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New name and new orders signal UK expansion for Scotland Online

Scotland Online, the leading internet services business, has re-branded as brightsolid, in recognition of its evolving position in the UK business market and growing range of online expertise and products.

The company is experiencing significant growth, helped by new business wins across the range of its activities.

Recent contract wins include:

  • Providing a resilient virtualised environment for Aberdeen Journals' online editorial websites and Scotads website, publishers of news and advertising sites covering the North of Scotland;
  • Hosting of core web infrastructure for www.dunfermline.com, the new website of Dunfermline Building Society;

brightsolid has recently acquired the leading family history company findmypast.com. The company also won the contract to digitise, license and publish the 1911 Census of England and Wales from The National Archives in Kew. In addition brightsolid operates scotlandspeople.gov.uk, which is a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.

"In an increasingly complex world we help clients to design and implement high volume, high availability, high performance online products and services, and have done so successfully since we became one of the pioneering Internet companies of the mid 1990s." commented brightsolid chief executive Chris van der Kuyl.

"We are also one of world's most successful online family history businesses, having designed and created some of the web's most popular destinations. We are growing in this sector, both organically and through strategic partnerships, such as the acquisition of findmypast.com."

The brightsolid brand was developed after extensive research among major customers and other key stakeholders. While there was an overwhelmingly positive response to the company's reputation, it was felt that it could do even more to emphasise the high quality and range of its products and services.

The new name reflects the research conclusions that the company was seen to be "bright" in terms of its people and approach, and "solid" in terms of its resilient infrastructure and delivery.

The re-branding is among a raft of changes approved by brightsolid's board, which recruited Mr van der Kuyl to his role late last year, and supported the recent acquisition of findmypast.com from Title Research Group. brightsolid is owned by publishers D.C. Thomson (DCT) and Noble Grossart Investments (NGI).

"We aim to be the business-critical ISP of choice," added Mr van der Kuyl. "We will also create new ventures from within our core business – just as we did with our family history venture."

brightsolid owns and operates a purpose-built, highly specified data centre underpinned by a fully resilient and secure network.

Business continuity is also ensured with dual location and disaster recovery options including a fully equipped Workplace Recovery suite managed via its partnership with SunGard.

brightsolid chief executive Chris van der Kuyl explains the thinking behind the new name:

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Case studies:

Dunfermline Building Society

Scotland's largest building society has just gone live with its new website www.dunfermline.com . The hosting for the core infrastructure and all of the site support services is provided by brightsolid. brightsolid were recommended to Dunfermline by its partner SunGard.

David Bain, E-Commerce Manager for Dunfermline, says: "Compared to other companies we received proposals from, brightsolid offered a better service level agreement, customer relationship and response times."

"We set some tight timescales on the project and brightsolid met them. We found brightsolid helpful and flexible – and when you call them you speak to someone you know rather than a helpdesk. As we approached going live with the site we found them to be proactive in suggesting improvements – they'd sometimes call us before we called them."

Aberdeen Journals Limited (AJL)

The newspaper publisher has an existing professional relationship with brightsolid which led them to approach the company for the provision of an infrastructure for their online editorial websites and the Scotads website, an online market.

Hosted in brightsolid's data centre, the scalable infrastructure was designed using VMware's enterprise solution to deliver highest levels of availability.

Iain Tavendale, AJL's Pre-Press Development Manager, says: "our online presence is increasingly critical to our business and customers. brightsolid's focus on customer service and their technical and support staff have been very responsive and flexible ensuring our online presence is always on" and added "we have been impressed with the technical consulting group who created bespoke virtualised environment on time and on budget".

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