PageOne’s flare wins best service at prestigious national GO Awards

London, 11 June, 2009 – PageOne Communicatons, the UK’s leading mobile messaging company to the public sector and enterprise today announced that its flare product has been honoured for outstanding achievement in the Best Service category of the national Government Opportunities (GO) magazine Excellence in Public Procurement Awards. PageOne received the award following the delivery of a major public service contract for the provision of mobile communication services to the British Red Cross.

flare is a dedicated suite of incident management products that’s widely recognised by organisations across the private and public sectors as an essential part of successful business continuity planning. flare streamlines response to a critical incident with a host of built-in features designed to minimise reaction time and maximise efficiency. Using flare it is possible to communicate to individuals and groups, with any combination of SMS, email, UK paging, landline, voice or fax. And with a multi-channel response capability including 2-way SMS, WAP and a scaleable voice option, it’s allows people to be in control of a situation, wherever they are.

The British Red Cross began using flare in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and the Channel Islands following a comprehensive review of response times to calls for assistance from the emergency services and local authorities during major incidents. The flare system allows the British Red Cross to set up Smart Groups in advance so that during an incident, they only have to initiate one message and it cascades to all volunteers quickly and effectively. This reduces the time to initiate calls from minutes to seconds – essential savings in a crisis. In fact the flare system has proved so successful in the South West that the British Red Cross is now looking at setting up a national contract.

Accepting the award, John Blake, Emergency Response Assistant, British Red Cross commented “flare is an invaluable tool and we see our use of it as a first in the voluntary sector. It is vital we respond quickly to crisis situations to enable us to help people in need as fast as possible, flare helps us to do that. What has and continues to impress us about PageOne is their partnership approach and the fact that they have always worked with us, listening to our feedback, to provide a solution that works for us. Both of our organisations have a similar working ethos; plan, do, and review and they are a very deserving recipient of this award”.

Chris Jones, CEO of PageOne Communications added “We are delighted to have received this award for Best Service and it is a great testament to all of the staff here at PageOne who have worked so hard in the development and day to day running of PageOne’s messaging services.”

The prestigious GO Awards ceremony which brings together representatives from local authorities, public services, utilities and community initiatives, was held on Thursday 4 June 2009 at the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, featuring high-profile speakers Chairman of the Audit Commission Michael O’Higgins and Chief Executive of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), Nigel Smith.

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About PageOne. www.pageone.co.uk

PageOne is the leading provider of award-winning wireless messaging solutions to the public and enterprise sectors. It has a proven track record of introducing innovative products and services and owns and operates a UK-wide paging network and provides business SMS messaging solutions; PageOne Paging and PageOne Connect respectively.

The British Red Cross helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. We are part of a global voluntary network, responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies.

We enable vulnerable people in the UK and abroad to prepare for and withstand emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, we help them to recover and move on with their lives.

About GO magazine

· Published monthly by BiP Solutions Ltd

· The UK’s leading publication focused on all aspects of public procurement

· Contains news and features on procurement, strategy, directives and developments – essential information for any company working with or within the public sector

· Includes articles by and interviews with key industry personnel, including Government Ministers, MPs and procurement officers throughout the public sector

· Reaches a target audience of more than 30,000 readers (ABC 8287, July 2007 – June 2008)

· Highly Commended status in the PPA Scotland Awards in 2008

About BiP Solutions

· Established 24 years, 180 staff based in Glasgow

· One of Europe’s leading providers of public sector contracts information

· Publisher of GO magazine

· Service provider of the Supply2.gov.uk lower-value contracts portal

· Service provider of the MoD’s Defence Contracts Bulletin

· Also provides procurement consultancy, training and events

Useful links

· National Public Procurement Practitioners Day www.n3pd.com

· GO Awards www.goawards.co.uk

· GO magazine www.govopps.co.uk

· BiP Solutions Ltd www.bipcorporate.com

Note to editors

The PageOne name is written as one word with a capital ‘P’ and capital ‘O’.

Press Contact:

Geraldine Fernandez/ Robert Hickling

Say Communications

Tel: 020 8971 6400

Email: pageone {at} saycomms.co(.)uk