United Devices (UD) conferred its annual Grid Visionary Award on Frank Falcon of COLT Telecom in London. For the past decade, Falcon has been a leading proponent and innovator in the field of Grid computing.

Falcon is a senior product manager within COLT's Managed Services team and is recognized in key international Grid forums as one of the leading evangelists for the deployment of Grid computing to create new innovative business models for enterprise customers and telecommunications companies.

"Frank has long worked at the forefront of grid technology, creating a unique network-centric strategy that may very well revolutionize the world of enterprise application delivery," said Ben Rouse, chief executive officer at United Devices. "Our award was created to honor just such creative thinkers, those who have led the way in understanding, implementing and advocating grid computing as an enterprise platform. Frank Falcon certainly fits our definition of a visionary."

Prior to joining COLT earlier this year, Falcon worked for two decades at British Telecom, where he capped his career as Grid Programme manager and was responsible for development of a commercially sound innovative strategy for services delivery via Grid computing.

He joined British Telecom in 1979, working on worldwide networks, and moved steadily upward through a series of strategic development and design, marketing and business management posts.

At COLT, Falcon joins a company that prides itself on employing innovation as a fundamental driver. In particular, Falcon says, COLT has identified the trend towards Web-centric software delivery, epitomized by SaaS (Software as a Service), as an important part of the company's technology vision.

He adds that customers need to work closely with a service provider who can help with the transition from today's IT-centric world to the Web-centric world of tomorrow, which COLT plans to deliver through managed Grid services.

Rouse presented the United Devices Grid Visionary Award to Falcon at its annual conference in Boston. Falcon was among speakers at the conference, describing COLT's approach to managed services and Saas.

Previous winners of the award include Jeff Mathers of Johnson & Johnson PRD and Manuel Peitsch of Novartis.

About COLT

COLT is a leading European provider of business communications. COLT specializes in providing data, voice and managed services to midsize and major businesses and wholesale customers. It has more than 50,000 customers across all industry sectors. COLT owns and operates a 13-country, 20,000-km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 32 major European cities with direct fiber connections into 10,000 buildings and 14 COLT data centers.

COLT Telecom Group S.A. is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT). Information about COLT and its services can be found at www.colt.net.

About United Devices

United Devices (UD) provides the most cost-effective and flexible computing capacity available anywhere. The company's grid and infrastructure management solutions address a range of business needs, from traditional application acceleration to enterprise-scale infrastructure virtualization. UD products extend, manage, and optimize IT environments by reducing complexity, leveraging both dedicated and non-dedicated resources and establishing centralized control. UD solutions are proven to enhance innovation and reduce total cost of ownership for companies in a wide range of industries including Manufacturing, Energy, Life Sciences, Government, and Telecommunications. Find out more at www.ud.com.