Dallas Morning News invests in data-driven marketing from smartFOCUS newsmedia specialist ASTECH InterMedia

ASTECH InterMedia, the news media division of international multi-channel marketing software company smartFOCUS, has been selected by The Dallas Morning News (TDMN) to provide its fully managed marketing automation and analytics software and data managed service.

The Dallas Morning News will install ASTECH’s multi-channel marketing automation and analytics solutions for newsmedia, MAAX, to boost the productivity of its consumer marketing initiatives, diversify acquisition channels and strengthen its retention programs.

ASTECH is the market leader in supporting the transformation of the newsmedia. More than 200 newspapers and publishers worldwide, including MediaNews, Hearst, NY Times Company and The Washington Post use its marketing software, increasingly delivered in the software as a service SaaS model. TDMN joins a vibrant community of more than 80 newsmedia companies that rely on ASTECH’s MAAX solutions for marketing analysis, reporting, campaign management and e-marketing initiatives.

Mark Medici, director of circulation audience development for TDMN, believes that data-driven marketing is critical to optimising productivity and customer value in a challenging economic climate. He said: “It is naïve to think we can grow audience and profitability without leveraging our data to be more timely and relevant. MAAX gives us the ability to integrate and automate customer communications across multiple channels. This enhances our sales performance and improves engagement with consumers of our print and digital products.”

For TDMN, the MAAX community was a decisive factor in making its investment:

“There are many good technologies available to marketers,” said Medici. “But the opportunity to learn and adopt best practices across a vast community of newsmedia companies that share similar challenges is absolutely vital to us. Only ASTECH and MAAX can deliver that.”

Published since 1895, TDMN is the leading source – both in print and online – of news, information and advertising for the Dallas, Texas metropolitan area. TDMN is a division of A.H. Belo Corp. which includes The Providence (RI) Journal and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, CA.

Tom Ratkovich, president of ASTECH InterMedia said, “MAAX is the de facto solution for the newspaper industry because it meets all the requirements for database management, customer segmentation and effective communication with large numbers of customer, and comes with the expertise and market experience of delivering best practice from ASTECH and our established user community in newsmedia.”

Chris Underhill, CEO, smartFOCUS, added: “This is a great win for the smartFOCUS Group and demonstrates not just the demand for our solution, but the breadth of our reach as a group across geographies and industries. We look forward to helping TDMN reap the benefits of improved customer communications and driving initiatives to reach new audiences, especially in the current climate and the challenges faced by traditional news media. Today, engagement and understanding are key to optimising marketing ROI and business success.”

FACT FILE:

smartFOCUS is a leading international marketing software company that empowers marketers with the intelligence to drive high performance multi-channel campaigns and more valuable customer relationships. Its Intelligent Marketing solutions integrate offline and online data, analysis, campaign and performance management to deliver better targeted, more timely and relevant communications that increase campaign conversion rates and improve customer insight.

smartFOCUS has over 700 customers and partners worldwide using its marketing software including AAA, ABN AMRO, ASOS, Center Parcs, EMI, Fig Leaves, Harrods, Hilton International, NSPCC, Société Générale and QVC.

smartFOCUS is headquartered in the UK, with operations in the US, continental Europe and Asia Pacific. www.smartfocus.com

ASTECH InterMedia is the leading marketing systems company dedicated to serving the evolving needs of the newsmedia. The company, founded in 1992, supports the strategic data-driven marketing initiatives of more than 200 newspapers worldwide. Its innovative marketing solutions include a variety of consulting and education services, application-specific software and data products. In 2008 ASTECH InterMedia was acquired by smartFOCUS, the international provider of multi-channel marketing software, headquartered in the UK.

About TDMN

The Dallas Morning News (TDMN) was first published on October 1, 1885. It is published by the oldest business institution in Texas, Belo Corp., now A.H. Belo, which has chronicled Texas history for more than 160 years. www.dallasnews.com

Steganos launches Safe 11 and Steganos Privacy Suite 11

Data Security Double Package for data privacy, encryption and peace of mind for all mobile workers and their data

Steganos, an expert in encryption and privacy software, has launched the latest versions of its data protection products: Steganos Privacy Suite 11 and Steganos Safe 11. The applications have been completely revised with a range of new features and new intuitive interfaces enabling quick access to the individual tools available.

New features in Steganos Safe 11, which is part of Steganos Privacy Suite but also available as a standalone application, include a shredding tool which identifies areas that have already been shredded to minimize time spent cleaning drives, right click data destruction command for trash bin contents, Drag-and-drop support makes it easier to move documents into a safe, and optional network capability to allow the application to perform on a network – and on top of all that, the Safe size is doubled to 512 GB each.

Steganos Privacy Suite 11 has a raft of new features including the ability to create several profiles for different users with Steganos Password Manager, capacity to capture and store more information about individual passwords; an unlimited number of safes, each with up to 512 GB of storage; mailbox encryption; convenient scheduling on data destruction operations; PicPass picture series to replace plain text passwords; e-mail encryption; rewritable Steganos Portable Safe; steganography support; and trace destruction features.

The inclusion of Steganos Password Manager in Steganos Privacy Suite is one of the key additions. Steganos Password Manager has numerous features to facilitate ease of use, and allows the creation of several password-protected profiles for different users, as well as additional information to be stored on individual passwords. Optional upgrades include Steganos AntiTheft and a network-ready version.

Michael Marzy, managing director, Steganos said, “Working remotely on a laptop or simply at home or work on a PC with connection to the internet is a fact of life nowadays, but many users simply forget about the dangers. Documents, photos and pictures – whether its on laptops, USB sticks or CDs, travel all around the world with us and are at constant risk of loss or theft. Our solutions are easy-to-use and have the necessary features to help consumers protect their data, and more importantly themselves.“

Steganos Safe™ 11 in detail:
*Holds up to 512 GB of user-defined and controlled storage. Create as many encrypted data safes to store photos, music, movies and more. Automatic safe shut down when user logs out or when computer sleeps.
*Steganos Portable Safe™ safely protects portable data such as USB sticks, CDs, DVDs or iPod®. No extra software is required to open a Steganos Portable Safe™ on another computer.
* Emails in the bank: Password protect e-mails with Steganos Mailbox Encryption to guard against unauthorised access. Available for Outlook (including contacts, schedules and to do lists), Outlook Express and Windows Mail.
* Fail safe data delete with Steganos Shredder™: performs permanent and unrecoverable data delete operations on hard and external drives such as USB sticks, rewritable CDs, DVDs, and memory cards. Uses incremental shredding to identify areas that have already been cleaned to save time. Free Space Scheduler lets users decide if and when free areas on the hard disk are to be shredded. A right click data destruction command reliably deletes trash bin contents.
* Steganos Password Generator: creates highly secure passwords with special characters, numbers and upper and lower case letters with a click of a mouse. Allows user-definition of password properties and strength.
* Password security check for the safest codes: Grades and provides feedback on password strength for keyed in passwords. Multilingual dictionary instantly flags and warns user about unsafe passwords.
* Manual access to data safes using a USB stick, PDA, memory card, digicam, or iPod. Allows visual access to data safes using a series of pictures. Or automatically opens data safes with an ActiveSync enabled mobile phone with Bluetooth. Once the Bluetooth device is out of range, the safe closes automatically.
* Faster and faster! Supports hotkey, automatic login and drag-and-drop
Supports shortcuts to quickly open and close safes. Allows drag-and-drop to copy and move data easily to data safes. Or automatically start a safe and applications with user login.
*No way for Keyloggers with virtual keyboard
Simply type in a password for a safe with virtual keyboard. Optional combined mode is also available to ensure keys constantly change position to outwit even the smartest mouse click recorders.
*‘Open Sesame‘ with Steganos PicPass: Lets users select a series of images as a password, eliminating the need to memorize long and complicated password strings.
* Highly secure 256 Bit AES encryption: Uses an uncrackable (and world-renowned) 256 Bit AES security algorithm.
* Optional Steganos Safe™ Network Feature: An upgrade enables data safes to be used on a network. The first user to open a safe receives read and write privileges, while subsequent users receive read only access. Or users can embed a safe onto their own home network.


Steganos Privacy™ Suite 11 in detail:
* All the features outlined for Steganos Safe (above) plus:

* Steganos TraceDestructor: covers user’s traces from surfing or working on a laptop/ PC, such as documents worked on or website visted. Removes them automatically and permanently.
*Simple password management control. Website forms are completed automatically, individual categories make sense of all a user‘s passwords, and useful information is captured and stored. Because of individual profile setups, Steganos Password Manager can be used by multiple users.
*Privacy of favourite websites in a password-protected favourites list. Includes plug-in for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
*Email encryption: Simple encrypted e-mails via a click of a mouse. The e-mail recipient only needs a password—and the message decrypts itself automatically. All without having to install additional software.
*Steganography—Hiding the easy way
*Crypt & Hide disguises critical data in pictures and music. Nobody will have a clue about the encrypted hidden in these files.
*Optional Steganos AntiTheft provides information about the whereabouts of a stolen laptop or PC.


Steganos Privacy Suite 11 and Steganos Safe 11 are available now from
http://www.steganos.com/en/products/overview

Pricing:
Steganos Privacy Suite™ 11
69,95 USD / £ 44,95 / 79,95 CAD (full download version ready for use)
41,95 USD / £ 26,95 / 49,95 CAD (full version upgrade from previous version
Steganos Privacy Suite™ 2008, Steganos Security Suite 2007, Steganos Security Suite™ 2006, Steganos Security Suite™ SE 2006, Steganos Safe™ 2008, Steganos Safe™ 2007, Steganos Safe™ 8 for download and use)

Steganos Safe 11™
39,95 USD / £ 26,95 / 49,95 CAD (full and ready to use trial version available for download)
23,95 USD / £ 15,95 / 29,95 CAD (full version upgrade from previous version Steganos Safe™ 2008, Steganos Safe™ 2007, Steganos Safe™ 8 for download and use)

Network capability for Steganos Safe 11™ and Steganos Privacy Suite™ 11
14,95 USD / £ 8,95 / 18,95 CAD

AntiTheft capability for Steganos Privacy Suite™ 11
14,95 USD / £ 8,95 / 18,95 CAD


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Steganos Privacy Suite™ 11
Steganos Safe 11™

Operating Systems:
Windows XP Home Edition (at least Service Pack 2)
Windows XP Professional (at least Service Pack 2)
Windows Vista (32 Bit)
Windows Vista (64 Bit)

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
- 100 MB free hard disk space for installation
- Screen resolution of at least 800x600
- Minimum High Color (16 Bit)
- Minimum 256 MB ram memory
- Minimum Pentium or comparable CPU
- Internet connection (compulsory for product activation and updates)
- Mouse or other pointing device compatible with Windows
- For Steganos Safe: More hard disk space is required for secured drives. To use the full 512 GB per drive, a NTFS file system is required. With the FAT32 file system, a maximum of 4 GB per secured drive is possible.
- For Portable Safe: Optional CD or DVD writer with corresponding software. Optional and temporary up to 8.5 GB of hard disk space for Portable Safe packet files. To run Steganos Portable Safe on another computer, one-time administrator rights are required for installation of decryption program.
- Secured drives cannot be decrypted on compressed NTFS drives.
- Supported key devices: ActiveSync compatible devices (e.g. smartphones, PDAs), all devices recognized by Windows as removable storage devices (e.g. USB sticks, memory cards, digital cameras).
- Key devices are not included in package.
- Mailbox encryption functionality is not available for Windows Vista 64 Bit.


Find more information about Steganos products at www.steganos.com

Best Practice!

Best Western Europe, the European arm of the world's largest hotel brand has chosen the Communicator® enterprise email management platform from Communicator Corp (www.communicatorcorp.com) to provide a centralised email communications system that supports the individual needs of twelve countries.

Used in conjunction with Best Western Europe’s existing CRM system, Communicator® is used for all Best Western’s email-marketing activities including newsletters, targeted sales promotions and loyalty communications.

To maximise customer value and to meet the needs of its business units in each country, Best Western Europe will use the dynamic content and comprehensive personalisation tools in the Communicator® platform to ensure that all email communications are targeted and relevant to the data they carry on customers.

One important factor behind Best Western Europe’s choice of Communicator® was its “Intelligent Delivery Solution” (IDS) functionality. This unique, next-generation technology utilises an intelligent, self-learning methodology to ensure that an organisation’s email campaigns and business-critical, transactional communications alike achieve maximum inbox placement.

In addition, IDS protects and builds the senders reputation as a responsible email communicator. The system’s advanced intelligence achieves this by automatically responding to ISP/IEP policy changes, and bases future sending rates and patterns upon the statistical analyses of previous campaigns. This increases delivery rates and in this case will help Best Western Europe to achieve best practice against policy variations as and when they happen.

Central to Best Western Europe’s communications strategy was the need for a solution that enables communication in any language in Europe, with the ability to facilitate the highest possible local delivery rates. Communicator® met this need.

Commenting on the choice of Communicator Olaf Reimann, Chief Marketing Officer of Best Western Europe noted, ”Best Western Europe maintains the highest standards of customer contact and it is especially important to observe best practice in our email communications. Communicator Corp helps us achieve this by maximising accurate, inbox placement. “

For his part James Bunting, Director of Research & Strategy at Communicator Corp welcomed Reimann’s comments, adding “The Best Western brand has an enviable reputation for consistent quality and customer care. It is important, therefore, that they maintain these high standards in all their email and e-marketing communications with their customers. We are delighted that they have chosen Communicator to achieve this. “

Moderators should encourage participation and loyalty in virtual worlds, says new eModeration report

Companies operating virtual worlds for children and young adults should use moderators not just to devise and enforce safety guidelines but also to enhance game play, according to a new paper from eModeration. The report, How to Encourage Participation and Loyalty in Virtual Worlds, is released to coincide with the US-based ‘Engage’ Expo, where there has been much discussion about how to engage consumers in online communities and MMOGs (massively multi-player online games).

How to Encourage Participation and Loyalty in Virtual Worlds outlines how the role of the moderator has evolved from monitoring online communities to becoming an active in-game, or even character-based host that enhances the experience for players.

Recommendations included in the report detail how companies should: use moderators to set and enforce user policies, and adopt in-game roles to help children engage with the various activities within the game; use humour and quirkiness to engage more effectively with children; and get parents involved so that they trust the site and encourage their children to visit.

The paper has been drafted by Tamara Littleton, a respected pioneer and authority on virtual world moderation, who was a member of the Home Office Sub-Committee that advised the UK government on moderation of communities to help safeguard children. eModeration is one of the few moderation agencies providing moderation services and consultancy services for virtual worlds aimed at children.. The full report can be accessed at: http://www.emoderation.com/news/How%20to%20Encourage%20Parti....

Below is a summary of the recommendations covered in the report:

1. Setting and enforcing user policies – a child and parent that know a virtual world is as safe as possible are far more likely to return to the site. One of the best ways for a virtual world to prove this is to draft clear user guidelines and make it very easy to report inappropriate behaviour – backed up with moderators that are ready to intervene if necessary.

The maxim ‘children need boundaries’ applies just as much in digital environments as it does in the real world. eModeration has found that not only do children respond positively to boundaries being enforced, they’re often very happy to help enforce guidelines and remind other children when they’re breaking the rules.

2. Moderators as in-game characters/hosts – moderators now have a wider role than just monitoring digital worlds and ensuring these environments are safe play areas for children. Today, moderators also act as hosts, becoming interactive characters within the game itself and enhancing the experience for players in virtual worlds. Using moderators in this way can significantly deepen children’s participation in the game and develop a greater attachment and loyalty to the site.

3. Use humour and quirkiness – making children laugh will ensure they enjoy themselves and engage with the site, so it’s important to add as many humorous and quirky elements as possible. For example, make a moderator’s character something outside of a child’s normal experience, such as an animal that talks in rhyme; and make the character change shape or colour after a certain period of time to sustain interest.

4. Engage with parents – essentially, if parents believe the site is safe, they’ll have no qualms about encouraging their children to play the game. To help get parents on board, make sure there is a ‘guidelines for parents’ page clearly visible on the site.

Tamara Littleton, CEO, eModeration, comments: “Traditionally, moderators were inconspicuous and remained in the background, deleting offensive material, defusing confrontation or reporting abusive behaviour. Today, the in-game moderator is becoming increasingly popular, as they do much more than monitor digital communities – their active participation not only keeps children safe, but also significantly adds to the game play and encourages players to return to the site. Setting the tone and establishing a positive culture within the community from the start will pay dividends in the future.”

For more information, visit www.emoderation.com.

Council to Meet Ten Day Payment Target with Version One’s Document Management Technology

East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the largest local authority in England covering 930 square miles, is implementing electronic document storage and data capture software from Version One (www.versionone.co.uk) . This software will speed-up the processing of 400,000 purchase invoices each year and enable the Council to meet its ten day supplier payment target. The new systems are currently being rolled-out to 1,000 authorised council staff across multiple sites.

By using Version One’s document storage and data capture software tightly integrated into its Masterpiece accounting system, East Riding of Yorkshire Council will significantly reduce the time-consuming manual entry of purchase invoice data and will also be able to electronically store and retrieve documents directly from its Masterpiece system. These systems will be complementing the Council’s existing Version One solutions which electronically create and automatically deliver documents.

Phil Leeson, Financial Controller from East Riding of Yorkshire Council, says, “Paper-based and time-consuming purchase-to-pay processes were impacting our ability to process supplier invoices efficiently resulting in duplication of effort and unnecessary expenditure. As purchase invoices were being photocopied and posted across several sites, they often went missing resulting in unnecessary delays.”

Leeson continues, “Having already gained several benefits from Version One’s software we were keen to further this relationship to implement a seamless, end-to-end paperless solution. Version One’s systems will fully streamline our purchase-to-pay processes, improving efficiencies and cutting costs whilst helping to improve our payment performance so that we are more able to meet the ten day supplier payment criteria.”

Using a Kodak i620 scanner and Version One’s software, all purchase invoices arriving into East Riding of Yorkshire Council will be scanned centrally, tagged to the appropriate record in the Masterpiece accounting system and electronically stored. At the same time, Version One’s data capture system, which uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology, will automatically capture data from purchase invoices, reducing manual data entry by up to 90%.

Authorised users will be able to view the imaged documents either by drilling down through Masterpiece or via Version One’s web browser, DbWebQuery. In addition, with Masterpiece’s workflow module used in conjunction with Version One’s storage system, invoice approvers will be able to view and approve, reject or query invoices directly from their PCs, further enhancing purchase-to-pay efficiency.

Leeson comments, “As well as improving payment processing efficiency, Version One’s systems will free-up space that is currently used to store hundreds of boxes full of paper documents. The time and costs associated with the filing and retrieval of paper documents will be eliminated as authorised staff will have access to documents at a touch of a button. This elimination of paper and the associated printing, photocopying and postage of documents will also help to reduce our carbon footprint in-line with Government targets.”

Precise Marks One Year of Independence with Precise 8.5

New Release Helps Companies Do More with Less and Provides Seamless Migration for Symantec APM Customers

Precise today announced the immediate availability of Precise 8.5, its first major release since becoming an independent company. Precise 8.5 offers significant extensions for Transaction Performance Management (TPM) and offers a migration path for Symantec APM customers to help them preserve and develop their existing Symantec APM investments.

“As one of the largest U.S. investment and insurance companies, it is critical to our business that our application and database performance remains optimized,” said John Lamb, assistant vice president of platform management services for The Hartford Property and Casualty Group. “Precise allows our IT service management teams to collaborate around a central view of our service level agreements expected by the business.”

Precise 8.5 extends TPM to the latest developments in the storage tier, manages transaction performance for composite applications, and offers the first performance management solution for DB2 environments. Precise 8.5 also offers new, centralized administration and automated deployment capabilities that allow smaller, less experienced teams to effectively manage large deployments.

“We have worked closely with our customers around the globe during the last year. With the economical downturn we have seen our customers shift from building new infrastructure to making what they already have work better,” said Mark Kremer, CEO of Precise. “Our customers tell us that they look to Transaction Performance Management to help them provide the same or better levels of service at significantly lower costs.”

Precise 8.5 is immediately available. Customers can visit www.precise.com or email sales@precise.com to learn more.

Digital Pen and Paper technology helps accelerate Clinical Trials

Electronically captures handwritten clinical data quickly and securely to save time and cost in drug discovery.

The continuing challenge in drug development and clinical trials is to capture and document data accurately. The goal is to complete the process of viewing, cleaning, analysing and coding the data as fast as possible, ultimately with the goal of bringing a fully-tested new drug to market quickly.

With clinical studies often taking anything from several weeks to years to complete, vast amounts of data need to be collected. Traditionally, this data had to be entered manually into IT systems for further processing and analysis. Digital Pen and Paper technology from Anoto has been shown to significantly speed up the capture of trial data, and help accelerate this process.

Digital Pen and Paper automatically converts handwritten notes in clinical trial forms into keystrokes, avoiding the time-consuming manual data entry altogether.

The digital pen looks like a ballpoint pen. A tiny infrared camera at its tip tracks its movements relative to a grey dot pattern printed on the form, recording and storing what is being written. When investigators have finished gathering data, they place the digital pen into a USB docking station to synchronise the pen with backend IT systems. Alternatively, data can be transmitted via a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. As a result, clinical trial data is available immediately for processing and analysis.

No changes to workflow

The greatest advantage of the technology is that handwritten information can be digitised without any changes to existing work routines, and that a high level of data accuracy can be achieved. Users continue to fill in forms with a pen, as before. In this way, the advantages of paper are retained, for instance its ease of use, the ability to archive information easily and its original content, which is often needed for legal purposes. Likewise, users do not have to be trained to use tablet PCs, PDAs or scanners.

This in turn means that Clinical Research Organisations (CROs) can realise time and cost savings, as well as avoiding manual data entry errors. Studies have shown that digital data capture using Digital Pen and Paper is superior to alternative solutions such as laptops, PDAs or tablet PCs. Data entry error rates are close to zero, all while realising time savings of up to 60 per cent. This was confirmed by a study published on the occasion of the World Usability Day 2008 (Boldt R, Raasch J, Hamburg 2008).

FACT FILE:

As the inventor of Digital Pen and Paper, Anoto makes its technology available to a worldwide network of partners who design tailored, industry-specific Digital Pen and Paper solutions. In the pharmaceutical sector, the technology has a proven track record in areas such as the collection of patient data and documenting the progress of clinical trials.

At EuroDIA in Berlin, Massimo Raineri, Head of Systems Development, Biometry, Actelion Pharmaceuticals, is chairing a conference session at 9-10.30 on Wednesday, March 25th entitled "A look into the future: what is on the horizon after we have managed EDC properly?" (Hall 9). His own presentation will be looking at the use of Digital Pen and Paper technology for data collection in clinical trials, which Actelion has been pioneering.

The following Anoto partners will be exhibiting their solutions at the show in Berlin:

Kayentis, an Anoto Platinum Partner, will present its Clin’Form solution (Stand 1277, Hall 12). Clin’Form, which is based on Anoto technology, provides an easy data collection method for sponsors, investigators, Clinical Research Associates (CRAs), patients and other parties involved in clinical trials. It offers a high level of data quality combined with all the advantages of electronic data management, significantly streamlining clinical trials costs. Clin’Form has been adopted by more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies and has been used with more than 50,000 patients in 50 countries and in as many languages.

PharmaForms GmbH, a supplier of clinical trial documentation such as Case Report Forms (CRFs), patient diaries and submission dossiers, is showing its dotforms–eCRF system (Stand 1248, Hall 12). Based on Anoto’s technology, this solution aims to automate clinical data capture completely, from the CRF all the way to the database. Dotforms-eCRF has been certified for use in the pharmaceutical sector. The Anoto technology combines the usability of paper with the flexibility of information technology. Investigators and patients continue to write on paper as usual, using a digital pen. PharmaForms provides the paper forms, which look just like normal CRFs but feature the Anoto dot pattern. Data recorded by the pen is transmitted to backend IT systems and available for analysis and reporting in real time. Dotforms-eCRF is already in use for clinical trials in 20 countries, with several hundred pens deployed.

Belgian solution provider Arco/eClinics Solutions (Stand 1202, Hall 12) is highlighting its DocGenerator system that helps create documents based on Anoto’s technology on top of a powerful in-house document and workflow management system. This combination enables the trial sponsor to build flexible data capture and management workflows, tailored to a wide range of needs and processes. The latter can include Optical Character Recognition (OCR), customized quality control and validation as well as reporting. The solution combines the advantages of pen and paper with real-time data capture and processing capabilities.

Anoto Group is the company behind and world leading in the unique technology for digital pen and paper, which enables fast and reliable transmission of handwritten text into a digital format. Anoto operates through a global partner network that focuses on user-friendly forms solutions for efficient capture, transmission and storage of data within different business segments, e.g. healthcare, bank and finance, transport and logistics and education. The Anoto Group has around 110 employees, offices in Lund (head office), Boston and Tokyo. The Anoto share is listed on NASDAQ OMX Nordic small cap list under the ticker ANOT. For more information: http://www.anoto.com.

Supply Chain: Cloud Computing Solution for All Sectors

Most supply chain and logistics software applications are developed for one sector and can only be adapted to other sectors – or industries – with significant modifications. One of the benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing is that applications can meet the needs of a wide range of sectors and also different sized companies.

One of the foremost examples of this is CarrierNetOnline (CNO), the logistics and transport SaaS application from UK software house Deltion www.deltion.co.uk. A system originally developed with the logistics industry in mind is now finding acceptance in manufacturing, retail and wholesale.

“CNO is used by logistics and transport companies working in most sectors, including manufacturing, FMCG, retail, homes deliveries and hazardous good” Piyush Shah, CEO of Deltion says. “It is therefore not surprising that it is easily adapted to meet the needs of the industries that they serve.”

Because of the Software as a Service delivery model, modifications made to meet the needs of one industry are usually included in the software and available to other companies either in or serving that industry. “CNO customers do not pay for features they do not want or need. They also only pay for transactions which they actually carry out in their business” Mr Shah said. “As the business grows they take advantage of the CNO scalability and pay for extra capacity as needed. If they move into a new product or industry range, they take on any of the existing features they may need. If market conditions – such as many are facing today – means there is less business or a withdrawal from a sector, the user has the benefit of reduced transaction charges – scalability works both ways”.

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