Pipex sales doubled to GBP78m, and acquisitions added a further GBP24m to turnover. Before goodwill amortisation and GBP1.7m of integration costs, Pipex made underlying pre-tax profits of GBP6.2m. The company has 192,000 broadband customers (around 20% from the business sector), 154,000 hosting customers, and 2,000 corporate customers using its network services. Gross margins rose by 3.9 per cent to 47.4 per cent, and the company turned cash-flow-positive.

Internap Network Services Corporation has reported results for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. For the first quarter, revenues totalled US$37.9 million, an increase of 4.4% compared to the first quarter of 2004. Net loss for the first quarter was US$0.6 million, an improvement of approximately 80% compared to the same period in 2004. The Company's customer base grew to 1,984 customers, an increase of 55 net new customers in the quarter.

Last Mile Connections (LMC), a New York based neutral telecommunications exchange, has announced that its Online Exchange has generated a price for international DS-1 Private Lines between the New York metropolitan area, the Toronto, Montreal, and Canada metropolitan areas that is more than a 50% reduction from current retail market prices for the same routes. The LMC Online Exchange is offering DS-1 Private Line service from the New York Metro area to the Toronto and Montreal Metro Areas for US $499 per month. LMC will provide this rate to all Exchange members for the next 90 days.

KPMG has launched a web-based data centre to help law firms manage large-scale litigation and arbitration. The new service offering is called Forensic Data Centre and will work as a tool for electronic disclosure. It is a direct competitor of Kroll Ontracks' recently launched Electronic Data Viewer.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is poised for the biggest-ever expansion of its data storage products and data services as it attempts to regain ground recently lost to rivals such as EMC Corp. and Dell Inc. in the US$63 billion global storage market. Nine revamped storage products are to be announced next week. HP's storage business has been regrouping, developing new products and increasing sales personnel. In light of new accounting and medical regulations, corporations are mandated to retain ever more data than ever, and must be able to access, manage and centralise the data far more simply.

The regional court of Caen, Calvados department, Basse-Normandie region, northern France, has suspended the transfer of the technical support activity planned by the IT outsourcing project of French distribution group Carrefour. The court has ruled that the project runs counter to the labour legislation related to activity transfer. The plans for database servers hosting has not been objected to. However, the transfer of 40 positions to a call centre in Morocco is being opposed.

Norwegian Internet-related services group Active 24, has signed a hosting contract with Norwegian directory publishing company Findexa. The contract covers a complete portfolio of hosting services. Under the contract, Active 24 will assist Findexa by producing and hosting new product offerings to Findexa's customers.

Teleunit Spa, a provider of fixed line telephony, wireless broadband, international calling cards, premium access numbers, content for mobile and wholesale services in Italy, announces that it has signed an agreement with LEAD IP Systems to provide feature-rich telephony lines to both business and residential customers throughout Italy. LEAD IP Systems is a developer and supplier of full turnkey Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and data security access systems for broadband service providers.