Early-stage, private equity and alternative investors now have a newswire that delivers off-exchange investment deals directly to their screens. Deals are delivered to investors according to their pre-set preferences and the essential professional interface to deals is provided by experienced capital raising advisors who register as Growthwire Authorised Advisors. Registration is currently free for investors at www.growthwire.com. As Growthwire is UK domiciled, all investors must self-certify as HNWIs or sophisticated investors in accordance with the UKs FSMA2000 (Financial Promotion Orders 2001) Amendments 2005.

Growthwire CEO, David Rose said: “What could be simpler for an investor than to register with a newswire, set their preferences and then await incoming deals? Even better, what could be simpler for capital-starved growing businesses than to call a Growthwire Authorised Advisor, get advice on preparing their business plan, and then have the deal posted to the wire? There are countless thousands of networks all over the world but, until now, they have all had to operate in an information vacuum, a situation that would actually kill off any other market. Growthwire delivers the long-awaited universal deal-flow medium that releases the flow of off-exchange information so that the flow of capital can follow naturally, which all other markets take for granted.”

Investors can visit www.growthwire.com and set their newswire preferences to receive deals with values of 50,000 to 50m across all major currencies and posted by Growthwire Authorised Advisors from across the world including Australia, China, SE Asia eastern and western Europe as well as the UK and USA. Growthwire research using data from the UK and US Treasuries, wealth management, venture capital and other sources indicates that there is a global market of ten million investors (mostly wealthy, successful entrepreneurs) and one million capital-raisings at any one time. In order to release this flow of information registration has been kept free for qualified investors, and registration and listing fees for capital raising advisors and their clients set at nominal levels.

Growthwire, described by the BBC as “…the Dow Jones for entrepreneurs…” does not take fees or commissions on completed deals.

Further information at www.growthwire.com

Skype announced the availability of its global Skype Online Shop to users in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.

Designed with user friendliness in mind, the Skype online shop enables users in these countries to browse and buy a range of Skype Certified™ accessories and hardware and enjoy the convenience of having items shipped directly to them from third party merchants whom Skype has partnered with, confident that every item has passed Skype’s quality and performance certification tests.

“We are excited to extend the Skype shop to Latin America and make available to our users Skype Certified™ accessories which can enhance their user experience by broadening how and where they use Skype” said Don Albert, Americas General Manager and Vice President for Skype. “This further illustrates our commitment to our users, providing them with a richer Skype experience and allowing them to continue their Skype conversations wherever they are”

The Skype Shop offers a range of products for sale from third party merchants including wireless headsets and web cameras, with more products to be added as the shop develops. Users who have upgraded to the all-new Skype, can also easily access the web store from within Skype’s 4.0 client for Windows, by clicking on the Shop tab.

Users can access the new Skype Shop at http://www.skype.com/go/shop. To upgrade or download the new Skype 4.1 for Windows, visit http://www.skype.com/go/download.
About Skype

Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Download Skype to your computer or mobile phone at skype.com.

Skype is an eBay company (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Access to a broadband Internet connection is required. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling.

Skype, associated trademarks and logos and the “S” symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited.

Is your company thinking about a major investment in a new Microsoft technology? Or renewing licenses for Microsoft software already in place? Don’t even think about having another conversation with Microsoft until you attend this training.

FREE Briefing: Evaluating Software Assurance [July 30th @ 10:00 PDT]

Register for a phone-based conference hosted by Directions On Microsoft licensing expert, Paul DeGroot. You’ll learn how to weigh the benefits of Microsoft Software Assurance, a major component of Microsoft volume licensing programs such as Enterprise Agreement and Select.

It’s a taste of the expertise that you’ll get at the Directions On Microsoft Licensing Boot Camp, a two-day workshop that demystifies Microsoft licensing programs and rules. You’ll get information you need to intelligently evaluate your Microsoft licensing options and maximize the return on your software investment. Learn licensing in a way that is clear and concise, with no hidden agendas.

Top 5 Reasons to Attend the Directions On Microsoft Licensing Boot Camp

Get critical information and understanding to build your licensing expertise and make decisions that keep your company in compliance without overbuying
Fill in gaps in your knowledge and identify weaknesses in your strategy
Discover options that will save you tens-of-thousands of dollars . . . or more
Network with your peers and compare notes
Learn basic software asset management practices to identify hidden savings, underutilized licenses, and potential legal liabilities
For more information on the Software Assurance TeleBriefing, please visit: http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/alerts/

For more information on the Boot Camp, please visit: http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/licensing/30-licensing/312-bootcamp.html

About Directions On Microsoft
Directions On Microsoft is the only independent organization in the world devoted exclusively to tracking Microsoft. Directions has studied Microsoft since 1992. Its team of Microsoft experts provides clear, concise, and actionable analysis of shifts in Microsoft strategy, Microsoft product and technology roadmaps, delivery schedules, organizational changes, marketing initiatives, and licensing and other policies, so you can quickly assess how they impact your business. Thousands of companies worldwide–including corporate purchasers of Microsoft products, system integrators, software vendors–trust Directions On Microsoft for accurate and unbiased Microsoft research and analysis to guide their strategic decisions.

Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: FLTWQ), a leading producer of motorized recreational vehicles and manufactured homes, today announced the closing of the previously announced sale of its motor home assets to American Industrial Partners Capital Fund IV, L.P. (AIP). The purchase price of $33.2 million is inclusive of certain assumed liabilities and is subject to customary post-closing adjustments.

Concurrently, Fleetwood terminated approximately 700 employees associated with this portion of its business. Affected employees were notified earlier this week. The new owners are expecting to hire approximately 650 employees over the next several weeks. Fleetwood continues to own two idled motor home plants in Pennsylvania and California, although the Riverside, Calif. plant will be operated temporarily by AIP under license.

The sale includes two motor home manufacturing facilities, two motor home service facilities, and Fleetwood’s Gold Shield supply subsidiary, all presently located in Decatur, Indiana. It also includes the intellectual property for Fleetwood’s existing motor home brands and certain machinery and equipment in Riverside, California.

Additional information about Fleetwood’s reorganization may be found online in the news section of www.fleetwood.com or at www.kccllc.net/fleetwood.

About AIP
American Industrial Partners was founded in 1989 and is a leading US based private equity firm that makes control equity investments, in partnership with management, in well positioned US headquartered industrial companies with leading market shares that can benefit from the firm’s systematic approach to implementing strategic and operational improvements. It is investing its fourth fund which recently closed with $405.5 million of committed capital. For more information, visit www.aipartners.com or American Industrial Partners can be reached at 212-627-2360.

About Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc.
Following the sale of its motorized recreational vehicle business, Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. and its various subsidiaries continue to produce, distribute, and service manufactured housing. The company is dedicated to providing high-quality, innovative products that offer exceptional value to its customers. Fleetwood continues to employ approximately 1,100 people in 11 plants located in nine states. Fleetwood’s products are primarily marketed through an extensive dealer network throughout the United States and Canada. The company is headquartered in Riverside, Calif.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements and information based on the beliefs of Fleetwood’s management as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, Fleetwood’s management. Such statements reflect the current views of Fleetwood with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including risk factors identified in Fleetwood’s most recent 10-K, 10-Q and other SEC filings.

Michael Reinstein, the Managing Director of Los Angeles-based private equity firm, Archetype Capital, has announced the launch of the firm’s 2009 Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) Program.

The Archetype Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program provides successful entrepreneurs who are interested in actively evaluating market sectors and companies with the opportunity to work alongside Archetype’s investment professionals as they assess future investment opportunities.

“The current global economic climate provides unique challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs. We are looking for individuals who bring exceptional domain and functional expertise that can be leveraged throughout the investment making decision process,” said Michael Reinstein, Archetype’s Managing Director.

Participants in the Archetype EIR program will typically work with Archetype Capital for at least six months on a full time basis and often remain part of the Archetype portfolio when they move on to their next position.

About Archetype Capital

Archetype Capital, founded by Los Angeles-based financier Michael Reinstein, is a private equity firm dedicated to investing in technology, media and consumer oriented businesses around the globe. The firm has offices in Los Angeles and London.

About Michael Reinstein

Michael Reinstein is the Managing Director of Archetype Capital, a Los Angeles and London-based Private Equity firm. Mr. Reinstein has built and sold technology and media companies in both the private and public markets.

Reinstein launched Promenade Membership Services while he was still in law school and later sold the company to e4L/National Media Corporation, a New York Stock Exchange listed television and e-commerce firm in 2001.

In 2003, Mr. Reinstein launched the USN television broadcast network. Within 12 months of launch, USN obtained nationwide distribution in over 30 million homes on satellite, broadcast and cable television. Reinstein raised just $10 million in equity capital to create this 24/7 broadcast network. Mr. Reinstein took the Company public in 2004 and sold control of the Company in early 2005.

Michael Reinstein also served as president of Odin Companies, a consumer marketing firm based in Los Angeles. During his tenure, he was responsible for creating the highly successful television infomercial for the Metrinch line of hand tools in partnership with Guthy-Renker Corporation, the world’s largest direct response television company. During its first 18 months on television, the Metrinch infomercial, generated over $80 million in US revenues.

Michael Reinstein’s early professional experience includes positions at International Creative Management, a leading Hollywood talent and literary agency, and in the office of former President Ronald Reagan. He attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Pepperdine University School of Law.

Mr. Reinstein currently serves on the Board of Directors of TWC, a privately held global sourcing and distribution company and is also involved in various political and charitable causes in both the United States and United Kingdom. He is a member of the State Bar of California.

Blink Logic Inc., a leader in Software as a Service and on-demand Business Intelligence (BI) announced today its debuting a fully integrated Excel plug-in for its self service reporting analytical tools.

Blink Logic’s customers will now have the ability to not only pull data directly from the database but also merge into Microsoft Excel making it easier to format with existing reports. In addition, customers will be able to upload 3rd party spreadsheets to collaborate with other users.

Adding the Microsoft Excel plug-in opens the door to new and existing clients that use Excel. CEO David Morris adds “While customers are delighted with the analytical and visualization tools that Blink Logic offers, there are some users that are just more comfortable with an Excel spreadsheet”. For the full release please visit: http://www.blinklogic.com/

Students and researchers at Clemson University are participating in the country’s only university program that ties together packaging science, graphic communications, environmental science, manufacturing principles, and marketing aspects.

The multidisciplinary program began early this year in the new $7 million Harris A. Smith Building, home to the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics. Designed by architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent in collaboration with Michael Keeshen & Associates, the 28,000-square-foot structure is on track to become Clemson’s first U.S. Green Building Council certified LEED Gold building.

The building was specifically sited and designed to actively relate to the buildings around it, and to engage the people who occupy it as well as those who circulate through and connect in this emerging campus precinct.

Siting, design are about campus connection
“Just as the Sonoco Institute is about the connection of a wide variety of disciplines, our siting and design of the Harris A. Smith Building is about connection, too – intentional campus connection,” said Joe Greco, Lord, Aeck & Sargent principal in charge of the project.

“First,” Greco continued, “we sited the building to reinforce the natural campus circulation by linking it along the route to adjacent buildings.” He explained that the building’s placement aligns two campus axes, extending the neighboring engineering education building’s colonnade via a covered pedestrian path as well as linking it visually and symbolically to the architecture education building through a new walkway that connects these two main entrances. The Harris A. Smith Building is clad in the same locally sourced brick – Hanson Dark Palomino – as the other two buildings, reinforcing a visual continuity within the campus precinct.

The Harris A. Smith Building also makes extensive use of glass, allowing those on the pedestrian path to see the innovative research being undertaken in the Sonoco Institute’s prototyping, materials and consumer experience laboratories.

The building’s interior also provides visual connections through interior windows that allow viewing into labs, putting the “the science on display.” Collaborative niches with benches are located in wide corridors so that students and faculty can meet while viewing into the labs. Large glass exterior windows provide substantial natural daylighting into the educational spaces, and a large corner glass window wall marks the public spaces and promotes visual connection from the building interior to the campus and the landscape beyond.

Sensitive siting and locally sourced, recycled-content materials promote sustainability
Responding to the natural topography, the three-story building is nestled into a hillside on its east side such that the facility accommodates a full story of slope within its footprint.

“Since we were working with a limited construction budget, we took an economical approach to building materials and were able to do so without sacrificing functionality. We chose to clad the lower level plinth with a locally sourced, polished concrete masonry unit that complimented the cast stone used in conjunction with local brick,” said Josh Andrews, a Lord, Aeck & Sargent associate who served as the Harris A. Smith Building project architect. “We made economical use of durable materials with high recycled content, such as the polished, integrally colored concrete floors, which have a 20 percent fly ash content.”

Andrews noted that other locally sourced materials with recycled content include the building’s steel structure, interior carpet and tile, and corridor benches fabricated from wood that was reclaimed from trees on the building site.

Natural light inspires
The building makes extensive use of natural light with large lab and office windows, including upper level clerestory windows into the classroom spaces.

“If you stand inside the building, you can see daylight in almost every direction,” said Paul Borick, a project manager in Clemson’s Capital Projects Group who was involved with the Harris A. Smith Building from inception through closeout. “The building has sensors that turn the lights on when there isn’t enough daylight, and it’s interesting to see how often the lights are off.”

Metal sunscreens mitigate the sun’s exposure on the building’s southwest corner glass wall. The building siting preserved a specimen oak tree that also contributes to shading of the larger glass areas. East-facing windows are shaded substantially by a deep roof overhang, vertical masonry piers and the translucent canopy structure over the pedestrian path.

“The fact that the building has been sustainably designed keeps us true to our word,” said Chip Tonkin, Sonoco Institute director. “If sustainability is part of how you design a package, then having a building that’s sustainable in its design legitimizes what we’re trying to do. It shows that we practice what we preach.”

Inside the institute
A project of two Clemson colleges – the College of Agriculture, Forestry & Life Sciences, and the College of Business & Behavioral Sciences – the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics comprises laboratory, office and collaboration space. The lower level includes an advanced print technology lab, a digital plate lab, a printed electronics lab and an ink lab as well as a graduate studio, student lounge and mechanical room.

The second level includes the main entry and lobby with an exhibit area, a consumer experience lab, prototyping lab and materials lab, two breakout rooms and a workshop. The signature sculptural staircase extends to the upper level into a large, open collaboration area.

The third floor houses the packaging development lab, offices, a conference room and a 45-seat auditorium.

“The entire building provides a wide open feel that I really like. It’s a different feel, very industrial, but it’s still open, airy, warm and inviting,” Tonkin said.

Funding
The building is named for Harris A. Smith, who was chairman, president and CEO of rigid packaging distributor Smith Container Corp., until its sale a few years ago. Smith made gifts and pledges of $3.7 million, and Sonoco Products Co. $2.5 million for construction of the building and to launch the packaging institute. Most of the money to pay for the structure was donated. Other donors gave equipment that is being used to train students and help industry partners research packaging methods, technology and design.

The project team
The Harris A. Smith Building project team included:
• Lord, Aeck & Sargent (Atlanta office), architect of record, design architect
• Michael Keeshen & Associates, (Greenville, S.C.), associate architect
• Clemson University Facilities, Capital Projects, (Clemson, S.C.), project management
• Seamon Whiteside + Associates (Greenville, S.C.), landscape architect
• Newcomb & Boyd (Atlanta), MEP/FP engineer
• Dutton Engineering (Greenville, S.C.), civil engineer
• CMC Cary Engineering (Greenville, S.C.), structural engineer
• Melloul-Blamey Construction (Greenville, S.C. office), general contractor

About Lord, Aeck & Sargent
Lord, Aeck & Sargent is an award-winning architectural firm serving clients in scientific, academic, historic preservation, arts and cultural, and multi-family housing and mixed-use markets. The firm’s core values are responsive design, technological expertise and exceptional service. In 2003, The Construction Specifications Institute awarded Lord, Aeck & Sargent its Environmental Sensitivity Award for showing exceptional devotion to the use of sustainable and environmentally friendly materials, and for striving to create functional, sensitive and healthy buildings for clients. In 2007, Lord, Aeck & Sargent was one of the first architecture firms to adopt The 2030 Challenge, an initiative whose ultimate goal is the design of carbon-neutral buildings, or buildings that use no fossil-fuel greenhouse gas-emitting energy to operate, by the year 2030. Lord, Aeck & Sargent has offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For more information, visit the firm at www.lordaecksargent.com.