'Es the man

Congratulations to John Beaumont, who has been appointed chief executive of the e-University. Mr Beaumont joins UK e-Universities Worldwide from troubled telecoms group Energis, where he was a board member and managing director of its web hosting and internet service provider, Energis Squared. Mr Beaumont is a former professor of applied management information systems at the University of Stirling and professor of management at the University of Bath. UK e-Universities Worldwide aims to offer online higher education courses from next January. The government has committed £62 million to the project with an estimated £5.6 million coming from Sun Microsystems.