In this design I was thinking of the idea of capturing information. A blue globe is encircled by rings, capturing the globe and collecting information from the oceans.
You may be onto something. You're one of the few trying to capture our business in the graphic (which is not easy to do in our line of work!). Collecting (and transmitting) information (acoustic and otherwise) and transmitting it some distance (either to a buoy or land or satellite) is actually a big part what we do. (But not all we do!).
However...I only "got it" after reading your comment. And I think that's because the first impression I get looking at the graphic is more "biological" than anything else. I don't know why. I'd like to see more along this line, though. The leading candidates' graphics are nice enough but don't really hint at the business.
Did you see the .doc i posted showing the things we make? The illustration of the underwater vehicle towing a sensor cable is another big part of our work (as is putting sensors on long, fixed cables in the water). But I have mixed feelings about making that the dominant "theme", as we do many other things too. Maybe if the graphic just "hinted" at these things: someone in the business would "see it" and someone looking for a "land-based" system would not. It's a tall order to capture everything we do in the design and if not possible, focusing on the ocean side of the business is fine, as that's our bread and butter.
BTW, I don't really care for pastel shades. The pale blue conjures up "swimming pools" rather than ocean.
I was surprised that you see the previous blues as being too pastel as they were quite a deep sky blue. Anyway I have done some revised versions with a deeper blue. Changed the green to a more green/blue and faded out the end of the line on this design.