Local Business Marketing Landscape 2013 - Internet Marketing Duru

If you own a local brick and mortar business or are a local business consultant you need to?pay attention to the new tools that are rolling out in Google+ local marketing, mobile search, and how Google Plus Places pages are turning into a new social model right under your nose!

Yesterday I ?(+Shira Gal) had the pleasure of being part of an esteemed expert panel discussing the?Local Marketing Landscape 2013 for +Chris Lang?s Google+ for Business Hangout On Air Show along with +Lynette Young and +Courtney Engle Robertson?. Unfortunately my audio wasn?t working so my actual voice was not heard during the interview.

Read on to get a recap of our best advice for local businesses and local business consultants below!

Local Business Promotion on Google+

Lynette Young,??author of Google+ for small businesses on Amazon, speaker, corporate consultant and local business consultant, kicked off the show with a super positive message for small businesses:

Google + is the great equalizer ? small business and local businesses can get on Google+ and play with the big box stores. Small businesses are nimble and can adapt easily to the changing markets whereas large corporations are slower moving. ?That makes Google+ the perfect platform for small businesses to get on the map and fast!

Lynette also covered the 3 part Magic formula for local business promotion on Google+:

1. Reach -??by publishing your content publicly on Google+ you are going to gain reach that you never could before. This is as opposed to the very limited reach you have on Facebook. If 1000 people follow you on Google+ they can see your content 100% of the time. ?This makes growing your following more important than ever (see my post on how I got over 1000 Google+ followers in less than 60 days) The more people you have following you or your business?page ? the greater your reach!
2. Relevancy -?the more that you talk about things that are in your niche, the more keywords you use in Google+, the narrower the scope will be. If you are a local restaurant and all you talk about are dog parks you will be missing out on relevancy. You should talk about the topics relevant to your business as well as the location your business is in.
3. Repetition -?the more you post on Google+, the more you get known and get shared. You can?t come over to Google+ and post once a month or do a dump and run. If you follow a daily or wekly regime you will quickly make significant inroads on Google+. In fact, putting constant out on a regular basis on G+ works better than publishing on blogs!?If you keep at it and keep churning away ? you will be successful! By being connected to important people on Google+ that?s going to get you even more power and exposure.

Mobile?Local SEO for ios and Android

Courtney Engle Robertson gave a really cool presentation on how Apple local search gets local business data from Yelp and Google Now is pulling in local data from Foursquare.??If you own a local business go to yelp and claim your business listing. Link it to your Facebook business page and your website.

Apple is also beginning to link to Foursquare which is a little less Data Rich.?When you check into locations on Foursquare it will show up on your profile map on Facebook
If you are a local business or a local business?consultant, make sure to claim Yelp and Foursquare listings and yelp make sure they are present on your Google+ page, FB page and website

If you want to know which to focus on you can see which devices people use to access your site in Google Analytics!

This will give you a good indication of whether you should be more active on yelp or Foursquare, though I recommend integrating both into your weekly marketing activities.

Google+ Local Places Pages and Local Search

Had my audio been working you would have heard my super duper presentation on Google+ local business pages and the new integration in Google Search. Since that didn?t happen I will provide the highlights here:

1. ?If you are a brick and mortar business and have a Google Account get on Google+! Set up a Local Business Page for your business.
2. Be aware ? Google associates data on your business via your business telephone number so make sure to use the right one and be consistent with the telephone number you use on all social media platforms?including?your own website! ?Google will call your business number to verify it is really a business ? you must answer with your business name. A simple ?hello? won?t do! If you can?t make sure you are answering correctly ask for a snail mail confirmation?
3. Add your phone number and address in all of your Google profile / pages and other online profiles.
4. Get people to review your business on Google, Yelp and Foursquare to get your visibility jump-started.
5. Make sure to set up Google authorship for your website as well as your Google+ local business page!

If this seems too complicated, get an expert (like me) to set it up for you!

When searching for content to comment on, use the Google local search to find relevant content for your area:

The New Google+ Local Search

?

Most important is be consistent. Put out content relevant to your local business type as well as location at least a couple of times every week!

As you can see Google+ has made huge social strides in their local search. If you are marketing local businesses in 2013 walk the Gplus Walk and let others talk!

Questions or comments? Please share them below!

Tagged as: google local, Google+, local business, yelp

Source: http://www.internetmarketingduru.com/local-business-marketing-landscape-2013/

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The LITFL Review 090 - Life in the Fast Lane medical education blog

Welcome to the global 90th edition!

The LITFL Review is your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peaks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the best and brightest from the blogosphere, the podcast video/audiosphere and the rest of the Web 2.0 social media jungle to find the most fantastic EM/CC FOAM (Free Open Access Meducation) around.

The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beaut of the Week

Top spot this week is given to?The Trauma Professional?s Blog, each week ?Michael provides us with fascinating reviews and insights into managing the trauma patient, and this week is no?disappointment. Check out these two post:

• Trauma Mythbusters:?Spinal Cord Injury From Airway Management?-?Bottom line: From a mechanical standpoint, even in unstable spine models, the maneuvers we use in preparation for intubation cause more movement of the spine than does the intubation procedure itself. The true number of spinal cord injuries actually (and provably) caused by intubation approaches zero.
• Don?t Ignore The Naughty Bits?-?Bottom line: The naughty bits are important because the occasional missed injury in this area can be catastrophic! Do your job and force yourself to overcome any reluctance to examine them.

The LITFL Review Top Picks

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine

• How do you remember the timing of normal ossification centers?? This weeks Trick of the Trade:?Ossification centers of the elbow?- Shows you how!
• In this inaugural P-video, Dr. Jeremy Faust gives us a quick way to remember how keep the maximum subscores of the Glasgow Coma Scale straight.? -P-video: How to remember the GCS scoring

• Paucis Verbis: Composition of intravenous fluids?-?This PV card helps remind me what?s in each liter bag of fluids we order.

Free Emergency Medicine Talks

• Jeff Kline vs Corey Slovis: We Do More Harm Than Good Worrying about PE, These two guru?s of the EM/PE world shares there thoughts and controversies on how we should really be approaching PE patients in the ED ? a must listen to!

Impactednurse

• Superb review on?Tranexamic Acid (TXA).?By Ian, are you making sure your major trauma patients are getting it?
• Managing a ventilated patient: vent settings.?- Ian reminds us of the brilliance of Weingart, by sharing his simple, easy to follow and understand vent lectures.

StEmylns

• Testing, Testing? Making Feedback More Than Just Noise. Are you good at giving feedback? But what about constructive feedback that can make a difference?Not sure? Natalie gives us some points on giving feedback the right way!

EMCrit

• Natural Seven for 2012?- Scott gives his best of the best shout-outs from 2012.

Broome Docs

• Eye trauma with Dr Seb Rubinzstein-Dunlop?- Casey catches with Dr Seb to discuss all things eye trauma with a focus on the true eye emergency and the performance of a lateral canthotomy.
• Blood ?n Guts: hold the blood, save the patient??- Casey reviews a recent published study looking at transfusion in GI bleeders.
• Earache in kids with Dr Dave Forster?-?This is a super-common presentation and one that can be a bit confusing. ?In this podcast we talk about the differentiation of otitis externa from media, analgesia strategies and the often tricky question around antibiotics ? do they help?

PHARM

• ED vs ICU airway management?all wrapped in a great podcast from Minh and Seth, and features a couple of ringins as well.
• Brilliant informative review on?Ketamine for primary care providers in remote medicine.
• Minh gives a great in depth?summary?from this recent article -?Complications and failure of airway management ? update to NAP4
• From death we learn ? Victorian coroners finding on failed intubation?-?Some of the most powerful lessons I find are from the coroners websites and inquest findings. Couldn?t?agree?with more in Minh with this, get access to?coroners?reprots and learn from the death of these patients, it?guarantees?to help and change your practice!

Emergency Medicine Updates

• Emergency Department I&D Checklist- Reuben shares with us his checklist approach to abscess!

Intensive Care Network

• Holley on BURNS?-?Listen to Anthony Holley?s fantastic presentation on burns that he gave at the Bedside Critical Care Conference 2012. A must listen to if your interested or see burn patients in the ICU.
• Nguyen on Scary Obstetric Emergencies?- There not so scary after listen to this brilliant podcast.

boringem

• Top 10 Ways to Rock EM Clerkship?- I like number 2 the best!
• Brent shares a brilliant thought provoking post on is?Normal Saline: The Coke of Crystalloid Fluids?- so?next time you?re ordering fluids for a patient in the ED consider: should they get IV Coca-cola? Or something healthier??

EM Literature of Note

• Evidence Summary for Bell?s Palsy?-?steroids?are in- antivirals are out!
• Angiography After Cardiac Arrest?- not the most brilliantly designed study, however big survival difference was shown for patients in this group that did?receive?early angiography.

Resus.ME

• Speeding things up through equipment design?- making finding things?easier?during time critical situations.
• Swelling worse than bleeding for injured brains?-?Contusion and haemorrhage appeared to be less signi?cant predictors of outcome than the presence of brain swelling in this British dataset.
• Lifting the Fogg on ED Intubaton?- an audit of ED intubations. As Cliff puts it -As a specialty we must continue to seek to do better, and I salute all these brave authors who are telling it like it is!
• Point of care analysis of intraosseous samples?- you can do it, but discard the first 2mls of aspirate first!

thebluntdissection

• eh-vee-arrr?- the importance of recognise AVR when in the context of coronary ischaemia.
• a diligent driver??in a nurse will altered visual acuity and a positive?Marcus-Gun?reflex- what is the diagnosis and what treatment does the?ophthalmologist?want you to start?

Adventure Medicine

• Does Ibuprofen protect against Acute Mountain Sickness??-??The answers are not yet fully clear but there is certainly promising signs to support the anti-inflammatory role of Ibuprofen in protecting against AMS by dampening down the inflammatory response to altitude induced hypoxia

underneathEM.com?

• ECG sagas of subtlety 2?- Wow an challenge dynamic ECG case for you to learn from, by ?Australia?s own ECG geek!

EKG Videos

?

The Poison Review

• Check out?The 3rd Annual Alexander Awards: Best Tox Reading of 2012- A must read!
• Low-dose abdominal CT is superior to plain film for imaging suspected body packers?- nice review Leon, something to be aware of the neck time your packing it dealing with a body packer@

Emergency Medicine Ireland

• PCI for stroke trials?- a new concept in stroke care, but is the brain the same as the heart! Be very interesting to see where this concept is at in 10 years.
• Anatomy for Emergency Medicine 024 ? Shoulder: Nerve compressions

The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine

• Eye of the Tiger?a look at traumatic hypemas. Take home point:?The ED management of traumatic hypemas would be to prescribe nothing and call ophthalmology.

EM REMS?

• EPIPEN? in the finger??- Awesome X-ray!

SCANCRIT

• FLUID CHALLENGES AND ARTERIAL BLOOD PRESSURE?-?Take-home message:?When giving fluid boluses, increases in blood pressure does not reliably track increases in cardiac output in sepsis patients.

PEMLit?

• Comparison of Rectal, Axillary, Tympanic, and Temporal Artery Thermometry in the Pediatric ER?- Which is best for finding the fever in our little adults?

The Short Coat

• Emergency Medicine ? Variations on a Theme?- Lauren shares the top thing she has learned from rotations in emergency medicine?An awesome collection of pearls in this post from Lauren.

Greater Sydney Area HEMS

• Karel Habig shares with us an excellent vodcast on?Rapid Sequence Intubation in Retrieval Medicine

The LITFL Review Shout Out of the Week

• TheNNT?- has had a make over, check it out and find just how easy and user friendly it is now.

The GMEP Plug of the week

This week GMEP plug is a post on recognising and managing?Brain Metastasis With Vasogenic Edema?by Elisha Targonsky

?

Twee Dee and Twitical Care

Extreme ER on SBS tonight, thanks to The Alfred & Air Ambulance Victoria (viewer discretion advised) - http://t.co/TbzD6kCqJanuary 8, 2013 7:30 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite@AmbulanceVic

Ambulance Victoria

News from the Fastlane

• Mike gives us an update on GMEP and how to use the?GMEP Media Library?- time to check it out!
• Finally we get to here?What Weingart Would Do?is this challenging trauma case.

The Final Words

• The real leader has no need to lead ?-?he is content to point the way.
  

-Henry Ford

LITFL Review EM/CC Educational Social Media Round Up

Show Reference list

Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Blogroll

Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Podcasts

123Sonography.com???Academic Life in Emergency Medicine???Adventure Medicine???A Life at Risk???All LA Conference???Al Sacchetti?s Youtube???Bedside Ultrasound???Better in Emergency Medicine??boringem?Broome Docs??CCM-L.org???CLIC-EM???Critical Care Perspectives in EM???Dave on Airways??DrGDH???Dr Smith?s ECG Blog???ECG Academy???ECG Guru???ECG of the Week?ED Exam??ED-Nurse??EDTCC???EKG Videos???EM Basic???EM Core Content???EMCrit??EMDutch???Emergency Medical Abstracts??EMERJENCYWEBB??EmergencyLondon???Emergency Medicine Cases???Emergency Medicine Education???Emergency Medicine News???Emergency Medicine Ireland???Emergency Medicine Tutorials?Emergency Medicine Updates??Emergucate??EM Literature of Note???empem.org? ??EMpills? ??Emergency Physicians Monthly???EM Lyceum???EMProcedures???EMRAP????EMRAP: Educators? Edition???EMRAP.TV???EM REMS???ER CAST???EXPENSIVECARE???Free Emergency Medicine Talks???GMEP???Gmergency!?Got Resuscitation???Greater Sydney Area HEMS???HQmeded.com? ??ICU Rounds???Impactednurse???Intensive Care Network???iTeachEM???keepcaring???Keeping Up With Emergency Medicine???KeeWeeDoc???KI Docs???LipheLongLurnERdok? ??MDaware???MD+ CALC? ??MedEDMasters? ??Medical Education Videos???Medicina d?urgenza???Medicine for the Outdoors???Micrognome???Movin? Meat???Neurointensive Care???Pediatric EM Morsels???PEM ED???PEMLit??PEMTweets Blog???PHARM???Practical Evidence???Priceless Electrical Activity???Procedurettes???PulmCCM.org???Radiology Signs???Radiopaedia???Resus.com.au???Resus.ME???RESUS Room???Richard Winters? Physician Leadership??ruralflyingdoc???SCANCRIT???SCCM Blogs????SCCM Podcast???SEMEP???SinaiEM???SinaiEM Ultrasound????SMART EM????SOCMOB???SonoSpot???StEmylns???Takeokun???thebluntdissection?The Central Line???The Ember Project??The Emergency Medicine Resident Blog????The NNT? ??The Poison Review???The Sharp End???The Short Coat??The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine???The Sono Cave?-?The Trauma Professional?s Blog???underneathEM.com????ToxTalk???TJdogma???Twin Cities Toxicology???Ultrarounds????UMEM Educational Pearls? ?Ultrasound Podcast???Ultrasound Village

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Source: http://lifeinthefastlane.com/2013/01/the-litfl-review-090/

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What Now? ? A Journey Through Motherhood

It?s the start of a new year which always gets me thinking about my life, assessing how things are going and what things I want to happen in the year ahead.

Last year had it?s difficult moments, Gareth?s job was looking very uncertain (he works for a charity) but that is starting to look more promising, he?s good at what he does and deserves to keep on doing it. Losing Maple was incredibly hard and we still think of her often, she?ll always be with us. I think it?s difficult while I?m thinking how far pregnant I should be, I still just wish she could have lived.

However, we ended the year feeling incredibly positive and that 2012 had been really good to us. We?ve moved to a better area and a bigger house. While the rent is probably a bit more than we can manage comfortably, it is a lot of house for what we pay (we are renting from friends of friends) and we?re all very happy here. We love this place and would like it to be ours, but that?s a bit of a pipe dream.

Last year?s trip to Scotland was amazing and definitely the highlight of our year, having 2 weeks away from home was hard work but also a great experience, just thinking about day to day things felt like a real break. Having time together as a family was lovely and really enjoying time with the boys? it was just lovely.

2013 is already shaping up to be a really special year for us. We have set the date for our wedding, we are tying the knot on the anniversary of the day we met (27th April). We want this to be a real celebration of our lives together so will be inviting lots of friends and family but also doing the whole thing on a very small budget. It means being a little creative but this is something we?re happy doing, luckily we are blessed with wonderful and talented family and friends who we?ll be roping into help. Already we?ve booked my talented friend, Jay, to take our photos, my gorgeous sister, Tania has agreed to do some baking and my lovely Mum has been doing some knitting for my outfit. Other friends of ours be warned, we may be asking for your input too!

We are also hoping to make another baby, we have tried this month and I am counting the days until when my period would be due in the hopes of a positive result. If we?re not fortunate this month we?re going to wait until after we get married as I don?t want to be in the exhausting first 3 months when we do get married!

Next I am thinking about this neglected space. I have not been writing regularly and am trying to decide what to do. I pay a monthly subscription for this blog and I need to decide whether to keep doing it, I wonder if I?m making the most of it. So the question for me is do I give my blog a bit of an overhaul and really make an effort with it or do I give it up? I do enjoy it when I do write and I?m not sure I?m ready to give it up, but I need to make time for doing it properly, I don?t like this half-hearted attempt I?ve got going at the moment.

So, watch this space, hopefully it will be brighter and written more regularly?

Right, 2013, I?m ready for you. What about the rest of you? Are you feeling positive for the year ahead?

Gareth and I

Source: http://motherhoodjourneys.com/what-now

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Why Web Designers Need SEO Assistance | Johnny Business

Posted

Why is a Web Design and SEO Partnership Mutually Beneficial to YOUR business?

Online business is a highly competitive arena these days. Hundreds of businesses have started operating their businesses on the internet realizing the advantages of attraction marketing and inbound marketing strategies. Hundreds of websites are created every day and each one of them wants to get a higher ranking in the search results of search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. Web designing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are two words that are often heard and talked about a lot today. Debate rages on as to which is superior, web designing or SEO or whether a SEO firm or a web designing firm is better in creating revenue for an online business.

The issue is quite complex and from my experience as an online marketing strategist, I can state with authority that there are no clear-cut winners among the two. A great web designer needs the assistance of a good SEO firm and vice versa in making an online business successful. To really understand what I mean, let us now look at how web designing and SEO actually serve an online business or any business with an online presence.

SEO helps to bring in more visitors to your website by increasing the visibility of your website to your target audience. How does SEO increase the visibility of your website? In a typical search done on a search engine like Google, prospective customers do a search on the products they are looking for by typing a word or words related to that product. If a search is done on a product or service offered by your website, good SEO methods will make sure that your website shows up higher in the rankings on the results pages. Your website is on the top and its visibility is all the more high. Statistics show the top ranked web sites are the ones that are most clicked or visited by more than 90% of searchers.

The ultimate aim of SEO is to bring in more visitors to your website and thereby more possible customers. SEO tools like SEO writing that includes the right key words, domain names, meta tags etc and link building all help your website lure your target audience to it before your competitors are able to do so. More traffic means more prospects; more prospects mean brighter chances of conversion of prospects to customers, more customers mean more business revenues.

Agreed, SEO brings in more traffic to your website but what if the visitors do not want to stay on your website long enough to buy your product or service?

• What if the visitors feel that your website is badly designed, is not user friendly and very distracting and confusing?
• What if your website cannot hold their attention span long enough to make them realize how their needs can be met by your website?
• In such a situation, all the good SEO work done is useless as the website is not able to convert the visitors to customers?

A well designed web site with good content, easy navigational links, attractive layout and correct use of colors and graphics has got more chances of connecting with the visitor and converting him or her to a customer than a badly designed one.

In summary, a great website with poor SEO will see less traffic and good SEO?with an improperly designed website will see poor conversions. Both are harmful to the success of an online business. Good online marketing companies,?think great web designing and effective SEO should go hand in hand. ?Quality web designing and result oriented SEO methods are mutually beneficial and this perhaps explains why some business succeeds in the field of online marketing and others fail.

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Source: http://johnnybusiness.com/2013/01/why-web-designers-need-seo-assistance-why-a-partnership-is-mutually-beneficial/

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Mechanism of hearing is similar to car battery, researcher learns

Jan. 7, 2013 ? University of Iowa biologist Daniel Eberl and his colleagues have shown that one of the mechanisms involved in hearing is similar to the battery in your car.

And if that isn't interesting enough, the UI scientists advanced their knowledge of human hearing by studying a similar auditory system in fruit flies -- and by making use of the fruit fly "love song."

To see how the mechanism of hearing resembles a battery, you need to know that the auditory system of the fruit fly contains a protein that functions as a sodium/potassium pump, often called the sodium pump for short, and is highly expressed in a specialized support cell called the scolopale cell.

The scolopale cell is important because it wraps around the sensory endings in the fly's ear and makes a tight extra-cellular cavity or compartment around them called the scolopale space.

"You could think of these compartments as similar to the compartments of a battery that need to be charged up so they can drive electrons through circuits," says Eberl, whose paper made the cover of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "In the auditory system, the charge in the scolopale space drives ions, or electrically charged atoms, through membrane channels in the sensory endings that open briefly in response to activation by sounds.

"Our work shows that the sodium pump plays a particularly important role in this cell to help replenish or recharge this compartment with the right ions. The human ear also relies on a compartment called the scala media, which similarly drives ions into the sensory cells of the ear," he says.

How was the research done? This is where the fruit fly love song comes into play.

Testing whether or not a fruit fly can hear the love song -- a sound generated by a vibrating wing -- enables Eberl to learn whether electrical recharging is occurring in the fly ear. The fruit fly love song played a role in the research by stimulating the fly to move whenever a sound was emitted and received.

"In these experiments we tested the fly's hearing by inserting tiny electrodes in the fly's antenna, then measuring the electrical responses when we play back computer-generated love songs," he says.

Eberl notes there are many similarities between fruit fly and human mechanisms of hearing. That means his work on the fly model to identify additional new components required for generating the correct ion balance in the ear will help scientists to understand the human process in more detail.

Eberl's co-authors on the paper areMadhuparna Roy, postdoctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh, and Elena Sivan-Loukianova, UI biology research scientist. At the time of the research, Roy was a graduate student in the UI Graduate College studying in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology.

The title of the paper, published last week, is "Cell-type-specific roles of Na+/K+ ATPase subunits in Drosophila auditory mechanosensation."

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant number 5P30DC010362-03) and the Iowa Center for Molecular Auditory Neuroscience at the UI (grant number P30DC010362).

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Iowa.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. M. Roy, E. Sivan-Loukianova, D. F. Eberl. From the Cover: Cell-type-specific roles of Na /K ATPase subunits in Drosophila auditory mechanosensation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; 110 (1): 181 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1208866110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/NU8bh4W9H50/130107145707.htm

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Exclusive: Huawei partner offered embargoed HP gear to Iran

(Reuters) - A major Iranian partner of Huawei Technologies offered to sell at least 1.3 million euros worth of embargoed Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran's largest mobile-phone operator in late 2010, documents show.

China's Huawei, the world's second largest telecommunications equipment maker, says neither it nor its partner, a private company registered in Hong Kong, ultimately provided the HP products to the telecom, Mobile Telecommunication Co of Iran, known as MCI. Nevertheless, the incident provides new evidence of how Chinese companies have been willing to help Iran evade trade sanctions.

The proposed deal also raises new questions about Shenzhen-based Huawei, which recently was criticized by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee for failing to "provide evidence to support its claims that it complies with all international sanctions or U.S. export laws."

At least 13 pages of the proposal to MCI, which involved expanding its subscriber billing system, were marked "Huawei confidential" and carried the company's logo, according to documents seen by Reuters. In a statement to Reuters, Huawei called it a "bidding document" and said one of its "major local partners," Skycom Tech Co Ltd, had submitted it to MCI.

The statement went on to say, "Huawei's business in Iran is in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations including those of the U.N., U.S. and E.U. This commitment has been carried out and followed strictly by our company. Further, we also require our partners to follow the same commitment and strictly abide by the relevant laws and regulations."

In October, Reuters reported that another Iranian partner of Huawei last year tried to sell embargoed American antenna equipment to Iran's second largest mobile operator, MTN Irancell, in a deal the buyer ultimately rejected. The U.S. antenna manufacturer, CommScope Inc, has an agreement with Huawei in which the Chinese firm can use its products in Huawei systems, according to a CommScope spokesman. He added that his company strives to comply fully with all U.S. laws and sanctions.

Huawei has a similar partnership with HP. In a statement, the Palo Alto, Calif., company said, "HP has an extensive control system in place to ensure our partners and resellers comply with all legal and regulatory requirements involving system security, global trade and customer privacy and the company's relationship with Huawei is no different."

The statement added, "HP's distribution contract terms prohibit the sale of HP products into Iran and require compliance with U.S. and other applicable export laws."

Washington has banned the export of computer equipment to Iran for years. The sanctions are designed to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons; Iran says its nuclear program is aimed purely at producing domestic energy.

CLOSE LINKS

Huawei and its Iranian partner, Skycom, appear to have very close ties.

An Iranian job recruitment site called Irantalent.com describes Skycom as "a leading telecom solution provider" and goes on to list details that are identical to the way Huawei describes itself on its U.S. website: employee-owned, selling "solutions" used by "45 of the world's top 50 telecom operators" and serving "one-third of the world's population."

On LinkedIn.com, several telecom workers list having worked at "Huawei-skycom" on their resumes. A former Skycom employee said the two companies shared the same headquarters in China. And an Iranian telecom manager who has visited Skycom's office in Tehran said, "Everybody carries Huawei badges."

A Hong Kong accountant whose firm is listed in Skycom registration records as its corporate secretary said Friday he would check with the company to see if anyone would answer questions. Reuters did not hear back.

The proposal to MCI, dated October 2010, would have doubled the capacity of MCI's billing system for prepaid customers. The proposal noted that MCI was "growing fast" and that its current system, provided by Huawei, had "exceeded the system capacity" to handle 20 million prepaid subscribers.

"In order to keep serving (MCI) with high quality, we provide this expansion proposal to support 40M subscribers," the proposal states on a page marked "HUAWEI Confidential."

The proposal makes clear that HP computer servers were an integral part of the "Hardware Installation Design" of the expansion project. Tables listing equipment for MCI facilities at a new site in Tehran and in the city of Shiraz repeatedly reference HP servers under the heading, "Minicomputer Model."

The documents seen by Reuters also include a portion of an equipment price list that carries Huawei's logo and are stamped "SKYCOM IRAN OFFICE." The pages list prices for HP servers, disk arrays and switches, including those that already are "existing" and others that need to be added. The total proposed project price came to 19.9 million euros, including a "one time special discount."

The proposed new HP equipment, which totaled 1.3 million euros, included one server, 20 disk arrays, 22 switches and software. The existing HP equipment included 22 servers, 8 disk arrays and 13 switches, with accompanying prices.

Asked who had provided the existing HP equipment to MCI, Vic Guyang, a Huawei spokesman, said it wasn't Huawei. "We would like to add that the existing hardware equipment belongs to the customer. Huawei does not have information on, or the authority to check the source of the customer's equipment."

Officials with MCI did not respond to requests for comment.

In a series of stories this year, Reuters has documented how China has become a backdoor for Iran to obtain embargoed U.S. computer equipment. In March and April, Reuters reported that China's ZTE Corp, a Huawei competitor, had sold or agreed to sell millions of dollars worth of U.S. computer gear, including HP equipment, to Telecommunication Co of Iran, the country's largest telecommunications firm, and a unit of the consortium that controls TCI.

The articles sparked investigations by the U.S. Commerce Department, the Justice Department and some of the U.S. tech companies. ZTE says it is cooperating with the federal probes.

TCI is the parent company of MCI.

(Additional reporting by Grace Li and Chyen Yee Lee in Hong Kong and Marcus George in Dubai; Edited by Simon Robinson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-huawei-partner-offered-embargoed-hp-gear-iran-230633426--finance.html

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In your town: What's going on in your community

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Source: http://www.app.com/article/20121230/NJNEWS/312300031/1070/NEWS02&source=rss

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