http://www.iomart.com/

The Group's principal activity is providing web based managed hosting services for both the consumer and business.

Originally founded in 1998 as an integrated internet and telecommunications company, the Group has evolved to become one of Europe’s largest providers of managed hosting, colocation, data centre, and business continuity services, serving over 300, 000 customers each day. Having been at the forefront of the UK’s technological revolution for the past decade the Group has developed an enviable reputation for its internet expertise, its service ethic and its product innovation.

The Group holds a unique position within the marketplace. By owning its own data centre and network infrastructure, it is able to deliver the complete set of vertical components in the hosting arena from domain names, virtual web space, security, web marketing, SEO, websites, dedicated servers through to complex managed hosting solutions, colocation space, power, cooling and bandwidth.

As more and more mission critical business applications move on to the web, so organisations need more resilience, security and 24 hour management; the market for managed hosting services and datacentre capacity is expected to grow significantly over the next few years.Described by US Analyst Tier 1 as "currently enjoying the sort of momentum that could soon place it on the list of European heavyweights.", the iomart Group is fast proving to be one of the UK's leading lights in the provision of true cloud computing services.

iomart subsidiary RapidSwitch establishes Points of Presence in the United States

Posted on September 23, 2013


iomart Group’s dedicated server brand expands network to North America

RapidSwitch US PoPs- map








RapidSwitch, the leading European supplier of self-managed dedicated server solutions and part of UK cloud company iomart Group plc, has extended its network into the United States.

RapidSwitch has established Points of Presence (PoPs) in Atlanta, Phoenix, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, New Jersey and Chicago, creating a transatlantic network connection for UK customers who require multi-geographic platforms across the globe.

Covering the East and West coasts of the US is of paramount importance for delivering low-latency bandwidth to customers across the whole of the country, which is a far greater challenge than in the UK due to the sheer size difference between the two regions.

Neil Christie, Commercial Director of RapidSwitch, said: “We are now offering a secure inter-linked network connection, primarily for UK customers who want to deliver secure, global platforms without the worry of building relationships with multiple providers in different time zones.”

RapidSwitch hosts thousands of servers for a wide range of clients and has a reputation for excellence in customer service with technical support provided 24x7x365.

RapidSwitch is part of iomart Group plc which has one of the largest and fastest networks in the UK serving clients include streaming service providers, gaming companies, voice over IPs (VOIP) and global media broadcasters. This national MPLS-enabled network enables private circuits to be provided to customers not only between the datacentre sites but directly to their own locations.

Acquisition, Trading Update and Notice of Results

RNS


RNS Number : 3418P

Iomart Group PLC

01 October 2013




1st October 2013

iomart Group plc

("iomart" or the "Group" or the "Company")



Acquisition, Trading Update and Notice of Results



iomart, the cloud computing company, is pleased to announce the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of Backup Technology Holdings Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary ("BTL"), a leading provider of cloud data backup and disaster recovery services. The Company also provides an update on trading ahead of the announcement of half yearly results for the six months to 30 September 2013.



Acquisition of Backup Technology

The total consideration paid for BTL is £23m, satisfied through an initial consideration of £17.5m in cash and £3.5m from the issue of 1,205,857 new ordinary shares. A further deferred consideration of £2.0m is payable in cash on 31 January 2014.



Based in Leeds, BTL boasts an impressive customer portfolio of 200 enterprise clients including Siemens, British Red Cross, Lloyds Register, Suzuki and Pernod Ricard as well as Liverpool and Everton football clubs. Established in 2005 BTL now protects many Petabytes of data for clients. BTL has been a leader in cloud backup up since it was founded and has established a solid, well regarded, growing business providing an increasingly important element of a business's IT infrastructure.



For the twelve months ended 31 December 2012, BTL delivered turnover of £5.2m with an EBITDA1 of £2.4m and net assets of £2.3m. The cash consideration will be financed out of new banking facilities and the acquisition is expected to be immediately earnings enhancing before acquisition costs and normal acquisition adjustments including any fair value adjustments and the amortisation of intangible assets.



Current Trading

Trading in the first half of the year remains strong, with revenue and profits substantially ahead of the comparative period last year and in line with current consensus market expectations.



The Group continues to successfully execute on its focussed growth strategy of providing high quality and high margin managed solutions to corporate customers. With an expanding range of cloud services, through both organic and acquisitive means, iomart continues to build its reputation as the UK's leading cloud computing company.



Today's acquisition of BTL follows the acquisition earlier this month of dedicated server provider, Redstation, and the early integration of that business is progressing as planned.



Customer demand for iomart's services remains strong and growing, as the market increasingly shifts toward the provision of products and services over the internet. Strong market drivers, combined with high levels of visibility and customer renewals, leaves the Board optimistic for continued success.



Angus MacSween, Chief Executive of iomart, stated: "We are pleased with the continuing strong performance of iomart. The addition of BTL to the Group will further broaden and diversify our cloud-based offerings and enhance our position in the market. I look forward to the second half of the year and remain very confident in the growth prospects of the business."



Banking Facility



The cash consideration for the acquisition of BTL has been financed by a £35m debt package from Bank of Scotland made up of a £15m Term Loan and a £20m Revolving Credit Facility. Of the total facilities of £35m the company has drawn down £32.5m. £14m of this has been used to repay existing bank facilities and the balance has been used to finance the acquisition.



The Board believes the willingness of Bank of Scotland to provide the debt further underlines the Group's strong attractiveness to lenders.



The net debt position of the Company following this transaction will be approximately £26m. The Board anticipates that the cash generative nature of the existing business which will be further enhanced by this acquisition will enable all debt service metrics to be met and allow the Group to repay debt going forwards as it falls due.



Additional Listing



Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the new ordinary shares, which will rank pari passu with the existing shares in issue, to be admitted to trading on AIM, and admission is expected to become effective on 4 October 2013. The Company's total issued share capital after the admission of the new ordinary shares will be 107,786,339 ordinary shares. There are 140,773 ordinary shares in the iomart Group plc Employee Benefit Trust and the Company holds 1,023,453 of its ordinary shares in treasury. Therefore the total number of ordinary shares with voting rights in the Company is 106,622,113. This figure of 106,622,113 ordinary shares may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.



Notice of results



The Group expects to report half yearly results for the six months ending 30 September 2013 on 10th December 2013.

Iomart: Canaccord Genuity downgrades from buy to hold with an unchanged target price of 300p.

1 Oct Finncap 320.00 Buy


1 Oct N+1 Singer N/A Buy

Shares today -

Three is magic number for Iomart


Typical, Iomart (IOM:AIM) says virtually nothing for months, then along come three announcements at once. But analogies to buses are not really fair, this company is more sleek, chauffeur-driven Bentley that puttering public transport. As today’s trading update spells out, business is typically brisk and moving forward, built on that compelling and growing IT hosting and services outsourcing theme.

Today’s £23 million acquisition of Backup Technology Holdings (BTL) plays the same tune, bringing blue-chips client such as Siemens, the British Red Cross, Lloyds, Suzuki, even Liverpool and Everton football clubs, both currently flying high in the Premier League.

Last year to December, BTL achieved £5.2 million of revenue and £2.4 million earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for a 46% margin, matching last month’s Redstation deal.

Today’s take-out price is substantially higher, pitched at 9.6-times trailing EBITDA compared to the 3.4-times EBITDA of Redstation and typical four to six-times ratings of past acquisitions.

If BTL’s 200-odd clients can help prop-up Iomart’s own sprialing 38% measure EBITDA margins, reported last year to March, perhaps the price will prove a moot point.

The third interesting development centres around Iomart management’s plans to flog £11.8 million worth of stock via a book build placing. This is arguably the biggest factor in the shares near 3% slip today to 282p. But chief executive and founder Angus MacSween, who alone is selling £10 million worth, has not been a regular seller despite the shares incredible 10-fold four-year run from 28p.

IOMART GROUP - Comparison Line Chart (Rebased to first)

He says he wants to ‘rebalance his portfolio and utilise his entrepreneurs’ relief.’ That seems quite reasonable as any business builder must at some stage get the chance to crystalise their hard graft. He’s only selling about a fifth of his overall stake, as well as promising not to do it again… well, not until at least after full year results for 2015.

iomart Offers Greater Range of Cloud Services To UK Government G-Cloud 4

Posted on October 29, 2013


Adds Private and Hybrid Cloud plus Data Centre and Colocation Services to CloudStore

iomart Group plc (AIM:IOM), will be offering an expanded range of cloud and colocation hosting services to the UK public sector after being selected for G-Cloud 4, the fourth iteration of the pre-approved group of Cloud ICT suppliers to the UK Government.

iomart has added its expertise in the bespoke provisioning of private and hybrid cloud solutions to the CloudStore catalogue as well as offering data centre and colocation services. The new services can be found under the sections for Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS); Platform As A Service (PaaS); and Software As A Service (SaaS) for which iomart was accredited earlier this year when it was selected for G Cloud iii.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “As cloud becomes the de facto delivery mechanism for IT services, we are finding that public sector organisations are being much more specific about the type of cloud hosting services they are seeking from the G Cloud catalogue. We have expanded our range to reflect the significant expertise we have in these areas.

“In addition, we have also been accredited for data centre and colocation services, ensuring that we can offer prospective public sector clients the opportunity to utilise our nationwide estate of eight data centre locations and pan UK fibre network. This is particularly important as more and more Government organisations are seeking IT outsourcing disaster recovery and off-site storage solutions with trusted suppliers.”

iomart’s existing public sector clients include one of the UK’s biggest housing associations as well as a range of councils and education providers.

iomart specialises in the delivery and management of bespoke mission-critical private and hybrid cloud and managed IT infrastructures as well as providing cloud services such as storage, backup and security solutions.

iomartcloud partners Exinda to Protect Enterprises and Schools from Growing Cybersecurity Threats

Posted on November 27, 2013


Web Content Filter and Malware Protection Provides Safe Online Environment

iomartcloud, a leading supplier of business critical hosted cloud services and part of iomart Group plc, has partnered with Exinda, a global provider of next-generation WAN Optimization and Network Control solutions, to deliver an innovative web filtering solution to enterprise networks and primary and secondary schools.

As a result of increased online collaboration and mobile device expansion in the workplace, the risk of employees and students accessing inappropriate content on the network is growing. In response Exinda has launched the Exinda Content Filter which integrates the content filtering capabilities from iomartcloud into its WAN Optimization and Network Control appliances which have helped over 3,000 organizations worldwide deliver safe and reliable end user experiences.

Bill Strain, director of iomartcloud, said: “This is a very important partnership with a global leader in WAN Optimization and Network Control. It means our web filtering software will be delivered through a single network appliance for the first time. Businesses and organizations across the globe will be able to add web filtering to their network quickly and affordably at any level, from the gateway right down to the individual device, according to their requirements.”

The cloud-based Exinda Content Filter will provide IT managers with the ability to block access to prohibited content, prevent staff and students from downloading and sharing copyrighted material, and eliminate misuse of the network. With its best in class reporting tools, Exinda Content filter enables IT staff to monitor users and applications on or off the network, and set intelligent policies that restrict unauthorised behaviour.

iomartcloud works with a number of US and global service providers to deliver business-critical cloud solutions. Earlier this year SHI International Corp., one of America’s top 20 IT solutions providers, chose iomartcloud’s enterprise cloud platform to deliver reliable and flexible backup solutions for its customers.

iomartcloud’s Web Filter product is accredited for Child Safety Online by the British Standards Institute.

QA Software Saves Money with Powerful Hosting from iomart

Posted on November 28, 2013


AEC, Utilities and Oil & Gas SaaS Provider Saves £30,000
iomart Hosting, one of Europe’s leading providers of complex cloud and managed hosting services to the enterprise market and part of iomart Group, has helped QA Software, a leading global Software as a Service provider, to save at least £30,000 by migrating it to an improved and more powerful hosting platform.

QA Software develops information management solutions for the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC), Utilities and Oil & Gas industries.

The successful and growing company needed a fully upgraded and more powerful solution combining speed of application and SQL data base, resilience and capacity, with disaster recovery. QA Software went to market and picked iomart for the mix of managed and colocation services it needed.

Brian Dodsworth, Managing Director of QA Software, said: “iomart was the obvious choice for us. The flexible service level agreement meant we could use the service efficiently and it has resulted in a significant cost saving. We believe we will have saved in excess of £30,000 by switching our hosting to iomart over the initial three years of our contract.”

Paul Stuart, Head of IT for QA Software, added: “With the assistance of iomart’s technical team we were able to design and implement a solution that met all of our requirements. The transition to iomart was very smooth. We experienced no downtime or problems during implementation.”

Sarah Haran, managing director of iomart Hosting, said: “QA Software needed a secure and reliable hosting platform incorporating disaster recovery because of the mission critical nature of the work they do for their clients. Our migration team worked with them to complete the upgrade and the move to our London data centre in four weeks without any downtime.”

iomart Group: N+1 Singer downgrades from buy to hold, while raising its target price to 282p.

iomartcloud Secures £100,000 Contract with Government Digital Service

Posted on December 5, 2013


iomart Wins First G-Cloud Contract

iomartcloud, iomart Group’s business critical hosted cloud services brand, has won a £100,000 year-long contract from the Government Digital Service (GDS) to provide cloud services for the GOV.UK government services web portal.

iomartcloud, in partnership with traditional IT supplier Viglen, was given the contract following an award placed under the government’s G-Cloud framework.

iomartcloud will be providing virtual machines, EMC VMAX storage and backup which GDS will be able to manage via VMware vCloud Director, which allows elastic compute provision while maintaining security and control.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “I am delighted that iomartcloud has been selected as one of the main suppliers for GOV.UK. This is our first major contract win under the G Cloud framework and underlines our ability to provide the scalable and flexible infrastructure to support the most complex public sector projects. It also shows that G-Cloud is opening up the opportunity for a wider group of cloud services providers to successfully compete for government contracts.”

Michael Ruddick, Head of Channel EMEA for iomartcloud, added: “The contract with the Government Digital Service also underlines the shift that’s taking place towards cloud service providers working to provide more efficient and cost-effective solutions to the public as well as the private sector.”

GOV.UK is the single domain for government services that went live in October 2012. It averages over nine million weekly visits. The website won the prestigious “Design of the Year” award this year and was described by Prime Minister David Cameron as an example of “world class design talent” which enhanced “the modern relationship between the public and government.”

The G-Cloud Framework makes it easier for government departments and the wider public sector to buy cloud based services from a list of suppliers including SMEs through an online marketplace called Cloudstore. All of the products and companies are listed side by side creating a level playing field and opening up more opportunities for suppliers to compete on like-for-like terms.

iomartcloud and Viglen have joint presence on the G-Cloud 4 Framework and offer a wide range of cloud based services for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); Platform as a Service (PaaS); and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Interims Tues 10 Dec

RNS


RNS Number : 0991V

Iomart Group PLC

10 December 2013








10 December 2013

iomart Group plc

("iomart" or the "Group" or the "Company")

Half Yearly Results



iomart (AIM:IOM), the cloud computing company, is pleased to report its consolidated half yearly results for the period ended 30 September 2013.



FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS



· Revenue growth of 23% to £24.6m (H1 2013: £19.9m)

· Adjusted EBITDA1 growth of 29% to £9.8m (H1 2013: £7.6m)

· Adjusted profit before tax2 growth of 29% to £6.3m (H1 2013: £4.9m)

· Adjusted basic earnings per share3 from operations increased by 35% to 4.89p (H1 2013: 3.61p)

· Cashflow from operations increased by 43% to £9.1m (H1 2013: £6.4m)

· Adjusted EBITDA1 margins increased to 40% (H1 2013: 38%)

OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS



· Increased European footprint and dedicated server expertise through the acquisition of Redstation Limited for a maximum consideration of £8.1m

· Acquired major presence in the Cloud backup and disaster recovery market through the acquisition of Backup Technology Holdings Limited for a total consideration of £23.0m

· Continued progress on the fit out of additional 600 racks of datacentre space in Maidenhead



Statutory Equivalents



The above highlights are based on adjusted results. A full reconciliation between adjusted and statutory results is contained within this statement. The statutory equivalents of the above results are as follows:



· Profit before tax growth of 6% to £4.4m (H1 2013: £4.1m)

· Basic earnings per share from operations increased by 12% to 3.39p (H1 2013: 3.03p)



Angus MacSween, CEO commented,



"Trading in the second half of the year has begun well and we continue to win business from new and existing customers. We remain confident of achieving another successful year of significant growth in line with the upgraded market expectations.



"We also continue to invest in our people and infrastructure as we evolve and grow. This will ensure we are well positioned to take advantage of the still largely untapped corporate cloud market, and further fuel the growth we have enjoyed in recent years.



"With increased capacity, geographical presence and additional expertise in high growth cloud services we look forward with confidence."





1 Throughout this statement adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) before share based payment charges and acquisition costs. Throughout this statement acquisition costs are defined as acquisition related costs and non-recurring acquisition integration costs.

2 Throughout this statement adjusted profit before tax is profit before tax, amortisation charges on acquired intangible assets, share based payment charges, mark to mark adjustments in respect of interest rate swaps, the accelerated write off of arrangement fees on the bank borrowing facility which was repaid early in the period and acquisition costs.

3 Throughout this statement adjusted earnings per share is earnings per share before amortisation charges on acquired intangible

assets, share based payment charges, mark to market adjustments in respect of interest rate swaps, the accelerated write off of arrangement fees on the bank borrowing facility which was repaid early in the period and acquisition costs, including the taxation effect of these.

RNS


RNS Number : 0991V

Iomart Group PLC

10 December 2013








10 December 2013

iomart Group plc

("iomart" or the "Group" or the "Company")

Half Yearly Results



iomart (AIM:IOM), the cloud computing company, is pleased to report its consolidated half yearly results for the period ended 30 September 2013.



FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS



· Revenue growth of 23% to £24.6m (H1 2013: £19.9m)

· Adjusted EBITDA1 growth of 29% to £9.8m (H1 2013: £7.6m)

· Adjusted profit before tax2 growth of 29% to £6.3m (H1 2013: £4.9m)

· Adjusted basic earnings per share3 from operations increased by 35% to 4.89p (H1 2013: 3.61p)

· Cashflow from operations increased by 43% to £9.1m (H1 2013: £6.4m)

· Adjusted EBITDA1 margins increased to 40% (H1 2013: 38%)

OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS



· Increased European footprint and dedicated server expertise through the acquisition of Redstation Limited for a maximum consideration of £8.1m

· Acquired major presence in the Cloud backup and disaster recovery market through the acquisition of Backup Technology Holdings Limited for a total consideration of £23.0m

· Continued progress on the fit out of additional 600 racks of datacentre space in Maidenhead



Statutory Equivalents



The above highlights are based on adjusted results. A full reconciliation between adjusted and statutory results is contained within this statement. The statutory equivalents of the above results are as follows:



· Profit before tax growth of 6% to £4.4m (H1 2013: £4.1m)

· Basic earnings per share from operations increased by 12% to 3.39p (H1 2013: 3.03p)



Angus MacSween, CEO commented,



"Trading in the second half of the year has begun well and we continue to win business from new and existing customers. We remain confident of achieving another successful year of significant growth in line with the upgraded market expectations.



"We also continue to invest in our people and infrastructure as we evolve and grow. This will ensure we are well positioned to take advantage of the still largely untapped corporate cloud market, and further fuel the growth we have enjoyed in recent years.



"With increased capacity, geographical presence and additional expertise in high growth cloud services we look forward with confidence."





1 Throughout this statement adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) before share based payment charges and acquisition costs. Throughout this statement acquisition costs are defined as acquisition related costs and non-recurring acquisition integration costs.

2 Throughout this statement adjusted profit before tax is profit before tax, amortisation charges on acquired intangible assets, share based payment charges, mark to mark adjustments in respect of interest rate swaps, the accelerated write off of arrangement fees on the bank borrowing facility which was repaid early in the period and acquisition costs.

3 Throughout this statement adjusted earnings per share is earnings per share before amortisation charges on acquired intangible

assets, share based payment charges, mark to market adjustments in respect of interest rate swaps, the accelerated write off of arrangement fees on the bank borrowing facility which was repaid early in the period and acquisition costs, including the taxation effect of these.

A hold in this weeks IC - Group underlying half year pre-tax profit jumped an impressive 29% year on year to £6.3m and cash flow from operations soared 43% to £9.2m. Data hosting was the group's star performer in the period- revenue there climbed 31% year on year to £19.1m, with organic growth in the high teens and the rest coming from acquisitions. Hosting's cash profit rose by a third to £8.7m and the divisional profit margin improved to 46% from 45%. However, progress at the Easyspace business - which offers email and domain names to SMEs - was rather more sedate. Revenue there grew 3% to £5.5m, while cash profit rose marginally to £2.42m

Melbourne and Photolink Celebrate a Year of Collaboration in Retail

Posted on December 16, 2013


Content Agency and Hosting Provider Deliver Reliable Digital Engagement for Brands

iomart’s Manchester-based cloud and managed hosting company Melbourne Server Hosting is celebrating a year of collaboration with Photolink, the city’s hugely successful creative content agency. Together they have delivered new digital platforms for a number of exciting retail brands.

In the past twelve months the two companies have worked together on creating content rich, consumer friendly and highly accessible websites for UK-wide hair salon chains Regis Salons and Supercuts, as well as Photolink’s in-house ecommerce brand Little Black Dress.

Paul Casey, Digital Account Manager for Photolink, said: “Retail is incredibly fast moving so we need server hosting that can cope with the huge amount of refreshment needed to update content for our clients and keep consumers engaged. The team at Melbourne have great technical expertise but they also have a fantastic creative approach to working with an agency like us.

“Everything we do is about brand reputation for our clients so our hosting has to be 100 per cent reliable and that’s what Melbourne delivers.”

Photolink is an award-winning retail brand communications agency specialising in the creation of visual and digital content and multi-channel marketing strategies for the likes of John Lewis, Tesco and Argos. It has offices in Manchester, London and Mumbai and was recently chosen by UK Trade & Investment to represent the British creative industry overseas.

Rob Greenwood, Technical Services Manager for Melbourne, said: “This Christmas is expected to be the biggest for online spending so we’re delighted to provide support for Photolink at such an important time in the retail calendar. We take the same innovative yet technical approach to providing the right hosting solutions for them as they do in creating the right digital content for their clients. We’re looking forward to working together on a number of exciting new ecommerce projects in 2014.”

iomart celebrates its 15th birthday

Posted on December 18, 2013


iomart marks 15 years of delivering cloud and managed hosting services

Today iomart is delighted to be celebrating 15 years in business. It was on December 18th 1998 that the company was founded as an integrated internet and communications company by Scottish entrepreneur Angus MacSween to provide internet access and web hosting services to the UK.

From the early days of dial up to the cloud services of today, iomart has evolved to ensure that it delivers the cloud and managed hosting services that UK and European business and organisations require.

iomart started out with a small call centre in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. Today it employs over 300 staff and owns and manages state-of-the-art data centres in eight locations across the UK connected by a 40 Gigabit private fibre network. It protects over 15 petabytes of data for customers.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “iomart has invested in its infrastructure and its people to create one of the leading cloud companies in the UK and Europe. We will continue to focus on providing meaningful Service Level Agreements for our customers and working with them to deliver the bespoke support they need to be successful in their chosen markets.

“I would like to thank the staff at iomart and its associated companies for their continuing hard work and support as we look forward to another successful year ahead.”

Shares - Iomart is hoping to continue its recent acquisition spree early next year and possible overseas moves are under consideration for the first time.
The slide to 250p looks like a useful chance to climb aboard once more and we suspect the generally neutral market stance may prove too cautious.

Photographers Focus on New Generic Top-Level Domains with Easyspace

Posted on January 7, 2014


.Photos, .Photography and .Camera Are Popular New gTLDs



Easyspace, one of the UK’s largest domain name providers and part of iomart Group, has reported a surge in interest for photography-related extensions among the new ICANN generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs).

gtld-adv2

Easyspace has created a new TLD registration website, to allow customers to build up a virtual shopping basket of the new domain name extensions they are interested in.

The most popular group of new domains so far is extensions which reference the art of photography such as .photos, .photography and .camera as well as .gallery. These new gTLDs will ultimately sit alongside existing domains, such as .com.

Sarah Haran, Managing Director of Easyspace, said: “A photograph is one of the most powerful forms of communication in the digital age so if you are a photographer or you sell the technology they use it makes sense to identify yourself as closely with it as possible so you can stand out and share what you do with a wider audience on the internet.”

It is free to register interest in one of the new gTLDs with Easyspace while they are in the initial Sunrise phase which allows trademark holders to protect their brands. The Sunrise phase for Dot Camera, Dot Photography and Dot Gallery ends on 31st January. They then move into Landrush on 5th February before becoming available to the general public in General Availability on 12th February.

With hundreds of new generic TLDs being made available over the next few months, the Easyspace website gives a breakdown of what the different launch periods mean. The website also allows customers to search for specific domain extensions that are yet to be released.

There is also a separate section for trademark holders about registering with the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH), which is a requirement for anyone wishing to register their new domain during Sunrise.

Recovering very well.

Multiplay Chooses RapidSwitch to Power UK Expansion

Posted on February 4, 2014


Online Games Service Provider Turns to iomart Dedicated Server Specialist


iomart Group plc’s dedicated server brand RapidSwitch has been selected by Multiplay, one of the world’s largest hosts of online gaming servers, to power its expansion in the UK.

RapidSwitch will provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for Multiplay as the global gaming service provider looks to grow its customer base in the UK. RapidSwitch has already installed a range of servers for Multiplay in its Maidenhead data centre to provide UK-based hosting for games like EA Battlefield 4 and games with large community followings, such as Minecraft, Rust, and DayZ. RapidSwitch’s ‘on-demand’ approach to the deployment of physical hardware mimics the scalability of virtualised platforms but with the full power of a physical system.

Will Lowther, Head of Online at Multiplay, said: “Our target is to grow our customer base in the UK, particularly among makers of independent games, so we need a reliable and flexible hosting partner who can set up new and powerful infrastructure on demand. That’s why we chose RapidSwitch because it has the technical and management expertise to provision the hardware needed to support maximum online gaming experience in the most cost efficient way.”

Multiplay hosts one of the biggest online gaming networks in the world incorporating over 25,000 servers at 27 locations across the globe. It works with high-level developers to the consumers who purchase and play their products. RapidSwitch has created an infrastructure for Multiplay to service development in one of its biggest regions, the UK, based on latest generation Dell servers to deliver the best performance.

Neil Christie, Commercial Director for RapidSwitch, said: “The ‘on demand’ infrastructure model we are providing for Multiplay ensures an unrivalled level of performance of physical hardware but with complete flexibility over the availability of each system. Whatever the game’s requirements are, we can create the bespoke infrastructure needed to ensure the best consumer experience and, together with Multiplay’s innovative software platform, deliver the optimum gaming experience for maximum enjoyment.”

Pre-close Trading Statement and Notice of Results

RNS


RNS Number : 1858D

Iomart Group PLC

26 March 2014






Date: 26 March 2014

On behalf of: iomart Group plc ("iomart" or the "Group")

Embargoed until: 0700hrs

iomart Group plc

Pre-close Trading Statement and Notice of Results

iomart Group plc (AIM:IOM), the cloud computing company, is pleased to provide its pre-close trading statement for the year ending 31 March 2014 ahead of the announcement of its full year results.



Group Trading Performance

The Board is delighted to report that iomart has achieved a very strong set of results.

For the year to 31 March 2014, the Group expects to show adjusted EBITDA(1) of approximately £23.6 million (FY2013: £16.4 million) and adjusted(2) profit before tax of around £14.5 million (FY2013: £10.6 million) both slightly ahead of market consensus expectations.

Over the period, the Group has delivered strong organic growth combined with good performances from its acquired businesses, and the Board anticipates these dual drivers of growth continuing in the future.



Operations

The Hosting segment has continued to win a substantial amount of new business over the year, as the Group continues to benefit from the growing adoption of cloud services by organisations that need a strong partner with the necessary infrastructure to provide the certainty, scalability and flexibility they are looking for. Hosting also benefitted from the contribution of Redstation, and Backup Technology, the cloud backup business, both of which were acquired in September 2013. Both businesses have been successfully integrated into the Group.

Easyspace has performed in line with expectations over the year.

Notice of Results

The Group expects to report its full year results for the year ending 31 March 2014 on Wednesday 28 May 2014.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, stated:

"iomart has enjoyed another year of good organic growth, buoyed further by our recent acquisitions. There is no doubt that we are seeing a long term shift towards a cloud dominated technology landscape, and we are well positioned to take advantage of that."