365 Corporation disposes hardware division

Three companies controlled by members of 365's Business Division management team - Rainbow Telecom, Planet Business Solutions, and John Donohoe (trading as Absolute Voice and Data) - will seperately acquire selected assets from the company's Hardware Division.



Under the terms of the deal, a maximum consideration of £500,000 will be payable in 2007, but this could be reduced to zero if certain performance targets are met, as 365 has entered into five-year contracts to provide network services to its former divisions.



The downsizing completes a year of restructuring that has shaved £20m off the company's annual cost base. 365 will "dispense with its divisional structure" and retreat to its head office in Hemel Hempstead, where it will concentrate on selling interactive voice response (IVR) and B2B speech recognition services "to large corporations and organisations".



Eckohtec's existing clients include Granada TV, GWR, Channel 5, Chrysalis, EMAP Radio and Virgin Mobile. The company partnered with Philips, which provides the speech recognition software that powers its products. Such technology is expected to usurp today's labour intensive call centres, as weary personnel step aside for automated systems. Clients will reap the benefits in the shape of improved efficiency, both to their systems and bottom line.



365 CEO Martin Turner said: "We are delighted to reach a satisfactory conculsion to our restructuring programme. It is our aim to become Europe's leading speech applications service provider and profitably exploit the anticipated growth in demand for speech solutions across Europe."



Turner added that the company remains well-funded in order to achieve its goals. Shares remained level at 6p on little volume. The company is capitalised at £12.35m.



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