Those of you on Twitter would have seen the news first, but in case you didn’t:

1. Facebook buys Instagram photo sharing network for $1bn
2. Why Microsoft spent $1 billion on AOL’s patents 

The first one is cool and shows you how the social media sector can pay for itself when an app is released free. Instagram allows you to takes pics and automatically upload them up to Twitter, Facebook and do fancy effects on them. The native Facebook iPhone app was clunky to use with pics.

There are also 13 guys in Instagram now all worth almost $100m (CEO got most). The general comment is that the Android release last week had a big impact on the deal and also their powerful RESTful API and OAuth 2 (just like the SureVoIP API, but we weren’t first ).

The scary news is that the newly owned Microsoft patents are so powerful. They just bought one for SSL, you know, the thing that allows you to go to https:// for your bank and the whole web.

There’s a lot of other mobile patents in that list too. Food for thought as to what damage they can do in the future like create a Microsoft tax for many things and kill a lot of mobile innovation and there’s even some in there about VoIP!

A quick update to say that following extensive testing SureVoIP have been short-listed as a finalist in the ITSPA Awards in the Best Business ITSP category

Aberdeen-based communications company SureVoIP is pleased to announce that it has secured the ISO9001:2008 Quality Assurance certification.

The Internet Telephony Service Provider is part of the Suretec Group which was established in 2003.  Based at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen the company has worked in locations as diverse as Canada, Nepal, the Netherlands and the Seychelles.

In order to achieve the newly-awarded certification, SureVoIP’s business systems have undergone a rigorous external audit process and benchmarking.

Commenting on the certification, SureVoIP managing director Gavin Henry said:

“Our consistent growth is due to, and will remain attributable to, a firm commitment to quality, positive management and effective service provision in relation to Suretec and SureVoIP, confirmed by our achievement to be awarded ISO 9001:2008 in August 2011.”

SureVoIP is regulated by OfCom, is a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) and was a finalist in that organisation’s 2011 awards.  The company is also the holder of an ITSPA Quality Mark accreditation.  For further information visit www.surevoip.co.uk or call (01224) 900123.

Notes to Editors

SureVoIP is a leading Internet Telephone Service Provider and is part of the Suretec Group.  Based at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen the company has worked in locations as diverse as Canada, Nepal, the Netherlands and the Seychelles.  The company is a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) and is regulated by Ofcom.  For further information visit www.surevoip.co.uk or call (01224) 900123.