Entrepreneur has his head in the clouds

Published on Friday 11 December 2009 20:51

IT'S been a busy week for Livingston-based IT entrepreneur Tony Lucas – not only has he sold part of his XCalibre Communications business to website hosting specialist Webfusion but he's also landed himself a new job.

Lucas and the remaining part of XCalibre will transfer to Flexiant, a new company that will develop the existing Flexiscale cloud computing infrastructure.

He will join the company in a business development role.

Flexiant will maintain a link with Webfusion – which has bought XCalibre's web hosting assets – and hopes to eventually offer Flexiscale to Webfusion's customers.

Lucas founded XCalibre in 1997 while still studying for his A-levels at school. He went on to start a computer science course at university but dropped out after only six months to concentrate on growing his company.

Lucas says: "This partnership with Webfusion is very important to us and will allow us to strengthen our focus on the continued development of FlexiScale platform and other software products.

"Our roots are in hosting but our passion is development and this experience will shape our transition into and growth as a software and services company, pioneering cloud computing."

Sticking with Livingston-based IT firms, Capito has appointed two business development managers.

Chris Jones – who has recently been briefing both the European Union and Scottish Parliament on "the urgency of IT security" – joins after spells with Morse and Computacenter.

He has also worked on projects with the University of the West of Scotland, from which Capito expects other contracts to now flow.

Meanwhile Mike Stewart joins from IT and software services outfit Sungard, having previously spent time with infrastructure specialist Campbell Lee before it became part of the Onyx Group.

Capito was founded in Scotland in 1990 as a hardware reseller, but has now grown into an IT services company. The firm has offices in Aberdeen, Birmingham and Tyneside and now has 160 staff.

Staff at ESPC raise a sweat and 3,500 for a good cause

STAFF at the Edinburgh Solicitors' Property Centre (ESPC) marketing services arm raised more than 3,500 for charity when they took part in a 24-hour endurance challenge. The money will go to the Alzheimer's Research Trust and Radio Forth's Cash for Kids appeal.

All the action took take place in the ESPC showroom in George Street, where a team of seven enthusiastic staff, of varying fitness levels, ran the equivalent of two marathons and cycled for more than 14 hours without even leaving the premises. Between them they exceeded their expectations and covered in excess of 280 miles.

Charlotte Garner, community fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "This is a wonderful result and we are very grateful to marketing manager Neil Harrison and other members of staff at ESPC for the time and effort they put into this challenge."

BAD DAY

Hansruedi Schumacher & Matthias Rickenbach

A US judge has branded a former UBS banker and a Zurich lawyer as fugitives. The pair are charged with helping wealthy Americans hide assets from US tax authorities. Banker Hansruedi Schumacher and lawyer Matthias Rickenbach were indicted in August on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

GOOD DAY

Steve Matthews

ALPHA Plus, a Livingston-based firm run by founder Steve Matthews, is diversifying away from its traditional vehicle and equipment leasing role after winning a 500,000 deal from Transerv, which maintains roads in the north of Scotland. Alpha Plus will cut the grass on the A9 between Perth and Thurso and the A82 between Loch Lomond and Inverness.