Pressroom
  • Thu
    01
    Apr
    2010

    Guest: Kumar Malavalli Show #25

    entrepreneur/philanthropist April 2010

    co-founder: Brocade Communications and Inmage Technologies

    A serial entrepreneur & visionary in the field of Storage Networks, Kumar Malavalli was inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame in 2003, after the success of Brocade Communications, a company he co-founded in 1995 and served as CTO for many years.

    Currently, he is Chairman of Inmage Systems, which he co-founded in 2002, and he invests in, and mentors numerous networking start-ups in the field of Information Technology,and other emerging areas.

    Kumar's phenomenal success goes far beyond entrepreneurship. He is a person of extraordinary interest in building lasting institutions for education, social development,and health-care in both the US and India. His philanthropy is also in step with his beliefs, as he has given millions of dollars towardsbal vision. His contributions towards the erican India Foundation, the India Community Center in the Area, UC Santa Cruz, Cal State-E. Bay, & Indus International Schools are some examples of his clear vision and philosophy.

    In this conversation Kumar gives us insight into his philosophy about giving, and his philanthropic activities.

    His message for entrepreneurs out there, clearly is: “Create wealth, give back, and make a difference!”

    Click on link to hear full interview: http://www.chaiwithmanjula.com/media/Malavalli.html

  • Tue
    11
    Jan
    2011

    LeadFormix, a provider of next-generation marketing automation solutions which help align Marketing and Sales teams in B2B organizations, launched two new features: the LeadFormix Workflow and the LeadFormix Labels for the users of its marketing automation platform.

    “At LeadFormix, we believe, precise qualification and management of Leads is crucial to successful sales closure and hence we continuously strive to come up with features which make the process of Lead qualification and management more accurate and intuitive. Both the Workflow and the Labeling features being launched by LeadFormix today are based on our patent pending, Intent Inference Technology, and promise a more enhanced user experience,” said Srihari Kumar, CEO, LeadFormix.

    LeadFormix’s Workflow targets campaign emails based on visitor intent, making planning and management of email campaigns easier and more effective.

    The LeadFormix Workflow initiates email campaigns based on a trigger that is setup by the user. Users can use any one of several triggers, for instance, an email campaign can be initiated when a visitor to the website fills out a form, when the prospect reaches a particular lead score, or when the visitor opts to obtain specified information. Following the trigger, the visitor receives a personalized email (personalized by the Workflow user depending on the type of trigger) and clicks on a link provided in this personalized email and comes back to the website. The Workflow user can get more information on the visitor, his contact information and his intent. Making it easier for the Workflow user to track and observe the behavior of the visitor thereafter. This enables a deeper level of qualification for each sales prospect.

  • Tue
    18
    Jan
    2011

    Pearson, the media group behind The Financial Times and publishing house Penguin, has increased its holding to TutorVista to a majority, controlling stake of 76%, for $127m. The deal values TutorVista at $213 million. Pearson acquired a minority stake in TutorVista in June 2009 and this transaction takes Pearson’s total equity investment in the company to approximately $139 million. TutorVista has two main businesses:

    TutorVista.com: Started in 2005, it provides online tutoring to approximately 10,000 students per month, using Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol and online whiteboards to connect instructors in India with school and college students, principally in North America. It claims to have served over five million tutoring sessions, and 100,000 students, with two thousand teachers. TutorVista claims it gets six million visitors per month visiting its site.

    What the acquisition means for TutorVista.com: TutorVista’s Online Tutoring will be integrated into all of Pearson’s digital products, and be sold to schools and higher education institutions globally.

    Edurite: started in 2000, Edurite provides technology-enabled education solutions and services for school businesses in India. Edurite operates a network of 60 centres across southern India delivering English language coaching courses for university entrance exams and out-of-class tuition to K-12 school children for SAT, ACT, AP and other exams. It also provides curriculum design, teacher training, technology solutions and school administration services to schools serving approximately 5,000 students in India. Edurite also supplies content and ICT solutions to thousands of schools across India, and owns and manages nineteen schools.

    What the acquisition means for Edurite: Pearson’s education portfolio includes brands like Longman, Penguin and Prentice Hall, used by over half the schools in the US, and, they claim, by 10,000 of the 20,000 primary schools in the UK. Pearson will use Edurite to distribute its education content to schools.

    TutorVista had raised over $33 MM in funding from Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Ventures, and from strategic investors – Manipal Education and Medical Group and Pearson. Pearson had invested in the company, alongwith the formation of a joint venture with Educomp.

  • Mon
    28
    Mar
    2011

    March 28, 2010

    Santa Clara, CA

    InMage Systems (www.inmage.com), today announced it was named one of the 100 Top Cloud Computing Vendors by Everything Channel’s CRN. The comprehensive list highlights the most innovative cloud vendors and solutions for the channel - including storage cloud offerings, security cloud offerings, cloud apps, cloud infrastructure and cloud platforms to assist solution providers in navigating the cloud phenomena successfully.

    “This year’s Top Cloud Computing Vendors award is based on a cloud vendor’s approach to creating an innovative product, or an innovative approach to supporting solution providers in the IT channel,” said Kelley Damore, Vice President and Editorial Director CRN. “Specifically, these Cloud vendors help resellers transform themselves into true service providers and help organizations and enterprises take advantage of the ease, flexibility, scalability, elasticity and cost savings that leveraging cloud computing has to offer.”

    InMage ScoutCloud™ combines four key enablers that typically take years to develop in house, or must be procured from different vendors. These include: best in class data protection; a comprehensive physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual recovery engine that supports failover/failback for all applications; automated provisioning of virtual machines and associated storage, combined with a full-fledged multi-tenant portal for deployment and management. This enables managed service and cloud providers to have the fastest time to market when offering customers near zero RPO and RTO capable Recovery as a Service (RaaS).

    InMage ScoutCloud protects any customer server (physical or virtual) and can recover it nearly instantaneously as a virtual machine in the cloud. It bundles P2V with backup and remote replication, delivering true application-consistent data availability and block-level continuous data protection with failover/failback for any application. The provisioning manager automates nearly all aspects of the protection and recovery for VMware-based cloud offerings. The result is protection of both physical and virtual machines that reduces data loss to near zero.

    “We are honored to be named as one of the 100 Top Cloud Computing Vendors by CRN,” said Rajeev Atluri, CTO of InMage. “With the market for cloud-based solutions growing so rapidly, InMage worked diligently to create a solution that quickly, economically and effectively addresses recovery-as-a-service, so customers can experience the benefits of cloud-based recovery.”

  • Thu
    07
    Apr
    2011

    April 7, 2011
    SANTA CLARA, Calif.

    InMage® (www.inmage.com), the leading independent software vendor of award winning, disk-based, business application recovery solutions and cloud computing solutions will be exhibiting at Interface Anchorage, a premier forum between local technology professionals, industry-leading manufacturers, and regional resellers. The event will be held April 7th at the Dean'ina Center in Anchorage.

    InMage will demonstrate newly released solutions, Scout 5.5, their award winning flagship backup and disaster recovery software and vContinuum which was designed for disk backup and disaster recovery of VMware ESX/vSphere virtual machine (VM) environments.

    Scout 5.5 includes new capacity optimization features, simple deployment, ease of use and monitoring as well as increased application, platform and language support. InMage now supports Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010, BES 5.01 and MySQL 5.1 applications, as well as vSphere 4.x, Windows 2008 R2, RHEL 5.4/5.5, OEL 5.5, XenServer 5.5u2, 5.6, and OpenSolaris 5.11 platforms. Supported languages include Chinese, German and French.

    Based on continuous data protection technology, InMage vContinuum offers small and medium-sized businesses a single, cost-effective solution for backup and replication in virtual environments. Highlights of vContinuum include: elimination of backup windows (data is backed up to disk real-time 24x7); application consistency (on Windows and Linux); long-term data retention on disk; file-level recovery within seconds; and optimized utilization of target storage capacity (target VMs are thin provisioned).

    InMage Systems was recognized by Everything Channel's CRN Magazine in March as One of the 100 Top Cloud Computing Vendors for 2011.

    InMage Systems will exhibit in Booth # 200 along with channel partner, Structured.

  • Fri
    08
    Apr
    2011

    April 08, 2010
    indusschoolpune

    Indus International School Pune is an international school with a difference. It's a trendsetter among IB Schools in Pune - and indeed, India too. Unlike others who offer only the IB Diploma Programme, Indus provides full-spectrum IB curriculum, starting with IB Primary Years Programme from KG up through the IB Middle Years Programme to the IB Diploma Programme in grades 11 & 12. The first Indus International School was established in Bangalore in 2002. As per an All India Survey commissioned recently by Education World and conducted by Cfore Consulting, Indus International Bangalore has been ranked 4th among India's most respected schools in 2009.

    With such proven skills and expertise, Indus has opened 2 more International Baccalaureate Schools in India - at Hyderabad and Pune.

    Established in 2008, Indus International Pune is a fully residential school with day scholar and week boarding options too. The impressive 40-acre, wi-fi-enabled campus, just outside Pune, offers a world class infrastructure wherein students enjoy the finest facilities for academics, sports, technology and other extra-curricular activities. This world-class setting, combined with the exceptional faculty and systems, is certain to place this school among the Top 10 Residential Schools in India.

    An important aspect of Indus International is its vision to create "the leaders of tomorrow" - caring, well-rounded, global citizens who have the skills, knowledge and temperament to face the challenges of a dynamic world.

    To achieve this objective, Indus includes a full-spectrum IB curriculum right from age 3; a Leadership Institute to train students in the practical aspects of leadership; a Teachers' Training Academy to ensure our faculty have the skills and knowledge to be ‘facilitators' of leadership; community service to inculcate empathy for the less privileged; a Parental Advisory Committee to encourage parental participation in all aspects and policies of the school; and corporate governance that is transparent and democratic, involving students, parents, faculty and management.

  • Wed
    27
    Jul
    2011

    NanoHorizons Wins National Science Foundation Grant

    Research Project Focuses on Use ofNanoscale Silver as Antifouling Composite for Ocean Renewable Energy Systems

    Bellefonte, PA — July 27, 2011 — NanoHorizons Inc., a provider ofnanoscale additives for healthcare, textile and industrial applications, todayannounced that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the company asix-month research grant to determine the optimal combination of reinforcedcomposite material and nanoscale silver antimicrobial additives that meetantifouling performance specifications of the marine environment and oceanrenewable energy systems. The project’s novel composites are reinforcedwith conductive carbon nanotube-infused glass fiber and, as such, have thepotential to be the first electro-activated “on demand” antifoulingsolution, thereby dramatically reducing the amount of antifouling agentrequired to maintain ocean energy infrastructures.

    Along with requirements of strength, light weight anddurability, antifouling (the prevention of surface growth of marine organisms)is a key challenge in developing the components of systems that cansuccessfully produce ocean renewable energy. Ocean renewable energy--rangingfrom wave, tidal and ocean current to wind, salinity gradient and thermalgradient—is emerging as a promising alternative energy source to fossilfuels. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, ocean renewableenergy may possibly supply up to 400 terawatt hours of clean power annually orroughly ten percent of today’s global demand.

    “Beyond the need for a viable energy renewalsource,” states James Delattre, Vice President Global Marketing,NanoHorizons, “long-lasting marine composites with an effectiveantifouling solution could also have a beneficial impact on the USshipping industry and military. The US Navy alone, for example, spends over$2.1 billion a year in fleet maintenance. Thus, our NSF study may have bothshort and long-term significance.”

    About NanoHorizons Inc.

    NanoHorizons Inc. (www.nanohorizons.com) isa leader in the emerging, cutting-edge field of practical nanotechnology for abroad range of healthcare, commercial, and industrial applications. Thecompany’s nanoscale silver antimicrobial additives are entirely developedand manufactured in the USA and marketed globally to customers in the apparel,health care, and coatings and plastics industries under the SmartSilver®brand (www.smartsilver.com). SmartSilver offers highly durable, safe and cost-effectivebacterial control in a variety of products, including natural and syntheticfibers and fabrics as well as coatings, foams and polymer applications. SmartSilver technology is EPAregistered and its additives are Oeko-Tex® certified as beingfree of harmful substances according to the Oeko-Tex® 100 Standard.SmartSilver also has a Device Master File with the FDA to facilitate thatagency’s review of antimicrobial treated medical devices and combinationproduct candidates that reference the use of SmartSilver. NanoHorizons’ experienced team of scientists,engineers, and operational managers provide product research, design,development, laboratory testing, manufacture, and customer technical and salessupport. NanoHorizons is a private equity funded company, headquartered in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania,near The Pennsylvania State University.

  • Thu
    15
    Sep
    2011

    InMage Announces Industry Visionary Kumar Malavalli as CEO
    Industry Veteran Ideally Suited to lead Expansion

    Santa Clara, CA - August 15, 2011 - InMage® (www.inmage.com), the leading independent software vendor of award winning, disk-based, business application recovery solutions and cloud computing solutions, today announced the appointment of technology industry icon Kumar Malavalli as CEO. Malavalli is widely considered to be a leading visionary in network storage fabrics, the fundamental technology that is behind the multi-billion dollar industry of storage networking. He is best known as the co-founder and former CTO of Brocade Communications. In appointing Mr. Malavalli as CEO, InMage has elevated one of the most experienced and successful executives in Silicon Valley history, whose leadership and pioneering spirit is reflected today in the information technology infrastructures of companies all over the world.

    As a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of InMage, he brings this visionary expertise to bear in developing data and application recovery solutions that are storage-agnostic and able to protect servers whether they are using direct-attached or network-attached storage. Malavalli will initially focus on growth of channel partnerships with OEM and Resellers, business and customer acquisition and leveraging the core strengths of the award winning product line into emerging markets.Malavalli possesses a deep understanding of the industry and the InMage product portfolio, as well as the unique challenges of competing in very dynamic markets while successfully serving the customer," said Bryan Wolf, managing director, Intel Capital.

    He is well suited to take InMage forward and we look forward to working closely with him.I'm so pleased with the growth and success that InMage has experienced since its inception a decade ago and know there is great potential to continue growing our business, market share and OEM/channel partner base." said Mr. Malavalli. "As an entrepreneur and engineer, I am truly passionate about technology, and know there is a significant opportunity to leverage InMage's product strengths into a greater market share, both with our cloud offerings and unified backup replication product suite.Prior to InMage and Brocade, Mr. Malavalli served in management and technical capacities at Amdahl, Canstar, and HP. He is a past chairman of the ANSI T11 Technical Committee, was inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Council Hall of Fame in 2003 and established the Kumar Malavalli Endowed Chair in Storage Systems Research at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He also received the Gene Milligan Award for Effective Committee Management from the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) for chairing an INCITS committee that developed 17 standards in the area of Storage Area Networks. He holds numerous patents in the Fibre Channel arena.

    About InMage SystemsInMage is the leading independent software vendor of disk-based, business application recovery solutions for both physical and virtualized environments. The company’s integrated recovery software supports both local and remote backup and disaster recovery, performing exceptionally well in heterogeneous IT infrastructures with mixed platforms and storage. Customers can address stringent disaster recovery requirements, backup problems and application availability with one product, where multiple products were once required. InMage is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with additional offices in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit (www.inmage.com).

  • Fri
    30
    Sep
    2011

    InMage Gains Momentum With Appointment of CEO Kumar Malavalli

    Santa Clara, CA - September 30, 2011 - InMage Systems, the leading independent software vendor of award-winning, disk-based, business application recovery solutions and cloud computing solutions, has already made significant progress on key milestones outlined by newly appointed CEO Kumar Malavalli in August. The company will be delivering a new release of its popular vContinuum product in October, which provides backup and recovery of VMware virtual machine environments.

    InMage is also accelerating customer adoption by signing new solution providers and enterprise customers, and has expanded its partnership and product integration with companies like SunGard. More partnerships are expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter of this year with key resellers and technology companies.

    InMage continues to implement its InMage Scout products for customers such as the Tampa Bay Lightning, Applied Discovery (a division of Lexis Nexis) and O'Neil & Associates. Driving this customer adoption is the need by IT departments to improve recovery time and recovery point objectives, increase the efficiency and reliability of backup processes, and ensure the protection of mission-critical data and applications.

    "The InMage deployment eliminated our backup windows, and now every single one of our changes is getting backed up," said Ian Steele, director of IT for the Tampa Bay Lightning. "Features such as sparse retention and message- level recovery of email databases are really useful. The GUI is simple, functional and easy to use, especially when it comes to monitoring. And it's been ideal for our virtualized environment, as InMage automates the recovery steps for VMware and Microsoft servers."

    "InMage is absolutely the best product for data migration," said Kishore Dahlstrom, Systems and Storage Architect for Applied Discovery. "I know other companies who employ contractors whose sole job it is to migrate data from one vendor's system to another. InMage has simplified a typically enormous task, reducing IT costs, staffing requirements and overall completion time. Although many storage vendors have great native replication tools, InMage is definitely a great replication and migration software solution tool for any IT department. The product's features and capabilities are some of the most advanced available in the market to¬day."

    About InMage Systems
    InMage is the leading independent software vendor of disk-based, business application recovery solutions for both physical and virtualized environments. The company's integrated recovery software supports both local and remote backup and disaster recovery, performing exceptionally well in heterogeneous IT infrastructures with mixed platforms and storage. Customers can address stringent disaster recovery requirements, backup problems and application availability with one product, where multiple products were once required. InMage is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with additional offices in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit www.inmage.com.

    SOURCE: InMage Systems

  • Tue
    11
    Oct
    2011

    Glassbeam™ Inc., the leader in product analytic data solutions, today announced that Diaz Nesamoney, president and CEO of Jivox, and co-founder and former president of Informatica, has joined its advisory board.

    Sunnyvale, CA
    October 11, 2011

    Glassbeam™ Inc., the leader in product analytic data solutions, today announced that Diaz Nesamoney, president and CEO of Jivox, and co-founder and former president of Informatica, has joined its advisory board. Diaz brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in delivering business analytics and data warehousing solutions to manufacturers of IT equipment--Glassbeam’s target audience. The goals of Glassbeam’s advisory board members are to provide business and technical expertise, to assist in developing the company’s near and long-term corporate objectives, and provide insight toward enhancing Glassbeam’s products and marketing strategy going forward.

    Puneet Pandit, president and CEO of Glassbeam commented, “Glassbeam is at an exciting point in its growth. We have some excellent customers in the storage, wireless networking and medical device sector that use our solutions to make smarter business decisions and gain real-time insight into how their globally-deployed products are utilized by customers. As we focus our efforts on our key market sectors, our organization will benefit from Diaz’s business acumen and industry connections. I welcome him to the growing family at Glassbeam.”

    About Diaz Nesamoney
    Nesamoney, founder of Jivox, has had two prior successful ventures. Before founding Jivox, he founded Celequest, raised over $20M in venture capital, and served as its CEO until early 2007 when the company was acquired by Cognos Corporation. Celequest introduced the market's first BI appliance, a disruptive innovation that led to its acquisition by Cognos. He was previously co-founder, president and COO at Informatica, which he took from a startup to a publicly-traded company in 1999 that had a market capitalization of over a billion dollars. Informatica pioneered data integration software as a category and is now the market leader with over $400M in revenue. Diaz is a board member of the American India Foundation, a leading international development organization charged with the mission of accelerating social and economic change in India. Diaz holds a master’s degree in computer science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam Inc. is the leading provider of Product Analytic Solutions. Fortune 500 companies including IBM and EMC utilize Glassbeam to translate “big data” into “critical operational and usage” information. The Glassbeam software assembles information from thousands of machines installed in these customers’ installed bases worldwide. Support, service, engineering, sales and marketing teams leverage the intelligence presented by Glassbeam’s software to gain insight into actual product and feature usage in the field, potential customer use problems, and increase the effectiveness of up-sell and cross-sell programs. Glassbeam is delivered as a cloud-based SaaS solution, and can be offered on-site as a managed service. The company’s headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, CA, phone: 408-740-4600 / 408-740-4600

    http://www.glassbeam.com.
    For more information contact:
    Eileen Elam
    (408) 997-3662 (408) 997-3662 eileen@glassbeam.com

    Glassbeam and the Glassbeam logo are trademarks of Glassbeam, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

    ###

  • Tue
    01
    Nov
    2011

    India’s Royal Glory Captivates in ‘Maharaja’ Exhibit
    By LISA TSERING

    indiawest.com

    October 31, 2011

    SAN FRANCISCO — A collection of 200-plus treasures from royal India, organized in collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum of London, is now on display at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco through April 8, 2012.

    The North American premiere of “Maharaja: The Slendor of India’s Royal Courts” was celebrated Oct. 19 with the largest fundraising gala in the history of the museum, held in a lavishly decorated tent alongside the museum and emceed by Emmy-winning NBC anchor Raj Mathai. Real Indian royalty was even on hand for the event, in the person of Princess Asha Raje Gaekwad of Baroda (see separate story).

    Present at the gala was event diamond sponsor Kumar Malavalli, who told the gathering, “The maharajas used their power and wealth to preserve India’s art and culture; they also supported local artists, artisans and craftsmen. Like them, you will realize the importance of preserving India’s art and culture.”

    Also present was leading fashion designer Naeem Khan, who dresses First Lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood’s A-list. Khan, whose great grandfather was a craftsman of clothes for royalty, said, “India is always on my mind,” and added that he hoped t o increase awareness of the splendor of South Asian art through the medium of fashion.

    The exhibit, which spans nearly three centuries, is presented in three tracks, beginning in the museum’s Lee Gallery. There, viewers are introduced to the concept of royal duty (rajadharma) and the strict behaviors demanded of India’s kings and queens; on display here is a throne room and examples of royal patronage of the arts and religious institutions. Next, in the Hambrecht Gallery, one can witness Indian royal spectacle — from a silver palanquin and video of a royal procession to weaponry, elaborate costumes and jewelry. The Osher Gallery is devoted to the history and shifting power of the dynasties and empires of India as they evolved after the decline of the Mughal Empire and other forces such as the Marathas, the Sikhs and the English East India Company took hold.

    Highlights include the lavish diamond Patiala necklace, Cartier’s largest single commission in history; a horse-drawn carriage decorated entirely in silver, made for the Maharaja of Bhavnagar in 1915; and the gold-embossed throne of Hafiz Muhammad Multani of Lahore c. 1820. The exhibit includ es portraits of rulers such as Amar Singh II of Mewar depicted as a haloed “ideal king,” and depictions of life in the royal court and key moments in history up till the 1930s.

    A contemporary series by commissioned local artist Sanjay Patel also offers up themes and images done with clever and colorful computer graphics (Patel will get a show of his own at the museum from Nov. 11).

    The Asian Art Museum’s associate curator of South Asian art, Qamar Adamjee, told India-West that it’s especially important for Indian Americans to experience the exhibit.

    “First of all, it brings a very rich culture into high profile. There are so many South Asians to whom this culture belongs,” she told India-West.

    “But also what this exhibition does is [depict] the shared history between India and Pakistan. It goes beyond modern political differences between people and nation states. To me, being Pakistani and working on this show, that was one of the things that impressed me and made me passionate about it.”

    The timing of “Maharaja” has some irony to it, in this era of “Occupy Wall Street,” “We Are the 99%,” the Arab Spring and even the populist movement of Anna Hazare in India; there also seems to be a general anti-elite mood here in the United States and especially in liberal San Francisco. The presenters of “Maharaja” are aware of this and also see the works in a broader global context.

    “We are celebrating the wealth and status of these kings, but also trying to look at what made a good king — kings who actually cared about their people,” Anna Jackson, lead curator of the show from the Victoria & Albert Museum, told India-West.

    “Now, the royalty has been stripped of that kind of status, but it’s interesting how quite a few of them remained influential members of the community. People trust them more than they might trust the politicians!

    “I might be generalizing slightly, but these are people who care about their people and many of them, as well as opening their collections as museums, are quite involved in philanthropic work, some are politicians. The idea is to serve,” Jackson said.

    Adamjee noted, “Our presidents, our political leaders, are trying to be ideal rulers in their own way. They are men of State, and some of them use their religious righteousness as giving greater authority to their politics. They are grand public figures and everybody still comes out to hear the grand presidential address.

    “Even in our own personal lives, we use dress, we use what we wear and don’t wear as our markers of identity,” Adamjee told India-West.

    “So I think these are the elements that become evident more so through a historical lens than we can see in our own lives. We ourselves are using designer labels to say something about our tastes and our positions, real or perceived or aspirational. It’s that human element that once you start going through this exhibition you can see it come through.

    “That is a connecting point between people who may ask the question: ‘Why am I looking at all this glittery art by these rich people that lived somewhere far across the world 400 years ago?’”

    For more information on the “Maharaja” exhibit and related activities, visit www.asianart.org or call (415) 581-3500

    begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (415) 581-3500 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

    Copyright 2011 India-West Publications Inc. This article may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher.

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  • Wed
    14
    Dec
    2011

    Top Business Analytics Startups of 2011

    As 2011 draws to a close, EnterpriseAppsToday takes a quick look at some of these companies and shows how their apps dovetail with key business intelligence trends.

    Want to leverage the energy and innovation of a hot analytics startup but not quite sure where to begin? Or perhaps you simply want to keep abreast of compelling trends and young companies?

    Whatever your interest, a new International Data Corporation (IDC) report titled “Innovative Business Analytics Companies Under $100M to Watch” is a good source of information. It lists vendors that are innovating around three key trends in the business analytics market. These trends are:

    Collaborative Decision Management. More companies are using or evaluating analytic software tools that enable the documentation of decision processes, provide contextual collaboration, and improve not only the sharing of information but of experiences, all of which can help shape a decision.

    Cloud-based Analytics. Here, too, there is growing interest in using cloud-based tools that ease the acquisition and deployment processes and provide features not found in traditional on-premise software deployments.

    Mobile Analytics. The booming mobile space is hungry for analytics tools, primarily dashboards or components deployed on mobile devices. Mobile workforces can benefit from jobs-specific decision support based on analytics, especially within the context of business processes.

    Here are IDC’s winners in alphabetical order:

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    Carrier IQ. Its Mobile Intelligence platform enables mobile service providers and device manufacturers to solve business and technology issues throughout the development and deployment lifecycles of networks and devices. The platform delivers mission-critical intelligence on how services perform and how devices work in the hands of end users.

    FirstRain. Its Business Monitoring Engine provides semantic categorization technology that cuts through consumer Web content, delivering relevant intelligence from the business Web. The technology seeks to uncover and collect the most valuable business Web content using algorithms that leverage multiple components, including strength of match, source authoritativeness, degree of duplication and originality, breadth of coverage, freshness, and business relevance.

    Glassbeam. Its technology enables manufacturers of compute-centric technologies to gain insights from massive quantities of semi-structured product operational data, such as log data contained in an intelligent device. The solution converts this data into actionable information using technology that scales to analyze terabytes of data.

    Infegy. Its Social Radar platform provides intelligent social media monitoring and Web analytics. Delivered through the cloud, Social Radar enables organizations to listen and discern meaning from conversations that occur on the Web and through social channels. Social Radar's patent-pending analytics and algorithms extract sentiment-based information within a historical context. Organizations can then use the information to develop marketing strategies and improve their products and services.

    Q-Sensei. Its Enterprise Search Platform addresses the increasing volumes of structured and unstructured information on the Internet, in corporate intranets, on private computers, personal databases and hand-held devices. Q-Sensei’s multi-dimensional searching and indexing engine helps users find relevant “needles” in “haystacks” of data.

    River Logic. Its Enterprise Optimizer platform consists of three core products: Cost-to-Planner, which provides insight into which customers and products matter most and how they can be managed at the appropriate cost; Integrated Business Planner, which enhances sales and operation planning through integration of financials, what-if analyses and marginal profitability analyses; and Trade Promotion Optimization Planner, which seeks to ensure maximum return on trade spending by analyzing brand and account-level promotion strategies on an ongoing basis.

    To the above list you can add EnvEve, Envirolytics, Localytics, MediaFunnel and Examville, the finalists in IBM’s SmartCamp, an event held in New York this spring to recognize and reward companies dedicated to analyzing big data. A panel of judges and mentors including venture capitalists, academics and business leaders named Localytics the winner based on its innovative technology, aggressive business plan and alignment with IBM's Smarter Planet strategy.

    Localytics provides a real-time analytics service that helps the makers of mobile phone and tablet applications better understand their clients. It aims to help businesses build more successful mobile apps by analyzing data on user preferences and tendencies such as the amount of time spent in an application. It also analyzes errors and crashes.

    Envirolytics provides a solution meant for home owners, and thus isn’t relevant for enterprises. Here are snapshots of the other SmartCamp finalists that fit into the enterprise space:

    EnvEve. This company provides a wireless sensor network and tailored analytics solution that gives organizations real-time information on the environment and physical infrastructures. For example, using sensors and analytics, the solution can help city officials understand the likelihood of a mudslide, the level of toxins in a river, the nitrates in farmland soil or the road conditions of a highway.

    MediaFunnel. It provides a social media firewall and dashboard that helps organizations analyze and monitor brand sentiment, protect their brands, and engage with their customers, prospects or members in real-time. The solution strives to ensure that no brand-damaging statements are released to the public, while monitoring social media and the Web for conversations that need immediate attention.

    Examville. This vendor offers a global Web-based educational content and services platform that provides collaboration for students, educators and content providers, including publishers. The service leverages the collective knowledge of people with collaborative learning tools, peer reviews, recommendations and educator inputs into a platform that users can customize for their own learning experiences.

  • Tue
    03
    Jan
    2012

    Leader in Cloud Applications Extends Its Sales Enablement Cloud to Deliver Next-Generation Marketing Automation and Lead Management Through the Acquisition of Award Winning LeadFormix

    Press Release: Callidus Software Inc.

    Companies:

    Callidus Software Inc.

    RELATED QUOTES

    Symbol Price Change
    CALD 6.49 +0.01

    t

    PLEASANTON, CA--(Marketwire -01/03/12)- Callidus Software Inc. (NASDAQ: CALD - News), the leader in sales effectiveness and cloud computing, today announced it has acquired the leader in next-generation marketing automation and lead management, LeadFormix.

    "Every CEO on the planet wants more, faster, and better quality sales leads. Investment in the best, most innovative sales and marketing tools is a number one priority for all businesses. More qualified leads means more deals, and more deals means better Sales Performance," said Leslie Stretch, President and CEO, CallidusCloud.

    "LeadFormix has 200 SaaS customers -- bringing our total number of subscription customers to over 1100, further extending our cross-selling opportunity. The social and mobile enterprise has fundamentally changed marketing. By uniting sales and marketing, LeadFormix award winning Cloud solutions produce richer, targeted leads for sales along with easier access to qualified decision makers. The solution combined with our existing award winning SaaS tools further extends our leadership in the SaaS Sales Effectiveness space."

    Silicon Valley headquartered LeadFormix is the leader in next-generation marketing automation software: Marketing Automation 2.0. LeadFormix delivers a 100% multi-tenant SaaS solution that enables sales teams to rapidly identify and reach decision makers, and close deals faster. The solution is designed from the ground up to drive collaboration between marketing, inside sales, and field sales. LeadFormix empowers the sales team with superior lead intelligence and prospect information, provides analytics which help marketing and sales teams identify the right business opportunities to pursue, and delivers sophisticated lead scoring algorithms which enable both teams to prioritize leads by jointly deciding the ideal lead score to be considered 'sales-ready.'

    "Sales and Marketing collaboration is a hot market. LeadFormix' focus on sales and marketing alignment together with CallidusCloud's Sales Collaboration portal, Commissions, and Coaching solutions presents a huge opportunity," said Srihari Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, LeadFormix. "CallidusCloud's global reach coupled with their growing customer base will enable us to quickly capitalize on this opportunity. We look forward to working with CallidusCloud to deliver further value to our customer base as we extend our footprint into new channels and markets."

    Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the aggregate consideration to acquire LeadFormix consisted of approximately $9 million in cash, subject to final adjustments as set forth in the Agreement. A portion of the consideration is subject to a holdback in respect of the LeadFormix shareholders' indemnity obligations to CallidusCloud. CallidusCloud will provide additional financial detail regarding the transaction on its regularly scheduled fourth quarter and fiscal year 2011 earnings call.

    About LeadFormix

    LeadFormix is the leader in next-generation marketing automation software: Marketing Automation 2.0. LeadFormix delivers a game-changing real-time marketing automation solution that converts anonymous online visits into qualified sales leads, determines website visitor interest and intent, and enables sales teams to reach decision-makers more effectively and close deals faster using patented business intelligence and data mining technology. LeadFormix provides significantly richer lead data than any other solution, enabling enterprise sales and marketing teams to uncover hidden opportunities, accurately identify decision-makers, and deliver powerful, targeted, real-time responses and offers to potential customers. LeadFormix has offices in California, Michigan, England and India. For more information, please visit www.leadformix.com.

    About Callidus Software

    Callidus Software Inc. (NASDAQ: CALD - News) is the market and technology leader in sales effectiveness and cloud computing. CallidusCloud's customers gain a competitive advantage by maximizing sales cost efficiencies and driving improvements in sales effectiveness. CallidusCloud's award-winning multi-tenant SaaS applications set the standard for performance of a company's sales force and channel partners. Over 2.5 million users rely on our solutions to power their performance. For more information, please visit www.calliduscloud.com.

    ©2012. Callidus Software Inc. All rights reserved. Callidus, Callidus Software, the Callidus Software logo, CallidusCloud, the CallidusCloud logo, TrueComp Manager, ActekSoft, ACom3, ForceLogix, Salesforce Assessments, iCentera, Webcom, Litmos, the Litmos logo, and Rapid Intake are trademarks, service marks, or registered trademarks of Callidus Software Inc. and its affiliates in the United States and other countries. All other brand, service or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or owners.

    Contact:

    Press
    Rajendran Nair
    Callidus Software Inc.
    925-251-2255
    pr@callidussoftware.com
    IR Contact
    Linda Wells
    Market Street Partners
    415-445-3236
    linda@marketstreetpartners.com

  • Wed
    04
    Jan
    2012

    January 3, 2012
    CallidusCloud Acquires Marketing Automation SaaS LeadFormix For $9 Million Cash

    calliduscloud-acquires-leadformix

    Sales effectiveness cloud SaaS company Callidus Software Inc today announced its acquisition of LeadFormix, a B2B cloud-based lead intelligence SaaS. LeadFormix lets B2B vendors turn anonymous visits to their websites into qualified leads by identifying potential customers and reporting their intent. This solution will join the Callidus multi-tenant SaaS sales performance and effectiveness solutions that help companies hire better sales people, close deals, and incentivize sales performance.

    The acquisition will bring LeadFormix’s 200 SaaS customers to Callidus, which already serves AETNA, Nokia, Citrix, and JPMorgan Chase. Callidus will now have over 1100 customers, and will build upon its existing 2.5 million user base.

    LeadFormix’s CEO Srihari Kumar says ”Sales and Marketing collaboration is a hot market. LeadFormix’ focus on sales and marketing alignment together with CallidusCloud’s Sales Collaboration portal, Commissions, and Coaching solutions presents a huge opportunity.” With their products combined, Callidus will have serious might in the sales effectiveness space. LeadFormix data on what a potential customer might want to buy will assist CallidusCloud-powered sales people make the right value propositions when negotiating with potential customers.

    Just over a year ago, Callidus acquired sales coaching and talent development platform ForceLogix for $3.75 million. The publicly traded Callidus had a strong Q4 2011, bouncing back up to the $6.40 range after falling as low $4.05 in September. Following the LeadFormix acquisition news, the Callidus Software Inc [CALD] stock price rose by 0.94% to reach $6.48 at close.

    http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/calliduscloud-acquires-leadformix/

  • Fri
    27
    Jan
    2012

    This paper focuses on the key elements of creating an effective DR plan, and is appropriate for IT management and technical staff. DR is designed to provide a way for an enterprise to continue operations in the event of a disaster that shuts down business operations at one or more primary locations.

    www.infoworld.com

  • Mon
    19
    Mar
    2012

    New Intel Server Continuity Suite Powered by InMage Systems Offers Industry-Leading Data Protection and Recovery Technologies to Intel Customers and Partners

    SANTA CLARA, CA, Mar 19, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- InMage Systems(R) ( www.inmage.com ) and the Intel(R) Corporation /quotes/zigman/20392/quotes/nls/intc INTC +0.33% ( www.intel.com ) have collaborated to deliver Intel Server Boards and Systems with best-in-class business continuity and data protection to Intel customers and partners. InMage is embedding its award-winning recovery technologies into the Intel Server Continuity Suite, announced today at the Intel Solution Summit. The Intel Server Continuity Suite enables customers to manage server hardware, storage and backup from anytime and anywhere, with an unprecedented level of simplicity. This simplicity and level of integration was achieved through a multi-year collaboration between the companies. It builds upon InMage's patented data protection engine, which has been trusted for years by the most demanding enterprise customers. The software will be integrated with Intel Server Boards and Systems, extending best-in-class data protection features to hundreds of thousands of servers a year.

    "We are pleased to offer the benefits of InMage's recovery software within the Intel Server Continuity Suite," said David Brown, general manager of Intel's Enterprise Platforms and Services Division. "This is a very strategic offering for Intel, as it greatly simplifies the management of numerous data-driven IT functions, especially for the SMB market. InMage is playing a key role in helping us deliver the kind of data protection and recovery functionality that today's small to medium-sized businesses require."

    The Intel Server Continuity Suite is integrated with features such as predictive hardware failure to provide proactive and comprehensive data protection. Utilizing award-winning continuous data protection (CDP) technology developed by InMage, the Intel Server Continuity Suite backs up data in real time and offers almost immediate recovery time and recovery point objectives while eliminating backup windows. With the unified virtual presence GUI, users only have one interface to learn and run, and one place to set up alerting and schedule tasks. Other key features include application-consistent recovery points and single screen storage management.

    "By extending leading-edge data protection and recovery capabilities across their server products line, our collaboration with Intel for their Server Continuity Suite resulted in a versatile solution based on the ease of use and simplicity for tens of thousands of Intel customers. Their customers will benefit from continuous disk backup and disaster recovery, at a very affordable cost, in Intel server-powered physical and virtual environments," said Kumar Malavalli, CEO of InMage.

    Media Contact:

    Jennifer Sparks Bocchino

    Sparks & Associates

    Tel: (949) 388-9322

    SOURCE: InMage Systems

  • Sat
    09
    Jun
    2012

    NanoHorizons Announces Issuance of US Patent for Wash Durable Antimicrobial Textiles & Fibers

    Bellefonte, PA – June 7, 2012 – NanoHorizons Inc., a technology company focused on the development of nanoscale antimicrobial additives for healthcare, textile, and industrial applications, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued US Patent 8,183,167 B1 covering an antimicrobial and antifungal textile substrate with exceptional wash durability and efficacy. Based on a proprietary manufacturing using nanoparticles such as silver, this patented technology is applicable to fabric and fiber products across a broad spectrum of industries where long-lasting, high performance antimicrobial protection is required.

    “This patent is not only another important addition to NanoHorizons’ growing intellectual property portfolio,” states James Delattre, Vice President, NanoHorizons, “but it also provides the marketplace with a solution for high level wash durability and performance efficacy that has thus far eluded current antimicrobial technologies. Although the patent is specific to synthetic polymer fabrics and fibers, our antimicrobial additives can also be readily integrated into natural fibers and fabrics, coatings, foams and polymers to control the growth of bacteria, fungus and mold in devices, textiles and touch surfaces.”

    Leveraging its proprietary technology, NanoHorizons develops, manufactures and markets nanoscale silver additives under the brand SmartSilver® that significantly enhance silver’s inherent powers to control microbial growth. As a result, smaller additive amounts are needed to provide outstanding antimicrobial protection over a longer period of time. In addition, SmartSilver® protection does not thermally or UV degrade. SmartSilver® antimicrobial additives require no compromises in the manufacturing process or in product performance. SmartSilver® enhanced apparel and footwear stay fresh and odor-free. Foams and laminates protected by SmartSilver® resist microbe growth that causes degradation. Coating and plastics formulated with SmartSilver® protection prevent the growth of mildew and odor build-up. Hospital products that incorporate SmartSilver® additives help control bacteria on surfaces. The active ingredient in SmartSilver formulated products is EPA-registered under FIFRA and Oeko-Tex® approved as free from harmful levels of dangerous substances. SmartSilver® antimicrobial additives also have an FDA Device Master File in place. For more detailed information about SmartSilver®, visit www.smartsilver.com.

    About NanoHorizons

    NanoHorizons Inc. (www.nanohorizons.com) is a technology company in the emerging, cutting-edge field of practical nanotechnology for a broad range of healthcare, commercial and industrial applications. The company’s nanoscale silver antimicrobial additives are entirely developed and manufactured in the USA and marketed globally to customers in the apparel, healthcare, and coatings and plastics industries under the SmartSilver® brand (www.smartsilver.com). SmartSilver® offers highly durable, safe and cost effective bacterial control in a variety of products including natural and synthetic fibers and fabrics as well as coatings, foams and polymer applications. SmartSilver® technology is EPA registered and its additives are Oeko-Tex® approved. The company has a Device Master File (MAF) for the proprietary formulation of SmartSilver® antimicrobial additives on file with the FDA. NanoHorizons’ experienced team of scientists, engineers and operational managers provide product research, design, development and laboratory testing, manufacture, and customer technical and sales support. NanoHorizons is a private equity funded company, headquartered in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, near the The Pennsylvania State University.

    Contact:
    NanoHorizons Inc
    814.355.4700
    moc.s1339275881nozir1339275881ohona1339275881n@ofn1339275881i1339275881
    www.smartsilver.com

  • Thu
    21
    Jun
    2012

    TNN | Jun 21, 2012, 03.22AM IST

    BANGALORE: Children sitting with books open in front of them while the teacher scribbles on the board - that's a typical image of any classroom. For generations, schools have meant books - a lot of books. But that seems set to change. Loaded schoolbags and crammed library shelves are set to make way for laptops and tablets.

    Some Bangalore schools are going digital, dispensing with textbooks and printed material. Among these is Indus International School.

    "All our content is online and digital. So when a student enters the classroom, instead of looking at the blackboard, she opens her teacher's webpage and goes to the day's lesson. She can also access the student activity guide, open a document on her desktop and start working from there," says Sarojini Rao, principal of Indus International School.

    Students are provided notebooks with all the course material uploaded. They can browse the web for additional information.

    "The traditional way of learning through textbooks no longer exists in our school. Children open laptops, not textbooks. We want to do away with textbooks. For this, the mindset of parents and teachers needs to change. We have provided textbooks to students for occasional reference, but they do not carry these to the classroom. We are slowly reaching that point. It's more like a homoeopathic dose of medicines rather than a surgical dose," says Rao.

    Information in books gets outdated, whereas online information is constantly updated, say school authorities.

    "While studying from a textbook, you cannot play videos or look at relevant pictures and reference material simultaneously. Going digital will enable kids to use such facilities," says Mansoor Ali Khan, member, board of management, Delhi Public School (DPS). All branches of DPS will completely do away with textbooks from the next academic year.

    "The process is on. We will distribute tablets with applications that will be used to upload the course material. Many publishers are working with us to digitize the content. Digitized textbooks will be available for children from classes I to class VI," says Khan. The tablets will be available on installments.

    The school is replacing 5 lakh volumes in its library with an e-library.

    In Ebenezer International School, it's only the library books that are being digitized. "We are digitizing our library first. We may do away with textbooks in the future. Doing away with all printed stuff right now will be too early," says Indrani Sudarshan, the school's director, academics.

    Way forward

    The move is definitely a way forward. As far people's reaction to the shift is concerned, voices were raised even when we moved from palm leaves to textbooks. No doubt, that it will be more engaging and absorbing. But care should be taken to give more importance to the content, and not to the carrier (laptop or tablet). Moreover, now that we are back to LCD and LED screens, what worries me is the harmful effect it can have on the eyes of youngsters.

  • Wed
    27
    Jun
    2012

    Spotted - 10- San Francisco entrepreneurs to watch!

    http://yfsentrepreneur.com/

  • Sun
    01
    Jul
    2012

    July 1, 2012

    BELLEFONTE, PA - NanoHorizons Inc., a technology company focused on the development of nanoscale antimicrobial additives for healthcare, textile and industrial applications, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued U.S. Patent 8,183,167 B1 covering an antimicrobial and antifungal textile substrate with exceptional wash durability and efficacy. Based on proprietary manufacturing using nanoparticles such as silver, this patented technology is applicable to fabric and fiber products across a broad spectrum of industries where long-lasting, high-performance antimicrobial protection is required.

    James Delattre, Vice President, NanoHorizons, commented, "This patent is not only another important addition to NanoHorizons' growing intellectual property portfolio, but it also provides the marketplace with a solution for high-level wash durability and performance efficacy that has thus far eluded current antimicrobial technologies. Although the patent is specific to synthetic polymer fabrics and fibers, our antimicrobial additives can also be readily integrated into natural fibers and fabrics, coatings, foams, and polymers to control the growth of bacteria, fungus and mold in devices, textiles and touch surfaces."

    NanoHorizons Inc., Bellefonte, PA, is a technology company in the emerging field of practical nanotechnology for a broad range of healthcare, commercial and industrial applications. The company's nanoscale silver antimicrobial additives are entirely developed and manufactured in the United States and marketed globally to customers in the apparel, healthcare, and coatings and plastics industries under the SmartSilver(R) brand.

  • Thu
    19
    Jul
    2012

    PubNub

    PubNub is a service that powers your app by delivering real-time communications for mobile, web and server. It is known for delivering ‘human perceptive’ real time experiences that scale to millions of users worldwide. It delivers the infrastructure needed to build amazing MMO games, social apps, business collaborative solutions and more.

    You can experience the speed of PubNub. Type rapidly in one of the texboxs on the site and you can immediately see how PubNub performs in real time. You can also try it on your mobile device.

    You can build low-latency applications that scale to millions of users. You can add presence based push notifications via PubNub’s real-time messaging service. It is designed for mobile. You get seamless auto-reconnect on WiFi, 4G/LTE, 3G, EDGE and GPRS. You also get hassle-free development with 99.99% uptime guarantee.

    It provides you with worldwide replication to multiple data centres for speed and accuracy. PubNub works everywhere. You get going quickly with rich APIs for every popular mobile device, browser and server language.

    This leading cloud service takes care of monitoring and managing the servers, networks, security and administration. They ensure the scalability and reliability of the service and provide you with a guaranteed service level.

    PubNub is fast, globally scalable and is designed for devices to send and receive millions of messages in milliseconds without any excess overhead. Their distributed architecture is deployed worldwide in multiple data centres to deliver local access speeds across the world. With PubNub, any device can publish or listen to any other device anywhere in the world with amazing performance.

    PubNub is an excellent service that enables fast communication in real-time from server to client, server to server or client to client.

    http://startuptunes.com/

  • Fri
    05
    Oct
    2012

    2012_10$largeimg203_Oct_2012_155233040

    MILPITAS, Calif. — A sold-out crowd of 500 packed the India Community Center here for its ninth annual gala Sept. 29 that raised over $700,000 and presented the much-awaited Seva awards that honor nonprofits for their work in mobilizing youth, innovation, contribution to the local community and scale of outreach.

    icc-gala2The Bollywood-themed gala, which was a mix of true cinema-style entertainment, glittering saris and Armani suits, got a dose of some real Bollywood with emcee Omi Vaidya, the Indian American actor whose 2009 Hindi movie “3 Idiots” was the year’s biggest grosser. Vaidya’s witty standup and trademark Hindi renditions were an instant hit with the audience, but the crafty actor stayed true to the cause of the evening in urging the community to support the ICC.

    ICC Board member Venky Ganesan cheered ICC supporters for their continued support to the popular event and spoke of the immense impact ICC has on our community as a platform for education, for supporting so many nonprofit programs, and for being a place that connects us with each other and our culture.“The ICC brings us, people like me and you, back to our roots. It gives me and my children a chance to experience our heritage together,” Ganesan said.

    “I’m touched and humbled by the outpouring of support for ICC from our community that I have seen this evening. We have raised an unprecedented amount of money this evening and this is truly gratifying,” added Tanuja Bahal, executive director of the ICC.

    icc-gala3The evening stayed true to its theme as the ever-popular ICC senior group got the audience howling with some seriously energetic gyrating to the tune of “I am sexy and I know it,” while UC-Berkeley singing group Dil Se brought the Bollywood twist to the tradition of a cappella.

    And while the Mona Khan Dance Company literally brought the “Bollywood Through the Ages” theme to life with its eclectic performance, the surprise element of the evening were the ICC board members and trustees who banded together for an impressive performance on the aptly-chosen “Desi Boys.”

    The highlight of the evening was the Seva Awards where a total cash prize of $20,000 was given to four nonprofits in the categories of Youth, Scale, Local Community and Innovation. The Seva awards are part of the Sevathon initiative, which is an annual walkathon that promotes the spirit of “Seva” or “Service” where participants can walk/run for any one of the 60-plus participating nonprofits.

    icc-gala5“We had 63 nonprofits in Sevathon this year…this is truly an event the captures the essence of the community and for me personally it has been a rewarding experience to meet these exemplary people who do so much for their community,” said Raju Reddy, ICC Board member and one of the Sevathon chairs. “From a high-tech engineer who left his lucrative career to eradicate curable blindness in India to a young mother who had tragic loss of her child and turned her personal tragedy into an opportunity to help other special needs children… these are the real heroes in our community whose stories need to be told. Seva awards arean effort to recognize this organization and the people behind these organizations,” said Reddy.

    Roshni, an organization that works to bring employability and life skills to bright girls from some ofIndia’s poorest households, won the Youth Award for an organization that has been founded by youth, led by youth or has active youth involvement.

    The Akshaya Patra Foundation (USA) that combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunches to millions of children in India at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world, won the Seva Award in the Innovation category.

    icc-gala6The Local Community award that recognizes an organization for serving the local Bay Area community was won by Narika, which works to prevent and eradicate domestic violence and exploitation in South Asian communities in the San Francisco Bay area

    http://www.indiawest.com/news/6910-icc-gala-raises-over-700k-presents-seva-awards.html

  • Fri
    12
    Oct
    2012

    Kidaptive Raises Large Seed Round From Menlo, CrunchFund & Others To Bring Children’s Educational Apps To iPad
    Friday, October 12th, 2012

    leospad_g_card_04

    The iPad is the first computer a generation of children will have access to – a shift in computing which has birthed an industry of kid-focused startups. While some companies build apps purely for entertainment, others are attempting to leverage the technology for educational purposes. And some believe they can do both. A new entrant in this “edu-tainment” space is Kidaptive, a media and technology company building educational kids’ apps for the iPad. The company has raised an over-subscribed, but undisclosed, seed round, and is now soft-launching its first iPad app, “Leo’s Pad,” in Australia, the U.K. and Canada, ahead of its U.S. debut.

    The funding round was led by Menlo Ventures, and includes participation from CrunchFund, Veddis Ventures, S-Cubed Capital, Krantz Holdings, VKRM Ventures, iCamp, and Prana Holdings, which is also Kidaptive’s animation partner. As a part of the funding, Menlo’s Dubose Montgomery joined Kidaptive’s board of directors.

    Kidaptive’s founder and CEO P.J. Gunsagar also co-founded and served as president of Prana Studios, a 3D visual effects studio with 1,000 employees in L.A. and Mumbai, India. (Parents will know the company best as the studio behind the Tinker Bell films.) Gunsagar is joined at Kidaptive by co-founder and “Chief Learning Officer” Dylan Arena, whose background is in cognitive science, philosophy and statistics, with multiple degrees in all three from Stanford.

    Also at Kidaptive, is Creative Director Dan Danko, who has written for a number of children’s TV shows including “Rugrats,” “Fresh Beat Band,” and PBS’ “Word World.” Incidentally, other former “Word World” creators have been developing a similarly focused edu-tainment iPad app known as PlaySquare.TV.

    “Edu-Tainment”

    leo-sky-3

    It’s not a coincidence that there are a number of educational apps on the iPad emerging from those with a background in children’s television, not to mention from top kids’ brands like Sesame St., Disney, Nickelodeon, and others. This industry has long sought to break down the barrier of the fourth wall, and communicate directly with the children on the receiving end of their efforts to entertain and teach. In today’s TV shows, those efforts feel inauthentic and forced, such as when Dora asks “what was your favorite part?” and then blinks while waiting the child’s response. Kids quickly learn that they don’t have to answer, and the show will continue without their involvement. On the iPad, that’s no longer true. Their actions or inactions not only help progress the story, they can also be measured, monitored and personalized to the child’s own level.

    This is the future of children’s entertainment.

    leo-sky

    Introducing “Leo’s Pad”

    Gunsagar, whose background is in animation, was inspired to create Leo’s Pad because of something he felt was lacking in the industry. “I became disillusioned with the fact that content was so sugary,” he says. “I wanted to determine if there was an opportunity to combine animation with real learning.”

    That’s the big idea at Kidaptive, whose first product is an iPad app called Leo’s Pad. Like a TV show, Leo’s Pad engages children with a storyline that introduces a young Leonardo da Vinci, his pet dragon, and friend Galileo. But it’s also infused with educational activities which are masked as games. For example, kids drag shapes on the iPad’s screen in a puzzle game which has them building a telescope – Leo’s birthday present to Galileo. They also look for letters in the stars, fly their dragon into puffs of smoke, and perform other tasks which will focus on things like shapes, colors, number sense, drawing, letter identification, and more.

    kidaptive2

    What’s Unique? Parental Involvement

    But Leo’s Pad will do something else, too, which makes it unique to the space – it will offer parents a “Kidashboard” that displays their child’s progress. This alone is not a novel idea – other kids’ app makers like Fingerprint Digital and Duck Duck Moose, to name a couple, are developing tools that let parents track progress, among other things. (Fingerprint even offers theirs as an SDK). But the dashboard developed by Kidaptive is the most comprehensive we’ve seen so far. It goes beyond simply telling parents what their child did or did not do within the app to identify the child’s individual strengths and weaknesses, their overall personality type, their progress on each skill set (fine motor skills, shape recognition, etc.), and it will even inform parents how they can help continue the child’s education in the offline world with specific tasks.

    “Under the hood, we’re building a high-dimensional learner profile, and that profile is going to guide all the subsequent actions,” explains Arena. “As your learner plays though the title, we will have approximately 150 gameplay experiences that will help us build out this longitudinal development profile of the learner across some 25 or 30 learning dimensions.”

    Or in other words, the app has a really, really smart backend.

    kidapt-dashboard-v2-new-logo-quick

    [kidapt-dashboard-v2-new-logo-quick]

    In addition, Leo’s Pad is the first kid-focused app which encourages parent-and-child co-play, meaning some puzzles and activities are designed for parent and child to do together. If parents don’t help, it doesn’t prevent the story from progressing, but offers parents concerned about the iPad’s role as “digital babysitter” a way to participate. And having parents participate keeps the child motivated to learn.

    Leo’s Pad will offer three “appisodes” by December, and should have half a dozen by the end of Q1 2013. Once in full production, new appisodes will arrive every two or three weeks, likely priced as in-app purchases for 99 cents or $1.99 apiece. Further down the road, Kidaptive will release a second title aimed at five through six year olds, a step up from Leo’s Pad age demographic of 3 to 5. Future titles aiming at even older children may follow.

    Kidaptive has soft-launched in the U.K., Canada, and Australia iTunes App Stores, and its U.S. launch will soon follow.

    Company:Kidaptive
    Website:kidaptive.com

    Kidaptive is a media and technology company dedicated to smart storytelling on iPads and a curriculum developed in collaboration with Stanford University researchers to create entertaining and adaptive content that helps children learn. Our first product, Leo’s Pad, will engage preschool-aged children with games, puzzles, and projects woven into an immersive story arc. Our technology will use embedded assessments to customize learning, support metacognitive development, and provide parents with actionable intelligence and useful tips about how to further support...

    215353v1-max-150x150

    http://techcrunch.com/

  • Sun
    14
    Oct
    2012

    halo-report-infographic-2012-q1

    © 2012 SVB Financial Group. All rights reserved. SVB>, SVB>Find a way, SVB Financial Group, and Silicon Valley Bank are registered trademarks.

    Angel Resource Institute and CB Insights are independent third parties and are not affiliated with SVB Financial Group.

    This material, including without limitation to the statistical information herein, is provided for informational purposes only. The material is based in part on information

    from third-party sources that we believe to be reliable, but which have not been independently verified by us and for this reason we do not represent that the information

    is accurate or complete. The information should not be viewed as tax, investment, legal or other advice nor is it to be relied on in making an investment or other decision.

    You should obtain relevant and specific professional advice before making any investment decision. Nothing relating to the material should be construed as a solicitation,

    offer or recommendation to acquire or dispose of any investment or to engage in any other transaction.

    http://www.svb.com/halo-report-2012-q1-infographic/

  • Thu
    25
    Oct
    2012

    October 2012

    Happy to suport Foundation For Excellence.

    To date, the FFE has provided 30,000 annual scholarships in engineering and medicine to almost 12,000 students and has helped transform families and communities across 25 states in India.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGov4MuyRdY

  • Mon
    29
    Oct
    2012

    2012_10$largeimg226_Oct_2012_135530677

    PALO ALTO, Calif., United States

    Sold out within the first two weeks of its announcement, the annual fundraising gala for the Foundation for Excellence attracted a crowd Oct. 6 of more than 300 of the top entrepreneurs and business minds in the Bay Area to the Albert and Janet Schultz Cultural Arts Hall at the JCC here.

    ffe-gala2

    In past years, the FFE has raised approximately $150,000 at the annual event. However, with the growing tuition and the Indian economy’s increasing demands of the students, the FFE board decided to open the event up to a much larger assembly and seek much higher levels of funding.

    The decision surpassed all expectations when the Oct. 6 event broke all of its historical fundraising records by raising $425,000 in one night

    The FFE is a non-profit scholarship program founded in 1994 by Dr. Prabhu Goel and his wife Poonam. Its mission is to help exceptionally talented but underprivileged students in India to follow career paths to becoming doctors, engineers, and computer scientists.

    To date, the FFE has provided 30,000 annual scholarships in engineering and medicine to almost 12,000 students and has helped transform families and communities across 25 states in India.

    As the evening began, the banquet hall rang with laughter as Jeff Applebaum’s standup comedy routine kicked off the FFE fundraising event. Then Venktesh Shukla, the president of FFE, explained that all FFE scholarship recipients sign a pledge to support two scholars when they are in a position to do so.

    The Indian American entrepreneur further noted that 670 FFE alumni are already seriously involved in the donation process and in this year alone the alumni themselves have supported over 100 new FFE students.

    After 17 years of being at the helm of FFE, Shukla was honored by the organization for not only building the FFE organization here in the United States but for also shepherding the FFE India Trust and playing a substantial role in bringing FFE to its present stature. Board member Dr. Kailash Joshi, a founding member of TiE, was then named the next FFE president.

    Among those present that evening were Indian Consul General N. Parthasarathi, well-known philanthropist and leading private-equity investor Romesh Wadhwani of the Symphony Group, and Dr. Kumar Malavalli, co-founder of Brocade Communications and InMage, all of whom gave speeches in praise of the efforts of the FFE.

    Among the highlights of the evening were speeches by five alumni scholars who spoke of their struggles through life and their extreme challenges in attaining a higher education. They expressed their gratitude to FFE, noting that had it not been for the organization, they would still be struggling to support themselves and their families.

    In addition to a dinner catered by Amber, the evening’s entertainment featured songs by “SaReGaMaPa” finalists Zaheer and Ishmeet, and a dance performance.

    http://www.indiawest.com/news/7289-foundation-for-excellence-gala-raises-record-425-000.html

  • Tue
    30
    Oct
    2012

    InMage & Hitachi Data Systems Partner to Enable Local Channel Partners to Deliver Next Generation Server Replication and Recovery Cloud Services in Hong Kong

    SAN JOSE, Calif. – October 30, 2012 – InMage® announced today that its ScoutCloud platform has been selected by Hitachi Data Systems® to help the company’s channel partners bring next-generation server replication and recovery cloud services to customers in Hong Kong.

    Using ScoutCloud’s built-in technologies such as continuous data protection (CDP), application awareness and consistency, asynchronous replication and WAN optimization, together with storage technology from Hitachi Data Systems, enables local channel partners to provide increased benefits to their end users, such as the ability to recover their physical and virtual servers as virtual machines in the secure cloud.

    “Featuring lower costs, reduced complexity, and limited risks, InMage’s ScoutCloud takes us to the next level in terms of the support we can provide to our channel partners,” said Andrew Sampson, General Manager, Hong Kong and Macau, Hitachi Data Systems. “With exponential data growth and increasing complexity, every second counts in the process of recovering applications in order to minimize data loss and maintain business continuity. It is therefore our priority to provide instant response during disasters with InMage’s ScoutCloud platform. It offers not only excellent recovery ability, but also achieves service levels that exceed expectations.”

    ScoutCloud combines best in class data protection, a comprehensive physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual recovery engine that supports failover/failback for all applications, and automated provisioning of recovery virtual machines and their associated storage. This enables MSPs and Cloud providers to offer Recovery as a Service (RaaS) that is capable of near-zero RPO and RTO. ScoutCloud protects any customer server (virtual or physical) and can recover it nearly instantaneously as a virtual machine in the cloud.

    “We’re pleased to partner with Hitachi Data Systems and bring ScoutCloud to their service providers in that region,” said Ramesh Mandava, Vice President, Sales and Operations, APAC and EMEA, InMage. “Their customers will be able to leverage their existing IT assets while adopting feature-rich cloud-based server replication and recovery services to expedite their disaster recovery (DR) implementations. This leads to substantial savings in time and money for them.”

    ###

    Media Contacts: Jennifer Sparks Bocchino

    Sparks & Associates

    Tel: (949) 388-9322

    jenn@sparks-associates.com

  • Wed
    07
    Nov
    2012

    SnapVolumes Secures $2.3 Million Seed Financing to Redefine Application

    Deployment and Management of Virtual Desktops, Servers and Cloud Computing

    Founded by technologists with deep expertise in solving complex virtualization
    and Windows challenges; well-known industry executives participate in angel
    round

    Business Wire

    LOS ALTOS, Calif. -- November 07, 2012

    SnapVolumes, Inc., a new company focused on application lifecycle management
    in virtual, cloud and physical environments, has emerged from stealth mode
    today with an angel investment of $2.3 million from well-known industry
    executives. Founded by virtualization, Windows kernel and security experts,
    Matthew Conover, Shaun Coleman and Matthieu Suiche, SnapVolumes focuses on the
    issues of supporting a mixed environment of virtual desktops, servers and
    cloud computing while fully leveraging the virtual infrastructure.

    As more companies move to the cloud, IT departments are struggling to adapt
    their enterprise applications to the dynamic and elastic nature of cloud
    computing. Traditional tools that managed applications in the world of
    physical servers and desktops are ill-suited for virtual environments. This
    leads to substantial overhead and costs associated with application
    deployment, support, management, storage and infrastructure. A recent analyst
    report predicts a virtualization management gap in excess of $100 billion and
    growing at an unprecedented rate, increasing pressure on IT and the need for
    automating application deployment and management. To address market needs,
    SnapVolumes has developed an entirely new approach to enterprise application
    life-cycle management that takes full advantage of virtualization and modern
    storage technologies such as SSD. SnapVolumes supports all server, desktop and
    custom/legacy applications without requiring streaming, packaging, or
    sequencing and is far more robust than current layering solutions.

    SnapVolumes is led by CEO Raj Parekh, former CEO of Virident and CTO/VP,
    Engineering at Sun Microsystems. SnapVolumes has already attracted top
    engineering talent from VMware, Citrix, EMC, Symantec, Microsoft and Trend
    Micro. The SnapVolumes Board of Directors is drawn from business leaders and
    technologists with extensive experience in virtualization and cloud computing,
    and include Henrik Rosendahl, successful serial entrepreneur and CEO of
    Thinstall (acquired by VMware in 2008); Klaus Oestermann, Group VP, GM of
    Cloud Networking at Citrix Systems; and, Prashant Shah, former Managing
    Director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Participants in the angel round
    include TiE Angels of Silicon Valley and industry executives and visionaries
    such as the founder and former CTO of Brocade Kumar Malavalli, SVP of
    Technology at SAP Labs Sanjog Gad, and the CEO of Infoblox Robert Thomas.
    Executives from Symantec, EMC, Citrix, and TIBCO also participated in the
    round.

    “SnapVolumes has the potential to fundamentally change the way that enterprise
    desktops, server and cloud platforms are managed,” said Simon Bramfitt,
    founder and principal analyst with Entelechy Associates. “The ability for IT
    to easily adapt their enterprise applications to the dynamic and elastic
    nature of cloud computing is a remarkable benefit. SnapVolumes technology is
    the closest thing to magic I’ve ever seen.”

    “The opportunities for SnapVolumes from both a technology and partnership
    perspective are exciting, and I look forward to being involved with such a
    distinguished team and group of advisors,” said Rosendahl, Chairman of the
    Board, SnapVolumes. “My experience at Thinstall and VMware in application
    delivery and virtualization provided me with unique insight into the issues
    that can arise in a converged infrastructure environment. I believe
    SnapVolumes is in a strong position to help solve these new-world data center
    challenges.”

    SnapVolumes’ executive team brings extensive experience in virtualization and
    software development:

    * Chief Executive Officer Raj Parekh – co-founded Virident Systems in 2006
    and served as CEO and Chairman. A well-respected technologist, Raj has
    been a member of the senior business and technology executive teams of
    high technology companies including Sun Microsystems as CTO and Vice
    President of Engineering of all system products, and as Vice President and
    General Manager of Java products for Sun Microsystems. Before joining Sun,
    Raj was Vice President and General Manager at Silicon Graphics managing
    all chip development including “Geometry Engine” and several system
    products. Raj also co-founded Redwood Ventures served as Executive
    Managing Partner and Chairman. Raj has served as board member and/or
    Chairman of the board at more than 15 high tech companies, including
    Magma, Niksun, Pranalytica, eGtran, Virident, TiE Angels, PubNub and
    Aspex. He holds 11 issued patents.

    * Chief Technology Officer and Founder Matthew Conover – former Technical
    Director for Symantec Research Labs, where he was a major contributor to
    the company’s virtualization strategy. Prior to his eight years at
    Symantec, Conover held various research and engineering roles at Network
    Associates and BindView. As an early pioneer in the field of Windows
    security his research has been cited in numerous publications such as
    “Writing Secure Code” by Microsoft Press. He holds 16 issued patents.

    * Vice President of Products/Marketing and Founder Shaun Coleman – formerly
    Director of Product Management for Citrix XenDesktop, Coleman has also
    worked at VMware where he was the first hire in the desktop virtualization
    group where he managed the first releases of VDI/VMware View. He founded
    the security startup company Reconnex (acquired in 2008 by McAfee) and has
    held various senior management positions at Proofpoint, RSA Data Security,
    Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and Sandia National Labs. Coleman holds
    4 issued patents.

    * Chief Scientist and Founder Matthieu Suiche – As one of the youngest
    Microsoft MVPs, he is a well-respected Windows OS and security expert. He
    also worked as a researcher at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (Dutch
    Nederlands Forensisch Instituut) as part of the Dutch Ministry of Security
    and Justice, has worked for the European Aeronautic Defense and Space
    Company, and contributed to the Samba open source project.

    “Running many virtual machines on a single server has greatly reduced the
    number of physical servers needed, giving an enormous CAPEX savings. However,
    OPEX continues to increase proportional to total number of VMs,” said Parekh.
    “The problem of application management is obviously in need of a new solution.
    Without that, the ever expanding virtualization management gap will simply
    stall cloud momentum. Such a solution must be fully automated, fit seamlessly
    with all clouds, hypervisors, operating systems and apps. It must be secure,
    easy to use and fit with existing tools from major players like VMware,
    Citrix, Dell and Microsoft. There exists no such product in the market today
    with these attributes. At SnapVolumes, we are developing a patent-pending
    solution to address critical issues, reduce CIO headaches and save millions of
    dollars in operational expenses ‘in a snap.’ Due to the size of the
    opportunity and urgent need from customers, we plan to form key partnerships
    with industry leaders as we complement their solutions.”

    For more information about SnapVolumes and their new beta program, contact
    or call 888-369-5597 or go to www.snapvolumes.com.

    Follow SnapVolumes on the web at:

    * Beta sign up

    * Twitter

    * LinkedIn

    About SnapVolumes

    SnapVolumes was founded in early 2011 to provide IT with a new approach to
    enterprise application life-cycle management that takes full advantage of
    virtualization, supports legacy applications, eliminates the need for
    re-architecting or rewriting existing software, and works with existing
    management solutions. The company is headquartered in Los Altos, California.
    For more information, visit http://www.snapvolumes.com.

    Contact:

    Mindshare
    Heather Fitzsimmons, 650-279-4360
    heather@mindsharepr.com

  • Tue
    27
    Nov
    2012

    With all of the migration to cloud-based services in the enterprise, it’s worth noticing that server spending has been flat at about $50 billion a year. But managing and administering to the cloud and all of the virtualized apps that it spawns has become a huge expense and the cost is growing at an alarming rate.

    That’s the problem that SnapVolumes hopes to address with a clever tool for keeping track of everything. The Los Altos, Calif.-based company recently raised $2.3 million from industry executives to attack the problem of managing their apps. It does so by enabling enterprises to run a single copy of a major app, said Rj Parekh (pictured), chief executive of SnapVolumes, in an interview with VentureBeat.

    SnapVolumes was founded by experts on virtualization, Windows kernel, and security: Matthew Conover, Shaun Coleman and Matthieu Suiche. The cloud — or web-connected data centers powered by racks of computers known as servers — allows users and companies to log into their virtual environments, which are supported with dynamic cloud data centers. A single server can be more fully utilized by virtually dividing it up into parts that can handle different tasks. That results in huge capital spending savings, as it reduces the total number of servers an enterprise needs.

    raj-parekh

    But tracking all of those divisions between apps and companies (that is, the number of virtual servers) isn’t something that today’s enterprise information technology tools were designed to do. The result is substantial overhead and costs associated with application deployment, support, management, security, and infrastructure. IDC recently reported that the “virtualization management gap” is costing enterprises $100 billion a year and it is growing at an unprecedented rate.

    “The expense is related to the number of virtual machines out there,” Parekh said.

    The problem is that for every 1,000 employees, companies have to run about 1,000 copies of apps such as Microsoft Office.

    To address the problem, SnapVolumes has developed an entirely new approach, running one app per thousands of virtual machines.When an app has to be updated, the changes are made to one copy.

    “No one can do that today,” Parekh said. “There is still no good solution.”

    What you need to accomplish this, Parekh said, is talented engineers who understand the nature of physical memory in the infrastructure, and the security associated with each copy being used.

    “We build a bridge of the logical (virtual server) and the physical, and our software operates on both sides at the same time,” Parekh said. “We set up a control network that can scale to tens of thousands of virtual machines.”

    SnapVolumes inserts a small piece of its software in every virtual machine, with another piece in the physical world handling control procedures. It’s almost like a watermark for virtual servers in the cloud. The company supports all server, desktop and other apps without requiring too much effort. It costs $600 per year to manage each virtual machine today. Parekh hopes to cut $200 a year out of that cost.

    SnapVolumes is led by CEO Raj Parekh, former CEO of Virident and a former chief technology officer and vice president of engineering at Sun Microsystems. He has recruited engineers who worked at VMware, Citrix, EMC, Symantec, Microsoft and Trend Micro. Suiche, a former Microsoft MVP (most valuable programmer) and Conover, a security expert and former technical director at Symantec Research Labs, have focused on a creating a system that is secure. The company was founded in early 2011.

    “The ever-expanding virtualization management gap will simply stall cloud momentum,” Parekh said. “A solution must be fully automated, fit seamlessly with all clouds, hypervisors, operating systems and apps. It must be secure, easy to use and fit with existing tools from major players like VMware, Citrix, Dell and Microsoft. There exists no such product in the market today with these attributes. At SnapVolumes, we are developing a patent-pending solution to address critical issues, reduce CIO headaches and save millions of dollars in operational expenses ‘in a snap.’ Due to the size of the opportunity and urgent need from customers, we plan to form key partnerships with industry leaders as we complement their solutions.”

    Board members at SnapVolumes include Henrik Rosendahl, former CEO of Thinstall (acquired by VMware in 2008); Klaus Oestermann, an executive at Citrix Systems; and Prashant Shah, former managing director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Investors include TiE Angels of Silicon Valley and former industry executives who worked at Brocade, SAP Labs, Infoblox, Symantec, EMC, Citrix, and Tibco also participated in the round.

    “SnapVolumes has the potential to fundamentally change the way that enterprise desktops, server and cloud platforms are managed,” said Simon Bramfitt, founder and principal analyst with Entelechy Associates. “The ability for IT to easily adapt their enterprise applications to the dynamic and elastic nature of cloud computing is a remarkable benefit. SnapVolumes technology is the closest thing to magic I’ve ever seen.”

    Read more at http://venturebeat.com/

  • Tue
    11
    Dec
    2012

    BY CAROL HAZARD Richmond Times-DispatchRichmond Times-Dispatch

    If it weren’t for lost luggage, T.K. Somanath might not have stopped in Richmond.

    Nor would he, as the first and only president and chief executive officer of the Better Housing Coalition, help transform neighborhoods and change lives with high-quality affordable housing.

    Somanath arrived here in late 1971. He was traveling by Greyhound bus from New York to Florida searching for a job that fit his skills as a civil engineer.

    He and his bride, Mukthalata, fascinated by the speeches and legacies of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., set out that year from India to explore and see the world.

    The U.S. was coming out of the Vietnam War, and the country was in a recession. It wouldn’t be easy to find work, especially as winter approached.

    The couple had $400, and they spent a chunk on a winter coat and jacket when they arrived in New York. She stayed with friends there while he hopped on a bus and scouted for a job.

    His luggage got lost somewhere between Washington and Richmond, so Somanath ended his trip here and paid $3 to sleep that night at the YMCA. “I didn’t care about my clothes, but my college credentials were very important to me.”

    Somanath stayed at the Y for a few months, finding work first at Standard Drug store on East Broad Street, cleaning up after the store closed, and then as a survey crew member for Timmons engineering firm at its Main Street office.

    “Greyhound located my baggage in about a week, and, in the meantime, I was actively looking for jobs and registered at the Virginia Employment Commission,” he recalled.

    “I didn’t have Richmond as my destination, but it didn’t take too long to fall in love with the place and its people.”

    His career path in affordable housing began when he took a job in early 1972 with the Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority.

    His introduction to housing here was an eye-opener. “I couldn’t believe the big divide between the poor and the rich,” he said.

    Coming from India and learning about the U.S. through reading The Saturday Evening Post and Time and Life magazines, Somanath was under the impression that most everyone in this country was rich.

    His wife, a medical doctor, joined him in Richmond, and they reared their family here. “We made this as our home because Richmond is so beautiful,” he said.

    The couple settled 35 years ago in Brandermill near the Swift Creek Reservoir in Chesterfield County.

    When they arrived, only a dozen or so people from India lived in the Richmond area. The area is home now to thousands of Indian immigrants.

    Somanath is a co-founder of the Hindu Center of Virginia.

    “In the early days, we met at rented community centers in the West End and South Side until the center acquired a large parcel at Spring Hill Road in western Henrico,” Somanath said.

    “Today, we have a beautiful temple for worship and classrooms to teach dance music, yoga and studies in Hindu and Jain religions.”

    Four decades goes quickly, Somanath said. His wife retired about five years ago.

    Somanath, 66, plans to retire in April. “I have been busy the last 40 years,” he said.

    “It has been a great privilege to serve thousands of low-income families with decent, beautiful, affordable housing in our region.”

    For the past 22 years, Somanath has set the foundation for the Better Housing Coalition, leading efforts to revitalize, preserve and develop about 1,600 housing units in 13 communities in the Richmond area.

    “T.K. has a big heart and cares about people,” said James E. Ukrop, former chairman of the Virginia Local Initiatives Support Corp., a partner housing organization to the Better Housing Coalition. His wife, Bobbie, served on the coalition’s board, and their son, Scott, is a committee chairman.

    “He has a very creative financial mind, and he is a good deal-maker,” said Ukrop, former chairman of Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. and First Market Bank.

    The Better Housing Coalition was formed in 1988 by community leaders, including the late social advocate Mary Tyler McClenahan, to find private, locally initiated solutions to build high-quality affordable housing.

    A nationwide search was conducted for someone to lead the organization.

    The doors to the nonprofit opened in 1990 in a one-room office in the United Way building with Somanath, former development director at the housing authority, as executive director. He recruited an office manager, a part-time planner and several volunteers.

    The group now employs 80 people. It owns 1,459 apartments. A property-management subsidiary handles leasing and maintenance.

    “T.K. has built a remarkable organization with strong support from the staff and board,” said Carter McDowell, the coalition’s co-founder.

    “He is an engineer by training, so he is results-oriented, but in addition, he is truly a visionary, and he has the ability to create multiple options,” she said.

    “He has a very positive view of the world, and he expects things to happen around him and they do.”

    The board is conducting a search for his replacement.

    “We play an important role at the BHC by being a catalyst to bring change,” Somanath said.

    Once a critical mass of houses is built or revitalized, private development follows and neighborhoods are transformed.

    Challenges included transforming Park Lee — 35 barracks-style buildings with 420 apartments in Chesterfield — into Winchester Greens, a mixed-use, mixed-income planned community with 240 town homes.

    The coalition bought the run-down complex in 1997 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. About 20 percent of residents at Park Lee worked, and the average household income was $6,500 a year.

    Most residents at Winchester Greens work, and the average household income is $35,000, said Andrea Butler, the coalition’s spokeswoman.

    Social transformation through support services provided by the coalition has resulted in reduced crime, children succeeding in school and going to college and zero teen pregnancies, she said.

    “It is absolutely true that when you can take a family or a senior out of poor housing in an unsafe neighborhood and put them in high-quality housing, whether rental or for sale, in a neighborhood on an upswing that you change their lives,” said John P. McCann, chairman of the coalition’s board and founder of McCann Realty Partners.

    “Suddenly, they have pride in their home, their outlook improves. … In addition, you give them support with needed social services, such as employment counseling, financial literacy, nutrition direction and medical guidance,” McCann said.

    “This is the model that T.K. has built that has changed more than a thousand households in central Virginia.”

    To develop high-quality affordable housing, the amount of debt on projects must be minimized so purchase or rental prices can be kept low, McCann said.

    “T.K. is an expert in creating the capital stack. If a high-quality rental property costs $100,000 a home, to keep it affordable, maybe it can only service $40,000 of debt.”

    For the project to work, it needs tax credits, energy grants, municipal subsidies, other grants and subsidies that make up the remaining $60,000 of the cost.

    “T.K. finds this other capital better than anyone else probably in Virginia,” McCann said.

    “Changing lives and starting the transformation of a difficult neighborhood is what motivates him.”

    Mary White Thompson, 75, who lives in the Fairmount area in Church Hill and served on the coalition’s board, said the nonprofit group has changed her life.

    She recalled how the community thrived in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. But it fell into disrepair as residents aged and houses were abandoned.

    Somanath came to talk to residents in 1993. He asked what they wanted and developed trust with the residents from the beginning, Thompson said.

    “The neighborhood is beautiful now with the new and rehabbed homes,” Thompson said. “New families have moved in. We have mixed incomes. For me, it is a dream. I love to see people talking and children playing again.”

    The people at the Better Housing Coalition are team players, she said. “T.K. is the head of the team. He is a wonderful friend and a wonderful humanitarian.”

    Active in Church Hill since 1994, the coalition launched a capital campaign in early 2010 to add 150 affordable homes in a 10-block area north of East Broad Street in north Church Hill by the end of 2016.

    To date, the coalition has built and/or renovated 25 single-family homes and opened the 22-unit Beckstoffer’s Mill Loft apartments. Beckstoffer’s Seniors, a 39-unit apartment building, is under construction.

    There is a right way to build affordable housing and a wrong way.

    Somanath is all too familiar with the “not-in-my-backyard” mentality.

    “It should surprise no one that many communities no longer accept affordable housing with open arms,” he said.

    “When anyone proposes developing affordable housing or multifamily rental communities, ambivalence against affordable housing often shifts to hostility,” he said.

    People use myths to convince decision makers that the development and its residents don’t belong there, Somanath said.

    They claim traffic will add to congested roads, schools will become overcrowded, new buildings will clash with existing neighborhoods, people won’t fit in and they might bring a criminal element.

    “It is essential to counter these myths with facts to win them over to support development of affordable housing to accommodate housing needs of our workforce and to bring economic stability and prosperity to our region,” he said.

    Somanath’s first opportunity to change the face of public housing, while working at the housing authority, was in Randolph, a 76-acre urban neighborhood plagued by substandard housing and decay but with deep roots as a community.

    Dilapidated houses were cleared during the urban renewal of the late 1960s. The Downtown Expressway cut through low-income, working-class neighborhoods of Randolph, the lower Fan District and Oregon Hill.

    Initial plans for Randolph’s redevelopment called for construction of typical subsidized public-housing apartments organized around courtyards surrounded by parking lots and 40-foot-wide single-family ranchers.

    Somanath stepped in to dramatically change the direction of redevelopment. “I was successful in pressing the concerns expressed by the residents with the city and decision-makers at RRHA (the housing authority).”

    “He called a timeout on projects that were approved and ready to go,” recalled Rob Robinson, an urban designer in Pittsburgh who worked with Somanath at the time.

    He took an incremental, organic approach that stirred criticism and anger. “But it was the right thing to do.”

    “T.K. is broad and visionary in his thinking and an ardent supporter and advocate of how best to assist neighborhoods,” Robinson said. “He is genuine, honest and optimistic. With him, it is never ‘you can’t,’ but ‘find what you can do.’ ”

    Randolph residents wanted to return to a community reflecting neighborhood traditions, said Somanath, who involved the residents in planning their new community.

    New homes were designed with porches and yards along streets and sidewalks, alleys and trees. The bold plan featured a park close to the expressway, pocket parks, gazebos and a mix of housing types and materials.

    “Today, the overriding impression of Randolph is one of stability with a steady rhythm of porches along its tree-lined streets, with a mix of affordable rental apartments and single-family homes occupied by a mix of income homeowners,” he said.

    www.timesdispatch.com

  • Tue
    05
    Feb
    2013

    Mon Feb 4, 2013 7:30pm EST

    SAN JOSE, CA, Feb 04 (Marketwire) -- InMage(R), leading provider of backup, application recovery, disaster recovery and cloud computing announced today that SIFY(R), a leader in IT Solutions and Services space with its core offerings on Enterprise IT Transformation, Managed IT and Cloud Services in India with a growing global market, has chosen its ScoutCloud platform to help bring Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) to their customers in India. "SIFY's cloud services bouquet offers a true service aggregation platform and business solutions that are powered by best-of-breed technology providers. As we aim to be leaders in the Enterprise Cloud space, InMage partnership will bring its own set of unique and complimentary advantages to our platform," said Mr. Sanjay Kamboj, President - International Business, Cloud & Managed Services. "By partnering with InMage, a pioneer and proven leader in the fast growing DRaaS space, we have built a complete and robust eco-system of cloud services, with the industry leader in disaster recovery solutions." SIFY selected InMage's ScoutCloud platform after an extensive proof of concept process. ScoutCloud combines best in class data protection, a comprehensive physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual recovery engine that supports failover/failback for all applications, and automated provisioning of virtual machines and associated storage. This enables near zero RPO and RTO capable Recovery as a Service (RaaS). ScoutCloud protects any customer server (physical or virtual) and can recover it nearly instantaneously as a virtual machine in the cloud. It bundles P2V with remote replication, delivering true application-consistent data availability and block-level continuous data protection with failover/failback for any application. "As India's leading integrated information, communications and technology organization, SIFY will leverage ScoutCloud to help enterprise customers manage their businesses better and maintain a competitive edge," said Kumar Malavalli, CEO, InMage. "This partnership is yet another validation of InMage's commitment to the success of our partners in delivering proven technology as a whole, and we are honored to be working with such a progressive organization as SIFY."

    For more information, please visit www.inmage.com Media Contact: Jennifer Sparks Bocchino Sparks & Associates 949-388-9322 Copyright 2013, Marketwire, All rights reserved. -0-

  • Thu
    14
    Mar
    2013

    Real-time just got a whole lot easier for .NET developers everywhere as the super-fast PubNub Real-Time Network is now available as an add-on through the Windows Azure Mobile Services platform.

    Now Windows Azure users can leverage the PubNub Network to add real-time experiences to both new and existing apps. Using a simple API, with just a few lines of code, any app has instant access to powerful real-time features such as:

    Real-Time Data – Broadcast to millions of users at a time or to individual devices all in less than .25 seconds

    Presence Detection – Instantly know everyone using an app and automatically detect when additional users join or other users leave

    Data Visualization – Get better insights with streaming real-time data visualization

    azure-dashboard2

    Some of the many uses for PubNub include deepening second screen interactions in Social TV apps like Viggle, powering new wave telecommunications services like Rebtel and improving engagement with the real-time voting associated with many new advertising campaigns. In fact, millions of users today use thousands of PubNub-powered apps across social, ecommerce, business collaboration, advertising and multi-player gaming. This new integration with Windows Azure means that number is sure to grow.

    To get started:
    If you are using Visual Studio and have NuGet installed, getting started is just as easy as searching for the PubNub package and installing it. Some great walkthrough screencasts for using PubNub with NuGet can be found here.

    Otherwise, if you’d prefer to manually install the PubNub client code for C# on Visual Studio (or any other IDE, platform, and language), just visit our GitHub site at https://github.com/pubnub/pubnub-api, and peruse for the client of your choice!

    In addition to this partnership, PubNub is simultaneously releasing an updated C# library as part of a continual effort to provide the easiest API and best development experience.

    Built something cool with PubNub and Window’s Azure? Let us know so we can help get the word out to our fans. Please let us know if you have any questions.

  • Thu
    21
    Mar
    2013

    It is celebration hour for Indus International School students who were awarded diploma for successful completion of their two years of International Baccalaureate Diploma Program in Indus International School today. It was also a proud moment for Indus International School when the head boy of the school Siddarth Patil bagged Kofi Annan Scholarship of $33000 and got a choice to accept admission offers made by Macalester College and McGill University. Class of 2013 Valedictorian Grusha Prasad was elated too as she won the Hampshire College Bell Ringers Merit Scholarship worth $16000 per year. Local boy Sai Harsha Reddy, the boarding house caption at the school has received the opportunity to accept Clarkson University (Scholarship $ 8000 Per Year) or Valparaiso University (Scholarship $ 9000 Per Year).

    In all 38 students graduated from the school. SIDDARTH PATIL & SON HEE YEONG won the Principal’s BEST ACHIEVER AWARD. Other achievers awards were given in the category of Visual Aesthetics, Entrepreneurship, Authorship, Global Citizenship and Creative Action Service. Indus International School, Hyderabad came into existence in July 2008 at Mokila near Shankarpally, a brainchild of the Indus Trust which is globally acknowledged for its Leadership Programs. Speaking after winning the award Siddarth Patil said the unique part of IB is the Theory of knowledge (TOK), which too had a great role in shaping me as a person. It wasn’t until almost half way into 12th grade that I realized the true purpose of TOK. Up until that point, I only thought of it is “Just discussing and debating over topics using all “AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE””.

    Speaking on the occasion Lt. General (Retired) Arjun Ray, PVSM, VSM. Chief Executive Indus Trust said "It is a moment of pride of all of us in the school when students pass out with such outstanding achievements. Our focus is to nurture Leadership skills and enable the students to think critically, synthesize knowledge, reflect on their own thought processes and excel in multi disciplinary thinking."

    The medium of instruction at Indus is English and the curricula offered was the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary year’s program from Prep to Grade 5, the Middle School Curriculum from Grade 6 to Grade 8 culminating in the University of Cambridge's International Examination in Grades 9 & 10. Students are awarded the International Certificate of Education (ICE) after Grade 10. The school offers the IB Diploma Program for grades 11 and 12.

    Omkar Joshi the principal of the school in his statement said what is unique about our school is the way we facilitate/coach students by using interactive discussions and "hands-on" approach to learn and apply concepts in subjects. What we also do is continuously interact and collaborate with students and the parent community to build an environment that maximizes student learning, academic performance, and social growth.

    Spread over a sprawling 27-acre campus in Hyderabad, India’s technology capital, Indus International School provides state-of-the-art facilities for academics and sports, and a truly world-class ambience.

    The school is nurtured by CEO Lt Gen (Retd) Arjun Ray and the Board of Trustees comprising thought leaders in various fields ranging from Engineering, Information Technology and Manufacturing to Real Estate and Hospitality, among others.

    http://indiaeducationdiary.in/Shownews.asp?newsid=21016

  • Wed
    01
    May
    2013

    12 Hours of Separation

    Did you know anyone around the world can be found on social media in about 12 hours? And what is the cost of getting a new fan on your fanpage?

    This week’s social media must-reads talks about the true value of your network:

    12 Hours of Separation
    Researchers say any single person is just 12 hours of separation from each other. Mashable.

    Cost Per Like
    What is the cost of getting a new fan for a Facebook page? This article helps determine the value of a fan. Mashable.

    Content to Build Community
    Community managers and companies are creating impactful content to build their communities. The Community Manager.

    Introducing the Community Director
    The community manager has no way of climbing up the corporate ladder — until now. CMS Wire.

    Practice Makes Perfect
    Here’s some great insight into the best practices of community management. Business2Community.

    A New Breed of Marketer
    Gartner predicts by 2015, 25 percent of organizations will have a Chief Digital Officer. Business2Community.

    http://blog.sumazi.com/12-hours-of-separation/

  • Wed
    01
    May
    2013

    card makerseducational appskidaptiveLeo’s Birthday Card MakerLeo’s Pad: Preschool Learning Series

    b3

    From developer Kidaptive, the recently released Leo’s Birthday Card Maker is a great way to help young artists craft that perfect handmade card.

    Leo first made an appearance in the educational iPad app Leo’s Pad: Preschool Learning Series. And he is now helping kids create and personalize a birthday card for family and friends.

    The app is simple and easy to use. Users start by entering the to and from information for the card. After that, kids start with a blank palette and a number of colors, brushes, and stickers. As a nice touch, Leo helps collaborate with your child during the creation of the card. He offers some encouraging words and helps with color recognition.

    After the card is complete, it can be saved in Photos to email or print.

    While I think the app is a really nice start, I’d like to see Kidaptive expand it for more than just birthdays. I think both of my kids would enjoy making a Mother’s Day card for their mom with the app, but “Happy Birthday” appears on every creation. It would also be nice to add a few more stickers as well.

    Leo’s Birthday Card Maker is a universal app for the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad/iPad mini. It can be downloaded in the App Store now for free.

    You can also check out Leo’s Pad: Preschool Learning Series for free in the App Store.

    appadvice.com

  • Tue
    07
    May
    2013

    Zynga and NewSchools Venture Fund Team Up for Learning Games Accelerator

    SCHOOLVILLE? No, that's not what Mark Pincus is announcing at the NewSchools Summit. But instead, a partnership with NewSchools Venture Fund for a learning games accelerator. The social gaming giant's non-profit affiliate, Zynga.org, will be committing $1 million for the first year of the program, which will be hosted at its San Francisco headquarters.

    Some of that money will be going directly to companies in the first cohort, which include Kidaptive, LocoMotive Labs, and Motion Math. Edmodo will be joining as a "charter partner." (Sources say that one of its recent acquisitions, Root-1, was originally asked to join the group.)

    Zynga employees will be "encouraged" to volunteer and collaborate on game design, testing, analytics, marketing, and distribution.

    With many edtech startups--especially those in gaming--still searching ways to build scalable business models, it's no surprise that many are open to this offer of help. Both Dylan Arena, co-founder and Chief Learning Officer at Kidaptive, and MotionMath CEO and co-founder, Jacob Klein, expressed to EdSurge their enthusiasm at the opportunity to leverage Zynga's expertise on crunching data on user adoption, retention, and monetization that has driven its dominance in the social gaming industry.

    https://www.edsurge.com/

  • Tue
    14
    May
    2013

    App Maker Kidaptive Debuts “Parent’s Pad,” A New Way To Track A Child’s Educational Development On iPad

    leos-pad-a-lg

    Parents of preschoolers can finally let go of “iPad guilt” – the term that refers to that terrible feeling you get when you use the iPad as babysitter. Today, a company called Kidaptive is launching one of the most comprehensive feedback systems for parents to date, allowing them to get a hand of their child’s learning and development by simply handing over the iPad and letting their child play.

    It’s a shame that despite the wide variety of educational apps out there, too many parents still treat the iPad as a toy, letting kids rot their minds with time-wasting games and goofs, instead of using screen time to learn. But as any kid will tell you, learning is just sooooo boring. That’s why Kidaptive has so much promise – it merges the lean-back experience of watching TV with mini games kids actually think are fun.

    The company first launched its “edu-tainment” iPad application called “Leo’s Pad” back in fall 2012. The app was designed by a team that includes CEO P.J. Gunsagar, who also co-founded and served as president of Prana Studios, a 3D visual effects studio with 1,000 employees in L.A. and Mumbai, India; “Chief Learning Officer” Dylan Arena, whose background is in cognitive science, philosophy and statistics, with multiple degrees in all three from Stanford; and Creative Director Dan Danko, who has written for a number of children’s TV shows including “Rugrats,” “Fresh Beat Band,” and PBS’ “Word World.”

    leos-pad-gally-marie-leo-lg-f

    The combination of skill sets has paid off. The resulting creation has been a huge hit (well, in our household at least), as well as with over 350,000 parents who have downloaded Leo’s Pad for their children.

    Leo’s Pad features the adventures of a young Leonardo da Vinci, his pet dragon, and friends Galileo and Marie, and has children doing puzzles (to build telescopes and rocket ships, e.g.), flying through clouds, identifying colors and shapes, drawing, finding letters in the stars, and much more. The games appear amid high-quality animation that rivals what you would find on TV. Even better, kids don’t seem to realize that they’re learning as they play – as far as they know, they’re just having fun.

    Speaking as a parent myself, that’s a combination that’s tougher to find than you might think.

    But the iPad babysitter scenario often means that parents don’t know exactly what a child is learning or where they stand. Today, Kidaptive changes that with the debut of what it’s calling “Parent’s Pad,” an in-app, parents-only area that shows their child’s progress in reading comprehension and math skills, as well as in cognitive, emotional and social functions, meaning things like “being patient” or “taking turns,” for example.

    leos-pad-parents-pad-1a

    In Parent’s Pad, you can see what “appisodes” (as these TV-like apps and games are called) the child has started watching, and what activities they’ve performed so far.

    “We took our curriculum framework which is comprehensive – that is to say, it covers everything a child needs to be ready for kindergarten and prepared for learning – and it’s a hierarchy,” explains Arena. ”The structure of the curriculum is that there are high-level categories, and there are children of those categories, all the way down to the dimensions we actually measure,” he says. These learning dimensions are explained and measured in the Parent’s Pad section.

    Today Leo’s Pad has released three of these appisodes that it can measure, but the long-term plan is to release 25 appisodes in total, creating a year’s worth of curriculum with over 80 dimensions of learning. The plan is to have at least 10 more appisodes out this year, with all 25 completed by 2014.

    The goal is to not only inform parents of a child’s progress using an easy-to-read, color-coded framework detailing their activities, but also to offer suggestions and tips as to how to help a child in an area where they’re struggling.

    leos-pad-parents-pad-4

    For instance, the app might offer a tip to parents whose child doesn’t yet know his or her colors, to begin referring to colors in a specific way when speaking. (e.g. “the chair is blue” instead of “the blue chair,” which research has shown to help a child acquiring color words.)

    Longer term, the company might start offering “offline” activities – like a telescope you assemble in real life to accompany the one the child puts together in the app – as an additional revenue stream.

    As the child plays the Leo’s Pad apps for longer, their profile becomes more filled out in Kidaptive’s assessment framework, and eventually that sort of thing could be shared with teachers upon the child entering the classroom. Over time, the same framework could be adapted to work with other apps – like those focused on older kids.

    leos-pad-parents-pad-3

    Kidaptive isn’t the first company to think of how parents can track a child’s progress in apps. Fingerprint’s “mom-comm” system lets parent and child communicate upon the completion of levels or other achievements in its own “edu-tainment” suite of apps, and other apps like iLearnWith, Stickery, and many more, do something similar.

    However, Kidaptive is the most comprehensive system, based on curriculum, which we’ve come across to date. For that reason, it’s enough to assuage a parent’s “iPad guilt”…well, as least temporarily. At some point, you’ll still want to yank that thing from their hands and shout “go play outside.”

    But at least the child will have learned something in the meantime.

    Kidaptive is seed funded by Menlo Ventures, CrunchFund (disclosure: TechCrunch’s founder Michael Arrington runs CrunchFund), Veddis Ventures, S-Cubed Capital, Krantz Holdings, VKRM Ventures, iCamp, and Prana Holdings, which is also Kidaptive’s animation partner.

    http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/14/app-maker-kidaptive-debuts-parents-pad-a-new-way-to-track-a-childs-educational-development-on-ipad/

  • Wed
    15
    May
    2013

    May 15, 2013

    CloudVolumes Delivers Industry’s First Instant Workload Management Solutions to Reduce Complexity, Increase Efficiency and Provide Mobility within the Datacenter and Cloud

    Formerly known as SnapVolumes, CloudVolumes today announced the availability of its suite of enterprise-class Instant Workload Management (IWM) products for enterprise server, desktop, and cloud environments. CloudVolumes also is introducing integration with VMware vFabric Application Director. By virtualizing above the operating system (OS), CloudVolumes is eliminating per virtual machine (VM) management, significantly reducing management requirements and costs. Virtualization at and above the operating system can massively benefit enterprise datacenters," said Paul Burns, president of cloud research firm Neovise. "CloudVolumes is breaking new ground here, resulting in improved server and cloud delivery, capacity creation and mobility from one cloud to another, as well as enhanced virtual desktop delivery, configuration management, patch management and more."

    CloudVolumes products are engineered for enterprise-class workloads with a single point of administration and ability to virtually transport workloads without using physical resources, by nativelyattaching volumes to thousands of running VMs. Additionally companies have a choice to move their workloads to the best available resources in the datacenter or cloud without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. CloudVolumes IWM solution requires no changes to existing infrastructure, OS, hypervisor, application, licensing, policy or infrastructure and delivers:

    Instant deployment of complex multi-tier server workloads into a running VM
    Scaling, relocation and recovery instantly across thousands of virtual machines within seconds
    Migration of workloads between the cloud and datacenter, independent of VM or hypervisor
    Single image management of applications, dependencies, data and settings
    Patches, updates and upgrades that are applied once and delivered dynamically to many VMs
    Department and user installed apps, including personalization for desktop
    Support for all Windows desktop and server apps including custom developed ones

    “The CloudVolumes product is truly a differentiator in the industry by allowing users to change the way IT provisions applications to specific workgroups or change the personality of a server-build to rapidly provisionworkloads such as an SQL server or Citrix Server. Instead of spendinghours building unique server and virtual desktop workloads, we are able to simply assign the right AppStack to the given server or application workgroup,” said Cory Merritt, president, Sage Infrastructure Solutions Group. “At Sage, we have leveraged CloudVolumes to take a base Windows Server 2008 R2 build, and by applying the appropriate AppStack, turned the base server into a SQL Serverwith a simple reboot.”

    The CloudVolumes suite of products provides solutions for critical use cases intoday’s enterprise datacenter and cloud:

    cv-Enterprise Server – With CloudVolumes servers no longer need to be dedicated to a specific workload, and can be managed as a generic pool enabling rule based dynamic provisioning in seconds. CloudVolumes allows IT to relocate, reconfigure and update servers to perform new tasks on demand with no downtime, even for custom apps and complex multi-tier services. Additionally it enables servers to be seamlessly managed and upgraded to deliver future applications and updates, while continuing to operate current the workload as is. Demo: http://vimeo.com/65594851

    cv-Enterprise Desktop -- Virtual Hosted Desktop, VDI, Microsoft RDS, Citrix XenApp – CloudVolumes Desktop solution provides a persistent desktop feel with non-persistent pools including UIA/DIA and complete user personalization, while having a single point of administration and control for all applications. IT costs are reduced with 1:N storage compression and storage tiering. Users will experience native performance that can be further enhanced by “virtually sharing single SSD” across all VMs. All without recreating VMs, packaging, streaming or modification to the app. Demo: http://vimeo.com/65604027

    cv-Cloud – Server and Desktop – Manage your datacenter together with the cloud, using CloudVolumes. Enterprises can now dynamically scale and move, as demand increases without the costly conversion and migration of virtual machines. VMs no longer need to be moved and enterprises can move only what is important, the workload. AdditionallyDesktop as a Service (DaaS) providers will be able to provide fully installed applications on-demand allowing users to practically manage themselves. Demo: http://vimeo.com/65624256

    cv-Cloud – for VMware vFabric Application Director – IWM enables customers of VMware vCloud and AppDirector to realize unique and significant additional benefits, such as being able to instantly deploy blueprints and single image manage/update of apps across hundreds or thousands of provisioned virtual machines (VMs). CloudVolumes’ services are available at the VMware Cloud Applications Marketplace Demo: http://vimeo.com/65620067 and https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/category_groups/application-management

    CloudVolumes is also Citrix Ready certified for Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop, and XenServer, as well as Cisco UCS compatible.

    “IT is still managing, migrating, and installing apps one-at-a-time in VMs as if they were physical machines. In today’s virtual world, workloads should not be locked-in to a given hypervisor or cloud,” said Raj Parekh, president and CEO of CloudVolumes. “We created Instant Workload Management solutions to virtualize everything above the OS to allow the industry to simply think in terms of what they care most about – workloads.

    CloudVolumes Product Availability

    CloudVolumes IWM products are available now to qualified customers for trials, and production deployments. For more information, please contact CloudVolumes at sales@cloudvolumes.com

    About CloudVolumes

    Formerlyknown as SnapVolumes, CloudVolumes was founded in early 2011 by virtualization, security and datacenter luminaries from VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Symantec, RSA, Sun (Oracle) and Virident to provide IT with new enterprise class solutions for instant-workload management that takes full advantage of virtualization, supports legacy applications, eliminates the need for re-architecting or rewriting existing software, and works with existing policies and management solutions in datacenter and clouds by virtualizing everything above the OS. The company is headquartered in Los Altos, California. For more information, visit http://www.cloudvolumes.com.

    http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=25618

  • Wed
    24
    Jul
    2013

    Jul 24, 2013, 8:47am PDT

    Data protection company InMage Systems disclosed this week that it sold about $7.5 million in private equity in a round in which it hopes to sell $10.5 million.

    The San Jose company founded by Brocade co-founder Kumar Malavalli and Rajeev Atluri didn't say in the Securities and Exchange Commission filing who the funders are. It did say there were 30 investors involved, though.

    It also said that about $5.5 million in the sale involved the conversion of debt.

    The company's previous funding included Intel Capital and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners as investors.

    In addition to InMage's Silicon Valley headquarters, it has engineering operations in Hyderabad, India.

    Click here to read the SEC filing by InMage Systems.

    Click here to subscribe to TechFlash Silicon Valley, the free daily email newsletter about the region's founders and funders.

    Cromwell Schubarth is the Senior Technology Reporter at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1823

    Related links:

    Industries:
    Technology

  • Tue
    30
    Jul
    2013

    Growing Ecosystem of Customers and Partners Share Best Practices in Turning Complex Machine Data Into Actionable Intelligence

    MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, Jul 30, 2013 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- Glassbeam, Inc., an innovator in the Big Data applications market for machine data analytics, today announced the success of the company's inaugural customer summit, held in Mountain View on July 23, 2013. More than 30 customers, partners and prospects gathered to network and exchange best practices for converting raw machine data into actionable intelligence. The one-day event featured interactive panels and customer presentations featuring Aruba Networks, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Fusion-io, Meru Networks and IBM, and an open Q&A with the Glassbeam management team.

    With the advent of smartphones, wireless devices and objects that connect to the Internet, machine data analytics is a growing area of importance. As these devices emit and transmit multi-structured data with an ever-increasing velocity, the "Internet of Things" is creating a new urgency around predictive analytics and IT automation. The recent Glassbeam customer summit provided attendees with a comprehensive understanding of emerging Big Data challenges and strategies for parsing and mining this data using an innovative cloud-based solution.

    Event highlights included:

    "Next Generation Analytics on Machine Data" keynote presentation from Glen Allmendinger, founder and president of Harbor Research Customer panel discussing key business challenges and value of log analytics for the enterprise featuring Aruba Networks, Fusion-io and Meru Networks

    Fusion-io, HDS and IBM use-case presentations Product roadmap previewed by Srikanth Desikan, vice president of products at Glassbeam "We are committed to the success of our customers, and the recent summit provided an invaluable opportunity to exchange ideas about using Glassbeam, how it can impact their business and the future potential of the technology," said Puneet Pandit, CEO and founder of Glassbeam. "We look forward to making this a regular event to share tips, tricks and best practices around machine data analytics, and use this information and customer feedback to help shape future products and services."

    Glassbeam's technology enables customers to parse and mine machine data to make better strategic and operational business decisions. Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    Resources Company: http://www.glassbeam.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/glassbeam

    Blog: http://www.glassbeam.com/blogs

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam Inc. is a Big Data applications company specializing in multi-structured machine data analytics for IT and business users. Glassbeam's Big Data applications for customer support, product development and sales leverage the company's breakthrough Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL) that can quickly extract strategic intelligence from complex operational data contained in multi-structured machine data.

    Media Contact
    Danielle Salvato-Earl
    Kulesa Faul for Glassbeam
    (650) 340-1982

  • Thu
    15
    Aug
    2013

    Top Silicon Valley Investors Bet on Punchh's One-Stop Shop Mobile Solution for Restaurants

    SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 15, 2013) - Punchh, a leader in mobile solutions for the restaurant industry, announced that it has raised $3 million in venture capital funding to further expand its market leadership position and accelerate growth in the $20 billion U.S. restaurant marketing segment. This brings the total funding raised by Punchh to $4 million.

    The three-year-old company, whose patent-pending technology is helping operators of more than 1,000 restaurant locations realize groundbreaking customer participation and loyalty results, has received backing from Cervin Ventures, Green Span Ventures, VKRM, Sandhill Group, Garnett Ventures, and multiple other leading Silicon Valley angel investors.

    "By building the first mobile solution for the restaurant industry, Punchh's cutting-edge technology has made it the segment leader," said Jitendra Gupta, founder and CEO of Punchh. "This round of funding will fuel our already solid momentum and allow us to tap deep expertise and guidance from our investors and advisory board. We will aggressively scale our sales, product and customer success organizations to meet the exploding demand in the restaurant marketplace."

    Punchh is a one-stop shop mobile solution for restaurants that delivers branded mobile apps for games, gift cards, loyalty, online ordering, payments, referrals, surveys, and marketing campaigns. Punchh drives word of mouth (WOM) interaction between customers through restaurant reviews, measurable referrals and social interaction campaigns. Its solution gathers and manages 360-degree insights on customer purchasing habits and social network activity by integrating with restaurant point-of-sale systems (POS) and Facebook. Punchh's turnkey integration works with leading online ordering, payments, online ordering, reservations, and wait-list management solutions, ensuring restaurants need to maintain only one mobile app to engage their customers.

    Punchh's WOM technology has helped brands such as, Earl of Sandwich, Hungry Howie's, Mama Fu's, Max's Restaurant, Rita's Italian Ice, Vino Volo, and Voodoo BBQ and Grill, achieve customer participation results far exceeding previous efforts. By replacing cumbersome, easy-to-lose paper punch cards and magnetic stripe loyalty cards, operators using Punchh have realized five- to six-fold customer participation rates, three to four times greater repeat purchase rates and tenfold increases in customer reviews over Yelp!. Punchh users also report same-store sales increases of 7 to 10 percent.

    "We know our customers are more mobile and social than ever before," said Steve Heeley, president and CEO, Earl of Sandwich. "So we want to transform our customers into ambassadors who spread the word about our brand and refer friends to our stores. Punchh allows us to achieve that by engaging them right on their mobile devices and rewarding them for their loyalty and referrals."

    Preetish Nijhawan, managing director at Cervin Ventures, which led the funding, said Punchh's mastery of these emerging trends and solid marketplace position led his group to invest in the young firm.

    "Punchh is addressing a huge market and a key problem that most restaurants are struggling with: how to engage mobile customers, drive brand awareness and growth using customers' real-life social networks," Nijhawan said. "Today when you go to a restaurant, the operator doesn't know who you are and how to engage you and leverage your influence within your social group. Punchh solves that for a restaurant and engages customers in a way that is differentiated. This market solution requires a unique combination of enterprise software expertise and consumer application knowledge. We like to invest in the best platforms in a space, and we are excited to work with Punchh to help them grow."

    About Punchh

    Punchh is a one-stop shop mobile solution that includes branded mobile apps for campaigns, games, gift cards, loyalty, online ordering, payments, referrals, surveys, and integrates with social networks and operators' POS systems to gather 360° customer insights. Punchh helps restaurants increase repeat visits, word of mouth, new customer referrals, and return on investment from marketing campaigns. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Punchh's patent-pending technology operates in more than 1,000 restaurant locations under brands such as Church's Chicken, Earl of Sandwich, Hungry Howie's, Mama Fu's, Max's Restaurant, Pacific Catch, Rita's Italian Ice, Vino Volo, and Voodoo BBQ & Grill. For more information, visit www.punchh.com.

    About Cervin Ventures
    Cervin Ventures is an early-stage fund focused on investments focused on B2B software businesses. Its managing partners and network of advisors are experienced entrepreneurs with extensive experience in B2B technology including engineering, product management, finance, operations, sales and marketing. Cervin Ventures helps entrepreneurs establish a strong foundation for long-term success.

  • Tue
    27
    Aug
    2013

    New Cloud Solution Enables Product Manufacturers to Increase Service Revenues and Monetize Machine Data

    August 27, 2013

    64249_glassbeam

    MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/27/13 -- Glassbeam, Inc., an innovator in the Big Data applications market for machine data analytics, today announced Glassbeam Health Check, a cloud-based OEM solution that delivers a continuous pulse on the "health" of products. Leveraging Glassbeam's patent-pending Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL), Glassbeam Health Check is designed to help product manufacturers better understand product usage and increase customer support revenues by offering new value-added services to their end users.

    Customer support is a critical business function that provides endless value in building customer relationships and loyalty. Quality of support services can heavily influence the monetization of a long-term relationship between product supplier and user. However, many companies continue to view customer support as a cost center rather than an incubator for innovation and profit.

    Partners Gain New Revenue Streams Using Machine Data Analytics
    The key to providing proactive support services is unlocking the Big Data gold mine, turning machine data into valuable insights into how products are used, potential problems and the overall user experience. With Glassbeam Health Check, world-class companies, such as Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), partner with Glassbeam to access a new breed of machine data analytics, which helps product managers, engineers and customer support teams alike to improve their understanding of how products perform across customer environments.

    "Effective support services don't simply respond to customer problems; they must be proactive by spotting customer issues before they surface," said Phil Townsend, Vice President of business operations, global services at Hitachi Data Systems. "Glassbeam Health Check enables us to provide our Hitachi NAS Platform customers with a premium support experience by collecting, analyzing and transforming large volumes of raw data, generated by the products themselves, and then deliver actionable intelligence into how products are actually being used."

    Click Here

    Glassbeam Health Check collects and analyzes machine data from every enabled product, every day -- a volume of data that would not be possible for administrators to analyze themselves. Glassbeam employs its core SPL technology, providing capabilities that would otherwise take years for a product manufacturer to duplicate.

    Glassbeam Health Check delivers:

    Proactive capacity planning - At a quick glance, customers can tell what percentage of a product is being used, and whether it is time to add or reallocate resources well in advance of capacity overload.

    Event analysis - Problems, errors or other potential concerns can be viewed in summary fashion, alerting administrators to situations that require attention.

    License summary - Software versions are tracked automatically, ensuring that all products are up-to-date.

    "Traditionally, solutions on the market have focused on improving operational and business efficiency, but haven't yet made the leap to an entirely new breed of analytics capabilities custom made for machine data -- until now," said Puneet Pandit, CEO and founder of Glassbeam. "Glassbeam Health Check delivers an industry-first analytics solution that actually helps drive new revenues for our partners. Our unique technology converts unstructured data into actionable insights, enabling product manufacturers to glean a wealth of information that can be used to better understand product behavior and use, improve customer support and create a whole new revenue stream."

    Availability and Pricing
    Glassbeam Health Check can be sold as a separate line item or packaged as part of a premium support plan. As a cloud-based solution, Glassbeam Health Check requires no capital investment by product suppliers or their customers, and can be easily accessed via standard web browser. Pricing is available upon request.

    Glassbeam's technology enables customers to parse and mine machine data to make better strategic and operational business decisions. Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam Inc. is a Big Data applications company specializing in multi-structured machine data analytics for IT and business users. Glassbeam's Big Data applications for customer support, product development and sales leverage the company's breakthrough Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL) that can quickly extract strategic intelligence from complex operational data contained in multi-structured machine data.

    Media Contact
    Danielle Salvato-Earl
    Kulesa Faul for Glassbeam
    (650) 340-1982

  • Fri
    20
    Sep
    2013

    September 19, 2013

    • Machine Data Analytics Pioneer Attracts Investment from VKRM Group to Accelerate Growth and Innovation

    • New U.S. and India Offices to Support Company Growth

    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Sept. 19, 2013 – Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced that the company has secured $3 million in additional equity funding. The investment will be used to fuel next-generation product innovation, expand the customer and partner ecosystem, and build a dedicated Data Science team to help customers improve intelligence and analytics through the use of machine data. Additionally, Glassbeam is expanding its offices in the U.S. and India to new locations by end of year to accommodate its double employee capacity and facilitate overall global expansion.

    The new funding was led by VKRM Group, a boutique venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs building innovative and industry-leading businesses in the enterprise services and software, education and Internet sectors. Kumar Malavalli, lead investor at VKRM Group and co-founder of Brocade Communications and InMage Systems, is chairman of the Glassbeam board of directors.

    “Since inception, I've been pleased with Glassbeam's growth and traction in the market,” said Kumar Malavalli, principle at VKRM Investment Group. “The company is committed to its customers, maintaining a high degree of innovation and transformation for turning complex machine data analytics into actionable intelligence. The promise of Glassbeam's core technology, coupled with the management team's pedigree and success, provide exciting growth prospects.”

    Glassbeam’s patent-pending technology enables customers to parse and mine multi-structured machine data to make better strategic and operational business decisions. Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    “Our investors’ confidence in Glassbeam validates our strategy and the pioneering work we have done over the last four years building machine data analytics for the Internet of Things,” said Puneet Pandit, CEO and founder of Glassbeam. “This funding will enable us to bring new structure and meaning to data, building on this foundation by accelerating product engineering, delivering on new solutions and domain expertise and expanding our industry partnerships and customer base.”

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam Inc. is a Big Data applications company specializing in multi-structured machine data analytics for IT and business users. Glassbeam’s Big Data applications for customer support, product development and sales leverage the company’s breakthrough Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL) that can quickly extract strategic intelligence from complex operational data contained in multi-structured machine data.

    Media Contact
    Danielle Salvato-Earl
    Kulesa Faul for Glassbeam
    (650) 340-1982 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (650) 340-1982 FREE end_of_the_skype_highlighting
    glassbeam@kulesafaul.com

  • Thu
    26
    Sep
    2013

    PubNub wants to knock down the barriers to real-time app development. To further its goal, the company, which offers a real time app development platform through an API, closed $11 million in Series B funding last week.

    If you are still not sure what a real time app is, think instant messaging, multiplayer games (where you need to see the other players’ locations), document sharing and enterprise collaboration. All these apps involve two-way live communication and synchronization.

    The problem is that companies who offer real times apps, like Skype or Google Docs, typically invest a lot of money into developing core infrastructures to support and deploy those apps across a global audience. Small businesses don’t necessarily have the funds to do that.

    That’s where PubNub steps in. The San Francisco firm offers a cloud platform with all the ready-made building blocks (data push, presence, storage and playback, analytics and security) for real time app development along with a globally distributed network of 11 data centers. By removing the complexity and cost out from creating real-time apps, PubNub hopes it will allow more developers to take risks and try new concepts.

    So far, the idea seems to be working. PubNub, which was founded in 2010, says it now streams three million messages per second to over 100 million devices each month. It has powered real-time apps for the Olympics, Eurocup, Super Bowl, Grammys and American Music Awards (AMAs) that sync millions of devices simultaneously for real time voting, sentiment analysis, second screen ad sync and more.

    The founding round was led by Scale Venture Partners along with Relay Ventures and TiE Angels. As part of the investment, Andy Vitus from ScaleVPI will join PubNub’s board of directors. PubNub says it plans to use the money to expand worldwide sales and marketing to increase demand for its product.

  • Fri
    27
    Sep
    2013

    Employees are increasingly turning to consumer grade file sharing services such as Dropbox for business activities, and even if that use is sanctioned by IT, custody remains a challenge because, although the enterprise still owns the data, custody moves to the cloud provider. It is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain visibility and control over data in the cloud and prove chain of custody. Complicating the situation, data can be compromised without IT’s knowledge, since they may not even be aware that documents are being stored and shared in the cloud.

    What’s needed is a trustworthy cloud. Trust in the physical world is achieved through relationships and contracts, and enforced using oversight and punitive action in response to a breach of trust. Building on the concept of trust, trustworthiness is a model that uses carefully designed and implemented technology, policies and reputation networks to achieve data security. Applied to the cloud, it means that even though organizations no longer have physical custody of their files, by embedding security into the document itself they have the means to secure sensitive documents so that they can be shared and still remain private.

    Trustworthiness uses low-level cryptographic algorithms to enforce policies, revoke access rights and monitor access activities. It is defined and controlled exclusively by the data owner without any intervention from the cloud service provider. In a trustworthy cloud scenario, authorized users have visibility into groups and documents—limited by their role—but in a manner that doesn’t weaken the cryptography or open the system to additional attacks. This approach prevents the misuse of cloud data from going undetected by creating a comprehensive audit trail of who is accessing files.

    When content is stored in a trustworthy cloud, policies set up by the data owner are enforced by a solution provider without the solution or cloud provider ever having access to the data itself. This is called zero knowledge and relies on advanced federated key management technology.

    Zero knowledge-based document sharing enables collaboration across organizational boundaries using any cloud storage provider, since federated cryptography is attached to the content rather than depending on the cloud container. For IT, it provides the ability to accommodate the growing popularity of BYOC (bring your own cloud) for business document sharing, while maintaining the visibility and control required for Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance. As an added benefit, the Trustworthy Cloud does not force users to adopt new tools or impose changes to an organization’s existing security and audit infrastructures.

    Implementing a Trustworthy Cloud

    A trustworthy cloud establishes a provable separation of authority between the custodian of the information (the service provider) and the content owner and others who may have varying degrees of authorization to view or modify this information. The aggregate cryptographic algorithms and protocols provide strong guarantees of data privacy and chain of custody.

    In this context, privacy is the ability of participants to control disclosure of sensitive business data. Confidentiality, meanwhile, refers to the commitment by the service provider to refrain from accessing or disclosing the data. A trustworthy cloud solution replaces the conventional need to rely on confidentiality on the part of a cloud service provider with the ability to rely on technological controls to enforce data privacy. This is made possible by implementing an emerging approach that places security on the content instead of on the container itself.

    A trustworthy cloud has the all-inclusive ability to establish an electronic chain of custody record. This indelible record captures where the data originated, who may have accessed or modified it during its lifetime, and where and when there was a transfer of possession, no matter where it resides. In addition, content owners or the parties with fiduciary responsibilities for its lifecycle management can specify, monitor, and enforce fine-grain retention, disposition, and hold policies on data that is not in their possession. In practice, these records and policies can be carried as metadata that is based on the content but may be stored and encrypted separately from it.

    A trustworthy cloud also provides scalable security federation to enable the secure sharing of documents across organizational trust boundaries (e.g. outside their firewall) in a manner that is as simple for employees as using consumer solutions such as Dropbox. This capability is especially important for companies in regulated industries such as Healthcare, Accounting, Pharmaceutical and Finance where data privacy and provenance control are mandated.

    For example, a trustworthy cloud would enable a publicly traded company to comply with SOX 404 even when a third party cloud provider possesses the data. In HIPAA- or FDA-regulated environments, a trustworthy cloud would allow an organization that uses public cloud services to meet the requirements of HIPAA/HITECH or Business Associate Agreement (BAA) contracts.

    With the rapid authorized and unauthorized use of public cloud sharing by their employees, organizations can no longer afford to ignore the data privacy issues these services engender. A trustworthy cloud approach that enforces security on the content itself eliminates the cloud container as a potential point of compromise. This enables organizations to implement and enforce “zero knowledge” encryption that is transparent to employees, and prevents both the cloud service provider and the security vendor from accessing business information.

    AlephCloud is a provider of cloud content privacy solutions.

    Read more about cloud computing in Network World's Cloud Computing section.
    http://www.networkworld.com/news

  • Mon
    07
    Oct
    2013

    Business is increasingly taking place outside the corporate firewall. Employees are using their own devices and turning to consumer-grade cloud file sharing services to allow for access across multiple devices and to collaborate with each other or with outside partners, consultants, prospects, and clients.

    Even when the use of services such as Box, Dropbox, SkyDrive, and other similar services is sanctioned by the IT department, businesses have nearly zero assurance of confidentiality when their employees store documents in the cloud. Not only are there few publically documented vendor controls, there is no way for a business to continuously audit the cloud vendor’s entire infrastructure and administrative procedures to ensure that documents remain private.

    A troubling example was recently brought to light by WNC Infosec (Western North Carolina InfoSec Community), which found that the Dropbox file sharing service opens certain files after they are uploaded.

    While it may be fine for individuals to trust cloud vendors with their everyday material, businesses must adhere to a higher security standard if they are to retain control over sensitive data and meet regulatory compliance requirements. What can be done?

    Cloud security requirements

    In order to enforce corporate security policies in the cloud, IT needs to know (1) who is accessing and sharing (2) what documents (3) in which cloud storage service, and (4) that the cloud provider cannot override policies established by the business or access the data itself.

    Here are four steps for implementing a cloud security strategy:

    a) Take a risk-based approach: It is not realistic to “secure everything”. Look at business processes and quantify the risk associated with each one, then match them up with an appropriate level of security and controls.

    b) Clearly document the policy and communicate it to employees.

    c) Make the security solution easy to use, so that employees will not try to circumvent it in order to get their jobs done. The days of forcing staff to accept whatever IT deems acceptable are long gone!

    d) Implement content-based security to eliminate the risk of the cloud provider failing to implement proper security protocols and controls.

    http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=1890

  • Wed
    09
    Oct
    2013

    Stanford startup and StartX alum Dylan Arena talks c-level executive life

    In a new series, The Dish Daily is talking to startup entrepreneurs who have already made an impact in their industry. Whether they’ve just finished an accelerator program or garnered their first round of seed funding, we want to ask them about being their own boss, running a company, and facing unexpected challenges along the way.

    Our first chat was with Dylan Arena, Kidaptive co-founder and Chief Learning Scientist, who is a Stanford alumnus (BS in Symbolic Systems, ’01, MA in Philosophy, ’01, MS in Statistics, ’12, and PhD in LSTD, ’12) and launched Kidaptive with co-founder P.J. Gunsagar through the StartX program. Kidaptive’s team has been working for two years on their first product, Leo’s Pad, an episode series made for the iPad and aimed at three- to five-year olds. The startup hopes to leverage the iPad’s technology for interactive storytelling with a curriculum that engages early learners.

    The Dish Daily: Tell me about your StartX experience.

    Arena: When the StartX application came to our inbox, [co-founder Gunsagar] thought it might do me some good to apply, but as it turned out we both learned a lot from the StartX experience. (Gunsager, who is the son of an entrepreneur, already had started two companies before Kidaptive). Our first few months at Kidaptive had been dedicated to building our app prototype. We were able to bring that first prototype into StartX, but that was all we had. We didn’t have a clear marketing strategy or business model—we were a bit naïve, thinking that we were going to build something awesome and everything else would sort of fall into place.

    StartX really helped us think through all the other aspects of how to run a business. We were given access to a tremendous group of advisors who were simply interested in helping new companies because they’d done well themselves. By giving talks and holding office hours, and even joining a few advisory boards without the incentive of pay or equity, these people made for an awesome community.

    StartX also introduced us to a number of companies that were doing great things. It had a great peer-to-peer collaboration system. The community knowledge in certain areas speeds up the process of building a real community, and speed is really the only thing a startup has going for it, so anything that can reduce friction is a huge asset.

    The Dish Daily: What did you learn specifically at StartX?

    Arena: We learned how important distribution is, especially in an ecosystem like Apple’s App Store. You can make the best app around, but if nobody sees it, quality doesn’t matter. Apple’s App Store isn’t great for discovery, so you need a coherent plan for user acquisition.

    Also, when I first started Kidaptive, I didn’t know the difference between a VC and an angel, or what the term “valuation” meant. StartX taught me about the financing process and what that ecosystem is like.

    The Dish Daily: How has your participation in StartX enabled you to grow?

    Arena: I’m not sure we would even be a company without StartX. I think they are responsible for our existence. They introduced us to our lead investor in our seed round, and one of the StartX mentors gave us an introduction to a senior person at Apple that opened several doors there (the advisor decided to use a one-time “silver bullet,” an introductory email that he was willing to use on behalf of Kidaptive because he believes in the startup’s potential).

    Apple controls distribution on their App Store, so we’ve met with Apple several times and gotten great feedback about how to improve our products. It’s huge to have them understand and appreciate what you’re doing.

    The Dish Daily: How is your day-to-day different than what it used to be?

    Arena: As a grad student, you’re focused on coming up with interesting things to test, and then testing them. That’s true as an entrepreneur, too. (Lean Startup movement creator) Steve Blank says the difference between a startup and an established company is that a startup is still trying to find a business model, so there’s a ton of research and investigation that needs to happen. So in that sense, being a grad student isn’t that different from being an entrepreneur.

    What is different is that I spend most of my time in meetings, either with internal people (helping to solve problems, plan things, and make decisions) or with external people and partners, as well as recruiting or speaking at conferences. It’s a lot less hands-on, and there’s lot more decision-making by talking with other people who are the ones actually doing things. It’s kind of frustrating to feel removed from the actual work.

    I also thought that as Chief Learning Scientist my role would be narrowly constrained to curriculum and assessment, but I’ve got my hand in everything, from HR to fundraising. I was naïve in not realizing that founders are in it all, but it’s eye-opening to see all aspects of a company. Just as (Stanford’s computer science course) 106A allows you to get behind the curtain of computers, being an entrepreneur gets you behind the curtain of businesses. It’s illuminating and powerful.

    The Dish Daily: What are some of the daily struggles?

    Arena: A startup will never have the resources it needs to operate; imagine trying to bake in a kitchen where you only have half the ingredients necessary to finish the cake. Essentially, you just have to be creative to achieve the results you want. As a startup, you always have the speed, but you’re lacking in everything else.

    Also, as a founder, you have a strong vision that touches all aspects of the company. Much of founders’ work is to externalize your vision, to communicate all those nuances that are in your head, ideas that you aren’t really aware you know until somebody asks and you have a clear answer. When a question gets asked that seems obvious to me, I have to remind myself that that’s only because I’ve been living and breathing this concept for two years, and my job is to continually bring everyone closer to a fuller understanding of what is being built and why.

    thedishdaily.com/news

  • Mon
    21
    Oct
    2013

    Glassbeam is hoping to carve out a slice of the Splunk-dominated machine data analytics market with a new cloud-based service for tapping operational data. Dubbed SCALAR, the software brings structure to the Internet of Everything with a proprietary language that helps engineers describe information in large-scale data warehouse environments.

    SCALAR runs Glassbeam’s Semiotic Parsing Language on a stack of open source components that couples Cassandra with Solr to analyze both unstructured and multi-structured machine data. The solution doubles as an application platform that supports several tools and dashboards, including the newly unveiled Explorer log management solution.

    Explorer features search and visualization capabilities that can be utilized to integrate different types data and identify patterns across multiple information sources. According to the company, users can leverage this functionality to improve troubleshooting and create a central data repository for compliance and audit purposes. Explorer is joined by Glassbeam Studio, a visual development environment that aims to make it easier for developers to map data streams and generate meta definitions inside SCALAR.

    Puneet Pandit, the chief executive officer of Glassbeam, said that his company’s solutions help organizations unlock the true value of machine data.

    “Our solutions are already deployed and trusted by some of the world’s largest Fortune 500 companies. There is more to log analysis than IT logs and operational intelligence, and our ultra scalable platform takes the next step to unlocking the value of machine data – product and customer intelligence for the entire enterprise,” Pandit stated. “We are proudly at the forefront of machine data analytics for the next era and the Internet of Things.”

    Like Glassbeam, Splunk is working to expand its machine data solution beyond log analysis. The company recently allied with Pentaho to deliver a platform for extracting information from a wide range of connected devices, including sensors and smart machinery. The latter segment has drawn the attention of GE, which is also partnering aggressively to usher in what it calls the Industrial Internet.

    siliconangle.com/blog

  • Mon
    28
    Oct
    2013

    Data protection and security specialist InMage Systems has introduced the 4000 Series, a backup and disaster recovery appliance designed for small to midsize businesses (SMBs) to enterprises with petabyte-size deployments.

    The 4000 Series, which starts at $8,000 and is currently shipping, is based on a self-contained architecture that includes compute, networking and storage and is designed to occupy minimal space and power requirements.
    The appliance's data protection technology captures data changes in real time at the byte level and allows for continuous backup with near zero impact on primary servers and storage.

    "We are always looking to provide market-leading solutions to our corporate customers that will complement their existing IT infrastructure," Max Migel, managing director at DataCorp, said in a statement. "When it comes to heterogeneous backup and recovery, partnering with InMage on their new 4000 Series was an easy decision because its technology is easy to use and affordable."

    Features such as compression, encryption, wide area network (WAN) acceleration and bandwidth management are designed to enable replication across geographic distances while minimizing bandwidth costs, maximizing capacity and increasing security.

    Additional features include flash-accelerated hybrid storage pools that leverage SAS drives in redundant, higher performance 1+0 configuration and thin provisioning, zero overhead copy on write, pipelined input/output (IO), dynamic striping and variable block size.

    The 4000 Series also provides the ability to recover to any point in time, at the level of granularity required, such as mails or mailboxes, files and folders, volumes, full server or even the entire site, and addresses hybrid cloud-based disaster recovery, replicating from appliance-to-appliance to a secondary data center or to a range of cloud providers.

    In addition, the platform enables secondary workloads such as reporting, analytics, test and development, as well as granular recovery, including individual email recovery for Microsoft Exchange. Integrated low-latency, high-throughput 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces for storage access eliminate the need to purchase external storage networking switches.

    High-density compute and memory allows running hundreds of recovered server instances, and data lifecycle management provides light retention policies. Rounding out the package are native storage capacity optimization features, in-line compression and deduplication.

    "We chose the InMage 4000 because it is a cost effective backup and DR solution all rolled into one magic box," Pat Smith, CIO at Our Kids, a nonprofit provider of child welfare services to Florida's Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, said in a statement.

    Many small businesses are experiencing significant issues with the cost, complexity and lack of capabilities of their data protection, according to a report earlier this year by backup and replication specialist Veeam Software.

    In particular, 85 percent of SMBs are experiencing cost-related challenges with backup and recovery, including high ongoing management costs (51 percent), expensive licensing models (48 percent), and backups either requiring or using too much storage (44 percent).

    According to the report, 80 percent of SMBs are facing complexity-related challenges with their data protection, including backups needing ongoing management (52 percent), too many virtual servers to back up (35 percent), and backup tools being difficult to configure and use (32 percent). More than half (55 percent) of SMBs surveyed said they are planning to change their backup tool for virtual servers by 2014.

    Originally published on eWeek.

    infostor.com

  • Mon
    28
    Oct
    2013

    439536_InMageLogo

    Leading Hybrid Cloud Platform Provider Listed Among World's Most Promising Technology Companies

    SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 25, 2013) - InMage has been named to the 2013 Red Herring Global 100 list of the world's top private technology companies.

    InMage continues to address the growing market for hybrid cloud services. InMage's comprehensive hybrid cloud platform enables customers to leverage the Cloud seamlessly for secondary services including Cloud Migration, DR as a Service, Development and Test, Reporting and Analytics. As such, InMage combines four key enablers into one solution that typically take years to develop in house, or must be procured from different vendors. These include: best in class data protection; a comprehensive physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual recovery engine that enables server workload mobility for enterprises; automated provisioning, with a full-fledged multi-tenant portal for deployment and management.

    The Red Herring Global 100 award is given to the top 100 global technology companies selected from over 1000 companies and over 40 nations. The selection is based on the company's technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health.

    Previous winners include Google, Yahoo, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com, YouTube and eBay.

    "2013 has demonstrated the sector's vibrant activity and its contribution to the global economic recovery. InMage is performing exceptionally in its field and strongly deserved to be one of those companies awarded this distinction," stated Alex Vieux, Chairman of Red Herring.

    "We are proud to be part of this impressive group," said InMage CEO, Kumar Malavalli. "Being recognized as one of the top global IT companies is an honor for InMage, and affirms our commitment and global role in providing the best recovery and cloud based work load migration capabilities available in the market today."

    For more information, please visit www.redherring.com or www.inmage.com

  • Tue
    05
    Nov
    2013

    AIISF award winners (l-r): Sintao Ng, Kumar Malavalli, Alla Efimova of the Magnes, and Catherine Eusebio

    Legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur Kumar Malavalli was one of four recipients of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation’s fourth annual Immigrant Heritage Awards at a gala event held Sept. 27 at the Westin St. Francis here.

    He was joined by Next Generation winner Catherine Eusebio, philanthropists Lit and Sintao Ng, and education awardee the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

    In 1995, Malavalli founded Brocade Communications, which revolutionized and exploited the power of network storage, and is currently CEO, co-founder and chair of InMage Systems, a firm that has pioneered the development of event-based disaster recovery and affordable data protection software.

    He was honored by AIISF for his accomplishments in business and his philanthropic endeavors in the United States and India.

    The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation celebrated its 30th anniversary at the event. The AIISF tells the story of Pacific Coast immigration, including the period when the U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island was operating from 1910 to 1940.

    Working with the California State Parks, the AIISF has raised millions of dollars to preserve the Immigration Station and tell its story to hundreds of thousands of people.

    Read more at indiawest.com/news

  • Thu
    14
    Nov
    2013

    Going into 2014, a whirlwind of security start-ups are looking to have an impact on the enterprise world. Most of these new ventures are focused on securing data in the cloud and on mobile devices. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Illumio, for example, founded earlier this year, is only hinting about what it will be doing in cloud security. But already it's the darling of Silicon Valley investors, pulling in over $42 million from backer Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Formation 8 and others.

    The cloud's lure is easy to see. More businesses continue to adopt a wide range of cloud services -- whether software-as-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service. That means the enterprise IT department needs more visibility, monitoring and security controls for what employees are doing and evidence their data is safe. In addition, employees today increasingly use smartphones and tablets they personally own for work in "Bring Your Own Device" mode, leading to other management and security questions. When there are perceived security "gaps," start-ups see opportunities, as the 12 firms we identify here do.

    Security is increasingly delivered not as on premises software or hardware but at least partly if not wholly as a cloud-based service. Gartner is predicting security-as-a-service will grow from about $2.13 billion now to $3.17 billion in 2015.

    Gartner: Cloud-based security as a service set to take off

    With all of that in mind, here's our slate of security start-ups worth watching in the near future:

    Adallom is based in Menlo Park, Calif., but has its research and development roots in Israel, where its three co-founders, Assaf Rappaport, vice president of R&D Roy Reznik and CTO Ami Luttwak have backgrounds in the Israel cyber-defense forces. Adallom -- a word which means "last line of defense" in Hebrew -- is taking on the problem in monitoring user actions related to software-as-a-service (SaaS) usage. The firm's proxy-based technology announced this month is offered to the enterprise either as a security service in the cloud or server-based software for on premises.

    The goal is to provide real-time analysis and a clear audit trail and reporting related to SaaS-based application usage by the enterprise. The monitoring can allows options for automating or manually terminating sessions or blocking content download. Though not wholly similar, its closest competitors could be considered to be two other start-ups, SkyHigh Networks and Netskope. The venture has gotten $4.5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital.

    AlephCloud hasn't yet made its software and service called AlephCloud Content Canopy generally available, but its purpose is to provide controlled encryption and decryption of documents transmitted business-to-business via cloud-based file synchronization and sharing services such as Dropbox, SkyDrive and Amazon S3. The company was founded in 2011by CEO Jieming Zhu and CTO Roy D'Souza. Zhu says Content Canopy works by means of the "federated key management" process AlephCloud developed that can use existing enterprise public-key infrastructures used in identity management. For the end user, though, who is permitted to retrieve and decrypt the encrypted document via Dropbox or SkyDrive, it's all transparent. AlephCloud says its "zero-knowledge" encryption process means the company never holds the private encryption key. AlephCloud will first be supporting PCs, Macs, and Apple iOS devices, and Android next year, and specific file-sharing services. Zhu says the underlying technology can be expanded further to other applications as well. AlephCloud has received $9.5 million in venture-capital funding, including $7.5 million from Handbag LLC and the remainder from angel investors.

    BitSight Technologies has a simple proposition. It's not uncommon for companies to want to try and evaluate the IT security of another business before entering into an e-commerce arrangement where networks may be interconnected in some way. BitSight, co-founded in 2011 by CTO Stephen Boyer and COO Nagarjuna Venna, has a security "rating" service to do this, though there are limits on how far it can go at this point. The BitSight approach, says vice president of marketing Sonali Shah, relies on an analysis of Internet traffic by BitSight sensors on the Internet to detect if the company's IT assets, such as computers, server or network, have been commandeered by threats such as botnets or denial-of-service attacks. But she acknowledges there's not yet a way for BitSight to determine what security issues might arise in a company's use of cloud services. Cambridge, Mass.-based BitSight has received $24 million in venture-capital funding from investors that include Menlo Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners, Commonwealth Capital and Flybridge Capital partners.

    Defense.net is focusing on stopping denial-of-service attacks aimed by attackers at both enterprises and cloud service providers. Founded by its CTO Barrett Lyon, who started another anti-distributed denial-of-service firm called Prolexic in 2003, Defense.net relies on a cloud service without the need for an appliance to mitigate against large-scale DDoS assaults. Many in the industry say DDoS attacks are growing worse in scale and number. For his part, Lyon says he thinks the average DDoS attack is probably 16 times larger and "significantly more sophisticated than it was a year earlier." Defense.net has received $9.5 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners.

    Illumio, founded by its CEO Andrew Rubin earlier this year, is still in stealth mode, maintaining a discrete silence about its intentions. But the little hints sprinkled across its website indicate the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's focus is likely to be tackling cloud-based security with an emphasis on virtualization. Illumio has brought in former VMware techies and execs. As for Rubin himself, he was formerly CEO at Cymtec Systems, a security firm providing the means for visibility, protection and control by the enterprise of Web content and mobile devices, plus a means for intrusion-detection analysis. Illumio has received more than $42 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Formation 8 and others.

    Lacoon Mobile Security has come up with a sandboxing approach to detect zero-day malware targeting Android and Apple iOS devices by means of a small lightweight agent that examines mobile applications through behavior analysis and a process tied to the Lacoon cloud gateway. The start-up was founded by CEO Michael Shaulov, vice president of research and development Ohad Bobrov, and Emanuel Avner, the CFO. The company has its R&D arm in Israel and its headquarters in San Francisco. It's backed by $8 million in venture-capital funding led by Index Ventures, plus $2.7 million in angel investing, including from Shlomo Kramer, CEO at Imperva.

    Malcovery Security, based in Pittsburgh, was basically spun out in 2012 from research on phishing done at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, according to its CEO Greg Coticchia. Targeted phishing attacks can have disastrous outcomes when devices are targeted to infiltrate organizations and steal data. Coticchia says the Malcovery technologies offered to businesses include ways to identify phishing websites and a service that can detect phishing e-mail. The company's founders include Gary Warner, director of research in cyber forensics at the University of Alabama, and the start-up has received about $3 million in funding from patents and research from the university.

    Netskope wants to help businesses monitor how their employees are using cloud-based applications and apply security controls to it, such as giving IT managers the ability to block data transfers or receive alerts. The Netskope service can apply security controls to about 3,000 different cloud-based applications, whether they be SaaS, PaaS or Iaas. The Netskope service is meant to let IT divisions get a grip on cloud usage and avoid the "shadow IT" issue of business people initiating cloud services without informing IT at all. The Los Altos, Calif.-based start-up was founded in 2012 by CEO Sanjay Beri along with chief architect Ravi Ithal, chief scientist Krishna Narayanaswami, and Lebin Chang, head of application engineering teams, all who bring tech industry experience ranging from Juniper to Palo Alto Networks to VMware. Netskope has amassed $21 million in venture funding from Social+Capital Partnership and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

    PrivateCore is a crypto-based security play, focusing on making use of the central processing unit (CPU) as the trusted component to encrypt data in use. PrivateCore has come up with what it calls its vCage software that relies on the Intel Xeon Sandy Bridge CPU for secure processing through means of Intel Sandy Bridge-based servers in cloud environments, first off in IaaS. The challenge in processing encrypted data is "the problem with having to decrypt to do processing," says Oded Horovitz, CEO of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up he co-founded with Steve Weis, CTO, and Carl Waldspurger as adviser. The vCage approach, based on Intel CPU Sandy Bridge, makes use of the Intel Trusted Execution Technologies and Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm to perform the processing in RAM. This can be done with Intel Sandy Bridge because there's now about 20MB of cache available, he points out, enough to get the job done. The data in question is only unencrypted in the CPU. This encryption approach is being tested now by IaaS providers and some enterprises, and PrivateCore expects to have its first product in general release early next year. The start-up has received $2.4 million in venture capital from Foundation Capital.

    SkycureA is all about mobile-device security, with its initial focus on Apple iOS iPhones and iPads. It recently introduced what's described as an intrusion-detection and prevention package for mobile devices, which Skycure's co-founder and CTO Yair Amit says relies on the Skycure cloud service for security purposes. He says the goal is to prevent and mitigate any impact from attackers exploiting configuration profiles on mobile devices. Skycure, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, was co-founded by CEO Adi Sharabani and the company has received about $3 million in venture-capital funding from Pitango Venture Capital and angel investors.

    Synack was founded by two former National Security Agency (NSA) computer network operations analysts, CEO Jay Kaplan and CTO Mark Kuhr. According to them, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based start-up is bringing together security experts with expertise in finding zero-day bugs in software, particularly in websites and applications of Synack customers. "We pay researchers for vulnerabilities found," explained Kaplan last August as Synack officially debuted. He says bug bounty rates typically run a minimum of $500 to several thousand for serious vulnerabilities in databases, for example. Synack says it has cultivated relationships with several bug hunters around the world, including at the NSA, who would be available to take on specific assignments. Synack A has received $1.5 million in venture-capital funding from a combination of investors that A include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Wing Venture Partners, Allegis Capital and Derek Smith, CEO of start-up Shape Security.

    Threat Stack, founded by CEO Dustin Webber with Jennifer Andre, wants to give enterprises a way to know if hackers are breaking into Linux-based servers that they may use in their cloud services. To monitor for hacker activity, the start-up's Cloud Sight agent software for Linux needs to be installed on the Linux server under administrative control in the cloud environment, says Webber. "We look for the behavior of the hacker," he points out, noting the enterprise will get an alert if a hacker break-in is underway and a measure of forensics about incidents can be obtained if needed. Cloud Sight could also be potentially used by cloud service providers as well but the initial focus is on monitoring for the enterprise, he says. Threat Stack, founded in Cambridge, Mass., in 2012, has obtained $1.2 million in funding from Atlas Venture and .406 Ventures. The start-up is yet another example of why there's new energy directed toward finding ways to provide visibility, monitoring and security for businesses adopting cloud services.

    Ellen Messmer is senior editor at Network World, part of IDG, where she covers news and technology trends related to information security. Twitter: MessmerE. E-mail: emessmer@nww.com

    Read Morewww.pcadvisor.co.uk/news

  • Fri
    15
    Nov
    2013

    12

    Being able to connect a lot of things to the Internet is one thing; being able to build applications that actually do something useful with them is quite another. While the Internet of Things (IoT) is all the rage these days, few organizations have any actual capability to take advantage of it. With that in mind, Glassbeam has launched SCALAR, a cloud-based platform for creating analytics applications based on machine data.

    According to Glassbeam CEO Puneet Pandit, SCALAR allows developers to create applications against a central repository of machine data in the cloud. These applications can be integrated with other enterprise applications via a set of defined RESTful APIs that Glassbeam has deployed on its own Infoserver, which is based on the PLAY framework.

    10Img Credit: Glassbeam.com

    SCALAR is an analytics application in the cloud that’s based on a proprietary language that Glassbeam developed on top of the Cassandra NoSQL database and Solr search engine platform to structure machine data. The company’s Glassbeam Studio allows organizations to map all that data, and the Glassbeam Explorer application enables search and log management.

    Glassbeam Studio allows developers to map data and define metadata definitions. Applications created via Glassbeam Studio can then be exposed via a set of consistent APIs that makes it easier to integrate analytics applications with other applications in the enterprise, Pandit says.

    IoT’s potential won’t become meaningful reality without applications that makes sense of that data. Even then, these applications must find a way for other applications to easily invoke the analytics generated on the SCALAR platform.

    What makes SCALAR different from an IoT perspective is that instead of requiring developers to bolt on APIs after an application is built, the tools for supporting APIs are baked into the platform.

    Glassbeam recently raised another $3 million in funding that the company is using to fuel additional product development and create an ecosystem around SCALAR. It remains to be seen whether developers take to a platform for building analytics applications that are optimized for IoT. But from a business perspective, the value of IoT investments is not in all the machine data being created, but rather, the insights into all the data that is generated by the analytics application.

    Read more: blog.programmableweb.com
    Follow us: @programmableweb on Twitter | ProgrammableWeb on Facebook

  • Fri
    22
    Nov
    2013

    Machine Data Analytics Company Honored With a Bronze Win in the Enterprise Service of the Year Category for Glassbeam Health Check

    12

    SANTA CLARA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/13 -- Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced that Glassbeam Health Check, a cloud-based, white-label solution that delivers a continuous pulse on the "health" of products, has been named a bronze winner in the Enterprise Service of the Year category for the Best in Biz Awards. The Best in Biz Awards are the only independent business awards judged by members of the media from top-tier news, business and technology publications, as well as broadcast outlets and analyst firms.

    "Glassbeam Health Check was recognized in the enterprise category for helping product manufacturers to drive new revenues and monetize machine data, ultimately creating new revenue streams for our partners," said Puneet Pandit, founder and CEO of Glassbeam. "Winning a Best in Biz Award reflects Glassbeam's growing presence and leadership in the market."

    Glassbeam Health Check collects and analyzes machine data from every enabled product, every day -- a volume of data that would not be possible for administrators to analyze themselves. Glassbeam employs its core patent-pending SCALAR technology with Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL) as its underpinning language to provide analytics capabilities that would otherwise take years for a product manufacturer to duplicate.

    "The winners were selected based on the companies with the boldest, most innovative ideas," said Best in Biz Awards judge Brian Bandell, senior reporter at South Florida Business Journal. "Many companies rely on copying the inventions of others or releasing minor tweaks of products that were revolutionary years ago, but these companies are truly breaking new ground."

  • Fri
    29
    Nov
    2013

    2013_11$largeimg229_Nov_2013_185141300

    SAN FRANCISCO, Calif, United States

    The San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative announced Nov. 25 that a new trade mission will depart San Francisco Nov. 29 to visit sister city Bangalore led by San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee.

    To further an important exchange of information, 54 senior business leaders from construction, engineering, healthcare, technology and other verticals as well as civic leaders in the Bay area will join Lee to discuss important human welfare issues such as recycling, waste management, water management and world ecology with officials in Bangalore.

    “Our Sister City is keen to learn from and collaborate with San Francisco and the Bay Area which has successfully implemented multi-billion dollar infrastructure improvement programs. They have built world class water, waste management, recycling, civic administration, transportation, health care and other public services,” Madhav Misra, co-chair of the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative, stated in a press release.

    During the trip, a Memorandum of Understanding will be signed to establish help desks where respective business people in their cities can get assistance working with or launching their products and services into the other country.

    "Our goal is engagement. We ask corporate leaders here in the States to take a closer look at mutually beneficial exchanges and resources in India and how we can leverage these resources here in the States and for global welfare and economy," said Kumar Malavalli, Development Chair/ Director for the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative and CEO, InMage Systems.

    Nandini Tandon, vice chair of the El Camino Hospital's Board of Directors, will be co-chairing a health care delegation of local business, civic and physician leaders as part of the mission.

  • Mon
    13
    Jan
    2014

    Standing out in the congested genomics data analysis market is a challenge for startups, with each month bringing news of rivals' fresh investments and products. Maverix Biomics is one of many companies trying to gain a foothold in the sector, but it can boast a differentiating factor: One of Google's ($GOOG) original angel investors has contributed funding.

    The Google angel investor, Andy Bechtolsheim, joined with Asset Management Ventures and Apache Design co-founder Andrew Yang to lead Maverix's $6 million Series A round. Bechtolsheim was a co-founder of Sun Microsystems in 1982. He's also known for having written a check to Google for $100,000 in 1998. His latest investment sees Bechtolsheim enter the genomics data analysis space by promising Maverix the cash it needs to accelerate commercialization of its platform.
    San Mateo, CA-based Maverix says its system--the Maverix Analytic Platform--is already being used by pharmaceutical and diagnostics researchers. Maverix also has a co-marketing deal with Qiagen ($QGEN) that aims to make it easier for researchers to extract insights from next-generation gene expression data. Having finished the Series A round, Maverix will now further promote the platform by talking up its ability to simplify the management, exploration and visualization of genomics data.

    Maverix is far from the only genomics data startup to boast big-name backers, though. Exactly one year ago Sequoia Capital--a fund that backed Apple ($AAPL) Google, LinkedIn ($LNKD) and Oracle ($ORCL)--invested in genomics service provider SV Bio. And Maverix wasn't even the only California-based genomics data analysis startup to raise cash this week. Omicia, based a 40-minute drive north of Maverix in Oakland, raised $6.8 million for its whole genome interpretation system.

  • Thu
    23
    Jan
    2014

    2014_1$largeimg221_Jan_2014_152704040

    SAN FRANCISCO, United States

    After crisscrossing California meeting potential voters and huddling with Republican leaders and potential campaign donors nationwide, Neel Kashkari, who ran the U.S. Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, Jan. 21 declared his candidacy for governor of California.

    He made the announcement in Sacramento, Calif., during a noontime keynote address at the Sacramento Business Review at California State University, Sacramento (see sidebar).

    In a far-ranging interview with India-West in downtown San Francisco recently as he prepared to enter the race, the Indian American candidate gave a preview of his campaign strategy.

    Kashkari roundly criticized Democrat Governor Jerry Brown — who is expected to run for reelection as the prohibitive favorite — mainly on California’s poor educational performance and high unemployment rates.

    Born and raised in Stow, Ohio, a suburb of Akron, the former TARP overseer also emphasized his parting of the ways from President Barack Obama, whom he voted for in 2008 and under whom he served in the last three months of his tenure as head of the $700-billion U.S. financial rescue program.

    As president, Obama greatly disappointed him by turning out to be “a partisan warrior,” he said, and the person most “responsible” for the divisiveness of the two major political parties in Washington, D.C., he added.

    While Democratic Party leaders in California previously denigrated Kashkari’s possible candidacy by pointing out snidely that he is the former Golden Sachs executive selected by Henry Paulson, the company’s former CEO and Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, to run TARP, Kashkari is unapologetic about the recovery program.

    He said it proved successful, averted a great crisis for the nation and produced an “$11 billion profit” for the government.
    Kashkari was referring to a TARP summary issued Dec. 30 by Adam Hodge, a spokesperson for domestic finance at the Treasury Department, who said, “To date, Treasury has recouped $432.8 billion on all TARP investments — including the disposition of Treasury’s remaining investment in AIG — compared to $421.9 billion disbursed.”

    According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the 75-year-old Brown has amassed more than $17 million in campaign funds ready to be tapped, once he formally announces.

    Candidates challenging Brown dwindled by one Jan. 16, when former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican, ended his gubernatorial bid in the central coast town of Santa Maria, where he became the city’s youngest mayor at the age of 28 about 20 years ago.

    “It’s just time for me to take a break and focus more of my time on being a full-time dad and husband,” Maldonado said. Political analysts, however, pointed out that the Mexican American former state senator’s campaign failed to gain traction or raise significant funds to challenge Brown since its launch in April.

    Maldonado was a key mover of California’s open primary system, approved by voters in 2009. This year, candidates from all parties appear on the same ballot in the primary and the top vote getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.

    According to the Chronicle, a Public Policy Institute of California poll done in December showed Maldonado with just seven percent support among likely voters, less than half of that for conservative Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks in San Bernardino County, a Tea Party favorite and now the only other Republican running for governor.

    Media reports have speculated that Kashkari has received campaign pledges for at least $10 million. He did not confirm that to India-West, but said he believes he will be able to raise enough to mount a formidable challenge to Brown.
    He also emphasized that his discussions with GOP leaders nationwide didn’t necessary include endorsements yet.

    Kashkari confirmed that the GOP leaders he has consulted with include Paulson, former President George W. Bush, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice.

    He has also met with the citizens of California — including visiting schools, sleeping one night in a homeless shelter in Oakland, Calif., marching with members of the Sikh community at a parade in Yuba City, Calif., and meeting with about 60 Indian American professionals Jan. 7 at a reception hosted by Amber India Restaurant Group in Los Altos, Calif.

    Kashkari’s parents, Chaman and Sheila Kashkari, were born in Srinagar. His father, who has a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, joined the electrical engineering department as a professor at the University of Akron. His mother, a doctor, works at Akron City Hospital; and his sister, Meera, is a physician in North Carolina.

    “My parents came from India 50 years. They were not especially wealthy, but they were educated and like most Indian Americans in America, they valued a good education.”

    His family, he added, “hard-wired” him on the need to give back to America and “help those less fortunate.”

    His father supported efforts to “reduce poverty in Indian and African villages…When you can transform lives, you have a moral duty to help,” he said.

    Kashkari told India-West that he “remembers vividly” being present at the White House when his father received the “Presidential End Hunger Award” from President George Bush, Sr.

    As an undergraduate, he attended Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio. After graduation, he majored in aerospace engineering in the graduate program at the University of Illinois, where he was on a team that “built a solar-powered car.”

    Kashkari said he liked “technological challenges” and admired what NASA was doing, so after graduation, he was hired by TRW, a NASA subcontractor in Laguna Beach, Calif. While at the company, he worked on a project to help stabilize the giant mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope.

    It was then his career trajectory changed when he decided he needed to add business and finance capabilities to his experience, so he entered the MBA program at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

    After getting an MBA from Wharton, Kashkari returned to TRW briefly, before joining Goldman Sachs in 2002 in Menlo Park, Calif., which gave him an inside look at the entrepreneurial world in Silicon Valley.

    He met Paulson at this time, but said that he was by no means an intimate of the future treasury secretary.

    But when Paulson later told Kashkari in a phone conversation of his (Paulson’s) impending appointment by President Bush as treasury secretary, the Indian American said he emphatically told Paulson that he wanted to accompany him to Washington, no matter how junior the post.

    He worked at lower-level positions at Treasury in housing and alternate energy assignments, before being tapped by Paulson to run TARP. After leaving Washington, he joined Pacific Investment Management Company in Newport Beach, Calif., where he managed its equities division. He left the firm last year to prepare for a gubernatorial bid.

    Kashkari, who is divorced, is a moderate on most social issues, taking positions that are an anathema to the more conservative wing of the Republican Party.

    He is pro-choice, supports same-sex marriage, favors giving Green Cards to foreign graduates with master’s and Ph.D. degrees in STEM fields from U.S. colleges and universities, and believes the estimated 11 million to 12 million people currently in the U.S. illegally “need some form of legal status so they can file their taxes,” he told another Indian newspaper.

    “We should reform our immigration laws to put priority in the skills that we need in our economy,” he said. The current immigration bill in the Senate “is a reasonable starting place,” he added.

    Kashkari said he met recently with the conservative Lincoln Club of Orange County and received not one question on abortion or same-sex marriage. People at the meeting were more interested in his positions on education and jobs, “which are the issues resonating with voters now,” he said.

    Regarding Brown’s plan to use fees paid by carbon producers to partially fund a $68 billion high-speed rail system in California, Kashkari said it is a “crazy plan and a misplaced priority.”

    California has “$5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.” A failure to take it into account “is like balancing your checkbook, but ignoring making your mortgage payment.”

    Brown on the campaign trail, he pointed out, will have trouble defending California’s 46th ranking among states in spending per pupil in K-12 schools (according to 2011-12 data), and its unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, the sixth highest in the country.

    “These problems are solvable and I’ve been meeting with Republican leaders to find out what works in their states,” he told India-West.

    With Silicon Valley, the movie industry in Hollywood, and increased manufacturing in Southern California, the state is a “rocket ship that is not running at full speed,” Kashkari asserted, due to red tape and a restrictive climate for business that encourages businesses to relocate to other states.

    Kashkari by press deadline had not commented for the record on Brown’s new $155 billion proposed budget, but some Republicans have praised the governor for advocating spending $11 billion on debts and liabilities — including a $6 billion deferred payment to schools — and setting aside $1.6 billion in a “rainy day” fund.

    Under the proposed budget, about $4 billion would be used to pay down economic recovery bonds issued by former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, spending on K-12 would increase to $70 billion from $60 billion, and spending on higher education would rise by $1 billion, including $142 million in increased funds for the University of California and California State University systems, where tuitions would be frozen.

    A Kashkari aide rebutted by e-mail, “This budget actually represents the highest level of general fund spending ever. Not only is it the second-largest increase in general fund spending (as a dollar amount) in state history, but it’s also a 29% increase in total spending since Gov. Brown took office.”

    “Yet no money in the 2014-15 budget is directed toward any part of the unfunded pensions, including the growing $80.4 billion unfunded teachers’ retirement system.”

    Concerning Brown’s controversial $25 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which proposes boring two massive tunnels to siphon water from the Sacramento River and carry it beneath the delta to link up with the state Water Project near Tracy, while at the same time trying to protect endangered species with large-scale habitat restoration, Kashkari said it is too expensive.

    “There have to be cheaper ways, such as building more (facilities) for storage. That is a no-brainer.”

    Family farm owners in the Delta, many of them Punjabi Americans, complain the plan would cut off their freshwater supply. But proponents claim it is the best solution to solve the water crisis, which could leave up to 25 million people in the state without drinking water. Brown Jan. 17 declared a drought emergency in California.

    Inevitably, Kashkari’s thoughts returned to education.

    “Every child can learn. Schools need to educate the poorest kids and empower our teachers by not imposing restrictions that tie their hands. We also need more vocational training. We have lost that…Not everyone has to go to college.”

    Citing statistics that show kids regressing during summer vacations, the Indian American said he thinks year-round schools are a good idea. “Schools need to allow teachers and parents to customize learning to meet the needs of their kids,” he said

    Read more at http://www.indiawest.com

  • Tue
    28
    Jan
    2014

    Dear CloudVolumes Friends,
    Wanted to share an important CloudVolumes news with you, in partnership with VMware, today VMware released White Paper and we announce CloudVolumes ThinApp Edition articulated in the white paper. This is in addition to our Desktop and Server products. ThinApp product allows us to work closely with VMW, get their endorsement and reach out to number of their customers. Once customers use Freemium product, we strongly believe they will ask for paid 1) support, 2) Desktop product and/or Server product as paid products deliver substantially more value. We are combining new world and traditional enterprise sales methods, based on success, we will be able to do targeted companion products with other key companies. Key to our success is to leverage out technology with their market reach and built win-win relationship.

  • Tue
    28
    Jan
    2014

    CloudVolumes, the company that virtualizes everything above the OS, today announced a partnership with VMware (NYSE: VMW) to enhance ThinApp management and performance. CloudVolumes’ new ThinApp Edition integrates with ThinApp technology to leverage any VMware vSphere datastore and make individual ThinApp packages instantly available to users logging in to virtual desktops, Citrix XenApp, or Microsoft RDSH, in real-time and on demand through a service catalog. The combined solution and benefits are explained in details in a newly published VMware whitepaper.

    “CloudVolumes not only delivers centralized management, but also significantly boosts the application performance by eliminating the need for network streaming. Furthermore, by using CloudVolumes full Desktop Edition, customers can support user-installed applications as well as deploy and manage applications that cannot otherwise be virtualized.”

    VMware® ThinApp® is designed to deliver virtualized instances of applications in order to help IT administrators with software migration to a newer operating system and eliminate specific conflicts and compatibility issues. The integration with CloudVolumes will enhance the ease of management, speed of deployment, and performance of applications, all while leveraging customers’ existing storage infrastructures. It will also allow IT to scale up without sacrificing the benefits of application virtualization and centralized management.

    “Since the acquisition of Thinstall by VMware, ThinApp customers have asked for centralized management of ThinApps,” said Henrik Rosendahl, the former CEO of Thinstall and former director of application virtualization at VMware. “CloudVolumes not only delivers centralized management, but also significantly boosts the application performance by eliminating the need for network streaming. Furthermore, by using CloudVolumes full Desktop Edition, customers can support user-installed applications as well as deploy and manage applications that cannot otherwise be virtualized.”

    CloudVolumes has broad applicability beyond just enhancing ThinApp. CloudVolumes enables a hybrid-persistence model: the desktop pool is non-persistent, saving on hardware and storage; however, the user has a persistent desktop experience with their profile and user-installed apps managed and delivered separately. CloudVolumes can also deliver complex server applications such as databases, Web servers, and middleware. These virtualized applications and data are placed into one or more virtual disks (VMDK and VHD files), which are dynamically attached and shared across all virtual machines. This approach provides the fastest and most scalable way to deliver applications to any virtualized datacenter or cloud.

    CloudVolumes’ shared volumes significantly decreases I/O traffic from the network and improve application performance, while maintaining isolation between the applications and the operating system. This turnkey solution provides predictability in performance and removes the network as the limiting factor, allowing companies to leverage high-speed and SSD-based storage.

    To ensure simplicity, IT can utilize its existing ThinApp packages with CloudVolumes ThinApp Edition. It complements ThinApp’s dense application environment by dramatically enhancing the responsiveness of applications for end users. It enables IT to scale while leveraging existing infrastructure without sacrificing the benefits of application virtualization and centralized management.

    Key features of CloudVolumes ThinApp Edition include:

    • Flexibility of deployment: Deploy ThinApp packages from shared VMDKs on any datastore that VMware vSphere supports and scale as needed.
    • Centralized management: Manage a single virtual disk containing one or many ThinApp packages and share them across all users. Assign one or more CloudVolumes virtual disks to any active directory user or group. Searchable activity logs for compliance, analytics and audit.
    • Dynamic delivery: Security administrators and IT helpdesk can quickly respond to issues or helpdesk requests by updating or delivering new applications to a running VM.
    • Access to file automation: Automatically create file associations and shortcuts at log on for all ThinApp packages the user is entitled to.
    • Enterprise scale: Solution is design to support over 5,000 ThinApp packages and 10,000 users per Manager with the ability to scale out to 50 CloudVolumes Managers.
    • Increase VM density and simplify hardware support: Increase user density per VMware ESX host by decrease the amount of hardware required to support end users
    • Reduce network usage: Significant reduction of network I/O dramatically increasing the performance and responsive of ThinApp packages by 100% compared to hosting ThinApp packages on a CIFS file share.
    • Freemium license: ThinApp Edition will be available to qualified customers in US and EU free of charge. A support fee will be charged to those commercial customers needing support and maintenance or who have 1,000 or more users

    “We are extremely happy to extend our partnership with VMware and provide a complementary solution to ThinApp which allows users to enjoy a completely persistent and native desktop experience, while IT continues to manage the environment as non-persistent and centralized, including automated entitlement and analytics,” said Raj Parekh, CEO, CloudVolumes. “CloudVolumes ThinApp Edition will significantly reduce the time required to provision, maintain, or decommission ThinApp packages.

    Pricing and availability

    CloudVolumes ThinApp Edition is currently available as a freemium product, with and without support. For more information, visit http://www.cloudvolumes.com/products/thinapp-edition.

    Supporting Resources

    About CloudVolumes 

    CloudVolumes helps businesses solve their complex management, scale, and performance problems with the cloud and virtualized datacenters by virtualizing everything above the OS. Customers rely on CloudVolumes to provide solutions for terminal servers, desktops, and servers, eliminating lock-ins of service providers and hypervisors. CloudVolumes works with a customer’s existing environment to dynamically deliver server or desktop workloads to any generic virtual machine providing instant access to applications, data, and profiles. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. For more information, visit http://www.cloudvolumes.com.

  • Thu
    30
    Jan
    2014

    Punchh announced it has been selected by QSR International to provide its mobile CRM suite throughout the 145-unit, multi-brand enterprise. According to a news release, QSR International operates in 15 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

    The partnership marks Punchh's first international deployment. QSR International's brands include Cinnabon, KFC, Quiznos, Smashburger and Teriyaki Experience.

    The Punchh-developed mobile app will be offered in Spanish, starting with 60 units, in Q2 2014.

    "This partnership marks our first international endeavor, and the chance to work with a deeply experienced master franchise developer," Jitendra Gupta, founder and CEO of Punchh, said in the release. "QSR International has an exceptional record of developing and operating quick-service restaurant brands throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, but now it will use Punchh's mobile CRM technology to engage customers on their mobile devices. Our goal is to help them drive solid increases in same-store sales and profitability."

    Punchh's brand-specific mobile apps allow brands to engage customers in and out of the store with loyalty programs, reviews, referrals, ordering, gift cards, payments, games and surveys. Punchh's cloud-based platform integrates with a restaurant's POS system to track detailed customer purchasing data and brand-relevant social media activity. Using customers' individual preferences, purchasing history, and demographic data, operators can tailor offers to patrons.

    QSR President Richard Eisenberg said Punchh's platform is an integral component of his plans for QSR to expand rapidly throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

    "In our markets, mobile device use is skyrocketing, and that presents a significant opportunity for us to engage our customers," Eisenberg said. "We're excited to tap the potential of the Punchh platform to increase same-store sales and profitability."

    Read more about mobile initiatives.

  • Fri
    31
    Jan
    2014

    Connected cars are one of the primary use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) that capture the imagination of the general public and developers alike. At the Machine-2-Machine (M2M) Evolution Conference that was held this week at part of a larger ITEXPO event, PubNub announced that it is making available a Connected Car Solution Kit that developers can employ to access a range back-end cloud services that will enable to them to more easily build and deliver connected car applications.

    Developers can access PubNub’s cloud services via APIs included in the Connected Car Solution Kit. These are building blocks the developers will need to build real-time applications such as taxi dispatch and hailing applications or entire fleet management systems, PubNub CEO Todd Greene says. The services include the ability to push data, store and playback data streams, analytics, presence, mobile application management and security—all of which are delivered and managed via 14 global data centers, Green says.

    The PubNub Connected Car Solution Kit, which supports more than 50 SDKs, provides access to services such as the ability to track vehicle locations, the state of the vehicle and even whether the vehicle has exceeded a certain geographical boundary.

    Greene says the Connected Car Solution Kit is designed to make it easier for developers to bring connected car applications to market without having to build and then manage multiple data centers. It’s not uncommon, notes Greene, for an organization to develop an application only to discover it doesn’t have the capital investment resources needed to manage that application at scale. PubNub takes that uncertainty off the table by providing access to a set of distributed data centers that help ensure application performance by minimizing network latency, he adds.

    PubNub is already seeing traffic levels approaching “Twitter-like levels,” Greene says—yet the biggest challenge facing the company is the tendency of many organizations to want to build everything on their own rather than leverage an existing cloud service.

    Connected car applications are just a small segment of the thousands of applications that already run on PubNub, including videoconferencing applications developed using WebRTC and a BitCoin Exchange application, says Greene. The Connected Car Solution Kit was announced the heels of a recent alliance that PubNub struck with Ford Motor Co. under which the automotive maker is working with PubNub to expose its APIs to create connected car applications. These applications may wind up doing more to show people the potential of the IoT than any other apps.

  • Fri
    07
    Feb
    2014

    California-based Intuary Inc, which provides FarFaria, an iPad app for digital books for kids, has closed $3.25 million in a Series A round of funding led by Inventus Capital Partners to grow its library and also to add more devices.

    As part of the deal, Manu Rekhi from Inventus Capital has joined Intuary's board.

    Intuary was co-founded by Ajay Godhwani (CEO), an alumnus of University of Illinois, and Gennady Borukhovich (CTO) who studied engineering at Rutgers University.

    Its flagship product FarFaria is an iPad digital books app targeted at children aged two-nine. This app gives kids unlimited access to over 600 illustrated children's books, with five new stories added each week, for $3.99 a month. The firm claims its engaging story-discovery features make it easy for kids to find new stories and fuel their love for reading. It provides an interactive book-finding experience for kids and stories can be read aloud with its Read-to-Me feature.

    "Getting kids excited about reading is the best way to set them up for a successful education and a bright future. We are on a mission to make reading more accessible and more fun for children. We see this mission as a global one that can have a massive impact, and we're thrilled to have Inventus behind us," said Godhwani.

    Intuary had previously also developed Verbally, a free augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) aid for people with a speech disability caused by apraxia, ALS, stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's, cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, muscular dystrophy, etc.

    Inventus is an India-focused early-stage investment firm, which recently raised its second VC fund at $106 million. The new fund, which was originally targeting $100 million, will invest in 20-25 companies operating in the digital services sector, particularly in consumer & business software and technology-enabled services. Although it chases Indian startups, it invests in cross-over firms with Indo-US link.

    The firm has already invested in a few firms from its new fund, including Unbxd (a product recommendation platform for e-commerce companies), Espresso Logic (a database backend services provider for mobile and web developers), PolicyBazaar (online insurance policy aggregator) and eDreams (a startup focused on the education industry), in India.

    "With 40 per cent of children between the ages of two and nine owning their own tablets in the US, companies like FarFaria have an incredible growth potential," said Manu Rekhi.

    -- Copyright 2013 VCCircle.com. All rights reserved. This content/article is provided by Mosaic Media Ventures Private Limited and not by Reuters. All rights, including copyright, in this content/article provided by VCCircle.com are owned or controlled by Mosaic Media Ventures Private Limited. The content may not be copied, broadcast, downloaded and stored (in any medium), transmitted, adapted or changed in any way whatsoever without the prior written permission of Mosaic Media Ventures Private Limited.

  • Tue
    18
    Feb
    2014

    SOURCE: Punchh

    193809_PunchhLogo600dpi-JPG2

    February 18, 2014 11:00 ET

    Ichor Restaurant Group Selects Punchh Mobile CRM Suite to Boost Loyalty and Brand Awareness

    Canton, Ohio-Based Fast-Casual Restaurant Concept Creator Will Drive Customer Loyalty and Mobile Marketing for Old Carolina Barbecue, Baja Pizzafish and Smoke the Burger Joint Brands in Northeastern U.S.

    SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 18, 2014) - Ichor Restaurant Group, a multi-brand operator and franchisor of thirteen restaurants throughout Ohio with an additional restaurant opening in Michigan, will be the first Ohio-based chain to employ the Punchh mobile CRM suite throughout its concepts, Old Carolina Barbecue Company, Baja Pizzafish, Smoke the Burger Joint and Wedge.

    "In partnering with Ichor Restaurant Group, we will be working with a creative and dynamic restaurant concept creator that recognizes the benefit of engaging customers through their mobile devices," said Jitendra Gupta, founder and CEO of Punchh. "Ichor's use of Punchh's mobile CRM technology will help it drive solid increases in same-store sales and profitability, while giving its customers a remarkably easy and convenient way to interact with these fantastic brands."

    Punchh's brand-specific mobile apps allow brands to engage customers in and out of the store with loyalty programs, reviews, referrals, ordering, gift cards, payments, games and surveys. Its cloud-based platform integrates with restaurants' POS systems to track highly detailed customer purchasing data and brand-relevant social media activity. Using customers' individual preferences, purchasing history and demographic data, operators can tailor offers to patrons that bring them back along with their friends.

    "With our mobile apps, we make the dining experience fun for consumers while automating it for operators. That simplicity leaves them free to focus on their business and their guests' dining experiences," Gupta said. "By helping those brands increase loyal customer frequency and new customer referrals, our partners realize unparalleled return on their marketing investments."

    Ichor CEO and co-founder Brian Bailey said he sees Punchh's platform as an integral component of his plans to expand his young concepts throughout the U.S. Ichor, founded by Brian Bailey and Tim Hug, continues to boost its portfolio with the addition of more concepts in the fast causal segment. Ichor Restaurant Group is the umbrella company for popular Midwest brands Old Carolina Barbecue Company and Baja Pizzafish. The newest addition to the Ichor family is called Smoke the Burger Joint, a one-of-a-kind burger concept that offers smoked patties to intensify flavor, which recently opened its first two units.

    "Our brands appeal to demographics that are heavy users of mobile devices, and we recognize our operators' need to engage those customers through that channel," Bailey said. "We're banking on the Punchh platform to increase same-store sales and profitability and we look forward to getting to know our customers better."

    ABOUT ICHOR RESTAURANT GROUP:
    Headquartered in North Canton Ohio, Ichor is a collaboration of individuals who share a passion for food, creativity and excellence. The restaurant group develops, operates and franchises unique restaurant concepts throughout the Midwest. The group focuses on developing efficient and profitable business models and delivering an extraordinary dining experience to its guests. For more information visit ichorgroup.com.

    About Punchh
    Punchh, a mobile CRM suite for restaurants, includes mobile apps for consumer engagement, big data customer analytics, and integration with POS, social media, and other third-party systems. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Punchh's patent-pending technology operates in more than 1,400 restaurant locations under brands such as Aurelio's Pizza, Earl of Sandwich, Farmer Boys, Hungry Howie's, Mama Fu's, Max's Restaurant of the Philippines, Rita's Italian Ice, Schlotzskys, Vino Volo, and Voodoo BBQ & Grill. Operators using Punchh report:

    Ten percent increases in same-store sales
    Three- to four-times higher participation rates, 50 percent-plus repeat rates, and new customer referrals for the first time ever
    Twenty-five percent-plus redemption rates for marketing campaigns
    Ten- to 15-times more customer reviews than Yelp!

    For more information, visit .

    *Photos available upon request.

    Contact Information

    Punchh Contact:
    Ann Dickerson
    ann@punchh.com
    303-319-4330
    http://punchh.com

    Ichor Contact:
    Chris@nolimitagency.com
    312.526.3996
    http://ichorgroup.com

  • Wed
    19
    Feb
    2014

    Glassbeam and Hitachi Data Systems Expand Partnership With Global OEM Agreement -- HDS Integrates Advanced Machine Data Analytics to Support Complex Enterprise Data Center Environments

    SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 19, 2014 -- Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced a global OEM agreement with Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS). Glassbeam’s flexible any data, any device, any cloud platform delivers advanced machine data analytics that provides OEM partners like HDS proactive information to manage storage, servers, networks and other IT assets for their enterprise customers.

    Enterprise customers turn to Hitachi Data Systems to manage their complex infrastructure environments with stringent service level agreements (SLAs). To improve these SLAs and proactive resource planning, HDS will integrate Glassbeam’s patented log analysis solution in its Managed Private Cloud offering and enhance operational performance and availability. Mining and analyzing structured and multi-structured data in logs is becoming increasingly critical in operating these complex infrastructure environments to create business advantage. HDS plans to leverage Glassbeam as part of a log analytics service to their Managed Cloud Solutions customers.

    “We are seeing explosive growth in managed storage and cloud solutions with global customers asking HDS to be their key infrastructure partner,” said Emmanuel Goutallier, Vice President and General Manager, Managed Cloud Solutions, Hitachi Data Systems. “Glassbeam solves a key challenge in log analysis by automating complex log formats and helps us stand behind tough SLAs with their ground-breaking log analysis platform and applications. Glassbeam has been a partner for a number of years with HDS and we are looking forward to expanding our services portfolio in 2014.”

    Glassbeam’s any data, any device and any cloud solution is flexible enough for use in public cloud, private cloud and appliance models, making it the ideal choice for managed service providers and systems integrators looking to OEM machine data analytics technology. Hitachi Data Systems delivers the gold standard in enterprise information technology, including the cloud, providing customers complete solutions around data center operations. This provides HDS a clear competitive advantage.

    “Glassbeam has strategic partnerships with the world’s largest product manufacturers, systems integrators and managed service providers, which validates both the rising importance of machine data analytics and the opportunity to create new revenue services,” added Puneet Pandit, CEO and founder, Glassbeam. “We are pleased to expand our partnership with Hitachi Data Systems with today’s OEM agreement, which contributes directly to its continued innovation, customer satisfaction and market leadership.”

    Glassbeam’s patent-pending SaaS, business user friendly, and flexible Log Analytics Platform enables customers to reduce costs, increase revenues, accelerate product time to market, and improve customer satisfaction and retention. Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

  • Thu
    20
    Feb
    2014

    mama-fu039s-introduces-mobile-application

    Mama Fu’s Asian House partnered with Punchh Mobile CRM to develop its own app in order to directly drive consumer interaction and loyalty.

    In conjunction with the launch of the new mobile application for iOS and Android on February 19, Mama Fu’s is rolling out a complete technology overhaul on the brand, including a new website and online ordering platform. The new website will feature updated branding, healthy dining, and nutritional content and will serve as the foundation for consumer-facing interaction, driving customers and Mama Fu’s Funatics Club members to the mobile application.

    Launching the new mobile app with Punchh Mobile allows Mama Fu’s to use its existing technology while incorporating new features through the flexible platform offered by Punchh Mobile. Serving as the primary platform for all customer interaction, Mama Fu’s is transitioning much of its web content to the new application in order to simplify and create new avenues for consumer interaction. Features of the Mama Fu’s mobile app include online ordering, Funatics Club loyalty program, store locator, full menus, Mama Fu’s news and special offers, and Facebook referral.

    “We know from extensive research that our customers are tech savvy and prefer electronic communication,” says Randy Murphy, president and CEO of Mama Fu’s. “Going mobile with our new app for iOS and Android phones keeps us highly relevant in the fast casual space and greatly simplifies the customer experience for our Funatics. The more enjoyable we make coming to Mama Fu’s, the more often those customers will return.”

    While Mama Fu’s Asian House offers guests convenience and value, the ingredients and fusion of flavors are the primary focus of its Asian-inspired food.  At Mama Fu’s, culinary innovation is showcased and celebrated seasonally in the restaurant’s Black Market Menu. Keeping its menu options fresh and dynamic, Mama Fu’s Black Market Menu is released every six months (in April and October) as an exclusive menu comprised of 5–6 dishes inspired from Mama Fu’s chefs’ experiences traveling through China, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea.

    Only available through the Mama Fu’s mobile app, customers can become Funatics by downloading the application through the Mama Fu’s website or directly from the online App Store or Google Play.

  • Thu
    20
    Feb
    2014

    BANGALORE: Data analytics firm Crayon Data has received funding from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures as it prepares to expand operations in overseas markets. Singapore-government-owned Spring Seeds Capital also participated in the deal.

    Crayon, founded by two graduates of the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, raised Rs 7.3 crore in this latest round. It has now received a total of Rs 27 crore in venture capital from leading angel investors like Meng Wong, co-founder of the Joyful Frog Digital Incubator, William Bissell, managing director of Fabindia, Ernest Pomerantz, chairman of Stone-Water Capital and Ravi Thakran, managing partner of L Capital.

    "We will use the funds to scale up technology and expand our operations in markets such as United States, United Kingdom, Middle East and China," said Suresh Shankar, co-founder of Crayon, who earlier sold his customer analytics company RedPill Solutions to IBM in 2009.

    Founded in 2012, Crayon has built a platform that mines hidden insights, patterns and unknown correlations from huge amount of data. "For instance , when a customer walks into the hotel, the staff already knows his or her choices and offers a personalised experience," said Shankar. "It is no more about loyalty points that the customer has, but knowing the guest's tastes."

    Crayon is the only big data company from Asia to be a finalist at a digital innovation contest which will take place in March at CeBIT, world's largest trade fair for information and communications technology in Germany.

  • Wed
    05
    Mar
    2014

    SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

     

    CloudVolumes, the company that virtualizes above the OS, today announced three new executive appointments to strengthen strategy and execution to meet the rapidly growing customer demand for its products. Dan Rakauskas has joined as executive vice president, worldwide sales, Vish Mishra as a member of the board of directors, and Bill Raduchel as executive advisor.

    “We take a broad view of how to drastically and universally improve application management at the highest level, helping enterprises seamlessly burst to the cloud while future proofing their data center through dynamically constructing complete workloads in near real-time and with any virtualized infrastructure,” said Raj Parekh, president and CEO, CloudVolumes. “I am delighted to have industry luminaries as our advisors, and the additions to the executive team will help us with strategy and implementation to better serve our growing list of customers.”

    Dan Rakauskas, EVP of worldwide sales

    Rakauskas joins CloudVolumes as executive vice president of worldwide sales to help grow sales and enterprise strategy, as well as lead business development for the company. Dan is a seasoned sales and business development executive with Fortune 500 experience. Previously, he was at Brocade where he led their Global Account efforts. Before Brocade, Dan held sales management positions at Juniper Networks and Funk Software, which was acquired by Juniper Networks. Rakauskas holds an MBA from Boston College and a bachelor of business administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

    Vish Mishra, board of directors

    Mishra, a highly regarded technology entrepreneur, investor and influencer, is currently venture director at Clearstone Venture Partners with nearly $700M in committed capital, with successes in the enterprise and consumer space. He has over 35 years of leadership, management and company-building experience in the technology industry covering computers, Internet, communications and software. He is a founder of Telera, a cutting edge voice Web infrastructure company that sold to Alcatel in 2002 for $140 million. Mishra was also a co-founder of Excelan, which went public in 1987, sold for $225 million and became a large component of Novell’s revenue. He has served as a CEO and director of several startups, including Quantros, now a part of Francisco Partners.

    “CloudVolumes is at the forefront of application management for desktops, servers and the cloud, and has proven its leadership position in the market with significant partnerships and major customers,” said Mishra. “I look forward to sharing my experience and knowledge to help the company build its strategy to overcome one of the most important shortcomings of the industry.”

    Dr. William Raduchel, executive advisor

    Bill Raduchel has had a long career on the cutting edge of technology and today advises and serves as a director for a diverse portfolio of companies including the Daily Mail and General Trust, Naspers, Silicon Image, LiveIntent, ePals, Kik and other startups. He was the non-executive chairman of the board of directors of Opera Software ASA. He has also been chief strategy officer at Sun Microsystems and the chief technology officer of AOL and then AOL Time Warner. He was a member of the National Academy Committee on Internet Navigation and Domain Name Services and the STEP committee, which produced “A Patent System for the 21st Century,” and chaired the committee on innovation and copyright in the digital era. Raduchel has held top executive positions at Ruckus Networks, Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner, Xerox and McGraw Hill, and currently teaches corporate strategy at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University.

    “During the decades I have worked as CIO or CTO at some of the most advanced IT organizations of the time, I have not seen a technology with as much implication as CloudVolumes has to fundamentally change the way IT works,” said Raduchel. “CloudVolumes is a game changer and I am excited to be part of it.”

    Supporting Resources

    About CloudVolumes

    CloudVolumes helps businesses solve their complex management, scale, and performance problems with the cloud and virtualized datacenters by virtualizing everything above the OS. Customers rely on CloudVolumes to provide solutions for terminal servers, desktops, and servers, eliminating lock-ins of service providers and hypervisors. CloudVolumes works with a customer’s existing environment to dynamically deliver server or desktop workloads to any generic virtual machine providing instant access to applications, data, and profiles. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. For more information, visit http://www.cloudvolumes.com.

     

    Contact:

    Mindshare PR
    Heather Fitzsimmons, 650-800-7160
    heather@mindsharepr.com

  • Thu
    06
    Mar
    2014

    CloudVolumes, Inc., the company that virtualizes above the OS, announced three new executive appointments to strengthen strategy and execution to meet the rapidly growing customer demand for its products.

    Dan Rakauskas has joined as EVP, worldwide sales, Vish Mishra as a member of the board of directors, and Bill Raduchel as executive advisor.

    "We take a broad view of how to drastically and universally improve application management at the highest level, helping enterprises seamlessly burst to the cloud while future proofing their data center through dynamically constructing complete workloads in near real-time and with any virtualized infrastructure," said Raj Parekh, president and CEO, CloudVolumes. "I am delighted to have industry luminaries as our advisors, and the additions to the executive team will help us with strategy and implementation to better serve our growing list of customers."

    Rakauskas,CloudVolumes Rakauskas, EVP of worldwide sales Rakauskas joins CloudVolumes as EVP of WW sales to help grow sales and enterprise strategy, as well as lead business development for the company. He is a seasoned sales and business development executive with Fortune 500 experience. Previously, he was at Brocade where he led their global account efforts. Before Brocade, he held sales management positions at Juniper Networks and Funk Software, which was acquired by Juniper Networks. He holds an MBA from Boston College and a bachelor of business administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

    Board of directors Mishra, a technology entrepreneur, investor and influencer, is currently venture director at Clearstone Venture Partners with nearly $700M in committed capital, with successes in the enterprise and consumer space. He has over 35 years of leadership, management and company-building experience in the technology industry covering computers, Internet, communications and software. He is a founder of Telera, a cutting edge voice Web infrastructure company that sold to Alcatel in 2002 for $140 million. He was also a co-founder of Excelan, which went public in 1987, sold for $225 million and became a large component of Novell's revenue. He has served as a CEO and director of several start-ups, including Quantros, now a part of Francisco Partners.

    "CloudVolumes is at the forefront of application management for desktops, servers and the cloud, and has proven its leadership position in the market with significant partnerships and major customers," said Mishra. "I look forward to sharing my experience and knowledge to help the company build its strategy to overcome one of the most important shortcomings of the industry."

    Executive advisor Raduchel has had a long career on the cutting edge of technology and today advises and serves as a director for a diverse portfolio of companies including the Daily Mail and General Trust, Naspers, Silicon Image, LiveIntent, ePals, Kik and other start-ups. He was the non-executive COB of directors of Opera Software ASA. He has also been chief strategy officer at Sun Microsystems and the CTO of AOL and then AOL Time Warner. He was a member of the National Academy Committee on Internet Navigation and Domain Name Services and the STEP committee, which produced A Patent System for the 21st Century, and chaired the committee on innovation and copyright in the digital era. He has held top executive positions at Ruckus Networks, Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner, Xerox and McGraw Hill, and currently teaches corporate strategy at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University.

    "During the decades I have worked as CIO or CTO at some of the most advanced IT organizations of the time, I have not seen a technology with as much implication as CloudVolumes has to fundamentally change the way IT works," said Raduchel. "CloudVolumes is a game changer and I am excited to be part of it."

  • Fri
    14
    Mar
    2014

    Network World - Cloud storage applications are great enablers of worker collaboration and productivity. When two or more people need to share files back and forth, and especially when they don’t all have access to a single internal storage facility like SharePoint, an application like Dropbox or Box can be helpful. Someone creates a file, drags it to the storage application icon, and the file is sent to the cloud—just that easy.

    But while end users are interested in ease of use, enterprises are more concerned about data security. In response, the providers of these services have enhanced data privacy and security capabilities; for example, by using SSL to secure a file during transmission to the cloud and by encrypting the file at rest in the cloud.

    Despite those protections, some enterprises are still skittish about allowing sensitive files to be stored in the cloud. It comes down to who has access to the files in a potentially unencrypted form. The cloud storage provider, for example, might have access to files in plain text when it’s the one that encrypts the files and holds the keys. This situation can be illustrated with this passage from the Dropbox website under a section entitled, “How secure is Dropbox?”:

    Dropbox employees are prohibited from viewing the content of files you store in your account. Employees may access file metadata (e.g., file names and locations) when they have a legitimate reason, like providing technical support. Like most online services, we have a small number of employees who must be able to access user data for the reasons stated in our privacy policy (e.g., when legally required to do so). But that's the rare exception, not the rule. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit employee access except in these rare circumstances.

    This begs the question, how “rare” are the circumstances in which your private data is accessed by the cloud provider? “Rarely” is not the same as “never,” which is the answer most enterprises prefer. We need look no further than the example of Edward Snowden being the insider that gains access to sensitive information and exposes it inappropriately.

    It is in this context that AlephCloud has introduced a solution called Content Canopy that provides encryption and key federation for cloud storage applications. Content Canopy helps to build the trustworthy cloud.  Enterprises and cloud providers can use the solution to ensure that data stored in the cloud is fully encrypted at its source of creation and the cloud provider has no access at all to the keys.

    There are two components to Content Canopy: client software and a cloud service that handles the key management and administration of the overall solution. Let’s break it down to see what each component does and how they fit together.

    To get started using Content Canopy, a company subscribes to the service by buying X number of licenses from AlephCloud. An IT administrator gets a realm activation link and clicks this link to enroll himself in the service. Then he can invite end users to enroll by downloading an app to their desktop, laptop, iPhone or iPad (the company says Android support is coming soon).

  • Tue
    18
    Mar
    2014

    SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 18, 2014) - Punchh, a brand-centric mobile CRM suite for brick and mortar businesses, will create a customized mobile and swipe-card based rewards program for the 75-unit Farmer Boys burger and breakfast chain. The Farmer Boys branded mobile app will allow customers to view menus, earn and redeem loyalty rewards, and refer their friends. The app will be available at select stores starting in Q2 of this year. Customers will also be able to use swipe cards to participate in the loyalty program. 

    With the Punchh loyalty program, Farmer Boys will be able to engage Millennials and baby boomers through their smartphones and swipe cards. Punchh's cloud-based, POS-integrated platform will allow restaurant operators to engage loyalty members in real time, and provide customized offers to boost sales and repeat traffic.

    "Our mobile CRM platform allows restaurant operators to grow their business by engaging customers on their smart phones using mobile apps," said Jitendra Gupta, Punchh CEO and co-founder. "The apps help brands to drive repeat business, word of mouth, and new customers through referrals from existing customers."

    Demetris Havadjias, CEO of Farmer Boys, said the chain chose Punchh to better understand and reward its most loyal customers -- many of whom have been coming to the chain for decades -- while improving its ability to attract new patrons. It also recognized the platform's higher potential for return on marketing investments.

    "We want to engage our customers through one-to-one marketing," said Havadjias. "Our goal with Punchh is to reach our customers in ways we haven't been able to with traditional advertising. The plan is to increase same-store sales and profitability."

    For operators, the Punchh mobile CRM platform makes it easy to track customer purchases and, in real time, makes that data accessible to store and corporate staff through a web-based dashboard. Using the Punchh dashboard, operators can manage customer relationships, see customers' purchasing history in real time, and tailor one-to-one offers.

    Customers use a single mobile app to earn and redeem rewards, place an order, pay for their food, interact directly with brand operators, share reviews about brands with friends through social media, play games, or respond to surveys.

    About Punchh
    Punchh, a mobile CRM suite for restaurants, includes branded mobile apps for consumer engagement, big data customer analytics, and integration with POS, social media, and other third-party systems. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Punchh's patent-pending technology operates in more than 1,400 restaurant locations under brands such as Aurelio's Pizza, Earl of Sandwich, Farmer Boys, Hungry Howie's, Mama Fu's, Max's Restaurant of the Philippines, Rita's Italian Ice, Schlotzskys, Vino Volo, and Voodoo BBQ & Grill. Operators using Punchh report:

    • Ten percent increases in same-store sales
    • Three- to four-times higher participation rates, 50 percent-plus repeat rates, and new customer referrals for the first time ever
    • Twenty-five percent-plus redemption rates for marketing campaigns
    • Ten- to 15-times more customer reviews than Yelp!

    For more information, visit http://punchh.com.

    About Farmer Boys
    Headquartered in Riverside, California, Farmer Boys is a fast casual restaurant chain founded in 1981 on homegrown goodness inspired by the heartland from which it emerged. Farmer Boys transforms farm-fresh ingredients into wholesome, delicious meals. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, Farmer Boys prepares more than 75 entrees fresh every day, including the award-winning Farmer's Burger®, specialty sandwiches, crisp salads, signature sides and more. Guests can enjoy casual dining style table service or opt for the convenience of drive thru service. Farmer Boys currently operates 75 restaurants located in five counties across Southern & Central California and in Nevada. For more information, visit http://www.farmerboys.com.

    Media Contact
    Punchh
    Ann Dickerson
    ann@punchh.com
    303-319-4330
    www.punchh.com

    Media Contact Farmer Boys
    Sue Shindle
    sshindle@famerboys.com
    951/823-8527
    www.farmerboys.com

  • Thu
    27
    Mar
    2014

    SUNNYVALE, Calif. — AlephCloud today announced that it has received U.S. Patent #8681992 for an encryption breakthrough that allows content to be shared among multiple parties in the cloud while keeping it secure and private from even application and infrastructure providers.

    The patented technology, called “Monitoring and Controlling Access to Electronic Content”, is a cryptography-based mechanism that enables all parties to securely communicate across trust boundaries in the cloud through a central intermediary (the hub), without the hub ever being able to access either the data or the data access policies. It enables service providers to reassure users that only they can access content placed in the cloud.

    Click to Tweet: .@AlephCloud receives patent for maintaining #contentsecurity and privacy in the cloud http://bit.ly/1j8JU0K

    The technology combines advanced encryption and key federation to layer transparent privacy, confidentiality and audit controls on top of cloud storage services. It allows organizations to keep sensitive content stored in the cloud private, while enabling flexible collaboration between internal or external users.

    “AlephCloud’s patented technology enables cloud providers to establish trust by allowing content owners to control privacy and security mechanisms using a unique blend of encryption and key federation,” said Jieming Zhu, CEO and Co-founder of AlephCloud. “This makes it possible to offer confidential document exchange in the cloud and introduce other advanced services. We believe this invention will change the rules for digital content protection and access both on-premise and in the cloud.”

    AlephCloud Trustworthy Cloud Platform

    The patented technology at the core of the AlephCloud Trustworthy Cloud™ Platform introduces a new model for digital content protection and access that:

    • Applies access controls and policies to the content, not the “container,” to enforce protection regardless of where the content is stored
    • Enables any-to-any secure collaboration across trust boundaries without having to rely on a trusted third party
    • Provides end-to-end encryption and global digital rights management (DRM) for “cradle to grave” security
    • Allows IT to maintain complete visibility and control, but prevents access to the content itself

    AlephCloud at SANS 2014

    The AlephCloud Trustworthy Cloud™ Platform will be showcased with its reference application called Content Canopy™, at SANS 2014 in Orlando at the Walt Disney World Dolphin at Booth #3 in the vendor Solutions Expo. The company will host a Lunch and Learn on Tuesday, April 8 at 12:30 pm.

    About AlephCloud

    AlephCloud allows cloud providers to layer transparent privacy, confidentiality and audit controls on top of cloud storage services, while enabling flexible collaboration within and between organizations. The company’s patented technology combines encryption and key federation to establish trust in cloud services by allowing content owners to control privacy and security mechanisms. AlephCloud is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Visit www.alephcloud.com to learn more or follow us on twitter@alephcloud.

  • Fri
    28
    Mar
    2014

    Whether it is done in hardware or software, replication is becoming a key piece of data protection projects.

    U.K.-based marketing services firm Brightsource and Collierville, Tenn.-based protective equipment company MCR Safety were among the organizations last year that added replication capabilities to aid backup and disaster recovery.

    Brightsource installed a Nimble Storage SAN for array-based replication, and MCR Safety installed InMage physical and virtual appliances that combine continuous data protection (CDP) and host-based replication.

    Brightsource gains RPO flexibility with array-based replication

    If you had a 500 TB database and you modified one minor field, the whole lot would need replicating.

    Ed Rollinson,
    head of IT for corporate marketing, Brightsource

    Brightsource's Nimble CS2000 system is dedicated to one customer with storage needs requiring a great deal of flexibility, according to Brightsource head of IT for corporate marketing, Ed Rollinson.

    Brightsource also uses an EMC VNXe 3100, but Rollinson said he was unhappy with the way that system handles replication. He said the VNXe replicates any change in a database, meaning, "If you had a 500 TB database and you modified one minor field, the whole lot would need replicating. We were looking at a data set of about 4.2 TB [for a customer project], and it would never complete. There is little control over that replication."

    To get data from the VNXe off-site, Brightsource puts data on a portable hard drive, and an employee takes it by taxicab to an off-site data center. "That's the position having an inefficient replication process has left us in," Rollinson said. "It's cost us considerable amount of time, money and energy doing it that way. That's why we realized we needed something that did data replication more efficiently."

    Nimble's replication is built into its Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout operating system and managed through VMware vCenter, rather than a separate application that EMC requires. Rollinson said Nimble's replication lets him set recovery point objectives (RPOs) for each data set. For instance, he replicates application data every hour, VMs every 12 hours and archive data every 48 hours, instead of replicating 4.2 TB at once.

    "We can replicate large chunks of data over time, or we can run smaller replication jobs more frequently," Rollinson said. "We can change those schedules as quickly as we want. Before, our backup and recovery process was focused on what the technology could give us. I was deeply uncomfortable about that. I always felt the business should take the lead on where we want to be with our DR scenario and how our recovery point objectives and recovery point times met."

    He said his challenge now is whether there is enough bandwidth to handle replication, "but that's easier to manage."

    Brightsource added a Nimble array to store time-sensitive data from a financial services customer that sends out customized information to distribution lists. The data and the emails sent often change due to factors such as varying interest rates and changes in services, resulting in frequent updates.

    "This project takes a large amount of data that would represent a particular marketing campaign," Rollinson said. "They would give us a clean data set. We take that data set and determine what assets needed to go into that marketing collateral.

    "What is incredibly important is not the general throughput of the system, but what we termed our burst capabilities. When we started evaluating products, we said if the system is faster and better than what we do now, that's a good start, but also, at what point does this system fall on its knees? And can we adequately plan for burst work and the challenges that might bring?"

    MCR receives block-level protection with host-based replication

    Replication was part of a two-part data protection transition for MCR Safety, which installed an InMage hardware appliance and a virtual appliance in August 2013. The first step was to replace its backup process of using IBM Tivoli Storage Manager to back up to tape. That was slow and also left MCR with most of its data without disaster recovery, according to MCR systems engineer Michael Cantkier. The next step will be to add a DR site and replicate to it with InMage.

    Cantkier worked as a consultant for MCR and sold the company the InMage products before joining MCR full-time. He said the company only backed up "things considered most important" before switching over.

    Now, MCR uses InMage to protect its data on Microsoft Windows (Exchange, SQL and file servers) and IBM AIX servers (DB2). The virtual appliance runs on VMware virtual machines and the hardware appliance protects the AIX systems running DB2 databases for MCR's enterprise resource planning system. The appliances back up to an IBM DS4700 array, which used to be MCR's primary SAN, but is now dedicated to InMage for data protection.

    Cantkier said he looked at several options before recommending InMage. He considered doing a software-hardware refresh around TSM, as well as bringing in software from Actifio, Veeam Software or Visions Solutions' Double-Take. He said he picked InMage because of its CDP, solid AIX support and replication.

    "We needed to support Windows and AIX," he said. "Everybody does Windows, but not everybody does AIX."

    Although MCR is not using replication yet, Cantkier said that was a requirement.

    "We'll turn InMage into a replication and DR tool," Cantkier said. "We'll replicate to our own cloud and fail over to a different site. Today, InMage protects our entire environment on a block level up to the moment. Any time a block is written to a disk or LUN, that block is split and written to another LUN on another SAN. InMage keeps track of those changes."

    He said InMage's CDP feature makes restores "like a DVR, where you slide back in time to where you want. The most recent stuff is more granular. You can recover from two to five minutes go. The older you get is less granular. The last week we have is a daily point in time that you can recover to. You choose that point in time, and it spins up a virtual LUN that you mount; it grabs files. You have multiple options for recovery. You can spin up an entire virtual machine that's in an alternate location, or you spin up a physical machine as a virtual machine in VMware."

  • Sun
    30
    Mar
    2014

    Tech-savvy couples can find vendors, communicate with guests and view photos from their big day, all with the tap of a finger

    Orange County Register

    POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 30, 2014

     

     

     

    "Today's bride is tech-y," says bridal consultant Natalie Good of A Good Affair in Tustin, Calif. "She will ‘Pin' from her phone and search for vendors as well."

    A search of iTunes for wedding apps spews out more than 2,000 platforms that help communicate with guests, ensure details and deadlines are met and capture moments via mobile device cameras.

    Here are a few apps for the altar:

    » Carats & Cake: Founded in November 2012, this app connects bridal couples with high-end wedding vendors. With reviews posted to categories such as catering and music, the app enables users to narrow down vendors to a desired location. Carats & Cake also allows users to view photos from actual weddings. Brides can click on the weddings they like and find sources for pictured items.

    » Yapp: For those looking to customize communication for guests, Yapp allows users to make their own mobile apps that can track schedule changes, introduce the wedding party, link maps to directions and capture a QR code to enable guests to upload wedding photos to the app's Crowd Pics page. According to Yapp, many bridal couples are opting out of paper altogether, instead sending all invitational details through the app.

    "Busy couples are planning on the go, and it helps to have all the key information on the device they are looking at an average of 150 times per day," says Yapp CEO and co-founder Maria Seidman. "Wedding-planning apps can help bring geographic and contextual information to planning."

    » Wedding Party: I often hear from brides that amid the flurry of the wedding, they hardly remember conversations with guests or how the cake tasted. This app lets guests log in with a custom wedding name code provided by the bride and groom. The Wedding Party app provides a platform for guests to upload photos during the wedding and "like" favorites. Not only are bridal couples treated to more photos from their nuptials, but they also gain different perspectives and feedback from guests.

    » Wedpics: According to Wedpics, more than 35,000 photos are uploaded to the app every day. The media app provides unlimited video and photo storage for guests and bridal party to upload. Useful for engagement parties, wedding showers or bachelorette/ bachelor parties, Wedpics also offers printing services.

    Kristin and Joe Daher of Irvine, Calif., used Wedpics in August for their wedding. A photo of Joe's 2-year-old nephew playing with Kristin's 82-year-old grandfather — the youngest person in Joe's family and the oldest in Kristin's — was snapped by a wedding guest and uploaded. A moment that could have gone unseen is now a cherished photograph.

    Because weddings usually include a mosaic of generations, introducing apps might require some finesse. For less tech-savvy guests, the couple might want to have a few disposable cameras handy and consider keeping the traditional mailed paper invitation.

    "Over 80 percent of young people aged 25-34 have a smartphone, and that number is over 60 percent for the U.S. population, according to Nielsen," Seidman says.

    "So, when it's time to plan a wedding, there is most certainly an app for that."

    Be sure to check the details and fine print of wedding apps.

    Yapp, Wedding Party, Wedpics and Carats & Cake are free and compatible with IOS and Android.

  • Tue
    01
    Apr
    2014

    MCR Safety

    The Challenge
    :
    MCR’s IT team supports the computing needs of over 350 employees at their headquarters in Collierville, TN, manufacturing facility in Glenwood, AR, and two distribution centers across the U.S. MCR has migrated the majority of their servers to virtual environments, which power their business applications such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL and file servers. They have AIX systems running DB2 to power their mission critical SAP ERP system that runs their sale s, purchasing, accounting,
    manufacturing, quality, warehousing, and distribution operations. When the MCR Safety team decided to move their data center, they opted to upgrade their backup and disaster recovery to address both their current and future needs.
     
    There are consequences when data is lost, most of which revolve around revenue.For MCR, the pain of downtime extends beyond potential revenue. There is also the immeasurable cost of customer satisfaction and loyalty being tarnished by having to call customers to go over orders and explain reasons for delays an unacceptable option given the high level of MCR’s customer service standards.In an effort to minimize the risk of data loss, MCR would run backups of critical
    systems frequently throughout the day, but doing so presented challenges. “The issue with our former solution was the frequency of backups that we wanted to take,the size of the email stores, and the change rate on the file servers. We encountered numerous issues with timing and getting backups to complete quickly. This was also taxing to our infrastructure causing storage I/O and network latency,” said Michael Cantkier, System Engineer at MCR Safety. Prior to joining MCR, Michael was an IT consultant for a technology Value Added Reseller and had firsthand knowledge of how InMage could provide the most robust solution to meet their requirements. “Before accepting my position at MCR Safety, I worked as a consultant and they were my client. I sold them the InMage product and was instrumental in its installation. It is extremely rewarding as I actually got to ‘build the house’ I live in
     
     
    The Solution: Meeting the Needs of Today and Tomorrow.
    MCR Safety had to address both short term and long term goals
    when selecting a new backup and disaster recovery solution. Theirshort term need was to replace their former backup solution with a scalable product that would give them continuous data protection,would work effortlessly with AIX and VMware, and would give them the freedom to evo
    lve as their needs change. In the future, they’ll have a Disaster Recovery site and use InMage protection and replication technology to seamlessly migrate systems to the cloud.In essence, InMage provides four services backup, replication,cloud migration and disaster recovery in one unified solution.InMage’s unique hybrid recovery technology enables granular recovery capabilities that can meet the most stringent recovery point and recovery time objectives while completely eliminating backups as a discrete operation. InMage is a significant improvement over the solution that MCR Safety formerly employed.Now they can pick any point in time and roll a system back to that point, to ensure the recovery point they are selecting is precisely where they want it right before a critical failure, file corruption or unwanted change.Choosing a solution that supports AIX was quintessential for MCR.InMage enables MCR to protect their AIX systems with the same awardwinning solution they use across operating systems, on both physical and virtual frastructure. Everything that runs their core business resides in SAP, powered by DB2 databases running on top of AIX which is the spinal column of their operations. The one solution approach of InMage saves MCR both time and money since they do not need to implement multiple disparate solutions to
    protect their AIX and Windows machines.Hypervisor heterogeneity and support for physical infrastructure were equally important to MCR. With over 100 VMs running business app
    lications, MCR Safety is no stranger to the needs of virtualization. MCR chose InMage because it covers the widest range of hypervisors and is the only company enabling customers to recover or migrate to any combination of physical and virtual targets even allowing the seamless migration from one hypervisor to another (i.e. VMware to HyperV). Only InMage was able to spin up a virtual machine, even if it was previously a physical machine, and have it running in a happy state with a few clicks.
     
     
    Result
    :
    After implementing the solution, MCR saw immediate value from InMage’s Continuous Data Protection (CDP). The continuous data protection is like having a DVR for their systems. They can pinpoint exactly where they want to be and find the files or volum es before
    they were corrupted. On multiple occasions, the team at MCR Safety has been able to use InMage to recover systems from as recently as a few minutes to as little as a few seconds from a
    problem or failure point. This has saved considerable time, effort and preserved their stellar
    reputation.Not only did InMage provide a superior backup and recovery solution to their prior product, eliminating backup windows and offering granular CDP, but it did so without any performance degradation. Michael decided to conduct an experiment and
    protected the test team’s servers, without letting the team know ahead of time, to see if they’d notice degradation in performance.Previously, they hadn’t backed up their test systems as there
    would always be a significant impact to performance at the 4 hour mark when the backups would begin. Michael’s test was a success; the systems were protected in realtime with InMage and
    the test team never noticed.Due to InMage’s unique lightweight architecture, MCR experienced
    no I/O overhead or impact to network performance. According to Michael, “InMage has no noticeable impact to our production systems even though it provides more granular data protection
    than our former solution.”Having worked with many solutions over the years, Michael
    considers InMage as the best of breed solution in the market for its unique mix of performance coupled with its robust capabilities that eliminate the need for multiple solutions. In fact, InMage supports the widest range of systems out of any solution available today.
    Michael is not just thrilled with the InMage product but he’s also been impressed with the team supporting him. “The professional services and support teams at InMage are absolutely stupendous.The folks who have helped us implement the solution and resolve any issues we have had, have been responsive, really taken ownership, and always made sure I was happy and comfortable with timelines and results. Without a doubt, they’re a 10 out of 10!”With InMage in place at MCR Safety, Michael and the rest of the MCR IT team rest easy at night. “I now have full confidence that if we ever have one of those really bad days, I get to be the hero and if I ever get stuck, I have the security of knowing I can pick up the phone and get one of the InMage’s support specialists to help me through it.”
     
     
  • Wed
    16
    Apr
    2014

    New York, New York (PRWEB) April 16, 2014

    ServerPronto, a leading host for IT infrastructure, has released a new case study on customer satisfaction. Customers across various industries are reporting strong results from recent initiatives to drive return on investment.

    When Sam Inala set out to create a web app that would let people access thousands of virtual machines from any browser, he knew he needed to transition from his self-created lab environment to a professional dedicated hosting environment. But he also knew he needed an affordable, reliable solution to build Tiebax prototypes.

    Tiebax.com lets you manage virtual machines with a single glance, keep a permanent record of what you changed and why--and never forget a password again. It works with any cloud, anywhere, or you can build your own virtual machines behind the firewall. Inala likes to say that Tiebax brings sanity to IT infrastructure management. And ServerPronto helps him do it.

    "We use ServerPronto dedicated servers to prototype the initial service," says Inala. "ServerPronto is very reliable and the service works well for us because it's a dedicated server. We don't have to worry about the performance issues that go along with shared servers. It's the perfect solution."

    Although Inala occasionally uses the Amazon EC2 environment when clients are reliant on virtual machines that are accessing the Amazon cloud, he says it is not an affordable option in most cases. ServerPronto offers a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost of Amazon EC2 that he finds reliable as a test environment for most of his clients.

    "ServerPronto is the most economical dedicated server on the market," says Inala, who has been a ServerPronto customer for more than four years. "The affordability and reliability of ServerPronto's dedicated servers allowed us to start up small and then scale up quickly. It's been a good experience and we look forward to growing our business with ServerPronto."

    Inala gives ServerPronto high marks for customer support and reliability, but it's the affordability that is making the biggest impact on his business. Inala says working with ServerPronto cuts his server costs in half for a single server at Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, and other large providers. And that cost savings will multiply exponentially as the company grows.

    "Companies like TieBax are making it possible for enterprises large and small to do more with less through virtual technologies and the Internet," said Chris Kurzweg, CEO of ServerPronto. "It thrills us to play a role in helping TieBax and other technology start-ups getting up and running--and help change the landscape for businesses everywhere."

    Click here to read ServerPronto case studies from satisfied customers.

    About ServerPronto ServerPronto currently has customers in 130 nations. ServerPronto, the hosting Subsidiary of Infolink, has been leading a low-cost revolution in the hosting industry since 2003. ServerPronto has broken the price barrier for cloud hosting in secured and reinforced Data Centers with redundant power, lightning fast fiber connections, and 24x7x365 support from a staff with more than 14 years of experience in operating data centers. Learn more at http://www.serverpronto.com.

    Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/04/prweb11766850.htm

    Read more:  http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1853244#ixzz2zw3L38Pl

  • Fri
    18
    Apr
    2014

    Fri Apr 18, 2014.                                     

    Post-Bulletin                           

    Associated Press

        

    Doug Appleton's grandparents couldn't travel to his New York City wedding last October, but the tech-savvy Floridians were as present on the big day as anyone could be from 1,000-plus miles away.

    Thanks to FaceTime, the two-way Apple video-calling app, Gerald and Jacqueline Sherman watched by video stream as Appleton, 27, and Lauren Becker, 26, tied the knot. The newlyweds even have a picture of the ceremony that captures the Shermans' faces on the iPhone that was used to connect them.                            

    Next, the Shermans joined in the post-nuptial festivities via Wedding Party, an app that instantly uploads photos taken by guests to a website that posts them in chronological order. That allowed them to watch the celebration unfold in real time.

    "My grandparents get this stuff, which is great," Appleton said. "They loved seeing what was going on."

    Applications that can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets are part of many weddings today, from the initial planning to the honeymoon. The hectic pace of life has encouraged the trend, said Leila Lewis, an industry expert and founder of Inspired By This, a wedding website.

    "In this day and age, the digital bride is planning the wedding on the go, which means planning from a phone or tablet," she said.

    "Brides want to be planning, searching and experiencing weddings conveniently. They want quick access to an abundance of information, and that's what apps and technology provide."

    The proliferation of wedding apps can make choosing which ones to use overwhelming. Here are just several worth noting:

    — Appy Couple. Sharmeen Mitha-Sehgal created this app after the nerve-wracking experience of trying to keep track of her sister's wedding itinerary — a wedding in Mumbai, India — using various invitation and social media websites. Appy Couple aims to provide all wedding-related services on one platform. It helps manage RSVPs, send email invites and create a schedule of events. Guests can use it to book travel, share photos and submit song requests to DJs.

    — Lover.ly. Lewis likes this one for planning. Also billed as a one-stop-shop for the betrothed, it offers shopping and planning platforms as well as info on trends, from '70s-style dresses to serving doughnuts.

    — Evernote. A nod to keeping you and your betrothed on the same page during the wedding planning process. This organizational app — you can snap pictures, make lists and take notes — syncs on devices so that everyone knows what's going on.

    — Wedding Party. One of the apps designed to boost the experience of the day itself by allowing guests to use their phones to share photos, videos and comments. About a week ahead of her wedding, Becker asked guests to download this app so they could help the Shermans get in on the action.

    — WedPics. Lets couples create personalized photo albums of all the events surrounding their nuptials, from bridal showers to honeymoons, using pictures and videos uploaded by friends.

    — Tiffany & Co. Engagement Ring Finder. The jeweler's app helps you choose the right diamond.

    http://www.postbulletin.com/life/lifestyles/app-happy-wedding-help-in-the-palm-of-your-hand/article_22af9597-b7ce-5746-acf3-3ca3c06b8728.html

  • Tue
    22
    Apr
    2014
     

    Punchh, a  CRM suite for restaurants, has created a customized mobile loyalty rewards program for Capriotti's Sandwich Shop, a 100-plus unit fast casual sandwich chain based in Las Vegas. Dubbed "CAPAddicts Rewards," customers can use the new program's branded mobile app to earn rewards based on how frequently they visit and how much they spend. The app will be introduced nationwide in Q3 2014, according to a company press release.

    Punchh's cloud-based, POS-integrated platform allows restaurant operators to engage customers in real time on their mobile devices and provide offers that boost incremental sales and repeat traffic. Using one-to-one engagement, restaurant operators can customize offers to each customer's established preferences, said Jitendra Gupta, Punchh CEO and founder.

    "We founded Punchh to bring the benefits of CRM to restaurants," he said.  "We are excited to work with Capriotti's and help it drive repeat business, word of mouth and bring in new customers through referrals."

    Jason Smylie, Capriotti's CIO and CMO, said the chain chose Punchh to better understand and give back to its customers, many of whom have patronized the brand for decades. The platform will help Capriotti's reward loyal customers meaningfully and personally while improving its ability to attract new patrons.

    "Using the Punchh platform, we can engage our customers right on their mobile devices in ways that traditional advertising can't," Smylie said. "In order to increase same-store sales and profitability, we must first know our customers and then give them more of what they want and deserve. For us and our customers, this is a win-win."

    The Punchh mobile CRM platform simplifies tracking of customer purchases, reviews, and referrals in real time, and makes them easily accessible to store and corporate staff through its web-based dashboard, Gupta said. Through the dashboard operators can manage customer relationships by viewing their purchasing history, determining their unique desires and tailoring personally relevant offers.

    For Capriotti's customers, the Punchh app delivers convenience by letting them use their smartphones to earn and redeem rewards, interact with the brand, share reviews about their experiences through social media and refer their friends.

    "Our platform's unparalleled capabilities allow restaurant brands of any size to maximize their marketing potential," Gupta said. "Customers want and respond to a personal touch, and this level of one-to-one marketing delivers that."

    http://www.fastcasual.com/article/231434/Capriotti-s-chooses-Punchh-s-mobile-CRM-platform-for-loyalty

  • Fri
    25
    Apr
    2014

    Wish Upon a Fish for Leo's Pad Available Today on the App Store; to Be

    Featured at Games for Change Arcade During the Tribeca Film Festival

    NEW YORK, April 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

    Kidaptive , an innovative edtech company focused on early learning, today introduced Wish Upon a Fish, the sixth appisode in its award-winningLeo's Pad: Preschool Kids Learning Series for iPad . Leo's Pad is available today on the App Store and will be featured live at the Games for Change Arcade event, taking place April 26, 2014 at the Tribeca Family Street Fair during the Tribeca Film Festival.

    Leo's Pad comprises beautifully animated learning games, called appisodes, created in collaboration with scientists from Stanford to teach children developmentally appropriate Kindergarten-readiness skills at home. In Wish Upon a Fish, characters Leo, Fusch, and Cinder guide players through a series of adaptive games tied to a research-based early learning framework embedded into the storyline. With encouragement from Leo and friends, players embark on a quest to catch the elusive Wishing Fish, a Koi fish with magical powers.

    Also included in Leo's Pad is the newly updated Parent's Pad feature, now accessible through a browser on a phone or computer, as well as inside the app. Parent's Pad includes analysis of kids' gameplay across dozens of learning dimensions, and also provides parents with ideas for engaging with children through additional offline learning activities.

    "All parents want to prepare their kids for success in school, but they don't always know the best way to do that," said Dylan Arena, PhD, co-founder and chief learning scientist at Kidaptive. "It turns out that the most important preparation isn't mastery of routine skills like reciting the alphabet or counting to 30; foundational skills like attention control, emotional awareness, problem solving, and curiosity are actually better ingredients for academic success."

    In Wish Upon a Fish, players learn and practice these foundational skills, honing in on: attention control, mental shape manipulation, problem solving, identifying facial expressions in others, impulse control, and delay of gratification.

    • Attention control – In the first game, learners are invited to feed the fish to entice it to come closer. The challenge for players is to focus on one task at a time without getting distracted.

    • Mental shape manipulation – In game two, Leo and friends decide to build a submarine to try to catch the Wishing Fish. Learners practice skills including tracing, rotating and scaling the shapes of the submarine.

    • Problem solving – Game three targets problem solving skills through the introduction of aRube Goldberg Machine . Players work on generating novel solutions to a problem and predicting whether another character's solutions will work.

    • Identifying facial expressions – Next, Leo and friends decide to try a more social approach to catch the Wishing Fish, by playing a game with it. Kids imitate the facial expressions of the fish and snap pictures of themselves to compare.

    • Impulse control and delay of gratification – Finally, in a nod to the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment on delayed gratification, learners play an adaptive game that challenges their self regulation and impulse control.

    Wish Upon a Fish is available for download as an update to Leo's Pad: Preschool Kids Learning Series for iPad on the App Store today.

    About Kidaptive Kidaptive is an innovative edtech company offering a comprehensive early-learning curriculum and assessment framework to engage children and empower parents. Through intelligent storytelling and research-based educational games developed in collaboration with scientists from Stanford, Kidaptive provides entertaining and adaptive content that helps preschool children andtheir parents learn. Kidaptive has received more than $10 million in funding from partners including Formation 8, Menlo Ventures, Stanford-StartX Fund, NewSchools Venture Fund, and Prana Studios. More details at http://kidaptive.com .

    Copyright (C) 2014 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

  • Wed
    30
    Apr
    2014

    Virtualization company CloudVolumes introduced version 2.0 of its workload deployment and management software, adding enhanced support for Citrix XenApp. The company is announcing an upcoming capability called AppCloaking, which will give customers additional flexibility to deploy multiple applications inside a single stack, and expose applications per user based on policy. CloudVolumes 2.0 features hybrid multi-cloud enablement, which allows customers to choose to easily provision workloads to cloud providers such as AWS and Microsoft Azure. It will enable developers to test and deploy their application stacks, driving more efficient resource utilization through increased virtualization. CloudVolumes’ virtual appliance now works with XenApp to enable support for both Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp and VMware Horizon deployments. “With over 15,000 students, managing applications and their deployment can be a very daunting task, especially without a major infrastructure overhaul,” said Lucien Haak, team leader workplaces, Maastricht University. “CloudVolumes enables us to easily manage our complex desktop applications, so that we can rapidly deploy them to our students and faculty. Since it requires no modifications to existing applications, it is easy to implement and also reduces our software and hardware requirements, which helps us save on costs.” AppCloaking, a soon to be released capability, will be introduced across the CloudVolumes family of products and will provide users with the flexibility to deploy multiple applications inside a single volume, instantly delivering applications only to entitled users. This unique approach will simplify deployment for users who want a golden image and single volume containing many applications, while avoiding the cost of delivering and managing large base images and simply hiding applications within them, which significantly limits agility. “As we work with customers, we uncover more use cases that show the need for Software Defined Workload management solutions that simplify deployment in a cloud and virtualized world,” said Harry Labana, SVP and chief product officer, CloudVolumes. “Our goal is to provide customers with flexibility when it comes to their applications, so they are able to easily deliver them across diverse infrastructures, increasing efficiency and saving on costs.” http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/04/29/cloudvolumes-2-0-enables-software-defined-workload-management/

  • Wed
    30
    Apr
    2014

    InMage Systems ‏@InMage · Apr 25 InMage has been selected as a finalist in Backup and Recovery with the InMage 4000 for Best of #TechEd 2014!

    Be sure to visit us in Houston, we'll be at booth 843!  pic.twitter.com/H8vmPGcHKc

    http://northamerica.msteched.com/News#fbid=x0fq-0GorMd

    Embedded image permalink

  • Mon
    05
    May
    2014

    Bridging the LAN and the WAN: Our IoT Hack at Hackendo

    By Joe Hanson                Follow @ToeJamson                May 5, 2014          

    In 2010, there were over 12.5 billion connected devices spread across the globe. These devices aren’t just phones and tablets, but really are anything with an IP address. Yet, only 1% of the world’s connected devices are actually connected to the WAN. We need to be able to connect your devices securely and reliably not just locally on the LAN, but anywhere on Earth over the Wide Area Network. At the SF Wearable and IoT Hackendo Hackathon last week, our PubNub team aimed to do just that. Devices need to work on closed networks and private networks (the LAN) but also outside the local area network too (the WAN). Users need to be able to turn on lights or open their garage door or receive telemetric and photonic sensory data no matter where they are, regardless of network configuration. As a result, we removed those limitations and expand a secure and reliable way for devices to connect on the wide area network independent of network configuration and 100% closed firewalls. In the video below, Stephen and Geremy talk IoT and demo our hack: We used the AllJoyn IoT framework and bridged it with PubNub to allow smart devices to communicate with each other, no matter how they are connected on closed networks. With PubNub, we extended connectivity not just through the LAN bridge, but also the ability to connect to over 50 different platforms simultaneously in realtime, removing ops configuration barriers altogether. We succeeded in bridging connected homes, cars, buildings and warehouses into the WAN, even through closed private networks without changing network configuration. We were able to fully automate several smart home devices with our product and additionally created a dashboard to monitor these systems. The dashboard receives and shows electricity consumption stats, and also gives you the ability to turn on and off devices with the press of a button. Where does PubNub come in? PubNub powers the Internet of Things with our globally distributed realtime network, and allows you to connect devices securely and reliably. Users and businesses can communicate with their other fleet, sensors and devices in realtime, over 4G, WAN and private, secure networks. Security is paramount for an IoT solution provider and it is no small task to secure 40 billion devices. PubNub provides beyond industry expected security requirements with socket based PubNub Access Management with ACL (Access Control Levels), AES256 Ciphers, SSL 2048bit TLS, Public Private Key Cryptography, SHA256 Origin Signing and more. And with fourteen data centers spread across the global, messages are replicated to ensure delivery. Consider PubNub your CDN for IoT; your global IoT realtime network tailored for all networks with devices running embedded platforms including TinyOS, Contiki, PIC32, Linux, Arduino, RTOS, FreeRTOS, RaspberryPi, Android Embedded, mBed (ARM), Electric Imp and many more. Categories: ● Realtime Technology - See more at:

    http://www.pubnub.com/blog/bridging-the-lan-and-the-wan-our-iot-hack-at-hackendo/

  • Mon
    12
    May
    2014

    SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - May 12, 2014) - Today InMage announced the release of Scout 7.1, enabling customers to leverage the public, hosted and private cloud as a target for backup and/or disaster recovery (DR). This next generation solution for hybrid cloud backup, recovery and migration is available in three form factors -- software, SaaS and the InMage 4000 Series appliance, which was named a "Best of TechEd 2014" finalist. Key Updates in Scout 7.1:

    •Industry First & Only Public, Hosted & Private Cloud Support for Backup & DR Scout 7.1 empowers customers to leverage the public or private cloud for backup and/or DR. Instead of chaining customers to a proprietary service, InMage customers will enjoy the freedom of leveraging the public or private cloud of their choice!

    •Faster Recovery Time Objective (RTO) to join current best of breed recovery point objective (RPO) InMage already boasts the best RPO/RTO in the market powering key service providers, but with Scout 7.1, pulls even farther ahead of the competition. Recovery RTO and DR-Drill operations have been optimized and significantly improved, especially so for larger environments. Pre-Rollback operation time has been reduced, and VMs are now simultaneously powered on for a recovery or DR-Drill. Parallel recoveries or DR drills of disks are now also possible across VMs allowing for substantially improved RTO.

    "We've always been ahead of the pack with our award winning technology, but with the addition of public and private cloud support for backup and DR, we're now truly in a class of one," said Kumar Malavalli, CEO, InMage Systems. According to Josh Kulberg, VP of Information Technology for The Learning Experience, InMage was the ideal solution for their needs. "We needed a disaster recovery plan for our business critical systems like Exchange, SQL, file servers, web servers, and customer data. A single InMage 4101 appliance allowed us to seamlessly replicate our systems in South Florida to a remote site in New Jersey, rather than using the multiple products required by other vendors or implementations. I'm relieved to know that our physical and virtual servers are protected by a continuous backup, near zero RPO solution!"

    With InMage in place, leveraging the cloud is a breeze.

    Come visit us at Microsoft TechEd in booth #843 and see the solution in action! Already Have a Solution in Place? Don't Lose a Penny Promo: InMage is so confident in the superiority of their solution that from now until July 31st, 2014, InMage will match the existing backup/DR software licenses you own, regardless of brand with equivalent InMage licenses running on InMage 4100 or above appliances.

    Interested? Learn more: http://go.inmage.com/EB-2014-04-InMage-4000-Upgrade_Promo.html

    Contact: Media Jennifer Sparks Bocchino Sparks & Associates

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/inmage-takes-data-protection-migration-101500078.html

  • Tue
    13
    May
    2014

    Punchh to Deliver Industry's First iBeacon Solution to Enhance SF Soup's Guest Experience and Drive Same-Store Sales

     market to them directly.
                                            

    "Part of what makes our concept so popular is the convenience and portability of fresh soups, custom tossed salads and sandwiches," said Steve Sarver, cofounder of SF Soup. He and wife, Jennifer, launched the company in 1999. "Punchh's Mobile CRM technology stood out for us because it will really help us serve our customers better without impacting line speed and reward them for their patronage, while driving same-store sales."                                        

    What the Punchh platform will enable SF Soup to do:           

            --  Engage customers on mobile devices when customers are near or in the
                stores (using iBeacon technology)
            --  Reward customers for loyalty, word of mouth, and referrals
            --  Deliver daily soup notifications when customers' favorite soups are
                being served
            --  Tailor offers to each customer based on spend, visits, and order
                preferences

                                

    The platform employs the restaurant industry's first use of iBeacon, to automatically identify loyalty program members with Bluetooth-enabled smartphones as they come near to or enter a SF Soup restaurant. Knowing such customers are near the location allows SF Soup to send a personalized offer to that patron immediately. Once inside, the staff can offer even more personalized touches.                                        

    "Punchh's support for iBeacon technology within the Punchh Mobile CRM platform is the industry's first such solution. Using our platform, we want to help SF Soup transform their guests' experience, based on their proximity to the stores. SF Soup will be able to better understand each of their customers, and grow same-store sales and profitability via one-to-one offers," said Jitendra Gupta, CEO of Punchh.                                        

    The SF Soup mobile app will launch in June at select stores, and will be available for download on iOS and Android devices from the Apple Store and Google Play Store.                                        

    About San Francisco Soup Company San Francisco Soup Company is a 17-unit fast-casual chain founded in 1999 by Steve and Jennifer Sarver. Recognizing a need for busy workers in San Francisco's Financial District, the couple designed a concept to provide nourishing, fresh soups customers could enjoy quickly and affordably on their short lunch breaks. In addition to more than 80 soup recipes in its lineup, including a host of vegetarian, low-fat, dairy-free, low-carb and gluten-free options, San Francisco Soup Co. serves custom tossed salads, sandwiches and light breakfasts. Growing steadily, the company's units are located throughout the Bay Area. For more information, visit         www.sfsoupco.com .                                        

    About Punchh Punchh, a mobile CRM suite for restaurants, includes branded mobile apps for consumer engagement, big data customer analytics, and integration with POS, social media and other third-party systems. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Punchh's patent-pending technology operates in stores under premier brands such as Aurelio's Pizza, Earl of Sandwich, Farmer Boys, Hungry Howie's, Mama Fu's, Max's Restaurant of the Philippines, Rita's Italian Ice, Schlotzskys, Vino Volo, and Voodoo BBQ & Grill. Operators using Punchh report:                                        

            --  Ten percent increases in same-store sales
            --  Three- to four-times higher participation rates compared to
                traditional loyalty programs, 50 percent-plus repeat rates and track
                and manage new customer referrals for the first time ever
            --  Twenty-five percent-plus redemption rates for marketing campaigns
            --  Ten to 15 times more customer reviews than Yelp!
            --  For more information, visit http://punchh.com.                                

    Media Contact - Punchh
            Ann Dickerson
            ann@punchh.com
             303-319-4330
            www.punchh.com
           
            Media Contact - SF Soup Co.
            Steve Sarver
            steve@sfsoupco.com
             415-867-9434
            www.sfsoupco.com
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-francisco-soup-company-selects-punchhs-ibeacon-enabled-mobile-crm-platform-2014-05-13

  • Thu
    15
    May
    2014

    PowWow is First to Provide Custom Mobile Gestures, Keyboards and User       Interfaces with No Coding; Enable Jointly Controlled Collaboration on        iPadsReceives $1.1 Million in Seed Funding

     
            
                                                       

     

     

                        

     

    SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- PowWow, Inc. today announced the launch of the company and the  availability of its flagship product. For the first time companies can move existing Windows or web applications adapted with a mobile-specific user experience, to any mobile device in minutes, giving employees the freedom to easily and securely access full featured enterprise applications anywhere in the world. The company also announced that it       has received $1.1 million in seed funding and has one of the top banks  and one of the top pharmaceutical companies as customers.                                        

                        

     

    Until now, a solution hasn’t existed that moves applications adapted for mobile in a way that’s true to the mobile experience. Users with tablets and laptops still find themselves tethered to their desktops. IT can create native applications over several months or years, but this is costly, time-consuming and typically only moves one to two apps to  mobile each year. PowWow now puts more control and power in the hands of IT and users at a fraction of the cost, and faster than any other option.                                        

    “Today companies are stymied by the inability to quickly take rich desktop application experiences and optimize them for mobile,” said  Andrew Cohen, Founder and CEO of PowWow. “When just a few native applications are being ported to mobile each year, users don’t realize  the true benefits of mobile. As a matter of fact many companies report that their employees develop ‘mobile apathy’ because what they’re able to do with their mobile devices doesn’t live up to their expectations. With PowWow, IT and expert users can move thousands of their most  important applications to mobile—and it isn’t just a cut and paste—these applications are now customized for tablets and laptops and allow people  to jointly collaborate on any document. We’re empowering mobile to finally deliver on everyone’s high expectations.”                                        

    PowWow runs Windows and Web applications on any mobile device in  minutes, optimizing them with a unique adaptive user interface technology. The PowWow Architecture, which is based on a patent-pending  software layer, allows each application to have custom gestures, keyboard and UI to be configured by device with no coding. Collaboration has also been built into the PowWow protocol. PowWow makes any single user application multi-user. For the first time mobile users--when given       control by a document’s owner--can jointly edit and co-author in real time. This fulfills a key need to fully collaborate as people leave their desks with their mobile device of choice. PowWow can optimize thousands of applications in hours while maintaining the control and security IT needs to protect users and assets. It can be deployed in on-premise, via the cloud and in hybrid environments and seamlessly  integrates within any back-end hardware and software platform.                                        

    Several large and small companies are using PowWow, including a top five bank, a top three pharmaceutical company, a Fortune one hundred insurance company, and a Fortune 10 conglomerate. PowWow is productively used across many enterprises every day.                                        

    The company also announced that it has secured a $1.1 million seed round from industry heavyweights Dave Schwab, managing director of Sierra Ventures; Mark Angel, Nuance and Kana Software; Kumar Mallavali, founder of Brocade; and Prabhu Goel, founder Gateway Design Automation (Cadence).                                        

    “Deploying windows apps to the tablet has been a poor imitation of the desktop experience,” said Prabhu Goel, Managing Director, Green Span  Ventures. “All that changes with PowWow. PowWow transforms enterprise apps into mobile apps that take advantage of everything everyone wants from mobile—the easy to use gestures, access to important data, and the ability to do anything you could do at your desk, anywhere in the world. Companies are seeing PowWow as a necessary supplement to their VDI, MEAPS and DaaS solutions. With PowWow, mobile devices will finally have the impact on enterprise productivity that they have already had on consumption.”                                        

    PowWow is available immediately and is priced at $25/month per user. A  free trial is available for use with a company’s own applications for select enterprises.                                        

    About PowWow, Inc.                                        

    Founded in 2012 by Andrew Cohen and Jonathan Kaplan, PowWow is a Virtual  Application Delivery and Collaboration platform that frees enterprise users from being tethered to their desktops-- giving them the ability to work the way they want and need to work, no matter where they are. For  the first time companies can move existing Windows or web applications to any mobile device in minutes, giving employees the freedom to easily and securely access full featured enterprise applications anywhere in the world. PowWow also enables joint editing and collaboration on iPads for the first time. Companies can keep the best of their existing IT solutions, while giving users the freedom to use the applications and mobile devices of choice.                                        

    The PowWow management team comes from respected enterprise software companies, including IBM, Lotus, KANA, Sun, Booz Allen Hamilton, and  WebEx. The company sells their services via direct and OEM  relationships. You can find PowWow at www.Powwowinc.net .                                        

    Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available:         http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20140515005433/en/                                        

    SOURCE: PowWow, Inc.                                        

    Copyright Business Wire 2014                    

  • Tue
    20
    May
    2014

    SAN JOSE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/20/14 --  InMage announced today that InMage won the Best of TechEd 2014 award in the Backup & Recovery category.

    InMage enables customers to leverage the public, hosted and private cloud as a target for backup and/or disaster recovery (DR). This next generation solution for hybrid cloud backup, recovery and migration is available in three form factors -- software, SaaS and the InMage 4000 Series appliance.

    Best of TechEd awards, co-sponsored by Microsoft and Windows IT Pro, recognize Microsoft partners that offer innovative products and services for the industry. Winners were announced at the Microsoft TechEd North America 2014 conference in Houston, Texas.

    "We are honored and would like to congratulate all finalists and winners who were acknowledged," said Rajeev Atluri, CTO, InMage. "InMage is focused on innovation and we pride ourselves in making it easy for customers to leverage the Cloud and increase operational efficiency. This award is a special honor as it validates our vision, from the customer community."

    "These products add business value for the people who adopt them. As cloud and mobile become more integral to the workplace, innovation continues to accelerate at a rapid pace. Windows IT Pro is proud to be on the front line for evaluating the best technology solutions," said Amy Eisenberg, Editor-in-Chief of Windows IT Pro.

    For more information on InMage's award winning products, please visit www.inmage.com

    Media Contact: Jennifer Sparks Bocchino Sparks & Associates Email Contact

    Source: InMage Systems

  • Wed
    28
    May
    2014

    Rapid Company Growth Draws Strong Leaders from Game-changing Companies Including MySQL, WebLogic, BEA and Zendesk

    San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 27, 2014

    PubNub, the only global Realtime Network, today announced the appointment of Katherine Rincon to vice president of Marketing, and Zack Urlocker to its Board of Directors.  With a career-long focus on developer platforms, communities and demand creation, Katherine is tasked with driving awareness and growth of PubNub’s cloud-based services.  PubNub’s success is further validated by the addition of industry veteran and startup advisor Zack Urlocker, renowned as a key player responsible for much of MySQL’s and Zendesk’s growth. 

    Katherine brings more than 17 years of marketing leadership experience at both start-ups and public companies, having held executive-level marketing positions at companies including WebLogic, BEA, Embarcadero Technologies, Cape Clear (now Workday) and SL Corporation. She has demonstrated great breadth and depth in helping drive rapid growth at early stage startups, and building developer communities measured in the millions.

    Zack is an investor, advisor and board member who works with venture-backed startup companies to help them scale their businesses. His involvement with PubNub goes beyond a typical board member: he commits significant time for ongoing mentoring, brainstorming and project execution to help further PubNub’s rapid expansion. Zack has held executive positions at Borland, Active Software, MySQL and Zendesk, and has been key in raising revenues in technology startups from under $6 million to over $100 million.

    “Even in this competitive recruiting environment, PubNub continues to attract outstanding talent at all levels of our organization,” said Todd Greene, CEO and founder of PubNub.  “Katherine and Zack have already contributed amazing value in just the first few weeks they’ve been onboard at PubNub.”

    Katherine and Zack join forces with PubNub’s deep bench of players to support the vision of “One Step Closer to the Singularity,” where every device in the world is linked together on PubNub’s global realtime network, communicating in less than ¼ of a second.  Already, PubNub is seeing this vision solidify, with over 150 million connected devices per month, and a dramatic growth in Internet of Things (IoT) customers who are quickly realizing PubNub’s many benefits.

    “PubNub is making it easy for developers to add real-time capabilities to a broad range of web, mobile and social applications. Experiences that used to cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to deliver – like Twitter, World of Warcraft and Nest – can suddenly be developed on a hacker’s budget,” said Katherine. “I’m thrilled to join such a bright and experienced team to help catapult the world’s ability to deliver real-time communications and synchronizations.”

    “PubNub provides a cloud-based infrastructure that enables a new generation of real-time, highly scalable applications that will change consumer and business expectations about what it means to operate in real time," said Zack.  “I look forward to working with the team as they continue to set the standard in delivering these applications.”

    time interactivity across mobile, browser, desktop and server, and supports over 50 environments including iOS, Android and JavaScript. With traffic distributed and replicated across 14 datacenters worldwide, PubNub currently powers thousands of real-time apps, and streams three million messages per second to over 150 million devices each month, all while adhering to 99.999% SLAs.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/05/prweb11876366.htm

  • Fri
    30
    May
    2014

     

    Recognized in the Big Data 100 Emerging Big Data Vendors and Business Analytics Lists

    Businesses are struggling with the rapidly increasing volume, speed and variety of information being generated today -- what's come to be known as "big data." In recognition of the growing importance of big data technology, CRN editors identified the key vendors that are bringing innovative business analytics, data management, and infrastructure technologies and services to market in conjunction with channel partners.

    Glassbeam's core platform is designed to analyze machine data generated by Internet of Things (IoT) to create actionable intelligence that can be leveraged across the enterprise. Built to handle any data, structured or unstructured from any device, Glassbeam's SaaS solutions can be deployed on any cloud. Glassbeam's applications provide support, product and engineering teams with analytics to reduce support costs and MTTR, add new revenue streams with value-add services and build better products with real time operational intelligence from machine logs.

    "This continued recognition by CRN validates Glassbeam's unique value proposition to the IoT market," said Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam. "Our applications provide unprecedented ROI to product manufacturers enabling them to deliver a superior customer experience and stay ahead of their competition."

    "Channel partners are deluged with choices when it comes to selecting the technology they use as building blocks for big data solutions, making it critical to have a trusted resource that can be used to identify the most cutting-edge technologies and tools available," said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. "Being a part of the CRN 2014 Big Data 100 is an industry wide recognition of these vendors' dedication and innovation to meeting the big data challenge."

    The 2014 Big Data 100 list is featured online at www.crn.com.

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    About The Channel Company The Channel Company is the channel community's trusted authority for growth and innovation, with established brands including CRN, XChange Events, IPED, and SharedVue. For more than three decades, we have leveraged our proven and leading-edge platforms to deliver prescriptive sales and marketing solutions for the technology channel. The Channel Company provides Communication, Recruitment, Engagement, Enablement, Demand Generation and Intelligence services to drive technology partnerships. Learn more at www.thechannelcompany.com.

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/glassbeam-named-to-crn-big-data-100-list-1915692.htm

  • Thu
    12
    Jun
    2014
  • Thu
    12
    Jun
    2014
  • Mon
    23
    Jun
    2014

    The video-search startup Baarzo has something that Google is willing to pay for.

    Reports today from TechCrunch and others say that the two companies have been in talks and that a deal has now been reached.

    Baarzo says what Google wants from it is “true video search,” which looks for specific events in videos — like a dramatic reveal, a runback for a touchdown, or a stunning World Cup goal.

    Here’s how the company describes its service at its website:

    “Unlike Google or YouTube searches, which only evaluate the text around the video, the Baarzo search technology actually analyzes the video content, recognizing hundreds of thousands of objects and millions of faces, and locates the precise moment in the video when the search objects interact in the way you had specified.”

    The technology apparently works, or else Google would never have come so far down the road to an acquisition.

    Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt reportedly saw a demo of Baarzo’s technology at Stanford’s business graduate school.

    Baarzo lists two individual angels at its AngelList page. The company lists Sun Microsystems cofounder Scott McNealy as an adviser.

    We’ll have more on this story after formal announcements are made.

     

    http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/23/google-reportedly-acquiring-video-search-startup-baarzo/

  • Tue
    01
    Jul
    2014

    More Than 60,000 Downloads in 3 Weeks and Ranks #4 Amongst Top Restaurant Brands in iTunes App Store

    SUNNYVALE, CA, Jul 01, 2014 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- Punchh, a brand-centric mobile guest relationship management platform for restaurants, has helped Schlotzsky's create and launch Lotz4Me(TM), a branded smartphone app for the 350-unit sandwich chain. The Lotz4Me(TM) app makes it fun and easy for Schlotzsky's guests to earn rewards for their purchases, share their feedback and experiences via social media, participate in surveys, get special offers, and receive exclusive insider news. Using Punchh's patent-pending technology for tracking referrals, the Lotz4Me(TM) app introduced industry-first features to reward Schlotzsky's guests for referring their Facebook friends who download the app and make a purchase at Schlotzsky's. Launched on June 2nd with a million sandwich giveaway, Lotz4Me(TM) also enables Schlotzsky's guests to like or follow the restaurant brand on social media channels.                                        

    Punchh creates 'Starbucks'-like branded mobile apps for restaurants that consumers can use to earn rewards for their visits, refer friends, respond to surveys, interact with the brand's social media channels, play games, post online reviews in real-time and best of all, redeem rewards from within the app. Restaurant operators can use Punchh's cloud-based, POS-integrated mobile CRM platform to engage guests on their smartphones to boost incremental sales, repeat traffic, word of mouth, and get new customers. The Punchh platform gives operators a complete picture of their guests including who they are, what orders they are placing, which of their friends they are referring to the restaurants, what reviews they're posting, their survey responses, and offers they are redeeming. Through Punchh's segmentation capability, restaurants can tailor offers to each guest's established preferences, and behavior including order history.                                        

    "We're excited to partner with a premier brand like Schlotzsky's for their mobile initiative. With Lotz4Me(TM), Schlotzsky's will be able to engage its guests in real-time and understand more about them than ever before," said Jitendra Gupta, Founder and CEO of Punchh. "Lotz4Me(TM) has ranked #4 in the iTunes App Store ahead of premier restaurant brands such as Papa John's, Panera Bread and Chipotle."                                        

    "The Lotz4Me(TM) app is a game changer because it drives online and in-restaurant engagement and introduces Schlotzsky's to new guests via the referral technology," said Kelly Roddy, president of Schlotzsky's. "We hope to grow sales, boost our online presence and appeal to younger guests with this app. With over 60,000 downloads in just three weeks, we are sure we made the right decision in tapping Punchh to help us make Lotz4Me(TM) a Lotz Better guest rewards program."                                        

    To learn more about Punchh, please visit         www.punchh.com . To learn more about Schlotzsky's and sign up for Lotz4Me(TM), please visit         http://www.schlotzskys.com/?section=lotz4me .                                        

    About Punchh Punchh is a mobile CRM platform for restaurants, which includes branded mobile apps for consumer engagement, big data customer analytics and integration with POS, social media and other third-party systems. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Punchh's patent-pending technology operates in stores under a variety of premier brands. Punchh's platform helps restaurants engage their consumers and increase same-store sales, repeat rates, online reviews, new customer referrals and marketing campaign performance. For more information, please visit         www.punchh.com .                                        

    About Schlotzsky's  Since 1971, Schlotzsky's has been the home of The Original(R) oven-baked sandwich. The menu has evolved with customers' tastes to include the highest quality sandwiches, pizzas, flatbreads, salads, and soups available today. With more than 350 locations worldwide, Schlotzsky's is the fast-casual choice for a quick, healthful, and fresh dining experience. Schlotzsky's is enjoyed around the world, with restaurants in 36 states along with locations in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Schlotzsky's is owned by FOCUS Brands Inc.(R), the franchisor and operator of more than 4,000 Carvel(R), Cinnabon(R), Schlotzsky's(R), Moe's Southwest Grill(R), Auntie Anne's(R) Pretzels, McAlister's Deli(R) locations and the franchisor of Seattle's Best Coffee(R) on certain military bases and in international markets. For more information, visit         www.schlotzskys.com .                                        

    SOURCE: Punchh

  • Fri
    11
    Jul
    2014

    Summary: Microsoft hopes the acquisition will boost the Azure Site Recovery service and lure more enterprise clients to the Azure platform.

    By for Between the Lines |

                                     

    Building_36_Redmond_Campus_Web
    Credit: Microsoft

    Microsoft has acquired InMage to improve hybrid cloud business continuity solutions and make Azure the top choice for disaster recovery for enterprise servers worldwide.

    The deal was announced on the official Microsoft blog.

    InMage offers backup and disaster recovery technology for the enterprise market and Managed Service Providers (MSPs), allowing businesses to use a single solution that protects virtual, physical, UNIX and database systems, rather than having to use multiple products.

    Screen Shot 2014-07-11 at 10.36.36

    Microsoft says that the concept of business continuity — backups, replication and the quick recovery of data and applications in the case of system failure — is rapidly becoming an important consideration in today's business environment, especially as revenue, supply chains, customer loyalty, employee productivity and more rely on these systems to function efficiently.

    However, due to the expense associated with such services, corporations often don't have "the budget or time to do it right."

    This is where InMage comes in. The Redmond giant says the purchase will accelerate the firm's strategy to provide "hybrid cloud business continuity solutions for any customer IT environment, be it Windows or Linux, physical or virtualized on Hyper-V, VMware or others." Once InMage's technology is integrated within the Azure platform, the company hopes this will make Azure "the ideal destination for disaster recovery for virtually every enterprise server in the world."

    With the completion of the acquisition, InMage technology will be integrated within the Azure Site Recovery service, and existing customers will be able to continue to use InMage products. Eventually, InMage subscribers will gain access to Scout through Azure Site Recovery.

    Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

    Laura DuBois, Research Vice President for IDC said the acquisition is a "great move to meet important customer needs with the cloud as a target for disaster recovery," what she deems to be "a poorly understood and underserved market."

    Takeshi Numoto, Corporate Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft said:

    Enterprise customers are looking for the best, most valuable ways to take advantage of the cloud. Business continuity is often a great place to start, which is why we are very focused on delivering strong solutions in this area for our customers. It is a key element of our continued effort to deliver a consistent hybrid platform and a broad range of services that connect customer, partner and Microsoft clouds.

     

    http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-acquires-disaster-recovery-solutions-firm-inmage-to-strengthen-azure-7000031490/

  • Mon
    21
    Jul
    2014

    Sorry, there's no an app for that. Connecting iPhone users to their

    enterprise desktop or Web applications, PowWow picks up where Apple's

    App Store leaves off.

     
    Posted July 21, 2014 By

    Pedro Hernandez

    PowWow, a San Francisco, Calif.-based software startup, today announced that the company's self-named mobile application delivery platform is available on the iPhone, following a version for tablets like the iPad.

    Despite the explosive growth of the mobile software market, not every business desktop or Web application has made the transition to the iPhone. And it may be years before such software is ported to iOS, if ever.

    PowWow's technology, dubbed a "real-time transformation engine," offers on-the-go access to select functionality or a subset of a business application's capabilities, instead of the whole application. As the company explains, organizations can give their mobile users "a customer loyalty purchase entry feature as part of a larger enterprise-wide CRM application, or stock trading features as part of a larger trading system."

    What results is a mobile-optimized experience that adheres to the iPhone's user interface, complete with touch enabled perks like custom gestures and virtual keyboards. According to Andrew Cohen, PowWow's co-founder and CEO, organizations can deliver those targeted app experiences quickly. The company's tech "puts a company's Windows and Web applications on mobile devices in minutes, and those apps feel native, as if they were written for that device," he said Cohen.

    PowWow is already catching on, added Cohen. He reported that PowWow, which is in "extensive trials," has already racked up orders from Fortune 500 customers.

    The firm's cloud-based alternative to custom mobile apps and virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) requires "a one-time upgrade process for IT," according the company. Base workspaces can generally be configured within a day and specific applications within an hour, without coding and little IT overhead.

    In terms of security, data sent over PowWow is never stored on a device, eliminating the risk that sensitive information can be plucked from a lost or stolen iPhone. Data shared between devices and corporate networks are secured via SSL.

    Finally, PowWow offers a smattering of collaboration features. Features include file and application sharing between users and non-users. Browser-based links enabled non-PowWow colleagues to access applications and files via their PC or mobile browsers.

    PowWow for the iPhone is expected to ship in the fall of 2014. Currently, PowWow (non-iPhone) is available for $25 per month per user.

    http://www.datamation.com/mobile-wireless/powwow-streamlines-enterprise-apps-for-the-iphone.html

  • Tue
    22
    Jul
    2014

    By  Devang Mehta

    We’re thrilled to announce that Dimension Data has joined our fast-growing list of customers. The Dimension Data deal is notable for a few reasons. It marks our foray into the Data Center Infrastructure management market - one that we think is primed for capitalizing on the various capabilities of our machine data analysis platform. And, that is exactly what Dimension Data is using Glassbeam for:

    • Helping plan capacity for virtual machines, storage, servers and IT infrastructure.
    • Setting up alerts, and getting notified, for anomalies in data (based on predefined thresholds)
    • Profiling of usage and security parameters inside different time windows.

    Second, is the sheer heterogeneity of data that will be parsed and analyzed; Dimension Data has more than 4000 clients spread across 25 data centers and the Glassbeam platform will be sifting through millions of data points daily. And that is data that emanates from a large variety of devices – storage servers, virtual machines, etc. We see this as a true endorsement of our ability to parse structured, semi-structured and unstructured data and a combination of these too! Incidentally, Dimension Data is also our hosting partner. We will be hosting a Webinar in early-August that talks about how we partner with them to keep our customer’s machine data secure. We will be putting up details on our Website and on social media channels (LinkedIn and Twitter) as soon as these become available. Stay tuned.

    http://www.glassbeam.com/dimensiondata/

  • Tue
    19
    Aug
    2014

    Glassbeam Recognized by CRN as a 2014 Emerging Vendor

    List Highlights Hottest Tech Startups Impacting the IT Channel, Technology Industry

    Marketwired                    

                                Glassbeam                                 August 19, 2014 9:01 AM                            
     
                                                     
     

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 19, 2014) -  Glassbeam, Inc., the leading machine data analytics company, today announced it has been recognized as one of 2014's hottest emerging technology vendors by CRN, the top news source for solution providers and the IT channel. The annual Emerging Vendors list identifies up-and-coming technology vendors that have introduced innovative new products, creating opportunities for channel partners in North America to make high-margin, cutting-edge solutions for their customers.

    Glassbeam's core platform, Glassbeam SCALAR, is designed to analyze machine data generated by Internet of Things (IoT) to create actionable intelligence that can be leveraged across the enterprise. Built to handle any data, structured or unstructured from any device, Glassbeam's SaaS solutions can be deployed on any cloud. Glassbeam's applications provide support, product and engineering teams with analytics to reduce support costs and MTTR, add new revenue streams with value-add services and build better products with real-time operational intelligence from machine logs.

    "As business analytics become crucial to every organization, we are dedicated to arming the IT channel with the machine data analytics enterprises need to glean value from their data," said Puneet Pandit, founder and CEO at Glassbeam. "We're thrilled to receive this award affirming the value of our unique machine data analytics technology and hope to continue creating opportunities for partners in the IT channel with our platform."

    "Solution providers are always on the hunt for the next big technology trend so that they can bring new solutions to their customers before they even know they need them. These vendors are on the forefront of IT innovation and are offering products and services that channel partners can use to stay ahead of the competition," said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company, publisher of CRN. "We congratulate 2014's Emerging Vendors for creating the next wave of technology that will drive the IT industry forward and for opening the door to new, unique solutions from the IT channel."

    Companies included in CRN's 2014 Emerging Vendors list were founded in 2008 or later and are actively working with channel partners in North America. The list, along with information about each vendor, will be published in CRN's August 2014 issue and will also be available online at www.crn.com.

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    About The Channel Company The Channel Company is the channel community's trusted authority for growth and innovation, with established brands including CRN, XChange Events, IPED, and SharedVue. For more than three decades, we have leveraged our proven and leading-edge platforms to deliver prescriptive sales and marketing solutions for the technology channel. The Channel Company provides Communication, Recruitment, Engagement, Enablement, Demand Generation and Intelligence services to drive technology partnerships. Learn more at www.thechannelcompany.com.

    • Technology & Electronics
    • Internet & Networking Technology
                        Contact:                
    Media Contact Danielle Salvato-Earl Kulesa Faul for Glassbeam, Inc. (650) 922-7287(650) 922-7287 Email Contact
     
  • Wed
    20
    Aug
    2014

    SOURCE: VMware, Inc.

    VMware, Inc.

    August 20, 2014 16:05 ET

    Acquisition to Provide VMware Customers With a Simpler Way to Deliver Native Applications

     

     PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 20, 2014) -  VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced the acquisition of CloudVolumes, a leading provider of real-time application delivery technology that enables enterprises to easily deliver native applications to virtualized environments on-demand. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to be immaterial to VMware's financial results.

    "Customers are looking to modernize their existing Windows application delivery architecture to be more like mobile IT," said Sumit Dhawan, senior vice president and general manager, Desktop Products, End-User Computing, VMware. "The combination of CloudVolumes and VMware Horizon will allow customers to build a real-time application delivery system that enables all applications to be centrally managed, always available and up-to-date, and delivered to virtualized environments for desktop, server or cloud on-demand."

    "Customers are looking for game changing solutions," said Raj Parekh, chief executive officer, CloudVolumes. "By bringing together CloudVoumes and VMware, we will be able to deliver winning technology solutions for the desktop and beyond, that few competitors can match."

    Revolutionizing Application Delivery and Management With the continued consumerization of IT, companies have increasingly turned to desktop virtualization to provide employees with secure, anytime, anywhere access to desktops, applications and data. With the addition of CloudVolumes to the VMware End-User Computing portfolio, VMware Horizon 6 customers will be able to lower their desktop and application infrastructure and management costs while giving end-users a personalized experience. 

    This promises to change the game for desktop virtualization and addresses the application delivery and performance challenge. With real-time application delivery, personalized desktops and application environments can be created at a reduced infrastructure cost by using a single gold image for multiple users or groups. As a result, customers will no longer have to choose between cost and a personalized experience.

    CloudVolumes will also enable VMware to build real-time application delivery across all three of its technology focus areas that include end-user computing, software-defined datacenter and hybrid cloud services.

    Additional Resources

    About CloudVolumes CloudVolumes helps businesses solve their complex management, scale, and performance problems with the cloud and virtualized datacenters by virtualizing everything above the OS. Customers rely on CloudVolumes to provide solutions for terminal servers, desktops, and servers, eliminating lock-ins of service providers and hypervisors. CloudVolumes works with a customer's existing environment to dynamically deliver server or desktop workloads to any generic virtual machine providing instant access to applications, data, and profiles. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. For more information, visit www.cloudvolumes.com or follow CloudVolumes on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cloudvolumes.

    About VMware VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2013 revenues of $5.21 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

    Forward-Looking Statements        

    This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the planned features of combined CloudVolumes and VMware products and solutions and their potential benefits to customers. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to (i) the successful integration of CloudVolumes products and solutions with VMware; (ii) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (iii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the mobile device, end user and cloud computing markets, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (v) our customers' ability to develop, and to transition to, new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing and mobile device management; (vi) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vii) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software and platforms for cloud and mobile device computing; (viii) changes to product development timelines; (ix) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; and (x) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

    VMware and Horizon are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective organizations.

    Contact Information

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/vmware-acquires-cloudvolumes-pioneer-of-real-time-application-delivery-technologies-nyse-vmw-1940214.htm

  • Wed
    27
    Aug
    2014

    Posted on August 27, 2014 by Arnal Dayaratna, Ph.D. (@cloud4computing)

    Glassbeam Inc today announces $2M in additional funding by means of a capital raise led by the VKRM group. Glassbeam also revealed details of a strategic partnership with Tableau whereby Tableau can integrate with SQL-compliant extracts from Glassbeam to enable customers to more effectively visualize machine data and discern trends by way of Tableau’s powerful visualization capabilities. In an interview with Cloud Computing Today, Glassbeam CEO Puneet Pandit noted that the company plans to deepen its strategic partnership with Tableau by delivering offerings from Tableau that are specific to Glassbeam, pending the finalization of further negotiations. Moreover, Kumar Malavalli, a well known Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur, will take over as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer.

    Glassbeam’s cloud-based platform is designed to ingest, process and analyze massive amounts of machine data. The platform’s deployment model involves the creation of a customized SPL file that, when deployed in the cloud, facilitates the integration of machine data into the Glassbeam platform.  Glassbeam’s differentiation with the machine data analytics space involves its focus on the internet of things and the subsequent business need to rapidly transform massive amounts of complex data into actionable business intelligence. Today’s funding raise brings the total capital raised by to $8.1M. Glassbeam’s capital raise affirms its traction in the machine data space as evinced by its signing of Dimension Data as a recent customer. Expect to hear more details from Glassbeam as it continues to sharpen its product differentiation for big data analytics related to the internet of things.

    http://cloud-computing-today.com/2014/08/27/glassbeam-announces-2m-funding-and-kumar-malavalli-as-chief-strategy-officer/

  • Thu
    18
    Sep
    2014

    By Joseph F. Kovar on September 17, 2014, 3:18 pm EDT

    Formation Data Systems this week came out of stealth mode with a mission to disrupt existing storage infrastructures with a new technology that aims to move customers away from legacy hardware and software to a unified storage solution that supports all types of formats and media. Fremont, Calif.-based Formation Data Systems also said it received funding to the tune of $24 million from a number of investment companies including one strategic investor, Dell. Also investing in the company are a number of individuals who see the value of data center disruption, including Box CEO Aaron Levie, Seagate CEO Steve Luczo, Riverbed CEO Jerry Kennelly and InMage CEO Kumar Malavalli.

    Formation Data Systems co-founders include CEO Mark Lewis, former EMC executive vice president and CTO and former general manger of the storage division at Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, and COO Andy Jenks.

    Formation Data Systems is trying to help move the storage business from one that is siloed according to different vendor offerings, or different technologies like SAN and NAS, which has created poor manageability and efficiency for users, Lewis told CRN. Lewis also believes current moves to fix storage, including the wave of software-defined storage technologies now hitting the market, mean fixing the problem for a coming boom of new types of applications, including big data, require a new storage architecture. "Now vendors are trying to create a new layer to manage storage called software-defined storage," he said. "But that doesn't eliminate the top problem: There are too many foundational platforms. We're starting from scratch and doing what Google and Facebook did: Write our own storage platform. Customers don't want to deal with so many platforms. We feel it's a great idea." The company, in response, has developed Formation XV, or Formation eXtensible Virtualization, a storage virtualization technology based on standard off-the-shelf hardware. Formation XV embraces flash and spinning disk storage, along with API-based cloud storage, Lewis said. "The whole idea is to open up all media types and virtualize across them," he said. Formation XV includes a data connector that projects a virtualized data layer for any operation. For example, Lewis said, applications needing block storage see the technology as a SAN, those needing file storage see it as a NAS, and other applications see it as block storage like that projected by Amazon Web Services or Swift-based technologies.

    The Risk of Asking Customers To Drop Old Storage Tech: "It's analogous to the creating of the smart phone industry," he said. "For the first generation, you had a phone, a GPS and a music player. That was good until people realized all the devices had similar hardware, with all the functions coming from software. Apple came along with its iPhone, but didn't make a better phone. It made a good phone, a good music device and a good GPS all in one." Formation Data Systems is doing the same for storage by virtualizing all block, file and object storage and projecting it to customers as needed.

    However, Lewis said, the company does not see itself as developing a technology for every use. "There will be 'corner' requirements for specific purposes," he said. "Someone will find an all-flash storage array better for specific purposes. But our solution will fit 95 percent of user cases." However, unlike most new storage technologies that aim to either take advantage of customers' existing hardware or software or gradually wean them off prior platforms, Formation Data Systems expects customers to replace existing infrastructures, Lewis said. "Our difference is, we are completely incompatible with old platforms," he said. "One potential customer recently told us we have to embrace all their old platforms. I said, well, I guess we're not going to sell to you."

    Formation Data Systems' technology does not support the most common storage industry technologies including SCSI, Fibre Channel, NAS and hardware RAID, Lewis said. "I can't make the old stuff cheaper," he said. "I can't make 30-year-old proprietary technology better. But look at Google and others. All the new successful platforms have rarely been built on existing platforms." The most disruptive things happen when one needs to get rid of existing technology, Lewis said. "That's why people add this vendor for NAS, that vendor for dedupe, this vendor for flash. Now they're adding a new vendor for big data and Hadoop. It's a pending earthquake. CIOs look at what Facebook and Google are doing, and ask why they are paying so much more for storage. They are asking their IT departments why they can't do that."

    Solution providers who have known Lewis from his Compaq days said getting customers to part with their existing storage technologies will be tough, but that he is the person with the experience to succeed with such a strategy. Lewis is correct when he talks about the problems in managing disparate storage platforms and the need for unity, but will find replacing tried-and-true storage platforms a long-term job, said Rich Baldwin, CIO and chief strategist at Nth Generation Computing and a former colleague of Lewis from over 20 years ago when they both worked at Digital Electric Corporation (DEC) before Compaq acquired it. The kind of management skill and experience needed to manage Hitachi Data Systems, EMC and NetApp in the same data center is already difficult, but it becomes a big stumbling block when one even thinks about replacing them, Baldwin told CRN.

    "I can walk into a customer to talk about HP's 3PAR storage, and the customer may say, 'Wow, that's great. But I have four EMC VMAX arrays now and want to replace two. But one is one year old and another is two years old, and I need to get the ROI from them,'" Baldwin said. "They may like the 3PAR but would need two different storage teams. And then when they add Hadoop or data warehousing or some other new platform, they face a new, major learning curve." However, Baldwin said, Lewis built the DEC StorageWorks business that eventually became the core of Hewlett-Packard's storage business, and at EMC worked closely with the team involved in mergers and acquisitions related to new technologies. "Lewis has a lot of credibility in the storage industry," he said. "And he has the background and the connections with the kind of people who can make Formation Data Systems work." Carl Wolfston, principal at Pleasanton, Calif.-based HP solution provider Headlands Associates, also worked with Lewis back at DEC, and told CRN Lewis' background and knowledge gives his new venture a lot of potential. "He's a great manager and a real geek at heart," Wolfston said. "My only complaint is he has gotten investment from Dell and not from HP." Wolfston said he is excited to see where Lewis will go with his new technology. "I love the concept," he said. "But if Formation Data Systems is trying to be a new storage platform, why won't it work with existing equipment? Look at Linux. If it's open, it has to work with everything." An even bigger question, Wolfston said, is how Formation Data Systems will work with the channel.

    Lewis said his company, like most startups, will initially work directly with customers to get its footing and to understand the market and its requirements, but "we want to expand into the channel as soon as possible," he said. Lewis said Formation Data Systems is a 100 percent software-focused company and has three primary initial target markets. The first is large enterprises that are building and developing a number of front office and customer-facing applications and want flexibility without giving up their "crown jewels" to Amazon Web Services. The second is new SaaS companies that are scaling their operations and are ready to build their own data environments. The third are large companies that have already scaled their operations but are looking to build their own platforms, he said. Formation Data Systems' technology is currently in beta testing, and the company hopes to take it to general availability in the second quarter of 2015, Lewis said. "In mid-2015, I expect we'll start working with channel partners who are integrating solutions for our specific target markets," he said.

  • Wed
    24
    Sep
    2014

    SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 24, 2014) - PowWow, Inc. today announced $2.5 million in Series A funding, further validating the company's commitment to driving enterprise mobility application delivery. Investors include OurCrowd, Vertical Venture Partners, IT-Farm, Julien Nguyen, Prabhu Goel and Kumar Malavalli. PowWow will use the financing for go-to-market activities and to expand its engineering teams.

    The number of mobile devices deployed in the workplace has exploded. However, the software used to run most medium and large enterprises is still generally Windows-based. Delivering enterprise applications to mobile devices has traditionally been very expensive; software development is time consuming and costly and other approaches, like Desktop Virtualization, deliver a poor user experience. Available for the iPhone and iPad, PowWow offers the first solution to quickly move any Windows or web application to any mobile device in minutes, all while delivering that native mobile experience users are looking for.

    "PowWow has the technology and team in place to deliver significant business value by mobilizing any Windows application in minutes. We provide an end-to-end solution so that medium and large enterprises can deploy, configure and transform their Windows applications for mobile devices. PowWow preserves an enterprise's investment in core technology without the need for a multi-year and multi-million dollar deployment," said Andrew Cohen, co-founder and CEO, PowWow, Inc. "This funding not only enables us to take PowWow to market, but it also allows us to expand operational capabilities to support our fast growing customer base."

    Until PowWow, a solution hasn't existed that easily mobilizes Windows and web applications in a way that's true to the native mobile experience. Not only does PowWow transform the application's user experience, it identifies the type of mobile device being used and automatically adjusts that experience to match its natural look and feel -- as if custom built for the device being used.

    With PowWow's real-time transformation engine, companies can quickly move hundreds or thousands of their existing Windows and web-based applications to mobile devices in a cost effective manner.

    "PowWow exemplifies the type of company in which Vertical Venture Partners historically looks to invest in -- a business at the forefront of an exciting market, a uniquely engineered solution and an experienced team that keenly understands the strategic business needs of the market," said David Schwab, founder and managing partner, Vertical Venture Partners. "Today's workforce is powered through mobile computing and with every new product introduced, such as Apple's recent announcements, another level of significance is added to the zero-code delivery of Windows and web-apps to mobile devices."

    About PowWow, Inc.         Founded in 2012 by Andrew Cohen and Jonathan Kaplan, PowWow is an application delivery platform that frees a company's workforce, bringing all their enterprise apps to mobile devices. With PowWow, companies can move existing Windows or web applications to any mobile device in minutes, making them feel native, like they were written to deliver the one function or an essential workflow that employees need. Companies can keep the best of their existing IT solutions, giving users the freedom to use the applications and mobile devices of choice.

    The PowWow management team comes from respected enterprise software companies, including IBM, Lotus, KANA, Sun and Booz Allen Hamilton. The company sells their services via direct and OEM relationships. You can find PowWow at www.powwowinc.net and follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mypowwow.

     

                                        Contact Information

    • Media Contact Scott Lechner Kulesa Faul for PowWow, Inc. (530) 521-3095(530) 521-3095 Email Contact

     

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/powwow-inc-closes-25-million-series-a-funding-transform-enterprise-mobile-application-1950171.htm

  • Wed
    01
    Oct
    2014

    By: Barry Levine

    The containerization of applications continues to roll along.

    A new startup called C3DNA, which provides “meta-container technologies” that it says help make Docker-ized applications more manageable, has announced $2 million in seed funding. “We allow [applications] to be deployed and run and associated with their business needs,” CEO and co-founder Paul Camacho told VentureBeat.

    “We can change the way people distribute and run any application.”

    Or as the company says on its website: “C3DNA introduces the concept of a meta-container that abstracts applications from underlying infrastructure to remove dependencies on proprietary solutions, architectures and APIs. This coupled with C3DNA’s ‘Application Soft Switch’ technology enables instant mobility of applications running across Clouds in Virtual Machines, Containers (LXC, Docker) or Physical Servers.”

    Docker’s containerization “is great,” Camacho said, “but it doesn’t provide the level of management” that businesses need. “They package up the business code, and we’re bringing life to that code.” Camacho also said that his company’s technology can provide meta-containers for “existing legacy applications, proving the mobility to manage it anywhere.” “Docker cannot do that, retrofit any application,” he said.

    The 18-month-old company is the result of a five-year, self-funded, full-time R&D effort by co-founder and chief scientist Dr. Rao Mikkilineni, whose experience includes Bell Labs. The company said it will introduce its technology within the next few weeks.

    The seed round was led by VKRM’s Kumar Malavalli, who was also the co-founder and ex-CTO of Brocade Communications.

    “C3DNA’s new cognition-infused platform is a huge evolutionary step towards making both Docker and OpenStack applications intelligent in a way that’s never been seen before,” Malavilli said in a statement.

    Camacho said the funding — the only money raised so far — will be used to launch the product, grow the engineering team, and develop partnerships. He didn’t identify specific partnerships yet, but he said possibilities include companies like Cisco and VMware.

    http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/01/meta-container-startup-c3dna-scores-2m-to-bring-life-to-docker/

  • Thu
    09
    Oct
    2014

    Fast-casual chain focuses on mobile loyalty, Millennials

    Schlotzsky’s CMO Mark Mears has a unique, diverse background in building growth brands, with experience at Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and The Cheesecake Factory.

    Mears, who was most recently president of Mimi’s Café, discussed Schlotzsky’s recent turnaround successes and future plans, including a new mobile loyalty strategy and marketing to Millennials.

    Can you provide a brief snapshot of your brand for anyone unfamiliar with Schlotzsky’s?

    Since we first opened for business in Austin, Texas, back in 1971, Schlotzsky’s has been the home of The Original oven-baked sandwich, featuring sourdough bread baked fresh-from-scratch in our restaurants each day with no preservatives. The menu has evolved to reflect the changing tastes and dietary concerns of our guests, which includes the highest-quality oven-baked sandwiches, gourmet pizzas, artisan flatbreads, fresh-tossed salads and signature soups. With more than 350 restaurant locations worldwide, Schlotzsky’s is the fast-casual choice for a quick, healthful, and fresh dining experience. Schlotzsky’s is enjoyed around the world, with restaurants in 36 states and locations in Azerbaijan and Turkey.  Schlotzsky’s is owned by Focus Brands Inc.

    Schlotzsky’s has been in the midst of a turnaround. Tell us about that.

    Our president, Kelly Roddy, has done a masterful job of rebuilding the brand and regaining trust within our franchise community and among our guests during the last seven years.  His vision to elevate Schlotzsky’s from its roots as a QSR sandwich/deli player to a leader within the fast growing fast-casual bakery-café segment has galvanized our entire organization. In fact, Kelly is largely the reason why I came to Schlotzsky’s — to partner with him and his executive team, along with our franchise community in doing something very special with this proud 43-year old brand. Our upside potential and planned growth trajectory are very exciting indeed. The pursuit of fulfilling our Lotz Better brand promise is what drives me and my team every single day.

    How has the Cinnabon co-branding performed?

    Our co-brand partnership with Cinnabon has worked out very well for both brands. Cinnabon is a globally recognized brand name with a wide array of irresistible items that provide our guests with new reasons to dine at Schlotzsky’s. Cinnabon provides an incremental sales layer for Schlotzsky’s, while we provide many additional points of distribution for the Cinnabon brand. We will continue to explore co-branding partnerships that make sense for our brand, as long as they offer an added value to our guests and a solid financial return for our franchise partners.

    Consumer Reports recently ranked Schlotzsky’s above tough competitors such as Chick-fil-A, Panera Bread and Chipotle in terms of taste. What efforts have contributed to that?      

    This is high praise indeed, and reflects the breadth, depth and passion of our fan base, who view Schlotzsky’s as a uniquely crave-able and differentiated dining experience. The results of this Consumer Reports survey certainly help to substantiate our Lotz Better brand positioning, and we couldn’t be more pleased to have earned this special recognition from the readers of such a well-respected publication.  

    You have brought a much larger emphasis for the brand around mobile marketing. Why has that been important?

    Given the advent of both digital and social media, coupled with the increased level of control enjoyed by today’s more tech-savvy guests, the ability to reach a mass audience through traditional means has become very challenging, especially on a limited budget where every dollar spent must provide maximum return. As a result, we must employ an integrated marketing communications approach — a balance of both mass and micro techniques — leveraging guest information and data to develop more targeted and measurable plans to reach our desired audiences in an effective, yet cost-efficient manner.

    Reaching Millennials is critically important to the growth of our brand and, given Millennials practically “live” on their mobile device, we knew we needed a relevant, compelling way to engage with them on their terms.

    You recently introduced a mobile app with a loyalty component. How does it differ from others?      

     In partnership with Punchh, a mobile customer engagement platform provider, we recently launched a mobile app-based guest rewards program called Lotz4Me. With Lotz4Me, we are able to engage our guests right on their smartphones, in our restaurants or wherever they are, in a personalized manner. In just three months, we have obtained over 100,000 members. In fact, during our initial launch phase, we ranked as high as the No. 4 app within the Apple App Store among all restaurants. Our Lotz4Me rewards program is different from many others as we aim to deliver both commercial/rational benefits along with psychic/emotional benefits to our members. This data-rich platform provides relevant, compelling and engaging news through each of our four benefits: Reward & Recognition, Exclusive Insider News & Special Offers, Social Media Sharing & Referral Bonuses, and Guest Feedback & Surveys.

    What is your advice to restaurants looking at getting into mobile advertising and apps?

    From my perspective, it all comes down to two important and interrelated mandatories, differentiation and relevance, setting your mobile app apart from the crowd and endeavoring to deliver benefits that are relevant to your target audience. Don’t just use technology to create a “wow.” Rather, use the data, information and insights that technology provides to engage your guests on a more intimate, one-to-one level. This will elevate your brand from a surface-level transactional exchange to a deeper, more relational level with your guests.

    How important are Millennials to Schlotzsky’s and the restaurant industry?                                                                    

    Currently, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers represent the base of our business today. However, our future growth hinges on the cultivation of our aspirational target — Millennials. Millennials are not only a large and influential demographic segment, but they represent a challenge in how to effectively and cost-efficiently reach them in a relevant way. The key to success with this guest segment is to engage with them on their level. They have more information and exert more control over the conversation than ever before, so we must appeal to them in a way that is real, genuine and authentic to gain their trust, loyalty and advocacy. They are certainly not shy in taking to their social networks to express how they feel about a particular product or service, whether their experience is a positive or negative one. They like the ability to share and connect digitally with their friends.

    http://nrn.com/cmo-perspectives/cmo-perspectives-mark-mears-schlotzsky-s

  • Tue
    21
    Oct
    2014

    By Stephen Blum

    With any subscription based service, particularly SaaS, companies (like Netflix and Adobe Creative Cloud) are dealing with the problem of account subscription sharing. A user can begin a subscription and give another user their login credentials. So how can we mitigate, or better yet, prevent subscription sharing for subscription based services?

    In this blog post, we’ll look at strategies to mitigate and prevent subscription sharing between users.

    Data Stream Network Security Guide for Mitigating Account Sharing Between Users

    This is a guide on how to mitigate sharing access and stealing your business subscription revenue by preventing account sharing for subscription based businesses and websites.

    The PubNub Data Stream Network provides a set of core “building-block” services that can be used to build and scale a wide range of applications. PubNub provides a reliable geo redundant signaling solution (WebSockets, XMPP, BOSH, Comet, HTTP Long-polling, etc.) with many design patterns and over 50 SDKs to fit your growing business needs including Android Java, iOS Objective-c and JavaScript Web/Mobile.

    In this document, we will describe to you a growing demand for a new security pattern being requested by security focused businesses. This Design Pattern document describes a unique technique and business solutions around a customers requirement to have one connection, and one connection only, per authenticated user when using a Data Stream Network similar to C# .NET SignalR, SocketIO / SocksJS for Node.JS JavaScript.

    Business Application and Opportunity Loss with User Subscription Sharing

    The use-cases can vary. Maybe its a music-streaming product, like Spotify, that would like its users to use it services locked to one device only and hence will log-off the user already signing in. Maybe it’s a hotel-chain that wants its guests to only be able to use one card key for one room and hence will not allow any new keys to be set.

    We’ve had this conversation many times here at PubNub and there are many more business-driven scenario which will derive value from our point solution design pattern. Does any of that sounds familiar?

    List of Tools to Prevent Subscription Sharing

    1. Access Authority Database (Identity Management)
    • Any directory and identity management database (LDAP, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc) containing your user identities such as Email/Password services you already have implemented.
    • Alternatively OAuth or Third Party Identity Management systems like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
    1. PubNub Account

    Two Options to Prevent Subscription Sharing

    You are now ready to make a decision between two business rules to follow when restricting access to users who share their security login credentials. When a user is authenticated by your identity management system, you will have two choices on how to proceed with granting access through your subscription paywall.

    Option One is to remotely force logout any devices associated that have been granted access to the subscription service. Option Two is to block access to subsequent login attempts while another use is online and logged in on another device.

    Option One: Force Remote WebSocket Logout

    You would like to always accept new logins by revoking previous login sessions and issuing new access keys. The new grant (the latest grant request) will be the only user who has account subscription access. You would like to deny and block access because another user has an existing session in use.

    1. User will Request Access with Email/Password or 3rd Party OAuth.
    • POST Parameters include Email, Password, RSA Public Key.
    1. Find the associated User Account in the Identity Database.
    • Use Administrative Access Keys (PubNub Secret Key, Publish Key and Subscribe Key) to generate a new PubNub Data Stream Network class instance. PubNub SDKs provide you the secure websocket data stream which allow you to mitigate account accesses sharing.
    • Revoke all previous granted access associated with this user account and issue a PubNub.Revoke({...}) from the previously granted access keys. This will force all remote sessions to be logged out in realtime!
    • Save or Overwrite RSA Public Key from User’s Access Request.
    • Key Rotation – Regenerate The Following Keys: Cipher Key, Auth Key, Channel Name, Session ID (SID) and store in database.
    • Use newly generated Auth Key and Channel Name to issue a PubNub.Grant({...}) – with a Session TTL of 1 Hour.
    • Respond to authenticated request for key exchange with the new credentials over TLS HTTPS Secure Stream with the following keys: PubNub Subscribe Key, Cipher Key, Auth Key, Channel Name, Session ID (SID).
    1. User’s Client Device will incorporate secure credentials into PubNub Data Stream class instance instantiation.
    2. Repeat Process Each Hour or Each Cycle based on Key Rotation Policy.
    3. Send Subscription Material/Signals via PubNub.Publish({ … }) methods with user’s keys.

    Note in Step (2.4) – we ask you to generate a new channel name. However you may not need to generate a new channel name if the data stream source is a shared channel such as a stock quote symbol channel stream.

    Option Two: Block Access while WebSocket Subscription in-Use

    Any user who has a shared email/password will be blocked access while another user is using the subscription service. You can accomplish access blocking this by following these steps:

    1. User will Request Access with Email/Password or 3rd Party OAuth.
    • POST Parameters include Email, Password, RSA Public Key.
    1. Find the associated User Account in the Identity Database.
    • Use Administrative Access Keys (PubNub Secret Key, Publish Key and Subscribe Key) to generate a new PubNub Data Streams class instance with Presence Options Enabled.
    • Use PubNub.Here_Now({ … }) on the associated User’s Channel Name to detect if there is an active device session subscribed.
    • If there is an active live session, deny the access request.
    • If no active sessions exist, proceed with Step 2 from the Option One above.

    Both of the options above provide to you the necessary steps required to prevent subscription sharing for subscription based paywall websites and apps. These steps are generalized to control access and mitigate duplicated permission grants allowing you to manage access and deny request for access based on your business requirements.

    http://www.pubnub.com/blog/mitigate-and-prevent-subscription-sharing-for-saas-companies/

  • Tue
    18
    Nov
    2014

    The internet of things could be very helpful to organizations or bury them under the weight of operational data from a herd of devices, their software, and their applications. Glassbeam believes its SCALAR is the tool that will make sense of it all.

    By for Virtually Speaking |
     

    The company is building its machine learning and predictive analysis tools on top of the Apache Spark in-memory, highly scalable, distributed database engine to provide extremely fast data analysis. The goal is to provide organizations with real-time analysis of just about any type of data their devices might be generating.

    Here's what the company has to say about its product

    Specifically, the new version of Glassbeam SCALAR will provide:

    • Superior performance and scalability: Apache Spark is a fast in-memory distributed compute architecture. When combined with Glassbeam SCALAR, it is the best of both worlds as Glassbeam SCALAR was architected with Cassandra as a distributed data processing architecture that not only scales linearly but also horizontally across thousands of nodes.
    • Advanced analytics: With MLlib library integration from Apache Spark, Glassbeam SCALAR now has the industry’s best machine learning algorithms to perform predictive analytics on large sets of machine data in the cloud.
    • Real-time analytics: Implementing Apache Spark SQL directly on Cassandra data will allow real-time analytics on data as it is streaming in and getting parsed and transformed through the Glassbeam SCALAR platform.

    Glassbeam’s patent-pending, cloud-based technology enables customers to reduce costs, increase revenues, accelerate product time to market, and improve customer satisfaction and retention. Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    Snapshot analysis

    We're hearing more and more about the internet of things computing environment and how it is likely to impact the IT organization. Some of the real effects IT will experience remain to be seen. What is clear is that staff and customers are using more and more different types of devices to access the organization's workloads and those workloads are being hosted on a growing array of different types of systems, networks and storage devices.

    IT is expected to be able to quickly detect performance and security anomalies and get to the root cause. Wading through all of the log files produced by all of the devices, their operating systems, the application frameworks and the databases in use could easily become a time-consuming chore that would prevent a timely discovery and resolution response.

    Many performance monitoring and management companies have jumped into the market with their own approach to turning what appears to be a huge, growing mass of different type of structured and non-structured data into something useful to IT administrators. Glassbeam believes that its approach will be the best.

    I'd suggest taking the time to speak with other suppliers of tools, such as Splunk, Sumo Logic, LogLogic, Loggly and a few others before making a selection. It may turn out that Glassbeam will be the best fit to address your organization's needs. It also may turn out that one of the others will be a better fit.

    http://www.zdnet.com/glassbeam-scalar-analysis-of-the-internet-of-things-7000035912/

  • Tue
    02
    Dec
    2014

    Learner Mosaic helps parents come up with activities based on what their kids are learning. 

    In 2012, P.J. Gunsagar and Dylan Arena founded Kidaptive and released their first iPad app, Leo’s Pad. It stars Leo, a young inventor with a treehouse laboratory, and combines segments of animated story with a variety of mini-games. It’s been downloaded over 800,000 times, with an App Store rating hovering near five stars. Kids love it.

    But there is science hiding behind the fun: A tool, built on cutting-edge research in developmental psychology, that closely tracks the cognitive progress of its young users and adjusts the app’s difficulty accordingly. It’s a toy, but it’s one that gathers a tremendous amount of data on how it’s being used.

    Now, Gunsagar and Arena want to put that data to use to help parents. Kidaptive’s new free app, Learner Mosaic, serves up ideas for backseat games and dinner table discussion topics that reinforce the skills being learned in the Leo’s Pad app. It takes the latest understanding of what kids ages five and younger should be learning, dices it into activities that are manageable for overworked parents, and surfaces those activities at just the right time in a kid’s development. The vision, as Gunsagar puts it, is to put a really smart preschool teacher in every parent’s pocket.

    A New Type of Kids App

    When they met in 2011, Gunsagar and Arena were both working with children, albeit in much different ways. Gunsagar owned a production company that worked on movies like Planes and Tinkerbell. Arena was at Stanford, pursuing a PhD related to games and their effect on learning. Gunsagar started spending time at Stanford, learning about Arena’s work and immersing himself in the latest research in developmental psychology. He quickly had a realization: No one was using the stuff.

    Leo and friends.

    Gunsagar was teaching his own young kids the ABCs and the 123s. At Stanford, however, he was hearing about the importance of skills like impulse control and cognitive flexibility. Here were entire dimensions of his youngsters’ development that he’d previously been oblivious to.

    Leo’s Pad was created to engage all these different types of skills. It teaches kids about colors and counting, sure, but also has games specifically designed around skills like categorization, symbolic representation, and turn-taking. At the heart of the game is an “adaptive learning engine” that evaluates kids’ performance in these skills and adjusts subsequent games accordingly. If your kid’s mastered counting, for instance, the game might introduce more advanced concepts, like grouping and cardinality. The adaptive approach helps the app “ask the right questions at the right time,” Gunsagar says.

    P.J. Gunsagar and Dylan Arena

    A Lightweight Tool for Parents

    The aim with the new app is to give parents additional activities to bolster what the kids are already learning. It was designed with the help of design consultancy Frog, which invested in Kidaptive as part of the firm’s incubator program, FrogVentures. In discussions with parents, Frog’s designers zeroed-in on a tricky balance of demands: “The overwhelming message from parents was, ‘we absolutely want to be engaged,’ but the corollary message was, ‘we absolutely don’t have time,'” says Ethan Imboden, Frog’s head of venture design.

    The app thus supplies lightweight activities directly linked to their kid’s progress through Leo’s Pad. These could be games, activities, or simply topics for discussions—many of which derive from findings in peer-reviewed studies and have been molded by masters-level preschool teachers. Say your daughter Jessica finishes a Leo’s Pad game that exercises impulse control. Learner Mosaic might suggest a “watery adventure” activity that explores the same skill. In this case, you put a blanket on the floor and tell Jessica it’s a river. You tell her to jump in the river, then you have her jump out. In, out. In, out. Then, you switch up the order of the instructions and see if Jessica will follow. The aim is to get her to delay gratification by listening to the instructions, even when their pattern in changed—kind of like Simon Says.

    A Learner Mosaic card.

    The idea is to reinforce the skill learned in the game with an activity outside it. “Connecting learning across context is a way to reinforce transfer, and transfer is the fundamental problem of education,” Arena, who serves as Kidaptive’s chief learning scientist, explains. “You teach a kid a thing, but you don’t want them to just reproduce that thing in that context. You want them to take it out into the world.” The more situations in which a kid exercises impulse control, the better chance they have at internalizing it.

    Building a Platform for Learning

    Gunsagar and Arena hope Learner Mosaic could eventually become a platform that takes in data from all sorts of other activities, as well as third-party apps. Someday, there could be a whole section of games in the App Store that automatically feed information to the app when your kids play with them.

    Eventually, Gunsagar says, these learning profiles could be powerful tools for an entirely different type of evaluation. By cross referencing a kid’s performance on certain skills in Leo’s Pad with those same skills as put to work in a new app, Kidaptive’s platform could help sort which other learning apps are effective and which are bunk.

    “Just think about the problem that solves for the apps ecosystem,” Gunsagar says. “They’re struggling with app discovery. Parents are buying the hardware, schools are buying the hardware, but they don’t know which apps work. We can start to speak to, with real empirical evidence, which apps work and which apps don’t.” It’s a vision in which Kidaptive becomes an algorithimic gatekeeper for learning apps, crunching the numbers on which new titles are worth your time and growing its own data sets all the while. But now that’s all adult stuff, isn’t it?

    http://www.wired.com/2014/12/data-driven-parenting-app-gives-personalized-tips-every-kid/

  • Sun
    07
    Dec
    2014

    Greg Satell

    In the mid-20th century, Linus Pauling was one of the world’s most celebrated scientists.  His discovery of the structure of hemoglobin and other biological molecules created an entirely new field of science and, when he focused his ample talents on deciphering the structure of DNA, no one doubted that he would be the one to do it.

    But he wasn’t.  In fact, it was two relatively unknown researchers, James Watson and Francis Crick who would win that particular prize.  Yet what was really astounding was the way they did it.  While other scientists spent their time in the lab, Watson and Crick played with models and talked about them.

    What seemed like child’s play to most academics was actually the best way to imagine possibilities and see how their ideas reflected diverse—and often confusing—empirical clues.  Today, a growing contingent of academics believes that games can have the same effect on how children learn and a company called Kidaptive is determined to prove them right.

    The Case For Informal Learning

    Everyone knows that school is a chore.  Students sit at desks, get lectured to and then are tested to see whether they have absorbed the required knowledge.  Anytime the teacher goes off script, kids are bound to ask, “is this going to be on the test?”  Learning, all too often, is seen as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, even by parents and teachers.

    At the same time, it has been reported that more than three quarters of American children have a video game console at home and 40% play video games every day.  Many of these games are mind numbingly complex, requiring players to absorb and internalize extensive knowledge and consult outside resources, yet kids attack those tasks with gusto.

    James Paul Gee, one of the growing cadre of academics that advocates learning in informal environments, calls games like these passionate affinity spaces and argues that they also extend to other leisure activities like fan fiction and advocacy groups.  Unlike traditional types of games, the focus in these activities is not so much competition, but mastery.

    What’s more, as I argued in an earlier post, today’s digital games can be amazingly effective at simulating real world skills.  The US Army, for example, uses a video game to train soldiers.  Other games, such as World of Warcraft, encourage players to collaborate to solve problems and complete projects.  These types of skills are devilishly hard to teach in a classroom, but ideally suited to games.

    Entertainment Meets Education

    As a student, P.J. Gunsagar felt poorly served by his education.  It’s not that he didn’t do well, he did, earning a dual degree from UCLA and a law degree at Stanford, it was just that he didn’t feel that the system gave him a good idea of what his real skills were.  So he ended up taking a series of jobs that, while prestigious, left him unfulfilled.

    Then, while working with Intel Capital in Mumbai, he came across an animation company in the portfolio and almost immediately knew what he wanted to do.   After spending a year diving into the space, he co-founded Prana Studios, a computer animation company that has helped create kid favorites like Disney’s “Tinkerbell” series and Pixar’s hit film, Planes.

    When P.J. had kids of his own, he began to think that the type of work that Prana was doing could do more than just entertain.  It seemed that if he could take the kind of immersive storytelling that made the company such a huge success and applied it to education, he could make an enormous impact.

    That idea led him to the education school at Stanford where he met Dylan Arena, a researcher who focused on the nexus between games, learning and assessment. The two hit it off and decided that they could build a different kind of game company, one that not only made learning fun, but that helped guide the education process.  Kidaptive was born.

    The Learner’s Mosaic

    Perhaps not surprisingly, given Gunsagar’s background, Kidaptive’s product, Leo’s Pad, feels more like a film from Pixar or Dreamworks than a game app.  It follows Leo and his pet dragon Cinder as they meet a host of friends and solve problems in the course of the story. The game even boasts an impressive soundtrack performed by the likes of Laurie Berkner.

    However, the slick veneer belies an extensive analytics and recommendation platform underneath.  As the child helps Leo and his friends perform various tasks, they are assessed across six skill areas that transcend conventional subjects like math and reading.  The result is a snapshot of how the child learns that Kidaptive calls the Learners Mosaic.   Leo's pad - personal mosaic   Traditionally, we’ve assessed children’s learning with statements like “Johnny’s bad at math, but loves social studies.”  Yet the truth is that while Johnny may have trouble with abstract symbols, he might also excel at mathematical reasoning (and those same conceptual skills make him a whiz at social studies). In a nutshell, that’s the problem the mosaic seeks to solve.

    Kidaptive uses the Learners Mosaic to guide the child’s experience in the game. For example, in Leo’s Pad’s first chapter, the child needs to help Leo find his pet Cinder hiding behind a series of colors, shapes and other objects.  As the child performs the task, assessments are made about the child’s skills and the game adjusts accordingly.

    The company also has a team of PhD’s continually analyzing the data to hone the educational experience.  So while a child’s performance is being assessed, it is also being combined with data from other kids to understand how to match tasks with proficiencies, how problems should be sequenced and to seek out insights about what to develop in the future.

    Ironically, despite the obvious passion for, and investment in, production quality, it is the back end—the part that kids never see—that may be the key to the company’s future success.

    A Learning Ecosystem

    For Gunsagar, what started out as a serendipitous interest in animation has been transformed into a mission to change how kids learn and help them avoid the lack of assessment he felt he experienced in his education.   He believes that the Learner’s Mosaic can form a crucial bridge between informal and formal learning.

    Kidaptive has recently released a Learner Mosaic app for parents that suggests activities outside of the game that they can do to support their children in important areas.  The company has also created a software development kit so that other developers can hook into the powerful ecosystem the company has built.  Several are already in the testing phase.

    Eventually, Gunsagar and Arena hope that their analytics platform will be incorporated into the classroom so that teachers can instruct and assess across the full range of educational experiences, not just what happens during lectures and homework assignments.

    While the company’s ambitions seem boundless, so far they seem like they’re off to a good start.  They closed a $10 million funding round last year and will likely do another one sometime next year.  Leo’s Pad has already attracted over a million users and the founders believe the company can be cash flow positive by the end of 2015.

    More than a half century ago, Watson and Crick showed that formal reasoning is not always the best path to scientific discovery.  It’s time we start taking a similar approach approach to help us unlock the potential of our children as well.

    Greg Satell is a US based business consultant.  You can find his blog at DigitalTonto.com and follow him on Twitter @DigitalTonto

     

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/12/07/this-company-wants-to-use-games-to-reimagine-how-your-child-learns/

     
     
  • Wed
    28
    Jan
    2015

    By JOHN GROSSMANN

                          

     

                    

    Jason Smylie, chief marketing officer of Capriotti’s, a 106-store chain of sandwich shops in 16 states that is planning to introduce an app-based loyalty program.  Credit Isaac Brekken for The New York Times                    
     

                                    

    Nearly as long as there have been coffee shops and carwashes, all manner of businesses have handed out buy-10-get-one-free punch cards and hoped to reap the rewards of this simplest of loyalty marketing campaigns. But a new day is dawning.

    Smartphones and loyalty apps have begun offering small businesses enhanced program features and automated administration capabilities once affordable only to large companies like airlines and hotel chains. These capabilities also offer the equivalent of a real-world psychology lab for easily evaluating the effects of offerings and incentives on customer loyalty. 

    “All organisms, in different ways, are drawn to goals,” said Oleg Urminsky, who teaches marketing research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “The closer we are to achieving our goals, the more motivated we are to keep doing something. As mice on a runway get closer to a food pellet, they run faster.” Similarly, he said, “as people get closer to having a completed card, the time between visits gets smaller.”

    Photo    

     

                    

    The Capriotti's Sandwich Shop app: “You’re not only rewarding the customers who are coming more frequently, you’re also giving people an incentive to show up,” said Mr. Smylie.                         Credit            Isaac Brekken for The New York Times                    

    Studies have also shown the psychological benefit of preloading a frequent buyer card with a couple of punches to make the dangled reward appear closer. A carwash that started one set of customers with a buy-eight-get-one-free card and a second set of customers with a 10-wash card already punched twice, found a few months later that nearly twice as many people (34 percent) given the illusion of a head start toward the same goal had redeemed the card as people (19 percent) who had to earn their first punch. Two researchers, Joseph Nunes and Xavier Drèze, have called this the endowed progress effect.

    Though useful, punch cards have shortcomings. For one thing, they’re no good if left behind on the refrigerator or misplaced. Do some cashiers triple-punch the cards of friends? Sure. Moreover, the motivating effects tend to fade, said Dylan Bolden, a partner at the Boston Consulting Group and co-author of a study last year called “Leveraging the Loyalty Margin: Rewards Programs That Work.”

    “If that’s the only thing you do, the punch card becomes more of a price promotion than a loyalty program,” Mr. Bolden said. In essence, the punch card is primitive compared with dynamic, app-powered loyalty programs.

    Capriotti’s, a 106-store chain of sandwich shops in 16 states, expects to introduce an app-based loyalty program early this year that its chief marketing officer, Jason Smylie, says will enable shop owners to enrich and fine-tune a prior punch card rewards program. “In addition to buy-10-get-the-11th free, we’ll have a points-based program where customers earn points and status per dollar spent,” said Mr. Smylie, explaining that rewards will rise with increasing status and core customers “will also get surprise and delight offers.”

    The software, developed by the company Punchh, will enable Capriotti’s to award a free drink or a dessert — as an unexpected reward at the cash register — to highly valued customers on perhaps 20 percent of their visits. “You’re not only rewarding the customers who are coming more frequently, you’re also giving people an incentive to show up,” he said. “I can come in and potentially get something for free. That’s awesome.”

    And effective. Psychologists have a name for this kind of reward — random intermittent reinforcement — and know it as a powerful way to encourage repeat behavior. Think no further than slot machines. Casinos have zeroed in on the gambling habits of their patrons through the use of smart cards rather than coins. Retailers can also now better know their customers through loyalty apps, which may also use data from Facebook profiles.

    “With apps you now can target specific customers and influence specific behaviors and keep track of all the results and understand the results,” Mr. Smylie said. “Because the check-level detail is now tied to a customer’s profile, we can understand what their purchasing behavior is, what their interests are and cross-reference that against their social media profiles and market to them more effectively and involve them at a deeper level with our brand.”

    Jitendra Gupta, an engineer and entrepreneur with a long background in customer-relations management software , said he started developing Punchh in 2010, when “social and mobile were coming together and we wanted to build a program for restaurants and local businesses to get to know their customers and bring them back.”

    The goal, he said, was to use social networks to drive word of mouth. If a visitor to the company’s Facebook page was referred there by a friend, the friend will be sent a notification saying, “Congrats, you just won an extra reward for referring your friend.”

    Mobile loyalty apps, Mr. Gupta explained, can also enable small businesses to run scratch-off sweepstakes programs or more involved games, along the lines of McDonald’s Monopoly stickers contests, long the province of Fortune 500 companies. Smartphone screens can also host engaging games — say, catching falling fruit or objects related to the business — and award a free menu item for reaching certain achievement levels. When children win, he said, the entire family may come in to redeem the reward.

    “Clearly, this is the best of times for loyalty programs,” said Mr. Bolden of the Boston Consulting Group, who recommended that small businesses “focus on the non-earn-and-burn aspects of the program.” He suggested that spas consider a separate waiting room for their app-identified best customers.

    “Or when the treatment is over, you hand the customer a glass of Champagne and strawberries,” he added. “If you’re an apparel retailer and you get in a new line from a new designer, invite the top 5 percent of your customers in first so they can see it before anyone else.” The point is that many effective rewards need not cost much to bestow.

    Moreover, smartphones that can pinpoint a user’s location may provide additional marketing opportunities to people who’ve downloaded loyalty apps. A mobile technology developed by Apple, iBeacon, allows businesses to know if a regular customer is near their storefront and ping them — or even greet them by name as they cross the threshold.

    For Dave & Buster’s, a food and drink establishment for adults built on games, “staying in the mind-set” of customers can be important, said Kevin Bachus, senior vice president for game and entertainment strategy. “We have to be in their decision set when they’re thinking of what to do tonight or we may miss out.”

    Part of the answer, he said, is mobile apps, but the challenge is figuring out timing and frequency of messages, and not to overdo it.

    “If you bombard them — say, when they’re on the way to their kid’s school — with a pop-up that says, ‘I notice you’re within a half mile of a Dave & Buster’s, come on in,’ that’s going to be aggravating,” he said. Better to ping New York Giants fans on Sunday, offering half-price beers to those wearing Giants blue.

    Professor Urminsky of the University of Chicago said a strategy built on mobile apps to reward loyalty — in essence, “a loyalty platform rather than an isolated loyalty program” — opened new possibilities for small businesses. “If it’s used wisely,” he said, “I think it will be a game changer.”

     

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/business/smallbusiness/using-smartphones-and-apps-to-enhance-small-business-loyalty-programs.html?_r=2

  • Thu
    05
    Feb
    2015

    Glassbeam, Inc.                    

    Glassbeam and ThingWorx Partner to Bring Advanced Analytics to the Internet of Things

     

    Glassbeam's Leading IoT Analytics Platform Will Integrate With the ThingWorx® IoT Platform to Collect and Analyze Data

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 5, 2015) -  Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced it has joined the PTC ThingWorx partner ecosystem as a ThingWorx Ready™ partner. As a ThingWorx Ready partner, Glassbeam will be integrated seamlessly with ThingWorx to deliver a comprehensive, advanced analytics platform, which will be available in the ThingWorx Marketplace.

    ThingWorx, the leading rapid application development platform for the Internet of Things (IoT), is the first platform designed to build and run the applications of the connected world. ThingWorx reduces the time, cost and risk required to build innovative applications for smart, connected products. With Glassbeam as a partner, ThingWorx customers will be able access a proven IoT analytics platform with advanced machine learning and real-time analytics right out of the box.

    ThingWorx Ready certification means that Glassbeam will be capable of directly ingesting and analyzing data collected and stored inside the ThingWorx platform. Customers will benefit from an integrated, complementary and cloud-based analytics platform designed specifically for complex, multi-structured machine data and IoT.

    Glassbeam's patent-pending, cloud-based technology enables customers to reduce costs, increase revenues, accelerate product time to market, and improve customer satisfaction and retention. Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    Supporting Quotes "The partnering of ThingWorx and Glassbeam represents the inevitable ecosystem forming around IoT and the importance of analytics in this new world of machines. ThingWorx is the platform leader in IoT, and the integrations with its application platform will certainly be one of the more interesting spaces to watch. Partnering with Glassbeam and the ThingWorx Ready certification is good news for ThingWorx customers and anyone looking for proven analytics for IoT."         - Glenn Almendinger, president, Harbor Research

    "Customers need the ability to derive new intelligence from data, and we're busy building out our certified partner marketplace to meet that need. We're pleased to welcome Glassbeam as an early-certified partner delivering on next-generation analytics. Now customers can analyze their data directly in the Glassbeam platform, a powerful and complementary offering to ThingWorx."         - Dave Westrom, senior vice president of business development, ThingWorx

    "We continue to expand our relationships to strengthen Glassbeam's position and reach in IoT. We're seeing a customer shift toward wanting to view rich analytics data in conjunction with adjacent applications. Now with ThingWorx, we deliver new analytics capabilities, better intelligence and a more holistic solution for IoT. The certification is recognition of the market need, not only for analyzing data collected inside ThingWorx, but also for a truly comprehensive IoT analytics platform."         - Puneet Pandit, CEO and co-founder, Glassbeam, Inc.

    Tweet This: .@ThingWorx and @Glassbeam partner to bring advanced analytics to #IoT

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    ThingWorx Ready™ Partner Program ThingWorx™ Partners provide a wide variety of products throughout the entire IoT value chain -- from software systems and cloud platforms to smart sensors, devices, gateways and machines that make the connected world a reality. The ThingWorx Ready Partner Program allows hardware and software companies to pre-integrate their product with the ThingWorx rapid application development platform, greatly simplifying the creation and deployment of IoT solutions. These companies provide a wide variety of products throughout the entire connected world value chain -- from software systems and cloud platforms to smart sensors, devices, gateways and machines. Becoming ThingWorx Ready reduces the cost and risk of Internet of Things deployments for end customers, helping accelerate the growth of the overall space.

    ThingWorx, ThingWorx Ready and PTC are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/glassbeam-thingworx-partner-bring-advanced-analytics-internet-things-1989258.htm

     Contact Information

    • Media Contact Danielle Salvato-Earl Kulesa Faul for Glassbeam, Inc. (650) 922-7287(650) 922-7287 Email Contact

  • Mon
    16
    Feb
    2015

    By Bio-IT World Staff

    February 16, 2015 | Maverix Biomics signed a strategic agreement with Elsevier this morning at CHI’s  Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference in San Francisco. The Maverix Analytic Platform will complement Elsevier’s Pathway Studio sample-to-insight workflow and incorporate biological data from Elsevier’s biology journals by providing easy, push-button data analysis. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

    The integrated solution will start with raw NGS data and produce genome alignment, quality metrics, variant and expression analysis, and the ability to analyze and visualize disease mechanisms derived from published scientific data.

    “This collaboration gives more value to our customers—not only can they use the two great tools our companies produce, but they can now save time by seamlessly using them together. This reduces their workload, reduces complexity and increases accuracy of their analysis,” said Jaqui Hodgkinson, VP Product Development of Elsevier Life Sciences Solutions, in the announcement.

    http://www.bio-itworld.com/els/2015/2/16/maverix-biomics-elsevier-sign-ngs-data-interpretation.html

  • Wed
    29
    Apr
    2015
    SANTA CLARA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/29/15 -- 
     
    Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced that its market tested solution has been selected by companies in the manufacturing and energy industries. Romi, a premier global manufacturing company, and Gridscape, a leader in the smart grid software solution space, both see the potential in examining real-time machine data information and provide valuable insights into their equipment performance.
      

     

    "These new customers are significantly important because they not only show the benefits of examining rich analytics, but the results can result in fundamental changes for both industries," commented Puneet Pandit, CEO and co-founder of Glassbeam. "That is a key part of our unique selling proposition. We aren't just providing robust business IoT analytics; we are looking to create fundamental changes in service, support and product enhancements across all industries."

    In Romi's case the analysis will increase Romi's Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) by increasing uptime and reducing the mean time to resolutions for any equipment problems.

    Brazilian based, Romi S.A. is a global leader in Machine Tools, Plastic Processing Machines and Rough or Machined Castings. Its products and services are marketed throughout Brazil and exported to five continents for industries such as automobile and automotive components manufacturing, consumer goods, agricultural machinery and implements, and industrial machinery and equipment. The company holds over 60 patents and has a further 30 patents pending in Brazil and overseas.

    Pandit points out that the manufacturing industry also faces a significant gap between manufacturing systems in the shop floor and the IT systems that help administer manufacturing organizations.

    By filtering, parsing, structuring and analyzing machine data in real time, Glassbeam has the ability to correlate machine status and conditions with product reject rates, and quantification of machine down times, providing actionable intelligence.

    Founded in 2012, Gridscape Solutions is a software and service company that specializes in designing and developing a broad range of smart energy solutions. The company's core competency is to leverage technological innovations and provide leadership to this emerging industry. Its goal is to provide operational efficiency and savings to its customers, in addition to creating new sources of revenue.

    Improving the economics of operating EV stations is a critical component to the growth of these installations. Keeping pricing as low as possible is essential. The Glassbeam platform can take in streaming data from the stations, parse and analyze that data in real-time, and provide feedback to streamline their service, lower their maintenance costs, and provide insights for improving future generations of EMV station equipment.

    "Our team has extensive experience in deploying highly efficient and integrated smart grid software solutions," notes Vipul Gore, CEO and President of Gridscape Solutions. "We look forward to partnering with Glassbeam in designing and deploying low-risk and low-cost software solutions that result in efficient operations. We anticipate Glassbeam's powerful analytics capabilities will make a significant contribution to our objective of creating economically attractive smart grid offerings."

    "The Cleantech market is exploding," adds Puneet Pandit, CEO and founder of Glassbeam. "In this case, our solution to Gridscape's challenge demonstrates that our platform is versatile enough to manage and interpret the unique data coming from EV stations. However, we can provide that same data monitoring and intelligence to every aspect of this expanding field."

    He added that the sales in different verticals show the growing understanding and adoption of IoT analytics. "We are intent on penetrating both these markets, but ultimately our goal is to blaze a trail across all industry segments," he concludes.

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    About Romi

    Established in 1930 Indústrias Romi S.A. is an internationally renown company whose products and services are consumed both in the domestic and foreign markets, exported to all continents. Our trademark stands out for the quality, technology and reliability of our products and services. For more information, visit http://www.romi.com

    About Gridscape Solutions

    Founded in 2011, Gridscape Solutions is a software and service company that specializes in designing and developing a broad range of smart energy solutions for utilities, manufacturers and other enterprises. Its core competency is to leverage right technological innovations and provide leadership to design, manage and implement turnkey energy solutions for our worldwide clients. Gridscape Solutions not only bring operational efficiency and savings to our customers but also open new sources of revenue for them. For more information, visit www.grid-scape.com

    http://news.morningstar.com/all/market-wired/MWR1191079US/glassbeam-developing-momentum-in-iot-analytics-market-with-customers-in-multiple-verticals.aspx

  • Tue
    05
    May
    2015

    joao lim 

    ehealth is a booming market for IOT as firms pair up on analytics and devices.

    Glassbeam will integrate its IoT analytics application with ThingWorx's platform in the Medical Device Industry.

    The company said there are "several other prospects in the pipeline".

    The two solutions will be merged to reduce costs, increase revenues, and accelerate product time to market.

    The enterprise added that clinical medical device company VytronUS selected the ThingWorx and Glassbeam solutions to collect and analyse machine data information from its systems.

    Chris Kuntz, VP of Ecosystem Programs at ThingWorx said: "The addition of Glassbeam allows customers to analyse their data directly in the Glassbeam platform. It's a powerful and complementary offering to the ThingWorx platform."

    Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam added: "We believe that Glassbeam and the ThingWorx platform working in tandem as an end-to-end solution for customers to view rich analytics, based on data in their machines and from adjacent applications, is highly valuable."

    Danielo Piazza, Director of Engineering at VytronUS said: "Machine connectivity and analytics is an important design element at VytronUS.

    "Having a well-integrated end-to-end solution for meeting this goal from ThingWorx and Glassbeam will make our job much easier in the future. It will greatly enhance our ability to get timely, accurate and insightful analytics from our machines in the installed base."

    http://www.cbronline.com/news/internet-of-things/m2m/glassbeam-thingworx-partner-for-iot-4568856

  • Tue
    16
    Jun
    2015

    Helping Cisco’s Customers Deliver Applications Faster with Reduced Complexity

    C3DNA, Inc. is demonstrating at Cisco Live (in the Cisco Intercloud Services booth) – their application-centric, policy-driven management platform for apps running in public, private and hybrid Clouds. A live demo shows “How Policy-Driven Management enables IT to increase efficiency and dynamically scale anywhere”, helping Cisco’s customers deliver their applications faster.

    Using C3DNA and Cisco Intercloud, enterprises can have a complete cloud strategy, allowing application visibility and control across private and hybrid clouds for both legacy and new apps. These apps can then be deployed securely and compliantly across hybrid clouds with application awareness, dynamic life-cycle management and real-time automation. Through policy-driven management that is independent from infrastructure or systems management C3DNA's Application driven policy platform puts the application or business owner back in control.

    The C3DNA platform was developed to bring Telco- grade reliability and trust to the data center.  It enables IT to deliver the intent of the application anywhere via application driven policies that are dictated by business needs. “We quickly discovered the C3DNA platform could provide an abstraction layer between business objectives definition and the enforcement of policies within the Application Centric Infrastructure, as well as introduce increased resiliency providing a clear hand off between developers and operations” said Ken Owens, CTO Cisco Intercloud Services.

    Mr. Ken Owens went on to note: “We have been very pleased with the integration of C3DNA’s platform with Cisco’s Intercloud services. We have worked closely with them as well as providing feedback on all aspects of their technology. Based on early successes and the milestones that have already been achieved we now expect to integrate their technology with Cisco’s Inter-cloud Fabric offerings”

    “Our application-centric approach applies infrastructure agnostic meta- containers for monitoring and control connected by our Application Area Network, allowing our clients to deliver their applications anywhere without the cost and complexity of the multitude of orchestration and management tools. We want to give IT the visibility and control to deliver applications aligned with the needs of business and allow developers to focus on application development not its management.” said, Paul Camacho C3DNA’s CEO.

     
  • Tue
    23
    Jun
    2015

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 23, 2015) - Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced that Gridscape Solutions, a leader in the smart grids software solution space, has chosen Glassbeam for remote monitoring and maintenance of its 400+ Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations.

    Founded in 2012, Gridscape Solutions is a software and service company that specializes in designing and developing a broad range of smart energy solutions. The company's core competency is to leverage technological innovations and provide leadership to this emerging industry. Its goal is to provide operational efficiency and savings to its customers, in addition to creating new sources of revenue.

    Improving the economics of operating EV stations is a critical component to the growth of these installations. Keeping pricing as low as possible is essential. The Glassbeam platform can take in streaming data from the stations, parse and analyze that data in real-time, and provide feedback to streamline their service, lower their maintenance costs, and provide insights for improving future generations of EMV station equipment.

    "Our team has extensive experience in deploying highly efficient and integrated smart grid software solutions," notes Vipul Gore, CEO and President of Gridscape Solutions. "We specialize in designing and deploying low-risk and low-cost software solutions that result in efficient operations. We anticipate Glassbeam to make a significant contribution to achieving these objectives."

    "The Smart Energy, Cleantech market is exploding," adds Puneet Pandit, CEO and founder of Glassbeam. "In this case, our solution to Gridscape's challenge demonstrates that our platform is versatile enough to manage and interpret the unique data coming from EV stations. However, we can provide that same data monitoring and intelligence to every aspect of this expanding field."

    Glassbeam customers and partners include Fortune 500 companies and enterprises across a variety of markets in addition to manufacturing, including storage, wireless, networking and medical devices.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    About Gridscape Solutions
    Founded in 2011, Gridscape Solutions is a software and service company that specializes in designing and developing a broad range of smart energy solutions for utilities, manufacturers and other enterprises. Its core competency is to leverage right technological innovations and provide leadership to design, manage and implement turnkey energy solutions for our worldwide clients. Gridscape Solutions not only bring operational efficiency and savings to our customers but also open new sources of revenue for them. For more information, visit www.grid-scape.com

     

     

     

     
  • Tue
    30
    Jun
    2015

    8:00AM ET on Tuesday Jun 30, 2015 by Marketwire

    Glassbeam, Inc., announced today that it has received a 2015 IoT Evolution Asset Tracking Award from IoT Evolution magazine, the leading publication covering the Internet of Things movement.

    Glassbeam's solution takes real time streaming data from devices connected to the internet and translates that information into actionable insights. Beyond asset tracking and management, the company's analysis of log data files can provide preventative and predictive maintenance, and better product intelligence leading to improved product roadmaps.

    "Parsing and analyzing complex logs in real time and in the right way, is creating immense business and operational value for support, services, engineering, sales and product marketing groups," commented Puneet Pandit, founder and CEO of Glassbeam. "We are very pleased with this recognition of our solution's innovation and its rapid adoption in a wide variety of markets."

    "It is my pleasure to recognize Glassbeam with an IoT Evolution Asset Tracking Award for its excellence in innovation," said Carl Ford, CEO& Community Developer, Crossfire Media. "As a leader in this rapidly evolving industry, I look forward to seeing Glassbeam's future successes."

    Winners of the 2015 IoT Evolution Asset Tracking Award will be featured in the third quarter edition of IoT Evolution magazine.

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, Aruba Networks, Violin Memory, Gridscape and Meru Networks. For more information, visit http://www.glassbeam.com.

    About TMC TMC is a global, integrated media company that supports clients' goals by building communities in print, online, and face to face. TMC publishes multiple magazines including Cloud Computing, IoT Evolution, Customer, and Internet Telephony. TMCnet is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries, and is read by as many as 1.5 million unique visitors monthly. TMC produces a variety of trade events, including ITEXPO, the world's leading business technology event, as well as industry events: Asterisk World; AstriCon; ChannelVision (CVx) Expo; Customer Experience (CX) Hot Trends Symposium; DevCon5 - HTML5 & Mobile App Developer Conference; IoT Evolution Conference & Expo; SmartVoice Conference; Software Telco Congress; Super Wi-Fi Summit - The Global Spectrum Sharing and TV White Space Event; SIP Trunking, Unified Communications & WebRTC Seminars; Wearable Tech Conference & Expo; Fitness and Sports Wearable Technology (FAST) Expo, WebRTC Conference& Expo; and more. Visit TMC Events for additional information.

    For more information about TMC, visit www.tmcnet.com.

    https://research.tdwaterhouse.ca/research/public/Markets/NewsArticle/100-181u2987-1

     

     

     
  • Tue
    14
    Jul
    2015

    Development teams are translating streams of real time machine data into actionable information to improve the product development process

    By Puneet Pandit, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Glassbeam, Inc. (Network World) 14 July, 2015 00:17

    Studies show that around 40% of products fail. But what if product designers could understand what features are most and least popular, which components tend to fail sooner than others, and how customers actually use products versus how designers think they use them? And, what if product developers could then utilize these insights to develop products that perform better, potentially cost less and, most importantly, are aligned with actual customer needs?

    Innovative product development teams in pretty much every industry are beginning to look at ways to translate enormous streams of real time machine data into actionable information to improve the product development process by understanding where product innovation is necessary, which features are most desirable, and how to lower their overall cost of ownership.

    For some time now, many companies have embedded sensors in their products that are producing huge amounts of information about performance. However, this machine data has traditionally been difficult to collect and analyze, due to both the enormous amounts of data involved and the different types. Data comes in a variety of formats, such as text logs, XML, JSON, CSV or SNMP. There are different data class categories, like event messages, configuration blobs or statistical dumps. Data is likely to be in different protocols, such as email, FTP, SFTP, as a stream or as a batch log file.

    But advanced analytics companies have developed new solutions that are able to handle the volumes and disparate types of data involved in real time, making machine data analytics practical and affordable for a much wider range of organizations.

    Achieving a single point of truth

    In order to develop and market new products most effectively, you need to create a "single point of truth," or a body of data and insights that is comprehensive, accurate and timely.  

    These data and insights will provide all disciplines within the company involved in designing, manufacturing and marketing a new product the information they need to make critical decisions product features, pricing, distribution and related functions. Essential elements of an information platform to provide this single point of truth include:

    • *A centralized data repository that can capture terabytes of structured and unstructured operational data
    • *Analytical tools that can describe and create meaning and relationships between elements in the data
    • *Reporting capability on how customers are using existing products, performance information on components within existing products, et al. 
    • *Dashboards and similar elements that enable new product development and other teams to create customer analyses and drill downs  

    Streetline harnesses machine data

    Streetline is a good example of how a company is using what some are calling IoT analytics to build out new products. The company recently launched Streetline IoT Gateway, part of the company's mission to create smart cities and smart campuses. Analyzing the data streaming into the Gateway, Streetline realized they could build a successful business by harnessing smart data and advanced analytics to help cities, universities and campuses provide guidance on available parking and parking enforcement.

    The Gateway allows Streetline customers to more effectively capture data from in-ground sensors and video cameras, and make more effective decisions. Better parking is the first solution to come out of the Gateway, and is not only a large revenue generator for cities, but has the potential to decrease congestion, and build a nice revenue stream for Streetline at the same time.

    Streetline developed its new gateway jointly with Cisco. The Gateway integrates Streetline's low-power mesh network and Cisco's Smart+Connected WiFi solution.

    Another example is Trane, which designs and produces HVAC equipment. The company began to insert sensors into its equipment and the data analysis enabled facility managers to think of and operate various HVAC and other devices as a single large system. For example, rather than simply turning on at the beginning of the day and off at the end, a "smart" HVAC system will now operate based on the building's occupancy. In the future, Trane plans to sell "outcomes" versus equipment; e.g., ensuring the air within a facility remains at 72 degrees.

    IoT analytics enables new product teams to completely rethink the solutions they develop and how they are supported. With IoT analytics, the only limit to designing winning new products is the creativity of the new product development team.

    At Glassbeam, Puneet and team are focused on a mission to create a new category of Big Data business app around machine data analytics. The premise is that any high technology product, network or cloud is increasingly capable of generating copious amounts of rich but unstructured machine data, that once mined can provide tremendous business and operational insights for its manufacturers and users.

     http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/579509/iot-analytics-brings-new-levels-innovation-new-product-development/?fp=2&fpid=2

     

     
  • Thu
    16
    Jul
    2015

    Former EMC Director of Product Marketing and Head of Finance at Syncplicity (EMC) to Drive Business Momentum at Formation

    FREMONT, Calif. (PRWEB) July 15, 2015 

    Formation Data Systems, a disruptive startup revolutionizing enterprise storage, today announced the appointment of Rick Walsworth, Vice President of Marketing, and Eric Chan, Vice President of Finance and Administration, to its executive ranks.

    Underscoring the company’s commitment to transform the antiquated and costly enterprise storage market, Formation Data Systems Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Lewis, said, “Formation is continuing to build momentum in the storage market. To account for our fast client growth, we recognized the need to recruit the best talent and team players in the industry to help drive us further forward. Both Rick and Eric, coming from strong IT backgrounds at EMC, were the perfect fit for our executive team. They are both strategic thinkers focused on execution, who have a deep understanding of our vision for the market as well as our modern approach to dynamic storage."

    With more than two decades of experience building and transforming emerging technology brands, Walsworth brings a proven track record of in-depth marketing and communications expertise to Formation. In his role as Vice President of Marketing, Walsworth will be responsible for driving brand and corporate strategy across all marketing and communications initiatives to drive awareness and revenue growth for the company as it continues to execute on its mission to transform data storage.

    Prior to joining Formation, Walsworth was director of product marketing for EMC’s Emerging Technologies Division where he drove product and go-to-market strategy as part of the company’s acquisition of Kashya, a privately held provider of enterprise-class data replication and data protection software. Prior to Kashya being acquired, he served as vice president of marketing, driving awareness and revenue growth for the company in the competitive storage market, following successful marketing leadership roles at Maranti Networks and SAN Valley Systems.

    In the position of Vice President of Finance and Administration, Chan brings close to two decades of experience as a finance leader to Formation. Chan will be responsible for all financial operations and planning, also serving HR functions. Before joining Formation, Chan served as the head of finance at Syncplicity, a business unit at EMC. During his tenure, Eric built the business unit's finance and accounting functions required to fulfill quarterly compliance requirements and achieving operating numbers targets while balancing the longer-term vision for future investments. Before leading the Syncplicity finance and accounting team, Chan held various operating and financial management leadership roles at companies such as SuccessFactors and VMWare, another EMC company.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/07/prweb12845041.htm

     
  • Thu
    23
    Jul
    2015

    Fifteen transactions include operating assets and a to-be-developed facility

    NEW YORK, July 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- W. P. Carey Inc., a global net lease real estate investment trust (REIT), announced that during the first half of 2015, CPA®:18 – Global, one of its publicly held non-traded REIT affiliates, completed 15 separate self-storage transactions with an aggregate investment value of approximately $161 million, including acquisition costs. Individual transactions ranged from under $3 million to over $38 million. 

    Management Commentary

    Liz Raun Schlesinger, W. P. Carey Managing Director and Head of Self-Storage, commented: "With the completion of these 15 transactions, we succeeded in acquiring 22 well-positioned operating facilities. Our experience in the sector, coupled with our management expertise and ability to assess new markets, allowed us to secure our first development opportunity and enter an attractive, growing and underserved Canadian market with an established local joint venture partner. Sourcing and executing on multiple transactions ranging from single properties to portfolios to solid development opportunities, our team continues to recognize attractive opportunities."

    Ms. Raun Schlesinger added: "In the self-storage sector, it is critical to not only buy right, but also to manage right. Our appreciation of the management component for self-storage investments has been a critical factor in our ongoing success with our existing assets. We are pleased to add strong, long-term income generating self-storage assets that support CPA®:18 – Global's strategic investment and diversification objectives."

    Key Facts

    • Strong property management: Eighteen of the acquired operating properties will be managed by Extra Space Storage and four will be managed by CubeSmart. The to-be-developed facility in Vaughan, Ontario will be managed by Budget Development Group.
    • To-be-developed facility in Vaughan, Ontario: The development site, located in an affluent northern suburb of Toronto, will be developed in joint venture with local partner, Budget Development Group, an established developer and manager of self-storage facilities in Canada. Upon completion, which is expected to occur in August 2016, the facility will include 108,275 net rentable square feet, comprising 1,137 units.
      • Well-located, attractive operating facilities in strong markets:  The following acquisitions in the first half of 2015 expanded CPA®:18 – Global's self-storage presence in Florida, Georgia and California, and added properties in Kentucky, Illinois, Nevada and Missouri:

    Florida:

      • Naples facility – 179,791 net rentable square feet/1,209 units
      • Valrico facility – 68,319 net rentable square feet/716 units
      • Tallahassee facility – 121,699 net rentable square feet/801 units
      • Sebastian facility – 51,048 net rentable square feet/459 units
      • Lady Lake facility – 68,250 net rentable square feet/583 units
      • Panama City Beach facilities (2) – 128,725 net rentable square feet/1,161 units
      • Sarasota facilities (2) – 110,782 net rentable square feet/1,088 units

    Georgia:

    • Lilburn facility – 66,140 net rentable square feet/468 units
    • Stockbridge facility – 31,825 net rentable square feet/276 units

    California:

    • Hesperia facilities (3) – 282,971 net rentable square feet/1,884 units
    • Lancaster facility – 71,361 net rentable square feet/601 units
    • Highland facility – 49,950 net rentable square feet/461 units
    • Rialto facility – 100,459 net rentable square feet/768 units
    • Thousand Palms facility – 110,246 net rentable square feet/640 units

    Kentucky, Illinois, Nevada and Missouri:

    • Louisville, KY, facility –  124,737 net rentable square feet/696 units
    • Crystal Lake, IL, facility – 58,100 net rentable square feet/517 units
    • Las Vegas, NV, facility – 73,485 net rentable square feet/719 units
    • St. Peter, MO, facility – 40,800 net rentable square feet/329 units

    W. P. Carey Inc. Please visit www.wpcarey.mediaroom.com for more information about W. P. Carey, to access our image and video libraries and to follow us on social media.

    This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal securities laws. The statements of Ms. Raun Schlesinger are examples of forward looking statements. A number of factors could cause CPA®:18 – Global's actual results, performance or achievement to differ materially from those anticipated. Among those risks, trends and uncertainties are the general economic climate; the supply of and demand for office and industrial properties; interest rate levels; the availability of financing; and other risks associated with the acquisition and ownership of properties, including risks that the tenants will not pay rent, or that costs may be greater than anticipated. For further information on factors that could impact CPA®:18 – Global, reference is made to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

    Company contact: Kristina McMenamin W. P. Carey Inc. 212-492-8995 kmcmenamin@wpcarey.com

    Press contact: Guy Lawrence Ross & Lawrence 212-308-3333 gblawrence@rosslawpr.com

    SOURCE CPA:18 - Global

     http://news.sys-con.com/node/3379258

  • Fri
    24
    Jul
    2015

     

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 24, 2015) -  Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, and Gridscape Solutions, Inc., which designs and develops a broad range of smart energy solutions, will discuss strategies for improving the efficiencies of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations during a free webinar to be held Thursday, July 30, at 11:00 a.m. PDT.

    Titled, "Using Machine Data to Improve the Economics of EV Charging Stations," Vipul Gore, CEO of Gridscape and Carlos Quezada, Senior Director of Customer Solutions at Glassbeam, will highlight how mining machine data sent from EV charging stations can tremendously help in performing both regular, as well as predictive, maintenance. The data is also helpful to better understand the installed base and gleaning other valuable business insights. These business insights enhance the effort to reducing support costs and also for identifying new revenue streams.

    The webinar will touch on important topics, including:

    • Role of IoT in the broad Smart Grid industry            
    • How to leverage trends in EV charging data to conduct predictive maintenance            
    • How to make informed operational decisions using installed base analysis

    Last month, Gridscape selected Glassbeam for remote monitoring and maintenance of its 400+ Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations.

    Webinar Details At-A-Glance

    Who: Vipul Gore, CEO of Gridscape Solutions, and Carlos Quezada, Senior Director of Customer Solutions at Glassbeam

    What:         "Using Machine Data to Improve the Economics of EV Charging Stations" free webinar

    When:         Thursday, July 30, from 11:00 AM to Noon (PDT)

     

    Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2622802

     
  • Tue
    11
    Aug
    2015

     

    SANTA CLARA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/11/15 --  Glassbeam, Inc., has been named the bronze winner in Most Innovative Company of the Year (Small) in Best in Biz Awards 2015 International, the only independent global business awards program judged by members of the press and industry analysts.

    Glassbeam's solution takes real time streaming data from assets connected to the internet and translates that information into actionable information. Beyond asset tracking and management, the company's analysis of log data files can provide preventative and predictive maintenance, and better product intelligence leading to improved product roadmaps.

    "We are extremely pleased to be one of the winners of this year's award," commented Puneet Pandit, Glassbeam's CEO. "It is particularly gratifying to know that we are receiving this recognition from editors and analysts out of so many competitors."

    More than 250 public and private companies representing all sectors of the global economy from more than 30 countries competed in Best in Biz Awards' third annual International program. Best in Biz Awards 2015 International honors were presented in a range of categories, including Fastest-Growing Company of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, Support Department of the Year, Enterprise Product of the Year, Best New Version of the Year and Best New Product of the Year.

      

    Best in Biz Awards' uniqueness stems, in part, from the composition of its judging panel. Only writers, journalists, and contributors to business, consumer, financial, trade and technology publications, as well as broadcast outlets and analyst firms, are invited to serve as judges each year. Structured this way, Best in Biz Awards is able to leverage the experience and expertise of an influential group of global opinion makers to determine award winners.

    "Service reaches a new level as was evident when judging the 'Small or Medium Business Service of the Year' category in this year's Best in Biz Awards International. The sheer variety of solutions being offered augurs well for the years ahead, holding the promise of technology making life qualitatively superior going forward. The service and solutions industry is always a competitive area, even more so when in the small and medium business market, and it is constant innovation that will give companies that distinctive edge," said Manjula Ramakrishnan, editor of IAA Magazine (United Arab Emirates), judging her sixth Best in Biz Awards program. "Each entry and each organization being better than the other, made the task of judging this year's Best in Biz Awards International challenging, while also proving to be a huge learning experience, demonstrating what is on offer 'out there'."

    Winners of Best in Biz Awards 2015 International were determined based on scoring from a panel of 26 judges drawn from top-tier news, business, finance, and technology publications and media outlets from 19 countries, with all continents represented. This year's judging panel included writers and contributors to such publications as ARD (Germany), Asian Power (Singapore), BBC Radio (United Kingdom), Bennett Business Connections (Canada), Business Breakfast (United Arab Emirates), Choice (Australia), Computer Hoy (Spain), CTV (Canada), Gamers Intuition (United States), IAA Magazine (United Arab Emirates), InBusiness (Cyprus and Greece), Irish Independent (Ireland), J Arnold & Associates (Canada), Jerusalem Post (Israel), Kaiser the Sage (Philippines), MediaPost (United States), Radio Ngati Porou (New Zealand), TechHim (India), The Engaging Brand (United Kingdom), Vancouver Sun (Canada), Ventures Africa and Enterprise54.com (Nigeria), Vyapar (India), Wirausaha & Keuangan (Indonesia), WirelessDuniya (India) and Xbox Plus (Brazil).

    For a full list of gold, silver and bronze winners in Best in Biz Awards 2015 International, visit: http://intl.bestinbizawards.com/intl-2015-winners.

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks, Violin Memory and Meru Networks. For more information, visit http://www.glassbeam.com.

    About Best in Biz Awards Now in its fifth year, Best in Biz Awards recognizes top companies, teams, executives and products for their business success as judged by established members of the press and industry analysts. Best in Biz Awards honors are currently conferred in two separate programs: North America and International. Entries for Best in Biz Awards 2015 are currently being accepted from all companies based or operating in North America until the final deadline on September 18, 2015. For more information, visit: http://www.bestinbizawards.com.

     

                      Published August 11, 2015                                                      Copyright © 2015 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.                                     Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

    http://news.sys-con.com/node/3407828

     
  • Thu
    13
    Aug
    2015

    Analyst: Jason Stamper 13 Aug, 2015 ~ The company claims that its forthcoming Glassbeam Studio tool will make it dramatically simpler and faster for developers and OEMs to build applications that analyze machine data in the era of the Internet of Things. 

    https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=86344

  • Mon
    31
    Aug
    2015

    Company's Ground Breaking Machine Data Analytics Solution Already in Production With Two Leading Product Vendors

     SANTA CLARA, CA, Aug 31, 2015 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, announced today that it has successfully entered the high growth Converged and Hyper Converged infrastructure market with two new clients. The platform is being used by these companies for providing better customer experience through proactive and predictive support capabilities, and also for gleaning valuable product intelligence from machine log data. These companies along with Glassbeam's value proposition is further referenced in a recently released Solution Profile by leading analyst firm Taneja Group on the Converged and Hyper Converged infrastructure markets.

    As the Internet of Things marketplace continues to mature, ubiquitous embedded computing and mobile and organically distributed nodes are all being tied together by complex networks delivering heterogeneous data. In the report, Taneja is envisioning the development of building blocks, or appliances, that combine this data. They will be at the heart of new architectures and facilitate the deployment of new ways for companies to profit from superior customer insight and support, and help build trusted advisor relationships that will benefit both clients and vendors. But this can't happen without the ability to analyze and interpret the machine log data within them effectively.

    "The Converged and Hyper Converged markets are highly dependent on the ability to provide real time actionable data analysis," stressed Mike Matchett from the Taneja Group. "Don't try this at home, as they say. Implementing the right analytics solution is a daunting task and can take companies away from their core competencies. Building your own solution isn't necessary when solutions like Glassbeam are already available on the market."

     "The adoption of IoT by Converged and Hyper Converged infrastructure providers definitely plays to our strengths," comments Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam. "Our key differentiator is the ability to analyze complex data instantly and provide actionable information. This complexity of data is amplified dramatically in the Converged infrastructure space and we're extremely pleased that our solution is already being put to use by leading customers."

    The Taneja Group report looks at Glassbeam's unique B2B SaaS SCALAR platform and points out how it can provide differentiation among competing solutions, build a trusted client relationship, better manage and support clients, and provide additional direct revenue opportunities. It adds that product vendors are using Glassbeam analysis to see how their customers are using their solutions in production. This means what kinds of failures they experience and the common operating modes they are running. They use that intelligence to continually build increasingly resilient solutions to become more and more competitive.

    To download a copy of this report, visit http://info.glassbeam.com/convinfra2015

    About Glassbeam Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, Aruba Networks, Violin Memory and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    SOURCE: Glassbeam

    (C) 2015 Marketwire L.P. All rights reserved.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/glassbeam-enters-converged-and-hyper-converged-infrastructure-market-2015-08-31

  • Tue
    08
    Sep
    2015

    Punchh Mobile Engagement Platform Now Seamlessly Engages Guests for Aloha POS Users

     
    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sep 08, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Punchh, (www.punchh.com), the premier provider of mobile loyalty and CRM technologies for the restaurant industry, today announced an agreement with NCR Corporation, the global leader in consumer transaction technologies. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies have integrated the Punchh platform with the NCR Aloha POS, with opportunities to extend the integration to other NCR Hospitality POS solutions in the future.

    “Our Agreement with NCR allows us to deliver a world-class technology solution which will greatly improve the experience for our customers and their guests,” said Vic Mahadevan, CEO of Punchh. “We are thrilled to partner with the industry-leading NCR platform to help drive guest engagement for restaurant operators and more importantly, provide them with the analytical tools and insights they need to grow their business.”

    The Punchh Platform provides restaurants with the ability to engage guests outside the walls of their restaurant in a fun and meaningful way. Using gamification, social media, and the ability to deliver creative loyalty programs, Punchh not only engages consumers, but also provides intuitive and powerful analytics to ensure programs are delivering or exceeding the expected returns.

     
    Using the power of social networking, the Punchh-powered apps encourage customers to refer their friends to the brand and can reward them for that loyalty. This powerful referral tracking tool helps restaurants better understand the full network value of the brands’ biggest advocates.

    “Mobile consumer engagement provides new and powerful opportunities for restaurants to grow their businesses. By integrating the Aloha POS into a broader ecosystem of products and capabilities, we continuously seek to deliver the most innovative solutions to our customers”, said Don Zimmerman, former CIO of Wendy’s and Arby’s and now CTO of NCR Hospitality. “We welcome Punchh into the Cloud Connect Partner community and extending more options to the industry.”

    The integrated Punchh solution with the Aloha POS is currently deployed across a number of different restaurant brands. For more information about Punchh and its leading mobile loyalty and insights platform, visit www.punchh.com.

    About Punchh

    Punchh, the restaurant industry's leading mobile loyalty and actionable insights platform, delivers the industry's most comprehensive mobile engagement suite built atop of its enterprise-class CRM marketing software. Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Punchh helps brands drive consumer engagement through private-label mobile apps which deliver loyalty, gift cards, gaming/sweepstakes, surveys, social referrals and reviews. The Punchh Platform also tightly integrates with 3rd party systems including POS and Digital Ordering. The Punchh turn-key solution helps operators get to know their guests with actionable insights by housing various data sets within a single platform, and enabling them to communicate on a 1:1 basis in real time. Representative clients include Arby's, FOCUS Brands, (Schlotzsky's, Moe's Southwest Grill,) Rita's Italian Ice, CiCi's Pizza, TGIF, Texas DQ, Capriotti's, and Cafe Rio. For more information, please visit www.punchh.com.

    About NCR Corporation

    NCR Corporation NCR, -0.76% is the global leader in consumer transaction technologies, turning everyday interactions with businesses into exceptional experiences. With its software, hardware, and portfolio of services, NCR enables more than 550 million transactions daily across retail, financial, travel, hospitality, telecom and technology, and small business. NCR solutions run the everyday transactions that make your life easier.NCR is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia with over 30,000 employees and does business in 180 countries. NCR is a trademark of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries. The company encourages investors to visit its web site at www.ncr.com which is updated regularly with financial and other important information about NCR.
     Twitter: @NCRCorporation
     Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncrcorp
     LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ncr-corporation
     YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/ncrcorporation

     View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150908005420/en/

    SOURCE: Punchh

    Punchh
     Christina Erwin / Andrew Park, 213-988-8344

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/punchh-mobile-engagement-and-actionable-insights-platform-integrates-with-ncr-aloha-pos-2015-09-08

  • Tue
    22
    Sep
    2015

    Singapore-based early stage investor Jungle Ventures, has clocked 65 million in commitments, for its $100 million second investment fund, its founders and managing partners, Anurag Srivastava and Amit Anand, said in an interaction.

    The duo also said that Jungle Ventures II, LP fund has hit its first close, a development that DEALSTREETASIA has reported exclusively earlier this month.

    Again, as reported by this portal earlier, the investors in Jungle’s second fund include Singapore state fund Temasek Holdings, the city-state’s Thakral business family, as well as the private sector lending arm of the World Bank – International Finance Corporation.

    “The 65% or $65 million that we’ve raised so far of our $100 million target includes a good base of family offices, institutional investors, and a significant participation from advisors. From an institutional perspective, Temasesk is one of the new investors in this fund. Singapore’s National Research Foundation, which is associated with the Prime Minister’s Office here has come on board. We have a Malaysia based public listed technology company, which we cannot name,” explained Amit Anand.

    Also Read:  Exclusive: Jungle Ventures hits first close on $100m second fund; launches new $20m Seedplus Singapore fund

    IFC joins Temasek, Thakral Group in backing Jungle’s $100m second fund

    Added Anurag: “Most of the investors of our first fund are continuing in the second too, We’ve had Kumar Malavalli (Indian-American technology entrepreneur and philanthropist and founder of Brocade Communications Systems with Paul Bonderson Jr) coming in. We’ve also had Prabhu Goel (Indian-American researcher, entrepreneur and businessman, known for having developed the PODEM Automatic test pattern generation and Verilog hardware description language) joining this fund. We’ve got family offices from the region – Singapore’s Thakral family, the Orion Group from Indonesia. It is a good mix of institutional investors, some of whom are taking their first bets in Asia. I think that that Asian family offices are a phenomenal power house. First, they bring tremendous business wisdom on how businesses are built in Asia. Most of them have built and run global businesses.”

    According to Amit, the diversified pool of investors also puts Jungle among the largest independent funds in the region. “When I say independent, what I mean is that, we are not anchored by a single investor, private equity firm or family office or a corporate or an Asian arm of a global firm. We are in independent home grown fund that grew from $10 million in 2012 to hopefully $100 million in next two to three months.”

    The Jungle Founders also explained that while the first fund did both seed and Series A investments, the second fund would largely target larger cheque sizes and focus on Series A. The tciket sizes are expected to be in the $3 million to $5 million range.

    “This fund will be heavily focused on Series A and early Bs. That is the right fit for us as we look at companies that are scaling globally,” Amit said.

    DEALSTREETASIA recently reported that Jungle Ventures was also launching a separate $20-million Seedplus Singapore fund, citing its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.  Asked on this, Amit refused to divulge details, but said the firm ‘was working on something related to the seed stage with other partners in the ecosystem’.

    “We think that seed investing requires a systematic change in the ecosystem and we are working on that,” he added.

    Throwing further light on this, Anurag said: “We have our strengths. And the ecosystem that we are building has a larger value to add to both Seed and Series A. They are fundamentally both different platforms. And focus is right now is to get Jungle to build that whole vehicle and that is why we brought in David ( the former operating partner at private equity firm TPG Growth, who has joined as managing partner with Jungle). On the seed plus, there is different level of specialization, and at some point of time, verticals will come in. Right now, we are at the research and development mode for that space, and hence we are here to put Seed and Series A separately, rather than treat them the same. But we will be continued to focus on both sectors – we cannot really separate them in the true sense, but at the same time, we cannot treat them as same,”

    Edited Excerpts from the interaction.

    How do you select the companies that you invest in? Which countries does Jungle focus on? Do you look at specific sectors?

    Amit Anand: If you look at any of our portfolio companies, they fit into two buckets. Either, they have the potential of becoming a regional category leader – these are companies such as payments startups Momoe, Malaysia-based bus ticket-booking service CatchThatBus, Zipdial (that was acquired by Twitter), iMoney – they have the potential of dominating the entire South East Asian market. Or they have the potential to be a global category leader – these are companies like Tradegeckho,  interior design company Livspace. Our first criteria for investing in a company is whether they have the potential of being a global or regional leader. If you look at where our deployments are going, South East Asia and India are two hot pockets where most of our capital is going almost evenly. From our first fund, we’ve got 8-9 investments in India, and similar number in Singapore and again 8-9 investments in South East Asia. Selectively, we are also investing in US-based companies, where we think that this company is something where 100% of their market is in Asia.

     

    What are your learnings from your first fund? How do you apply these to your second fund?

    Amit Anand: One of the things, we’ve realized from the first fund is that, we underestimated the value that some of the advisors and operating partners are creating for the firm. We did some lip service on that model in the first fund. In some of the startups, where we used our advisors more extensively, there was disproportionate value that was created. I remember a comment Zipdial’s zipdial Valerie Wagoner, when she was asked on the value that Jungle created for them, and obviously she said that we were great long time partners and all that. But she spent significantly more time talking about our advisors and the operating partners, and what they brought to the table. We have now understood and learnt that can be a phenomenal differentiator and more importantly value creators for our portfolio companies. So, in Fund-II, we are putting significant effort to adding more deep operating experience in Asia and that will help our portfolio companies, and also bring about vertical advisors. This was something that every fund did, and we did that too – but it was only when we looked at the outcome, we went and said, ‘did we do it right, or not’. We are now spending a lot more time with every company, thinking who can we can bring on board to help that company. The other key learning, and you will see that play out in the platform strategy we have, is the fact that the kind of investor that you need to be for a seed company, and for a Series A company is very different. You need to be able to look under the hood for both companies, but the kind of things you need to look under the hood for both companies are significantly different, and the kind of hiring and mentoring you need to do for them are significantly different. A lot of people underestimate that. I have seen large VC firms literally throwing cheques at seed stage companies – I am not a fan of that, and I think it requires a whole different approach, and we’ve realized that with our failures in the first fund. Some of our companies from the first fund did not do too well, as we feel that we are to blame for that.

    The positive learnings from the first fund are also equally strong. We are one of the few funds in the region that have seen successful exits – we’ve had three exits in three years to large global multinational companies. Twitter’s first acquisition in this region was Zipdial, a portfolio company of ours. Travelmob was bought by US-based vacation rental site HomeAway and Japan’s Rakuten first buyout was travel site Voyagin which we had invested in. When we were raising the fund, there was always this dilemma about long-term value creation versus liquidity – a lot of institutional investors look for long term value creation, whereas family offices and individuals look for liquidity, because they compare startups to real estate, bonds and mutual funds. The strategy of allocating certain percentage of our fund to companies or sectors where we will see early exits have paid off for us. I think the fact that majority of our investors in the first fund have come to the second fund, and have upped their investments is a signal to that. That we’ve been able to demonstrate our place with liquidity and also get our place in having some home runs.

    Anurag Srivastava: Some of the learnings are that there were couple of businesses where there is no clear model as to when it would make money. That is a lot better developed in the US, where you build a Whatsapp, and for a very long period of time, you don’t have a revenue model. I am not sure if we are not as mature for such businesses here. We did invest in a video company where the business model was not clear. Businesses where there is a clear sight and involved problem solving, even if they have struggled, we have been able to leverage the power of our operating partners, and made sure that these companies all had money. We did a review of our portfolio, and it is surprising – a very large percentage of our portfolio is very active – more or less, everyone is raising money right now, and are getting funded. We’ve made some mistakes and we’ve clearly started realizing that the kind of people we felt would probably fail, those were the companies that have not done well. It was not about them being first time entrepreneurs – so many of our portfolio companies are first time entrepreneurs. It was not about product background versus pedigree. This is an area we are also trying to learn to see how we can do more, be different. A lot of our companies have pivoted – at least, soft pivoted. Look at Pockkt, Livspace. Livspace is full home design – it is not a problem that has been solved anywhere in the world. It is a new concept. It has not been solved before and they are learning as they build the company and go deeper. It is also a lot of learning for us to get the entrepreneurs who will learn as they go deeper into the company in the first couple of years.

     

    As much as South East Asia, Jungle is also known for its investment practice in India. What makes you so bullish about India?

    Anurag Srivastava: We’ve got a billion people – if you look at the age groups where startups are happening, and look at that percentage of people to those in Korea, Australia, Singapore, it is pure math. It is also the flavor of the season to some extent. Asians and specially Indian have a herd mentality. But I also think, it is the sheer opportunity from a domestic perspective. The whole ecosystem is relatively built. If you look at the pedigree of angel investors and compare it to three years ago – the Bansals (Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the founders of Flipkart, who share the same last name but are not related) were not angel investors three years ago – they were raising their Series A. Look at the corporates, who are now angel investors –  the likes of Rajan (Rajan Anandan, vice president & managing director of Google, South East Asia & India). If you think there is a problem that you want to solve, you can jump in because there are enough parachutes. Success breeds success – every morning you read stories of success of some of these startups, of some company raising a billion dollars. There are some concerns, but overall the startup scene in India is very healthy.”

    Amit Anand: There is so much broken in the country, and if you look at the way the country has been going so far to mend to things, it has been in the traditional ways. For example, in retail, they have been trying to scale up the mall business, the franchisee models. Given the size of the country, it takes time to scale, but the consumer does not want to wait. Because of global connectivity, the consumer wants everything today. That is where technology startups have come in – they are creating a whole new stack of businesses in every industry that is broken in India. That belief is new. I don’t think that belief existed in the first two waves of technology or internet startups in India. There are massive opportunities in the domestic markets that is untapped – be it logistics, travel, payments, retail.

    http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/jungle-ventures-clocks-65-commitment-for-its-100m-fund-investors-include-singapores-temasek-national-research-foundation-entrepreneurs-kumar-malaval-prabhu-goel-indonesias-o-13086/

  • Wed
    14
    Oct
    2015

    PubNub, the startup that has built a data network that carries messaging for apps, IoT hardware and other low-latency services, is today announcing that it has extended and closed its Series C round. The San Francisco-based company has raised $25 million, funding that it will use to sharpen its focus on Internet of Things applications and hardware as well as clean energy and social collaboration.

    We first reported on the round in July, when originally PubNub had raised $20 million. To date, the company has now raised just over $40 million.

    The round was led by Sapphire Ventures (originally SAP’s venture arm), with participation from Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC) — the strategic investment arm of the consumer and business electronics giant Bosch — as well Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures and Envision Ventures; as well as previous investors Relay Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and TiE Angels.

    “We’re thrilled to join this investment round with PubNub, which we recognize is driving some of the hottest social and entertainment apps on the market,” said Ashton Kutcher, co-founder of Sound Ventures, in a statement. “We have a tremendous amount of confidence in the management team and believe PubNub is poised for exponential growth.”

    The company is not disclosing revenues, profitability or valuation but when we asked about all these in July, CEO Todd Greene described the it as “rosy. Very solid and exciting.”

    In any case, the company is growing pretty rapidly. When we covered the funding in July, it was sending messages across some 200 million devices. Three months later, that number is now up to 300 million devices. PubNub currently has some 2,000 customers and partners, with 750 billion realtime transactions processed per month on average.

     

    While some of the company’s more recognizable customer names include Yahoo, McDonald’s and CBS, its new relationship with Bosch is likely to lead to PubNub’s numbers ramping up even further with a strong boost from enterprise apps around IoT.

    “Bosch Group’s strategic goal is to deliver innovations for connected life. RBVC, the corporate venture capital company of Bosch, invests in the most innovative startups, paying particular attention to enabling technologies within the IoT space that can help to make everything from connected devices and cars, to industrial applications and manufacturing processes more intelligent,” said Luis Llovera, managing director at Robert Bosch LLC, in a statement. “With PubNub, we’re excited about how its secure, realtime and reliable Data Stream Network can be leveraged in these various IoT applications in innovative ways as it continues to expand its position in that area.”

    As we noted in July, two areas where PubNub may be likely to invest in the months and years ahead is to build out its infrastructure and offer messaging relays across private networks. Today the company runs an amalgamation of operations across third-party data centers, something that it may look to shift as it moves deeper into M2M enterprise apps.

    “Today we offer the service the global network on which people deploy applications. We don’t have anything to announce yet on hybrid solutions but it is something we are considering,” Greene told us in July. That will put PubNub also in closer competition with the likes of Realtime, Pusher and Google.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/14/pubnub-expands-series-c-to-25m-banks-on-iot-to-boost-business-on-its-messaging-network/

  • Sun
    18
    Oct
    2015

    •Apttus, Booker, Lattice Engines, Segment and Tubular Labs are the five hottest cloud-based marketing startups of 2015.
    •13 of the hottest 34 cloud-based marketing startups are from the Bay Area, followed by Los Angeles with 3, and Bangalore and New York, both with 2.
    •14 are in Pre Series A, 7 in A-Stage, 5 in B-Stage and 3 in C-Stage funding rounds.

    These and other insights are from a quick analysis completed today using Mattermark Pro, in response to reader requests for more research on marketing startups.

    Mattermark uses a combination of artificial intelligence and data quality analysis to provide insights into over 1 million private companies, over 470,000 with employee data, and over 100,000 funding events. In the interest of full disclosure I’m not today and have never done any consulting work of any kind with Mattermark.

    Finding The Hottest Cloud-based Marketing Startups

    To find the hottest cloud-based marketing startups, an initial query requesting startups competing in the cloud computing and marketing industries was completed. Next , advanced query tools in Mattermark Pro were used to filter out all startups that had exited as indicated by their stage status in Mattermark’s data. This filtered out startups who had been acquired, completed an IPO or had exited through other means. The table below is the result of an analysis completed today with Mattermark data.  You can download the table here in Microsoft Excel format.

    hottest cloud-based marketing startups

    The Mattermark Growth Score shown in the table below and downloadable Excel file is a measure of how quickly a company is gaining traction at a given point in time. It incorporates the Mindshare Score (web traffic, social traction) as well as business growth metrics (e.g. employee count over time, funding). The underlying assumption is that companies who see growth across these signals are shipping product and talking to customers, and are more likely to continue to grow as a result. This score is not meant to provide guidance on which startup to invest in.  Rather it’s a measure of momentum across the metrics and KPIs that Mattermark measures.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2015/10/18/the-hottest-cloud-based-marketing-startups-of-2015/

  • Mon
    26
    Oct
    2015

    Silicon Valley TechFlash

    Cisco announced five startups Monday to join the Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence incubation program.

    The incubator supports early-stage companies exploring sectors that include the Internet of Everything, Big Data/analytics, smart cities, enterprise mobility, security and other strategic areas for Cisco. The incoming startups will collaborate with Cisco executive advisors during the six-month program to identify potential joint go-to-market technologies and solutions that will benefit industry customers and partners.

    "With 17 startups incubated to date and 10 more joining us this year in Silicon Valley and Europe, Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence has a growing list of success stories,” Tom Yoritaka, managing director of Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence, said in a press release. “Startups in our program are actively engaging with Cisco to accelerate our digitization strategies and working with us to create differentiated solutions that will provide new value for our partners and customers."

    Cisco announced Monday that it agreed to acquire ParStream, a startup formerly involved in the program.

    The San Jose-based Cisco says that the program aligns with its overall innovation strategy, that the next billion-dollar idea can come from anywhere. Here are the entrepreneurs Cisco thinks may have the next amazing business concept

    ●C3DNA is a Santa Clara-based startup co-founded in 2013 by Rao Mikkilineni and Paul Camacho. The company delivers self-reliance and portability of any application on any cloud infrastructure at the app layer. The company has raised $2 million in seed funding. ( http://c3dna.com)

    ●LISNR is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based startup founded in 2012 that uses SmartTones, an inaudible technology that has the ability to connect mobile applications and devices. The company has raised $4.65 million from Progress Ventures, Mercury Fund, Jump Capital and CincyTech. ( http://lisnr.com). LISNR was co-founded by Rodney Williams, Chris Ostoich, Chris Ridenour, Nikki Pfahler and Josh Glick.

    ●Simularity is a Richmond, Calif.-based startup that applies real-time artificial intelligence to the Internet of Things, enabling incident prediction, preventative maintenance and anomaly detection. Co-founded by Liz Derr and Ray Richardson in 2011, the company has raised $150,000 in seed funding. ( http://www.simularity.com)

    http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/cisco-adds-5-startups-to-its-entrepreneurs-in.html

  • Mon
    26
    Oct
    2015

    Selected Startups Represent Cisco’s Strategic Focus on Analytics Solutions and Digital Transformation – and Will Bring Groundbreaking Solutions to Cisco Customers

    SAN JOSE, Calif., October 26, 2015 – Cisco® today announced five startups who have been selected to join the latest Silicon Valley cohort of Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence (Cisco EIR), a start-up incubation program. Cisco EIR supports early-stage companies building disruptive solutions for the Internet of Everything, Big Data/Analytics, Smart Cities, Enterprise Mobility, Security and other strategic areas for Cisco. The incoming startups will collaborate with Cisco executive advisors during the six-month program to identify potential joint go-to-market technologies and solutions that will benefit industry customers and partners.  

    Since the program’s launch in 2014, Cisco EIR has successfully incubated and collaborated with 17 startups in Silicon Valley and Vienna, Austria. In line with Cisco’s innovation strategy, Cisco believes the next billion-dollar idea can come from anywhere. The Cisco EIR program exemplifies Cisco’s commitment to drive industry transformation by collaborating and innovating with an extended ecosystem of partners, customers and entrepreneurs. Demonstrating momentum and partnership beyond the time spent in the cohort, many Cisco EIR alumni continue to develop groundbreaking innovations and solutions alongside Cisco—more than 20 engagements are underway thus far.

    Cisco EIR Silicon Valley’s Cohort 3 is comprised of:

    • C3DNA (http://c3dna.com) delivers self-reliance and portability of any application on any cloud infrastructure at the app layer.
    • LISNR (http://lisnr.com) provides a new communication protocol that uses SmartTones, an inaudible technology that has the ability to connect mobile applications and devices.
    • Simularity (http://www.simularity.com) applies real-time artificial intelligence to the Internet of Things, enabling incident prediction, preventative maintenance and anomaly detection.
    • Tagnos (http://tagnos.com) enhances the patient experience and hospital efficiency with real-time smart location solutions powered by the Internet of Things.
    • Zoomdata (www.zoomdata.com) develops a visual analytics solution for Big Data that empowers business users to easily consume and interact with disparate data sources in real time.

    The five new startups announced today join the five startups that were selected for Cisco EIR in Europe this past May at the Pioneers Festival.

    Startups participating in Cisco EIR benefit from financial support, potential strategic funding, opportunities to collaborate with Cisco’s product and engineering teams, and co-working space. Cisco EIR also gives startups access to Cisco’s broad ecosystem of partners including investors, industry experts, and others in the startup community. Recent EIR alumni will highlight their accomplishments in the program at a Demo Day in Mountain View on October 28, 2015.

    Supporting Quotes

    Mala Anand, senior vice president, Cisco Software Platforms Group; executive sponsor of Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence

    “Realizing the full potential of the digital transformation isn’t just about connecting things. It’s also about enabling our customers to connect the data from all these new sources for real-time insights, integrate and automate their increasingly complex systems and processes—and engage people in context. There are startups that are building potentially disruptive technologies that will help shape this digital future—and we are co-developing solutions with them through Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence.”

    Tom Yoritaka, managing director of Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence

    “With 17 startups incubated to date and 10 more joining us this year in Silicon Valley and Europe, Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence has a growing list of success stories. Startups in our program are actively engaging with Cisco to accelerate our digitization strategies and working with us to create differentiated solutions that will provide new value for our partners and customers.”

    Eugene Mazo, CEO of DGLogik, Inc. – Cisco EIR Alum from Cohort 1 in Silicon Valley

    “As alumni of the Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence program, we continue to enjoy the benefits of working with engineering and business experts at Cisco and its partners. Even after the completion of our cohort, DGLogik has made significant progress in expanding the integration our technology into core Cisco initiatives across numerous business units. We are very pleased with the momentum we have gained since the commencement of EIR and attribute a lot of our success to the program’s ability to open various collaboration opportunities both within and outside of Cisco.”

    About Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence

    Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence serves as a catalyst for startups innovating in technology areas that have the potential to disrupt and transform the information technology industry. Startups are selected through a rigorous multi-phase selection process that evaluates the viability of their business plans, the strength of their teams and their alignment with Cisco’s strategic focus. Five to ten companies enter the program as part of each cohort lasting six months. Companies admitted into Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence receive financial support and potential strategic funding, access to co-working space as well as basic software tools and a potential opportunity to partner with Cisco for joint development or go-to-market opportunities.

    More information about Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence and the startups in program is available at http://eir.cisco.com

    http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1724323

  • Tue
    27
    Oct
    2015

    Partnership to Leverage Respective Company Strengths in Machine Data Analytics and Post-Sale Supply Chain Management

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 27, 2015) - Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, announced today that it has entered into a technology partnership with OnProcess Technology. The partnership entails an integration between respective offerings -- with the goal of leveraging machine data analytics to introduce new efficiencies in service supply chains (SSC).

    "Machine data analytics can change the service supply chain dramatically and have a significant impact on cost-to-serve," comments Michael Wooden, CEO at OnProcess Technology. "The Glassbeam platform takes in a huge amount of data streaming from the field and analyzes it in real time. This is critical to helping companies lower post-sale costs across inventory, technical support, logistics and field labor."

    OnProcess is a pioneer in service supply chain optimization and an innovator in the use of technology and analytics to drive client SSC profitability and customer loyalty. The company's services include everything from revenue enablement, triage and service fulfillment, to reverse logistics, transportation order management and spend management.

    Analyzing real-time streaming data from sensors in the field, Glassbeam's platform can provide triage on failures -- remotely and automatically all along the supply chain. Analysis not only indicates what has happened in a breakdown, it can specify exactly what the problem is rather than automatically assuming that a replacement part has to be dispatched. The technology can also determine part failure before it happens -- saving significant downtime and unnecessary service costs.

    "This is the first use of our platform in the supply chain industry," adds Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam. "Our real-time analysis has the capability to make some fundamental changes in the way this industry operates. That's the promise of business IoT analytics and we're very pleased that our first technology partnership is with a true innovator like OnProcess in the service supply chain industry."

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, Aruba Networks, Violin Memory and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    About OnProcess Technology

    OnProcess Technology is a managed services provider specializing in complex, global service supply chain operations -- the flow of people, parts and services following the sale of a product. The company's deep expertise, purpose-built technology delivery and embedded analytics-based process improvement, enable clients to quickly optimize and scale operations, grow revenue and profitability, and deliver superior customer experiences. OnProcess provides services in 26 languages and operates in eight global facilities, including its Massachusetts headquarters and facilities in Maine, India and Bulgaria.

  • Wed
    04
    Nov
    2015

    The greatest promise in the coming together of the people of the US and is both the country's young thinkers, US envoy to India Richard R. Verma, said here on Wednesday.

    "I have marvelled at the energy and brilliance of the minds I have encountered, and have been continually amazed at the creativity and commitment to service among the young Indians I have met," he said at the Indian Institute of Management.

    He said India was regarded as home to some of the most ground breaking young minds on the planet.

    "Imagine the vast promise of our young people collaborating, in real time, between Pune and Houston, Srinagar and Miami. The possibilities are limitless."

    Speaking on the importance of governments encouraging innovation together, he said: "Back in 2009, before innovation and start ups became the buzzwords that they are today, our governments established the US-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund."

    The US-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund partners with India's Department of Science and Technology to fund ideas and proposals with up to Rs.2.5 crore each every year.

    "Until now, the fund backed 18 proposals on technologies to remove toxic arsenic from ground water in West Bengal and Bihar, solar electric tractor, a low-cost portable auto-refractor to prescribe corrective eyeglasses in areas without eye doctors; a device to resuscitate newborn babies who can't breathe and seed treatments to improve stress tolerance in crops," he said.

    The ambassador said the US and India would launch a private sector-led Innovation Forum to ignite and scale innovation and encourage entrepreneurship in 2016.

    "Rather than dismissing Indian traditions as incompatible with western medicine, American scientists and pharmaceutical companies are working with Indian partners on "bioprospecting" - examining traditional medicine as a source of new drug discovery."

    The US Department of Health and Human Services is also looking at making traditional Indian medicine Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy to be more widely available in the US.

    Recalling innovation ties between the US and Bengaluru, Verma mentioned people like Infosys co-founder N. Narayana Murthy, Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia, Indian-American venture capitalist Gururaj Deshpande and first Indian member of the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame Kumar Malavalli.

    http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/young-thinkers-are-greatest-promise-for-india-america-us-envoy-115110401556_1.html

     

  • Wed
    11
    Nov
    2015

    Release Includes Seamless Integration With Salesforce.com, Enhanced Complex Event Processing Features and State-of-the Art Install Base Analytics Capabilities

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 11, 2015) - Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, announced today that it has released Glassbeam 4.8 -- the latest version of its industry-leading machine data analytics platform. Glassbeam's latest release is focused on addressing specific customer needs through significant improvements in its UI and Visualization capabilities, and through enhancements to integrations with platforms like Salesforce.com (SFDC).

    "Glassbeam's latest innovations have tremendous appeal for the broad IoT audience," commented Glen Allmendinger of Harbor Research. "The integration with Salesforce.com materially improves the ability of an organization to get a more holistic customer view. Enhancements to Rules/Alerts are another significant step towards true Complex Event Processing credentials, and innovations to Workbench will help product marketers segment their customer base much more effectively."

    Glassbeam 4.8 includes better integration with SFDC through a Single Sign On (SSO) capability. The integration with Salesforce.com provides users the ability to access Glassbeam Analytics directly from their CRM platform and get a holistic, 360-degree customer view. Enhancements include the ability to easily associate a log file with a case and to automatically create new cases based on patterns in incoming log file data.

    Glassbeam 4.8 includes enhancements to Workbench -- a tool that allows intuitive, drag and drop capabilities for visual analytics of machine data. Leveraging Tableau's robust capabilities, end-users can get powerful insights into their install base -- insights that can be used for effective customer segmentation, to make sound business decisions on product roadmap, and for gauging customer propensity for features and enhancements.

    Glassbeam 4.8 includes major upgrades to the platform's Complex Event Processing (CEP) capabilities. Glassbeam's Rules and Alerts App features an intuitive user interface to swiftly create new, and edit existing, rules that trigger actionable information. These upgrades are greatly beneficial for users that wish to model threshold conditions based on multiple parameters in incoming data.

    For more information on this release, please visit Glassbeam's Product updates page.

    "The features in this new product will make machine data analytics easier to use, more powerful, and more available in uncovering actionable intelligence," comments Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam. "I know they will have great success in the market because each of these enhancements was developed at the request of our customers."

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, Aruba Networks, Dimension Data, Gridscape, Violin Memory and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/glassbeam-unleashes-improved-usability-visualization-capabilities-latest-product-release-2072595.htm

     

     

  • Tue
    01
    Dec
    2015

    Siki Brings Tremendous Skills in the Areas of M2M Connectivity and IoT Analytics to Glassbeam

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 1, 2015) - Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, announced today that it has appointed Siki Giunta, a well-known expert in the IoT and M2M industry, to its Board of Advisors. Siki brings a wealth of expertise to Glassbeam with previous experience as SVP of Verizon's global cloud ecosystem and M2M connectivity platform as well as senior executive roles at CSC, Fortisphere, Novell, Managed Objects and Computer Associates. Siki will be joining the Glassbeam board with immediate effect.

    Glassbeam's machine data analytics offering has numerous applications in the broad IoT space. These analytics are currently being used by companies in various verticals like Storage Networking, Medical Devices, WiFi and Data Centers for better capacity planning, to understand usage trends, and to offer value-added offerings to end-customers. More information on Glassbeam customers and use cases can be found on Glassbeam's Resources page.

    Siki joins the Glassbeam board at a time that the company is rapidly expanding into new verticals including Smart Grid, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing. Glassbeam's versatile IoT platform has the ability to ingest, parse and analyze data from virtually any device, either directly or through partner platforms like ThingWorx (a PTC company). Siki's tremendous experience in the IoT industry is expected to propel Glassbeam's foray into these new business areas.

    "Glassbeam is at the exciting intersection of IoT and Machine Data Analytics, and is fast emerging as a true visionary in this area," says Siki. "They are at the cusp of the next explosive trajectory in their company's history and I am thrilled to partner with their team at this critical juncture to bring next-generation Analytics to the IoT market."

    "We're absolutely delighted to have Siki join our Advisory Board in the midst of the most important business expansion phase in our company's history," comments Kumar Malavalli, Chairman, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Glassbeam. "She brings strong pedigree and tremendous experience in the M2M connectivity and data analytics space to our team and we look forward to her presence catalyzing the next phase of growth at Glassbeam."

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, Aruba Networks, Violin Memory and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/glassbeam-appoints-siki-giunta-to-board-of-advisors-2078081.htm

  • Fri
    04
    Dec
    2015

    Company to showcase its FormationOne™ Dynamic Storage Platform at Gartner conference

    Fremont, Calif. (PRWEB) December 04, 2015

    Formation Data Systems, an emerging company revolutionizing the enterprise storage market, today announced that its CEO, Mark Lewis, will speak at Gartner Data Center, Infrastructure & Operations Management Conference on December 9 in Las Vegas. Mark will be joined by industry veteran and former CTO of UBS, Correy Voo, to discuss strategies for evaluating and delivering the next generation of software-defined storage infrastructure to the enterprise. At the conference, Formation Data Systems will also be conducting live demonstrations of FormationOneTM, the company’s hyper-scale dynamic storage platform, at booth #539 within the conference solution center.

    To keep up with massive data growth and cost effectively deliver new services at scale, many enterprises are adopting the model established by webscale pioneers such as Amazon and Google, by building an agile, elastic, software-defined infrastructure for traditional and next generation workloads. Led by Formation Data Systems CEO Mark Lewis, this presentation will draw on real-world use cases and examples to illustrate how FormationOne™ combines enterprise class storage services with dramatic TCO savings, to help attendees better understand how and where to begin the transformation and get started with software-defined storage today.

    Correy Voo, former CTO of UBS with more than 30 years in experience in the enterprise IT field, will join Mark for the session to provide unique insights and commentary. Correy said, “A revolution is taking place in enterprise storage that is being driven by cloud computing, and modern data centers are at the core of this movement. In today’s data driven world, enterprises and IT specialists need to be better equipped with understanding the benefits of software-defined technology and the storage strategies they can employ to give them a competitive edge. Formation is in a unique position in today’s market to pioneer the transformation of the storage industry, so I am looking forward to being involved in this discussion.”

    Formation will also exhibit at Gartner Data Center, offering live demonstrations of its flagship FormationOne storage platform to attendees. The FormationOne platform launched this past August 

    and offers the ideal combination of private cloud control and public cloud scale to transform enterprise infrastructure and solve the challenges the modern data growth poses to businesses today. In conjunction with OxFam America, the company will also continue its successful “See-a-Demo-Get-a-Goat” campaign while at Gartner Data Center, which since August 2015 has seen over 40 technology enthusiasts donate a goat to families in impoverished countries to help fight hunger and poverty.

    Formation Exhibit

    When: December 7-10, 2015

    Where: Formation booth #539

    Solution Provider Session

    Session title: Strategies for Deploying Hyper-Scale, Software-Defined Storage

    Speakers: Mark Lewis, CEO of Formation Data Systems

    Correy Vu, business IT specialist and former CTO of UBS

    When: Wednesday, December 9, 2015

    Time: 3:00pm – 3:30pm

    Where: Titian 2301A

    http://www.pressreleaserocket.net/formation-data-systems-ceo-to-speak-on-strategies-for-deploying-hyper-scale-software-defined-storage-at-gartner-data-center/386685/

  • Tue
    22
    Dec
    2015

    /EINPresswire.com/ -- SANTA CLARA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/22/15 -- Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, has been selected as a finalist for the 2015-2016 Cloud Computing Awards Program in the "Best Business Intelligence or Analytics Solution" category.

    With awards for excellence and innovation in cloud computing, the Cloud Computing Awards Program accepts entries from across the globe, including the US, Canada, Australasia and EMEA. More than 300 organizations entered this year's program. Glassbeam is a finalist in this category for a second consecutive year. Previous winners include Red Hat, Cloudera, Unisys and Zendesk.

    "IoT analytics is moving from a new solution to a 'must have' capability for businesses in almost any industry," said Glassbeam Founder & CEO, Puneet Pandit. "We are gratified that this awards program has included Glassbeam as a finalist for the second year in a row. It validates the rapid rise of IoT analytics and Glassbeam's approach to bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device."

    Cloud Awards organizer Larry Johnson added, "In our fifth year of recognizing the best of the best -- not just the monoliths within the space, but all of the cloud organizations which offer real innovation and value to their users -- we are still delighted to find new names pushing hard, and established names responding by pushing the envelope still harder."

    Final winners will be announced on Thursday January 28, 2016.

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    About the Cloud Awards
    The Cloud Awards is an international program, which has been recognizing and honoring industry leaders, innovators and organizational transformation in cloud computing since 2011. The awards are open to large, small, established and start-up organizations from across the entire globe, with an aim to find and celebrate the pioneers who will shape the future of the Cloud as we move into 2016 and beyond. Categories include the Software as a Service award, Most Promising Start-Up, and "Best in Mobile" Cloud Solution. Finalists were selected by a judging panel of international industry experts. For more information about the Cloud Awards please visit http://www.cloud-awards.com/.

    Glassbeam Contact:

    Tim Johnson
    E-mail: Email Contact
    Phone: +1 415-963-4082 ext 108
    Mobile: +1 (415) 385-9537

  • Wed
    23
    Dec
    2015

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 23, 2015) - Glassbeam, Inc. has been named a bronze winner for the Most Innovative Company of the Year category in the Best in Biz Awards, an independent business awards program judged by members of the press and industry analysts.

    Glassbeam's solution takes real time streaming data from Internet connected assets and translates it into actionable information. Beyond asset tracking and management, the company's analysis of log data files can provide preventative and predictive maintenance, and better product intelligence leading to improved product roadmaps.

    "We are thrilled to be selected as a winner of this year's award," commented Puneet Pandit, Glassbeam CEO. "At Glassbeam, we strive to provide the best in machine data analytics and receiving this recognition from such a distinguished panel of industry editors and analysts helps to solidify our position as an industry leader."

    Winners of Best in Biz Awards 2015 were determined based on scoring from an independent panel of 46 judges from highly recognized newspapers, business, consumer and technology publications, radio outlets, and analyst firms.

    "I'm honored to be a returning judge for the 2015 Best in Biz Awards," said Nicole Taylor, Business News Daily, serving on the judging panel in her second Best in Biz Awards. "The entrants in the Most Innovative Company of the Year category truly understand what it means to bring something new and different to the table in a world where most companies just piggyback off something someone else has done. It was refreshing to read about these great companies working hard to get ahead of the demands of their respective industries."

    For a full list of gold, silver and bronze winners in Best in Biz Awards 2015, visit: http://www.bestinbizawards.com/2015-winners.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the machine data analytics company. Bringing structure and meaning to data from any connected device, Glassbeam provides actionable intelligence around the Internet of Things. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks, Violin Memory and Meru Networks. For more information, visit http://www.glassbeam.com.

    About Best in Biz Awards
    Best in Biz Awards recognizes top companies, teams, executives and products for their business success as judged by established members of the press and industry analysts. Best in Biz Awards honors are conferred in two separate programs annually: North America, and International. Entries will begin to be accepted in the fourth annual Best in Biz Awards International program in January 2016. Any organization worldwide may enter any of the more than 60 company, department or team, executive and product categories. For more information about the entry process and categories in the International program, please visit: http://intl.bestinbizawards.com.

    Contact:
    Media
    Gary Thompson
    Clarity Communications
    415-963-4082 ext 101
    Email Contact
     
     
  • Fri
    01
    Jan
    2016

    10 Best Small Business CRM Software January 2016

    With more than half of the U.S. population using smartphones for two hours per day or more, aligning with a small business CRM software firm that is dedicated to mobile-compatible features is a must. The selection of best small business CRM software found below provides referral and customer loyalty data alongside ongoing analytics and transaction information. Engaging customers through social media and email marketing campaigns is also a core feature across today's leading CRM software designed with small business owners in mind. For more proactive small business owners, recording meetings and calls can enable more timely control. Ranking order is based on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative statistics, including the payment of variable monthly listing fees to be in our directory. Learn more about our ranking process here.

     Best Small Business CRM Application Logo: Pipedrive

    #1 of 10 Best Small Business CRM SolutionsPipedrive

    New York, NY

     

     
     

     

     

     

  • Mon
    25
    Jan
    2016

    A Series of Forbes Insights Profiles of Thought Leaders Changing the Business Landscape:  Mark Lewis, Chairman and CEO, Formation Data Systems.

    The Software Defined Data Center market is expected to reach $77 billion by 2020, according to ReportsnReports.com, so it’s no surprise there is constant innovation as new technologies and companies seek to disrupt incumbents. Formation Data Systems was formed to be one of those disrupters.

    The company was launched by a team led by Chairman and CEO Mark Lewis to offer software that provides hyper-scale enterprise storage solutions in much the way Google or Facebook enable massive storage capabilities through their own home grown solutions. While Lewis is steeped in the storage business, he is relatively late to the start-up world.

    “I was a big company guy for almost 30 years and then started Formation about three and a half years ago. So I get what it’s like to help run really big companies all your life and then all of a sudden to do a start-up. It’s both liberating and daunting, but it’s really the culmination of everything I’ve worked on over my career,” says Lewis.

    Lewis spent years building storage solutions at a long line of companies that were innovators at the time they were developed, going back to Digital Equipment, Compaq and EMC.  Now he is taking that experience to launch software that will help companies evolve their storage to be more nimble for a cloud-first world. Now he and his team are bringing to market what they believe is a game-changing approach.

    “We’re just in the process of releasing product now. We’re doing POCs at a number of customers who are putting, what I call, the finishing touches on the product. What we’ve been able to do is write a software layer that runs on top of bare metal industry-standard hardware and scales out, has all of the normal features of enterprise storage, data protection and all the stuff that enterprise storage people need and can project out to look like any different type of array. We can look like a block array or a NAS filer. We can look like an object storage, we can look like any kind of storage that the customer needs and it’s all an on-demand software product and the economics are literally ten times better than what can be delivered by any of the traditional mainstay storage players today,” says Lewis.

    The company was founded in late 2012 and started writing code in April of 2013. So it’s coming up on three years the product has been in development. “It was a very hard project, too, because we have changed the way people view storage and the architecture for storage. The simple analogy I use is that storage today is built like a Boeing 747. You have these big boxes that are specialty hardware, even if they have off-the-shelf processors or memory, they’re very specialty built, and the software they run is incredibly robust because it’s like running a Boeing airplane. If you lose the software, the plane crashes. So you spend a lot of time hardening this software because you have this single entity in the air with your data. The scale-out or the loosely coupled model that’s been used in networking that Google and others use for data center infrastructure now is the model we adopted and it’s simply like putting repetitive packages in a bunch of trucks and not sending them on a plane,” explains Lewis.

    It’s called a “loosely coupled model.” While it uses all of the models of modern architecture, it still looks to a storage admin like enterprise storage. It looks like the old array, it has the same kind of features, it projects data the same way so it can be used as a plug-in replacement to most array and most existing application use cases. “So it’s not something you have to go rewrite your apps or you have to change anything, this will work right in that environment,” says Lewis.

    The company has been in beta since last May and in alpha for 18 months. They are focused on the Forbes Global 2000, or anyone with large storage needs that understands that they have a huge economic problem, specifically in storage. They’ve had had a couple of Fortune 50 companies testing software for more than a year. “This is not something that will just change overnight. This is more of a what I call a ‘VMware-esque’ approach. We will go in, we will start with running their low-end applications, test environments, back-up apps and the less important stuff while we harden the project, everybody gets more comfortable with the idea but then, overtime, what we expect is that the economics will drive us into more and more of the mainstream production use cases,” says Lewis.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2016/01/25/formation-data-systems-created-to-enable-google-like-storage-capabilities-for-the-enterprise/#7872bf3b5a12

     

     
     

     
     

     

  • Mon
    08
    Feb
    2016

    SANTA CLARA, Calif. and TOKYO, Feb. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- C3DNA, Inc., a leading provider of self-reliant, Hyper-Cloud application lifecycle management and Tech Mahindra (NSE: TECHM) today announced an alliance for the distribution of its Cloud Equalizer platform in Japan. Using C3DNA's self-reliant application layer platform, Tech Mahindra's customers can migrate and manage distributed applications in any cloud, allowing application visibility and control across private and hybrid clouds for both legacy and new apps.

    "This strategic collaboration will help our customers with their complete cloud strategy and it will enable Enterprise IT to deliver mission-critical applications faster by increasing efficiency and dynamically scale anywhere. C3DNA's Cloud Equalizer puts the application or business owner back in control and applications are deployed securely across hybrid clouds with application awareness and dynamic lifecycle management," says Amitava Ghosh VP North Asia, Tech Mahindra, Japan.

    In order to deliver mission-critical applications, enterprises currently rely on tightly integrated infrastructure-centric management tools and policies that result in vendor lock-in. Migrating applications to today's hyper-resilient commodity infrastructure requires a combination of application re-architecture, heavy use of virtual machines, and the implementation of myriad new operational management tools and orchestrators.

    Cloud Equalizer is infrastructure-agnostic; with its self-reliant agent, users can dynamically discover, profile, and migrate distributed applications to any public, private, or hybrid cloud without changing the application, operating system, or re-architecting the application.

    "What the enterprise line of business owners are looking for is end-to-end, distributed application visibility and control without the cost and complexity of operational technologies and processes.  We want to give IT the visibility and control to deliver applications aligned with business needs using an enterprise-wide distributed application management architecture and allow developers to focus on application development, not on its management," said, Dr. Rao Mikkilineni, C3DNA's Co-Founder and CEO.

    About Tech Mahindra

    Tech Mahindra represents the connected world, offering innovative and customer-centric information technology services and solutions, enabling Enterprises, Associates and the Society to Rise™. We are a USD 3.9 billion company with 107,000+ professionals across 90 countries, helping over 800 global customers including Fortune 500 companies. Our innovation platforms and reusable assets connect across a number of technologies to deliver tangible business value to our stakeholders. Tech Mahindra is also amongst the Fab 50 companies in Asia as per the Forbes 2014 List.

    We are part of the USD 16.9 billion Mahindra Group that employs more than 200,000 people in over 100 countries. The Group operates in the key industries that drive economic growth, enjoying a leadership position in tractorsutility vehicles, after-market, information technology and vacation ownership.

    Media Contact:
    Richa Shah
    Global Media Relations
    Richa.Shah@Techmahindra.com

    About C3DNA

    C3DNA (Santa Clara, CA) is a Silicon Valley start-up with unique technology that brings self-reliance and portability to any application on any cloud infrastructure at the application layer. C3DNA's application- driven approach, delivers self-management, security, automation, and portability across clouds and/or datacenters to distributed applications anywhere without changes. C3DNA's platform Cloud Equalizer enables hybrid cloud capability without vendor or architecture lock-in and provides end-to-end service visibility and control across data centers and cloud providers. Customers range from Fortune® 100 to innovative Small and Medium Businesses. More information may be found at www.c3dna.com.

    Media Contact:
    Philippe Wagner
    Global Media Relations
    pr@c3dna.com

    Disclaimer

    Certain statements in this release concerning the future prospects of Tech Mahindra Limited ("the Company" or "TechM") are forward-looking statements. These statements by their nature involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results differ materially from such forward looking statements. The Company, from time to time, makes written and oral forward-looking statements based on information available with the management of the Company and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company 

    SOURCE C3DNA, Inc.

    http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/c3dna-allies-with-tech-mahindra-to-distribute-cloud-equalizer-platform-in-japan-300216935.html?tc=eml_cleartime

     

     

     

     

     
     

     
     

     

  • Tue
    16
    Feb
    2016

    Glassbeam, a machine data analytics company, has introduced two product enhancements for the IoT analytics market.  The new capabilities are aimed at automating the transformation of unstructured machine data into business insights and also providing a lighter footprint for Glassbeam at the edge.

    According to the vendor, the opportunity presented by IoT analytics is the ability to transform and act on new machine information in real time. However, what is needed to make that opportunity a reality better data transformation and analytics tools. 

    Glassbeam Studio is a data transformation and preparation tool focused on automating the manual work required to convert unstructured, raw machine log data into actionable information.

    It provides a drag-and-drop interface that allows users to model and transform any kind of log format complexity. The solution can help improve IoT analytics by reducing the time it takes to design, implement, and maintain an end-to-end IoT solution by a factor of 100x, according to the vendor.

    A second solution, Glassbeam Edge offersIoT analytics at the edge through a platform that enables device manufacturers to perform mission-critical activity without dealing with the costs or latency involved in sending data back to a central cloud.

    The availability of edge computing capabilities through a lightweight version of its platform that ingests, parses, and analyzes unstructured data in close proximity to the actual device is intended to decrease the costs and delays involved in sending large quantities of data back to centralized data centers. According to Glassbeam, these capabilities are particularly useful for high growth IoT areas such as predictive maintenance in smart grids, the oil and gas sector, and power generation.

    The two products, Glassbeam Studio and Edge, alleviate two of the biggest pain points in the IoT industry, according to Puneet Pandit, co-founder and CEO of Glassbeam. With the additional capabilities, he noted, the platform now has “the most complete set of functionality for tackling the most daunting analytics challenges for machine data.”

    Glassbeam, a partner of ThingWorx Ready program, will also be working closely with ThingWorx Machine Learning platform to take advantage of the functionality of Glassbeam Studio and reduce time to draw insights in machine learning projects.  According to Glassbeam, by some industry estimates, more than 60% of time in a typical machine learning project is spent in data preparation and transformation before any meaningful analysis can be performed, and particularly an issue for machine learning projects with unstructured log data where data scientists’ valuable time is spent on mundane repetitive tasks as opposed to building valuable models and predictions. 

    For more information, visit www.glassbeam.com.

    http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/News-Flashes/Glassbeam-Introduces-Data-Transformation-and-Edge-Computing-Capabilities-for-IoT-109122.aspx

     

     

     

     
     

     
     

     

  • Fri
    19
    Feb
    2016

    Editor-in-Chief, Dr. M.R. Pamidi has published a new IT Newswire article highlighting the technologies employed by C3DNA. Click here to view.

     

     
     

     

  • Mon
    22
    Feb
    2016

    It looks like 2016 will indeed be the year when IoT will come into its own. To use a Wall Street term, every market signal is flashing a ‘Strong Buy’. All indicators, including market size, use cases, valuation, M&A, number of job postings, number of analysts covering the space, etc., point to an exponential growth in IoT in 2016. Further, most of the industry analysis confirms that the greatest driver of value will be deep analytics on data – with the other pieces: connectivity, instrumentation, bandwidth, and others becoming highly commoditized or being given away for free. And that is why it’s a great time to be at Glassbeam – one of the fastest growing IoT startups in the Silicon Valley. 

    For those unfamiliar with Glassbeam, it is an IoT Analytics company based in the Silicon Valley that I co-founded with Puneet Pandit in 2009. Our mission is simple, yet powerful: to derive structure and meaning from complex, unstructured machine data generated from IoT-connected devices, and to present these findings through an actionable UI that provides immediate and compelling benefits for numerous operational ideas: Support, Engineering, Product Management and Services.

    In the course of our journey, we developed our patent-pending language – Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL). SPL is the industry’s first ever tool to truly apply Semiotics – the science of assigning meaning and structure – to complex unstructured data. SPL made it 10X faster to convert unstructured data to a structured format as compared to existing tools like ETLs. However, we did have to utilize our professional services arm to engage with customers to author SPLs as the process required technical skills.

    Now, recently announced 'GLASSBEAM STUDIO' takes this process into a newer orbit by automating the process of creating SPL. With merely a few clicks, technical or non-technical users, can instantly model even the most dauntingly unstructured data, transform it into usable format, and prepare it for analysis and for display inside visualization tools. What was 10X faster is now 100X faster! This will have a material impact on the IoT Analytics industry. This innovation is game-changing because today Terabytes of data that contain a veritable goldmine of information are simply being discarded because there is simply no cost-effective way to transform the data. Glassbeam is breaking a new frontier with this innovation as now all this unstructured data can be parsed and analyzed, and will come into play for Analysis. Our team has deep pedigree in this space and many person-years of effort has gone into building this highly differentiated, infinitely scalable, and extremely powerful Analytics platform.

    Here are the basic building blocks on which Studio is built:

    We’ve built Studio with the philosophy of creating a holistic, IDE-like, platform that can be used to seamlessly transform unstructured log. Some of my favorite features include the versatile SPL editor, and the ability to transpose rows and columns to effectively model the data. The output of Studio is prepared data, and this prepared data has numerous ‘upstream’ applications - for example, setting up sophisticated Complex Event Processing (CEP) (same as ‘Rules and Alerts’) models that can capture and act upon anomalous conditions.  This transformed data can also be fed into leading visualization applications like Tableau and ThingWorx composer.

    Close on the heels of the Studio announcement, Glassbeam is unveiling another powerful capability – Glassbeam Edge – that offers state-of-the-art Analytics close to the actual IoT device. So, industries with assets in far-flung geographical areas like Oil/Gas, Mining, etc. don’t need to fret anymore about the ‘data center roundtrip’ that generated data often has to take. Timely, information-driven decisions can be taken in close physical proximity to the device; and voluminous data can be sent back to the cloud for deeper inspection using advanced machine learning algorithms (Glassbeam integrates well with ThingWorx Machine Learning).  Using sophisticated peer-to-core and peer-to-peer protocols, and the ability to periodically push critical findings to the edge, we have created a very compelling and economically-viable architecture for distributing the data analytics workload between the edge and the cloud.

    Here are key elements of Glassbeam’s edge capabilities:

    Please visit www.glassbeam.com to learn more. I am sure you will be as thrilled as I am.

     
     

     

  • Mon
    07
    Mar
    2016

    Impact Report

    By Jason Stamper

    The machine data analytics firm is focused on Internet of Things use cases, and claims that its two new releases can dramatically accelerate application development times, helping businesses get their IoT projects off the ground faster.

    https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=88287

     

     

     

     

     

  • Thu
    17
    Mar
    2016

    • An interview with Rao Mikkilineni, co-founder & Interim CEO for C3DNA, startup currently in Cisco EIR cohort 3.  By: Sarah Nguyen 

     

    • C3DNA aims to change the entire cloud computing vendor landscape. Their platform brings one-click automation and end-to-end Application Lifecycle Management to the datacenter. In this interview, Rao Mikkilineni, co-founder & Interim CEO for C3DNA, delves into the complexity of cloud management systems.

    What is C3DNA’s founding story? What problem were you trying to solve?

    The adoption of virtualization and cloud computing began to address application scaling and tolerance to fluctuations in both workloads and availability of resources. But orchestrating the required infrastructure across distributed resource pools operated and managed by different providers is not scalable without increasing complexity and cost.

    We started looking at how to decouple applications from the underlying infrastructure. Alan Turing himself suggested a solution in the form of the Turing Oracle machine. We used this concept to infuse cognition into the Turing Machine and make the applications self-managing. This architecture was a major breakthrough in computer science that not only addresses cloud management complexity, but also solves fundamental issues with concurrence, synchronization, mobility, and other distributed computing problems.

    Our product provides an order of magnitude improvement in managing legacy and new applications.

    Do you have any direct competitors?

    We don’t have any direct competitors but a few organizations are working on or offer a partial solution. Here is what Dr. M. R. Pamidi, Editor-in-Chief of IT Newswire, wrote about C3DNA “To say we are very impressed with C3DNA’s product and technology is an understatement. The company’s innovative and imaginative team has come up with a unique solution that could change the entire cloud computing vendor landscape. As one industry analyst put it, C3DNA is Uber-ifying this industry that could spell the end for many vendors still fighting IaaS, PaaS, SaaS…wars.”

    You’ve recently partnered with Tech Mahindra to distribute “Cloud Equalizer” Platform in Japan. What can we expect from this alliance?

    Using C3DNA’s Smart discovery agent, Tech Mahindra customers can discover, profile, and migrate any distributed application, including filesystems and databases, to any public, private, or hybrid cloud without changing the application, OS, or re-architecting the application to become cloud native.

    In addition, they can configure, monitor and control any distributed application to optimize its availability, performance, security, and compliance within or across private, public, or hybrid clouds, independent of what infrastructure they have deployed.

    What are your goals while in Cisco EIR?

    In the near future, we hope to provide Cisco with competitive differentiation with our technology that has a wide range of applications beyond current cloud-agnostic services deployment and management.

    What is your #1 advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs?

    There are two types of innovation: Kaizen and Disruptive Innovation. “Kaizen” is the means of continuous improvement that provides incremental benefits. Disruptive Innovation changes the current state of the art and provides orders of magnitude improvements. It’s important to choose your path because they require different vision, VCs, and expertise.

    The first approach requires domain knowledge in the particular areas where you can provide improved solutions. The second requires a wide mastery in many areas that allows you to visualize a future that is not visible from the current state of the art. It is said that a great sculptor does not see a stone but visualizes how and where that stone fits as a sculpture.

    What does C3DNA stand for?

    The three ‘C’s are for Cognition, Computing, and Communications. The ‘3’ stands for the three steps in the process: application ‘DNA’ captured by C3DNA (policies, components, configuration, and workflow); the distributed DNA application control platform that interprets application DNA; and the agent-based mechanism that encapsulates and delivers this. DNA is DIME Network Architecture. This new computing model was presented first in the Turing Centenary Conference held in Manchester in 2012.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tue
    19
    Apr
    2016

    Dave and Rick, Both Ex-PTC Executives, Bring Tremendous Strategic and Operational Experience in the Internet of Things (IoT) Industry to Glassbeam

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 19, 2016) -  Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, announced two significant additions to its core management and advisory team: Dave Westrom, former SVP of Business Development at ThingWorx (a division of PTC), is joining Glassbeam's Executive Team as SVP Business Development to drive channel and strategic partnerships and Rick Bullotta, co-founder and CTO of ThingWorx, is joining the Glassbeam Advisory Board.

    Glassbeam is focused on helping leading product manufacturers build truly connected products by providing business intelligence gleaned from a detailed analysis of complex machine data. Glassbeam's unique data transformation technology ingests, parses and analyzes data 100 times faster than competing tools or homegrown solutions. These new additions to the Glassbeam team will help drive momentum for Glassbeam and Glassbeam partners in the IoT industry. 

    Rick and Dave are joining the team at a major upward inflection point in the IoT industry. Corporations across many industries are looking to connect their products to ubiquitous IoT networks with a view of understanding their customers much more intimately and are using IoT analytics to transform virtually every business process. Their addition to the Glassbeam team is expected to catalyze significant growth and mindshare expansion for Glassbeam.

    "Glassbeam is one of the most exciting Analytics companies in a white-hot IoT industry," says Rick. "They have a very well-rounded engineering and technical team and have built significant IP in the space. The newly added Edge offering is another testament to the company's ability to build products closely aligned with the realities of the Industrial IoT space."

    "I am thoroughly impressed by Glassbeam's growth and momentum in the IoT marketplace," comments Dave. "They have an impressive list of customers and partners and are regularly featured by Analysts as one of the most promising companies in the space. Their products are perfectly aligned with the needs of a burgeoning IoT marketplace that desperately needs an easy way to handle complex data."

    "Dave and Rick bring a wealth of experience and expertise in the IoT industry to Glassbeam," says Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam. "They are expected to be key drivers for our growth strategy both from a technical and business standpoint and we stand to immensely benefit from all the capabilities they bring to the table. We look forward to a new era of growth with these significant additions to our team."

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected device in IoT industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, EMC, Aruba Networks, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/glassbeam-adds-iot-veterans-dave-140000922.html

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Wed
    04
    May
    2016

    “PowWow Mobile allows enterprises to design new mobile experiences for their customers and employees, and deliver them as native mobile apps rapidly across multiple mobile platforms.” -Gartner Cool Vendor Report, Mobile App Development Report, 2016

    What makes us cool?

    PowWow Mobile has a disruptive, new approach to mobilizing the enterprise. SmartUX is purpose-built to accelerate the “re-invention” of mobile enterprise applications by creating new, native mobile apps from any web or Windows app in your portfolio, quickly without sacrificing quality, and within a budget that business and IT can agree on. 

    Kick start a great user experience with modern smart features for greater happiness and productivity for all.

    "PowWow Mobile allows enterprises to design new mobile experiences for their customers and employees, and deliver them as native mobile apps rapidly across multiple mobile platforms. Enterprises may use PowWow as an alternative to traditional mobile development or other delivery methods like VDI in order to reduce delivery times, and provide a native mobile experience for applications."

    -Gartner, Analysis by Van Baker

    http://www.powwowmobile.com/gartner-cool-vendor-powwow-mobile-2016

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Mon
    06
    Jun
    2016

    "Powered by ThingWorx" Agreement Unleashes New Synergies for Connected Product Manufacturers

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 6, 2016) - Glassbeam, Inc., a premier machine data analytics company, today announced a new technology and distribution partner agreement with PTC, a market leader in the IoT industry. Glassbeam has signed on to become a "Powered by ThingWorx" OEM partner of PTC to address a significant industry pain point -- the ability to transform unstructured machine data to drive complex machine learning and real-time advanced analytics for manufacturers of connected products.

    Traditional analytics associated with connected products and machines has focused on structured sensor data. While providing value, emphasis on sensor data alone ignores the significant business intelligence that can be gleaned by effective ingestion, parsing and analysis of unstructured machine data. The combined solution enables product manufacturers to effectively mine their machine data and uncover findings that can materially alter the economics of building, marketing and supporting connected products.

    As part of the collaboration, Glassbeam has integrated its core set of adaptors and data transformation engine with the ThingWorx® IoT Platform and ThingWorx® Analytics -- thereby providing a holistic, end-to-end application for building truly connected products. This combined solution is already being deployed at joint customers in the medical devices, smart grid, storage and data center industries to dramatically improve support and engineering operations.

    "Historically, the industry has operated as if unstructured data generated from connected products is too complex to ingest and analyze on account of its sheer heterogeneity," said John Stuart, Divisional Vice President, ThingWorx Partner Development, PTC. "Glassbeam's transformation and Analytics engine dramatically simplifies the process of analyzing unstructured data, and this collaboration opens up numerous new markets and opportunities for PTC in the IoT space."

    "Offering world-class Customer Service in the IoT era requires a comprehensive and scalable Analytics platform that is well-integrated with our existing Support workflow," states Brett Flinchum, VP of Global Customer Success at Springpath. "Glassbeam is the first Complex Machine Logs Analytics platform that has true credentials in transforming unstructured data into actionable information for our support organization."

    "I have been impressed by Glassbeam's capabilities and pedigree right since the moment I began following the company," said Glen Allmendinger at Harbor Research. "This initiative with PTC is another natural, yet impressive, step in the company's growth trajectory and I think the joint offering will offer tremendous value to the entire IoT industry."

    "We cannot think of a more beneficial and synergistic offering for effective analysis of complex unstructured data that is typically generated in log files," said Puneet Pandit, CEO of Glassbeam. "In a short time since the integration, and with near-zero marketing or evangelism, we have seen tremendous customer interest in the market in this exciting end-to-end offering by PTC and Glassbeam."

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the IoT industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, EMC, Springpath, Gridscape, Aruba Networks, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    PTC and ThingWorx are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

    Contact Information

    Chris Kuntz
    VP of Marketing
    Glassbeam
    Email Contact

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/glassbeam-partners-with-ptc-address-large-untapped-iot-market-machine-data-analytics-2131631.htm 

    Congratulations to Glassbeam for winning ThingWorx Ready Partner of the Year.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tue
    07
    Jun
    2016

    Glassbeam Machine Data Analytics Platform, Powered by ThingWorx, Transforms Springpath Support Group Operations, Leveraging Machine Learning to Offer Enhanced Serviceability

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 7, 2016) - Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, today announced that Springpath, the pioneer in hyperconvergence software, has chosen the Glassbeam platform to provide advanced machine data analytics and real-time intelligence for its support organization.

    Springpath offers the industry's first subscription-based data platform for the Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) industry that transforms standard servers into a single pool of computing and storage resources that scale elastically. The Springpath Data Platform enables organizations to become more agile through IT infrastructure automation, eliminating storage siloes and reducing the cost of data center modernization.

    Spring path is using Glassbeam to provide real-time analytics on key operational parameters across the systems it supports, allowing them to offer effective and efficient serviceability for their customers. Using Glassbeam, Springpath's support organization can easily monitor an entire hyper converged infrastructure system for potential problems, and monitor threshold conditions through Glassbeam's Rules and Alerts application to ensure that support teams can preempt incidences of downtime by proactively addressing potential causes of malfunction. Springpath is also leveraging Glassbeam Machine Learning to predict critical events like disk failures, thereby greatly enhancing the ability of its Support team to preempt all downtime incidents.

    "Offering world-class Customer Service in the IoT era requires a comprehensive and scalable Analytics platform that is well-integrated with our existing Support workflow," states Brett Flinchum, VP of Global Customer Success at Springpath. "Glassbeam is the first Complex Machine Logs Analytics platform that has true credentials in transforming unstructured data into actionable information for our support organization."

    The Glassbeam platform provides Springpath with the ability to ingest, parse, and analyze data stored across a disparate HCI technology stack -- data that is critical to providing insight for support personnel. Glassbeam's unique data transformation and preparation engine can easily convert even the most complex machine data into structured and meaningful formats. This structured data can then be presented through multiple Glassbeam applications including interactive dashboard reports to get visibility into every operational parameter of the HCI system.

    "HCI and IoT machine data analytics are two important trends in the technology industry today," said Puneet Pandit, CEO and Founder of Glassbeam. "By using machine data analytics from the Glassbeam, Springpath is again differentiating itself as the pioneer in the HCI industry. Glassbeam has helped them transform the operations of their support group, resulting in a positive impact on virtually every success metric -- customer satisfaction, support costs, services revenue streams, and more."

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the IoT industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, EMC, Springpath, Gridscape, Aruba Networks, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    About Springpath

    Springpath is the pioneer in hyperconvergence software, turning standard servers of choice into a single pool of compute and storage resources. The Springpath Data Platform eliminates the need for network storage and intuitively integrates into existing management tools to maximize operational efficiency. Using adaptive scaling capabilities, customers can grow compute, caching or capacity resources independently, depending on their changing business needs. Springpath proactively monitors your infrastructure to ensure resilient, always-on availability. Using data management and optimization capabilities, Springpath customers experience transformative levels of resource utilization, accelerating the adoption of DevOps in their organization with truly agile IT infrastructure. For more information, visit www.springpathinc.com or follow us on Twitter @SpringpathInc.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tue
    28
    Jun
    2016

    Featured Meetup

    Practice migrating your apps to ANY cloud on demand with 0 downtime using C3DNA

    • Thursday, July 28, 2016

      to

    • 450 Post Street, San Francisco, CA (map)

      37.788212-122.409241
    • Practice migrating your apps to any cloud on demand with 0 downtime using C3DNA and CenturyLink!

      Are you interested in learning practicing how to migrate your apps to any cloud on demand with 0 downtime?  Do you want to learn how to do things like scale IaaS and intelligently move your apps around by using portable, self-managed apps and policy-driven automation?  Do you want to practice multi-cloud automation?  If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, join your fellow cloud enthusiasts at the CenturyLink Bay Area User Group technical meet up on Wednesday, July 28 from 4pm to 7pm at the luxurious Elks Lodge #3 in downtown San Francisco for food, drinks and hands on, technical exercises to practice migrating your apps to any cloud on demand with 0 downtime.

      What will I practice at this event?

      Bring your laptop to learn and practice:

      •  How to automatically deploy workloads to multiple public clouds How to use an application focused cloud operations platform

      • Migrate your apps between multiple clouds on demand with zero downtime

      • At the end of this event you will have a better understanding of how using portable, self-managing applications can provide flexibility, resiliency, scalability and allows any app to be operated anywhere.

      What business problems does this solve?

      Freedom for developers - Allow developers to focus on what they do best without having to worry about certain architectural constraints, multiple layers of orchestration or platform specific programming Rapid time to value - Migrate your legacy apps and endow them with cloud like features: app mobility, scaling up/down, availability, performance and security standards across multiple clouds Visibility and Control - Use a single pane of glass to manage, monitor and control operations of your apps, including performance data Cost reduction - Enable infrastructure-agnostic and cloud independent, distributed workloads on monthly billed platforms.  Reduce the need for multiple orchestration solutions. Business Continuity - Policy driven orchestration to move your apps on demand to reduce risk and maintain availability

      Join us to learn how to demonstrate how your apps can run and scale on demand on any infrastructure, all  under your complete control.

      CloudWalk Agenda and Lesson Plan:

      4:00 - 4:30pm - Arrive, Food, Drinks and Conversation

      4:30 - 5:30pm - CenturyLink Cloud Platformoverview with hands-on Exercises: Create an environment and deploy applications through automation inside CenturyLink Cloud 

      5:30 - 6:30pm - C3DNAoverview with hands-on Exercises: Migrate your apps to multiple clouds on demand with zero downtime 

      6:30 - 7:00pm - Q&A, Networking, Raffle 

      For more details please follow:

      http://www.meetup.com/CenturyLink-BayArea-Users-Group/events/232304100/

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Mon
    25
    Jul
    2016

    Rao Mikkilineni, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, C3DNA

    “In recent history, the basis of telephone company value has been the sharing of scarce resources — wires, switches, etc. – to create premium-priced services. Over the last few years, glass fibers have gotten clearer, lasers are faster and cheaper, and processors have become many orders of magnitude more capable and available. In other words, the scarcity assumption has disappeared, which poses a challenge to the telcos’ “Intelligent Network” model. A new type of open, flexible communications infrastructure, the “Stupid Network,” is poised to deliver increased user control, more innovation, and greater value.” - Isenberg, D. S., (1998). “The dawn of the stupid network”. ACM netWorker 2, 1, 24-31.

    Intelligent Applications and Dumb Infrastructure

    Much has changed since the late 90’s that drove the Telco companies to essentially abandon their drive for supremacy in the intelligent services creation, delivery, and assurance business and take a back seat in the information services market to manage the ‘stupid network’ that merely carries the information services. You only have to look at the demise of major R&D companies such as AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent, Nortel, Alcatel and the rise of a new generation of services platforms from Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Oracle, and Microsoft to notice the sea change that has occurred in a short span of time. The data center has replaced the central office to become the hub from which myriad voice, video, and data services are created and delivered on a global scale.

    However, today it can equally be said that the basis for current generation data center value has been the sharing of scarce and expensive resources - CPU, memory, network bandwidth, latency tolerance, and storage IOPs, throughput and capacity - to create premium priced applications with high quality of service (QoS) dealing with availability, performance, and security with compliance constraints. Over the last decade, the availability of commodity computing infrastructure (multi-core servers, server, and network virtualization technology and cheaper virtual storage etc.) in the form of clouds, the scarcity assumption has disappeared, which poses a challenge to the current "data center" model.

    If the cloud providers can deliver the same QoS using the shared commodity resources, the scales of economy will make application creation, delivery, and QoS assurance more efficient, scalable, and tolerant to fluctuations in both workloads and user experience constraints.

    The cloud providers recognize this and are on a race to out-compete with each other to bring the same services in their clouds. While Amazon had a first strike advantage and has created a competitive differentiation with a variety of services to address the non-functional requirements dealing with application QoS, and decouple application development (functional requirement fulfillment using computing functions, workflows and processes) others are catching up to duplicate similar services. This has led to cloud islands and the choice between dreaded vendor lock-in or complexity of using different clouds (private, public, or hybrid) with a plethora of tools, point solutions, and their perpetual integration costs.

    Déjà vu

    The story of service islands and their eventual integration with interoperability to improve exponentially the efficiency through scales of economy while fostering competition has played out before in the evolution of telephone networks, the Internet, and voice over IP (VOIP). As technology has progressed, the interoperability framework has moved from hardware solutions in telephony (SS7, STP, SCP, etc.) to pure software solutions based on virtualization. As infrastructure becomes a commodity, most cloud providers are forced to provide other services that facilitate the migration of existing applications to the cloud and attempt to provide the same QoS that they are accustomed to in current data centers through availability, security, mobility, and compliance zones within their sphere of influence.

    This is done through optimizing their infrastructure and hiding the complexity through a Platform-as-a-Service(PaaS). However, as competing cloud providers offer their own differentiating PaaS, the cloud consumers are left with complexity of choice, innovation chaos, and perpetual integration cost. Telephone companies who have gone through this exercise before know the value of interoperable islands without proprietary lock-in. They also know that they have the global network connectivity that is essential to provide that interoperability which any cloud provider has to either leverage or build their own (like Google has).

    CenturyLink is Pointing to a New Direction with Cloud Agnostic Computing and Interoperable Cloud Solutions

    CenturyLink with a pedigree from both telecommunications and data centers seems to have realized this advantage and has gone from offering a competing cloud with similar features as any other cloud provider to providing interoperability among multiple clouds using their expertise in computing (data centers and managed services) and communications (network services). They are extending the application availability, security, mobility, and compliance zones with a policy based application management framework that spans across multiple clouds only using different provisioning processes offered by the competing cloud providers.

    In addition, they also eliminate the need to orchestrate or move virtual machine images in order to provide cloud interoperability. This eliminates the need for a plethora of point solutions and tools. It also eliminates the need for cloud consumers to depend on non-functional requirement fulfillment using different PaaS offerings. The application management framework that CenturyLink offers was recently shared at a Cloudwalk event in San Francisco. This technology uses provisioning of virtual machines in different clouds (including CenturyLink Cloud) and provides availability zones across clouds where applications (using web servers, application managers, and databases) can be migrated to fulfill both recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives with zero down time.

    The novelty of this approach seems to put on an equal footing both stateful and stateless application components and eliminates the need for cloud native computing. Applications are treated as cloud agnostic and require no changes to the application or the operating system on which they are executed. Furthermore, no changes to infrastructure provisioning processes are required. As long as the operating system is the same in the source and target execution venues (containers, VMs, or physical servers), applications can be deployed and moved across any cloud with their framework. The cloud providers are used as mere commodity infrastructure providers on a global scale with application interoperability and QoS assurance.

    Are Cloud Agnostic Computing and Interoperable Clouds Finally Here?

    The message to cloud consumers seems to be "instead of managing clouds with myriad cloud management platforms, start managing your applications on any cloud using a policy-based cloud application management platform."

    It's worth finding out for yourselves.

    Learn More

    Blog: Migrate Your Apps to any Cloud With Zero Downtime Using C3DNA

    Solutions: Transform Your Business with Hosted Applications in the Cloud

    Getting Started Knowledge Base: Getting Started with C3DNA Appliance on CenturyLink Cloud

    https://www.ctl.io/developers/blog/post/exploring-cloud-agnostic-computing-and-interoperable-clouds

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Wed
    27
    Jul
    2016
  • Thu
    10
    Nov
    2016

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 10, 2016) - Glassbeam, Inc., the machine data analytics company, today announced it has launched Glassbeam Analytics on the Salesforce AppExchange, empowering product manufacturers by providing business intelligence gleaned from a detailed analysis of complex machine log data. Glassbeam Analytics allows service, support, product development and sales organizations to proactively act on real-time inputs from IoT-connected devices to improve support and service, delivering a new level of customer success.

    Glassbeam is focused on helping leading product manufacturers build truly connected products and improved customer experiences by providing business intelligence gleaned from a detailed analysis of complex machine data. Glassbeam Analytics for Salesforce allows companies to gain valuable insight into machine health, status and customer intelligence through the use of Glassbeam's big data transformation and ingestion engine, converting complex machine log data into business insights that can be used by service and support organizations -- all through the familiar Salesforce user interface.

    Built on the Salesforce App Cloud, Glassbeam Analytics is currently available on the AppExchange at https://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EO7RWUA1.

    Glassbeam Analytics Key Benefits:

    • Transform support operations through proactive service, automatic ticket creation based on patterns in incoming log file data, predictive maintenance and implementation of anomaly detection within Glassbeam Analytics to create appropriate workflows (service requests, Chatter updates, comments) in the Salesforce Service Cloud.
    • Build insight-driven product roadmaps based on install base analytics, correlating customer relationship data with product usage characteristics and make informed product decisions on product releases and feature upgrades.
    • Gain valuable customer intelligence and deliver value-add services with a 360-degree customer view by combining CRM data with machine data analytics. Create new value-added offerings for end-customers through improved equipment utilization and user experience.

    Comments on the News

    • "Machine log files represent a gold mine for uncovering the unfiltered truth on machine health, status and insight into how customers are using connected products," said Glassbeam founder and CEO Puneet Pandit. "Unfortunately up until now, these logs only come to the forefront tactically when accessed by tech support engineers to solve issues but afterwards they get shoved in the dark and remain hidden from normal view. Glassbeam Analytics for Salesforce is a key enabler for shining light on this dark data."
    • "Companies are looking to transform the way they connect with customers, partners and employees to thrive in the age of the customer," said Todd Surdey, SVP, app innovation partner sales, Salesforce. "By leveraging the power of the Salesforce App Cloud, Glassbeam provides companies with an exciting new way to drive customer success with the Internet of Things."

    About Salesforce AppExchange
    Salesforce AppExchange is the world's leading enterprise apps marketplace that empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage in entirely new ways. With 3,000 partner apps and more than 4 million customer installs, it is the most comprehensive source of cloud, mobile, social, IoT and data science technologies for businesses.

    Additional Resources

    Salesforce, App Cloud, AppExchange, Service Cloud and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is a premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, EMC, Springpath, Gridscape, Aruba Networks, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    http://sports.yahoo.com/news/glassbeam-announces-glassbeam-analytics-salesforce-140000438.html

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tue
    20
    Dec
    2016

    Glassbeam Machine Data Analytics platform improves operational efficiency and serviceability of Formation Data Systems FormationOne Software-Defined Storage Solution

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 20, 2016) -  Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, today announced that Formation Data Systems, a leader in modern enterprise storage technology, has chosen Glassbeam Analytics to provide advanced machine data analytics and real-time intelligence for its support organization.

    Formation Data Systems' mission is to help IT organizations realize the transformative benefits of modern storage technology. Formation has delivered the revolutionary FormationOne™ Dynamic Storage Platform that combines the agility, flexibility and simplicity of public cloud web-scale approaches with the control, security and customization capabilities of private datacenter storage. Formation Data Systems plans to increase the efficiency of its support team using Glassbeam to provide proactive and predictive maintenance to further enhance the serviceability of the FormationOne Enterprise Storage Solution.

    "Our ability to improve uptime and provide proactive support is critical to the ongoing success and growth of our FormationOne platform," stated Rick Walsworth, VP Marketing of Formation Data Systems. "Glassbeam is a critical piece of this solution for us. Its ability to quickly translate and run analytics on our systems log data enhances the Formation Telemetry, Alerting and Bundling Service (TABS) capability, giving our customers meaningful business insights that were previously difficult to extract."

    Glassbeam's cloud-based platform provides Formation Data Systems with the ability to ingest, parse, and analyze call home logs data from FormationOne System -- data that is critical to providing insight for proactive support. Glassbeam's unique data transformation and preparation engine can easily convert even the most complex machine data into structured and meaningful formats, aggregate it at customer, domain and volume levels, as well as execute rule-based triggers for alerting anomalous data patterns. This structured data can then be presented through multiple Glassbeam applications including interactive dashboard reports, allowing Formation Data System's support and executive teams to monitor systems operations and gain critical, measurable insights into every operational parameter of the FormationOne system.

    "Formation Data Systems has transformed enterprise storage through modern and innovative approaches to storage," said Puneet Pandit, CEO and Founder of Glassbeam. "By using machine data analytics from the Glassbeam, Formation Data Systems is again differentiating itself with increase uptime and proactive support. Glassbeam is helping them transform the operations of their support group, allowing the company to scale as their business grows."

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the IoT industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, EMC, Springpath, Gridscape, Aruba Networks, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    About Formation Data Systems
    Formation Data Systems' mission is to help IT organizations realize the transformative benefits of modern storage technology. Formation has delivered the revolutionary FormationOne™ Dynamic Storage Platform that combines the agility, flexibility and simplicity of public cloud web-scale approaches with the control, security and customization capabilities of private datacenter storage. FormationOne has been built for Enterprise IT, SaaS application providers, and service providers, seeking ways to transform the agility and economics of their storage and data management environment. The platform is generally available. Go to http://www.formationds.com for more information.

    http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/formation-data-selects-glassbeam-iot-analytics-improve-efficiency-its-support-organization-2184573.htm

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Thu
    12
    Jan
    2017

    SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 12, 2017) - Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, has announced support for Tableau 10, providing users with enhanced data mashup, visualization, and dashboard authoring capabilities for solutions built with Glassbeam IoT Analytics.

    Since the launch of its cloud-based analytics service, Glassbeam, a Tableau OEM partner, has supported integration with Tableau on top of the Glassbeam platform to facilitate high performance analysis of machine data relevant to business operations across the enterprise, including customer support and product management. With the release of Tableau 10, Glassbeam is expanding this integration by offering enhanced data-mashup capabilities, interactive dashboards, and improved visualization benefits for users of Glassbeam.

    "Glassbeam's solution, powered by Tableau, represents an innovative application of Tableau for the emerging Internet of Things industry," stated Stephanie Richardson, Director of Product Marketing at Tableau. "The combination of Glassbeam and Tableau offers a powerful solution for joint customers to collect, process, and analyze data generated from connected machines."

    With the ease of a cloud-based service, Glassbeam provides the ability to ingest, parse, and analyze machine generated data from IoT connected devices. Glassbeam's unique data transformation and preparation engine can easily convert even the most complex machine data into structured and meaningful formats. This structured data can then be presented through multiple Glassbeam applications using Tableau. These new features in Tableau 10, combined with Glassbeam's innovative analytics capabilities, helps businesses build state-of-the-art products, make support groups profitable and unleash new revenue streams.

    "This latest release of Glassbeam, with support for Tableau 10 provides a powerful combination of machine data analytics and top-notch data visualization," stated Puneet Pandit, CEO and Founder of Glassbeam. "Through our partnership with Tableau, we are pleased to be able to offer this improved functionality to our customers."

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the IoT industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, EMC, Springpath, Gridscape, Aruba Networks, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/glassbeam-announces-support-tableau-10-140000940.html

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Wed
    22
    Mar
    2017

    SmartUX 5.0 simplifies collaboration between IT and Business teams with pre-built app templates, role-based access control and end-to-end suite of mobile app analytics

    SAN FRANCISCO, March 22, 2017 /PRWeb/ —  PowWow Mobile, the leading enterprise mobility platform that allows companies to deliver powerful, modern native mobile apps quickly, simply and economically, today announced the latest release of its SmartUX™ Platform version 5.0. The new enhancements will simplify collaboration between IT and business teams through new levels of speed, visibility and controls.

    SmartUX 5.0 is the most powerful platform for the rapid design and deployment of enterprise mobile apps. The enhanced platform features include pre-built micro-app and universal app templates to accelerate the creation of mobile app projects and role-based permissions that provide individual users or departments with access to projects, as well as preview and sharing of apps with specific teams. In addition, SmartUX 5.0 will provide users with the new SmartUX™ Dashboard, an end-to-end suite of analytics and performance monitoring for apps built on the SmartUX Platform.

    “Improving the way that employees share and collaborate on mobile app development, as well as access to critical analytics on how apps are being used, represent a key and very welcome area of improvement in PowWow Mobile’s SmartUX 5.0 release,” said Adam Holtby, research analyst, enterprise mobility and productivity, Ovum Research. “Mobility, and particularly mobile apps are a valuable element of digital transformation efforts. For organizations, being able to identify the habits and usage patterns associated with mobile apps will be important in reporting on how mobility initiatives are contributing to broader digital transformation objectives.“

    The SmartUX Platform 5.0 Features: 

    Micro-App Templates and Universal App Templates – New app templates deliver the ultimate experience in speed and productivity. Micro-app templates allow for rapid mobile enablement of common organizational workflows including employee timecards, multi-system approvals and corporate directories. Universal templates provide a more granular set of pre-built interfaces that are commonly used in all apps such as login, list view, calendars, shopping carts, etc. These templates can easily be dropped into new or existing SmartUX projects.

    When building an app that leverages an existing application, the universal template also maintains the current data model of the source application such as SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. This capability further accelerates the development of mobile apps, alleviating the need to re-map the existing application data to the new mobile app.

    SmartUX Dashboard – SmartUX Dashboard is an advanced analytics suite that provides users with comprehensive real-time and historical insights into the adoption, usage and performance of enterprise mobile apps deployed with the SmartUX Platform.

    Role Based Permissions – Support collaborative development across multiple departments and projects, allowing for centralized access control and project visibility. With the new collaboration functions in SmartUX 5.0, business units have the ability to innovate while still giving IT the control and security they need.

    PowWow Mobile disrupts the speed, complexity and economics commonly associated with delivering productivity enhancing apps to an increasingly mobile-first workforce. The PowWow SmartUX™ Platform accelerates mobile app development by transforming existing Windows, web and Java applications and workflows into modern mobile experiences or; by creating net new apps that connect to any third-party data source, API or SQL. With PowWow Mobile, users can easily design and deploy personalized, intelligent and secure apps that run anywhere, on any device (PC, laptop, tablet, phone or watch) and any OS (iOS, Android, Windows 10, or HTML5). 

    “The goal of the Smart UX 5.0 release is to provide our customers with a solution that not only breaks down complex processes that occur with app development, but one that breaks down the barriers that commonly exist between IT and business users,” said Jonathan Kaplan, co-founder and chief technology officer, PowWow Mobile. “We want to provide our technical and non-technical users with platform enhancements that drive collaboration in a simple-to-use environment for a streamlined experience when developing business apps. We also want to empower all users by providing real-time actionable analytics into how their apps are performing so they can quickly and easily make adjustments and meet expectations.”

    For more information about PowWow Mobile’s SmartUX Platform 5.0 visit https://powwowmobile.com/smartux-5/

    About PowWow Mobile

    PowWow Mobile allows enterprises to transform business applications into modern, mobile app experiences. PowWow Mobile eliminates business-IT friction as enterprises seek competitive advantage and increased productivity through mobile for today’s digital workplace. Our SmartUX Platform accelerates enterprise application transformation by creating new, native mobile apps from any web or Windows app, quickly without sacrificing quality, and at a lower cost than custom solutions or other tools. PowWow Mobile works with customers across industries, including financial services, healthcare, telecom, software, consulting and public sector. PowWow Mobile is based in San Francisco. Learn more at www.powwowmobile.com

    Contact

    Kristen H. Rachels

    PowWow Mobile

    594 Howard Street, Suite 301

    San Francisco, CA 94105

    Telephone: +1.678.575.4167

    Email: kristen.rachels@powwowmobile.com

    https://powwowmobile.com/press-releases/enterprise-mobility-leader-powwow-mobile-unveils-powerful-new-enhancements-to-its-smartux-platform/?utm_source=monthly%20newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-032017

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Mon
    27
    Mar
    2017
  • Mon
    03
    Apr
    2017

    Glassbeam wins IoT Excellence Award for our solution.

    By IoTEvolutionWorld News April 03, 2017

    Trumbull, CT, April 3, 2017 — TMC, a global, integrated media company helping clients build communities in print, in person and online, announced today the winners of the 2016 IoT Evolution IoT Excellence Award, presented by TMC and Crossfire Media.

    The 2016 IoT Excellence Award honors innovative products that support the availability of information being deduced, inferred and directly gathered from sensors, systems and anything else that is supporting better business and personal decisions.

    "Congratulations to the winners of the 2016 IoT Excellence Award,” said Carl Ford CEO of Crossfire Media. “The recipients have demonstrated excellence and represent leaders in the IoT industry. We look forward to seeing their future endeavors.”

    Added Rich Tehrani, CEO and Group Editor-in-Chief for TMC, “The IoT is literally changing business and society on a daily basis. The 2016 IoT Evolution Excellence Award winners represent the leading-edge innovators, bringing revolutionary solutions to market.”

    Winners of the 2016 IoT Excellence Award: 

    Company Product
    Benu Networks Benu Networks’ Virtual Service Edge (VSE) Platform
    BullGuard Dojo by BullGuard
    CalAmp CalAmp Instant Crash Notification (ICN)
    Daintree Networks (acquired by Current, powered by GE) ControlScope®
    Digi International Digi Connect® Sensor
    EUROTECH S.p.A. ReliaGATE 20-26
    Gemalto Gemalto's Cinterion® EMS31: Industry-first LTE Cat. 1 Module
    Glassbeam Glassbeam Analytics
    MultiTech MultiConnect® Conduit™
    PogoTec Inc PogoCam and PogoTack eyewear
    Senet Senet Low-Power Wide-Area Network-as-a-Service
    Sequans Communications Sequans Monarch LTE Cat M1/NB1 Platform
    Wind River Wind River Helix Device Cloud
    Zipit Wireless, Inc. Bushnell Trophy Cam HD Wireless

    For more than 20 years, TMC has been honoring technology companies with awards in various categories. These awards are regarded as some of the most prestigious and respected honors in the communications and technology sector worldwide.  Winners represent prominent players in the market who consistently demonstrate the advancement of technologies. Each recipient is a verifiable leader in the marketplace.

    About Crossfire Media Crossfire Media is an integrated marketing company with a core focus on future trends in technology. We service communities of interest with conferences, tradeshows, webinars and newsletters. Crossfire Media has a partnership with Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) to produce events and websites related to disruptive technologies. Crossfire Media is a division of Crossfire Consulting, a full service Information Technology company based in New York.

    About TMC

    Global buyers rely on TMC’s content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. This presents branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities for vendors/sellers.

     TMC’s Marketplaces:

    • Unique, turnkey Online Communities boost search results, establish market validation, elevate brands and thought leadership, while minimizing ad-blocking.
    • Custom Lead Programs uncover sales opportunities and build databases.
    • In-Person and Online Events boost brands, enhance thought leadership and generate leads.
    • Publications, Display Advertising and Newsletters bolster brand reputations.
    • Custom Content provides expertly ghost-crafted blogs, press releases, articles and marketing collateral to help with SEO, branding, and overall marketing efforts.
    • Comprehensive Event and Road Show Management Services help companies meet potential clients and generate leads face-to-face.
    • For more information about TMC and to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals, please visit www.tmcnet.com.TMC Contact
      Jessica Seabrook
      Marketing Director
      203-852-6800, ext. 170
      jseabrook@tmcnet.com

      Edited by Ken Briodagh

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Mon
    01
    May
    2017

    Leading product manufacturers are early adopters of Glassbeam Support Analytics to deliver higher efficiency and reduce overall support costs

    SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company for the connected products and Internet of Things (IoT) industry, today announced that it has expanded its Support Analytics solution leveraging its patent pending Rules and Alerts Engine. The functionality expansion has come through new features that improve analysis of complex machine log data. As an example, leading organizations like Dell EMC are utilizing Glassbeam Support Analytics solution to provide proactive, predictive, and prescriptive customer support for its portfolio of infrastructure products and services.

    Support Analytics is Glassbeam's core solution to address the need of all product support organizations that aspire to revolutionize customer experience in the new age of connected products and Industrial Internet of Things. Sophisticated machines generate complex software and hardware logs all the time. Unfortunately, technical support organizations parse through these complex logs to solve escalations one case at a time thus building tribal knowledge and fragmented knowledge base. Glassbeam's solution solves this problem through automation by capturing all known rules, simple or complex, in its Rules and Alerts Engine engine. This solution is now expanded to allow for deeper correlation and richer definition of complex rules logic such as regular expressions against some of the most complex machine log data bundles and file formats. This allows a real time analytics capability to transform and act on incoming machine logs against all historical known issues leading to dramatic reduction in mean time to resolution (MTTR) for support escalations, as well as automating case creation and providing recommendations directly to end users through customer portals.

    Dell EMC's Converged Infrastructure (CI) Platforms Division (formerly VCE) has been leveraging Glassbeam Support analytics for its portfolio of converged infrastructure products and systems. Dell EMC offers a variety of storage products aimed at simplifying IT infrastructure and modernizing data centers. Dell EMC is using Glassbeam to provide proactive analytics on key operational parameters across the systems it supports, allowing them to modernize their customer service through advanced machine data analytics. Using Glassbeam, Dell EMC's support organization can now not only easily monitor an entire CI system for potential problems but with enhanced Rules and Alerts functionality they can monitor complex threshold conditions to ensure that support teams can preempt incidences of downtime by proactively addressing potential causes of malfunction.

    "Glassbeam's machine log analytics solution not only helps our support team become more proactive at solving escalations but has also helped us automate knowledge base of known issues for internal support group efficiency," stated Nicola Buckely, Senior Director, Global Customer Service at Dell EMC. "With their expanded Support solution, Glassbeam's solution is well positioned to deliver more value to us as we scale our operations and strive to put more automation in our support workflow."

    "Machine log files represent a gold mine for uncovering the unfiltered truth on machine health, status and insight into how customers are using connected products," said Glassbeam co-founder and CEO Puneet Pandit. "Unfortunately up until now, these logs only come to the forefront tactically when accessed by tech support engineers to solve issues, but afterwards they get shoved in the dark and remain hidden from normal view. Glassbeam Support Analytics is a key enabler for shining light on this dark data."

    Glassbeam will be demonstrating its Support Analytics solution at the upcoming Technology Services World conference (TSW 2017) in San Diego.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the IoT industry. Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies including IBM, Dell EMC, Springpath, Gridscape, Formation Data Systems, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    Dell EMC is a registered trademark of Dell Inc.

  • Fri
    14
    Jul
    2017

    Vish Mishra brings strong networks of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to bolster company growth.

    Glassbeam, Inc., a leading provider of proprietary end-to-end solutions for Internet-of-Things (IoT) and machine data analytics, announced the addition of Vish Mishra to its Board of Directors. Vish is a well-known Silicon Valley veteran and brings over 30 years of business experience as a technology entrepreneur, CEO, and venture capitalist.

    Vish is a venture capitalist for 15 years at Clearstone Venture Partners, which has investments in over 100 technology companies amounting to $660 million in committed capital and multi-billion dollar exits through initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions, such as PayPal, Rubicon Project and BillDesk. Vish also serves as an advisor to The Hive, a machine learning and artificial intelligence application software incubator and The Fabric, a cloud software incubator totaling 30 companies in the portfolio. His other previous notable executive and board roles include Excelan, an early venture-backed networking company, Telera, a cloud software company, Quantros, a healthcare software venture, and CloudVolumes, a virtualization company, all of which have been merged or acquired by other technology companies. In addition Vish has been very active with TiE and serving as a  Silicon Valley president and a global trustee.

    “The Internet of Things is a rapidly-growing industry,” says Vish. “More and more companies are looking to connect their products to IoT with many  objectives, such as understanding their customers better, streamlining their business processes, and enabling predictive maintenance. Glassbeam’s innovative solutions put the company in a great position to serve IoT business needs and expand with the industry.”

    “Vish is a welcome addition to our Board of Directors,” says Kumar Malavalli, lead investor  and  executive chairman of Glassbeam. “The depth and breadth of his experience in the tech industry will prove extremely valuable to Glassbeam. He also brings a strong network of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists that can bolster the growth of the company.”

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry. Funded by several ultra high net worth investors, Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, Novant Health, and Dimension Data.

    For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com and follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/08/prweb14596907.htm

     

     

  • Mon
    17
    Jul
    2017

    Summary

    As we enter the third era of enterprise business process automation, each era has been punctuated by rise of complexity followed by simplification. These automation waves, fueled by hardware and software advances, drove human, computer interactivity and simplification of programming. The first wave was led by high performance servers, network equipment and storage devices along with software technologies that made business process automation possible. The second wave was led by virtualization of network, storage and computing services to address the efficiency, resiliency and scaling demanded by the global need for business services. The success of these technologies has in turn accelerated the demand for communication, collaboration and commerce conducted by both people and devices almost at the speed of light and created a new requirement for uninterrupted service delivery with high security and optimal performance. 

    The complexity in today’s information technology management is due to large number of point solutions and tools that mediate the non-functional requirements placed on business processes and available infrastructure that provides the fuel for process execution. Currently, a paradigm shift is occurring that will drive the next wave of simplification of information technology by enabling applications to become self-aware, self-configuring, and self-managing, using application virtualization independent of Infrastructure where they are executed.

    While the first era was led by various infrastructure companies such as IBM, Cisco, Intel, Brocade etc., the second by various infrastructure virtualization companies such as VMware, Nutanix etc., C3DNA will lead the next era with its innovative Cognitive Application Area Network Management Platform within Post-Hypervisor “Hyper-Cloud”.

    Current State of the Art

    Recent trends in enterprise workload management have focused on leveraging multiple cloud infrastructures offered by different service providers and automating the provisioning of resources and configuring end to end application components, their dependencies and definable actions. These advances are aimed at:

    1.    Reducing time to market,

    2.    Improve OPEX and CAPEX using commodity clouds and

    3.    Improve developer agility by automating infrastructure provisioning and application deployment in public or private clouds

    Once provisioned, all these approaches however, fall short in addressing the automation of run-time workload quality of service (QoS) assurance dealing with the availability, performance, security, data-compliance, and cost requirements. This is especially important in the face of fluctuations in workload demands and available computing resources which vary with time and circumstance. Examples are order of magnitude variation in pizza orders during a Super-Bowl game, Black Friday demand, increased processing of orders received by an on-line e-commerce application as the result of a promotion etc. With the increased demand for “always-on” digital communication, collaboration and commerce services almost at the speed of light, real-time QoS assurance of applications/workloads without interrupting the user experience or disrupting service transactions in progress provides that extra competitive differentiation.

    A New Paradigm:

    C3DNA, backed by several patents, has introduced and deployed a new paradigm involving cognitive distributed computing and demonstrated that it can radically transform the enterprise application landscape with self-managing, highly scalable, secure, high performance, and never-fail architecture. The result is a real-time application workload management and run-time quality of service assurance where workloads not only configure themselves but also monitor and control their evolution based on policies that dictate the run-time quality of assurance deviations and corrections. This puts the business application owner in the driver’s seat to dictate policies based on business priorities, monitor the workload quality of service and use  proactive management of workload QoS to drastically reduce the OPEX required in addressing real-time QoS deviations.

    The new approach has many advantages going beyond the current state of the art providing unique competitive differentiation:

    1. Infrastructure independence of application/workload run-time QoS: A new application virtualization technology, with cognitive applications,empowered with global knowledge, decouples the application management from the infrastructure management and assures the right resources (CPU, memory, network latency, bandwidth, storage IOPs, throughput and Storage capacity) in real-time to the right application component. This enables applications to:

    a.    Become agnostic to Hypervisors and independent of Operating System

    b.    Become agnostic to underlying IaaS and PaaS

    c.     Be executed on Virtual Machines, or Containers, or Bare Metal deployed in datacenters or Private/Public clouds

    d.    Execute real time live Application/workload migration (Stateful), with zero transaction loss, between any infrastructures (Public or Private Cloud, datacenters with or without Hyper converged infrastructure anywhere) while providing end to end visibility and control to the application/workload owner, thus eliminating cloud/co-lo vendor lock-in to the customer. It also eliminates the need for shared infrastructure by providing application layer data replication across distributed infrastructures.

    e.    Provide multi-cloud application/workflow orchestration and life cycle management at the installation time and also during the run time by monitoring application’s vital signs and taking appropriate action based on its global knowledge of how to react based on pre-defined policies with the elimination of moving Virtual Machine and the associated complexity

    f.      Migrate without requiring V-motion or V-san, and without needing myriad tools (such as Kubernetes, zoo Keepers, Flockers etc. for managing containers) leading to significant reduction of Op-ex to the enterprises.

    g.    Migrate or live replicate to achieve continuous High Availability and Disaster Recovery without disturbing the service delivery (based on RTO/RPO policy setup) with resilience and with zero loss of transaction through multi-master, active-active, cross-cloud Disaster Recovery.

    1. Composed application workflows and their management on distributed infrastructures: Workflow QoS assurance automation decouples the application workflow management from the run-time infrastructure management systems (except for provisioning of resources) and assures run-time QoS based on policies, set up by the application/workload owner, without disrupting user experience or interruption to run-time service transactions. This enables applications/workflows to:

    a.    Avoid vendor lock-in, complexity, tool fatigue, and innovation chaos while providing application/workflow self-repair, auto-scaling and live-migration on an interoperable network of choice of clouds connected using public or private networks.

    b.    Migrate based on business owner-established policy containing the quality of service to decide what to do to address performance, security and compliance issues and to know where to get resources and do it

    c.     Allow to be managed by the owner of the applications with end to end service visibility and control across any infrastructure independent of native infrastructure management systems.

    d.    Allow to be managed with blueprint based workflow configuration and multiple migration policies which can be set up off-line to suite different environmental conditions and user requirements

    3.    Legacy Application Migration to C3DNA Run-time Management without changing applications, OS or the infrastructure: Make legacy apps/workloads cloud ready and on-boarding them to a cloud of choice without vendor lock-in or the complexity of “Lift and shift”. This is achieved without any changes to the applications or operating system. A discovery based workflow profiling and blueprint creation process allows easy migration of legacy applications and workflows.

    1. Decoupling Development and Operations of applications, and workflows: Developers develop applications without regard to how they are deployed at run-time and on what infrastructure. Operators define run-time QoS based on business priorities, deploy blue-print based workflows and assure their run-time behavior. This allows:

    a.    Deploying 99.999 application workflows on even a 99.99 infrastructure

    b.    Workflow level security in addition to infrastructure based security

    c.     Real-time data switching and control at the application layer independent of infrastructure allowing geo-fencing and other data-compliance features

    In summary, the business workflows, applications and workload evolution are rendered cognitive, and capable of self-provisioning, self-healing, self-monitoring, self-protecting, and self-controlling to adjust their structure and maintain desired quality of service all the time. It allows work-load resiliency and tolerance to fluctuations both in demand and available resource pools at scale while lowering Opex significantly.

    The figure above shows a “Post-Hypervisor HyperCloud” (consisting of a select network of cloud choices in a Multi- Cloud environments such as Amazon, Google, Azure etc., or private data-centers interconnected using public or private networks). C3DNA’s cognitive application area network management platform provides application run-time QoS assurance on a globally inter-operable network of cloud islands and enables efficient, on-demand or policy based application mobility among and between clouds, data-centers and on-prem without disruption to existing operations.

    Follow the discussion on LinkedIn:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/infrastructure-agnostic-cognitive-real-time-c3dna-ready-malavalli

     

  • Mon
    14
    Aug
    2017

    Vish Mishra brings strong networks of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to bolster company growth.

    Glassbeam

    "The depth and breadth of Vish Mishra's experience in the tech industry will prove extremely valuable to Glassbeam." Kumar Malavalli.

    Glassbeam, Inc., a leading provider of proprietary end-to-end solutions for Internet-of-Things (IoT) and machine data analytics, announced the addition of Vish Mishra to its Board of Directors. Vish is a well-known Silicon Valley veteran and brings over 30 years of business experience as a technology entrepreneur, CEO, and venture capitalist.

    Vish is a venture capitalist for 15 years at Clearstone Venture Partners, which has investments in over 100 technology companies amounting to $660 million in committed capital and multi-billion dollar exits through initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions, such as PayPal, Rubicon Project and BillDesk. Vish also serves as an advisor to The Hive, a machine learning and artificial intelligence application software incubator and The Fabric, a cloud software incubator totaling 30 companies in the portfolio. His other previous notable executive and board roles include Excelan, an early venture-backed networking company, Telera, a cloud software company, Quantros, a healthcare software venture, and CloudVolumes, a virtualization company, all of which have been merged or acquired by other technology companies. In addition Vish has been very active with TiE and serving as a  Silicon Valley president and a global trustee.

    “The Internet of Things is a rapidly-growing industry,” says Vish. “More and more companies are looking to connect their products to IoT with many  objectives, such as understanding their customers better, streamlining their business processes, and enabling predictive maintenance. Glassbeam’s innovative solutions put the company in a great position to serve IoT business needs and expand with the industry.”

    “Vish is a welcome addition to our Board of Directors,” says Kumar Malavalli, lead investor  and  executive chairman of Glassbeam. “The depth and breadth of his experience in the tech industry will prove extremely valuable to Glassbeam. He also brings a strong network of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists that can bolster the growth of the company.”

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry. Funded by several ultra high net worth investors, Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, Novant Health, and Dimension Data.

    For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com  and follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/08/prweb14596907.htm

  • Wed
    08
    Nov
    2017
    SAN JOSE
    California
    Wednesday, November 8, 2017

    SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassbeam Inc., the machine data analytics company, announced a new white paper authored in conjunction with Harbor Research that highlights the unique challenges faced by the Industrial IoT analytics market in the areas of data management and transformation. The expanding market around connected machines and analytics has been well-known for several years, but it is still widely misunderstood how data transformation and management tools are critical to the development of IoT and Smart Systems solutions. In fact, over 60% of time and cost in a typical IoT analytics project is spent on critical tasks of data parsing, aggregation, assimilation, and transformation before any meaningful analytics and machine learning value can be deployed to create business value from this data.

    Harbor Research facilitated discussions with various industry and data experts, OEM manufacturers and end-customer equipment operators, including various customers and partners of Glassbeam, to arrive at its conclusions. It was clear that without an advanced data management and transformation solution in place, users are only scraping the surface of the full value of their data. Most data management and analytics solutions today can analyze sensor data and basic historical data, but these solutions cannot handle the complex machine logs produced by a growing number of advanced machines being adopted across a wide range of industries. New levels of value and insight can be leveraged from this complex data, but this major opportunity requires a new data transformation and analytics approach which the Glassbeam solution delivers.

    Key highlights and findings of this report include:

    • Data formats and data variety from connected machines will drive significant value: In 2017 alone, the Harbor Research Smart Systems Forecast Model estimates that 4.8 billion new IoT devices will go online, driving over $30 billion in new value related to connectivity and subsequent data gathered and analyzed from these devices.
    • Complex machine logs are mainstay of future connected machines: Machine logs are quickly becoming a mainstay of IIoT analytics projects. Harbor Research estimates 4.4 billion machines will generate complex logs in 2017 growing to 13 billion by 2022 at 25.1% CAGR, driving significant value resulting from management and analysis of this complex data.
    • Proper Data Transformation is critical to success of machine learning projects: Building a machine learning algorithm may only take up 20% of the total time spent by a data scientist, but significantly longer amounts of time must be spent transforming the data for use before the model can be trained. This process becomes even more challenging when complex log data, with a wide variety of potential variables that cannot be manually parsed in an efficient manner, comes into play.

    "The steps required to glean insights from complex advanced machine data are not well understood by OEMs, end users, or the vast majority of analytics solution providers" said Puneet Pandit, Co-founder and CEO, Glassbeam Inc. "As a result, legacy data management solutions built in-house by OEMs leverage traditional data management solution and methods that are cobbled together in a manner that is not equipped to face these challenges. Glassbeam enables the true potential of such projects by providing an end-to-end complex data transformation offering for machine OEMs, end customers and traditional IoT platform providers".

    "Data transformation is the unspoken bridge between connectivity and analytics" says Glen Allmendinger, Founder and President of Harbor Research. "As connected machines become more pervasive and intelligent, there is a huge untapped market opportunity for data management, transformation, and eventually analytics with machine learning for multi-structured log data. Glassbeam is purpose-built to address these challenges, allowing end-users to realize new levels of value from data, while also achieving significant predictive cost and time savings".

    Additional Resources:

    Harbor Research White Paper Download: Machine Intelligence Through Data Transformation
    Blog: New Industry Report Strengthens Core Value Prop of Glassbeam
    Website: www.glassbeam.com

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, Novant Health, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    Media Contact

    David Sawatzke
    Head of Marketing
    408-740-4600
    david@glassbeam.com

    About Harbor Research

    Founded in 1984, Harbor Research Inc. has more than thirty years of experience in providing strategic consulting and research services that enable our clients to understand and capitalize on emergent and disruptive opportunities driven by information and communications technology.  The firm has established a unique competence in developing business models and strategy for the convergence of pervasive computing, global networking and smart systems.

    https://glassbeam.com/press/new-industry-report-cites-uniqueness-and-strength-glassbeam-data-transformation-solution

  • Sat
    10
    Feb
    2018

    By

    Organizations will be able to develop and deploy Apache Kafka applications without the need to lock in their data with Glassbeam.

    Machine data analytics providerGlassbeam, Inc. announced it is upgrading its IIoT analytics platform with the addition of Apache Kafka integration to provide an open source stream processing model. The upgrade will allow organizations to develop and deploy custom machine data analytics apps without having to lock their data in with Glassbeam.

    The company says it hopes the enhanced platform will help enterprises to decide whether to build their own platform or invest in a third party one. The platform’s Semiotic Parsing Language (SPL) provides a data transformation and preparation framework for complex machine data. With the addition of Apache Kafka, the platform will now allow customers to connect to any data store in addition to deploying the platform on-site.

    See also: Streaming analytics basics — Kafka, Spark, and Cassandra

    “Developers anywhere can now collect and enrich machine data from any source in their organization. With open access to our core platform, developers can use their existing enterprise apps, connectors, and tools to deploy Kafka-based parsed data quickly,” says Puneet Pandit, co-founder and CEO of Glassbeam. “With our open platform, organizations now have the complete freedom to build custom connected-machine applications with Glassbeam without the need to build their own data ingestion platform that may not fulfill their business objectives.”

    According to the company’s announcement, key features include access to open standards, improved developer productivity, elimination of unnecessary data preparation burden, better focus on organizational core, and re-use of existing infrastructure investment.

    The Glassbeam platform with the new integration with Apache Kafka is now available with Glassbeam 5.7 as an on-site managed service. The pricing varies and is based on retention periods and data processed per day.

    https://www.rtinsights.com/glassbeam-to-integrate-apache-kafka-into-its-industrial-iot-analytics-platform/

  • Thu
    15
    Feb
    2018

    SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company, announced today that it has successfully built Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications powered by Machine Learning (ML) models for predicting part failures in expensive imaging modalities, allowing healthcare providers to deliver better and more efficient patient care.  Business impact of such new applications delivered real time through cloud-based dashboards and rules-based alerts will revolutionize the landscape on how equipment maintenance is performed today by in-house support staff at healthcare providers, independent service organizations (ISOs), and by the OEMs themselves.

    "The management of medical machines such as MRI and CT Scanners have taken on a new level of complexity in recent years, due in part to the increased sophistication of equipment and ever-increasing requirements for compliance, safety, reliability and accuracy," said Corey Holtman, President at Gateway Diagnostic Imaging. "Predicting machine health and utilization patterns with help from latest techniques of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is the next frontier to improve operations in Clinical Engineering function.  I am pleased to see Glassbeam innovating on this exciting front for healthcare providers."

    The first phase of these applications will focus on CAT (Computed Tomography) Scanners that can cost anywhere between $1 million to $2.5 million or more, depending upon the desired image quality in procedures such as CT Angiography (CTA).  One of the most expensive parts of a typical CAT Scanner is the X-ray tube provided by OEMs costing anywhere between $150,000 to $200,000.  Unfortunately, replacing a CT scanner's X-ray tube today is more an art than a science and is based on a number of ad hoc data inputs based on age of the machine, number of scans performed, image quality rendered amongst other subjective factors.  Without proper diagnostics on machine data signals, many companies end up replacing tubes under the gun to ensure machine uptime at all costs.  Glassbeam now has the solution allowing a facility to get a warning signal about a week in advance of a potential tube failure.  This can alert the clinical engineering staff to become proactive in avoiding unplanned downtime, saving costs, and averting patient re-scheduling at the last minute.

    "The number of signals coming from connected machines in the IoT market have surpassed the ability for humans to keep track of them years ago," said Lise Getoor, Professor of Computer Science and Center Director of D3 (Data, Discovery and Decisions) initiative at University of California, Santa Cruz. "I am excited to see Glassbeam, as a supporting member of D3 Center, taking a leadership role in leveraging artificial intelligence to change the rules of the game for the healthcare market."

    "The parts replacement industry for global installed base of medical imaging equipment in 2020 is slated to be a $3.6 billion market," said Puneet Pandit, Co-founder and CEO at Glassbeam. "With AI and ML applications based on analyzing millions of sensor readings captured in Glassbeam cloud each day, even with a modest 10% savings, we are ready to make a significant dent on the underlying inefficiencies of support operations, supply chain, parts and material logistics planning for large enterprises in the healthcare market."

    Pricing & Availability
    Glassbeam plans to roll out new AI powered dashboards bundled into the current pricing model of its Clinical Engineering Analytics (CLEAN™) IIoT blueprint. For more details, contact sales@glassbeam.com.

    Additional Resources
    Glassbeam Healthcare IIoT Blueprint:  Clinical Engineering Analytics – CLEAN™ Blueprint
    Visit us for the latest solution demo at Booth # 313 at healthcare industry show ICE 2018 in Las Vegas, February 16-18, 2018.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, Novant Health, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter@Glassbeam.

    Media Contact
    David Sawatzke
    Head of Marketing
    408-740-4600
    David@glassbeam.com

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/glassbeam-announces-artificial-intelligence-application-for-healthcare-provider-market-300599559.html

     

  • Mon
    19
    Feb
    2018

    By Nicholas Fearn

    A new AI system could help hospitals keep their expensive medical equipment healthy by scanning for problems before they become expensive to fix.

    Data analytics company Glassbeam has announced a series of new AI applications that will help healthcare providers to identify parts failures in hospital MRI and CT scanners.

    Using the new systems, doctors and other medical professionals can tap into machine learning algorithms to ensure that expensive, life-saving systems are kept in constant working order. The applications also offer cloud-based dashboards and alerts to transform the equipment maintenance process.

    Glassbeam said it wants to help healthcare organisations “deliver better and more efficient patient care”.

    Transformative tech

    It can be an expensive and lengthy process for medical technicians to take systems offline and repair them internally. Meanwhile, predicting or planning for failures can be a challenge in environments where investment is tight, time is critical, and lives are at stake.

    Corey Holtman, president at Gateway Diagnostic Imaging, said medical imaging systems are becoming increasingly complex. As a result, AI and IoT systems could revolutionise the healthcare sector, he said.

    “The management of medical machines such as MRI and CT scanners has taken on a new level of complexity in recent years, due in part to the increased sophistication of equipment and the ever-increasing requirements for compliance, safety, reliability, and accuracy,” he said.

    “Predicting machine health and utilisation patterns – with help from the latest techniques in artificial intelligence and machine learning – is the next frontier to improve operations in clinical engineering functions.”

    Changing the industry

    Glassbeam plans to develop the new systems in phases. The first of these will focus on CT scanners, which are used to create cross-sectional views inside the human body without the need for surgery.

    CT systems can cost up to $2.5 million apiece, and when they malfunction or need parts replacing, healthcare providers risk running up six-figure bills, while taking life-saving systems offline.

    Glassbeam said that hospitals and clinics are missing out on the predictive capabilities offered by machine learning and big data analytics.

    Its new system can warn professionals about problems a week before they might occur. This “can alert clinical engineering staff to become proactive in avoiding unplanned downtime, saving costs, and averting patient re-scheduling at the last minute”, said the company.

    Counting the benefits

    “The parts replacement industry for the global installed base of medical imaging equipment is slated to be a $3.6 billion market in 2020,” said Puneet Pandit, co-founder and CEO of Glassbeam.

    “With AI and ML applications based on analysing millions of sensor readings captured in the Glassbeam cloud each day, even with a modest 10 percent savings we are ready to make a significant dent on the underlying inefficiencies.”

    Lise Getoor, professor of computer science at the University of California in Santa Cruz, praised the work being done by Glassbeam, which is a technology partner at UCSC’s D3 (Data, Discovery, Decisions) Center.

    “The number of signals coming from connected machines in the IoT market surpassed the ability of humans to keep track of them years ago,” she said.

    “I’m excited to see Glassbeam taking a leadership role in leveraging artificial intelligence to change the rules of the game for the healthcare market.”

    Internet of Business says

    AI’s predictive capabilities, together with technologies such as big data analytics, digital twins, and enterprise asset management (EAM) systems, could be transformative across many sectors as the IoT spreads.

    CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the largest machine ever built, is perhaps the leading example of the technology’s potential. Every single component in the CERN campus is logged in an EAM system as a digital twin, and predictive analytics help engineers predict failures and plan downtime for essential maintenance.

    Just as important, the system tells them exactly where the problem lies: an important factor in large, complex systems. With lives at stake as well as big science, these connected technologies have significant potential.

    https://internetofbusiness.com/33158-2/

  • Wed
    11
    Apr
    2018

    SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company, announced today that UCSF Health (University of California, San Francisco) has selected Glassbeam to drive their clinical engineering analytics program.  These innovations are aimed at revolutionizing the quality, consistency and efficiency of medical equipment in support of patient care. Glassbeam will collaborate with UCSF to not only deliver value from its proven CLEAN™ blueprint (Clinical Engineering Analytics) to manage major parts of the imaging fleet, but will also expand the solution to various other modalities such as Ultrasound, Cath Lab, and Physiological monitoring equipment.

    UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco was ranked number five in the nation by US News & World Report in 2017, with national rankings notched in 15 adult specialties and 9 children's specialties. It also achieved the highest rating possible in 8 procedures or conditions.  As one of the pioneers exclusively focused on health, UCSF is driven by the idea that when the best research, the best education and the best patient care converge, great breakthroughs are achieved. This animating idea is driving UCSF Health to partner with Glassbeam in a rapidly changing and evolving health care environment in which UCSF is bringing innovative solutions to meet the growing needs of its patients and the communities it serves.

    "Information Services and Analytics fits well within UCSF Health's 2020 strategic goals," said Ramana Sastry, Director of Clinical Engineering at UCSF Health. "Investing in data systems and predictive analytics capabilities to help us facilitate service management, asset utilization and performance improvement of medical machines is critical to our success.  We are confident Glassbeam's unique analytics solution will help us tremendously as we scale our operations over next few years."

    "The next steps to fulfill the promise of patient care has to include technical and customer service efficiencies in the form of predictive maintenance and machine learning intelligence," said Frank Beltré, Founder and Service Operations Consultant of QDC Biomedical, LLC. "Glassbeam's CLEAN provides machine learning to assist in managing equipment service within a sustainable cost-containment service delivery model. Injecting machine learning into medical equipment service operations will additionally enhance patient care by increasing equipment reliability and availability for medical diagnosis."

    "The health care industry is eager to adopt new cutting-edge solutions that bring the rigor and openness of machine data analytics to the world of imaging and bio medical equipment," said Puneet Pandit, Co-founder and CEO at Glassbeam. "Glassbeam is at the forefront of this disruption.  We are thrilled to partner with UCSF Health in providing innovative, high-quality, cost-competitive clinical services, and delivering for them an unparalleled patient experience across the entire care continuum."

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform and analyze multi-structured data, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, Novant Health, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ucsf-health-selects-glassbeam-to-drive-clinical-engineering-analytics-program-300627830.html

     

  • Wed
    11
    Apr
    2018

    C3DNA Inc., a cognitive computing and communications company appointed Max Michaels as its President and Chief Executive Officer; also elected him to its Board.Max brings over 20 years of senior leadership experience in information and communication technologies to the Company. He joined C3DNA from IBM Network Services where as the global General Manager he spearheaded offerings based on software-defined infrastructure and services platform with Watson.  Previously he held executive roles at AT&T and Cisco spanning corporate strategy, business development and sales operations.

    Max understands the disruptive technologies reshaping the markets and the evolving needs of telecoms and enterprise customers, and he will ensure that C3DNA is well positioned for the cognitive era,” said Kumar Malavalli, Chairman of the company and the Co-founder of Brocade.  “Max’s business acumen and impactful leadership experiences make him perfectly suited to lead C3DNA.”

    The technologies developed by the talented team at C3DNA are truly transformational. My priorities are to perfect the use cases for cognitive cloud migration, deliver focused offerings in application networking, and develop a robust roadmap for the next wave of innovations,” said Max Michaels.

    About C3DNA Inc.

    C3DNA seeks to mobilize global enterprises for a new era of cognitive computing and communications through distributed network architectures.Since 2012 the company has been pioneering breakthroughs in distributed computing, resilient networks and sentient clouds - the building blocks for autonomous application networks. The growing patent portfolio and use cases reflect its thought leadership and advanced capabilities in the rapidly converging information and communication industries.

    For more information, visit www.c3dna.com

    http://www.c3dna.com/blog/?p=93

     

     

  • Thu
    12
    Apr
    2018

    Healthcare organizations spend millions of dollars on imaging devices, so ensuring that they’re optimally maintained is essential in maximizing the return on that investment. Now, predictive analytics and machine learning are being used to do that.

    UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco is turning to an information services and analytics product from Glassbeam to power its clinical engineering analytics program.

    The hospital will work with the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company to use its CLEAN blueprint (Clinical Engineering Analytics) to manage components of its imaging equipment, with plans to expand its use to other modalities, such as ultrasound, cath lab and physiological monitoring equipment.

    “Investing in data systems and predictive analytics capabilities to help us facilitate service management, asset utilization and performance improvement of medical machines is critical to our success,” says Ramana Sastry, director of clinical engineering at UCSF Health. “Glassbeam’s unique analytics solution will help us as we scale our operations over next few years.”

    UCSF executives say that imaging medical equipment systems are based on complex technologies, and they increasingly are producing complex machine data that require more advanced data transformation solutions to enable root cause analysis, predictive analytics, machine learning and other high-value support applications.

    Also See: Machine learning analysis helps predict spinal injury prognosis

    The Glassbeam technology is intended to help organizations realize value from their machine data, and it can be used to optimize uptime on a variety of devices from different manufacturers, analyzing data to give a better view of operations and provide actionable intelligence.

    Using machine learning to improve imaging device performance is a crucial next step, says Frank Beltre, a service operations management consultant for UCSF. “This process traditionally has been done manually, and we’ve had to inject human behavior into the process of gathering data and looking at data. Using predictive analytics for lifecycle management of equipment is much easier—using manual processes doesn’t provide the predictive piece. It can take two to three weeks to analyze data from these devices, and so automating the gathering and analysis of this data can help you predict what to do and be ready for future events.”

    Glassbeam’s analytics and data collection runs on Amazon’s cloud services, says Puneet Pandit, the company’s CEO. Service logs from imaging devices are extensive but often result in vast quantities of unstructured data that contains a lot of semantic meaning. Digesting the output of these devices can help improve service and provide better care to patients, he says.

    Time savings in managing complex imaging devices can be significant, Beltre says. Predicting part failure or wise use of preventive maintenance can result in huge time savings. If a part fails in an imaging device, it can take 40 hours to obtain the replacement, install it and test it, he says. Getting ahead of part failure can increase device uptime and reduce costs for procuring replacement parts, he says.

    https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/ucsf-to-use-predictive-product-to-maintain-imaging-devices 

     

  • Thu
    12
    Apr
    2018

    Founded in 2010 as an online loyalty card service, Punchh has since grown into a marketing platform serving more than 115 restaurant chains, including Pizza Hut and Quiznos. Now it’s raised a $20 million Series B to expand into more retail verticals and increase the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in its cloud software. The funding was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from returning investor Cervin Ventures.

    Along with its angel and Series A financing, this brings Punchh’s total funding so far to about $31 million. The startup says its goal is to give brick-and-mortar stores the same level of data analytics as e-commerce giants like Amazon.

    Punchh’s platform enables restaurants to digitize their customer loyalty programs and complements that with tools like Punchh Acquire, which is designed to help businesses turn casual customers into regulars by promoting offers through multiple channels, including email, SMS, social media, Apple Pay and eClub.

    The company currently has 145 employees and is based in San Mateo, California, with offices in Austin, Texas and Delhi. This is Punchh’s first funding announcement in three years and the startup’s largest round of financing by far (it raised $9.5 million Series A in 2015).

    Co-founder and chief executive officer Shyam Rao says the time was right for Punchh to raise again because it already serves many of the biggest restaurant chains, with 34,000 locations between them, and wanted to tap into demand from retailers in other verticals.

    Punchh is now focusing on convenience stores, gas stations and health and beauty brands (clients already include Fantastic Sams hair salons and TruFusion, a chain of fitness studios). The company competes with other digital loyalty and marketing platforms like Stamp Me, LoyalZoo and Stocard. Rao says Punchh’s ability to create campaigns that target a very specific audience sets it apart from rivals. Punchh’s algorithms pulls together data from several sources, including event calendars, weather, local demographics and the purchasing history of individual customers, for what it describes as “micro-moment marketing.”

    For example, if cold weather is expected over a holiday weekend, it might send offers for a discounted hot soup and tea set to mothers between the ages of 30 to 55. Punchh claims it increases spending at its customers’ restaurants by 10% to 20%.

    “Imagine trying to manage that process of using mountains of data to build customer relationships and tailor every experience, at scale across hundreds of locations. That’s what Punchh does,” says Rao.

    In a statement, Jai Das, Sapphire Ventures managing director said “Punchh is already a global leader in digital marketing solutions for restaurants, which alone would be a fantastic reason to invest in the company, but the scope of their technology goes far beyond just restaurants and encompasses all brick-and-mortar stores with a POS.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/marketing-platform-punchh-raises-20m-series-b-to-give-brick-and-mortar-retailers-better-data-analytics/

  • Thu
    31
    May
    2018

    SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company focused on supporting medical device OEMs, independent service organizations (ISOs) and healthcare delivery organizations, announced today that Calamed LLC has become a strategic reseller of Glassbeam solutions.  Calamed is a leading ISO in the Americas focused on the Caribbean and Latin America healthcare market. With this new partnership, Calamed gains the competitive advantage to deploy advanced analytics on complex machine data collected from MRI machines and CT scanners as well as provide remote monitoring services to ensure maximum equipment uptime.

    "Medical imaging machines such as MRI and CT scanners play a critical role in modern healthcare where downtime of these machines creates a double negative of lost revenues and patient dissatisfaction," said Carlos Borges, Managing Director, Calamed LLC. "Predicting anomalous behavior and proactively alerting field engineers through advanced analytics solutions such as Glassbeam is a game changer for the industry."

    Glassbeam will exhibit its solution offerings at the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) 2018 Conference and Expo, to be held June 1-4 at the Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, California, booth 170.

    Glassbeam also announced expansion of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution with Anomaly Detection models for imaging modalities. Generally, advanced healthcare equipment, such as MRI machines and CT scanners, include a combination of sophisticated hardware and software systems that constantly generate valuable machine data signals in complex log formats.  For example, a CT scanner logs information every minute on its tube temperature, water temperature, fan speed, air temperature, waterflow and many other variables. Glassbeam uses AI to predict anomalies on these data sets, thus empowering organizations to save millions of dollars in maintenance cost and make strategic data driven decisions.

    In its new report, "FDA Report on the Quality, Safety, and Effectiveness of Servicing of Medical Devices," the FDA references the value machine data and analytics provides to optimizing patient safety and operational efficiency by delivering high-quality, safe and effective servicing of medical devices.  "FDA finds, as a result of reviewing service records, that the data resulting form the maintenance and repair of medical devices provide valuable insight into the adequacy of the performance of devices."  Glassbeam can increase machine uptime from an industry standard of 96-97 percent to more than 99.5 percent.  This difference can save healthcare organizations millions of dollars per year.

    "Glassbeam analyzes approximately 18 billion events across multiple healthcare machines with about 100 million events per day and 50,000 events per system per day," said Puneet Pandit, Co-founder and CEO at Glassbeam. "This information gold mine helps us build advanced analytics with new machine learning models that provide our customers with advanced warnings. These alerts save millions of dollars in revenue leakage and improve machine uptime across their entire range of equipment."

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry with a strong focus on medical and data center equipment. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam's next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform, analyze, and build Artificial Intelligence applications from multi-structured logs, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, PTC, Novant Health, UCSF Health, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/glassbeam-adds-calamed-as-new-healthcare-service-partner-for-the-caribbean-and-latin-america-300657088.html

  • Mon
    04
    Jun
    2018
    by John R. Fischer , Staff Reporter

    Maintenance and repair for CT scanners may soon be more immediate, less frequent and more affordable following the upcoming expansion of Glassbeam Inc.’s anomaly detection technology.

    The machine data analytics company elaborated on the development at the AAMI 2018 Conference and Expo in Long Beach, California, referring to it as a part of its approach for utilizing AI capabilities to detect and alert providers to changes in components of computed tomography scanners from tube temperature to waterflow. They plan to eventually include other critical imaging modalities such as MR.

    “Instead of a human being saying that the temperature pressure has shot beyond portable range, the machine alerts you by looking up the historical data of the temperature reading and saying the temperature should be between this high range and this low range. That is the anomaly direction model,” Puneet Pandit, president and CEO of Glassbeam, told HCB News. “The machine will look at the historical data, create the threshold and then alert the engineers when the threshold is crossed.”

    CT scanners are equipped with sensors for monitoring different variables such as water temperature, waterflow, air temperature, fan speed, and tube temperature. Though each sensor periodically records its readings to determine if tracked variables are in the normal range, the task of accurately identifying which sensor readings are in the normal range and which ones are not is complex, often leading many to use a rule of thumb to form manually-defined thresholds.

    ML-based AD techniques use historical data to train a model that can be used for detecting anomalous sensor values.

    With Glassbeam’s technology, providers can utilize machine learning-based AD techniques to predict anomalies from historical data sets and address issues earlier, saving millions in maintenance costs, as well as being able to plan out more efficiently strategic actions for the management of their imaging modalities.

    In addition to detecting single abnormal readings, the technology may be used to detect combinations of these readings from two or more different sensors, further helping Glassbeam raise mean time between failures and machine uptime from the industry standard range of 96-97 percent to more than 99.5 percent.

    The expansion is the second phase of an initiative launched in February in which machine learning was deployed to detect with high accuracy tube failure in CTs, seven to ten days prior to the actual occurrence of such events.

    It also follows the recent partnerships established with Brown's Medical Imaging, Radiographic Equipment Services, and Calamed, which along with all of Glassbeam’s other strategic partners will distribute the solution to providers.

    Pandit says the introduction of these capabilities signify the direction that all players in the medical equipment industry should be looking toward as they are are necessary for strengthening the efficiency of connectivity among medical devices and the makeup of the Internet of Things.

     “This is the time for somebody to come forward and tell the hospital owners that you can collect this operational data from these connected machines, and do these five use cases to become more proactive and predictive and save money, and increase revenue and reclaim revenues,” he said. “Every machine is becoming increasingly connected. Data is there. The value of analytics is a lot higher today because there’s no more extra work to be done. The work is being done in the cloud today and can be applied to any machine or hospital tomorrow.”

    Support for these capabilities is backed by the FDA in its new report on the quality, safety and effectiveness of medical devices, finding that data retrieved from maintenance and repair of devices provides “valuable insight” into how well they perform.

    The expansion is expected to go live in July or August.

    https://www.dotmed.com/news/story/43207?p_begin=0

  • Thu
    16
    Aug
    2018

    SANTA CLARA, Calif. – AUG 16, 2018 – ​Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company, has been awarded a 2018 IoT Evolution Product of the Year Award for their healthcare solution from IoT Evolution magazine and IoT Evolution World, the leading magazine and website for IoT technologies news.

    Healthcare equipment manufacturers and providers have embraced the Internet of Things (IoT), connecting machines to networks to enable analytics and draw insights on better support and utilization metrics. According to several sources, global healthcare expenditures expanded to over $8 trillion in 2016; capital expenditures for machines, devices and equipment totaled over $350 billion. However, most machine data management tools can only analyze simple sensor data and basic historical log data.

    “Today’s tools are only scratching the surface of unearthing the value of complex machine data,” said Puneet Pandit, Founder and CEO of Glassbeam. “Healthcare organizations are aggressively looking for ways to increase revenues, reduce costs and improve patient care. Glassbeam is unlocking the wealth of knowledge that can be extracted from these IoT devices to drive the healthcare industry forward.”

    “The solutions selected for the IoT Evolution Product of Year Award reflect the diverse range of innovation driving the multi-billion dollar IoT market today. It is my honor to congratulate Glassbeam for their innovative work and superior contribution to the rapidly evolving IoT industry,” said Carl Ford, CEO of Crossfire Media, a co-publisher of IoT Evolution.

    “It is my pleasure to recognize Glassbeam for Healthcare, an innovative solution that earned Glassbeam the 2018 IoT Evolution Product of the Year Award,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “I look forward to seeing more innovation from Glassbeam in the future.”

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry with a strong focus on medical and data center equipment. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform, analyze, and build Artificial Intelligence applications from multi-structured logs, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, PTC, Novant Health, UCSF Health, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on Twitter @Glassbeam.

    About Crossfire Media
    Crossfire Media is an integrated marketing company with a core focus on future trends in technology. We service communities of interest with conferences, tradeshows, webinars and newsletters. Crossfire Media has a partnership with Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) to produce events and websites related to disruptive technologies. Crossfire Media is a division of Crossfire Consulting, a full-service Information Technology company based in New York.

    About TMC
    Through education, industry news, live events and social influence, global buyers rely on TMC’s content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. As a result, leading technology vendors turn to TMC for unparalleled branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities. Our in-person and online events deliver unmatched visibility and sales prospects for all percipients. Through our custom lead generation programs, we provide clients with an ongoing stream of leads that turn into sales opportunities and build databases. Additionally, we bolster brand reputations with the millions of impressions from display advertising on our news sites and newsletters. Making TMC a 360 degree marketing solution, we offer comprehensive event and road show management services and custom content creation with expertly ghost-crafted blogs, press releases, articles and marketing collateral to help with SEO, branding, and overall marketing efforts. For more information about TMC and to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals, please visit www.tmcnet.com and follow us on FacebookLinkedIn and Twitter@tmcnet.

    https://www.glassbeam.com/press/glassbeam-receives-2018-iot-evolution-product-year-award

  • Wed
    05
    Sep
    2018

    Puneet Pandit

    On the heels of a great event and presentation along with Rick Gaylord, our healthcare solution specialist, at the 2018 CEAI Conference, I want to continue the conversation about the far-reaching impacts of machine data and artificial intelligence for healthcare technology.

    Machine data from IoT connected devices is growing at 50 times the growth rate of traditional business data. By 2025, more than 42 percent of the world’s data will be machine-generated.

    There are massive amounts of machine data, hidden from normal view, in unstructured, complex and messy formats. With the right specialized tools, this data can be cleaned up, organized and is ideal for interpretation through machine learning and predictive analytics. Machine data can be transformed into insights that can drive automation, optimize utilization, diagnose and prevent equipment issues, and save organizations millions of dollars in increased efficiencies and decreased equipment failures.

    Machine data has the power to transform major industries, including oil and gas, power, aviation, rail, and of course, healthcare. In fact, efficiency gains from IoT and machine data – including automated diagnostics, remote patient monitoring, and performance monitoring – could have a $63 billion business impact in healthcare. Some of the medical machines that generate the amount of data include MRI machines, CT scanners, x-ray machines, defibrillators, ultrasound equipment, ventilators, patient monitoring systems, anesthesia machines, and many more.

    Key Use Cases of Machine Data

    Out of the vast medical devices that generate machine data, a few of the top use cases include:

    • Machine Utilization – Machine data can help organizations understand the number of procedures per machine, per facility, by manufacturer type, to optimize equipment utilization and budgets.
    • MRI Machine Health – Analyzing machine data can alert operators of key triggers and send proactive maintenance alerts.
    • CT Scanner Health – Predictive analytics allows for real-time maintenance to avoid equipment and system failures and downtime.
    • Environmental Sensors – Monitoring environmental variables can indicate when key triggers might lead to equipment failure and send proactive alerts to avoid downtime.
    • Operator Usage & Analytics – Machine analytics offers insight into the behavior of equipment operators and can help identify and address gaps in training and balance load.

    For more on Machine Log Data Use Cases: Data Doesn’t Lie: 5 Ways Hospitals Can Use Machine Log Data

     

    Machine Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning

    Consider the massive amount of log data that even a single system produces. More than 50,000 events are logged each day by each system, with more than 2,500 different types of warning and error events. Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) allows us to process and interpret machine log data that might otherwise be too complex or simply too time-consuming for the human mind to analyze effectively.

    With ML and AI-enabled predictive maintenance, organizations can avoid unplanned reactive maintenance and downtime, plan preventative maintenance during non-business hours, and even set up custom alerts and rules about equipment maintenance notifications. The possibilities are virtually endless.

    The business impact of predictive analytics is quite impressive. On average, an expensive imaging machine like an MRI or CT scanner will face an issue eight to ten times per year and will be down six to eight hours each time – equating to about 62 hours of downtime, per machine, per year.

    A facility with five MRI machines and five CT scanners that uses predictive analytics and maintenance can perform 500 additional procedures per year and earn $3 million in additional revenues over 3 years. This is at an assumed operating schedule of 10 hours per day, six days per week, and one procedure per hour at $2,000 per procedure.

    More on business impact: Machine Learning and Predictive Maintenance Maximizes Healthcare ROI

     

    Who Owns the Data?

    With all of the machine data out there, one of the most pressing questions circulating in clinical engineering and healthcare technology communities is this – who owns it? Is it the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) who make the equipment, Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) who re-sell the equipment, or healthcare providers who operate it?

    Among other reasons, OEMs often believe they own the data because they own the software that generates the data. ISOs believe they need access to the machine data to better service customers. Providers believe that they have a right to the data because they paid for the machines. They are all valid points, and we will continue to expand on them in upcoming initiatives and content on data ownership. Stay tuned!

    https://www.glassbeam.com/blog/impact-machine-data-analytics-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-

    learning-healthcare

  • Wed
    26
    Sep
    2018

    SANTA CLARA, Calif. – September 26, 2018 – Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company, announced today an expansion of its Clinical Engineering Analytics (CLEAN™) offerings to become the only AI analytics solution to combine machine logs with DICOM data. The company also announced its solution now includes biomedical equipment as well as imaging systems. Glassbeam enables healthcare provider teams to manage entire fleets of medical equipment in a single view.

    The company has completed a third party assessment to verify Glassbeam’s compliance with the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules and ongoing commitment to protect individually identifiable health information collected by its advanced data analytics solution. HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, applies to healthcare providers, insurers, hospitals, and any company with access to patients’ protected health information (PHI) – including Glassbeam, which provides advanced data analytics services to healthcare organizations.

    Connected medical devices transmit errors, warnings, and invaluable utilization data that when translated, provide healthcare organizations a clear picture of equipment performance, usage, and overall operational effectiveness. The challenge is that this data comes from different data sources with multiple formats, such as machine logs and DICOM headers when images are transmitted to PACS servers. Users of Glassbeam’s machine data analytics solution can now uncover deep insights by assimilating all of these data sources into one platform to dramatically improve uptime and maximize revenue of medical equipment while safeguarding patients’ PHI.

    The expansion of Glassbeam’s data analytics to include biomedical devices, such as GE CARESCAPE patient monitors and Medfusion Syringe Pumps, has been another breakthrough in its cloud-based analytics offerings. Large hospitals and Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) have hundreds to thousands of biomedical devices in their facilities. It can be a challenge to track the actual utilization of devices and preventative maintenance schedules involve costly labor.

    “Our vision at Glassbeam has from day one been to be a pioneer in providing a single pane of glass for multi-vendor, multi-modality analytics for healthcare provider market,” said Puneet Pandit, CEO and co-founder of Glassbeam. “Not only can Glassbeam now offer an expanded view into the performance of entire fleets of medical equipment, whether imaging or biomedical devices, but we can now offer complete confidence that if patient data is pulled into Glassbeam Cloud, it will be highly secure.”

    Online Business Systems provided Glassbeam’s assessment of HIPAA Compliance, following the comprehensive rules and regulations laid out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the government body responsible for regulating and enforcing HIPAA.

    “Protection of patient information is our number one priority in the healthcare industry,” said Steve Levinson, Vice President of Risk, Security and Privacy at Online Business Systems. “We are proud to see that Glassbeam is taking the protection of that data so seriously. We are confident that as the solution integrates with new data sources, all patient data will remain secure to the highest standards.”

    Helpful link: The Impact of Machine Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on Healthcare Technology

    Glassbeam will be exhibiting at the MD Expo show in Seattle on Oct. 5-7. Stop by booth #715 for a demo or schedule a meeting to discuss how Glassbeam can maximize equipment utilization, performance, and revenues.

    About Glassbeam

    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry with a strong focus on medical and data center equipment. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform, analyze, and build Artificial Intelligence applications from multi-structured logs, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, PTC, Novant Health, UCSF Health, and Dimension Data. For more

    information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter @Glassbeam.

    Media Contact:

    Ari Brosowsky
    Public Relations for Glassbeam, Inc.
    T:  415.397.7600
    E:  glassbeam@upraisepr.com

    https://www.glassbeam.com/press/glassbeam-secures-hipaa-compliance-integrates-solution-dicom-data-expands-analytics-include

     

  • Wed
    26
    Sep
    2018
    Wednesday, September 26, 2018

    SANTA CLARA, Calif. – September 26, 2018 – Glassbeam, Inc., the premier machine data analytics company, announced today that NIR (National Imaging Resources) has selected Glassbeam to expand its Equipment Service Partnership (ESP) Asset Management program and drive innovation in their multivendor service organization. As part of the agreement, NIR will resell, market, maintain and collaborate on further development of the Glassbeam Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Analytic software for imaging, x-ray and biomedical equipment.

    NIR is an independent medical imaging and clinical equipment sales and service organization owned and operated by seasoned entrepreneurs that have more than 470 years of combined experience in the healthcare industry. Through its 16 affiliate partners, operating out of  22 offices across the country, with 83 sales professionals and 115 highly trained field service engineers, NIR sells and services diagnostic imaging and biomedical equipment to provide multivendor service on a variety of imaging systems and clinical equipment.

    “NIR, while working with a wide range of diagnostic imaging, x-ray, clinical and bio medical equipment manufactured by different OEMs, will now be able to leverage Glassbeam’s Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Analytic software to give us the analytics edge and allow us to compare performance among different manufacturers to establish ‘best of breed’ performance standards,” said Karl Wolcott, President, National Imaging Resources. “These capabilities will enable us to become a much deeper strategic partner with our customers and help them reduce costs, improve utilization and enhance clinical outcomes.”

    “Healthcare providers are aggressively looking for ways to increase revenues, reduce costs and improve patient  care, all within a budget-constrained operating and capex environment, said Puneet Pandit, Co-founder and CEO of Glassbeam.  “Glassbeam can increase machine uptime from an industry standard of 96-97 percent to more than 99.5 percent.  This difference can save healthcare organizations millions of dollars per year. Our partnership with NIR will also help Glassbeam deepen our solution by tapping into their extensive domain expertise and help institutionalize a strong machine data analytics foundation for healthcare providers across the country.”

    Glassbeam will be exhibiting at the MD Expo show in Seattle on Oct. 5-7. Stop by booth #715 for a demo or schedule a meeting to discuss how Glassbeam can maximize equipment utilization, performance, and revenues.

    About Glassbeam
    Glassbeam is the premier machine data analytics company bringing structure and meaning to complex data generated from any connected machine in the Industrial IoT industry with a strong focus on medical and data center equipment. Funded by several ultra-high net worth investors, Glassbeam’s next generation cloud-based platform is designed to transform, analyze, and build Artificial Intelligence applications from multi-structured logs, delivering powerful solutions on customer support and product intelligence for companies such as IBM, Dell EMC, PTC, Novant Health, UCSF Health, and Dimension Data. For more information visit http://www.glassbeam.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter @Glassbeam.

    About National Imaging Resources 
    National Imaging Resources is an independent medical imaging and clinical equipment sales and service organization. NIR is owned and operated by seasoned entrepreneurs with extensive experience in the healthcare industry. Through its sixteen affiliate partners and 352 employees, operating out of their twenty-two offices located across the country, National Imaging Resources sells and services a wide variety of diagnostic imaging and biomedical equipment for healthcare providers throughout the United States. For more information, visit https://www.nirmedical.com/

    Media Contact
    Ari Brosowsky
    Public Relations for Glassbeam, Inc.
    415.397.7600
    glassbeam@upraisepr.com

    https://www.glassbeam.com/press/glassbeam-and-national-imaging-resources-announce-multi-year-strategic-reseller-relationship