the funds for its Canadian operations.

“TELUS International has successfully grown its business over the past 11 years by establishing a highly engaged organization focused on delivering exceptional customer service. It has created significant value for TELUS shareholders and is well positioned to leverage Baring Asia’s deep Asian markets presence and worldwide experience, and tap into its global network in order to further expand TELUS International’s operations over the coming years,” said Darren Entwistle, TELUS President and CEO. “Importantly, proceeds of approximately CAD600 million from this transaction will be put to work on TELUS’ long-term strategy of expanding and advancing our broadband wireline and wireless networks to support Canada’s digital economy for generations to come. ”

http://www.bpeasia.com
http://www.telus.com

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Apple & SAP Strike Enterprise Partnership

Apple and SAP announced a partnership focused on mobile enterprise applications that combine the iPhone and iPad with the SAP HANA platform.

As a part of the partnership, SAP will develop native iOS apps built with Swift, Apple’s modern, secure and interactive programming language, and will offer a familiar user experience with the SAP Fiori for iOS design language.

The companies plan to deliver a new SAP HANA Cloud Platform SDK exclusively for iOS that will provide businesses, designers and developers the tools to quickly and efficiently build their own iOS apps for iPhone and iPad, based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP’s open platform as a service. These native apps will provide access to core data and business processes on SAP S/4HANA, while taking full advantage of iPhone and iPad features like Touch ID®, Location Services and Notifications.

“This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “As the leader in enterprise software and with 76% of business transactions touching an SAP system, SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad. Through the new SDK, we’re empowering SAP’s more than 2.5 million developers to build powerful native apps that fully leverage SAP HANA Cloud Platform and tap into the incredible capabilities that only iOS devices can deliver.”

“We’re proud to take this special partnership between Apple and SAP to a groundbreaking new place,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. “In giving people an agile and intuitive business experience, we empower them to know more, care more and do more. By combining the powerful capabilities of SAP HANA Cloud Platform and SAP S/4HANA, together with iOS, the leading and most secure mobile platform for enterprise, we will help deliver live data to people wherever and whenever they choose to work. Apple and SAP share a commitment to shaping the future, helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.”

http://www.apple.com
htttp://www.sap.com

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ScaleFT Targets Credential Vulnerabilities in the Cloud, Adds CoreOS

SupportScaleFT, a start-up based in San Francisco, announced general availabitlity statust of its solution to eliminate credential theft in the cloud. Instead of static passwords or SSH keys, dynamic credentials are distributed on-demand to users, providing a full audit log of access and the ability to dynamically assess risk. ScaleFT’s credentials can be cryptographically verified on endpoints, independent of the issuing platform.

The general availability release of ScaleFT provides unified access control capabilities, delivering Windows RDP support, Okta & SAML integration, enhanced Google Cloud support, and improved integration with DevOps tools, as well as rapid mitigation of vulnerabilities such as OpenSSH “UseRoaming” CVE-2016-0777. ScaleFT also features native CoreOS integration and support.

The company said its solution is currently being used by Rackspace to support thousands of instances on AWS, ScaleFT is helping secure enterprise clouds with sensitive data requirements. As we head into CoreOS Fest next week, ScaleFT is also announcing integration and support of CoreOS Linux, helping enterprises receive the utmost security when implementing cloud-native technologies such as CoreOS Linux.

“Just short of a year after our launch we are celebrating the general availability of ScaleFT,” said Jason Luce, CEO of ScaleFT. “With this announcement we are bringing the industry a step closer in securing their cloud and cloud-native infrastructure, a must as enterprises go all-in on cloud infrastructure. In addition we are adding CoreOS support to help our enterprise customers adopting containers with CoreOS PCI and HIPAA compliance.”

http://www.scaleft.com

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Andorra Telecom Deploys Additional Netcracker BSS Capabilities

Andorra Telecom, the national telecommunications operator and regulator for the Principality of Andorra, has gone live with a BSS expansion by implementing Netcracker’s Online Charging System and Voucher Management solution to consolidate its pre-paid and post-paid customers onto a single converged billing platform. The BSS solutions will integrate with Andorra Telecom’s already extensive suite of end-to-end Netcracker BSS and OSS solutions.

http://www.Netcracker.com

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Centana Growth Partners Acquires Jumui for Mobile Authentication

Centana Growth Partners agreed to acquire Jumio, a start-up specializing in online and mobile credentials authentication company, following a competitive auction conducted under procedures approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

“The auction process was, as we hoped, competitive and successful,” said Stephen Stuut, Jumio’s CEO. “We are pleased to have achieved an outcome that we believe is not only a terrific opportunity for Jumio going forward, but supports the interests of all our various stakeholders. Centana is a great home for Jumio. With its outstanding financial services expertise and relationships, and the capital to fuel growth, Centana will provide Jumio with the foundation it needs to achieve scale. The transaction will be completed quickly and will enable Jumio to move past our legacy issues to become a stronger, more competitive company. Importantly, it will be seamless for both our customers and the dedicated team of employees who serve them.”

Jumio utilizes proprietary computer vision technology to reduce customer sign-up and checkout friction and verify credentials issued from over 120 countries in real-time web and mobile transactions. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

http://www.jumio.com

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BT to Invest £6 Billion in Upgrades

BT and its Openreach and EE businesses will between them spend around £6 billion pounds in capital expenditure over the next three years in the first phase of a plan to extend superfast broadband and 4G coverage beyond 95 per cent of the country by 2020.

Ultrafast broadband will be deployed to a minimum of ten million homes and businesses in the same period, subject to regulatory support, with an ambition to reach twelve million. There will be an increased focus on FTTP, with the aim being to reach two million premises with the technology, mainly in new housing developments, high streets and business parks.

BT Group Chief Executive Gavin Patterson said: “The UK is a digital leader today and it is vital that it remains one in the future. That is why we are announcing a further six billion pounds of investment in our UK networks, subject to regulatory certainty. Networks require money and a lot of it. Virgin and BT have both pledged to invest and we will now see if others follow our lead. Infrastructure competition is good for the UK and so is the current Openreach model whereby others can piggyback on our investment should they want to.

“G.fast is an important technology that will enable us to deploy ultrafast broadband at pace and to as many homes as possible. Customers want their broadband to be affordable as well as fast and we will be able to do that using G.fast. FTTP will also play a bigger role going forward and I believe it is particularly well suited to those businesses who may need speeds of up to 1 Gbps. My ambition is to roll it out to two million premises and our trials give me confidence we will."

http://www.btplc.com/

• In February 2016, Ofcom, the official regulator in the UK, decided not to require a structural separation of Openreach from BT, although new proposals were set to require further fibre rollouts and greater independence of Openreach from its parent company.

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Aliyun Clocks in at 175% YoY Growth Rate

Alibaba Group reported very strong performance in Q1, with revenues coming in at RMB 24,184 million (US$3,751 million), an increase of 39% year-over-year.

Alibaba's China retail marketplaces revenue was RMB18,340 million (US$2,844 million), an increase of 41% YoY.  Mobile revenue was RMB13,084 million (US$2,029 million), an increase of 149% YoY. Annual active buyers on our China retail marketplaces increased to 423 million, an increase of 16 million over the prior quarter, while mobile MAUs in March reached 410 million, an increase of 17 million over December 2015.

Aliyun (or AliCloud in English), the company's cloud business unit, is seeing even faster growth, with revenue increasing 175% year-over-year to RMB1,066 million (US$165 million), representing an acceleration of the 126% year-over-year growth rate achieved in the prior quarter.

As of March 31, 2016, AliCloud had over 2.3 million customers, including more than 500,000 paying customers. In the March quarter, AliCloud launched 612 new features and services and 22 new products, including 12 in the big data category. Big data products include computing engines, data collection and data analysis, with a MaxCompute service empowering customers to process up to 100 petabytes of data in under six hours.

http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/news/press_pdf/p160505.pdf

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Arista Posts Solid Q1 Revenue of $242 Million

Arista Networks announced Q1 revenues of $242.2 million, a decrease of 1.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2015, and an increase of 35.3% from the first quarter of 2015. GAAP net income was $35.2 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $24.5 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2015. GAAP gross margin came in at 64.0%, compared to GAAP gross margin of 63.6% in the fourth quarter of 2015 and 65.8% in the first quarter of 2015.

"As we kick off 2016, we delivered a solid quarter,” stated Jayshree Ullal, Arista President and CEO. “We continue to experience increased relevance and acceptance from our customers in the ongoing shift to cloud networking.”

http://investors.arista.com/

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Pivotal Raises $253 million from Ford, Microsoft

Pivotal, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, expects to close a Series C financing round highlighted by $253 million in new cash, led by new investor Ford Motor Company, in conjunction with Microsoft and all previous investors GE, EMC and VMware.

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is an enterprise cloud native platform for building new software "at startup speed." The company said its Cloud Native platform drives software innovation for many of the world’s most admired brands.

Microsoft said its investment in Pivotal is a response to growing enterprise developers’ desire for an even closer relationship between Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Microsoft Azure.

Pivotal announced the following milestones:

• The company now works with seven of the top 10 U.S. banks, three of the top five global auto manufacturers, and five of the top 10 telecommunication companies.
• Recently announced first-quarter 2016 revenue of $83 million, up 56% year over year
• Annualized recurring revenue of $116 million at March 31, 2016, up more than 200% year over year for Pivotal’s subscription software products—Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Pivotal Big Data Suite
• Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Pivotal Big Data Suite having crossed the $200 million and $100 million annual bookings run-rate milestones, respectively
• Over 2,000 employees and 17 offices worldwide
• Pivotal works with nearly one-third of the Fortune 100 companies, including industry leaders such as GE, Ford, Verizon, Home Depot, Comcast, Humana, Lockheed Martin, and Allstate, each using Pivotal’s products and services to digitally transform their businesses and disrupt established markets.

“Here at Pivotal we are partnering with customers to create a world where the largest and most admired companies can build and run software like Google, Uber or any venture-backed startup. This investment will accelerate our global reach to bring our unique software development methodology and modern cloud platform and analytics tools to every forward-thinking CEO,” said Rob Mee, Pivotal CEO. “We are excited to announce Ford and Microsoft as strategic partners to help introduce Pivotal’s transformative cloud and analytics software to the next thousand customers.”

http://pivotal.io/

Pivotal Acquires CloudCredo for Cloud Foundry Expertise

Monday, December 21, 2015  #cloud, EMC, Mergers and Acquisitions, Start-ups, UK, Vmware  2 comments

 Pivotal, has acquired CloudCredo, a privately-held software developer based in London, along with CloudCredo subsidiary, stayUp, a log analysis technology company for Cloud Foundry.

CloudCredo has a highly-regarded team of Cloud Foundry experts.  Pivotal said the acquisition will will better enable enterprise adoption of Pivotal Cloud Foundry.

Pivotal is a spin-out and joint venture of EMC Corporation and its subsidiary VMware. The Pivotal Cloud Native Platform offers integrated application framework, runtime and infrastructure automation capabilities.

“CloudCredo enhances Pivotal’s powerful next-generation portfolio of products and services by bringing extensive knowledge of deploying, running and customizing Cloud Foundry for some of the world’s largest and most admired brands,” said Rob Mee, CEO of Pivotal. “With this expertise, we can better help our customers transform their enterprises by embracing and leveraging Pivotal’s Cloud Native platform more quickly.“

“When we started CloudCredo, we were profoundly influenced by The Pivotal Way. It shaped our approach to modern software development, our culture promoting openness and doing things the right way, and passion for delivering differentiated value to our customers,” says Colin Humphreys, CloudCredo Co-Founder and CEO.“ Joining Pivotal allows us to operate at a global scale, overnight, and help the world's largest and most admired brands use software to transform their businesses and make an impact on the world.”

http://pivotal.io/platform

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MRV Posts Q1 Sales of $19 Million

MRV Communications reported quarterly revenue of $18.9 million, compared to $22.2 million, reflecting a lower contribution from legacy infrastructure management products, partially offset by growth of packet and optical products. Gross margin remained at 51.9%, compared to 52.0%, despite lower revenues of legacy products. There was a GAAP net loss from continuing operations of $3.9 million, or $0.56 per share, compared to a GAAP net loss from continuing operations of $1.3 million, or $0.18 per share.

“We entered 2016 as a better capitalized, more efficient and more focused company that is well-positioned for growth at high margins. While our legacy infrastructure management products have experienced a cyclical slowdown that impacted our results over the past few quarters, we are thrilled with the customer and market reaction to our new packet and optical product families,” stated MRV President and CEO Mark Bonney.

http://www.mrv-corporate.com/

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Viptela Intros LTE-enabled SD-WAN Routers

Viptela introduced a compact SD-WAN router that natively supports any transport method including 3G/4G/LTE and wireless LANs.

The company said the new product extends the business case for SD-WAN to smaller companies, home/remote offices, ATMs and other sites that don’t require the scalability of the company’s existing enterprise and campus vEdge models.

The Viptela vEdge-100 provides the same secure data connectivity over any transport technology as the vEdge-1000 and 2000 router models, while adding integrated support for 3G/4G/LTE connections and Wireless LANs. It can be deployed without any onsite configuration and is centrally managed via the cloud.  The unit is fully integrated with the Viptela SEN platform and establishes secure DTLS sessions with the vSmart controller and IPsec sessions with other vEdge routers. It performs full IP router functions including OSPF, BGP, QoS, ACLs, etc.

“Increasing bandwidth requirements being generated by cloud, mobile and unified communications applications are making the use of MPLS connections cost prohibitive, especially for small/home offices, remote sites, retail outlets and ATMs,” said Ramesh Prabagaran, Vice President of Product Management at Viptela. “The new line of vEdge-100 devices opens up the use of SD-WAN to a wide range of new business locations with the addition of integrated wireless capabilities. It eliminates the complexity associated with using third-party add-ons or external modems to deploy 3G/4G/LTE as a WAN connection. Like all our vEdge models, it supports zero-touch deployment and is centrally managed which eliminates need for an onsite technician to bring new sites online.”

http://www.viptela.com

Verizon Delivers SD-WAN with Viptela

Thursday, February 18, 2016  SD-WAN, Start-ups, Viptela  No comments

Verizon will deliver a new software defined networking solution using Viptela’s Software Defined WAN Platform. Viptela also entered into an exclusive managed services arrangement with Verizon in the United States.

The new Verizon service, powered by Viptela, allows enterprises to “mix and match” private and public IP connections such as MPLS, wireless LTE, broadband and Ethernet to meet an organization’s unique application requirements based on geographic location, bandwidth and application service availability needs. The new managed service is being offered in the U.S., Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is delivered from Verizon’s cloud and will be supported by Verizon’s IT consulting group.

The Viptela SD-WAN solution expands Verizon’s Managed SD WAN portfolio currently based on Cisco’s iWAN technology in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Key features of Viptela’s SD-WAN platform:

• Centralized management and increased agility: Deploy changes in service policies in minutes using centralized management and zero-touch capabilities
• Application performance and service availability: Visibility into application and infrastructure performance to enable informed decisions on resource utilization and application tuning
• Security: Every device is authenticated and every packet encrypted in the network for added protection while supporting network segmentation
• Service-chaining: Enables supplementary L4 – L7 services like WAN optimization, firewalls and data leak prevention delivered from the Verizon cloud across the enterprise network.

“Viptela SD-WAN creates a unified and secure WAN that allows Verizon to deliver a new range of business application capabilities with exceptional levels of security, performance and availability,” said Amir Khan, CEO of Viptela. “The new Viptela-powered service enables Verizon to expand its WAN footprint by harnessing the power of software defined networking, and capitalize on new business opportunities made possible by the cloud and virtualized infrastructures.”

http://www.viptela.com

Blueprint: What’s Wrong with the WAN?

Wednesday, January 21, 2015  Blueprint, Viptela, WAN  No comments

by Khalid Raza, CTO, Viptela Today’s WANs are built on largely the same infrastructure as they were 10 years ago.  Back then, demands by users and applications were more predictable, resulting in more expected traffic patterns and bandwidth requirements.  And there was no cloud.  And there was no virtualization. But things are different today.  Delay-sensitive real-time applications such as VoIP and video are now enterprise...

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IBM Adds Quantum Processing to its Cloud Portfolio

by James E. Carroll

IBM is adding the first quantum computing service to its publically accessible cloud.

The new service runs on IBM’s quantum processor located at the company's T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, NY. The quantum processor is composed of five superconducting qubits.

IBM said its quantum computing platform has the potential to solve certain problems that are impossible to solve on today’s supercomputers. IBM envisions medium-sized quantum processors of 50-100 qubits to be possible in the next decade, which would far surpass TOP500 supercomputers for certain functions.

“Quantum computers are very different from today’s computers, not only in what they look like and are made of, but more importantly in what they can do. Quantum computing is becoming a reality and it will extend computation far beyond what is imaginable with today’s computers,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director, IBM Research. “This moment represents the birth of quantum cloud computing. By giving hands-on access to IBM’s experimental quantum systems, the IBM Quantum Experience will make it easier for researchers and the scientific community to accelerate innovations in the quantum field, and help discover new applications for this technology.”

http://www.ibm.com/quantumcomputing

IBM Wins U.S. Research Grant for Quantum Computing

Tuesday, December 08, 2015  IBM, Quantum  No comments

The U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) program has award a multiyear research grant to IBM to advance the building blocks for a universal quantum computer.

The award is funded under the Logical Qubits (LogiQ) program of IARPA led by Dr. David Moehring. The LogiQ Program seeks to overcome the limitations of current quantum systems by building a logical qubit from a number of imperfect physical qubits.

IBM said its research team will continue to pursue the leading approach for building a universal quantum computer by using superconducting qubits. By encoding the superconducting qubits into a logical qubit, one should then be able to perform true quantum computation. These logical qubit designs will be foundational to future, more complex quantum computing systems.

“We are at a turning point where quantum computing is moving beyond theory and experimentation to include engineering and applications,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director, IBM Research. “Quantum computing promises to deliver exponentially more speed and power not achievable by today’s most powerful computers with the potential to impact business needs on a global scale. Investments and collaboration by government, industry and academia such as this IARPA program are necessary to help overcome some of the challenges towards building a universal quantum computer.”

http://www.ibm.com

IBM Announces Two Breakthroughs for Quantum Computing

Wednesday, April 29, 2015  IBM, Quantum  No comments

Researchers at IBM have demonstrated for the first time the ability to detect and measure the two types of quantum errors (bit-flip and phase-flip) that will occur in any real quantum computer. The researchers have also shown a new, square quantum bit circuit design that could scale to larger dimensions.

“Quantum computing could be potentially transformative, enabling us to solve problems that are impossible or impractical to solve today," said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director of IBM Research. “While quantum computers have traditionally been explored for cryptography, one area we find very compelling is the potential for practical quantum systems to solve problems in physics and quantum chemistry that are unsolvable today. This could have enormous potential in materials or drug design, opening up a new realm of applications.”

The research is published in the April 29 issue of the journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7979).

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/46725.wss

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Vietnam's Hanoi Telecom Deploys Infinera

Hanoi Telecom Corporation (HTC), a wireless telecom operator, selected Infinera Intelligent Transport Networks to advance its optical network in Vietnam. HTC offers carrier and wholesale services, focusing primarily on providing wireless, broadband and VoIP services and is riding a wave of tremendous mobile data growth in the region. The company offers its retail mobile services under Vietnam Mobile to more than 13 million wireless subscribers.

Specifically, HTC extended its existing Infinera TM-Series metro network with the DTN-X Family for its backbone connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau. The selection via Infinera’s established local partner, Nissho Electronics Vietnam positions HTC with a unified metro and backbone network that includes a common network management system for rapid service delivery in the region.

HTC is the first operator in Vietnam to use the Infinera DTN-X XTC Series and this is the first time any network in Vietnam is deploying 500 Gbps super-channels.

Infinera said HTC will be able to use its unique Instant Bandwidth, which enables optical capacity to be software-activated in 100 Gbps increments with the click of a mouse.

“We intend to advance the deployment of high bandwidth solutions to our customers in the Vietnam market by using the DTN-X XTC Series based on the innovative PIC technology,” said Madam Trinh Minh Chau, Chairwoman and CEO of Hanoi Telecom. “Infinera’s Instant Bandwidth allows us to differentiate our services through pre-deployed capacity which can be delivered on-demand via software defined activation. In addition, Infinera’s platforms have demonstrated the type of reliability and quality we are looking for in our network.”

http://www.infinera.com

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i3forum and OVCC to Merge -- Focus on Telco Transformation

The i3forum and the Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC) are merging.  The new organization aims to increase it scope and its membership as it focuses on telco transformation and video communications.

i3forum, established in September 2007 to drive development of international IP interconnections among telecommunications providers and fight fraud, announced in February 2016 the expansion of its previous scope to include other advanced technologies such as IPX, IMS, NFV, APIs and IoT. The i3forum's membership includes top telecom providers.

OVCC, whose board level founders included AT&T, BT, Orange Business, BCS and Polycom, has focused on the development of a global, standards-based visual communication network specification defining the technical and commercial terms required to implement a ubiquitous video service, supported across multiple carriers and equipment providers. OVCC's mission has been to grow the overall business use of visual and collaborative communications globally through a secure network of interconnected service providers.

“With members from the world’s largest video providers, both OVCC and i3forum for years have independently promoted global network compatibilities, best practices, standards and innovation,” said Clive Sawkins, president of the OVCC. “As the communications industry continues to grow exponentially and globally, the merged organization will combine efforts and resources to help service providers, carriers and enterprises deploy and consume services safely across network boundaries, between public and private clouds, and over the public internet.”

“Bringing OVCC and i3forum together creates an organization with a broad scope and a unique ‘end-to-end’ capability that encompasses the underlying IPX network and services such as unified communication,” said Philippe Millet, i3forum president and vice president of partnerships at Orange. “It is the perfect response to the evolution of the industry, and will allow members and industry stakeholders to look more broadly at challenges and opportunities, foster new ecosystems and enable the transformation of the industry.”

http://i3forum.org
http://www.ovcc.net/

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CenturyLink Post Q1 Sales, Growth in MPLS and Ethernet

CenturyLink reported Q1 revenue of $4.40 billion compared to $4.45 billion in first quarter 2015. Declines in voice and long distance revenues, low-bandwidth data services revenues and data integration revenues were partially offset by the increases in business high-bandwidth data services revenues, consumer high-speed Internet and Prism TV revenues and other services.

Net income (GAAP) was $236 million compared to a net income of $192 million for first quarter 2015, and diluted earnings per share was $0.44 for first quarter 2016 compared to $0.34 for first quarter 2015.

"CenturyLink achieved another solid quarter, with core revenues, operating cash flow and adjusted diluted earnings per share in-line with our previous guidance," said Glen F. Post III, chief executive officer and president. "Additionally, since the first of the year, we have completed two debt issuances totaling more than $1.2 billion, which strengthens our ability to invest in our business while returning cash to shareholders. We remain on track with our data centers and colocation business strategic alternatives process and are pleased with the level of interest and progress to date."

Some highlights:

• CenturyLink now has over 1.5 million fiber-enabled homes and businesses with Internet speeds of up to 1 Gbps. 
• Achieved core revenues of approximately $4.0 billion. Grew revenue from high-bandwidth data services provided to Business customers, including MPLS and Ethernet, by more than 7% year-over-year and revenue from Consumer strategic services by approximately 5% year-over-year. 
• Generated free cash flow of $824 million, excluding special items. Added more than 16,900 CenturyLink Prism TV customers during first quarter 2016, ending the period with approximately 302,000 customers. 
• Ended the quarter with approximately 6.1 million high-speed Internet customers, an increase of approximately 7,800 customers in first quarter 2016.

http://www.centurylink.com

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Aerohive Sees Sales Jump 55% for Enterprise Wi-Fi

Aerohive Networks, which supplies cloud networking and enterprise Wi-Fi, reported Q1 sales of $40.1 million, an increase of 55.4% compared with $25.8 million for the first quarter of 2015 and a decrease of 13.2% compared with $46.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2015. Software subscription and services revenue was $7.7 million, or 19% of total revenue for the quarter, compared with $5.3 million, or 21% of total revenue, for the first quarter of 2015.

For the first quarter of 2016, GAAP net loss was $12.5 million, compared with $15.8 million in the first quarter of 2015. GAAP gross margin was 66.8%, compared with 66.5% in the year-ago period.

“We’re pleased to deliver our fourth consecutive quarter of exceeding expectations on both the top and bottom line,” stated David Flynn, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We continue to see strong demand for our technology across our key verticals and remain on track to achieve non-GAAP operating profitability in 2016.”

http://www.aerohive.com

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NETGEAR Adds Three New 10-Gigabit Ethernet Copper Switches

NETGEAR has added three new switches to its second-generation ProSAFE 10-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Smart Managed Switch portfolio:

• NETGEAR ProSAFE 48-Port 10-Gigabit Ethernet Smart Managed Switch (XS748T) offers 44 copper 10GBASE-T ports and 4 additional dedicated 1GbE/10GbE SFP+ ports for 10G fiber links. List priced at $8,198.
• NETGEAR ProSAFE 16-Port 10-Gigabit Ethernet Smart Managed Switch (XS716T) includes 16 copper ports of 10-Gigabit connectivity, 2 of which are shared/combination copper/SFP+ Fiber ports for 10G fiber links. List priced at $2,623.
• NETGEAR ProSAFE 8-Port 10-Gigabit Ethernet Smart Managed Switch (XS708T) includes 8 copper ports of 10-Gigabit connectivity, 2 of which are shared/combination copper/SFP+ Fiber ports for 10G fiber links. List priced at $1,588.

Key features include:

• Advanced VLAN features such as protocol-based VLAN, MAC-based (Media Access Control) VLAN and 802.1x Guest VLAN
• Advanced QoS (Quality of Service) with L2/L3/L4 awareness and 8 priority queues including Q-in-Q
• Static Routing (IPv4 and IPv6)
• Private VLAN
• Dynamic VLAN assignment
• IGMP and MLD snooping
• Advanced security
• IPv6 for management, QoS and ACL
• Easy-to-use Web browser-based management GUI
• Green Ethernet features for energy efficiency

http://www.netgear.com

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Nokia Uprades Hutchinson 3 in Indonesia

Hutchison 3 Indonesia (H3I) selected Nokia to expand its core network.

Specifically, Nokia will supply H3I with packet core technology in some of important cities in Indonesia, such as Surabaya, Semarang, Solo and Yogyakarta.

At the start of 2016, the number of mobile subscribers in Indonesia exceeded 320 million. Fixed broadband penetration remained under 2%, with broadband household penetration at 5%.

http://www.nokia.com

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Zayo Cites Big Win with Cloud Storage Provide for Wavelength Services

Zayo announced its selection by a leading cloud storage provider to provide metro dark fiber and wavelengths services. The solution will leverage existing network from prior success-based capital projects, including new segments with committed tenants, which are currently under construction. The customer name was not disclosed, nor were financial terms.

Zayo said it is providing this cloud service provider with a three node ring in the Dallas metro area to connect its data centers. The wavelengths solution will provide eight 100G routes, creating a ring between the Bay Area, Seattle, Chicago and Dallas. The solution will provide a diverse ring in the western U.S. and double the customer’s network capacity.

“Zayo is ideally positioned to meet to the infrastructure needs of web-scale companies,” said Max Clauson, executive vice president of Network Connectivity Services at Zayo. “By leveraging our fiber networks in multiple cities and fiber routes between cities, and by incorporating our product portfolio of dark fiber solutions and lit services, we were able to provide a streamlined, efficient solution for the customer.”

http://www.zayo.com

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