Opening later this year, it will be Oxfordshire’s first and a relief for shoppers who typically had to travel to London to go to a Bershka.

The new 11,000 sq ft store will be located on the upper ground floor next to H&M and Urban Outfitters.

Bershka, part of the Inditex group of brands, was founded in 1998 to cater to adventurous young people who are in tune with the latest trends, music, new technology and social media.

Clare Martin, Westgate’s new centre director (Image: Westgate)

The brand’s womenswear is split into two distinct lines: Bershka, which focuses on trend-led pieces including denim, casual-wear and eveningwear.

And BSK, which is dedicated to pop-culture-inspired styles.

Complementing these, the Bershka Man line offers a wide selection of casualwear, sportswear and fashion-led trend pieces.

Alongside the three core lines, the new store will offer a comprehensive range of accessories and footwear.

Clare Martin, centre director at Westgate Oxford, said: “Here at Westgate Oxford, we are constantly looking to elevate our brand lineup to provide our guests with access to retailers that can’t be found elsewhere in Oxfordshire.

“Bershka has been a highly-requested name, so we are thrilled to be welcoming them to our retail line-up. We look forward to sharing more details and an official opening date in due course.”

UK Connect has been appointed an authorised reseller of Amazon Leo in the United Kingdom, making it one of Amazon’s first European partners for the low Earth orbit satellite service.

Under the agreement, UK Connect will sell Amazon Leo satellite internet services to business customers in sectors including construction, warehousing and logistics, and manufacturing. The arrangement adds low Earth orbit connectivity to its existing portfolio of wireless and managed network services.

The deal expands Amazon Leo’s route into the UK business market through a partner already focused on sites and operations where conventional fixed-line coverage can be hard to secure. UK Connect has built its business around temporary, remote and complex environments, particularly in construction and defence, where network access is often needed quickly and in locations beyond the reach of standard broadband infrastructure.

Amazon Leo is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, built around a large constellation designed to provide broadband access with lower latency than traditional satellite systems. By signing UK Connect as a reseller, Amazon gains a channel partner with experience deploying connectivity in operational settings where resilience and coverage are central requirements.

The agreement is aimed at enterprise users rather than households. UK Connect will offer the service to organisations that need connectivity for remote operations, temporary sites, distributed estates or backup links, including customers that want to combine satellite with terrestrial wireless or fixed connections.

Target sectors

Construction is likely to be an early focus. Building sites often need connectivity before fixed networks are available, and project timetables can make installation delays costly. Satellite links can also help where site offices move regularly or projects are located in rural or hard-to-reach areas.

Warehousing and logistics operators face different constraints. Many need reliable links across depots, vehicle yards and regional facilities, sometimes in areas with uneven fixed or mobile coverage. In manufacturing, satellite can serve isolated plants and support continuity planning if primary network routes fail.

UK Connect said the Amazon Leo service will typically sit within broader customer deployments rather than as a standalone offering. It highlighted its FUSION managed service as one way customers could buy the satellite connection as part of a wider network package.

The company also outlined the hardware customers will use to access the network. The lineup includes terminals called Leo Nano, Leo Pro and Leo Ultra, giving buyers a choice of equipment based on a site’s scale and performance needs.

Leo Ultra is positioned as the highest-throughput option, with download speeds of up to 1 Gbps and upload speeds of up to 400 Mbps. Those speeds would make the service suitable for more than basic backup connectivity, including data-heavy operations and real-time workloads in the field.

Resilience play

The announcement reflects a wider trend in the UK business connectivity market, with companies looking beyond a single access method and instead combining fibre, fixed wireless, 4G, 5G and satellite. For sectors with mobile workforces or remote assets, low Earth orbit services have become more relevant because they can be deployed without waiting for civil works or long installation lead times.

Low Earth orbit systems have also attracted interest because they address some of the limitations of older satellite broadband, particularly latency. That matters for business users running cloud applications, video services, security systems and remote support tools that are less tolerant of delay.

For UK Connect, the deal adds another route to customers already buying managed connectivity. The company has expanded around wireless products such as 5G fixed wireless access, in-building mobile coverage, enterprise Wi-Fi and point-to-point links. The Amazon Leo partnership broadens that range with a satellite option aimed at business use cases.

Joe Budnar-Hunt, Chief Executive Officer at UK Connect, said: “Being selected as an Amazon-approved partner is a significant milestone for us as a business. For more than a decade, we’ve delivered reliable connectivity to some of the UK’s most demanding environments, from mission-critical Ministry of Defence deployments to fast-paced construction site rollouts, and bespoke networks for complex, high-priority projects. This partnership will enable us to bring the latest high-performance satellite connectivity to our customers, ensuring reliable, resilient communications wherever they operate.”

UK Connect said the service is designed to meet enterprise requirements for performance, reliability and security, and expects demand from organisations operating across sites where terrestrial connectivity is limited or where a second network path is needed for continuity.

UK Connect said Leo Ultra is capable of delivering download speeds of up to 1 Gbps and upload speeds of up to 400 Mbps.

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Peer Software has launched PeerGFS v6.4, targeting organisations that manage distributed file infrastructure across multiple sites.

The update to its Global File Service platform focuses on faster file synchronisation and replication across SMB and NFS workloads. It also aims to improve resilience during large file transfers, strengthen auditing of configuration and management activity, and enhance edge data management in environments with limited bandwidth.

The release is aimed at businesses handling large and growing volumes of file data across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments. Peer Software highlighted sectors such as semiconductors, healthcare and life sciences, and AI and machine learning as examples of industries facing heavier data demands and more complex application workloads.

Many of these organisations are distributing compute workloads across multiple locations and turning to cloud infrastructure for additional capacity. That increases the need to keep file data synchronised and accessible across sites so applications and users can work from current versions of the same information.

Performance changes

PeerGFS v6.4 introduces faster scheduled scans and real-time replication for both SMB and NFS environments. These protocols remain widely used in enterprise storage estates, particularly where businesses need to share file-based data between teams, applications and locations.

The release also aims to reduce disruption when connectivity drops between distributed sites. In those cases, the software is designed to resume large file transfers more effectively instead of forcing organisations to restart data movement from the beginning.

The update also expands auditing, with upgraded tracking of configuration and management activity. That may matter to companies that need stronger oversight of operational changes across complex storage environments.

Edge data management is another focus in the new version, with improvements to performance, reliability and manageability in distributed environments where bandwidth constraints can make data movement and synchronisation harder to control.

Distributed workloads

The release comes as more businesses place data and applications closer to available computing resources rather than keeping everything in a single data centre. That shift has increased pressure on IT teams to maintain file consistency across dispersed infrastructure without creating delays for engineers, researchers and other users working with large data sets.

In sectors such as chip design and life sciences research, file-based workflows often involve teams in different locations accessing and updating shared data. This can make synchronisation software an important layer for preventing version conflicts, reducing downtime and maintaining continuity when workloads move between on-premises and cloud systems.

Jimmy Tam, Chief Executive Officer of Peer Software, described what the company sees as the challenge facing customers.

“As organisations scale data-intensive workloads across data centres, edge locations and cloud environments, the ability to keep data synchronised, accessible and close to compute has become a critical operational imperative,” said Jimmy Tam, Chief Executive Officer of Peer Software.

He said the product is intended to reduce friction in distributed file management for customers operating global infrastructure.

“PeerGFS helps customers eliminate the friction of distributed file management by improving performance, increasing resiliency and giving IT teams greater control over how data moves across their global infrastructure. The result is a more efficient foundation for supporting modern engineering, semiconductor, life sciences, and AI-driven workloads at scale,” Tam said.

Peer Software sells file services and data management software used to synchronise, replicate and share file data across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments. Its Global File Service platform is used by enterprises seeking data consistency, compliance support and business continuity across multi-site infrastructure.