Holi, Passover, Easter and Ramadan are all meaningful events in the calendar we traditionally share with family, friends and our religious communities. However, thanks to COVID-19, the last week and the next month of observances represent a selection of potential super-spreader events. So, to keep you at home and out of the virus’ way, we are offering the Good Friday edition of B2B News. There is no need to read it masked or from a respectable 2m distance. Screens are good that way.

Hottinger Brüel & Kjær (HBK), a subsidiary of UK-based Spectris, has announced the acquisition of Concurrent Real-Time, Inc., a provider of high-performance, real-time computational hardware and software solutions. HBK purchased the business from Battery Ventures, a Boston-based PE firm. The purchase is worth $166.7 million US. The acquisition supports HBK’s strategy to provide an end-to-end virtual test platform. The acquisition will be added to HBK’s VI-grade Virtual Test business unit.

“Our HBK strategy remains clear – to become the preferred partner to our customers as they look to accelerate product development and optimize sensing to improve their products,” said HBK CEO Joe Vorih. “Both virtual testing and physical testing are critical to the acceleration of product development, and the acquisition of Concurrent-RT significantly strengthens our technology solution and customer offering on this journey.”

More information: https://hbkworld.com/about/management/

Lightspeed, a provider of cloud-based, omnichannel commerce platforms, has announced a partnership with Digital Main Street (DMS). The DMS is being delivered across Ontario by Communitech, Invest Ottawa and the Ontario Business Improvement Area Association, thanks to support from the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, as well as the provincial government. Through ShopHERE, one of the programs, Lightspeed is helping businesses access its omnichannel platform.

“At the heart of every thriving community is a healthy main street. Providing businesses with the right digital tools to adapt and succeed is what Lightspeed does.” said Peter Dougherty, Lightspeed’s Vice-President of Partnerships. “With DMS, Lightspeed will have a greater opportunity to help SMBs access and benefit from our omnichannel solutions. We remain focused on driving innovation and delivering those democratizing tools, so that we can all come back to a stronger, healthier and more diverse post-pandemic economy.”

Press release: https://digitalmainstreet.ca/lightspeed-dms/

Austria-based eyeson video conferencing solutions, has released a low-bandwidth solution to create more stable online meetings. It ensures meeting participants can always be heard, even with a poor connection. Their technology adjusts resource usage analogously to user network or hardware conditions

“A new low data mode allows users to reduce the amount of data that will be used during eyeson calls, as well as to establish different modalities based on network performance,” says Andreas Kröpfl, CEO of eyeson. “This low bandwidth mode also allows users to save data by consuming only 10-20 megabytes per hour, independent of the number of participants in a video meeting.”

Press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eyeson-solves-the-bandwidth-problem-with-audio-only-access-to-video-meetings-301260918.html

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Kate Baggott is a former Managing Editor of B2BNN. Her technology and business journalism has appeared in the Technology Review, the Globe and Mail, Canada Computes, the Vancouver Sun and the Bay Street Bull. She is the author of the short story collections Love from Planet Wine Cooler and Dry Stories. Find links to recent articles by following her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-baggott-9a0306/

• B2B News for Friday, April 2, 2021: a B2B Testing Solution Acquisition, a COVID Relief Partnership for SMEs and Low Bandwidth Meetings – April 1, 2021
• B2B News for Wednesday, March 31, 2021: Colocation Sell-Offs, Procurement Platform Partnerships and a New Rosie the Riveter for the She-cession – March 30, 2021
• B2B News for Friday, March 26, 2021: Virtual B2B Events, Vendors Beware, Intentionally Bad Bosses – March 26, 2021