Tuesday, 29 November 2011
That's Green: Facing the challenges of labelling changes from ph...
That's Green: Facing the challenges of labelling changes from ph...: Household laundry detergent manufacturers now have just over 12 months to remove phosphates from their products as the EU ban is due to co...
Deal signed with Innovation Group after successful pilot
German insurer DEVK has signed a three year contract with Innovation Group to use its Innovation Symbility Mobile Claims software, part of the Innovation Symbility Suite. The deployment follows a successful pilot phase.
Innovation Symbility Mobile Claims is a field-based scoping solution optimised for mobile devices to make qualified assessment of property claims on site. From January 2012, all DEVK adjusters will be able to create estimates with electronic support and complete accurate assessment of the claim speeding up the claims settlement process.
“By using Innovation Symbility Mobile Claims software, DEVK expects to increase customer satisfaction levels, as well as assure better documentation and improved efficiency from our adjusters” said Günter Kalkowski, head of property claims at DEVK.
“This new partnership with DEVK is an important milestone for bringing Innovation Symbility Suite onto the German market. With this opportunity we will be able to demonstrate the added value of Innovation Group’s software and outsourcing solutions for both insurance clients and other companies in the value chain. Our products allow closer collaboration between service providers and their customers while at the same time improve customer service levels and reduce costs.” said Robert Thomson, managing director of Innovation Group in the UK and Ireland.
With 1,200 offices, 2,270 tied agents and more than 4,000 part-time agents, DEVK is a number four property, number five motor and number six casualty insurance company in Germany.
From its German office branch in Stuttgart, Innovation Group specialises in outsourcing solutions for insurance companies, fleet operators and garage networks. The company has partnered with more than 3,000 service providers.
Innovation Symbility Suite is a service model consisting of three core software components:
• Triage – enables claims management teams to scope claims accurately and consistently, in turn providing adjustors and service providers with an accurate picture of the claim before their first visit.
• Symbility.net – a powerful data management hub that records and tracks all claims data, including supplier information and reporting on claims and customer experience.
• Mobile Claims – field based scoping solution that actively syncs with the data management hub to share claim information, eliminating replicated data and reducing rework and duplication.
www.innovation-group.com
Innovation Symbility Mobile Claims is a field-based scoping solution optimised for mobile devices to make qualified assessment of property claims on site. From January 2012, all DEVK adjusters will be able to create estimates with electronic support and complete accurate assessment of the claim speeding up the claims settlement process.
“By using Innovation Symbility Mobile Claims software, DEVK expects to increase customer satisfaction levels, as well as assure better documentation and improved efficiency from our adjusters” said Günter Kalkowski, head of property claims at DEVK.
“This new partnership with DEVK is an important milestone for bringing Innovation Symbility Suite onto the German market. With this opportunity we will be able to demonstrate the added value of Innovation Group’s software and outsourcing solutions for both insurance clients and other companies in the value chain. Our products allow closer collaboration between service providers and their customers while at the same time improve customer service levels and reduce costs.” said Robert Thomson, managing director of Innovation Group in the UK and Ireland.
With 1,200 offices, 2,270 tied agents and more than 4,000 part-time agents, DEVK is a number four property, number five motor and number six casualty insurance company in Germany.
From its German office branch in Stuttgart, Innovation Group specialises in outsourcing solutions for insurance companies, fleet operators and garage networks. The company has partnered with more than 3,000 service providers.
Innovation Symbility Suite is a service model consisting of three core software components:
• Triage – enables claims management teams to scope claims accurately and consistently, in turn providing adjustors and service providers with an accurate picture of the claim before their first visit.
• Symbility.net – a powerful data management hub that records and tracks all claims data, including supplier information and reporting on claims and customer experience.
• Mobile Claims – field based scoping solution that actively syncs with the data management hub to share claim information, eliminating replicated data and reducing rework and duplication.
www.innovation-group.com
Monday, 28 November 2011
That's Education: Technology firm gives away £10m to educational est...
That's Education: Technology firm gives away £10m to educational est...: vrSoftware, the developer of leading visual merchandising and design software vrMockshop, is continuing its commitment to training across ...
Big Data Analysis Fuels Intelligent Protection from Advanced Threats
Sourcefire, Inc., a leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, today announced that Immunet®, the company's advanced anti-malware solution, has surpassed 2 million installed endpoints. Immunet achieved this milestone due to its “big data” approach to endpoint security, which allows it to provide an additional layer of protection not afforded by traditional anti-malware technologies.
"The rapid adoption witnessed with Immunet demonstrates that users are seeking both an added layer of protection to bolster their defences and a more intelligent approach to block advanced threats," said Oliver Friedrichs, Senior Vice President of Sourcefire's Cloud Technology Group. "This intelligence comes from designing a product with a big data mindset, which is an absolute requirement in today's threat landscape. Traditional anti-malware solutions simply cannot achieve the protection and control that customers require."
The explosion and advancement of threats each day has allowed them to bypass traditional solutions. For example, threats today are transitory with at least 75 percent being seen on only a single endpoint. Threat lifetimes can be measured in hours that require a centralised “big data” repository that can be monitored, observed, culled and used to make intelligent security decisions for all of Immunet’s users. A data-driven approach also enables Immunet to gather real-world metrics on how technologies perform in the field. Immunet was built on the principle of Collective Immunity™, which is shared protective resistance gained through community and collective intelligence to fight against computer malware infection.
"The data deluge is having an impact on the changing nature of security management. Not only has there been an explosion in the sheer volume of data requiring protection, but there has also been a dramatic growth in threats as well as disclosed vulnerabilities," said Scott Crawford, research director, Enterprise Management Associates. "The centralised data approach enables the capability to collect and act on large data sets with great speed, accuracy, and efficacy."
Immunet 3.0 enables small businesses and consumers to create custom anti-malware signatures for more accurate protection against targeted attacks. Immunet 3.0 also offers an innovative Cloud Recall™ feature that can remediate previously approved files and automatically quarantine them in real time based on new threat information. In addition, the Immunet technology has outperformed all of its competitors and successfully defended against 100 percent of malware attacks in an independent test
conducted by the Malware Research Group.
Immunet 3.0 is available as a free anti-malware download from the Immunet website. Users can upgrade to Immunet 3.0 Plus for advanced anti-malware protection.
"The rapid adoption witnessed with Immunet demonstrates that users are seeking both an added layer of protection to bolster their defences and a more intelligent approach to block advanced threats," said Oliver Friedrichs, Senior Vice President of Sourcefire's Cloud Technology Group. "This intelligence comes from designing a product with a big data mindset, which is an absolute requirement in today's threat landscape. Traditional anti-malware solutions simply cannot achieve the protection and control that customers require."
The explosion and advancement of threats each day has allowed them to bypass traditional solutions. For example, threats today are transitory with at least 75 percent being seen on only a single endpoint. Threat lifetimes can be measured in hours that require a centralised “big data” repository that can be monitored, observed, culled and used to make intelligent security decisions for all of Immunet’s users. A data-driven approach also enables Immunet to gather real-world metrics on how technologies perform in the field. Immunet was built on the principle of Collective Immunity™, which is shared protective resistance gained through community and collective intelligence to fight against computer malware infection.
"The data deluge is having an impact on the changing nature of security management. Not only has there been an explosion in the sheer volume of data requiring protection, but there has also been a dramatic growth in threats as well as disclosed vulnerabilities," said Scott Crawford, research director, Enterprise Management Associates. "The centralised data approach enables the capability to collect and act on large data sets with great speed, accuracy, and efficacy."
Immunet 3.0 enables small businesses and consumers to create custom anti-malware signatures for more accurate protection against targeted attacks. Immunet 3.0 also offers an innovative Cloud Recall™ feature that can remediate previously approved files and automatically quarantine them in real time based on new threat information. In addition, the Immunet technology has outperformed all of its competitors and successfully defended against 100 percent of malware attacks in an independent test
conducted by the Malware Research Group.
Immunet 3.0 is available as a free anti-malware download from the Immunet website. Users can upgrade to Immunet 3.0 Plus for advanced anti-malware protection.
Integralis promotes internal expertise to meet global demand for IT Security and Information Risk Management solutions
Integralis, a global provider of IT Security and Information Risk Management solutions, today announced that it has made further internal promotions to meet the global demand for IT security by providing comprehensive, value-added services and platforms that help companies analyse, identify and manage information security risk.
To strengthen its worldwide solutions presence, Integralis has promoted Jon Hughes to Senior Vice President, Global Professional Services. Jon will be responsible for driving the growth and development of the IT security consultancy practice on a global scale. Jon is based within Integralis’ UK Head Office and joined as Director of UK Professional Services in November 2009. He has over 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, having held senior positions at organisations such as Sophos, Microsoft and ICL.
In addition, Integralis announced the promotion of Fredrik Hörnell as Vice President Global Partner & Vendor Alliances. Fredrik will develop and leverage partner and technology vendor business relationships worldwide, maximising the channel capabilities that all partners bring to the business, including those of parent company NTT Communications. Fredrik is based in Integralis’ Sweden office and has extensive experience across the International Channel market having held senior sales positions at organisations including VeriSign, NetIQ/Attachmate and Fortinet.
Commenting on the news, Integralis’ Chief Operating Officer Simon Church said: “I am delighted to be able to take advantage of the skill and expertise that we have right here on our doorstep. We are extremely fortunate to have such capability and knowledge in our business that sets us apart from our competitors, and we look forward to an exciting future as the world’s leading pure-play provider of advanced IT Security and Information Risk Management solutions.”
FACTFILE:
Integralis provides IT Security and Information Risk Management solutions on a global basis. We deliver a portfolio of managed security solutions, business infrastructure, consulting and technology integration services. As part of the NTT Communications Group, we help organizations lower IT costs and increase the depth of security protection, compliance and service availability. For more information, visit www.integralis.com.
To strengthen its worldwide solutions presence, Integralis has promoted Jon Hughes to Senior Vice President, Global Professional Services. Jon will be responsible for driving the growth and development of the IT security consultancy practice on a global scale. Jon is based within Integralis’ UK Head Office and joined as Director of UK Professional Services in November 2009. He has over 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, having held senior positions at organisations such as Sophos, Microsoft and ICL.
In addition, Integralis announced the promotion of Fredrik Hörnell as Vice President Global Partner & Vendor Alliances. Fredrik will develop and leverage partner and technology vendor business relationships worldwide, maximising the channel capabilities that all partners bring to the business, including those of parent company NTT Communications. Fredrik is based in Integralis’ Sweden office and has extensive experience across the International Channel market having held senior sales positions at organisations including VeriSign, NetIQ/Attachmate and Fortinet.
Commenting on the news, Integralis’ Chief Operating Officer Simon Church said: “I am delighted to be able to take advantage of the skill and expertise that we have right here on our doorstep. We are extremely fortunate to have such capability and knowledge in our business that sets us apart from our competitors, and we look forward to an exciting future as the world’s leading pure-play provider of advanced IT Security and Information Risk Management solutions.”
FACTFILE:
Integralis provides IT Security and Information Risk Management solutions on a global basis. We deliver a portfolio of managed security solutions, business infrastructure, consulting and technology integration services. As part of the NTT Communications Group, we help organizations lower IT costs and increase the depth of security protection, compliance and service availability. For more information, visit www.integralis.com.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Yahoo Undergoes a Christmas Makeover
Yahoo is hoping to transform their search pages for Christmas shoppers with the addition of new displays that allow users to search for recipes and find the best deals on their Christmas gifts too. The changes, which went live earlier this month have made it much easier for busy users to find what they need quickly and efficiently, and could even start a new trend amongst search engines, say SEO experts QueryClick.
Christopher Liversidge, QueryClick's Managing Director comments: “Yahoo's new search results have been created with the most important person in mind: the user. Yahoo have realised that this time of year is when people typically search for new recipes to try out at Christmas, and also look for the best places to buy Christmas gifts, so the changes that they've made make a lot of sense, as they will help make the user's search experience much easier during this often busy and very stressful holiday.”
For users searching for recipes, Yahoo has made five different changes, including adding a slider at the top of the search results pages from allrecipes.com and other recipe sites, the option to filter results by ingredients and new tabs to help the user filter their results further by calorie count and preparation time. Users can also search for meal type, occasion and go to Yahoo's dedicated recipe URL: recipes.search.yahoo.com. And for shoppers, the search options are even better, say QueryClick.
Chris continues: “Now when a user searches Yahoo for Christmas gifts, they can view a slider of products, view new deals and even look at the buying guides for certain products, just by clicking on the “Buying Guide” tab. Yahoo has also made some changes to its search results for entertainment queries, with tabs for videos and tweets now available to users, which should make this Christmas a lot easier for people all over the world, which is just a great result for everyone, especially everyone here at QueryClick.
It's this level of success that has seen QueryClick experience recession-defying growth as a company but also manage to create record return on investment for their clients, the list of which includes a variety of companies from globally renowned FTSE 100 firms to local start-up businesses.
Pioneers in innovation with their finger firmly on the industry pulse, QueryClick continue to put Scotland, and the UK, on the world map in terms of those leading the charge in innovative, results-led search marketing solutions.
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That's Christmas: Why not give the gift of cheap calls for Christmas...: According to a recent study carried out by the Centre for Retail Research, the UK will spend more on Christmas shopping via mobile phone ...
Sunday, 20 November 2011
That's Food and Drink: Fantastic! Caskmarque launches Real Ale Trail Cask...
That's Food and Drink: Fantastic! Caskmarque launches Real Ale Trail Cask...: The popular CaskFinder smartphone application has launched the World’s Biggest Ale Trail . Availa...
That's Magic! EPiServer Positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management
EPiServer, a leading provider of web content solutions, has announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned it in the Visionaries quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management report.
“EPiServer’s innovation is rooted deeply in our mission to ensure strong business results for our customers and partners. We understand the need for personalised, measurable interaction across multiple channels as the web evolves from simple sites towards an ecosystem of content and community,” said Martin Henricson, CEO of EPiServer. “We believe Gartner’s evaluation reaffirms EPiServer’s commitment to our ecosystem strategy.”
EPiServer considers its recognition in the report a testament to the organisation’s approach to increasing the functionality of its products to exceed expectations in a swiftly developing market. With the introduction of the company’s MobilePack, a set of templates and software for creating mobile web applications that drive users' online engagement with businesses, EPiServer gave its customers a chance to interact with familiar and intuitive tools, taking into account that as more people connect with organisations through mobile devices this kind of infrastructure will become increasingly important.
EPiServer offers a platform for publishing content, building communities, communicating through multiple channels and selling online. The platform offering helps companies create online relationships with its customers, better understand customer behaviour, engage with customers on the social web and identify improvements to e-commerce processes that seamlessly turns website visitors from “browsers” into “buyers.”
The EPiServer platform, combining content, commerce, communication and community is available now. For more information, visit http://www.EPiServer.com/, or search “EPiServer” on Google.
“EPiServer’s innovation is rooted deeply in our mission to ensure strong business results for our customers and partners. We understand the need for personalised, measurable interaction across multiple channels as the web evolves from simple sites towards an ecosystem of content and community,” said Martin Henricson, CEO of EPiServer. “We believe Gartner’s evaluation reaffirms EPiServer’s commitment to our ecosystem strategy.”
EPiServer considers its recognition in the report a testament to the organisation’s approach to increasing the functionality of its products to exceed expectations in a swiftly developing market. With the introduction of the company’s MobilePack, a set of templates and software for creating mobile web applications that drive users' online engagement with businesses, EPiServer gave its customers a chance to interact with familiar and intuitive tools, taking into account that as more people connect with organisations through mobile devices this kind of infrastructure will become increasingly important.
EPiServer offers a platform for publishing content, building communities, communicating through multiple channels and selling online. The platform offering helps companies create online relationships with its customers, better understand customer behaviour, engage with customers on the social web and identify improvements to e-commerce processes that seamlessly turns website visitors from “browsers” into “buyers.”
The EPiServer platform, combining content, commerce, communication and community is available now. For more information, visit http://www.EPiServer.com/, or search “EPiServer” on Google.
Trustmarque Awarded CRN Services Provider of the Year
“We are delighted to have won Services Provider of the Year,” commented Angelo Di Ventura, Group Sales and Marketing Director for Trustmarque. “We have worked tirelessly over recent years to build a service model focused on addressing our customer’s business challenges, adding value at every stage of the project lifecycle, and not just delivering quantifiable cost savings at the point of procurement. Amidst market volatility we chose to invest over £1.4 million to strengthen our services division, developing the breadth and scope of our offering, and bringing in some of the most skilled and highly-prized talent in this space. It’s extremely rewarding to see our investment and commitment to service-led customer engagement is paying off not just in commercial terms, by contributing to a year-on-year increase of 28 per cent in Gross Profits, but in terms of customer and industry acclaim.”
The Services Provider of the Year Award recognises excellence in the delivery of service and support to end user customers and is only open to VARs, system integrators, converged resellers and other players that can truly call themselves a service provider. The awards take into consideration the reseller's ability to deliver real benefits to the user organisation, and to meet customer objectives in terms of improved efficiency, ROI and investment protection, and cost reductions.
“We have a fantastic team of experts who deliver a wide range of technical solutions for specific requirements together with providing comprehensive strategic consultancy and planning services that future proof our customers’ technology environments,” continues Di Ventura. “We are genuinely focused on making sure our customers unlock the greatest value possible from their technology investments and as such have developed a rich technical training programme for all our account managers to ensure individuals have the requisite technical and market knowledge and the appropriate certifications to offer the right advice and support to customers.”
The awards also take into account companies that have demonstrated innovation in developing and bringing-to-market new service offerings and responding to market issues.
“We have a really creative team who are constantly developing new and innovative ways of addressing customers’ business challenges in both commercial and technical terms. Earlier this year we acquired cloud infrastructure services provider, Nimbus Technology Systems, adding a suite of cloud and managed solutions to our offering to enable a greater degree of customisation and customer alignment. We are always looking at how we can better align our services to satisfy customer expectations,” comments Di Ventura.
To find out more about Trustmarque’s range of services, please visit www.trustmarquesolutions.com.
Fighting Crime With Crucial Real-Time Information Takes Leap Forward
The iWatch program for citizen involvement started in LA and is now in use in other cities. This allows the user to provide a narrative of suspicious activity directly to the area police department for officer response. This programme can be used as a stand alone module or integrated into POLICEintel.
RetailStop Loss is currently being field tested in Savannah GA. Dedicated to stopping shoplifters, this program makes available to the merchant details of known shoplifters with pictures and profile information.
POLICEintel is all about harnessing crime information, background events, criminals and police activity and placing this in its correct geographical and time context. Crime reports, patterns, likely suspects, criminal profiles, pictures and video are all available, with interactive maps to pinpoint critical locations.
Being a web based portal, information from different sources is easily assimilated and presented to the law enforcement officer. Via the unique external feeds feature, neighbouring agencies can instantly share and exchange critical intelligence information. This information is available 24/7 and can be securely accessed from any computer or mobile device with Internet access.
One of the most liked features is the Sergeant’s Desk Report. From this visual and textural intelligence the incoming officer can learn about reported crimes on the previous shift. This may include warrants issued, BOLO for vehicle, arrests, access criminal profiles, pictures, missing person files, gang activity reports, internal announcements and more.
“We are on the cusp of really moving forward in these areas,” commented David Johns, QiSOFT business development manager for POLICEintel. “So that officers can see the potential of the system we have a demo available at https://secure.policeintel.com, accessible with the user name and password: intelcenter.”
That's Green: RWE npower renewables receives green light for gre...
That's Green: RWE npower renewables receives green light for gre...: RWE npower renewables has been granted planning permission to build a twelve-turbine wind ...
Thursday, 17 November 2011
That's Business: Does YOUR website cost you money?
That's Business: Does YOUR website cost you money?: Ineffective website compliance management puts significant revenue at risk • Only 13% of large-company website owners confident that sites...
That's Entertainment News: New Super Mario game for 3DS
That's Entertainment News: New Super Mario game for 3DS: SUPER MARIO 3D LAND™ launches across Europe on 18th November only for Nintendo 3DS™ and b...
MLL Telecom announces ‘MIND’ its new intelligent network design tool for public sector networks
MLL Telecom - www.mlltelecom.com - announces its new intelligent network design tool, ‘MIND’, which will revolutionise the network design process and greatly benefit public sector customers in terms of cost and time savings. The innovative new tool takes postcodes from the hundreds of locations that need to be included in a PSN network and within seconds can optimise the millions of permutations of connectivity back into the UK’s telecoms infratsructure.
‘MIND allows us to work out, very quickly, the best operations for Access Network design. We can also see in an instant where savings for customers can be made,’ said Stuart Borgman, chief technology officer at MLL Telecom. ‘Previously all this work would have taken several hours to complete manually, and then have to be repeated through every design iteration.’
The first release of the tool can calculate the range of exchanges that the postcodes map to, the radial distance to the parent exchange and also the calculated distance in copper line to the exchange. The data can then be exported to a view in Google maps, showing the range of options available. MLL Telecom plan to develop MIND further, with eight more modules planned. These modules will include indicative pricing, backhaul and core network, and radio integration modules.
MLL Telecom will be demonstrating MIND in action at the Socitm Conference at the Hilton Hotel, Birmingham NEC, 29th November to 1st December 2011. Delegates are invited to bring their postcode data with them to see how MIND can optimse the costs of their network.
For more information visit www.mlltelecom.com/news-views/events/18/Socitm-2011
Akamai and Evidon Enter Into Exclusive Agreement to Enable the Dynamic Insertion of Privacy Notice Across Websites
• Turnkey Approach to Address Privacy Laws and Industry Self-Regulatory Programmes
• To Become Available to Akamai Customers in the US and EU
Akamai Technologies, Inc. and Evidon today announced an exclusive strategic alliance whereby Akamai will be able to offer its customers easy access to Evidon’s privacy and compliance services for the management of the Industry Self-Regulatory Program in the US, the European ePrivacy Directive, and its corollary self-regulatory effort for Online Behavioral Advertising. The unique, first-of-its-kind global agreement between the companies is intended to enable Akamai customers to seamlessly provision and deploy Evidon’s InForm™ assurance service across their websites.
Teaming with Evidon, Akamai is planning to provide customers with easy implementation and access to Evidon’s industry-standard method for addressing certain key notice requirements of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s programme. Enabling dynamic insertion of the privacy notice with no IT required, Akamai’s use of Evidon will enable customers to manage the tracking of code and cookies on their websites.
Evidon InForm enables simple and scalable implementation of the Advertising Option Icon into display ads and websites, and gives consumers access to information about how their information is collected and used, with the option of opting out altogether.
“Working with content providers around the globe, Akamai intends to leverage its technical expertise to help enhance consumer transparency and confidence in the Internet,” said Martin Haering, VP Marketing & Channel Strategy EMEA . “Working with Evidon helps us provide a seamless way to address industry self-regulatory programmes around the world for our customers, in a simple and scalable fashion.”
Evidon was the first company designated by the US Digital Advertising Alliance as an Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles). This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory programme. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice in billions of monthly advertising impressions across the Internet for leading brands.
“This partnership is extremely meaningful for the continued growth of our industry within self-regulatory and regulatory programmes in both the US and EU,” said Scott Meyer, founder and CEO of Evidon. “By enabling site notice to be built-in from the start, Akamai is providing its customers of all sizes with a way to address privacy concerns from the moment anyone visits their site or interacts with their brand. It’s a great step for us as a company, of course, but also one for the industry as a whole.”
FACTFILE:
Akamai® a leading cloud-based platform, helping our customers provide secure, high-performing user experiences to any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company’s solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. With solutions for connecting an increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand for commerce and entertainment, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud, Akamai empowers its customers to transform and reinvent their online businesses. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.
Evidon is the world’s first and largest dedicated provider of privacy and compliance solutions for digital media. The company provides strategy and technology to help leading brands, agencies, publishers, and solutions providers comply easily with privacy law and self-regulatory “Ad Choices” programs across North America and Europe. Evidon serves Ad Choices notice on billions of impressions on behalf of these businesses—in the U.S. and in local languages across Europe—giving consumers transparency into and control over how their information is used online. With insights fueled by its popular Ghostery browser extension and its rich, 800+ company privacy database, Evidon also helps businesses control their audience data. By protecting themselves and empowering consumers, businesses build their brands and improve results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.
• To Become Available to Akamai Customers in the US and EU
Akamai Technologies, Inc. and Evidon today announced an exclusive strategic alliance whereby Akamai will be able to offer its customers easy access to Evidon’s privacy and compliance services for the management of the Industry Self-Regulatory Program in the US, the European ePrivacy Directive, and its corollary self-regulatory effort for Online Behavioral Advertising. The unique, first-of-its-kind global agreement between the companies is intended to enable Akamai customers to seamlessly provision and deploy Evidon’s InForm™ assurance service across their websites.
Teaming with Evidon, Akamai is planning to provide customers with easy implementation and access to Evidon’s industry-standard method for addressing certain key notice requirements of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s programme. Enabling dynamic insertion of the privacy notice with no IT required, Akamai’s use of Evidon will enable customers to manage the tracking of code and cookies on their websites.
Evidon InForm enables simple and scalable implementation of the Advertising Option Icon into display ads and websites, and gives consumers access to information about how their information is collected and used, with the option of opting out altogether.
“Working with content providers around the globe, Akamai intends to leverage its technical expertise to help enhance consumer transparency and confidence in the Internet,” said Martin Haering, VP Marketing & Channel Strategy EMEA . “Working with Evidon helps us provide a seamless way to address industry self-regulatory programmes around the world for our customers, in a simple and scalable fashion.”
Evidon was the first company designated by the US Digital Advertising Alliance as an Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles). This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory programme. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice in billions of monthly advertising impressions across the Internet for leading brands.
“This partnership is extremely meaningful for the continued growth of our industry within self-regulatory and regulatory programmes in both the US and EU,” said Scott Meyer, founder and CEO of Evidon. “By enabling site notice to be built-in from the start, Akamai is providing its customers of all sizes with a way to address privacy concerns from the moment anyone visits their site or interacts with their brand. It’s a great step for us as a company, of course, but also one for the industry as a whole.”
FACTFILE:
Akamai® a leading cloud-based platform, helping our customers provide secure, high-performing user experiences to any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company’s solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. With solutions for connecting an increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand for commerce and entertainment, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud, Akamai empowers its customers to transform and reinvent their online businesses. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.
Evidon is the world’s first and largest dedicated provider of privacy and compliance solutions for digital media. The company provides strategy and technology to help leading brands, agencies, publishers, and solutions providers comply easily with privacy law and self-regulatory “Ad Choices” programs across North America and Europe. Evidon serves Ad Choices notice on billions of impressions on behalf of these businesses—in the U.S. and in local languages across Europe—giving consumers transparency into and control over how their information is used online. With insights fueled by its popular Ghostery browser extension and its rich, 800+ company privacy database, Evidon also helps businesses control their audience data. By protecting themselves and empowering consumers, businesses build their brands and improve results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.
That's Business: Ve Interactive wins a TechWorld 2011 Business Inno...
That's Business: Ve Interactive wins a TechWorld 2011 Business Inno...: Under a week after winning a British Interactive Media Association Award, Ve Interactive is delighted to announce today that it has won a T...
7 days left to save £159.90 with Virgin Media
Prices start from just £23 a month plus line rental of £13.90 for up to 10Mb unlimited broadband, 75 digital TV channels with 500GB TiVo® and unlimited weekend calls.
All combinations of Virgin Media TV with TiVo®, broadband and calls will qualify for a free 500GB TiVo®, free TiVo® activation worth £49.95, free installation worth £49.95, a free wireless router and £60 off, for a total saving of £159.90.
Additional savings can be made on other types of Virgin Media bundles until 24 November 2011. Packages of TV, TiVo® and either broadband or calls include £30 off, free TiVo® activation and free installation for a total saving of £129.90.
Bundles of broadband and calls without TV are also eligible for free installation worth £49.95 and £30 off, giving a total saving of £79.95, plus a free wireless router.
Paul France of Cable.co.uk said "There has been so much buzz about TiVo® since Virgin Media announced its launch earlier this year and this special offer gives new customers a fantastic saving of up to £159.90."
"This is one of the best Virgin Media deals we’ve seen this year. Our advice to consumers is, if you’re planning to sign up with Virgin Media, now is the time to do it."
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Spotify's Success Through Deep Facebook Integration Points The Way For Brands To Place The User At The Heart of The Social Media Experience, Says Punch
As one of a number of updates revealed at the recent F8 conference, the social networking giant's integration with Spotify is yet another indicator of Facebook's shifting focus towards the facilitation of interactive and engaging social objects that tie in with every-day lifestyle-orientated elements to enhance it's users' overall experience.
With over 800 million users, Facebook has quickly become one of the most important spaces for brands to become a part of, with those brands focusing on the creation of engaging and unique content having seen the most success so far.
Pete Goold, Managing Director at Punch Communications, which specialises in online PR, commented: "The latest figures only further confirm the opportunities that are currently out there for developers and brands that are able to become an integral part of the Facebook day-to-day user journey - which is in marked contrast to the many attempts that have been made by marketers, often at significant cost, that encourage the user to modify their behaviour in order to accommodate a brand. The growth that Spotify has seen in such a short space of time should be more than enough to encourage other brands, developers and PR companies of the merits of flexibility, and will hopefully inspire accordingly."
Spotify first launched in October 2008, securing more than 10 million users within its first two years and enabling users to stream music from a wide range of major labels including Universal, Sony and EMI.
Pete continued: "With the latest F8 announcements, Facebook presented developers and brands with a challenge to go out and create content that could become part of the everyday. Something which Spotify has done perfectly. In light of this, I would expect Spotify to see users and shares through social spaces continue to increase even further over the coming months."
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Splunk Announces Year-Over-Year Quarterly Revenue Growth of 95%
Splunk Inc., the provider of software that provides real-time operational intelligence, today reported year-over-year quarterly revenue growth of 95 percent for the quarter ending 31st October 2011. The company also announced that, with the addition of more than 350 new paid licence customers, its customer base extends to over 3,200 organisations, in more than 75 countries including more than half the Fortune 100 companies.
“At the core of every business is data that can provide a powerful competitive advantage. Every company is a data company. Splunk is delivering software that enables companies to derive game changing insights from their machine data,” said Godfrey Sullivan, president and CEO of Splunk.
Global multi-channel retailer Otto Group GmbH uses Splunk software to harness its machine data. “Splunk is an indispensable solution to the daily business at Otto. Our Splunk dashboards provide us with a more comprehensive understanding of our customers and the key performance indicators that track application performance and availability.
"With Splunk, we can now easily and quickly identify, analyse and fix practical problems from application performance to system errors, including failures in our business processes,” said Michael Otremba, department manager, customer care centre software development, Otto Group GmbH.
Numara Software Establishes New Cloud Business
Numara® Software, Inc., a global provider of service management, endpoint lifecycle management and mobile device management solutions for IT professionals, today announced Numara® Cloud, a cloud-based IT operations management (ITOM) solutions business and the availability of the Numara Cloud family of products. The Numara Cloud family of products is the only on-demand, integrated set of IT Service Lifecycle, Endpoint Lifecycle, and Mobile Device Management solutions supporting physical, virtual and mobile devices.
“Our fast-paced, ever changing business model demands a service management solution that is flexible and extensible. Thankfully, Numara Cloud offers just the right solution,” said Gregory Barrett, global process leader, UTC Fire & Security.
“The expertise of the Numara Cloud team, coupled with their commitment to our on-going success empowers our resourced constrained organization to deliver an unprecedented level of value to the business. Leveraging Numara Cloud, we reduced the time it takes to customise and deploy a new service from 12 months to 30 days. Simply stated, Numara Cloud is easy to implement, configure and customise, providing fast time to value.”
The comprehensive and integrated family of products—including Numara® Cloud Service Manager, Numara® Cloud Service Lifecycle Manager, Numara® Cloud Endpoint Lifecycle Manager, and Numara® Cloud Mobile Device Manager—is securely delivered, enables tight integration of data and processes, improves process automation, and supports a wide range of operating systems and users.
Easy to deploy and simple to configure, administer and use, Numara Cloud Service Manager gives you the power to quickly gain control over your end-to-end incident & problem resolution process while automating, managing and controlling change in a cost effective on-demand IT Service Management solution.
Numara Cloud Service Lifecycle Manager allows you to quickly and efficiently gain IT and business value by providing you with the ability to easily manage service offerings and configuration items via service catalog & intuitive CMDB, automated incident resolution, change control and approval workflow process.
With a cost effective on-demand solution, IT can easily deploy and administer IT and business processes allowing for greater business alignment and intelligence through customisable forms and processes, comprehensive service catalogs and modern dashboards and flexible reports.
Numara Cloud Endpoint Lifecycle Manager delivers cost-effective, on-demand and real-time asset discovery and management for physical, virtual and mobile devices. With compliance and configuration management, remote access, application deployment and patch capabilities, organisations can follow their assets through their complete financial lifecycle, ensure software license and security compliance, and simplify ongoing software maintenance across a secure delivery platform.
Numara Cloud Mobile Device Manager provides IT organisations the control they need to securely manage mobile devices throughout their entire lifecycle. With discovery and inventory, application management, and policy and security management, organisations now have the peace of mind that their mobile devices, critical data and network are secured from potential threats.
Numara Cloud solutions are flexible, easy to implement and offer solid functionality with best-in-class price and value. The Numara Cloud family of products are easy to install and configure, ensuring a rapid time to production and reduced administration cost. Additionally, as IT needs and budget requirements change it is easy and cost-effective to transition between Numara’s Cloud offering and its Numara FootPrints perpetual/on-premise family of products.
“Helping organisations simplify IT is becoming increasingly important and many are leveraging the cloud to enable automation and solve a variety of business challenges,” said Dave Hansen, Numara CEO. “However, before businesses can take advantage of the cloud, it is critical that IT integrate its processes and solutions. As the established provider of integrated Service Management and Endpoint Management solutions, business can rely on Numara Cloud to seamlessly integrate IT for better alignment between IT and business objectives.”
Through a partnership with Rackspace, Numara Cloud delivers a rock-solid, reliable and secure delivery platform optimised to maximise performance by offering a 99.97 percent uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA). Numara’s Cloud solutions are hosted in Rackspace Tier 1 SAS70 Type II certified data centers in Dallas-Fort Worth, London and Hong Kong, all of which are strictly controlled with multiple layers of protection and access. The data centers leverage IPv6 and contain abstracted, load balanced and duplicated file servers, web servers and application servers to ensure high performance.
The Numara Cloud family of products is available individually or together based on the needs of the enterprise. When implemented together, the products deliver highly integrated, unified data, reporting, processes and executive information.
For more information on Numara Cloud please visit www.numaracloud.com.
“Our fast-paced, ever changing business model demands a service management solution that is flexible and extensible. Thankfully, Numara Cloud offers just the right solution,” said Gregory Barrett, global process leader, UTC Fire & Security.
“The expertise of the Numara Cloud team, coupled with their commitment to our on-going success empowers our resourced constrained organization to deliver an unprecedented level of value to the business. Leveraging Numara Cloud, we reduced the time it takes to customise and deploy a new service from 12 months to 30 days. Simply stated, Numara Cloud is easy to implement, configure and customise, providing fast time to value.”
The comprehensive and integrated family of products—including Numara® Cloud Service Manager, Numara® Cloud Service Lifecycle Manager, Numara® Cloud Endpoint Lifecycle Manager, and Numara® Cloud Mobile Device Manager—is securely delivered, enables tight integration of data and processes, improves process automation, and supports a wide range of operating systems and users.
Easy to deploy and simple to configure, administer and use, Numara Cloud Service Manager gives you the power to quickly gain control over your end-to-end incident & problem resolution process while automating, managing and controlling change in a cost effective on-demand IT Service Management solution.
Numara Cloud Service Lifecycle Manager allows you to quickly and efficiently gain IT and business value by providing you with the ability to easily manage service offerings and configuration items via service catalog & intuitive CMDB, automated incident resolution, change control and approval workflow process.
With a cost effective on-demand solution, IT can easily deploy and administer IT and business processes allowing for greater business alignment and intelligence through customisable forms and processes, comprehensive service catalogs and modern dashboards and flexible reports.
Numara Cloud Endpoint Lifecycle Manager delivers cost-effective, on-demand and real-time asset discovery and management for physical, virtual and mobile devices. With compliance and configuration management, remote access, application deployment and patch capabilities, organisations can follow their assets through their complete financial lifecycle, ensure software license and security compliance, and simplify ongoing software maintenance across a secure delivery platform.
Numara Cloud Mobile Device Manager provides IT organisations the control they need to securely manage mobile devices throughout their entire lifecycle. With discovery and inventory, application management, and policy and security management, organisations now have the peace of mind that their mobile devices, critical data and network are secured from potential threats.
Numara Cloud solutions are flexible, easy to implement and offer solid functionality with best-in-class price and value. The Numara Cloud family of products are easy to install and configure, ensuring a rapid time to production and reduced administration cost. Additionally, as IT needs and budget requirements change it is easy and cost-effective to transition between Numara’s Cloud offering and its Numara FootPrints perpetual/on-premise family of products.
“Helping organisations simplify IT is becoming increasingly important and many are leveraging the cloud to enable automation and solve a variety of business challenges,” said Dave Hansen, Numara CEO. “However, before businesses can take advantage of the cloud, it is critical that IT integrate its processes and solutions. As the established provider of integrated Service Management and Endpoint Management solutions, business can rely on Numara Cloud to seamlessly integrate IT for better alignment between IT and business objectives.”
Through a partnership with Rackspace, Numara Cloud delivers a rock-solid, reliable and secure delivery platform optimised to maximise performance by offering a 99.97 percent uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA). Numara’s Cloud solutions are hosted in Rackspace Tier 1 SAS70 Type II certified data centers in Dallas-Fort Worth, London and Hong Kong, all of which are strictly controlled with multiple layers of protection and access. The data centers leverage IPv6 and contain abstracted, load balanced and duplicated file servers, web servers and application servers to ensure high performance.
The Numara Cloud family of products is available individually or together based on the needs of the enterprise. When implemented together, the products deliver highly integrated, unified data, reporting, processes and executive information.
For more information on Numara Cloud please visit www.numaracloud.com.
Boston Limited unveil their revolutionary Boston Viridis Ultra Dense Ultra Low power Computing Platform
Boston Limited, are proud to unveil their latest innovative collaboration with Calxeda with the announcement of Boston’s new generation of ultra low power computing platforms based on Calxeda ARM® EnergyCore™ SOC (System on a chip) processors.
Based on a completely new architecture outside of the traditional x86 platforms, the Boston Viridis Project provides a revolutionary new approach to highly parallel ultra low power computing with a self contained highly extensible multi node cluster with integral high speed interconnects and storage all contained within a tiny 2U rack mount appliance.
With 48 nodes available in a 2U enclosure this exciting new platform can provide for up to a staggering 900 servers per industry standard 42U rack and can deliver up to 10x the performance per watt over existing processor technologies.
Designed and built exclusively for the server market this ultra efficient new server appliance has been optimized from the ground upwards to provide data centre performance whilst consuming power comparable to a mobile device to assure industry leading power, space and operational costs.
Boston is working closely with Calxeda to demonstrate the full breadth of capabilities offered by appliances that fall within Boston’s Viridis Project. Now, OEM partners and large data centre customers can leverage both Boston and Calxeda’s design expertise, allowing them to easily build hyper-scale sized clusters in a fraction of the time compared to designing traditional server systems from the ground up.
Boston will be making this platform available very shortly to provide interested partners with access to these leading technologies to test, benchmark and optimise their code via our Boston labs facilities. For more information please register your interest here: http://www.boston.co.uk/about/labs/default.aspx.
Based on Calxeda’s ultra efficient EnergyCard’s this platform assures game changing performance within the server arena. Based on four quad Core EnergyCore SOC’s (system on a chip) integrated onto a local fabric Boston’s solution collectively forms a complete multi server cluster that can be easily expanded with additional cards. With each board exposing up to eight 10GbE fabric links and SATA to a passive system board for previously unheard of levels of expansion.
Similar in concept to blade servers, each EnergyCore-based server chassis contains a base system board with one or more slots compatible with Calxeda EnergyCards. This extensible approach means that as your computing requirements grow, meeting that demand is as simple as plugging in additional EnergyCards as needed.
Manoj Nayee, Managing Director of Boston Limited, says, “As a specialist in low power, server and storage platforms, Boston have been inundated with requests for highly efficient scalable solutions that provide increased power savings over the current technologies. Calxeda's unique approach provides a server on a chip that consumes 5W under maximum load with dynamic power optimisation and routing that enables us to provide up to 90% power savings over traditional platforms.”
“We are happy to partner with Boston Limited, who are bringing new clients and workloads to ultra-low power computing” said Karl Freund, VP of Marketing of Calxeda. “This market is going to explode next year, and Boston is ready to support customers lining up for proof of concepts and subsequent production systems”.
About Boston Limited
Based on a completely new architecture outside of the traditional x86 platforms, the Boston Viridis Project provides a revolutionary new approach to highly parallel ultra low power computing with a self contained highly extensible multi node cluster with integral high speed interconnects and storage all contained within a tiny 2U rack mount appliance.
With 48 nodes available in a 2U enclosure this exciting new platform can provide for up to a staggering 900 servers per industry standard 42U rack and can deliver up to 10x the performance per watt over existing processor technologies.
Designed and built exclusively for the server market this ultra efficient new server appliance has been optimized from the ground upwards to provide data centre performance whilst consuming power comparable to a mobile device to assure industry leading power, space and operational costs.
Boston is working closely with Calxeda to demonstrate the full breadth of capabilities offered by appliances that fall within Boston’s Viridis Project. Now, OEM partners and large data centre customers can leverage both Boston and Calxeda’s design expertise, allowing them to easily build hyper-scale sized clusters in a fraction of the time compared to designing traditional server systems from the ground up.
Boston will be making this platform available very shortly to provide interested partners with access to these leading technologies to test, benchmark and optimise their code via our Boston labs facilities. For more information please register your interest here: http://www.boston.co.uk/about/labs/default.aspx.
Based on Calxeda’s ultra efficient EnergyCard’s this platform assures game changing performance within the server arena. Based on four quad Core EnergyCore SOC’s (system on a chip) integrated onto a local fabric Boston’s solution collectively forms a complete multi server cluster that can be easily expanded with additional cards. With each board exposing up to eight 10GbE fabric links and SATA to a passive system board for previously unheard of levels of expansion.
Similar in concept to blade servers, each EnergyCore-based server chassis contains a base system board with one or more slots compatible with Calxeda EnergyCards. This extensible approach means that as your computing requirements grow, meeting that demand is as simple as plugging in additional EnergyCards as needed.
Manoj Nayee, Managing Director of Boston Limited, says, “As a specialist in low power, server and storage platforms, Boston have been inundated with requests for highly efficient scalable solutions that provide increased power savings over the current technologies. Calxeda's unique approach provides a server on a chip that consumes 5W under maximum load with dynamic power optimisation and routing that enables us to provide up to 90% power savings over traditional platforms.”
“We are happy to partner with Boston Limited, who are bringing new clients and workloads to ultra-low power computing” said Karl Freund, VP of Marketing of Calxeda. “This market is going to explode next year, and Boston is ready to support customers lining up for proof of concepts and subsequent production systems”.
About Boston Limited
Monday, 14 November 2011
Trustmarque Helps Markel Plan And Procure For Its VDI Implementation
Infrastructure and software solutions Value Added Reseller, Trustmarque, announced today that it has helped Markel International develop a full 3-6 year implementation roadmap and negotiated an Enterprise Subscription Agreement (ESA) with Microsoft so that it is now in a position to deploy Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) technology across the business.
Antony Attfield, Practice Lead for Trustmarque’s Software Procurement Consultancy comments: “According to the latest Citrix European Channel Index, the cost of additional infrastructure, licensing issues and complexity of virtualisation technologies are top of the list when it comes to customer concerns about desktop virtualisation. With this in mind, Markel made the right move in seeking professional advice, as without our help I don’t think they would have considered the ESA and would have undoubtedly spent more money.”
In early 2011 when Markel International was first looking to migrate to a VDI environment, it found that under the terms of its existing OEM licensing agreement it was not entitled to upgrades, which meant that new licences would be needed to support the move to VDI. Markel brought in Trustmarque to conduct a thorough review of its entire desktop estate and help plan its current and future IT procurement strategy. Mike Jarrett, Service Delivery Manager for Markel International, explains:
“We had a Select Agreement in place that didn’t cover desktop operating systems so we had to find a new solution. With the move to VDI things started to get complicated and potentially very expensive. VDI is a new technology and the Microsoft licensing in this area is a real quagmire - Trustmarque helped us work out the best possible route to procurement.”
Trustmarque had been working with Markel for a number of years delivering procurement services and technical support and the Commercial Benchmarking service the company provides was an attractive option to help Markel understand the impact of its procurement choices. Mike Jarrett continues:
“We knew from previous experience that the team at Trustmarque is first class and the service excellent so we didn’t feel the need to look elsewhere. Trustmarque has an impressive amount of knowledge and experience in new technology so they were the perfect partner to work on this project.”
Markel started work with Trustmarque in February 2011 and signed its new licensing deal for an ESA in July 2011. Trustmarque developed a future implementation roadmap, modelling a number of different options to demonstrate the cost per year as well as over a six year period. Trustmarque then provided Markel with a breakdown of each of the procurement options available to demonstrate the entitlements and how this would fit in with the company’s future strategy. Once the best option had been selected Trustmarque was also able to work with Markel to negotiate the most favourable deal. Attfield concludes:
“Previously Markel licensed products such as Visio and Project under a Select Agreement, but then had its operating system on OEM, and its SQL Server under Select. Things were spread across a number of different agreements. Now they have one licensing agreement which is a lot simpler. But more importantly it has a procurement roadmap for the next five to six years and it is in a ready state to start deploying VDI technology.”
FACTFILE:
Trustmarque is a market-leading Value Added Reseller and provider of technology services and solutions to UK private and public sector organisations. Trustmarque has been a trusted advisor to customers on issues relating to technology for over 24 years, helping companies to make sense of their complex IT environments by unlocking the value of technology, improving efficiencies and reducing costs.
Trustmarque holds ISO9001/2000, ISO14001, OHSAS18001 and ISO27001 certifications, is OGC accredited and has achieved the Investors in People standard. In addition Trustmarque’s employees are ITIL and PRINCE2 qualified.
Trustmarque has also worked with The CarbonNeutral Company (formerly Future Forests) leaders in the field of carbon management and climate change solutions to become a CarbonNeutral® company.
For more information about Trustmarque visit www.trustmarque.com, call 0845 2101 500, or email: info@trustmarque.com.
Whit Hat Events raise over £500K for Childline/NSPCC Can you help?
Originally started in 2006 when it staged its first ball, the group is going from strength to strength and now organises a series of White Hat charitable events ranging from the annual ball and including a car rally and a windows-over-London cocktail party in the BT Tower. White Hat also runs an annual golf event in support of Avenues (a group of charitable enterprises supporting adults and young people with a variety of special needs) and participates in other big external fundraising events – for example the London Marathon - by putting together a marathon team. More activities including a sailing event are in the pipeline. All the money raised goes to charity.
"The White Hat Events Organising Committee is delighted to have raised well over £500K for Childline/NSPCC. This is a true reflection of how the White Hat franchise has grown over the past six years to encapsulate many fundraising activities outside of the traditional annual Ball. We welcome additional sponsorship and support from the information security industry to help us continue making a difference to children in nee,” said David Morgan, Chairman of the White Hat Committee.
The money raised which totals £525K to-date could enable ChildLine e.g. to train 300 additional counsellors which means that over 50,000 additional calls could be answered from children who badly need someone to turn to.
As a reflection on its contribution, White Hats has been shortlisted for the Event Committee award in the ChildLine Patron’s Awards which are being presented on 16th November at a special reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the foundation of ChildLine.
How can you help?
A number of sponsorship and support packages are available for the White Hat Ball, which takes place on Friday, 3 February 2012 at the newly refurbished Royal Lancaster Hotel in London and is attracting 650 guests from the information security industry to attend its evening of fine food and entertainment. As in the previous two years, this event is already a sell-out success. The aim for 2012 is to exceed to the previous ball total of £87K raised for ChildLine. In the difficult economic climate, this will only happen if additional sponsorship is secured:
• Opportunities are on offer to sponsor individual elements of the evening such as for example the champagne reception or the entertainment. These options offer excellent branding opportunities. For more information about these excellent options for branding please contact Emily Evans at NSPCC/ChildLine.
Other ways you can help:
• Donations of suitable auction lots. Previous lots include a lunch for eight at the BT Tower, a special chauffeured day out in a vintage Bentley car, tickets to football and rugby events, exclusive diamond jewellery from a top Bond Street designer and signed sports paraphernalia.
• Give of your time to organise or participate in a White Hat Event………you will definitely have fun and make new friends in the industry!
For more information see White Hat Events
Businesses missing opportunity to streamline Desktop Transformation, points out Centrix Software
Over half of the respondents polled were not using any form of inventory or analytics to assess their environments in preparation for transformation. Of those using an inventory tool, 47% believed they could not obtain information on asset usage that is essential for successful desktop transformation planning.
Additional findings from the survey of 111 IT professionals at the UK IT event include:
· Over 65 per cent of respondents had some form of desktop transformation project planned
· The majority of projects (86 per cent) involved migrating to Windows 7
· A large percentage included the use of client-side virtualisation, with 61 per cent of desktop transformation projects involving plans to virtualise desktops and over half involving application virtualisation
· Over half of those planning for desktop transformation said their projects are not involving a hardware refresh.
Commenting on the findings, Richard Pegden, director of product marketing at Centrix Software, said, “the results of this poll confirm that planning for Windows 7 is a top agenda item for IT professionals. It also shows that many organisations see the move to a new OS as a good opportunity to introduce client-side virtualisation technologies. With the majority of respondents not including the use of inventory tools in their project planning, it’s likely that they are not analysing asset usage either and therefore do not have a detailed picture of their end-user environment.
“There is a tremendous opportunity for IT to significantly streamline and accelerate desktop transformation projects through a detailed understanding of application, device and content usage. Knowing what you have in place and how assets are being used enables project teams to make quicker, more informed decisions about technology selection, application testing and user requirements.
"Having deep user insight will also dramatically reduce risk around desktop transformation projects. Desktop teams can identify where rationalisation can deliver cost savings and combat asset sprawl. End-user computing analytics solutions can deliver this intelligence very quickly and drive these benefits immediately into desktop transformation projects. By shifting their focus to the end-user, organisations can significantly reduce the cost and time involved in designing and deploying a new desktop environment.”
FACTFILE:
Headquartered in Newbury, UK, with offices in New York, Centrix Software provides award-winning unified end-user computing solutions that optimise the way IT infrastructures deliver applications and content provisioned from physical, virtual, web or hosted platforms. By enabling a user-centric approach to IT service delivery, Centrix Software helps its customers to be more agile, flexible and efficient in how they deliver client-side technology services.
Centrix Software’s solutions have helped leading organisations in banking and securities, insurance, telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, energy and utilities, and the public sector. For more information please visit www.centrixsoftware.com.
For the latest information on Centrix Software you can visit one of the following sites:-
Centrix Software Twitter
Centrix Software Blog
Centrix Software YouTube channel
Centrix Software Facebook page
Sunday, 13 November 2011
London Boroughs Save £1m Each Year Using FISCAL Technologies
With 18 out of 32 London Boroughs using FISCAL’s AP Forensics® software, and saving well in excess of £1m each year, attendees were eager to take advantage of their experience in this sector, and their reputation for developing best-in-class AP teams.
The lively morning session was held in the beautiful surroundings of Southwark Cathedral and lasted for approximately 2 hours. It included a blend of open debate and practical advice. This event discussed a wide range of payment related topics from fraud, payment cards to implementing automated workflow. Attendees commented that they found the session both innovative and highly focused to their individual AP needs. With FISCAL’s dedication to developing solutions which empower AP by detecting and preventing errors and protecting the team; all were keen to put their names down to attend the next London session planned for later in the year.
David Griffiths, FISCAL’s Director of Customer Development said “The number of London Borough customers have grown considerably in the past 2 years due to government budget cuts and focus on driving through cost efficiencies. Our software protects half of the London Boroughs and we are working proactively with 7 others, so it seemed only right to share our experience with the rest of the Boroughs.”
Finnish IT company arrives in UK and Denmark
Finnish IT service provider Eficode has expanded its operations to the United Kingdom and Denmark through an acquisition. In addition to Finland, China and Russia, the young company now also has operations in London and Copenhagen. “You CAN swim against the current nowadays”, said Risto Virkkala, CEO of the company.
Eficode, headquartered in Helsinki, announced on 9th November the acquisition of Videnhuset a/s and its subsidiary Videnhuset UK Limited.
The company specialises in the resale, implementation and support of software systems from Autonomy Systems, which was itself recently acquired by Hewlett-Packard. The acquisition makes Eficode the largest Nordic implementation partner and distributor for Autonomy, and one of the largest in Europe. With the expansion of its expertise base, Eficode is able to offer Autonomy's entire extensive product portfolio in all of the Nordic countries, the UK and most of Europe. Autonomy, now owned by HP, develops solutions for the automation of information management and business processes of enterprises.
“The acquisition aims to increase our business opportunities and our ability to offer our exceptional service to a wider range of customers internationally. We seek volume in other Nordic countries and the UK as the Autonomy business in Finland is limited simply due to the size of the market. A presence in Denmark and the UK also offers some very interesting possibilities to increase the international dimension of our other business areas. We want to take the learning-oriented and lively Eficode culture abroad”, Virkkala envisions.
Eficode's strong financial position has created the opportunity for the expansion of operations internationally. The company reached a turnover of 5 million Euros with 1.1 million Euros profit in the year ending June 2011 and in addition to the geographic expansion it is also investing in the development of new services and expertise.
The company plans to avoid the pitfalls of internationalisation with sound business realism. “We're always putting business first, also when going abroad. Our organisation develops in step with cash flow and I believe that careful monitoring of the business will limit risks”, says Virkkala. “Starting the Beijing office was a really steep learning curve and we are building on what we learned”.
Virkkala estimates that the number of employees at Eficode will increase from the current 70 employees to over one hundred as a result of the acquisition and planned recruitment for other projects.
Eficode, headquartered in Helsinki, announced on 9th November the acquisition of Videnhuset a/s and its subsidiary Videnhuset UK Limited.
The company specialises in the resale, implementation and support of software systems from Autonomy Systems, which was itself recently acquired by Hewlett-Packard. The acquisition makes Eficode the largest Nordic implementation partner and distributor for Autonomy, and one of the largest in Europe. With the expansion of its expertise base, Eficode is able to offer Autonomy's entire extensive product portfolio in all of the Nordic countries, the UK and most of Europe. Autonomy, now owned by HP, develops solutions for the automation of information management and business processes of enterprises.
“The acquisition aims to increase our business opportunities and our ability to offer our exceptional service to a wider range of customers internationally. We seek volume in other Nordic countries and the UK as the Autonomy business in Finland is limited simply due to the size of the market. A presence in Denmark and the UK also offers some very interesting possibilities to increase the international dimension of our other business areas. We want to take the learning-oriented and lively Eficode culture abroad”, Virkkala envisions.
Eficode's strong financial position has created the opportunity for the expansion of operations internationally. The company reached a turnover of 5 million Euros with 1.1 million Euros profit in the year ending June 2011 and in addition to the geographic expansion it is also investing in the development of new services and expertise.
The company plans to avoid the pitfalls of internationalisation with sound business realism. “We're always putting business first, also when going abroad. Our organisation develops in step with cash flow and I believe that careful monitoring of the business will limit risks”, says Virkkala. “Starting the Beijing office was a really steep learning curve and we are building on what we learned”.
Virkkala estimates that the number of employees at Eficode will increase from the current 70 employees to over one hundred as a result of the acquisition and planned recruitment for other projects.
Ve's a jolly good fellow? Ve Interactive wins Retail Award at BIMA Awards 2011
Ve Interactive picked up the Retail award for its VeCapture and VeContact proprietary online abandonment and remarketing software, which helps ecommerce merchants recover revenue that would otherwise be lost due to shopping cart abandonment.
Commented a delighted David Brown CEO, Ve Interactive: “we are deeply honoured and very proud to have had our technology recognised by BIMA}}, the industry body that has represented the interests of the British digital industry for 25 years. Our thanks also go to our wonderful clients who are using our proprietary VeCapture and VeContact software and who are continuing to inspire further Ve Interactive innovation.
The British Interactive Media Association which supports British digital and interactive work say their awards ”celebrate the cream of UK digital talent in terms of creativity, effectiveness and innovation.” Apparently this year saw a record number of entrants across 26 sectors and discipline categories, plus five Premium Awards. Chris Kempt, BIMA Exec and co-Chair of the BIMA Awards judging panel said, “The calibre of entries was outstanding and as a result the judging was a lot closer than in previous years.”
Justin Cooke chair of BIMA said: “The calibre of the winners and nominees of the 2011 BIMA Awards proves once again that when it comes to digital media, British talent sets the standard and leads the world.”
FACTFILE:
Established in London, late 2009 - award-winning Ve Interactive is a digital marketing software and consulting company, specialising in online efficiency technologies, as well as strategic online reviewing and optimisation planning. Its collective endeavours have meant that Ve Interactive has now also opened offices in Boston, Stockholm and Sydney.
It has a high client retention rate, and its clients are seeing exponential growth from using its software and services. Ve Interactive has already been honoured with a utalkmarketing Award for Most Innovative Start Up 2011 and a Best Business Award 2011. It also gained another prestigious nomination for Digital Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2010 and has been shortlisted for a UKTI Business Innovation Award 2011.
Website: http://www.veinteractive.com
Twitter: @veinteractive
Facebook: www.facebook.com/veinteractive
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Biomni Joins the VMware Technology Alliance Partner Program
Biomni, Service Catalogue and Request Management solution provider, today announced it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) programme. The VMware TAP programme helps technology vendors integrate their products with VMware virtualization software and deliver timely, joint solutions to mutual customers.
“We are pleased to welcome Biomni as the newest member of the VMware TAP programme,” said Sheryl Sage, Director, Alliance Programmes, VMware. “The VMware TAP programme offers companies like Biomni the tools and resources they need to develop high-value solutions that meet the needs of our mutual customers.”
Commenting on joining the TAP programme, Andreas Antoniou, CTO, Biomni, said “Biomni Front Office is being chosen by increasing numbers of enterprises as their self-service cloud provisioning solution. Working together with VMware via their TAP program, we can be confident of continuing to offer compelling solutions to our customers.”
With more than 2000 members worldwide, the VMware TAP program works with best-of-breed technology partners to provide them a comprehensive set of VMware technical and marketing services, support, tools and expertise to deliver enhanced value to joint customers.
FACTFILE:Biomni’s vision is to provide the most intuitive, flexible and cost effective Service Catalogue platform for IT. Their solutions are suitable for IT organizations of any size wanting to improve customer satisfaction via greater self-service and transparency whilst significantly reducing provisioning costs through automation. www.biomni.com
“We are pleased to welcome Biomni as the newest member of the VMware TAP programme,” said Sheryl Sage, Director, Alliance Programmes, VMware. “The VMware TAP programme offers companies like Biomni the tools and resources they need to develop high-value solutions that meet the needs of our mutual customers.”
Commenting on joining the TAP programme, Andreas Antoniou, CTO, Biomni, said “Biomni Front Office is being chosen by increasing numbers of enterprises as their self-service cloud provisioning solution. Working together with VMware via their TAP program, we can be confident of continuing to offer compelling solutions to our customers.”
With more than 2000 members worldwide, the VMware TAP program works with best-of-breed technology partners to provide them a comprehensive set of VMware technical and marketing services, support, tools and expertise to deliver enhanced value to joint customers.
FACTFILE:Biomni’s vision is to provide the most intuitive, flexible and cost effective Service Catalogue platform for IT. Their solutions are suitable for IT organizations of any size wanting to improve customer satisfaction via greater self-service and transparency whilst significantly reducing provisioning costs through automation. www.biomni.com
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Qualcomm opts for Halo for wireless electric vehicle charging technology
* Following Arup’s work to develop Halo IPT, this world class induction charging technology is set to transform the growing electric vehicle sector.
Halo IPT’s leading wireless charging technology for electric vehicles, developed by Arup and Auckland Uniservices, has been acquired by Qualcomm Incorporated.
The UK-based technology development company was founded by Auckland University’s technology development vehicle, UniServices, in conjunction with Arup and the support of the Trans Tasman Commercialisation Fund and the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund.
Since its inception in May 2010, Halo IPT has pioneered the development and production of wireless charging technology for the transportation sector. The company’s objective is to bring its wireless charging technology to market for road vehicle applications on a global scale.
John Miles, Executive Chairman of HaloIPT and a Director at Arup, commented “In only 18 months, we have brought world-class university research to the attention of the global automotive industry. Through really innovative design, we have demonstrated the huge potential for wireless charging to the world’s leading vehicle manufacturers.”
John continues, “Electric vehicles hold great promise and the success of HaloIPT demonstrates the value of Arup’s investment of time and resources in activities we feel can make a real difference to the world around us – like developing skills and knowledge needed for a global shift to low carbon economy.”
According to Andrew Gilbert, Qualcomm’s Executive Vice President, European Innovation Development, “Qualcomm has been investing in wireless power for a number of years and the HaloIPT acquisition will further strengthen our technology and patent portfolio. Building off 20 years of development and innovation in wireless power at the University of Auckland and the global expertise and market knowledge at Arup, the HaloIPT team has established itself in a relatively short period of time as a leading developer in wireless electric road vehicle charging – with HaloIPT winning industry acclamation and awards.”
Arup has a longstanding interest and expertise in low carbon mobility. The group is currently leading several major projects in this area, including the UK’s CABLED Consortium (Coventry and Birmingham Low Emission Demonstrators) programme – the UK’s largest trial of electric vehicles. CABLED tackles questions such as the impact the vehicles on driving habits and behaviours and the optimum placing of charging points to suit the average urban journey.
Arup is also leading a consortium contributing to a £11m research programme – led by the Energy Technologies Institute. The initiative aims to support the future roll-out of electric vehicles. Working with the University of Leeds and E.ON, Arup is developing a model to analyse the economics of UK-wide electric and hybrid electric vehicle usage to support potential carbon reduction.
HaloIPT was advised in the transaction by Innovator Capital and Covington & Burling.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Splunk to Provide Integration with Apache™ Hadoop™
“Splunk has proven itself as a market leader for delivering operational intelligence from massive machine data, and Hadoop is a great platform for data science. Bringing these two worlds together is a very natural fit,” said Todd Papaioannou, entrepreneur in residence at Battery Ventures and former Chief Architect for Yahoo’s Global Cloud Computing team, where he was integral in shaping and driving the strategic direction of Yahoo!’s Cloud and Hadoop teams.
Splunk provides software that enables users to collect, monitor, analyze, search and report on massive streams of real-time and historical machine data and includes enterprise capabilities, such as role-based access controls. The new offering will leverage the capabilities of Splunk Enterprise and Hadoop. Users will be able to:
• Collect machine data with Splunk Enterprise from tens of thousands of sources, perform real-time search, rapid data analysis, monitoring and alerting, then optionally deliver data to Hadoop for archival or to run specialized batch analytics
• Use Splunk to run MapReduce queries against data in Hadoop, and then pull the resulting data sets into Splunk for further processing, analysis, to create dashboards, and to share the results
• Extend Splunk’s authentication and role-based access controls to protect data stored in Hadoop as well as Splunk
• Use Splunk APIs and SDKs to integrate the data in Splunk Enterprise and Hadoop with other applications
• Monitor and troubleshoot Hadoop deployments as well as the rest of the IT infrastructure using Splunk’s proven capabilities to deliver greater reliability and productivity.
“This integrated offering provides access to Splunk’s real-time capabilities, ease-of-use and enterprise functionality that people in IT around the world have come to love”, said Erik Swan, co-founder and chief technology officer at Splunk. “We believe our fully integrated solution, rather than just offering a simple Hadoop connector, will enable Splunk customers and Hadoop developers to accelerate mission-critical big data projects successfully.”
David Menninger, Vice President and Research Director, Ventana Research said, “In our recent Hadoop and Information Management benchmark research, two of the biggest technology obstacles of Hadoop cited by participants were real-time capabilities and integration. This integration announcement from Splunk is significant because it addresses both of these issues, providing real-time search and monitoring of machine data as well as integration with Hadoop for its advanced batch analytics. We see the resulting combination of big data technologies will benefit both Splunk users and Hadoop developers alike.”
Splunk Enterprise for Hadoop is expected to be available for download in Q1 2012. For more information please visit www.splunk.com/goto/bigdata.
FCTFILE:
Splunk® Inc. is the engine for machine data™. Splunk software collects, indexes and harnesses the massive machine data continuously generated by the websites, applications, servers, networks and mobile devices that power your business. Splunk software enables businesses to monitor, search, analyze, visualize, and act on massive streams of real-time and historical machine data.
Over half of the Fortune 100 and more than 3,000 enterprises, universities, government agencies, and service providers in 70+ countries use Splunk Enterprise to gain operational intelligence that deepens business understanding, improves service and uptime, reduces cost, and mitigates cyber-security risk. To learn more please visit www.splunk.com/company.
Monday, 7 November 2011
That's Christmas: Now, that IS smart! new from One For All
That's Christmas: Now, that IS smart! new from One For All: Now you can operate your TV, DVD and set top box with a flick of the wrist, thanks to the new SmartControl Motion universal remote control from One For All...
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Software demand to be met
Palantir Solutions, which provides economic planning consultancy and software to the global upstream community, has made four appointments as the company continues to experience extensive growth in all regions.
Paul Douglas has joined Palantir Solutions’ Canadian team as a Senior Consultant. He is responsible for providing high quality consulting services to North American client Talisman. Douglas has extensive experience in software development, consulting and operations management.
Paul Douglas has joined Palantir Solutions’ Canadian team as a Senior Consultant. He is responsible for providing high quality consulting services to North American client Talisman. Douglas has extensive experience in software development, consulting and operations management.
He has been involved in many successful software development projects in the Canadian oil and gas industry. It is this blend of technical and client relations skills that makes Douglas an excellent addition to Palantir Solutions’ North American consulting team.
Dana Hilliker has joined the Business Development team in Canada. Hilliker will be responsible for ensuring that Palantir Solutions continues to deliver market leading customer service to the expanding client base in Calgary. He is also tasked with identifying and securing new business in North America. Hilliker has extensive experience in client relations for Replicon where he was one of the top performers.
Anna Tregub has been appointed as a Consultant in the UK. Tregub has been recruited to assist with the growing demand for software pilots and implementations for European upstream companies. She will also provide clients with insightful data analysis in complex, challenging situations. Her previous experience as a wireline engineer, makes Trerub a valuable addition to the Palantir Solutions team.
Julia Hayward has been appointed as a Senior Developer in Palantir Solutions’ growing development team in London. Hayward is part of the team developing the next generation PalantirCASH product. In previous roles she has been responsible for designing and implementing powerful algorithms which are used to distill large datasets into real business intelligence. This experience will be incredibly useful in her role at Palantir Solutions.
Dean MacPherson, Palantir Solutions Director of Operations, EMEA said, “Our upstream business planning solutions are being widely adopted by many of the industry’s major players. Meanwhile our existing client base is, in many cases, taking advantage of the global reach and experience we have as familiar challenges are faced in new regions. Our four new starters continue our strategy of attracting and developing the best talent to maintain the world class offering our customers enjoy.”
www.palantirsolutions.com
Dana Hilliker has joined the Business Development team in Canada. Hilliker will be responsible for ensuring that Palantir Solutions continues to deliver market leading customer service to the expanding client base in Calgary. He is also tasked with identifying and securing new business in North America. Hilliker has extensive experience in client relations for Replicon where he was one of the top performers.
Anna Tregub has been appointed as a Consultant in the UK. Tregub has been recruited to assist with the growing demand for software pilots and implementations for European upstream companies. She will also provide clients with insightful data analysis in complex, challenging situations. Her previous experience as a wireline engineer, makes Trerub a valuable addition to the Palantir Solutions team.
Julia Hayward has been appointed as a Senior Developer in Palantir Solutions’ growing development team in London. Hayward is part of the team developing the next generation PalantirCASH product. In previous roles she has been responsible for designing and implementing powerful algorithms which are used to distill large datasets into real business intelligence. This experience will be incredibly useful in her role at Palantir Solutions.
Dean MacPherson, Palantir Solutions Director of Operations, EMEA said, “Our upstream business planning solutions are being widely adopted by many of the industry’s major players. Meanwhile our existing client base is, in many cases, taking advantage of the global reach and experience we have as familiar challenges are faced in new regions. Our four new starters continue our strategy of attracting and developing the best talent to maintain the world class offering our customers enjoy.”
www.palantirsolutions.com
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
That's Christmas: Chirstmas gadgets need Duracell power
That's Christmas: Chirstmas gadgets need Duracell power: It's all very well buying lots of electronic gadgets for Christmas, but you must ensure that the owners of these new gadgets have all the ...
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
David Elder appointed Managing Director at Widget UK Ltd. Grant Davidson promoted to board as Operations Director
Widget UK Ltd, a prominent distributor of consumer electronics to retail, has appointed David Elder as its Managing Director, effective from 1st November 2011.
David Elder, comes back into the business full time after a break of three years, during which he has been a non-executive director and run European operations for a Canadian vendor. He was one of the founders of Widget, then its Commercial Director until 2008.
Before that, Elder spent nine years at Psion plc, rising to join the vendor’s main board as International Sales Director, as well as spells running Psion’s subsidiaries in Germany and the USA.
At the same time, Widget is promoting Grant Davidson, formerly General Manager of Operations at Widget, to the board as Operations Director.
“Grant’s appointment confirms the strength of the management team at Widget,” commented Elder. “I am looking forward to working with him, and the rest of the team, in providing the service that our customers and suppliers have come to expect.”
For the past two months David Elder has been working with Jo-Anne Foreman, who is leaving Widget to become head of TDConsumer Electronics, a division of Computer 2000, in December. “Leading such a successful team at Widget UK during a period where we achieved so much has been hugely enjoyable. I have learnt a great deal during my time with Widget and wish everyone there continued success moving forward,” she said.
Mark Needham, Chairman of Widget UK added: “We thank Jo for the immense contribution she has made to our business over the last three years. We now look forward to taking our business to the next stage of its evolution with David Elder at the helm.”
Based in Stevenage, Widget supplies TomTom, Cisco and other consumer electronics products to electronics retailers in the UK.
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