As a recession looms GoHello calls for SMEs to stand by each other in the fight for economic survival

London, 30th October 2008: GoHello™, award-winning innovators of the ALLmobile business phone system, today announces the launch of its SME survival site. The site will give regular advice to small and medium sized enterprises on how to beat the business blues in times of an economic downturn, containing a wealth of knowledge designed specifically to help SMEs prosper, survive and run an efficient, successful business.

The SME market is core to any economy but will be one of the biggest sectors affected as the world heads towards a recession.  For many businesses the pressure to survive and maintain stability will be extremely intense as the backlash of a bust period hits.  

Helsinki, Finland – 30th October, 2008 – Xtract announced today that the GSM Association (GSMA) selected its Social Links solution as a top finalist for the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Awards Competition – APAC Tournament. The Mobile Innovation Global Awards Competition encourages breakthrough technology, applications and services in the mobile industry by bringing together innovative mobile products, industry investors and mobile operators. Xtract with its Social Links solution, a social marketing intelligence product, has been selected as one of three finalists in the ‘Most Innovative Carrier Infrastructure or Platform’ category.

Timo Laaksonen, CEO of Xtract said, “We are very proud to be recognised by the GSMA for the second time this year. This shows again that the operator community is starting to utilise their rich user data for marketing, making it more flexible, cost efficient, accurate and relevant to their customers.

MORRISTOWN, NJ - TM Forum and OgilvyOne announced today their first step towards jointly unlocking new revenue growth opportunities for communications service providers and advertisers. OgilvyOne will support the first TM Forum Digital Commerce and Advertising Summit, one of three new summits to be delivered at the Management World Orlando conference, November 16-20, 2008. The advertising and interactive marketing giant will provide valuable guidance, as well as chairing advertising sessions, at this ground-breaking summit.

Targeted content and advertising-based business models represent significant revenue growth opportunities for communications service providers.  According to STL Partners, this “2-sided business model” could be worth $250bn if companies can overcome the operational challenges involved.

• Beta program to ensure CCI Migration readiness is now open

LONDON, 28th October, 2008 – SMA Financial (www.sma.co.uk), SWIFT Regional partner for UK, Eire and Channel Islands today announced that it had completed testing preparation for migration to Euroclear’s Common Communication Interface (CCI).  SMA is actively assisting all of its clients and inviting them all to join its beta testing program to ensure readiness for the forthcoming mandatory changes.

Euroclear is introducing a new environment called the Single Platform to replace legacy communication services currently in use for clearing and settling UK stocks and communicating with international and national Central Securities Depositories (CSDs).  These changes will significantly alter the way in which financial institutions use, and interact, with the Euroclear UK & Ireland (formerly known as CREST) and Euclid PC/Server environments.