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Amazon Studios announced that it has greenlit a new original comedy series called Betas for Amazon Prime Instant Video. The company describes the show:

Set in the land of Silicon Valley start-ups where the right algorithm can make you king, Betas, written by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, follows four computer geeks and their quest for nerd fame as they attempt to crack the ultimate code. Ed Begley Jr., Jon Daly, Joe Dinicol, Margo Harshman, Charlie Saxton and Karan Soni star in the pilot.

The pilot is being directed and produced by Michael Lehmann (Heathers, True Blood, Dexter, American Horror Story) along with Alan Freedland and Alan Cohen (King of the Hill, Due Date, American Dad), and Michael London (Sideways, The Visitor, The Informant).

“Amazon is giving us a chance to work outside the TV bureaucracies and connect directly with audiences hungry for original content, and Betas is the perfect match for that model,” said producer Michael London. “Betas is a half hour comedy about a group of tech-savvy millennials trying to connect with the world both personally and professionally. Speaking for the whole creative team on Betas, we couldn’t be more thrilled to be part of the first launch of Amazon Studios pilots and working with such an inspiring group of people.”

“We can’t wait to hear what fans think of this and the seven other comedy pilots we’re producing — we have unbelievable casts and crews working on these projects,” said Roy Price Director of Amazon Studios.

Earlier this week, Amazon announced the upcoming Zombieland TV series. Other comedies in the works at Amazon include: Alpha House, Browsers, Dark Minions, Onion News Empire, Supanatural, and Those Who Can’t.

Image: Ed Begley Jr. in Arrested Development

One of the major complaints of the Wii U is that the load times between menus takes far too long. This is most apparent when a player returns to the home menu. In its April firmware update, Nintendo is hoping to fix this.

In a new video uploaded to its official YouTube channel, Nintendo shows off the effect its new firmware update has on system load times. Going from a game to the home menu takes about 22 seconds on the current firmware. With the new firmware, this time will be reduced to six seconds.

The April update will be the first of two system firmware updates planned for this year that will hopefully improve the system load times. The video makes it seem that this update will focus on decreasing the time required to move from a game to the home menu. It’s unknown if the April update will decrease the time required to move between apps like Miiverse and the eShop.

President Barack Obama watches as Vice President Joe Biden administers the oath of office to incoming U.S. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson during a swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office, March 27, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

A highly respected veteran of the Secret Service was sworn in as head of that agency today in a ceremony in the Oval Office. President Obama watched as Vice President Joe Biden administered the oath to Julia Pierson, and praised her dedication, professionalism and commitment to her work:

"I have to say that Julia’s reputation within the Service is extraordinary," President Obama said following the ceremony. "She’s come up through the ranks. She’s done just about every job there is to do at the Secret Service."

"Obviously, she’s breaking the mold in terms of directors of the agency, and I think that people are all extraordinarily proud of her. And we have the greatest confidence in the wonderful task that lies ahead and very confident that she is going to do a great job. So we just want to say congratulations."

Many murders go unsolved, and many murderers are reluctant to reveal the extent of their crimes, even when they have no hope of being released from prison. This week, New York police have revealed that a severed head found in 1989 has been linked to one of New York’s most notorious serial killers.

According to an Associated Press report, New York state police have revealed that a woman named Heidi Balch was likely serial killer Joel Rifkin’s first victim. The 25-year-old’s head was found on a New Jersey golf course in 1989. She, like most of Rifkin’s victims, was a New York City prostitute. Police cited physical evidence and statements by Rifkin in making their determination that Balch was murdered by Rifkin.

Joel Rifkin is believed to have killed more than a dozen women from 1989 to 1993, most of them prostitutes. He was convicted of nine of the murders in 1994 and sentenced to 203 years to life in prison. He is currently serving his sentence in the Clinton Correctional Facility in Clinton County, New York.

Google is announcing another batch of fresh Street View imagery, this time coming from Japan.

More specifically, Namie-machi, a small city in Fukushima Prefecture that’s in the Fukushima exclusion zone. That means that although years have passed since the nuclear accident that occurred as a result of the great earthquake of 2011, Namie-machi’s residents are still unable to return to their city.

And that affects 21,000 people, according to a Google blog post.

Google’s Street View team combed through the deserted town, and what you have is some more stunning imagery from a natural disaster. Back in December of 2011, Google unveiled Street View imagery of the earthquake and tsunami-torn northeastern coast of Japan.

Here’s the kind of stuff you’ll see:

Namie-machi mayor Tamotsu Baba explains the above image:

This image shows an area located one kilometer inland from the Pacific Ocean. In the distance you can see Ukedo Elementary School. Nearby Ukedo Harbor once proudly boasted 140 fishing boats and 500 buildings, but suffered some of the worst tsunami damage. After being set off-limits, we have not been able to clean up the wreckage on the side of the road, including the many fishing boats that were washed several kilometers inland.

Baba goes on to heartbreakingly convey that some people just want to see the state of their home.

“Many of the displaced townspeople have asked to see the current state of their city, and there are surely many people around the world who want a better sense of how the nuclear incident affected surrounding communities.”

You can start looking around Namie-machi today.

Google put out a new Webmaster Help video today, though this one doesn’t really do much to help webmasters. It’s simply Matt Cutt responding to the question: Where do you see Google search 10 years down the road?

An interesting topic, for sure.

As Cutts notes, that’s a long time. In Internet years that’s a really, really long time. I can’t imagine how even Cutts could possibly know what Google will be like that far into the future. It sounds, however, like a lot of current Google projects like Google Glass and Google Now are involved.

One interesting (if not scary) concept Cutts mentions is a brain interface.

“In theory there could be a brain interface so you could be having a dialogue where some of it is audible and some of it is not,” he contemplates.

I think that hovers somewhere around that “creepy line” that Microsoft likes to keep talking about (and even illustrating). Former Google CEO (and current Executive Chairman) Eric Schmidt said a few years ago that brain implants would cross the creepy line. The part about the creepy line was used as a sound byte in Microsoft’s “Scroogled” campaign about Gmail, even though Schmidt was talking about brain implants.

I smell a Scroogled resurrection.

We can probably expect a new Kindle tablet or eReader this year, but we can’t be so sure about a Kindle Phone. A few rumors have pointed to the company working on such a device, but there’s been nothing concrete yet. The latest rumors continue that trend with some wild speculation regarding the device.

Digitimes reports that Amazon is prepping a 4.7-inch Kindle Phone for release in the second quarter of this year. If true, that puts the launch at some point between the beginning of April and the end of June. For a product that we haven’t even see yet, it seems highly unlikely.

Digitimes’ sources address the unlikelihood of a second quarter release by saying that Amazon is only hoping to launch by then. The company may very well have to push the launch back as production progress has reportedly “not been as smooth as expected.”

Another potential reason for the delay is that Amazon has recently changed the display size of the device. The Kindle Phone was originally going to sport a 4.3-inch display, but Amazon upped it to a 4.7-inch display after “witnessing increased demand for larger size screens among consumers.”

It will be interesting to see the reception to a Kindle phone if the rumors are true. People use tablets, and by extension the Kindle Fire, to consume content. Smartphones are a somewhat different beast as the focus is placed instead on communication and sharing. Amazon has an inviting content ecosystem that’s easy to sell in a tablet, but it may be a bit harder to sell that experience to those looking fora smartphone.

[h/t: Cult of Android]

¡Hola! Many of us use Google Translate, some on a daily basis. For instance, I follow a few blogs in Reader (a moment of silence please) that are published in languages that are foreign to me. For the most part it works well, but can also lead to some rather amusing results. Now you can get those same laughs from your Android phone, even when you are offline.

Today Google’s product manager Minqi Jiang announces that the search giant and mobile operating system developer is “launching offline language packages for Google Translate on Android (2.3 and above) with support for 50 languages, from French and Spanish to Chinese and Arabic”.

Obviously you need the Translate app installed. From there, the new update provides an “Offline Languages” option where you can download the packages available. A word of caution though — Jiang points out that “While the offline models are less comprehensive than their online equivalents, they are perfect for translating in a pinch when you are traveling abroad with poor reception or without mobile data access”.

To enable the offline translation between any two languages you will need to select them within that offline languages menu. Once the packages are downloaded then you can head off to Paris for that vacation you have been dreaming of.

Photo Credit: Igor Petrov/Shutterstock

Quick: What’s the first thing that pops in your head when you think of Opera? If you’re anything like me, it’s probably the company’s desktop browser. But there’s more to Opera: The company has been hugely successful in mobile, bringing in more than $400 million in ad revenue in 2012 alone, and it’s now getting ready to repeat that success story on the TV.

Opera has been active in TV for some time. The company’s browser software-development kit has been powering TVs and connected devices from Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp and Philips as well as the new Boxee TV, just to name a few. Frode Hernes, VP of products and connected devices at Opera told me during a phone conversation last week that consumers already use an estimated 30 to 50 million TVs and connected devices that are powered by Opera.

But Opera’s role on your TV may get a lot bigger soon. Last year, it launched the Opera TV Store, a HTML-based app store that is now shipping with Sony’s Bravia TVs and coming to other vendors soon. And Hernes told me that it plans to launch advertising for TV apps before the end of the year.

These ads will include offers to try and install certain apps within other apps, much in the same way advertising is working on mobile phones. “We have done the technical integration,” Hernes told me, but the inventory just isn’t there yet. “It’s a little bit early,” he said. “We hope to have significant income next year” from TV ads, he added.

The company has also been adding additional features to its app store, including the capability to display apps side-by-side next to live TV and other content, and it is getting ready to switch its rendering engine from Opera’s own browser engine to Chromium to keep up with the latest in HTML5 development.

However, some of these changes might not find their way onto TV sets until 2014, simply because consumer electronics manufacturers take their time with integrating new software. “This is not like the mobile market,” Hernes said.

Consumers have often been on the flip side of those long release cycles, getting products that are already outdated as soon as they’re getting on the shelves of retailers, often with no chances for any product updates.

However, this could change once ads add additional monetization opportunities to smart TVs: Instead of operating on razor-thin margins and simply moving from one generation to the next, companies could actually be incentivized to add features and services to existing devices already in consumer’s homes, Hernes predicted. “This is one way of keeping the device relevant after it is sold,” he said.

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Normally I wouldn’t review a card game app because there are so many out there, but since Concrete Software is one of our favorite developers, I wanted to check it out. Now the closest thing I have played to Gin Rummy was Rummykub, which was many many moons ago. So forgetting the app itself, I had to learn how to play the game. Thankfully Concrete Software included a really nice tutorial with all the rules. At first it seemed complicated, but after one match, I wasn’t a pro, but I was well on my way to understanding how to play.

I won’t get into the rules itself, but what’s cool about Gin Rummy is the games are fairly quick. A match may consist of many games, but the games only last a few minutes. The app automatically sorts your cards and creates your melds, which makes it move really quick. Best of all is that if you need to stop playing for whatever reason, you can simply pick up where you left off.

Upon opening the game for the first time, you should go into the settings and set your avatar as well as your player name. Then it’s a matter of setting the difficulty to easy, medium, or hard. Lastly, you can set how many points will win the match (100,200,300,400). Now it’s time to start a game. Just tap on New or Resume if you already have a game going. The cards will be dealt and any melds that you have will automatically be created. It’s just a matter of tapping on which card you want and swiping the card that you will return. Your total deadwood will always be shown at the bottom right along with the minimum number you need to knock. Once you’re in a position to knock or go for Gin, the respective option will appear at the bottom right. Once either your opponent or yourself either knocks or goes for Gin, everything will be totaled automatically.

Aces Gin Rummy looks pleasing and the sound effects are spot on. It’s a card game so you aren’t going to get any explosive effects, but it looks great as all Concrete games do. So if you are into cards game or if you’re looking for something new to play, then try Aces Gin Rummy. I am thoroughly enjoying it on my Nexus 7, but it will work on just about any device with Android 2.2 or higher. It’s absolutely free!! Check out my hands on video below as well as their trailer, and hit one of my download links to get started. Let me know what you think.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: Featured Android Game Review: Aces Gin Rummy [Cards & Casino]

It is like Groundhog Day! Once again an undersea cable has been cut — the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (aka SEA-ME-WE 4) cable and that is causing an internet (and communications) slowdown in and around Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. The cut was said to be near Alexandria in Egypt. Tata Communications – previously Videsh Sanchar Nigam LimitedIndia – administers the network.

While the cut was on a single cable, it came at an unfortunate time as a few other major cables were in “maintenance mode” and that has resulted in problems for service providers across the region. Our sources in the telecom community confirmed that two other cables — Europe India Gateway (EIG) and India-Middle East-Western Europe (IMEWE) — were in ‘maintenance’ mode when the SWM4 got cut. The result is downstream congestion on networks that are going to India and around the Indian Ocean. UAE’s Etisalat reported that the internet speeds were down by as much as 60 percent in some locations.

Sunil Tagare, who runs the BuySellBandwidth.com, on his blog wrote

It’s not good enough to say since you have 10 cables even if going through Egypt, you have route diversity. And as today’s 4 cable cuts have demonstrated, any time the cables are along similar paths, there is a high likelihood that all of them might be cut at the same time.

He was arguing that four major cable — I-Me-We, Sea-Me-We-4, EIG and TE North – were impacted at the same time and thus causing problems in the Middle East and Asia. It is not a smart way to think about the networks, especially since we depend so heavily on many of these optical cables. Tagare’s argument makes sense to me, for we have seen this pattern repeat itself a few times. As I wrote earlier, there are three major cables that connect Europe and Middle East – SeaMeWe-3, SeaMeWe-4 and FLAG Euro-Asia — and they follow the same path underneath the Mediterranean Sea, making them vulnerable to cuts.

In 2010, the SEA-ME-WE-4 experienced a cut causing large scale disruptions, two years after the cable experienced an outage. Things have become more acute now considering that SEA-ME-WE4 is a lifeline for the African internet.

SEACOM, an African consortium which owns the big African Internet cable, later confirmed the outage on its website and said that it was working towards restoration. SEACOM had already been experiencing problems since March 24 and was in the middle of fixing those before it was hit by the cable cut.

Mark Simpson, CEO of SEACOM, said in a press note:

The cause of the outage is a physical cable cut some kilometres north of the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea. This is not likely to be known until the cable is repaired in the coming week or two and the damaged section is recovered from the seabed and inspected. However we suspect, based on our experience with sub-sea systems and the nature of the sea area where the cut has occurred, that the most likely cause is external aggression to the cable most probably caused by a larger vessel dragging its anchor across the sea bed. Unfortunately this remains a common cause of damage to cable systems globally, despite our continued efforts to protect the cable with armour, burying, notifications to ships of cable location and exclusion zones.

By the way, SEAMEWE-3 experienced a cut about two months ago (between Singapore and Perth, Australia) and it hasn’t been fixed just yet mostly because the network operator was waiting for Indonesian government permission to fix the cable which is in Indonesian waters.

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SAP announced the launch of some new ERP rapid-deployment apps this week. These would be the SAP ERP for Finance and Controlling, SAP ERP for Manufacturing and SAP ERP for Trading solutions.

The company says they will deliver speed and simplicity to enterprises considering the adoption of adoption of SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA.

The solutions include preconfigured software, implementation services, best-practices content and “end-user enablement.” Each comes with a fixed price.

“The promise of SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA and SAP 360 Customer is to enable businesses to run faster, simpler and smarter,” said Steven Birdsall, senior vice president and general manager, SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions. “Now, through rapid-deployment, we have wrapped this innovation into an easily accessible package as well. We have helped reduce implementation barriers for a non-disruptive and practical transformation into real-time business. Rapid-deployment solutions are offering customers game-changing innovation with controlled risk.”

“These new rapid-deployment solutions support IDC’s findings that emerging technology implementations are becoming shorter, and require fewer consulting and integration services,” said Gard Little, research director, at IDC for IT consulting and systems integration research. “Delivered as a complete package with a modular approach, SAP Rapid Deployment solutions allow customers to incrementally address business needs at their own pace in a simple and pre-integrated framework that can help them unlock value quickly.”

More on SAP Rapid Deployment solutions here.

For the second day in a row, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case involving gay marriage.

While the issue has predictably come to the fore on social media, it has also become a big topic of conversation on cable news.

Last night, Fox News star Bill O’Reilly shocked many of his viewers by admitting he finds the case for gay marriage “more compelling” than the opposition’s case. In a conversation about the court cases with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly on The O’Reilly Factor, he stated that U.S. policy shouldn’t be based on the Christian Bible.

Though O’Reilly prefaces his statement with “I hate to say this,” he goes on to say:

“The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That’s where the compelling argument is. ‘We’re Americans, we just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a compelling argument, and to deny that, you gotta have a very strong argument on the other side, and the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

O’Reilly made it clear that he has always supported civil unions, but that he doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other about gay marriage, seeing it as an issue for states to decide. “I want all Americans to be happy,” said O’Reilly.

O’Reilly also used the conversation to attack politicians for changing their views on the issue of gay marriage now that public opinion in the U.S. has shifted. He calls former President Bill Clinton a “phony” and called politicians who shift their views to match popular opinion “sleazy.”

O’Reilly may have a point that politicians who took a principled stand for gay rights before that stance became popular might be remembered more fondly by history. However, another way to look at it could be that the politicians changing their minds are simply representing the majority opinion of their constituents in a representative democracy. Considering his experience, O’Reilly seems inordinately surprised that politicians are playing politics.

Google Translate has just gotten a little easier for those of us who happen to encounter a foreign language or two when out and about. Android Associate Product Manager Mingi Jiang announced that Google has launched some offline language packs that will be available for all Google Translate users running on Gingerbread+ devices. Users can simply select “Offline Languages” in the app menu to see all the offline language packages available for download. Then, to enable offline translation between any two languages, users just need to select them in the offline languages menu. Once the packages are downloaded, users can take advantage of being able to translate general phrases from up to 50 different languages— especially useful for those of you that travel in places with a poor wireless signal or no internet connection at all.

As exciting as this is, don’t expect the offline language packs to tell you how to ask that smokin’ hot person you met at a coffee shop out on a date just yet— can’t say Google Translate can help you there.

source: Android Blog

Come comment on this article: Google Translate gets offline language packs

TA Associates and Updata Partners said Wednesday they plan to make a “significant” investment in Nintex Group. Financial terms were not announced. Nintex, of Melbourne, Australia, is a software provider. Macquarie Capital is currently a Nintex investor. The Wall Street Journal said the consortium’s offer for Nintex was valued at US$222 million. Spurrier Capital Partners and Macquarie provided advisory services to Nintex.

PRESS RELEASE

TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm, and Updata Partners, a leading technology-focused growth equity firm, today announced they plan to make a significant investment in the Nintex Group, a global provider of workflow software solutions. TA and Updata will work in partnership with the Nintex management team to accelerate Nintex’s global growth initiatives.

Nintex is a leading workflow software company, with more than 4,000 customers in 90 countries serviced by a global network of high quality partners and service providers. Nintex Workflow software enables organizations to automate business processes quickly and easily using intuitive but powerful, drag and drop tools. Through its Nintex Live offerings, Nintex enables organizations to utilize cloud services to seamlessly extend workflow functionality outside of the firewall to remote users, customers and suppliers. Nintex products are distributed globally via a network of over 800 value-added partners and service providers. The company also owns and operates OBS, a leading IT services business focused on the design, customization and implementation of Microsoft-based solutions exclusively in Australia. Nintex has global headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, U.S. headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, and offices in Kuala Lumpur and London.

“TA Associates and Updata Partners will enable Nintex to accelerate its growth, further expand internationally, and offer its customers and partners new and exciting innovative products,” said Brian Cook, co-Founder and Group CEO of the Nintex Group.

“We chose TA and Updata for their extensive experience and proven track record helping established software companies become standout market leaders,” said Brett Campbell, co-Founder and Global VP of Alliances of the Nintex Group.

“Nintex is an attractive investment for a number of reasons, including strong organic growth and momentum, a successful global partner distribution network, exceptional customer satisfaction and a deep management team,” said Harry D. Taylor, a Director at TA Associates who will join the company’s Board of Directors.

“We have been aware of Nintex for several years, watching the company continuously outperform and establish a leadership position in workflow solutions on the Microsoft SharePoint platform,” said John Burton, a General Partner at Updata Partners, who will join the company’s Board of Directors as Lead Director. Jon Seeber, a Principal at Updata Partners, will also join the Nintex Board of Directors.

This funding round will add to an existing investment in Nintex by Macquarie Capital. “We are pleased TA and Updata will be joining Macquarie Capital as investors in Nintex,” said Glen Butler, a Division Director at Macquarie Capital, which will retain a minority ownership position in Nintex. “As an innovative business providing user-friendly workflow tools, Nintex is well-positioned to continue its impressive growth.”

“Australia-based Nintex is a perfect example of the type of rapidly growing, well-managed global business TA has been able to identify by leveraging decades of investing experience in software businesses,” said Edward F. Sippel, Managing Principal – Asia Pacific, TA Associates Asia Pacific Ltd., who will join the Nintex Board of Directors. Kurt R. Jaggers, a Managing Director at TA Associates, will also join the company’s Board of Directors.

Gilbert + Tobin and Goodwin Procter LLP are providing legal counsel and KPMG is providing accounting advisory services to TA Associates. Proskauer Rose LLP is serving as legal counsel to Updata Partners. Allens is serving as legal counsel and Spurrier Capital Partners and Macquarie Capital are providing advisory services to Nintex.

About Nintex Group Pty Ltd.

Nintex is the leader in workflow solutions, with more than 4,000 customers in 90 countries serviced by a global network of high quality partners and service providers. Nintex delivers innovative software and cloud services that empower organizations to automate business processes quickly and easily. Please visit www.nintex.com for more information.

About TA Associates

Founded in 1968, TA Associates is one of the largest and most experienced global middle-market growth private equity firms. The firm has invested in more than 425 companies around the world and has raised $18 billion in capital. With offices in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong, TA Associates leads buyouts and minority recapitalizations of profitable growth companies in the technology, financial services, business services, healthcare and consumer industries. More information about TA Associates can be found at www.ta.com.

About Updata Partners

Updata Partners is a leading technology-focused growth equity firm with nearly $500 million of capital under management. Updata invests in high-growth software, internet, and technology-enabled services companies with innovative intellectual property and market-leading solutions. Led by an investment team averaging more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Updata seeks investments where the combination of the firm’s financial backing and the operating expertise of their partners will accelerate growth. Updata is headquartered in Washington, DC. For more information, please visit www.updatapartners.com.

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Velocity Technology Solutions, which is backed by Silver Lake Sumeru, has acquired velos-IT. Financial terms were not announced. Glasgow, Scotland-based velos-IT provides hosting, managed services and consulting to medium- and large-scale European companies.

PRESS RELEASE

Velocity Technology Solutions, Inc. (Velocity), the leader in cloud application services in North America, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of UK-based velos-IT, Ltd (velos-IT). velos-IT provides hosting, managed services and consulting to medium- and large-scale European enterprises.
“Velocity and velos-IT share a common set of core values and a reputation for technology innovation and customer service,” said Tom Bruno, CEO of Velocity. “The acquisition of velos-IT furthers our global services footprint and immediately strengthens and expands our Universal Cloud Services offering to include Oracle E-Business Suite. We are excited to serve the European market and enthusiastically welcome the entire velos-IT team into the Velocity family.” Velocity’s Universal Cloud Services suite includes fully-managed application services, platform-as-a-service (PaaS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and managed disaster recovery services delivered through a secure and resilient virtual private cloud.
Founded in 2004, velos-IT is one of the UK’s fastest-growing IT services companies and employs approximately 100 in Glasgow, Scotland. “We are excited by the opportunity to leverage the knowledge and technical expertise of Velocity and velos-IT across the expanse of Universal Cloud Services and extend a compelling offering for our current and future customers. This is fantastic news for both velos-IT customers and employees alike,” said Jim McInnes, founder and Managing Director of velos-IT, who has been named Velocity’s General Manager, Europe. The velos-IT customer base crosses multiple industries and ranges from mid-market through enterprises with revenues exceeding £3 Billion. velos-IT serves organizations with operations in 25 countries. Their services include 24/7 support of business applications and IT infrastructure, systems integration, application deployment, upgrades, and custom software development. Expertise includes Oracle JD Edwards and E-Business Suite, and QlikView business intelligence software.
“We remain focused on expanding our lead in the cloud services market through development of new channels, service offerings, and strategic acquisitions,” said Steve Shippee, Chief Strategy Officer. “This multi-faceted approach is critical to our customer-focused strategy — providing a robust offering and top-tier service while we continue to expand our capabilities.”

Velocity and velos-IT are privately held. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Velocity Technology Solutions
Velocity Technology Solutions is the leading provider of cloud-based Managed Application Services and Managed Disaster Recovery Services. It is dedicated to lowering operational costs, providing industry-leading service levels and improving software performance while reducing the burden on IT staff and enabling deployment flexibility. Velocity provides virtual private cloud solutions for enterprise applications with high levels of performance. Expertise managing software 24/7, combined with proprietary technology that enhances availability, security, and control, make Velocity the trusted partner for rapidly and securely deploying application investments into a secure and resilient virtual private cloud. Velocity is headquartered in New York with facilities in Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver, Tampa, London (Canada), Glasgow (Scotland). Velocity is a portfolio company of Silver Lake Sumeru, a global leader in private equity investments in growth-oriented technology and technology-enabled companies (for additional information on the firm and its entire portfolio, visit www.silverlake.com). For more information on Velocity: visit www.velocity.cc.

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