Outsourcery Plc, was a UK-based

cloud services Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to ISO. Essential characteristics ...

provider founded in 2007 by co-CEOs,

Piers Linney Jonathan Piers Daniel Linney (born 15 February 1971) is a British businessman and investor. Co-Founder of Implement AI He was a former non-executive director of the UK government-owned development bank, British Business Bank, which has facilit ...

and Simon Newton. They provided services primarily to small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The company went into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

in June 2016 when most of the business and assets were acquired by GCI Network Solutions Ltd.

History

Outsourcery's origins date from 1997 when the business initially provided mobile solutions to UK organisations. In 2007,

and Simon Newton acquired the business and assets of Genesis Communications – an established business-to-business mobile voice and data reseller. In the same year, Genesis acquired an early stage

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

application hosting company, Servelogic Limited, enabling it to enter the hosted services market. Between 2007 and 2010, the company saw revenue for cloud-based services grow from zero to over £4 million and the legacy business was subsequently sold through two transactions during 2011 for a total of £15 million. Along with Linney and Newton, Outsourcery's Board was led by

Ken Olisa Sir Kenneth Aphunezi Olisa (born 13 October 1951) is a British businessman and philanthropist. He is the first black Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London. He founded and led the AIM-listed technology merchant bank Interregnum and now leads Restora ...

OBE (non-executive chairman), Andrew Burton (non-executive director) and Jane Hall (non-executive director). On 24 May 2013, Outsourcery was admitted to London's

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market, Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in opera ...

(AIM). The sale of the legacy mobile distribution business was completed on 3 September 2013. On 6 November 2013, Outsourcery announced that it had partnered with

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

to design and deploy a secure cloud-based system. The announcement followed Outsourcery's agreement with Microsoft to lead its UK initiative to accelerate the offering of cloud services for the UK public sector, in particular central government. Outsourcery suspended trading of its stock on

AIM AIM or Aim may refer to: Computing * AIM alliance, an Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance * AIM (software), AOL Instant Messenger * Fortyfive, a Japanese software development company previously known as AIM Military * Abrams Integrated Management, an ...

, on 3 June 2016, due to its inability to present audited financial results for the year ended 31 December 2015. It stated that "the potential proceeds from the current proposals would potentially leave no or limited value to equity shareholders". Later that month

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

were appointed as administrators and most of the business and assets were sold to GCI Network Solutions Ltd.

Organisation and activities

Outsourcery was a member of the

Cloud OS Network. It was also a founder member of the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF). Outsourcery's O-Cloud platform was certified to run government classified information at OFFICIAL and OFFICIAL SENSITIVE over the internet. This gave Outsourcery CESG Pan Government Accreditation (PGA) (formerly IL2) and Public Services Network (PSN) Protect (formerly IL3) connectivity to meet data sovereignty and security specifications for the public sector and UK government. Outsourcery's former co-CEO,

, became better known as a 'Dragon' on series 11 and 12 of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Two television programme,

Dragons' Den ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it ...

Awards and accreditations

* Outsourcery was

ISO 27001 ISO/IEC 27001 is an information security standard. It specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an information security management system (ISMS). Organizations with an ISMS that meet the st ...

(Information Security),

ISO 9001 The ISO 9000 family is a set of international standards for quality management systems. It was developed in March 1987 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ensure that they meet ...

(Quality Management) and

ISO 14001 The ISO 14000 family is a set of international standards for Natural environment, environment management systems. It was developed in March 1996 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ...

(Environmental Management) accredited. As a founder member, Outsourcery had also achieved Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) certification. * Outsourcery achieved CESG Pan Government Accreditation in 2014 * Comms Business: Green Channel Company Award – Winner (2010) * Microsoft Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year Award – Winner (2010) * Comms Business: Reseller of the Year Award – Winner (2011) * Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner of the Year Award – Finalist (2011) * Mobile News Awards: Business Solutions Provider – Winner (2011) * Parallels New Partner of the Year Award – Winner (2011) * Comms Business Award: Channel Product of the Year Overall – Winner (2013) * Comms Business: Most Innovative Channel Product of the Year (Cloud Based Solution Deployed) – Winner (2013) * Microsoft: Server Platform Partner of the Year Award – Finalist (2013) * Manchester Evening News: Business of the Year Award (Under £10 Million Turnover) – Winner (2013) * IT Europa Awards: Service Provider of the Year – Winner (2014) * UK Cloud Awards: Collaboration Product of the Year – Winner (2014) * Microsoft: Sales Specialist of the Year – Finalist (2014) * National Business Awards: Santander Small to Medium-sized Business of the Year and Blackberry Business Enabler of the Year – Finalist (2014) * Storage, Virtualisation, Cloud (SVC) Awards: Saas Solution of the Year – Winner (2014) * Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year Awards: Public Sector: Government – Finalist (2015)Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards 2015
"Microsoft Partner Awards Winners and Finalists"
''Microsoft website''

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.outsourcery.co.uk/
Official website (Piers Linney)
Cloud computing providers Defunct software companies of the United Kingdom Defunct technology companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Manchester Computer companies established in 1997 Computer companies disestablished in 2016 1997 establishments in England 2016 disestablishments in England