Double joy: Two deals for Scots computing sector

SCOTLAND’S buoyant computing sector has been given a double boost, with former Atlantic Telecom chief executive Graham Duncan snapping up a business in Glasgow while a European IT giant’s Edinburgh office has scooped a six-figure contract.

Duncan’s latest venture, Broadband Cloud Solutions (BCS), is paying a “six-figure sum” to buy the hosting division of NSDesign, the marketing company that lists Highland Spring and Scottish Enterprise among its clients.

Under the deal, NSDesign founder Gary Ennis will take a 
10 per cent stake in BCS.

Duncan, still best known for his time as chief executive of Atlantic Telecom, set up Aim-quoted Pinnacle in Dalkeith in February 2002, just months after the collapse of Atlantic Telecom during the dotcom crash. He stood down as chairman of Pinnacle in March 2010.

Duncan said the new deal was part of his strategy to build up his latest business by serving small and medium-sized firms and people working at home.

Meanwhile, European computing giant MTI, which opened an office in Edinburgh in December, has won a £300,000 contract from Aberdeen-based Millstream to run cloud computing services. Millstream handles tenders worth “many hundreds of millions of pounds”. It said the deal would allow it to recover data in emergencies.