BCS Interactive Design Conference Tackles Climate And Economy

Desktop and Asset Management specialists NetSupport announce the worldwide release of their Enterprise Management Suite, NetSupport DNA version 3 including as standard a new Energy Monitoring component.

PCs and monitors account for 39% of the IT industry’s emissions, equal to a year of CO2 emissions from approximately 43.9 million cars. For most organisations the efficient use of energy delivers two key operational requirements:- cost reductions and improved environmental responsibility. The two elements combined can be considered as "Green IT" - everyone is talking about reducing CO2 emissions and in the current economic climate, reducing energy bills is an equally appealing target.

“Industry analysts show that IT energy costs are often one of the highest on the company’s IT budget and one that is most overlooked for efficiency management.” says Al Kingsley, Group Managing Director of NetSupport. “NetSupport DNA already checks to verify the powered-on state of all computers across an Enterprise and its local monitoring component keeps an accurate record of each time a computer is powered on, off or hibernates. DNA3 now provides organisations with a method for calculating an indicative energy usage figure which when combined with each customer’s specific energy rates highlights the overall cost of identified systems. Department heads or management can immediately see a high level view of energy usage by computers across the organisation, see where "out of hours" usage is highest and identify whether this is a result of diligent staff working late or simply systems that have been left switched on overnight.”

NetSupport DNA 3 also introduces a new Internet Gateway component ensuring that all IT assets, even those at remote locations are included and managed in real time. The Internet Gateway provides secure IP communications over the internet for managing assets that may ordinarily be ‘hidden’ on a remote network or behind firewalls.

Among a number of other feature enhancements, NetSupport DNA now fully integrates with Active Directory enabling customers to automatically reflect all PCs and Users within their DNA Console as a mirror to their Active Directory structure. Any change made in AD will automatically apply within NetSupport DNA.

The Software Asset management capabilities have been further extended to provide a detailed summary of both installed programs and installed applications detected on each PC, providing a simpler way of managing programs licenses as a suite such as Microsoft Office. To compliment this, DNA also allows specific file types to be located and recorded on all computers as an effective way of ensuring business documents are not stored locally and missing backup routines or that valuable disk space is not being lost to users music collections. In addition full support is provided for recording, tracking and the management of software licences and their maintenance contracts.

In addition to this and a wealth of additional updates, NetSupport DNA 3 also includes a new and intuitive user experience, with a fresh and flexible interface, engaging charts and a “download to deployed“ timescale of as little as 30 minutes.

For more information visit www.netsupportdna.com.

SOS Connect Scores With Dolmans

Dolmans Solicitors of Cardiff, the sports law, local authority and emergency services specialist has selected SOS Connect from Solicitors Own Software for case management and is standardising on the software throughout the firm.

The dynamic practice has 40 fee earners and offers sports management under the ‘definitive’ brand, claims management under ‘B4Legal’ and also meets all the non-criminal needs of commercial and private clients from its Cardiff city centre base. Dolmans is also the number one Welsh provider of defendant litigation services to local authorities. The goal is to re-engineer the business to gain savings from a more streamlined operation where the front office of fee earners links seamlessly to back office accounts and administration.

The firm has long used SOS for the back office and is now replacing the incumbent case management system with SOS Connect to achieve the efficiency benefits of tight integration.

The SOS proposal highlighted the productivity gains and benefits of real-time performance information alongside the workflow creation features of Connect. These will help Dolmans to tailor services themselves to individual client needs and look for new ways of extending services electronically, which the firm would like to do in the future.

Senior Partner Adrian Oliver says: “We are taking the firm to the next level in terms of streamlining operations, reducing the administrative burden on fee earners and improving the quality and speed of delivery of management information. An important aspect is that in the future we will be able to tailor our services, much more easily using SOS Connect, to suit the needs and preferences of individual clients.”

“One of the key attributes of SOS Connect is the scripting tool which clients can use themselves to tailor workflows and automate processes, “ says David McNamara, managing director of SOS. “The more personalised client service which Dolmans expects to deliver is definitely the future path for progressive and competitive law firms and we are delighted to assist.”

Dolmans expects to complete the rollout of SOS Connect to 80 users by late summer 2009.

New Video Conferencing Network launched to cater the growing demand for affordable High-Quality and High Definition (HD) Video Conferencing

Media Network Services (MNS) today announced the launch of a new global video conferencing network enabling any business with video conference equipment to experience High-Quality to Telepresence and HD video conferencing without the need of traditional dedicated networks.

The increase of businesses choosing to use video conferencing to communicate and interact with employees, customers and partners has lead to a high demand for enhanced video conferencing quality.

While companies traditionally have invested in expensive dedicated networks to experience High-Quality to Telepresence and HD video conferencing, MNS now offers affordable guaranteed-capacity network to meet any demand for maximized video conferencing experience. And there is no need for businesses to invest in new video conferencing equipment when taking advantage of MNS’ global network.

“We are very excited about the launch of our new global video conferencing network. Media Network Services can now enable any business to experience a maximized video conferencing experience while leveraging their existing video conferencing equipment”, says Haakon Bryhni CEO, at MNS.

MNS offers, based on company size and existing equipment, the following two services:

- Large Enterprises: Telepresence and HD Video Conferencing Network
- Small & Medium Enterprises: High-Quality Video Conferencing

MNS' standard network offerings range from 768kbps to 6Mbps guaranteed-capacity video conference bandwidth while the premium offering can meet the demand for any network capacity.

The online behaviour of teens and tweens: a new white paper from eModeration

In its latest white paper: How to moderate teens and tweens, moderation and community management company eModeration examines the psychology and online behaviour of teens and tweens, and what that means for brands engaging with this group online. This is a sequel to the previous whitepaper: An Introduction to Using Community and Interactive Advertising to Engage Tweens & Teens, which is designed to educate brands on the best ways to target tweens and teens via social media.

The paper, authored by Tamara Littleton, CEO of eModeration, is available to download free from eModeration’s website at http://www.emoderation.com/news/How-to-Moderate-Teens-and-Tw.... It examines how teenage behaviour differs online from offline, and the trend of ‘disinhibition’ or ‘flaming’ that perceived anonymity of the internet affords teens in their communications with each other. It considers the impact that this perceived anonymity has on bullying online, and also the long-term consequences of, for example, the increase in ‘sexting’. It also analyses research from other professionals in the field, such as Tanya Byron.

Littleton discusses the positive and negative effects that online role-playing can have on development, and the crucial safety concerns: for example, how children will attempt to share contact or location information that could lead them open to abuse. She also considers the impact of live content and perceived access to celebrities (through media such as Twitter) on teens and tweens.

The role of the moderator is crucial in helping to guide young people through their online development, and in the paper, Littleton gives practical help to brands engaging with teens and tweens and seeking to moderate online behaviour. These guidelines include how to achieve the following:

1. Inhabit their world
• Understand the language used by teens / tweens
• Understand that children are developing and allow them some freedom to do this
• Listen to concerns or questions, and respond quickly
• Avoid being intrusive
• Earn trust and respect
• Keep them engaged and happy online

2. Keep them safe
• Watch out for and deter cyberbullying, peer-to-peer abuse
• Spot and prevent grooming behaviour
• Keep children safe from themselves
• Don’t let them be exposed to potentially damaging, offensive or otherwise inappropriate material, uploaded by other users
• Educate them on the consequences of inappropriate behaviour
• Create mechanisms to report abusive behaviour, or give feedback, or voice concerns

Littleton says: “Adults have a clear responsibility to help steer children through their online environments, and it is a world that can seem baffling to some. Teens and tweens are finding their voices as their brains develop, and in these days of instant communication, sometimes they may later regret online behaviour. Moderation has a role in helping to guide them as well as keeping them safe.”
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Public sector lags behind in electronic document management

A survey launched today by the market leader in multi-function printer (MFP) document imaging software, eCopy, Inc., reveals that the public sector is lagging behind the private sector in adoption of document management systems (DMS). Of the organisations polled, 42% of those in the public sector said they use a DMS compared to around half (52%) of their private sector counterparts.

The independent research report, called ‘Effective data protection – reality and risks’, was conducted online with over 100 senior executives, operational and administrative staff in UK public, private and voluntary organisations. The research found that more respondents from the private sector are familiar with DMS than those in the public sector (48% and 31% respectively).

Although figures for making a paper copy of the original are similar in both the public (32%) and private (33%) sector, only 14% from the public sector capture the document electronically, compared to nearly four in ten (38%) in the private sector.

When it comes to storage of copies, both sectors use a combination of methods. In the public sector, nine out of ten (91%) organisations are using traditional filing cabinets to store copies of original documents, with 72% using electronic data storage. This compares to 67% and 90% respectively for the private sector.

When asked how they disposed of original documents, 33% in the private and 20% in the public sector said they simply recycle documents as they are. Alarmingly, 4% of respondents from the public sector admitting to binning them without shredding them first.

Commenting on the research, eCopy’s sales director for UK and Ireland, Simon Hill, explains: “The research highlights a need for improved organisational procedures in public sector organisations with regard to taking copies of sensitive documentation, its storage and disposal after use. Document management and document imaging solutions provide enhanced security of document capture, storage and disposal – all of which helps to protect against fraud and theft of information and identities.

“The best solution to capture sensitive data is to introduce it into a secure electronic workflow directly from the input device, either an MFP or scanner. The user can then protect and control who gets to view, edit or print the scanned document. In this way organisations can minimise potential failures, by enforcing adherence to business processes through Intelligent Document Routing.

“Intuitive document imaging solutions, such as eCopy ShareScan, eliminate the need for creating paper copies as well as reducing risk when disposing of them. They also enable increased productivity, better compliance through effective audit trails and increased return on investment in existing infrastructure, software and hardware, including multi-function printers.”

Two-thirds share personal information with strangers – knowingly or unknowingly

Members of online social networks may be more vulnerable to financial loss, identity theft and malware infection than they realise, according to a new survey from Webroot, a leading provider of Internet security software for the consumer, enterprise and SME markets.

Surveying over 1,100 members of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and other popular social networks, Webroot uncovered numerous behaviours that put social networkers’ identities and wallets at risk.

Among the highlights:
• Two-thirds of respondents don’t restrict any details of their personal profile from being visible through a public search engine like Google;
• Over half aren’t sure who can see their profile;
• About one third include at least three pieces of personally identifiable information;
• Over one third use the same password across multiple sites; and
• One quarter accept “friend requests” from strangers

“The growth of social networks presents hackers with a huge target. The amount of time spent on communities like Facebook last year grew at three times the rate of overall Internet growth,” said Mike Kronenberg, chief technology officer of Webroot’s Consumer business. “Three in ten people Webroot polled experienced a security attack through a social network in the past year, including identity theft, malware infection, spam, unauthorised password changes and “friend in distress” money-stealing scams. The first step to staying protected is being aware of what the threats are and knowing how to help prevent them.”

Social Networks Present New Opportunities for Cybercriminals
Cybercriminals employ various types of trickery and malware to capitalise on risky behaviours. One common tactic is phishing, which hackers use to entice victims into downloading an infected file, visiting a disreputable site outside the social network, or wiring money to a “friend in distress.”

In recent months, Webroot has seen an increase in these types of attacks on social networks, including “Trojan-MyBlot,” which targeted users of MyYearbook.com, and others targeting Facebook users including “Koobface” and several spread through the domains “mygener.im,” “ponbon.im” and “hunro.im.”

“Hackers lure users into taking actions they shouldn’t by making it appear as if a friend within their social network has sent them a message – only the message is from a hacker who’s hijacked the friend’s account,” continued Kronenberg. “We’ve seen instances where a salacious yet poorly worded message like, ‘This video of u is evrywhere’ includes a link that, when clicked, prompts the user to download a seemingly legitimate file which, once on your PC, can do a number of things -- spam your friends, monitor your online activity or record your personal information.”

Hackers can also use less sophisticated means to execute attacks on social networks: The Webroot survey respondents who reported experiencing identity theft, a hijacked account and unauthorised username or password changes may have been victimised by hackers who were able to access their profiles and guess their passwords based on the personal information they included.

Summary of Key Findings
Results indicate a general lack of awareness of the security risks on social networks and the tools available to protect personal information, as well as higher rates of risky behaviours exhibited by younger social networkers.

Social networkers make private information public:
• 80 percent allow at least part of their profiles to be searchable through Google or other public search engines; 73 percent don’t restrict any profile information from being visible through public search
• Over half (59 percent) of respondents aren’t sure who can see their profile
• Over one quarter (28 percent) accept friend requests from strangers; of those, one third (36 percent) do not cloak any of their profile information
• About one third (32 percent) include at least three pieces of identifiable information

Privacy concerns outweigh protective actions:
• 78 percent expressed some concern over the privacy of the information they share in their profiles
• However, 36 percent use the same password across multiple sites
• And 30 percent do not have adequate protection against viruses and spyware

Younger users take more risks – 18-29 year olds are more likely to:
• Use the same password across multiple sites (51 percent, versus 36 percent overall)
• Accept a friend request from a stranger (40 percent, versus 28 percent overall)
• Share more personal information that may compromise online privacy (67 percent share birth date, versus 52 percent overall; 62 percent share home town, versus 50 percent overall; 45 percent share employer, versus 35 percent overall)
• Experience a security attack (nearly 40 percent, versus 30 percent overall)

Tips for Safe Social Networking
Webroot recommends the following actions to protect privacy and prevent threats on social networks.
• Guard your personal information – Use privacy settings to restrict who can see your sensitive information, or consider omitting all personal information from your profile
• Be skeptical -- E-mails, friend requests, Web site links and other items from sources you do not know could be laced with malware
• Choose passwords wisely -- Use different passwords for each of your sites; select a randomised combination of numbers and letters
• Have antivirus and antispyware protection – Even if you think you’re not infected, scan your machine for dormant viruses with a free scan; and protect your PC with an Internet security suite that includes antivirus, antispyware, and firewall technologies
• Always install updates – If you’re already using antimalware software, be sure to install updates which include the latest malware definitions; do the same with updates to your operating system
• Even with security in place, remain vigilant – Malware authors are continually writing new programs to avoid detection, so pay close attention to suspicious behaviour

Webroot offers several comprehensive Internet security solutions for consumers including Webroot® AntiVirus with AntiSpyware, and Webroot Internet Security Essentials. For more information about these and other products, please visit http://www.webroot.co.uk/En_GB/consumer.html.

Webroot, a Boulder, Colorado-based company with offices globally provides industry-leading security solutions to consumers, enterprises and small to medium-sized businesses worldwide. For more information visit www.webroot.co.,uk or call 0870 3516 788. Visit our Threat Blog at http://blog.webroot.com.

Neolane Unifies Inbound and Outbound Marketing Communications to Extend Cross-Channel Personalisation Benefits

New Platform Options Coordinate Offer Recommendations, Facilitate Collaboration Among Decentralised Teams and Perfect Contact Frequency to Boost Customer Engagement Strategies Enterprise marketing software provider Neolane (www.neolane.com) today announced the launch of Neolane Interaction™, Neolane Distributed Marketing™ and Neolane Campaign Optimisation™ as new options for its marketing automation platform. These options help marketers improve loyalty and create new revenue opportunities by unifying inbound and outbound communications; driving meaningful conversations; and presenting timely, relevant offers across channels.

“Today the notion of campaigns extends beyond traditional communication channels to include emerging and inbound channels like mobile, Web sites, landing pages and social networks. Campaign management applications struggle to keep up with the design, management and reporting needs of these channels,” wrote Suresh Vittal, principal analyst, Forrester Research in the April 2009 report titled ‘Campaign Management Needs A Reboot.’ “Campaign management tools must deliver a flexible, rule-based engine that allows marketers to design programs that promote a conversation rather than just push marketing communications… Campaign management tools must also use the history of a customer’s relationship with a firm to power dialogues across both inbound and outbound channels.”

Based on Neolane’s v5.1 platform, the three new options complement the capabilities of the company’s Cross-Channel Marketing Optimisation solution, which enables marketers to plan, create, execute and measure cross-channel campaigns in a consistent, highly-coordinated manner. New functionality is aimed at improving the effectiveness of cross-channel marketing campaignsat all stages of the customer lifecycle spanning email, contact centre, Web sites, direct mail and mobile communications. Specifically, marketers benefit from the following options:

Neolane Interaction

Neolane Interaction enables marketers to unify inbound and outbound offers as part of a comprehensive bi-directional cross-channel marketing strategy. It enables personalised, relevant and consistent customer conversations at every interaction. During inbound contact via the Web, contact centre or at the point of sale, Neolane Interaction is able to recommend offers in real-time over that channel, or as timely follow-ups via outbound channels such as email, direct, call centre and mobile. Personalisation is achieved through analysis of Neolane’s single customer view of declared and inferred behaviour across channels, and allows organisations to customise offers, including up-sell and cross-sell offers, based on the most recent customer interactions whether initiated by the consumer or the company.

Neolane Distributed Marketing

Neolane Distributed Marketing facilitates collaboration between central marketing departments, regional offices or points of sale that need to brand campaigns to better resonate with local audiences. Benefits of the Distributed Marketing solution include greater autonomy for local marketing operations, reduced costs and the sharing of best practices, while consistency of core elements is assured through the use of centralised resources. This solution also provides the ability for marketers to easily measure ROI for localised campaigns.

Neolane Campaign Optimisation

Increasing numbers of channels and hyper-segmentation are leading to high volumes of campaigns, causing customers to be at risk of over-solicitation. Using Neolane Campaign Optimisation, marketers can optimise contact frequency while identifying periods of under-contact to maximise response rates and cut through clutter.

”The secret to perfecting marketing campaigns is to recognise every customer and what is relevant to them, in every communication you have together, regardless of channel or whether contact is inbound or outbound,” said Stephane Dehoche, CEO at Neolane. “Neolane does exactly that. It builds and uses unified customer intelligence to allow marketers to generate automated, personalised and localised offer recommendations at the appropriate time and frequency to add value and win credibility with customers - building loyalty and an improved lifetime value.”

FACT FILE:

Neolane provides the only enterprise marketing software specifically designed to manage, automate and optimise coordinated, personalised messages across both traditional and emerging channels including mobile. Neolane’s cross-channel marketing solutions are built on a single, open platform that centrally manages direct marketing campaigns, leads, resources, customer data and analytics to improve effectiveness and ROI. More than 170 of the world’s most innovative marketers including Accor Hotels, Alcatel-Lucent, Orange and Sephora. Visit www.neolane.com.

New software will deliver flexible and creative data analysis for the life science and biotech industry

Qlucore Omics Explorer 2.0 will give researchers the speed and flexibility that they need to reveal important new discoveries.

Qlucore, a world leader in the development of bioinformatics software, has today unveiled the Qlucore Omics Explorer 2.0, a newly enhanced data analysis tool that has been developed for the life science and biotech industry. With its highly intuitive user interface, Qlucore Omics Explorer will allow researchers to shorten analysis time and add more creativity to research, thanks to the product's amazing speed and statistical analysis capabilities.

As it provides users with immediate results, this latest version of Qlucore's software (previously known as Qlucore Gene Expression Explorer) will enable researchers to explore different hypothesis and alternative scenarios within seconds. The software will therefore be invaluable for unveiling important new discoveries, as it will allow the actual researchers – the people with the most biological insight – to study the data and to look for patterns and structures, without needing to be a statistics or computer expert.

"Qlucore Omics Explorer 2.0 has been specially designed to improve everyday efficiency and stimulate creative data analysis," says Carl-Johan Ivarsson, President, Qlucore. "As with previous versions of our software, Qlucore Omics Explorer can provide extremely fast analysis of data sets that contain many samples – even those containing more than 100 million data samples – on a regular PC."

The latest enhancements to Qlucore Omics Explorer mean that the software can provide researchers with very powerful (and highly interactive) hierarchal clustering capabilities. The results are presented both as cluster trees and as a heatmap. The heatmap view works in full synchronisation with each of the other four plot types (PCA sample, PCA variable, scatter and data table).

Researchers can work simultaneously with all five plot types – all of which can be fully synchronised – even if the most common usage will include a subset. As such, if a researcher uses the software's powerful statistical filters, or wishes to deselect a sample group, all five plots are immediately updated to reflect this new point in the analysis.

Scatter plots, which can be used to plot how one variable is distributed over a group of samples, represent another new plot type in Qlucore Omics Explorer 2.0. With scatter plots, the grouping is freely selected among the annotations available for samples. Scatter plots are good for quality control and for presenting key findings and results.

Also new in Qlucore Omics Explorer 2.0 is a powerful log function which allows users to restore their research to an earlier point in their analysis. Since many users often work on parallel projects, it is important to keep track of the analysis steps. As a result, Qlucore Omics Explorer 2.0 gives the user full freedom to explore data in their own way, with the log function available to ensure that the user can document exactly which steps have been taken, without being forced to follow a single path.

ArtVPS enjoys great success with first software release

Pre-release debut of Shaderlight rendering plug-in for 3ds Max hits over 800 downloads in its first two weeks

Since entering the software market on 1 June 2009 ArtVPS has notched up over 800 downloads of Shaderlight 0.1, the pre-release version of its interactive Shaderlight rendering plug-in for 3ds Max, the leading 3D modelling tool from Autodesk.

Shaderlight 0.1 delivers significant productivity and creativity improvements over traditional ray-trace rendering engines. Until now a typical workflow for 3D artists and designers would involve spending time creating preview renders before sending the image off to render. Any last minute changes would mean starting the entire process again, an iterative and time-consuming approach which eats into project timelines and inhibits creativity.

Shaderlight is much more that a real-time preview tool, it enables visualisation specialists to change key elements of a full resolution image at any stage of the rendering process without having to re-render, improving efficiency and project turnaround. Users are not only able see the progressive refinement of a scene when objects or camera angles are altered but can also make interactive changes to materials, environments, lights and textures (the MELT elements) on full quality 3D images. Additionally, a new approach to global illumination (GI) enables light, colour and intensity to be updated on screen without the need to re-render.

“Shaderlight has been the most significant product release in our company's recent history,” says Kate Marshall, Marketing Director at ArtVPS. “We developed the software after extensive research which showed the top pain issues for 3D artists to be rendering speed, lighting and material set-up and fine tuning an image. We believe Shaderlight overcomes these problems and meets the demand for an interactive solution that frees the artist from the linear render-change-repeat workflow and gives them more time to be creative.”

Early adopters of the technology are helping shape the development of the software by providing feedback and sharing experiences in the Shaderlight forum (www.artvps.com/content/discuss) and on Twitter (http://twitter.com/shaderlight).

“We are delighted to see so many people actively participating in the forum and following our progress on Twitter,” adds Marshall. “The 3ds Max plug-in is the first in a series of Shaderlight products. Our aim is that the Shaderlight rendering technology will be available to anyone who needs to generate and edit high quality renders. We are focused on building long-term relationships and for this reason users who download v0.1 will receive every pre-release update for free.”

Shaderlight 0.1 is available as a free download from www.artvps.com. To help new users get to grips with this early release of Shaderlight, a number of scenes that demo its capabilities are now available from: http://www.artvps.com/content/resources#sample-scenes

ArtVPS leads the way in the development of photorealistic rendering solutions that generate visually accurate representations of 3D scenes. Its revolutionary flagship rendering technology, Shaderlight™, is a physically based, progressive ray-tracer that enables interactive, nonlinear changes to the key MELT attributes (materials, environments, lighting and textures) at any stage within the rendering process – even on production-ready images.

Shaderlight is aimed at 3D artists and computer graphics professionals within the product design, architecture, engineering and media industries. The technology will transform 3D visualisation workflows, and represents a dramatic boost to both productivity and creative freedom when compared to traditional linear ray-trace renderers, which require the rendering process to start again whenever image parameters are changed.

Founded in 2002, ArtVPS quickly established itself as the leading developer of dedicated rendering hardware, developing the first processor designed exclusively to accelerate ray tracing of 3D data. ArtVPS is now pioneering the development of rendering software that fully exploits the increased capabilities of today’s processor technology.

www.artvps.com

Global Benchmark in Open Source Attitudes and Adoption Broadens to include China, North America, UK, Germany and France and Secures Close to 1500 Respondents

Actuate Corporation,leader in delivering Rich Internet Applications Without Limits™ today announced that its fourth annual open source survey, has extended to include China and it has once again attracted record responses.

Actuate’s comprehensive international annual market study, conducted independently by Survey Interactive, is now in its fourth year. This continuity ensures its role as an unrivalled industry benchmark of organisations’ use of open source software, and charts the accelerating and developing pace of adoption across markets and industry sectors. Closely examining organisations’ developing attitudes towards open source, this year’s research adds an additional dimension to the findings, including China for the first time, in addition to the key territories previously polled – France, Germany, the UK and North America.

China is a vast open source market and its inclusion in the 2009 Actuate Open Source Survey gives increased insight into its adoption rates and attitudes, which contrast with the take-up and opinion in other major regions. By reducing the cost of technology ownership, open source in China seems to be the ideal antidote to the recession, while providing a solution for information safety, a means of breaking the monopoly in the software industry and a boost to China’s own innovation.

As in previous years, business and IT professionals from the financial services sector, public sector and the manufacturing industry were invited to take part in an online survey to provide insights and perspectives into how open source software is perceived; its benefits and inhibitors; and how their organisations plan to harness the technology in the future.

Highlights of the 2009 Actuate Open Source Survey include:

• China reveals high adoption rates with a large majority of those surveyed (80.3%) using open source software. In all regions surveyed the main perceived benefit of open source software is no licence costs. However access to source code was uniquely given a 72.6% rating by Chinese respondents.

• In North America two-fifths of respondents are already using open source (41.0%) with close to one-tenth of respondents either in the process of adopting or planning to adopt. The proportion of respondents who feel that the benefits of open source software outweigh the inhibitors (56.8%) is nearly seven times higher than the proportion that disagree (8.4%). These results are even more positive than in the previous survey.

• Europe continues to capitalise on its early recognition of open source software’s potential, in particular France where over two thirds (67.0%) of the respondents already use open source software and Germany where the proportion using open source software has increased this year to 60.6%. This contrasts with the UK at 42.1% adoption and the USA at 41.0%

• Germany’s attitudes to open source adoption continue to be more positive than neighbouring UK. For example the proportion of UK respondents who feel that the benefits of open source software outweigh the inhibitors has decreased this year to 47.0% (from 54.0% in 2008) whereas Germany scores 62.0% in favour of open source, a notable increase since last year’s survey.

• The UK shows little change since last year with just over two fifths (42.1%) already using open source software. Significantly the UK continues to demonstrate a degree of reticence towards open source adoption with almost a quarter (22.4%) still monitoring developments but not yet evaluating.

“China is a huge and very influential market for business and IT trends. Its inclusion in the 2009 Actuate Open Source Survey is a true mark of Actuate’s leadership and innovation in their field. This was a first Chinese survey for Survey Interactive, and we are delighted with the very positive response rate that was generated,” said Guy Lipscombe, Managing Director of Survey Interactive. “The survey is now in its fourth year and is growing year on year, further validating its position as a global benchmark for usage and attitudes towards Open Source software.”

”{{The Actuate Open Source Survey has become an institution, both within the Actuate community and among industry watchers}},” said Nobby Akiha, SVP Marketing for Actuate Corporation. “We are studying the 2009 results closely as well as watching for trends that emerge form our survey now in its fourth year. The survey is just one of the ways in which Actuate gives back to the open source movement, and indeed it helps us to understand the most effective ways to galvanise the community that has grown around BIRT.”

Actuate Corporation is dedicated to increasing the richness, interactivity and effectiveness of enterprise data, for everyone, everywhere. Actuate delivers the next generation RIA-ready information platform for both customer and employee-facing applications. The Actuate platform boasts unmatched scalability, high-performance, reliability and security. Its proven RIA capabilities and highly collaborative development architecture are backed by the world's largest open source information application developer community, grounded in BIRT, the Eclipse Foundation’s only top level Business Intelligence and reporting project.

Global 9000 organisations use Actuate to roll out RIA-enabled customer loyalty and Performance Management applications that improve customer satisfaction and employee productivity. The company has over 4,400 customers globally in a diverse range of business areas including financial services and the public sector, many of which have a long history of deploying Actuate-based solutions for dozens, or even hundreds of their mission-critical applications.

Founded in 1993, Actuate has headquarters in San Mateo, California, with offices worldwide. Actuate is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol ACTU. For more information on Actuate, visit the company's web site at www.actuate.com.

Global mission charity implements new intranet

BMS World Mission, a Christian global mission agency, has announced that it has implemented the latest version of Odyssey Interactive’s intranet solution – Interact 4.0.

BMS will use Odyssey’s intranet solution to enable its new global intranet – which will connect hundreds of staff and volunteers worldwide. The new intranet will enable BMS staff to have a central point of information, regardless of location, and allow them to share latest news and access key policy information.

The charity previously used a traditional shared network drive to store charity documents before upgrading to their initial intranet solution in 2002. The intranet has helped improve communication between UK and overseas workers as well as share information with the charity trustees. Interact 4 has improved performance, and with its sophisticated search engine and improved document creation facility, has proved popular with BMS staff.

David Locke, Director for Finance and Corporate Services at BMS, commented: “As our organisation has grown and developed it has become more and more important for us to adopt an efficient and quick approach to enterprise search. Odyssey’s technology was the ideal solution as it was able to extend the functionality of our existing intranet solution. Working in many countries it was essential for us to have a highly secure solution that could cope with varying, and, at times, highly limited bandwidth.”

Suzanne Linnell the Project Leader for the new initiative said “{{The intranet is key to building communication across the organisation}}. We are encouraging our staff to be proactive in building up the intranet and make use of the features to comment, update and rate individual documents. The flexibility of the homepage elements means that we can direct information to each group of users, ensuring they have quick access to their key documents. Going forward, all departments will use the intranet for storing and managing the documents that they share with other users.”

Nigel Danson, MD of Odyssey commented

“Charities have a vast range of information to communicate to both staff and trustees such as operational guidance issues, best practice and governance documents and the amount of information now required to be kept up-to-date and accessible by law is rapidly increasing. Charities typically have to make do with very limited resources so we wanted to develop Interact 4.0 to include more features which would further increase efficiency and save money by making information quicker and easer to find.

Interact 4.0 incorporates document quality tools such as auto review dates, content feedback and ratings which are enabling BMS to ensure that content is up-to-date and relevant. The 'Interact recommends' feature promotes content to users by bringing together associated information quickly and simply. All information is kept securely, with access controlled where required, and easily searched so information can be pulled up in seconds. Even with these enhanced features Interact 4.0 is still completely intuitive and requires virtually no training, so even part-time or voluntary staff can quickly get up to speed.

We are delighted to have worked with BMS to create an intranet that demonstrates their dedication to improving communication and collaboration for their staff and volunteers worldwide. We are incredibly pleased with the end result and look forward to continuing to work closely with BMS to further develop their intranet."

Revelation Software Announces the Release of the Universal Driver 4.6

Revelation Software are pleased to announce the release of the latest version of their popular Universal Driver, version 4.6.

This new version features a brand new installer and support for large records and key sizes has also been greatly enhanced. There are an increasing number of occasions where more intelligence is being built into record keys. As a result, Revelation have found that parts of the system sometimes handles the keys correctly and in other parts it treats them as a bug, resulting in false errors being reported. This issue has now been addressed.

However, this new version will not support unlimited length record keys. Record keys can now be a maximum of 512 characters long. Any keys that exceed this limit will now be ‘illegal’ and applications will be unable to either read, or write them. The server event log will report Linear Hash Error 1016 for this condition. Since this will make the records unreadable, they will be treated as though there is a ‘group format error’ (GFE) in any table that contains them. For this reason, the Database Manager tools in OpenInsight 9.1 have been updated to report the errors (LH Verify) and the ‘Fix’ option has been enhanced to copy them to a new table called DUMP_FIX_SAVE.

Furthermore, there is a more critical fix to address; the an issue with the Fix GFE option on the current ‘Verify LH’ menu. In previous releases, this system silently considers any records with keys greater than 50 characters long to be GFE’s. Anyone running the ‘Fix GFE’ option will lose any records that have keys longer than 50 characters. As a result of this issue, an RDK containing a FIX_LH routine is being included with the Universal Driver 4.6 release. This updated routine will remove the ’50-character-throwaway’ functionality and replaces it with the new ‘512-character-save’ functionality.

In addition to all of the above, the Universal Driver 4.6 now provides backwards compatibility with all previous versions of Linear Hash files, something that was lost from the Universal Driver 3.0 onwards. The client driver’s (not the service) internal file handle management has been enhanced for improved handling of open tables. The Universal Driver can now manage over 300 open and active tables from a single client – although the reasonable design of such an application would not be recommended.

The Universal Driver 4.6 is fully supported on the following servers: Windows 2000 SP1 and later, both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 2003 SP1 and above and 32-bit Windows 2008. Please note that Novell and Linux servers are not supported at the present time. As with the earlier Universal Drivers, Windows 95/98 workstations are not supported, leaving Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista Business. or Ultimate as deployment options. The Universal Driver 4.6 currently supports ARev 2.03 or later and OpenInsight version 4.1 or later – 16-bit OpenInsight is not supported.

“This is an especially good release that addresses several long standing issues.” said Martyn Phillips, Business Development Manager for Revelation EMEA. “These issues have only just come to Revelation’s attention because OpenInsight deployed systems that have been in use for many years (some over a decade), are becoming larger and larger and these issues only arise in such circumstances. We are therefore pleased to have these legacy issues addressed before most users eperience them.”

Revelation are therefore urging anyone running Advanced Revelation or 32-bit OpenInsight on a Windows server with or without an older Revelation Network product, to seriously consider this a necessary upgrade.

FACT FILE:
Founded in 1982, Revelation Software delivers a suite of application development tools and companion services that take full advantage of leading network computing architectures, messaging, groupware, and client server platforms. Today, the company's flagship product OpenInsight is the only database development and application environment that provides both Windows and Java-based GUI tools to develop and deploy web-based and client server applications that support native and relational XML, SQL, Lotus Notes and the leading legacy Multi-Value data sources such a ARev, Pick and IBM Universe. There are more than 1.5 million licensed users of Revelation products across 60,000 deployed sites worldwide. For more information visit www.revsoft.co.uk.

Hays Information Technology reports IT leads organisational efficiency

Hays Information Technology, a leading specialist recruitment company, reports a number of specialist IT skill sets have come to the fore during the current climate, as organisations seek to maximise efficiencies.

Providing technical solutions in a structured and cost-effective manner remains a key priority, particularly for larger organisations and consequently this has led to sustained demand for architecture expertise in the current IT architect jobs market. "Enterprise architects can still command excellent salaries and remuneration levels reflect the substantial cost savings that these individuals can bring to their organisations," commented James Lloyd-Townshend, Managing Director at Hays Information Technology.

The focus on cost efficiency has also fuelled demand for business intelligence consultants, whose remit is to prepare management information reports, keep senior stakeholders informed on all aspects of company performance and highlight areas where resources need to be diverted in order to optimise financial outlays. "SharePoint experience is a particular skill set that employers are looking for, as this can make a real difference to the way businesses share information, which in turn has a dual knock-on effect on engagement and productivity," added Lloyd-Townshend.

Virtualisation is a central part of an organisation's IT strategy in achieving consolidating and standardising infrastructure. This results in server and device consolidation and these reductions mean less capital expenditure, lower power consumption and maintenance costs, fewer human resource support requirements and software licenses. Cloud computing and cloud-based applications are seen as a pivotal part of this economy drive. Other specialist skills that are currently in demand for IT jobs include VMware, C# and .Net.

Some of the larger organisations in particular will be looking to increase their expenditure on IT projects during the second half of the year, in preparation for the upturn. "Businesses will initially look to bring in senior interim professionals to manage these projects and we would then expect them to gradually increase their permanent headcount as and when the market starts to pick up," added Lloyd-Townshend. "Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are also taking advantage of the current market conditions to attract talent and these organisations offer opportunities for individuals to make a real difference to their businesses."

While the nature of the current economic climate has altered the parameters for IT recruitment, many organisations are reassessing their requirements in preparation for delivering fundamental strategic projects, as this represents an opportunity to steal a march on the competition and subsequently gain market share. IT professionals can also bring their commercial skills to bear in the public sector, which is keen to hire individuals with a commercial background. "It is important that jobseekers research transferable skills and understand how these organisations operate," added Lloyd-Townshend as a note of caution.

Finding increasingly cost effective infrastructure solutions, enabling faster data access across organisations and sharing information to gain operational efficiencies have all led to a steady demand for specialist IT skill sets, which will help organisations through the downturn and provide a solid platform for the economic recovery.

VirtualServers.com creates Industry Buzz around Swarm VPS package

VirtualServers.com, a leading industry innovator of Virtual Server hosting solutions, has launched an innovative VPS package aimed at rewarding every single customer’s loyalty - the Swarm Virtual Server.

As the name Swarm suggests, the package concept uses the aggregated movement of customers through a 11 stage chain or ‘swarm’ to trigger percentage discounts. Each swarm stage nets the customer a 10% reduction in the amount that he or she pays for their hosting service. Customers who reach the 11th stage will be given a 100% discount or in simple terms will receive a highly available and supported virtual server solution free of charge. The greater the number of new customers that join the swarm, the quicker the stages are triggered and the higher the discounts enjoyed by the existing customer base.

Errol Vanderhorst, Managing Director at virtualservers.com, stated: “The Swarm process may seem complicated at first, but actually it’s incredibly simple. Imagine the process as a theme park ride. Once the car is filled with paying customers, it sets off on a journey; differing discounts are then applied as it reaches various journey milestones, and a new set of customers start to fill the next car and await their turn. The only difference with our Swarm package is that our customers don’t disembark, once they have reached the 100% discount milestone – they stay there!”.

The Swarm Server is just one of a number of tailored VPS solutions now on offer from virtualservers.com. As well as the Swarm, customers can also consider the Metatrader VPS, built specifically to allow users to trade online, or the Ruby VPS, built specifically for Ruby on Rails developers. Each server, regardless of package, is supported fully 24 x7, offers totally flexibility, is fully backed up and utilises the latest virtualised technology.

Errol added “We’re fast becoming recognised as a leading innovator in the supply of virtual servers to the market, and we see the launch of the Swarm as further endorsing this viewpoint, whilst genuinely giving our customers a real and tangible reward for their loyalty.

The worlds smallest, thinnest and most covert GPS, GSM and RF tracking device ever

CATS-i ltd are pleased to announce that the CATSi device so eagerly anticipated is finally coming out of R&D.

The CATSi, uses the smallest and lowest profile components available to create an extremely small and thin GPS,GSM and RF tracking product.

Designed to track almost any asset from pets and people through to cars, motorbikes and HGV's the CATSi will open up markets that have never been accessible to GPS tracking before.

The CATSi can come in several variants from completely waterproof to long battery life. The CATSi device is battery powered as standard but it can also be hardwired to vehicles or solar powered.

The CATSi’s main unique selling points are its dimensions: Depending upon the model that you need, the CATSi will measure from 45mm x 35mm x 12mm to 70mm x 45mm x 8mm (flexible).

The CATSi is designed to provide the best possible chance of recovering your "tracked" asset regardless of its current location. The inclusion of an RF beacon allows for accurate locating when hidden inside buildings and a new GSM location technology provided by a partner of CATS-i Ltd provides almost GPS-like accuracy in mapped areas.

The CATSi device is the most adaptable and versatile GPS tracking system available to date and the company are now looking to showcase the product from the 1st week in July 2009.

"it has been a long and often bumpy road to get here" says Lee Walkey, CATS-I Ltd’s Sales Director "but the end product is entirely worth it and we know that it will blow the GPS tracking industry wide open to almost any asset of value. The tracking of motor vehicles will no longer be the industry standard."

The CATSi will be priced to compete with almost any other similar system currently on the market, but its mass market consumer potential will be its driving focal point.

To book a demonstration of the new CATSi product, or for more information on the system, please email Lee Walkey on info@cats-i.net or visit us at www.cats-i.net .

Children and teenagers need protection from the dangers of the internet

Avanquest Solutions launched Net Nanny Mac in the UK at the end of 2008. Until then, there had not been an Apple compatible solution to the problem of filtering out unwanted internet content. The software, which provides a further lever of protection to the parental controls in the Mac OS X Leopard operating system, has been well received by the Mac community.

Net Nanny for Mac 2.0 includes stronger filtering and anti-predator capabilities, age-based profile settings and remote management capabilities with an easier to use interface for applying filtering options.

If you are concerned about Gaming – Net Nanny Mac 2.0 Game filtering allows you to filter the IP addresses of 40 major games (WOW, Quake, UT, etc.), based on content and rating.

“Parents are worried about the constantly evolving dangers of the internet” said Catherine Hodges, Marketing Manager at Avanquest Solutions. “With Net Nanny for Mac, users can protect their computers and safeguard their children from unwanted Internet content. The software establishes a barrier around your computer with its predefined categories, but also allows users to create their own custom categories, offering a level of protection that is unmatched.”

Here are a few reasons why Net Nanny is far superior to Apple's parental controls in Leopard.

• Blocks Specific Protocols like Streaming Video or Peer-to-Peer.
• Regularly Updated Filters.
• Anti-Predator Mode in Chat Sessions.

FACT FILE:

Net Nanny Mac 2.0 costs £21.27 for a single user DVD. Licensing costs start at £19.32 per license for up to 5 users, reducing to £9.93 per license for 500 users and above. Prices quoted exclude VAT.

To buy: Contact Avanquest Solutions on 01752 318078 or email jtaylor@avanquest-solutions.co.uk, or you can order online from the Avanquest Shop at http://www.avanquest.com

Net Nanny Mac 2.0 is available for review. Please contact Catherine Hodges to request a copy chodges@avanquest-solutions.co.uk

A Net Nanny/Apple Parental Controls comparison table and a selection of images can be downloaded at http://www.avanquest-solutions.co.uk/press

Early Adopting Agencies Stealing Charge with Social Media

Reality Digital, the leading provider of brand focused social network software for businesses, has noted an influx of agencies placing themselves at the forefront of social media by utilising software products and hosted service platforms for storing, sharing, managing and monetising user generated content such as video, photos, games and text.

Reality Digital’s Harmony solution is an easy-to-use, self-serve social media solution for SMBs enabling them to build, configure and manage online communities to develop brand awareness, enhance audience engagement and generate revenue.

This type of software is being utilised by numerous agencies in the UK to differentiate them from the competition by placing themselves at the forefront of the latest social networking technology creating a video platform or rich media site to enable their brands to communicate with their customers within a unique community.

Harmony allows users to build from scratch an entire site filled with the latest digital media and User Generated Content (UGC) along with social networking capabilities.

Robert Proctor, Head of EMEA at Reality Digital explains, “We have seen a huge number of agencies adopting a social networking application such as Harmony to place themselves at the forefront of the social media revolution and offer their brands a way of generating buzz and interest, encouraging interaction and involvement, and maintain an ongoing dialogue with their customers”

Online communities can be utilised to raise awareness unlike traditional advertising campaigns that reach an abrupt end, empowering the consumer. Used well, a white label social network enables innovative brands to capture their customers’ imaginations and allow them to drive and enforce the brand message.

Harmony is built on the enterprise-scale Reality Digital OpusTM core technology platform. Harmony customers benefit from its seamlessly integrated broad-based digital media engine, popular social networking features and comprehensive content moderation and site analytics tools.

For more information visit www.realitydigital.com, or call 01858 411 600.

Video Streaming Gives New Meaning to Web Surfing

As the surfing season reaches its height in Britain, more and more surfers log on to check out the conditions at CheckItLive. But they’re joined by an ever-increasing number of armchair surfers, captivated by being able to watch the real surfers.

Surfers are being joined by a growing audience of casual observers in checking out the surf, as it is that moment, online. Live webcams allow surfers to log on and check out the surf conditions in real time before deciding which beach to head for, providing an invaluable service for the aficionados. But they’re not the only ones accessing the TV-quality images. The timeless appeal of watching the waves coming in, combined with the skill of the surfers, is now proving a hit with thousands of others on the Internet.

It seems that there’s something almost mesmerising about being able to watch the surf on a distant beach, knowing that what is being watched is not some recording but is actually happening right now. Enthusiastic visitors to the CheckItLive site CheckItLive speak about their fascination with checking out the size of the waves each day and the thrill of watching the surfers. Some use it to dream about their holidays to come, others, sometimes from the other side of the world, talk about the joy of being able to revisit favourite places. Some, it seems, even use it to check on their children in the surf and on the beach!

ZBD reaches 100th store implementation

ZBD, the epaper for retail specialist, announces that it has reached its 100th store implementation of its epop (electronic point of purchase) solution. This brings the total number of stores that have installed its epaper displays to one hundred, with 23 retailers located across 7 countries within Europe and the US.

SISA’s Brambilla SAS store, located near Milan, Italy, marks the one hundredth store implementation, and has deployed epops within its fresh produce department. SISA Nord-Ovest, the Italian supermarket giant is currently accelerating the rollout of ZBD’s solution across its estate with ZBD’s Italian partner, Proxima-Centauri Informatica.

“Reaching our 100th store implementation is a huge milestone for ZBD. We’ve invested significantly in the development of what we believe to be a superior product range and the technology that sits behind it.” said Shaun Gray, ZBD’s CEO, before continuing, “We launched the epop 50 earlier in 2009 which is already proving a success and helping to drive mass store adoption. We have a number of imminent customer announcements that will reinforce our credibility yet further within the retail marketplace.”

Commenting on the achievement, Mr Santini, President of SISA Nord-Ovest said “We are delighted that one of SISA’s stores marks the 100th implementation. SISA delivers a superior customer experience to thousands of shoppers every day, and ZBD’s innovative solution has definitely contributed towards our success.”

Gianluca Pinoli of Italy-based Proxima-Centauri said, “ZBD has made considerable progress over the last year and I am pleased that we have been involved with such a significant achievement. We are working on a number of projects with ZBD currently, so we are looking forward to seeing that number of store implementations increase.”

Avanquest Solutions brings Innotas IT Governance to the UK market

Avanquest Solutions has recently been appointed the sole UK partner for Innotas, the only Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution designed to manage the Governance of IT.

The on-demand system, which is suitable for any organisation – SME’s through to large corporates – wanting to keep a close eye on every aspect of IT, provides Application Portfolio Management (APM) and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) in a single toolkit. Globally, Innotas has more than 100 customers and 12,000 users.

IT Governance - ensuring that expectations for IT are met, its performance is measured, its resources are managed, and its risks are mitigated - is the difference between success and failure in today's ever more demanding environment. Keeping track and control of all these elements is no easy task. Poor visibility of costs, time to task and the inability to cope with evolving ‘what-if’ scenarios are just some of the reasons behind the failure of so many IT projects.

Innotas helps companies to sustain their operations and to align their project progress and performance with strategic goals, by bringing together information held within line of business applications such as CRM, ERP and SAP into a central place – providing a ‘single view’ of every element of IT.

Chris Thompson, Managing Director, Avanquest Solutions said, “Innotas compliments Avanquest’s portfolio of business solutions, which are all designed to help organisations improve efficiency and cut costs. The need to make your IT projects and Operations run as efficiently as possible has never been greater. Capex budgets are being slashed and there is absolutely no room for an IT project that takes up precious resource and fails to deliver on time, functionality and on budget.”

Ian Carvell, EMEA Solutions Director, Innotas said, “This is an ideal partnership; bringing together the strengths of Avanquest and Innotas provides a truly world class SaaS IT Governance solution to the UK for the first time. The UK market is embracing the SaaS model, which is becoming the preferred approach for new IT solutions. The subscription based pricing and low up-front costs, coupled with continual best practise functionality and customer service, delivers high ROI and ensures maximum efficiency of the management of IT.”

FACT FILE:

Innotas made its market debut in 2000 and has quickly established itself as an innovative force inside the PPM industry, as well as an emerging player within the growing community of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies. In 2007 and 2008, Innotas reported 400% growth.

In the latest Magic Quadrant, by Gartner (www.gartner.com), Innotas was placed in the Visionaries Quadrant for IT Project and Portfolio Management. Gartner stated, “Innotas provides PPM for IT functionality at more cost effective price point than other PPM vendors in this space”.

Innotas was also quoted recently in the New York Times blog – ‘Hints of a Tech Gold Mine in Stimulus Package’ by Steve Lohr.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/hints-of-a-tech-gol...

Further information can be found at http://www.avanquest-solutions.co.uk/innotas/index.php

Mezeo Software and iomart Group Partner to Deliver Cloud Storage Services

Mezeo Software Corp.the leading provider of a deployable platform for cloud storage, today announced that iomart Group plc has selected the Mezeo Cloud Storage Platform for their implementation of a cloud based distributed solution that allows the customer to create a virtual storage area that can be shared between servers, workstations and users. The service supports most popular operating systems including iphones. With full access and control, iomart’s customers will be able to administer their files anytime, anywhere.

Based in the U.K., iomart Group is one of Europe’s leading providers of managed hosting and data center services.

As a Mezeo Premier Hosting Partner, iomart Group will be selling cloud storage solutions powered by the Mezeo Cloud Storage Platform™ directly to customers and partners.

“The Mezeo Cloud Storage Platform is a perfect fit because {{it lets us leverage our own storage infrastructure and quickly and cost-effectively brings us cloud storage solutions to market}} via the Group’s own brands,” said Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart. “With Mezeo, we are able to immediately enter a market that is experiencing rapid growth and adoption, and with a solution that is built upon proven technology.”

“Our Premier Hosting Partner status with Mezeo is very much in line with the Group’s strategy of becoming the UK’s foremost hosting company, focused on the delivery of managed hosting environments and solutions, be they virtual, dedicated, cloud, or SaaS.”

“The iomart Group clearly satisfies our requirements as significant, trusted service provider and has the necessary data center infrastructure and expertise to build confidence in cloud storage services,” said Steve Lesem, President and CEO with Mezeo. ”We are looking forward to working with iomart to help bring cloud storage capabilities to their existing customers and to expand their market reach. The Mezeo Cloud Storage Platform will enable iomart Group to offer cloud storage services as part of its one stop managed hosting and IT shop.”

Mezeo’s Cloud Storage Platform solutions feature secure file storage, advanced file sharing and collaboration, content tagging and true anywhere access from an integrated Windows desktop, rich Web 2.0 browsers and iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile native client access. Mezeo is easy to deploy, highly scalable and highly secure, with well-designed APIs for platform extensibility.

Adobe Announces Major Update To Acrobat.Com

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Acrobat.com has moved out of public beta and will offer two new paid subscription services that add capacity and capabilities for intensive business use. Since Acrobat.com first launched in June 2008, 5 million people have signed up to use the innovative service, with over 100,000 people signing up each week. Outlining a vision for online collaboration that establishes a new way for business people to work together on the Web, Adobe also provided a look into the future of Acrobat.com. Planned features include shared team workspaces and smartphone access, as well as a spreadsheet-like application, Acrobat.com Tables, which joins the recently announced Presentations application on Acrobat.com Labs.

“Acrobat.com is poised to become the online destination for team collaboration, with the tools business people need to get work done faster, together, from anywhere. Our customers have moved from e-mailing multiple versions of documents back and forth to collaborating on documents directly in a fluid online environment,” said Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president, Adobe’s Business Productivity Business Unit. “Over the next 12 months, we will continue to add powerful yet simple-to-use team collaboration capabilities that establish a new way to work, while removing barriers to getting work done within and across companies and around the world.”

Adobe is announcing two new Acrobat.com Premium subscription services that address the intense collaboration needs of business people, enabling them to be more productive by bringing them to documents to work together in real-time, rather than sending attachments to inboxes and invitations to calendars. Available today, both Premium offerings include Adobe phone and Web support programs. The Premium Basic service includes Adobe ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to five participants and online conversion of 10 uploaded documents to PDF per month. The Premium Plus service includes ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to 20 participants and unlimited online creation of PDF files. The free service will continue to offer Adobe® Buzzword® online word processing, ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to three participants, and online creation of up to five PDF files.

“Improved collaboration is a critical need for today’s companies that must move faster and do more with less. At the same time, business people expect to use online technology at work just like they do outside the workplace – especially the generation now entering the workforce,” said Melissa Webster, program vice president, Content and Digital Media Technologies, IDC. “Successful online collaboration tools will show the potential of cloud-based services to revolutionize the way business people get work done by helping teams stay connected and work together much more efficiently in real-time."

Over the next year, Adobe plans to extend the team collaboration capabilities of Acrobat.com to provide simple, anywhere access to an open and comprehensive online workspace, such as:
• More real-time document collaboration tools that use the power and richness of the Adobe Flash® Platform to provide a cool user experience in the browser and on the desktop
• A simple new interface that streamlines access to the tools business people need to create, share and meet online to get work done as a team
• Shared team workspaces that let groups of people work on and keep track of documents they need to finish projects, without the pain of version control and e-mail attachments
• Mobile access so people can upload, manage and share Acrobat.com documents from iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows® Mobile smartphones
• Social media style updates from the documents people are working on to stay informed about what is happening and what needs to be done
• Deeper integration with desktop tools including Adobe products and Microsoft® Outlook 2007, plus import from and export to Microsoft, Open Office and PDF formats
• Increased support for the Adobe developer community, including access to the underlying technologies of Acrobat.com, as well as its rapidly growing customer base.

In support of the www.Acrobat.com vision, Adobe today also announced the preview release of Acrobat.com Tables, a spreadsheet-like application that is available immediately for free sign-up as a public beta, joining the Acrobat.com Presentations application on Acrobat.com Labs. Acrobat.com Tables provides people with a new way to work with others on data-intensive documents – such as task lists, schedules, contacts, budgets and sales numbers – that are typically created and shared in spreadsheets or simple databases. People can easily work with others on the same table at the same time, without the worry of version control or e-mailing spreadsheets back and forth. Because the table lives online, people can access and work on the data from any Internet-connected computer, regardless of where they are located.

Toshiba Develops A New High-K/Ge Gate Stack Technology For Lsis At 16 Nanometers (Nm) Node And Beyond

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6052) today announced a significant advance in the development of a gate stack and interlayer with high carrier mobility that can be applied to advanced metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MISFETs) in future generations of LSIs.

The ultra-thin, Equivalent Oxide Thickness (EOT)(1)-scalable high-k/Ge gate stack with strontium germanide (SrGex) interlayer with high carrier mobility is a basic technology with potential for application in MISFETs at the 16 nm node and beyond. The technology will be presented today during Session 4B of the 2009 VLSI Symposia in Kyoto, Japan.

Current MISFET uses silicon for the channel, but physical limitations of silicon will make it difficult to obtain sufficient drive current in future scaled down MISFETs. Germanium (Ge) has long been known as an alternative offering higher carrier mobility characteristics, but significant technical challenges exist in implementing germanium in LSIs. Development of gate stack structures for Ge-MISFETs is one of the challenges. There are reports of achieving high hole mobility by adopting germanium dioxide (GeO2) in the gate stack insulating layer, but due to its low dielectric constant, there still remains the challenge of reducing the EOT to 0.5 nm, which is required for the 16 nm node and after.

Toshiba has achieved a technology that overcomes the twin challenges of fabricating a thin gate stack while maintaining high hole mobility, by inserting SrGex, a compound of strontium (Sr) and germanium, as an interlayer between the high-k insulating layer and the germanium channel.

Germanium is first subject to heat surface treatment in an ultra-high vacuum, and a layer of strontium of up to ten atoms is deposited on the surface of the germanium, followed by a lanthanum aluminate

(LaAlO3) high-k film. Finally, the gate stack is annealed in a nitrogen atmosphere. The SrGex layer is formed during these processes, between the high-k film and the germanium channel.

The new technology realizes peak(2) hole mobility of 481 cm2/Volt second (Vsec), a record high value for high-k/Ge p-MISFETs.

This value is over three times than that obtained without the SrGex interlayer, and over twice the universal mobility that can be realized with silicon (based on comparison with the same gate field).

Toshiba also confirmed that a gate stack structure with EOT as thin as around 1nm was successfully formed, and that the increase in EOT by inserting the SrGex interlayer was only 0.2 nm at the most.

This suggests the possibility of further EOT scaling to 0.5 nm, either by reducing thickness of an overlaying high-k layer or adopting a high-k layer with a higher dielectric constant.

Toshiba will continue to develop the technology as an option toward implementation of Ge-MISFET to 16 nm LSIs and beyond.

Development of this new gate stack process technology was supported by grants from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

SACA Commends EC Plans for Tougher Cybercrime Legislation

ISACA (formerly known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association) a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to encourage best practice in the IT security industry has applauded plans for the European Commission to increase the penalties against people committing cybercrime.

Under the new EC proposals, according to reports, prison sentences could be increased to five years or more for serious cybercrimes up from one to three years at present.

"It's likely that the potential rewards from cybercrime are such that current penalties are not going to act as a deterrent,” says Rolf von Roessing, member of the ISACA's Security Management Committee. “The rewards of criminal exploits can stretch into the millions."

The reality, says von Roessing, is that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, as a large number of people are still paying for criminal acts that generate revenue for the perpetrators.

"Spam, botnets and out-and-out theft of electronic data are modern-day scourges. Cybercrime needs to be dealt with strongly and the EC’s actions are a step in the right direction for Internet users everywhere," von Roessing added.

For more on the EC cybercrime plans:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/lacu63

For more on ISACA: http://www.isaca.org

Easynet Connect launches first Sales Agent Referral Scheme to offer more choice to the channel

Easynet Connect creates new options for internet and colocation channel partners

Leading business internet and colocated hosting provider, Easynet Connect today announces its first ever Sales Agent Referral Scheme to support its existing channel reseller programme. The new Sales Agent Referral Scheme is designed to offer more opportunities for a wider range of partners to earn commission from selling Easynet Connect’s internet connectivity and colocation services.

Although open to all partners, the new Sales Agent Referral Scheme will benefit those in particular who were previously unable to fully manage the ongoing technical support and billing procedures required to be a full reseller. Once a referral is complete and the service installed, the sales agent receives a one-off lump sum commission fee. Easynet Connect then services and supports the end-user directly, helping smaller partners boost cash-flow without the need for ongoing commitments or up front investment.

The new Sales Agent Referral Scheme will run alongside Easynet Connect’s existing Reseller Programme, in which the reseller fully owns, manages and supports the customer, in return for ongoing commission payments.

Debbie Roberston, Director of Sales and Marketing at Easynet Connect said of the new scheme. “We believe this is the first time a B2B internet service provider has offered this kind of sales agent scheme, which we’re confident will help partners of all sizes, in particular smaller consultants. We implemented the scheme following feedback from channel partners who recommended our services but couldn’t justify the long-term commitment of a fully managed service or afford the high set up costs. These partners are important to us so we wanted to ensure their loyalty was rewarded in a simple, straightforward and meaningful manner.”

Simon Harrison, Director of Leased Lines UK said of the announcement: “Easynet Connect’s new sales agent model provides the perfect structure for us to work within. We generate the leads, handle the initial introduction and then pass on the client and their requirements direct to Easynet Connect’s team. This model provides the perfect infrastructure, allowing us to get on with what we do best, generating new business and adding additional value-added services to our client base whilst Easynet Connect handle the technical support, implementation and billing of the client”.

Birmingham City FC on Target for the Premier League with Communicator® Email Marketing

Birmingham City Football Club, who recently won promotion to the Barclay’s Premier League, has expanded their e-marketing and enhanced relationship marketing strategies with the help of Communicator Corp (www.communicatorcorp.com); who already manage their email communication. By integrating Communicator® enterprise email management technology with their existing CRM system, Birmingham City FC delivers an online platform that represents the voice of the club which delivers greater online accessibility and engagement with their fans.

The combined systems communicate targeted messages and newsletters to fans and then guide them to the club’s online portals for information, offers, merchandise and ticket sales. Email communications use rich content such as videos and interviews embedded into the emails enabling users to click through and visit www.bcfc.com, the Birmingham City FC site. This new approach has seen click through rates rise by a factor of 4.

Amongst the wide range of email content for fans to enjoy are, updates from managers and players, opinion pieces and exclusive video footage, including celebrations from the last day of the season at the Madejski stadium. As the club’s emphasis is based heavily on fan interaction, there are also frequent fan surveys such as goal or player of the month, polls to decide the opening music to matches and a chance to input on club direction. Fans are also thanked, by email, for attending particular games; with the added benefit of exclusive post match content. This two way communication allows the club to build strong individual relationships with fans.

Next season will see the introduction of the new platform which will provide the club with considerable behavioural data on different types of fans allowing emails to be segmented, modelled and tailored to the differing needs of each group. By this means, emails can be specifically targeted to season ticket holders, away supporters or corporate sponsors for example. Full preference management empowers fans to control and define the online relationship they have with the club including what kind of messages they wish to receive and how often they receive them.

Karen Brady, Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club believes that the combined email strategy is a real result for the fans noting, “Communicating with the fans is always at the forefront of our minds and over the last season we are doing this more effectively and efficiently through Communicator Corp. We look forward to working with Communicator Corp during the Premier League season and being even more innovative with our communications to our fans through email marketing.”

Chris Wilds, Managing Director of Communicator Corp welcomed Karen’s comments adding. “Birmingham City Football Club has got it right on the pitch and off the pitch with their emarketing techniques to communicate to fans. We look forward to working more closely with them on communicating and giving the fans even more in the Premier League.”

“One of the Best Netbook Packages on the Market”: Eee PC™ 1000HE Recommended in PCMag's Ultimate Father's Day Gift Guide

The Eee PC™ 1000HE has been featured in PCMag's Ultimate Father's Day Gift Guide, in which it is described as “one of the best netbook packages on the market”. The short write-up focuses on the Eee PC™ 1000HE’s status as the perfect travel companion. Author Sean Ludwig wrote:

“The EeePC [sic] 1000HE… will afford Dad a cheap PC wherever he roams. With it, he can easily write notes to himself and check e-mail on the go.”

The full article can be viewed here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348326,00.asp.

The Eee PC™ 1000HE currently tops PC World’s “Top 10 Netbooks” chart. It has been joined at the top by the Eee PC™ Seashell 1008HA, which—despite having been launched very recently—now occupies the second spot.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/154358/top_10_netbooks.html

Eee PC™ 1000HE: All-day Computing with User-Centric Innovations and 9.5* Hours of Battery Life

Boasting a pearl white, black, pink, blue or gold Infusion finish on its glossy LCD lid, the Eee PC™ 1000HE is powered by an energy-efficient Intel® Atom™ processor. ASUS’ exclusive Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) offers users a choice between performance and power conservation modes, allowing them to make adjustments to suit their prevailing usage and in doing so reduce power expenditure by up to 15%*—enabling up to an astonishing 9.5* hours of continuous computing. A 160GB hard disk drive provides ample storage for the user’s media collection while 10GB of online Eee Storage provides users with access to their documents anywhere, anytime. A 10-inch LED backlit WSVGA LCD provides ample screen real estate for documents and multimedia, while a ‘Chiclet’ keyboard provides users with wider gaps between keycaps to minimize errors. The keyboard is 92% the size of a conventional desktop keyboard for better ergonomics. A multi-touch touchpad allows users to intuitively zoom in or out of pictures, or navigate up and down pages. Equipped with 802.11n draft wireless connectivity, users can surf the Internet or download emails at higher speeds.

Eee PC™ 1000HE in White Eee PC™ 1000HE in Black

Other Eee PC™ 1000HE Media Accolades

PC Magazine (Editors’ Choice) “The ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is the best netbook package that money can buy right now.”
Computer Shopper (Editors’ Choice) “The best Eee PC yet, Asus [sic] has tweaked the 1000HE to near-perfection.”
Notebookreview.com (Editors’ Choice) “The battery life…is the greatest out of any netbook we have reviewed.”
Laptop Magazine - 4 out of 5 stars “This is a very good netbook for an attractive price.”
PC World “A smart netbook that not only gets the design right -- and it's priced to move.”

Eee PC™ Seashell 1008HA: Go Anywhere in Style

ASUS has taken one of nature’s most beautiful designs—the seashell—and combined it with the best of today’s innovations to provide users with the most stylishly functional Eee PC™ yet. Weighing just 1.1kg, the Eee PC™ Seashell 1008HA is a highly portable companion that users can carry about, allowing them to surf the Internet, watch videos or keep in touch with their friends and family—even while at the beach. Equipped with a more-than-ample 10-inch display, ergonomically designed keyboard, intelligent energy management system and an intuitive multi-touch touch-pad, the Eee PC™ Seashell 1008HA aims to provide users with the best mobile computing experience, wherever their journeys take them. Currently available in white, it will soon come in five new colors to suit users from all walks of life—Sapphire Blue, Ruby Red, Blue, Pink and Black**.

* Subject to system configuration and prevailing usage.
** Color availability may vary by country.

Specifications are subject to change without prior notice. Please visit www.asus.com for more information.

Italian hypermarket Iper Lando pilots ZBD’s epaper for retail solution

Iper Lando, the Italian hypermarket, has implemented ZBD’s epaper for retail solution in its Conselve store in Northern Italy. Over five hundred epop (electronic point of purchase) displays have been installed within the fruit and veg, delicatessen and fresh meat departments where they will be used to display price and product information, and in particular, provenance information, a legal requirement in Italy. Because of its zero infrastructure requirements, ZBD's epaper for retail solution was implemented within just a matter of weeks.

Lando, a family-run business, has been operating for more than forty years and has an estate of 12 stores located in North Italy. Its reputation has been built upon low prices and value for money, with a focus on high quality and fresh produce. Product information had been displayed through paper tags, but these were acknowledged to be a drain on resource – both in terms of the printing and paper, as well as actually getting members of staff to fix the revised price labels to the corresponding products in-store.

Lando were in the process of developing new back office software that would be located in the Head Office, and were looking for an electronic shelf label solution for their fruit and veg department – where provenance information needs to be updated frequently. ZBD’s solution proved ideal for the store with its zero infrastructure requirements and ease of implementation, combined with the ability to update pricing centrally, from Head Office.

“We expect to make significant time and cost savings as a result of using epops.” said Mr Benetollo, Lando’s IT Manager, before continuing, “The solution is ideal for us to update provenance information, which we need to do frequently and quickly. We no longer need to print a new paper label and then replace the labels at the point of purchase. We can now update this information almost instantly.”

David Rogers, VP, Sales & Marketing for ZBD said: “We are seeing a lot of interest from Italy at the moment as existing users of first generation electronic shelf labels and paper tags look to replace their outdated systems with a more innovative and capable solution that will save time, money and improve customer experience.”

Gianluca Pinoli, of Italy-based Proxima-Centauri Informatica, introduced the solution to Lando, “We are really pleased with the progress that we are making with ZBD’s epop solution in Italy. More and more grocery supermarkets are recognising the benefits of electronic shelf labels.”

On successful completion of the pilot project, Lando plan to equip their entire store with ZBD’s solution.

ROI as early as 6 months for ZBD’s epaper for retail

Since the emergence of fully graphical ‘epaper’ displays for retail, the Return on Investment argument for ESLs (electronic shelf labels) has changed radically. ZBD took the decision in September 2008 to make a significant investment to create a next generation ROI model. The result, which has been heavily market-tested since January 2009, and developed in conjunction with Martec International, an independent retail consultancy, models all the capabilities – ‘Use Cases’ – that ZBD displays support to deliver benefit to retailers.

ZBD is taking a consultative approach with retailers and its ROI tool is proving invaluable in helping them assess the relevance and payback period for their own specific business segment: mass and c-store food, non-food, speciality, department, warehouse, discount, telco etc.

“We’re using the ROI tool to help retailers visualise all the ways in which epaper displays can deliver savings and benefits within their unique business, and just as importantly, to help us understand their processes and business drivers”, says Jann Naef, Product Marketing Director, who is leading the ROI programme.

With ZBD’s displays, any ERP or upstream data can be delivered to the point of purchase without limitation: product information, including graphics and brand logos, price and promotion data and competitor pricing, any consumer information: from health data and ‘food miles’ to feature/function information, CO2 footprint etc. Staff can benefit by having planograms and replenishment information at the shelf: availability, due date, off-shore location etc. – as well as alternative product data, up-sell data and more.

Typically, the ROI is deployed in 3 stages. First, ZBD presents a segment-specific model with some data specific to the retailer which is used to filter those ‘Use Cases’ that are relevant to the retailer’s operations. The 2nd iteration uses more detailed client data to determine the anticipated payback period for all the relevant Use Cases - the ‘quick wins’. The 3rd iteration lays the foundation for the pilot: which Use Cases to test; what is the projected benefit; how the data is to be gathered; and so provides a framework for success evaluation post-project.

All output is framed within a P&L and cashflow view of the retailer’s operation over the lifetime of the system – which can be in excess of 10 years - along with executive summaries and graphic representations of savings and benefits.

“We are currently in discussions with over 50 retailers in the UK, USA and Europe and it is proving a hugely valuable discovery tool for everyone – retailers have been uniformly positive about the breadth and thoroughness of the ZBD’s ROI model’’ says Naef. Depending on the retail segment and the permutation of Use Cases that apply to the retailer, the majority of participants in the ROI programme are finding a potential payback period of between 6 months and 18 months.

ZBD pulled together its own expertise – including ROI models previously produced - and commissioned Martec International to take a fresh look at the opportunities for epaper in retail. Brian Hume, Martec founder comments: “In constructing the ROI model, we reviewed the various ways in which ZBD's display technology could contribute to improving a retailer's overall profit performance. We surprised ourselves at how many ways the technology could help, other than the purely obvious, and the model assesses the impact on profitability and cash flow of all the various options. The model gives an accurate, time-phased assessment of costs and benefits allowing retailers to simulate a variety of implementation strategies and select the one that works best for them.”

Avanquest Keeps Guard with ControlGuard

Avanquest Solutions has partnered with ControlGuard, a developer of endpoint security software which prevents information leakage and unauthorised access to any portable device or interface. Endpoints are defined as being at the end - they are the USBs, Blackberrys, etc on the periphery of the network which are used by people to connect and interface with the main company server.

Portable devices are now the norm in every organisation. They are inexpensive, and companies are now giving them away as promotional items. This is great for users - they can interface these devices to computer ports, infrared, Bluetooth, wireless networks and more. Working remotely has never been easier, but it is a headache for IT administrators!

Removable media devices can hold massive amounts of data. Traditional IT does not protect endpoints. If there isn’t endpoint security on your network, your company’s computers are vulnerable and exposed to the possible risks of malware and data loss from hackers, disgruntled employees or just genuine human error and lack of care and attention.

Companies need these devices for productivity and day-to-day operation, so disabling them is not a viable option.

“In line with Regularity Compliance, every business is conscious of the need for data security but somehow mobile data security is often overlooked” said Nigel Trevena, IT Security Team Advisor at Avanquest Solutions. “I believe this is because of concerns about the ease and cost of managing endpoints, as well as a general lack of knowledge about the availability of solutions to protect and manage endpoints remotely.”

ControlGuard is a cost effective and totally secure way of preventing data leakage from portable devices - ensuring corporate security whilst allowing productivity for employees. Administrators can have a complete view of all portable devices coming in and out of the network, and the ability to take remote preventative action to disable any device should it be necessary.

“We added ControlGuard to our range of solutions for ‘security on the move’ for two reasons. Firstly, there is a real need to close the security gaps that portable devices have opened up, and secondly, ControlGuard is simple to deploy and manage. People won’t bother with anything too complicated!” said Nigel.

Editors notes:

Ten Tips to Keep IT Security Costs Down in the recession

By Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of security specialist Wick Hill Group.

1. Move to UTMs (unified threat management systems)

UTMS save money over multiple point solutions. They can cost just a quarter of the price of multiple solutions.

With UTMs you have fewer devices, so you can save on energy costs, rack space and air-conditioning. If you deploy multiple UTMs throughout an organisation, and use centralised management and reporting, you can significantly reduce the time spent on admin and management. There are also fewer ongoing management costs from factors such as training, maintenance and upgrades. And you only have one dedicated platform to support. Companies such as Check Point, WatchGuard and NETGEAR have solutions in this area

2. Beef up your web filtering

List-based web filtering security tools don't provide effective control against proxy anonymisers, which allow staff to browse restricted sites undetected by many web filtering systems. Consider moving to solutions that provide protection against anonymisers, so you can significantly increase productivity, as well as improving security. Marshal8e6, Barracuda Networks and Finjan are among the companies who offer products here.

3. Close down the bad guys

Close down the areas that you weren’t too happy about but may have ignored in the past. For example, P2P, streaming media and IM. Not only do they represent a significant security risk, they also have an extremely high cost in wasted staff time. Solutions are available that let you manage these areas, alongside traditional web risks. They include those from Marshal8e6 and Barracuda Networks.

4. Deal with non-work related emails

Inappropriate and non-work related emails not only carry major legal risks for organisations but also have a huge security and productivity cost. Yet many organisations are completely blind to the level or nature of the activity. Solutions are available that allow you to manage non-work related emails and increase productivity, without upsetting staff or disrupting business.

5. Deploy encryption

The lack of encryption can lead to data being viewed by unauthorised people, both inside and outside an organisation. The cost of dealing with such data leakage incidents is massively larger than the cost of preventing them in the first place. In a recession, the damage to reputation can be even more expensive. We are all too painfully aware now, that data leakage is not an isolated thing and can strike all sorts of companies. Encryption used to be expensive and disruptive to install, but this is no longer the case, and most companies can afford to use it. Solutions are available from Check Point (Check Point Endpoint Security) and HP.


6. Two factor authentication

The cost of managing passwords can be extremely expensive in terms of helpdesk resources. And weak passwords put your business at risk. Two factor (soft or hardware) tokens cost only a few pounds, less than the price of one helpdesk call. They can secure your business effectively, particularly where you have a lot of remote and mobile users. Suppliers include CRYPTOCard and VASCO.

7. Hosted security

For some companies, hosted security can be a more cost-effective option than handling all security needs yourself. It can cover any type of environment and includes office based systems, remote locations, home offices and mobile laptops. You can host all or just some of your security needs. Cost savings can come from areas such as not having to pay all the costs associated with installing and managing hardware and software. There are many companies in this area including Kaspersky Lab and CRYPTOCard.

8. Compliance

The burden of proving that your IT security is compliant to an ever- increasing range of laws and regulations can take up costly manpower. Solutions are available which can automate the collation of security data from devices and systems across your organisation, and make it readily available when you are called upon to prove your compliance. They save on manpower and on the possible cost consequences of not being able to prove you are compliant. These include solutions from ArcSight and LogLogic.

9. Bring staff on board

Using your own staff is a major way to secure your systems. Retrain staff and remind them that data security is their responsibility and crucial to the survival of the business. In tough times, the message is more likely to strike home and be appreciated.

10. Review AV.

Many anti-virus and end point solutions create a large load on PC resources with big updates and processor intensive scans. With budgets under threat, desktop refreshes are being delayed. Using efficient low footprint anti-virus extends the life of PCs and laptops.

Bio – Ian Kilpatrick

Ian Kilpatrick is chairman of value added distributor Wick Hill Group plc, specialists in secure infrastructure solutions. Kilpatrick has been involved with the Group for more than 30 years. Wick Hill is an international organisation supplying most of the Time Top 1000 companies through a network of accredited resellers.

Kilpatrick has an in-depth experience of computing with a strong vision of the future in IT. He looks at computing from a business point-of-view and his approach reflects his philosophy that business benefits and ease-of-use are key factors in IT. He has had numerous articles published in the UK and overseas press, as well as being a regular speaker at IT exhibitions.

Acxiom and Alterian Partnership Goes Global

New Agreement Extends Partnership

Alterian, a leading international integrated marketing platform provider, announces that Acxiom (NASDAQ: ACXM) signed a new and expanded agreement with Alterian in March 2009. The new agreement provides for global roll out of existing Acxiom solutions that incorporate Alterian technology, as well as the introduction of a new Alterian based solution to Acxiom clients.

Acxiom currently uses Alterian technology in many of its custom database solutions, as well as in Acxiom MarketEdge-X™, a versatile multichannel marketing solution that provides growing companies with a cost-effective platform to deliver effective multichannel campaigns. MarketEdge-X delivers powerful capabilities that have historically been financially out of reach for all but the largest companies.

“We have had great success delivering upon our high-performance multichannel marketing promise to both consumer and business focused MarketEdge-X clients,” said Tim Suther, Acxiom’s senior vice president for Global Multichannel Marketing Services. “Alterian’s technology is a valuable component of the MarketEdge-X product and this agreement positions us for further growth opportunities in new geographical markets, such as Europe and Asia Pacific.”

David Eldridge, Chief Executive Officer of Alterian commented “Acxiom is a highly valued partner of Alterian and we are delighted to be expanding our relationship both in North America and on a global basis. Their MarketEdge-X product has seen significant success in North America and we look forward to working with Acxiom on the global roll out of this proposition as well as other opportunities which broaden our partnership such as Alterian Acquire.”

Actinic Launches Ecommerce Fraud Checking Service with The 3rd Man

With research showing consumers increasingly worried about card security when shopping online, Actinic, the UK expert in ecommerce for small and medium businesses, has responded to the challenge with a major enhancement to its Actinic Payments service for combating card-not-present (CNP) fraud. Actinic Payments’ merchants now have seamless access to the anti-fraud, card verification service from The 3rd Man for no additional fee. Already used by over 26,000 customers world-wide, Actinic is now making this technology available and affordable for smaller merchants. For full details see http://www.actinic.co.uk/payments.

The 3rd Man developed the National CNP Fraud File as the most comprehensive and advanced anti-fraud service available in the UK. Processing approximately 20 million transactions per month, it can detect the vast majority of fraudulent activity well before the merchant fulfills the order. This way it protects the merchant and also minimises the potentially adverse impact fraud prevention measures can have on genuine customers.

Mark Burley, CEO of Model Railways Direct (www.modelrailwaysdirect.co.uk), and a user of The 3rd Man’s fraud checking service, commented: “We were a start up and did not take fraud seriously. However, around a year after we started, we were hit by 3% of our annual sales in fraudulent orders across three days. We then checked the payments with The 3rd Man and found that they were already flagged as potentially fraudulent. Since then, we check all transactions this way and have so far saved around £5,000. It’s a brilliant service and we wouldn’t do without it.”

The 3rd Man service is fully integrated into Actinic Payments, powered by Creditcall, and complements Actinic’s existing 3D Secure (Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode) security features. At no further cost, merchants using the Actinic Payments service will now have every transaction automatically checked for fraudulent use of payment cards plus postal addresses, email addresses, names, IP addresses and phone numbers.

Chris Barling, Actinic’s CEO comments, “For the first time ever, small and medium sized companies will be able to share their good and bad experiences of specific customers automatically with thousands of fellow merchants while maintaining anonymity, and fully complying with the Data Protection Act. This empowers merchants in a way not previously available.”

For The 3rd Man, CEO Paul Simms says, “We were very pleased that Actinic chose us for its fraud checking feature and this underlines our claim to provide the most accurate checks available. It was clear that Actinic intended to offer a superior and fully integrated service, which fits well with The 3rd Man’s policy of being best-in-class. The partnership should add value for everyone concerned.”

ArtVPS launches Shaderlight heralding new age in interactive rendering

New Shaderlight rendering plug-in for 3ds Max enables fundamental changes to be made to key image attributes at any stage in the rendering process

ArtVPS has made Shaderlight, its revolutionary new interactive rendering technology, available for free download. Shaderlight promises to deliver massive productivity and creativity improvements over traditional ray-trace rendering engines. Shaderlight 0.1 is a plug-in for 3ds Max, the leading 3D modelling tool from Autodesk, and is free to download at www.artvps.com. Early adopters of the technology will be encouraged to help shape the software by becoming part of the Shaderlight online community (www.artvps.com/content/discuss) and providing valuable feedback during the key final phase of product development.

Shaderlight is a physically based ray-trace renderer that for the first time enables 3D artists and visualisation specialists to make changes to key image attributes at any stage of the rendering process – even on production quality images – without having to restart the render. Providing a greater level of creative freedom than traditional rendering techniques, Shaderlight enables users to not only see the progressive refinement of a scene when objects or camera angles are altered but also allows them to make interactive changes to materials, environments, lights and textures (the MELT elements) on full quality 3D images. Shaderlight also includes a new approach to global illumination (GI), which enables light, colour and intensity to be updated on screen without the need to re-render.

"As a CG artist I often have to work with clients who have no real idea of how long even the slightest change to an image can take to re-render,” says Olaf Finkbeiner, CGI operator at Mainworks GmbH Germany and a member of the Shaderlight Product Steering Committee. “The ability to make changes to materials or environments on a final image would save us days of re-rendering and in this industry time is money."

Michael Lawson, CTO at ArtVPS adds: “This is an exciting time for everyone at ArtVPS. After 18 months of hard work we are delighted to launch Shaderlight 0.1. Shaderlight stands to fundamentally change the way 3D artists and visualisation specialists go about generating images. At the heart of the development has been the user’s experience and we believe that the time and cost savings that Shaderlight will bring are invaluable in terms of improving efficiency and project turnaround. CG professionals need never compromise on the quality of their final output again.”

Shaderlight 0.1 is available now as a free download from www.artvps.com, where users can also share feedback, both with each other and with the ArtVPS development team.