GSA Technology Council

Duke Energy today announced further expansion to its wind energy production with the completed purchase of Catamount Energy Corporation based in Rutland, VT.  The Catamount  acquisition will add approximately 500 megawatts to Dukes wind energy portfolio.  Earlier this month Duke also purchased a wind farm in Wyoming, and hastwo wind farm projects in Texas scheduled for completion later this year.  The power company has an addition 5,000 megawatts of wind energy under development in twelve more states. 

for more information on Duke Energy’s wind power production and projects visit http://www.duke-energy.com/ 

Hosted Solutions, an East Coast managed services and data center, announced today that it has signed a deal with EQmentor, Inc., a ground-breaking organization focused on professional development.
 
The three year contract allows Hosted Solutions to provide hardware and software management services from its Charlotte Data Center to EQmentor.
 
“We evaluated a number of hosting providers and quickly identified Hosted Solutions as the best partner for us.  We needed to supplement our staff with an outside team of experts who we could trust would keep our mission-critical hardware and software up and running and secure at all times,” Dr. Izzy Justice, Founder and CEO of EQmentor.  “Hosted Solutions is hands down the most reputable and trustworthy hosting and managed services provider on the East Coast and we are proud to partner with them.”
 
“EQmentor has developed an innovative professional development program that is transforming the human capital space.  The EQmentor solution leverages the power of the internet and allows today’s professional to learn at the point of need. In addition to the custom matched mentoring relationship, EQmentor has created the first online peer collaboration community that is truly cross industry and cross vocation which further enhances the learning experience,” said Josh Wolff, General Manager of Hosted Solutions.  “Critical to EQmentor and its members is that this service is available 24×7, and that the content remains safe and secure.”

via Hosted Solutions

AdvantageWest Economic Development Group and The Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council have announced the 6th Annual Carolina Connect Conference on September 11th at The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.

Carolina Connect is a regional conference fostering entrepreneurial growth of businesses of all sizes and stages.

Leading our morning discussion this year will be Ryan Allis, Founder and CEO of iContact which is a Durham NC based company who currently leads market in providing email marketing tools for small business. Ryan built iContact from its start in 2003 to its current size of over 100 employees, 25,000 customers and $15 million in annual sales. In 2005, Ryan was named by BusinessWeek as one of the top 25 Entrepreneurs under age 25. He is the author of “Zero to One Million”.

Every truly successful business started around an idea; the age old question . . . what differentiates a good idea from a great idea? Building on the electricity created by last year’s keynote, Guy Kawasaki and upon his recommendation, we are pleased to announce the lunch keynote, Dan Heath, co-author of “Made to Stick”. Dan will describe the traits that link sticky ideas of all kinds from urban legends to corporate mission statements to successful advertisements. Dan has taught and consulted on the topic of making ideas stick with audiences from organizations including Nissan, Microsoft, Home Depot, Fannie Mae and West Point. Dan is a consultant with Duke Corporate Education in Durham NC.

In addition to these two dynamic speakers, we will be offering the Kaufman Foundation’s widely-acclaimed “Power of Angel Investing” seminar as a separate track of the conference. This track is resereved for those individuals who are existing angels or those interested in learning more about angel investing. Space is limited so please register early for this session.

Three exciting educational tracks for entrepreneurs include; Startup Survival, High Growth Gear and Fund Me which will cover everything from strategic business planning, sales and marketing, cash flow management to sources of funding for your venture.

Finally we will close the day with a dynamic PowerPoint free series of theme-focused roundtables in our Critical Conversation Networking Cafe where you will hear from industry experts on topics such as; Startup Management, Social Marketing, Fundraising Facts of Life, When Your Partner is Your Partner, Putting the WOW in website Design and Function, and more . . .

We will close the day with networking at its best amid the magnificient Blue Ridge Mountains on the Vanderbilt Terrace and recap the day’s events and who know’s you might even win some cool new tech gadget.

Registration is affordable at $50.00 and covers the cost of breakfast, lunch, closing reception and access to all educational sessions. Register online at www.brecnc.com or contact Pam Lewis at plewis@awnc.org – 828-687-7234

via: BRECNC

Charlotte, NC — Duke Energy today announced that they have acquired Catamount Energy Corporation from Diamond Castle Holdings, LLC.  The goal of this new acquisition is to significantly expand Duke’s wind energy operations.

Catamount Energy, which was formed in 1992, has been focusing heavily on developing wind power projects in the U.S. and U.K. since 2001.  Currently Catamount has approximately 300 megawatts of renewable wind energy in operation.  The company further has intentions of developing approximately 1,750 megawatts through projects in several states and in the United Kingdom.

The acquisition of Catamount Energy, valued at about $240 million and assumed debt, coincides closely with Duke Energy’s goals of greater renewable energy development.  This past May Duke acquired another wind power development company, Tierra Energy, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas.  The combined entity will have more than 5,000 megawatts of wind energy under development in 12 states and approximately 500 megawatts of operating assets by the end of 2008.

via Duke Energy 

Charlotte, NC — Duke Energy Carolinas has announced plans to invest $100 million in the installation of solar panal electric generators at up to 850 sites in North Carolina.  Duke Energy intends for the solar panals to be installed on homes, schools, stores and factories.  Pending state apporval Duke Energy will spend two years installing the solar panal which would eventually produce 20 megawatts of energy in the comapany’s North Carolina area of service. 

Duke is also pursuing other “green” energy production processes including the purchase of 16 megawatts of power from the SunEdison solar farm in Davidson County, NC and by supplying up to 100 megawatts of power with wind farms in Indiana.  Duke currently is currently working on  wind powered projects with the projected goal of producing 1000 megawatts of energy throughout eight states.

via Duke Energy

Durham, NC — Jud Bowman, co-founder of Motricity, announced today the creation of his new venture, PocketGear, and the acquisition of the smartphone applications business from Motricity. The company also announced today that it has received investment from leading venture capital firms Noro-Moseley Partners and Wakefield Group.

PocketGear provides a platform connecting millions of people around the world with smartphone applications from a network of more than 30,000 developers. PocketGear powers smartphone application distribution for direct channels including PocketGear.com, SymbianGear.com, PalmGear.com, Smartphone.net, and Mobile2Day.de and for more than 15 partners including Palm, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, T-Online, and AOL. Since its inception, PocketGear has powered more than 100 million downloads to smartphones and mobile devices from a catalog of more than 50,000 applications.

“Mobile phones are increasingly smartphones that run advanced operating systems such as Palm OS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian OS or Linux, and Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are helping accelerate smartphone adoption,” said Jud Bowman, President and CEO of PocketGear. “The smartphone application market is poised for significant growth, and PocketGear is a platform that connects more than 30,000 developers of smartphone applications with millions of smartphone users around the world.”

The new company will be headquartered in Durham, North Carolina with offices in Munich, Germany.

“While it’s difficult to leave Motricity, I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to lead PocketGear and build a great company based in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina,” said Bowman.

PocketGear also announced that Mike Elliott, General Partner at Noro-Moseley Partners, and Steve Nelson, Managing Director of Wakefield Group, have joined PocketGear’s board of directors.

“Noro-Moseley backs great entrepreneurs and we couldn’t be more excited to invest in Jud Bowman and PocketGear,” said Mike Elliott, General Partner at Noro-Moseley Partners. “We believe the market for smartphone content and applications is set for exponential growth and that PocketGear’s technology, customers, and developer community are perfectly positioned to capture this opportunity.”

“I’ve had the chance to know and work closely with Jud Bowman for the past eight years in helping build Motricity,” said Steve Nelson, Managing Director of Wakefield Group. “I couldn’t be more excited about the chance to do it again and help build PocketGear into one of the largest providers of content and applications for smartphones.”

via PocketGear

Greenville, SC and Charlotte, NC — Located on Fairview Road in the SouthPark section of town, the new office will allow VantagePoint to better serve clients in Charlotte and across North Carolina. VantagePoint’s growth has continued into 2008 and in the first quarter alone, key accomplishments include signing six new clients, expansion into several new business sectors, and a growing presence in Charleston, Columbia, Greensboro, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

“Our decision to expand operations into the Charlotte market was based on our desire to continue to provide excellent service for our existing clients and also take advantage of the growth the area continues to experience,” states VantagePoint CEO, Craig O’Neal. “Charlotte continues to demonstrate a strong economy and with our growing client base here, we recognized the importance of expanding our operations.”

VantagePoint was recently named one of BtoB Magazine’s Top Agencies for the second year in a row. This annual list recognizes top business-to-business advertising and marketing firms for outstanding growth performance in business/revenue, new clients and campaigns. The firm was also recently named the “2007 Agency of the Year” by the Business Marketing Association (BMA) of the Carolinas, based in Charlotte, NC but representing both North and South Carolina.

via VantagePoint

Charlotte, NC — “Duke Energy must play a key leadership role in reinventing the electric utility industry in 2008,” the company’s chairman, president and CEO said today.

“Utilities must produce electricity that is clean, reliable and affordable — three critical but sometimes conflicting priorities that require a delicate balancing act,” Jim Rogers told about 200 shareholders at the company’s annual meeting.

“We face tough realities and difficult choices, but Duke Energy will be a leader in our industry and in our nation’s energy future,” he said.

While serious action on global warming is needed, the utility industry also must ensure that proposed federal climate change legislation does not bring unintended consequences or make electricity generation costs soar, resulting in rate shock for customers already facing skyrocketing food and gasoline prices, Rogers said.

Duke Energy and its fellow utilities must pivot toward a low-carbon future where energy efficiency, wind, solar, natural gas, nuclear and carbon-capture technology for coal plants take center stage, he said.

“The one thing everyone agrees on in the climate change debate is that we must fund an array of new energy technologies so we can fix this problem,” Rogers said. “A quick and meaningful way to do this is to place a small fee on every kilowatt-hour of electricity sold in the U.S.”

He called it “unacceptable” that both Europe and China annually outspend the U.S. on renewable energy research and development. “Our country is asleep when it comes to investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Our nation needs a sense of urgency.”

A three-tenths of a cent ‘technology fee’ on every kilowatt-hour of electricity sold in the U.S. would raise $11 billion annually for research and development, increasing the average residential customers’ power bill by about $3 a month, Rogers told reporters after the meeting. “If we put this in place now, it would raise $70 billion by 2015.”

Energy efficiency is critical to the nation’s future, requiring massive utility industry investment that dwarfs previous efficiency spending, he said, citing Duke Energy’s large-scale save-a-watt efficiency proposal currently awaiting action by state utility commissions in North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana. “We want to make the communities we serve the most energy efficient in the world.”

via Duke Energy

Wilmington, NC — Global Laser Enrichment, a subsidiary of GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy , has announced it has selected GEH’s Wilmington headquarters site for a potential commercial uranium enrichment facility. The planned GEH plant would result in the creation of hundreds of new technical, operational and support jobs at the site between now and 2012.

“This is a key milestone in GLE’s development process,” said Tammy Orr, President and CEO of Global Laser Enrichment. “With the selection of the Wilmington site for a potential commercial facility, we can now move forward with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) licensing process.”

GEH has exclusive rights to develop, commercialize and launch this third-generation uranium enrichment technology on a global basis, under a 2006 agreement with the original developer, the Australian company Silex Systems Ltd.

Before moving ahead with full-scale production plans, GLE will first evaluate the results of a demonstration test loop, which is currently under construction, and obtain an NRC license to build and operate the commercial plant. Commercial licensing activities are currently underway to support a projected start-up date of 2012.

The commercial GLE facility would have a target capacity of between 3.5 and six million separative work units (SWUs). GEH intends to make a final decision on the construction of the facility as early as the beginning of 2009.

The cutting-edge laser enrichment isotope separation technology allows GEH to become further integrated in the nuclear fuel cycle; already, Wilmington–based Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas (GNF-A), a joint venture of GE, Hitachi and Toshiba, is involved in the fuel cycle. GNF’s site currently receives low enriched uranium, which is then used to fabricate fuel bundles for commercial nuclear power plants. The commercial GLE enrichment facility could potentially become a supplier of low enriched uranium to the Wilmington GNF fabrication facility.

No new types of hazardous materials will be added to the GEH plant site. Should GEH choose to build the commercial facility, the GLE plant will take up approximately 200 acres of the approximately 1,600-acre site.

via GE

Durham, NC — Motricity, a leading provider of mobile content infrastructure services, today outlined the company’s strategic operating plan following the acquisition of InfoSpace Mobile.“Historically, Motricity has been involved in several areas of mobile content,” said Ryan Wuerch, chairman and CEO. “The InfoSpace acquisition gave us the opportunity to refine the focus of our organization on areas where we have the strongest market position and are seeing the fastest growth today. Moving forward, our strategy will be aligned with our core business of providing mobile content infrastructure services – enabling consumers to discover content inside and outside the walled garden. These services include powering portals, storefronts, managed web and search for mobile operators along with messaging gateway services for all customers needing a mobile solution.”

As part of this, Motricity will discontinue non-profitable and non-core businesses including the planned divestiture of its direct to consumer property, Pocketgear.com. In December, Motricity announced the sale of another direct to consumer property, eReader.com, to Fictionwise. The company will also be divesting certain business relationships in the media and entertainment arena.

In an effort to maximize the company’s focus on the needs of customers and drive efficiency through the organization, Motricity is optimizing its technology, processes and product set and will migrate customers from the Fuel platform to the mCore platform for Portal, Storefront, Search, Messaging and Managed Web products. Key elements from Fuel will be integrated into mCore to ensure that customers receive the best of both products. The Gateway business will remain the same. In addition, the company is consolidating office locations, moving the corporate headquarters location from Durham, NC, to Bellevue, WA, which is in close proximity to some of Motricity’s largest customers.

The company expects to reduce the workforce by approximately 250 positions over the next nine months. All affected employees will be offered severance packages and outplacement services.

Wuerch added, “The steps we’re taking to quickly integrate the two companies will position us very well for accelerated growth, while offering greater discipline and a more focused approach for our customers. While these decisions are always tough, we’re doing what is necessary to position Motricity for long-term and profitable growth.”

via Motricity