Smart TV platform creator joins forces with chipsets vendors, Set-top-boxes manufacturers and OTT solution providers to enable operators and broadcasters ride quickly the smart TV wave and capture market share with a revolutionary multi-screen platform

Yarkona, Israel and Amsterdam, the Netherlands - 6th Sept 2012: Comigo, the creator of the most advanced multi-screen smart TV platform, with revolutionary social interactive capabilities, today announced a series of strategic partnerships.

As part of Comigo’s strategy to bring its ground-breaking solution to OTT operators, Comigo is collaborating with Marvell (NSDQ: MRVL), a leading fabless semiconductor company, that provides original design manufacturers (ODMs) with the ability to empower their smart STBs with the Comigo smart TV software. Marvell’s ARMADA® 1500 based platform is designed to deliver superior 3D video, impressively rich audio, striking 3D graphics and TV-friendly web content.

Comigo’s innovative smart TV platform can be integrated easily to the operator’s video headend, operational support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS), featuring personalized and social viewing experience on multiple screens. Alternatively, Comigo with its partners’ solutions can offer operators and broadcasters an integrated end-to-end solution, including content preparation, management and delivery, as well as subscriber management, devices monitoring and control, account management and billing.

“It’s a great time to be part of the smart TV market and the race is on to capture market share with innovative and competitive solutions that provide brilliant TV experience on multiple screens,” commented Dov Moran, Founder and CEO, Comigo. “We’ve been working with our partners to strengthen Comigo’s smart TV platform and assist operators and broadcasters to gain competitive advantage by offering an integrated solution in a short time to market at very low investment and at the same time opening new type of revenue opportunities.”

Comigo platform is already integrated with partners’ solutions which specialize in content ingestion, management and delivery of live channels, VOD and time shifted TV. These partners include CastUP, RayV and Live Asia TV.

Comigo solution supports full device management abilities by implementing the TR-69 standard (and its derivatives) backed by Friendly-Technologies powerful TR-069 ACS solution. This allows operators to remotely control and monitor Comigo devices at customer premises, gain higher customer satisfaction and improve the quality of service while reducing operational costs.

Comigo applications and smart Set-Top-Box enable operators and broadcasters to deliver protected content using Comigo platform, thanks to the implementation of PlayReady by Discretix, which provides a security platform that are field proven and future-proof.

Comigo has also partnered with Philips Home Control, a global leader in remote control technology, to build a custom made dual-sided remote for Comigo’s STB.

To enrich the user experience on TV, Comigo has integrated Playcast cloud gaming solution which delivers next-generation video games streaming as a Digital TV Service without the need for a console or downloads to OTT (over-the-top) subscribers.

With WiFi becoming the home networking technology of choice for IP-video streaming in the home, Comigo has partnered with Celeno, a provider of high performance Wi-Fi chips and software for reliable HD video home networking.

In order to enable Comigo Smart Set-top-box to use as means of control and monitoring the consumer’s home environment, Comigo and DSP Group have been jointly working towards a home automation (HA) and monitoring solution based on DECT Ultra Low Energy (ULE) technology, running on top of Comigo’s Set-Top-Box.

Upon request, Comigo will enable operators and broadcasters to accelerate video distribution, enabling smooth, buffering-free High Definition and Adaptive video streaming to any device, using Giraffic solution.

06 September 2012: With over 900 suppliers now benefiting from browser access to the Sainsbury’s Supply Chain for Food products, Sainsbury’s, in partnership with Wesupply, are pleased to announce the launch of a new strategic initiative to achieve the same results for suppliers in the Non-Food Supply Chain.

This new initiative is predominantly aimed at providing improved communications, visibility and accuracy within the supply chain for approximately 800 suppliers from Europe and Asia Pacific. The overall objective is to replace a paper based process to vastly improve the accuracy of invoicing and to apply greater control throughout the order-to-cash-cycle. Wesupply will enhance the existing browser functionality to cater for the processing, presentation and supplier acceptance of extended contract details along with other non-food specific requirements.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to continue working with Sainsbury’s on a project with such strategic importance”, commented David Grosvenor, CEO Wesupply. “From the success of the foods project we have been able to develop both a good understanding and strong working relationship with the Sainsbury’s team, which helps both parties get the best out of the partnership.”

As well as moving forwards with the Non-Foods project, Sainsbury’s will be implementing the final part of its Foods Replatforming Project where the Wesupply Electronic Trading Application will be used to manage and monitor the flow of all EDI data within the Sainsbury’s extended Supply Chain. This will ensure that Sainsbury’s gain the full advantage of the comprehensive checking, validation, visibility and alerting features that the Wesupply application offers to help manage the complex message flows.
Ed Thomas, Sainsbury’s Logistics IT Programme Manager added: “Wesupply have consistently delivered quality code to agreed timescales and budgets. They have always been very constructive and flexible when challenges arose, which has made working with them very satisfying.”

Two key points which helped Sainsbury’s to a decision to commit to further investment in the Wesupply Electronic Trading Application were the robustness of the infrastructure and the capability of Wesupply to provide an excellent Managed Service.

About Wesupply
Wesupply provides a fully managed and outsourced electronic business-to-business integration service, using a unique approach that maximises supply chain collaboration between independent organisations. This approach has consistently helped our customers secure tangible operational cost savings along with improved customer service, since the business was founded in 1999. Companies across all industries, including Retail, CPG, Energy and Manufacturing rely on Wesupply to manage business-critical information flows for their extended supply chain processes.

Media contact:
Chris Walmsley
The PR Network
Chris.walmsley@theprnetwork.com
07734 413 345

Further Information

Managing Director
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@webitpr.com

SCTE, The Society for Broadband Professionals, has launched a new company, Broadband Training Ltd, to provide qualified tutors and training facilities for the presentation of SCTE course material directly to students where no internal resource is available.

“This is a major initiative by the SCTE to improve the training of technicians in the broadband industry,” said Chris Swires, current SCTE Treasurer and Chairman of the new company. “Broadband Training Ltd will offer first class training at the lowest possible cost. We have traditionally provided course material for large companies to use for in-house training as well as home study options for individuals; our new initiative fills a defined gap in the market enabling SMEs to provide an economic and effective solution for their training needs.”

“When required, Broadband Training Ltd can provide a one-stop-shop for course materials and training. Examinations for students that have completed SCTE courses, either by home-study, third-party training or with our tutors, will be carried out online. Independent invigilation and the issue of accreditation certificates will still be provided by the parent body SCTE,” added Mike Thornton, Chairman of SCTE’s Training Committee.

The SCTE works closely with the broadband industry to ensure that all courses are up-to-date and relevant. SCTE courses concentrate on core skills; the training and certification for Installers, Service Technicians and Network Technicians covers all aspects of broadband copper and fibre optic installations.

SCTE training courses have achieved wide acceptance as the standard for young technicians wishing to enter the field of cable telecommunications and for those wishing to advance their knowledge and career prospects. They are used in-house by a number of operating companies and SCTE engineers can be found working in a variety of international organisations. SCTE training courses in the Balkans and India, for example, have netted the Society many new members and a reputation as a leading broadband trainer.

Further Information

Managing Director
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@webitpr.com

St. Albans, UK – 5th September 2012 – Serena Software, the leader in Orchestrated IT solutions, today announced that it has appointed Mark Slater as its regional director for the UK and Ireland. Slater brings the vendor over seventeen years of sales experience in enterprise IT solutions.

Slater will be responsible for developing sales of Serena Software’s solutions for managing application development, release management and IT service management in the UK and Ireland with both existing and new customers. As part of this, Slater will be working closely with Serena Software’s sales and marketing teams to ensure customer requirements are met and to grow revenue.

Slater has held positions at Serena Software previously and returns after an eight-year break from the company. He was sales director at Serena Software for five years and later worked as sales director for northern Europe at application development management company Merant, which Serena acquired during his time there. In addition, he has also held sales management leadership positions at Compuware, IBM and CAST Software.  

Supporting Quotes
Mark Slater, regional director for the UK and Ireland, Serena Software: “I am pleased to be back at Serena Software and look forward to developing the company’s position in the UK market. Serena Software helps organisations achieve better management of their processes through orchestrating their IT from beginning to end. I will be working to expand our opportunities across application release management and the delivery of IT services.”

Eric Driffort, Vice President EMEA, Serena Software: “Companies rely on their applications and web-based services as part of their daily business, and so need to consider how they manage change in these critical environments. Ensuring that the processes behind a new software release are solid and automated can therefore deliver tremendous business value. Mark’s appointment will see that Serena Software is well placed to help organisations looking to orchestrate their IT processes around release management and service delivery.” 

Helpful Links

• Serena Software
• Serena Blog

Tweet this: Mark Slater is appointed by @Serena_Software as regional director for the UK and Ireland.

About Serena Software
Serena Software provides Orchestrated IT solutions to the Global 2000. Serena’s mission is to help enterprises orchestrate their IT processes for tremendous competitive advantage.  Its 4,000 active enterprise customers, encompassing almost one million users worldwide, have made Serena the largest independent ALM vendor, and are now using Serena to orchestrate IT service management and other vital processes.  Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Serena serves enterprise customers from 29 offices in 14 countries. Serena is a portfolio company of Silver Lake Partners, the leader in private investments in technology-enabled industries. For more information on Serena, visit http://www.serena.com.

Media Contact:
Mark Kember
Goode Communications for Serena Software
+44 (0) 1491 873323
mark.kember@goode.co.uk

Frimley, Surrey, September 6, 2012—QLogic (Nasdaq: QLGC) today announced new technology that seamlessly combines its market-leading storage area network (SAN) host bus adapter (HBA) technology with server-based, industry-standard solid-state drive (SSD) flash storage. The Mt. Rainier project brings server-based SSD caching performance to SAN storage, simplifying deployment and management while delivering scalable performance to I/O hungry applications running in single and clustered server environments.

Application performance has become a critical, competitive advantage for organisations and has a direct impact on customer satisfaction, service levels and overall business performance. Application-transparent and infrastructure- and storage subsystem-agnostic, Mt. Rainier delivers the application performance acceleration benefits of server-based SSDs without many of the limitations of current solutions. New breakthrough innovations include:

• Simplified deployment and management: Mt. Rainier does not require installation and management of separate drivers for I/O adapters, SSD cards and caching. The design uses only one QLogic® driver per OS which dramatically simplifies installation and management, particularly for servers running multiple virtual machines and clustered applications.
• Flexible hardware architecture: Mt. Rainier allows customers to connect different SSDs, including PCIe flash-based storage cards and industry-standard SAS SSDs.
• Adapter-based caching and SSD data management: Mt. Rainier cache processing and SSD data management are offloaded from the server to the Mt. Rainier adapter, resulting in an application-transparent and operating system-independent server-based SSD caching solution that provides scalable acceleration of critical server applications without consuming additional server resources.
• Shared caching: Many clustered enterprise applications and virtual server environments require shared storage resources. These applications typically cannot take advantage of server-based SSD solutions that utilize a direct-attached storage model because cached data is unavailable for sharing between multiple, physical servers. Mt. Rainier breaks the server captive cache model with a shared caching architecture that brings the benefits of server-based SSD performance acceleration to multi-server application configurations that benefit from the shared storage environments of SANs.
• High availability synchronous mirroring: Synchronous peer-to-peer mirroring across two Mt. Rainier adapters protects against data loss and ensures high availability for mission-critical applications.

“Increased server performance, higher virtual machine density, growth in application clusters and more demanding business application workloads have created a critical I/O performance imbalance between servers, networks and storage subsystems,” said Simon Biddiscombe, president and chief executive officer, QLogic. “Mt. Rainier builds on our leading market position and unique expertise in high performance data centre connectivity to bring a new category of scalable, performance-enhancing solutions that are easy to deploy and address some of the most performance-challenged environments in the data centre.”

“Current caching solutions require separate device drivers for SAN HBAs, SSD cards, and additional caching filter drivers and software,” said Shishir Shah, senior vice president and general manager, Storage Solutions Group, QLogic.“Mt. Rainier is flexible technology that seamlessly combines the benefits of server-based SSD caching with SAN-based storage using a standard QLogic driver. We’ve created a shared SAN resource model for industry-standard SSDs in the server that leverages existing SAN storage and infrastructure.”

“Storage performance has long been one of the most pervasive challenges in the data centre,” said Jeff Boles, senior analyst at Taneja Group. “Over the past several decades, compute power has simply leapt past the ability of SAN storage to keep up. QLogic’s Mt. Rainier defines a new technology category we call Server-based Storage Accelerators, in which HBAs cache SAN data on server-based SSD storage in a transparent, shared architecture. With QLogic’s global presence and innovative architecture, Mt. Rainier could well become the de facto choice for solving I/O challenges in every data centre.”

Mt. Rainier technology will be initially deployed and managed as a traditional SAN HBA, providing connectivity to Fibre Channel SANs (10GbE, iSCSI and FCoE in the future). For additional information on the Mt. Rainier project, please visit www.qlogic.com.

Follow QLogic @ twitter.com/qlogic

QLogic-- the Ultimate in Performance
QLogic (Nasdaq: QLGC) is a global leader and technology innovator in high performance networking, including adapters, switches and ASICs. Leading OEMs and channel partners worldwide rely on QLogic products for their data, storage and server networking solutions. For more information, visit www.qlogic.com.

Disclaimer – Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements relating to future results of the company (including certain beliefs and projections regarding business and market trends) that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied in the forward-looking statements. The company advises readers that these potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: unfavorable economic conditions; potential fluctuations in operating results; gross margins that may vary over time; the stock price of the company may be volatile; the company's dependence on the networking markets served; the ability to maintain and gain market or industry acceptance of the company's products; the company's dependence on a small number of customers; the company's ability to compete effectively with other companies; the complexity of the company's products; declining average unit sales prices of comparable products; the company's dependence on sole source and limited source suppliers; the company's dependence on relationships with certain third-party subcontractors and contract manufacturers; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; sales fluctuations arising from customer transitions to new products; seasonal fluctuations and uneven sales patterns in orders from customers; a reduction in sales efforts by current distributors; changes in the company's tax provisions or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of its income tax returns; international economic, currency, regulatory, political and other risks; facilities of the company and its suppliers and customers are located in areas subject to natural disasters; the ability to protect proprietary rights; the ability to satisfactorily resolve any infringement claims; uncertain benefits from strategic business combinations, acquisitions and divestitures; declines in the market value of the company's marketable securities; changes in and compliance with regulations; difficulties in transitioning to smaller geometry process technologies; the use of "open source" software in the company's products; security system risks, data protection breaches and cyber-attacks; and issues related to the upgrade of the company’s enterprise resource planning system.

More detailed information on these and additional factors which could affect the company's operating and financial results are described in the company's Forms 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed, or to be filed, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company urges all interested parties to read these reports to gain a better understanding of the business and other risks that the company faces. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made only as of the date hereof, and the company does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

QLogic and the QLogic logo are registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation. Other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of the companies with which they are associated.

Media Contact:
Sharon Munday
On Your Case Ltd
44 7787 566382
sharon@onyourcase.co.uk

Investor Contact:
Jean Hu
QLogic Corporation
949.389.7579
jean.hu@qlogic.com

Endava has been listed for the second year running in the exclusive Global Services 100 list, which highlights the top 100 ITO-BPO service providers in the world. Endava was also identified as one of the Specialty ADM Vendors.

The Global Services 100, (GS100) now in its seventh year, is the annual survey and analysis of the global ITO-BPO industry conducted by Global Services, in association with NeoGroup. GS100’s analytical model is based on four key criteria: performance and leadership, quality and maturity of customers, breadth of services offered, and spread of global delivery capabilities.

Ed Nair, Editor, Global Services, said: “The global service provider landscape is increasingly getting complex; but buyers are looking at vendors with scale, skill, or both in delivering business outcomes and not cost-savings alone. The companies on the Global Services 100 list have demonstrated their ability to deliver complex solutions and services, manage global customers, and sustain successful financial performance.”

John Cotterell, Chief Executive, Endava, said, “This is a welcomed recognition of our in-depth industry expertise, growing blue chip client portfolio and outstanding contribution of our technical teams. We will continue to focus on improving the capability of our business operations, offerings, services and staff.”

Recently Endava has been included in the Global Outsourcing 100 list compiled by the IAOP (the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals) as one of the best rising stars in overall revenue and in its target business sectors.

Endava has achieved a steady growth over the past years, with annual rates of 25%, reaching annual revenues of £29.2 million. The company has experienced a healthy increase in headcount, across its offices in Romania and Moldova, rising to nearly 1,000 full time employees at the group level. Endava has also announced further investments to support further expansion of its operations.

Application Development is the largest services line for Endava, accounting for 67% of the group’s overall revenues. This technical delivery capability is supported by a global distributed delivery model, including strong analysis, architecture, testing and managed services disciplines.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced Dragon® Dictate for Mac 3, the most powerful, accurate and personalised voice recognition software for the Mac available on the market today. With increased accuracy and significant feature updates, Dragon Dictate lets people quickly and easily create and edit content, and command and control their favourite Mac applications by voice – anytime, anywhere. 

Dragon Dictate harnesses the power of the renowned Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition technology to let Mac users simply speak to see their words instantly captured in real time on their screen. Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 is the most robust version of Dictate yet, with a 15 percent increase in accuracy, new Smart Format Rules and new correction capabilities for a personalised experience, wideband Bluetooth support and the ability to transcribe recorded audio files from a single speaker.

“Dragon Dictate delivers an incredibly powerful voice experience for the Mac community, with the ability to not only speak text for documents, emails and more, but also command and control the Mac applications and features people use the most,” said Peter Mahoney, Chief Marketing Officer for Nuance and Senior Vice President, General Manager, Dragon. “Nuance has been incredibly focused on bringing new features and increased accuracy to this latest version of Dragon Dictate so Mac users can experience the accuracy, speed and productivity that results from speaking instead of typing.”

Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 is Now:

Faster, More Accurate and Easier Right from the Start
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 delivers a 15 percent improvement to out-of-the-box accuracy when compared to Version 2.5, making it faster and easier for people to speak their words freely and let ideas flow right onto the screen. Simply put, Mac users can get more done in less time, letting creativity and productivity take charge.

More Personal than Ever – Dragon Dictate, Tailored For You
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 now further adapts to the way people speak with Smart Format Rules, which customise and personalise every user’s Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 experience.  Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 now detects formatting changes such as abbreviations, numbers and more, so dictated text appears the way you prefer - every time. With its revamped correction process, Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 now allows you to use speech to correct individual words or phrases through a single, easy to understand window that lets you select alternate word choices, or spell and train new words.

Additionally, Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 includes a richer list of alternative word choices, so when making a correction, it’s more likely that the word or phrase intended will be presented as an option. When a correction is made, Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 remembers and learns your preferences, making it more accurate each time. And with the Vocabulary Editor, you have the ability to set alternative written forms of words or phrases (e.g. tyre vs tire).

Control in More Applications
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 gives you control in more applications, so that you can use your voice to get more done.  It delivers an Express Editor so that you can dictate into a text field for which it does not have Full Text Control. After you finish dictating, you can transfer the text from the Express Editor to the desired application quickly and easily by voice. In addition to general support for Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 offers built-in commands for the new Notes and Reminders applications in this latest OS release.

The Perfect Dictation Assistant, Transcribing Recorded Audio Files in a Snap
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 lets you transcribe recorded audio files so you can capture your thoughts while they’re still fresh in your mind using a digital voice recorder, or your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Simply establish a user profile for a digital voice recorder, and Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 quickly and easily transcribes the recorded audio files.  Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 for Mac supports .wav, .m4a, .m4v, .mp4, .aif, and .aiff audio file formats, as well as any recorded notes using the free Dragon Recorder app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch (4th gen).

Hands- and Wire-Free with Enhanced Wideband Bluetooth Support
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 features support for 16kHz wideband Bluetooth wireless headset microphones, allowing for even further increased accuracy for Bluetooth headset users through a higher-quality audio signal. When Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 detects that a certified microphone is paired with the Mac, Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 offers “Enhanced Bluetooth” as an audio source type. The improved audio quality eliminates the requirement for Bluetooth users to do initial voice training, allowing them to get started faster than ever before.

Available Anytime, Anywhere
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 gives you the ability to dictate text at any length whenever and wherever you like to get more done faster, and without a network connection. 

A full list of all new features and capabilities in Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 can be found here

Images, box shots, videos, and press information is available via the online media kit.

Visit the Dragon UK Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DragonSpeechUK

Availability
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 is available for pre-order immediately starting at £129.99, through Nuance’s website as well as its global network of reseller partners, software retailers and professional sales organisations. It will be available to purchase as a download beginning on 13th September 2012.  All other orders will begin shipping the week of 24th September 2012. Additional information about features, editions, pricing and volume licensing programs can be found here

About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.co.uk

Nuance and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Press Contacts:
Vanessa Richter
Nuance Communications International
Tel: + 32 9 239 80 31
Email: vanessa.richter@nuance.com  

Gino Mainolfi
NSPR Ltd
Tel: + 44 01276 487 006
Email: gino@nspr.co.uk

London — 7 September 2012 —Torstone Technology, providers of securities and derivatives processing software to the global financial markets, has introduced Inferno Reconciliation, a new, fully standalone software module, developed to meet the specific needs of investment banks and brokers to reconcile positions, cash and trades  across multiple asset classes. Quick to implement, Inferno Reconciliation improves management control and visibility across equities, derivatives and fixed income business and simplifies compliance with current and future regulatory reporting requirements. In addition Torstone is marketing the module as an ideal starter pack for implementing the full Inferno enterprise system.

Inferno is the enterprise-level clearing, settlement and integrated accounting application which supports multi-asset operations and integrates all the applications and controls needed by operations, finance, middle office, risk and compliance.

Torstone Technology CEO Brian Collings explained: “By bringing accurate data together in one place, Inferno Reconciliation is a great stepping stone when preparing for process change such as a system replacement or indeed moving from individual point solutions for different asset classes to Inferno’s one stop solution. There are other reconcilers on the market, but these tend to be generic, whereas this module is tailored to reconciling positions, cash and trades. These are not single point-in-time reconciliations either, but include history and statistics providing trend analysis of problems, clearance progress and provide greater diagnostic power for faster resolution of breaks.”

Torstone is planning to introduce a range of standalone modules so that clients can benefit from Inferno technology targeted to a specific back office function and/or transition to the full Inferno system on an incremental basis. “Conditions in the industry mean that few capital market participants are planning major IT projects currently so we need to take a realistic incremental approach,” commented Mr Collings. “Inferno Reconciliation, which accepts SWIFT statements, can co-exist alongside older systems, enabling firms to quickly benefit from  the increased productivity, improved efficiency and streamlined workflows that our flexible technology provides. Having all your critical information reconciled in one place also provides a central source of accurate data for reporting.”

Summary of Inferno Reconciliation key features

• Three specialised reconcilers – cash, position, trade
• Any number of data sources can feed a single reconciliation
• Automatic processing of incoming SWIFT cash/position statements and of statements
• Automatic matching of cash, positions and trades
• Assignment of breaks to individuals and ability to add comments to breaks
• Management control reports and completeness checking
• Dashboard showing numbers of breaks, break ages and user comments

About Torstone Technology www.torstonetechnology.com
Torstone Technology, headquartered in London with offices in New York and Hong Kong, provides securities and derivatives processing software to the global financial markets. Its flagship product is Inferno which is designed to support high volumes of straight through processing for settlement of a wide range of asset classes from complex derivatives to high volume equity processing. The software is designed for today’s more fragmented and highly regulated markets.

Newport, South Wales, 7 September 2012 - Simon Taylor, chairman of UK-based data centre operator, Next Generation Data, has welcomed this week’s government warning to business leaders about the very real and growing threat of cyber crime on company reputations, share prices and future competitiveness.

“GCHQ’s wake up call to UK boardrooms on this high priority issue is not before time and the quicker and more widespread the message is disseminated and understood the better,” said Simon Taylor. “In our experience, once the board starts to fully understand these risks as real threats to their data security, the need for more secure data housing is identified and moved up the agenda.

“However, financing your own custom-built high security data centre facilities takes considerable capital expenditure (i.e. millions of pounds) and several months to deploy. This option offers companies little comfort or protection when attempting to manage the growing challenge of cyber crime and in most cases will be financially unviable. This is why more companies are turning to the latest generation of third party data centres like NGD Europe. Whether in a colocation or managed hosting environment, our purpose-built tier 3 mega data centre features all the latest physical and IT security defences for safeguarding company data and is readily available for occupation at a fraction of the cost of building your own - all funded under OPEX.”

Simon Taylor and business partner, Nick Razey, purposely located NGD Europe in South Wales to be well away from metropolitan areas having witnessed the disruption caused to large city-based data centres in New York following 9/11 and after London’s 7/7 terror attacks.    

About NGD Europe
NGD Europe is able to support High Density Environments for such power-hungry and intensive applications as Cloud Computing, Big Data, Super Computing and Grid Computing; and is ideally suited to enterprise and service provider organisations wishing to consolidate their existing space- or power-restricted data centre operations. 

NGD Europe is a purpose-built carrier-neutral Tier 3 facility offering 750,000 sq feet (gross internal area) of highly secure and cost-effective space housing up to 19,000 racks that can be arranged into self-contained data halls of various sizes all with independent services, resilient power and cooling systems. NGD Europe’s environmentally-friendly high level technology infrastructure has been designed to meet and exceed the ever increasing demand for more computing power. Among its many features are a high capacity 180 MVA power supply direct from the super grid and sourced from 100 per cent renewable energy; and a variety of on-site high-speed, low latency carrier interconnects.

For further information, visit www.nextgenerationdata.com

Specialist Software Services Group (SSS Group), has today announced the appointment of Nick Lee as director of finance and operations.  The recent successes experienced by SSS Group has resulted in more than 300 per cent growth in revenues this year, and the complex needs of SSS Group as a result of this growth has driven a full executive review; the appointment of Nick is the latest addition to the fast growing team of senior executives joining the group.

Nick Lee is a chartered accountant with extensive experience in the IT industry and is well known for his strong technical ability, business acumen and commercial approach.  After an early career in the accounting profession with BDO he used his experience to become chief financial officer for Bell Microproducts Europe and more recently held the position of finance director for Avnet UK and Ireland.

Nick commented, “This is a great opportunity to join such a dynamic and entrepreneurial team at SSS Group, which is becoming one of the most innovative and well respected groups in the Business Intelligence Industry. It is a very exciting time and I look forward to helping drive the aggressive growth plans ahead.”

Jason Allaway, Group CEO of SSS Group commented: “The addition of Nick to our team is great news and a sign that we are rapidly becoming a serious choice of career for experts in the software industry. We have some very exciting times ahead and look forward to using Nick’s experience and knowledge to support the team”.

Working from the SSS headquarters based in Reading, Nick Lee will head up the finance and support operations teams and report directly to Jason Allaway, Group CEO.

About Specialist Software Services (SSS)
Specialist Software Services is an independent and impartial IT infrastructure and asset consultancy providing cost savings and risk mitigation opportunities within a business’ IT asset base.Working with some of the world’s largest financial, IT and eCommerce brands, SSS provides bespoke solutions, based on its own IP, specialist consultancy and proven methodology allowing its customers to make informed business decisions and significant cost savings.SSS operates globally and has received the 2012 Microsoft Software Asset Management Partner of the Year Award. 

IT professionals are allowed to roam around corporate networks unchecked, according to a survey of more than 450 IT professionals released today by Lieberman Software Corporation.  It found that 39% of IT staff can get unauthorized access to their organization’s most sensitive information – including the CEO’s private documents – and one in five has already accessed data they shouldn’t.

68% of respondents believe that, as an IT professional, they have more access to sensitive information than colleagues in other departments such as HR, finance and the executive team - leaving companies wide open to data breaches from the inside.

The study found that, if they thought their job was at risk, 11% of respondents would abuse their administrative rights to snoop around the network to seek out the redundancy list and other sensitive information. In fact, if laid off tomorrow, 11% would be in a position to take sensitive information with them. Worryingly, nearly a third confirmed that their management does not know how to stop them.

Commenting on this research Philip Lieberman, president and CEO of Lieberman Software, said “Many organizations rely on their IT departments to keep them safe but all too often the reality is that powerful privileged account credentials are being abused. Management must step up to the plate and take charge by establishing systems and procedures to lock down data from prying eyes or their secrets will continue to be stolen from under their noses.”

Organizations can control privileged account access, and diminish the insider threat, with a four-part process:

• Identify and document critical IT assets, theirprivileged accounts and their interdependencies.
• Delegate access to privileged credentials so that only appropriate personnel, using the least privilege required, can login to IT assets.
• Enforce rules for password complexity, diversity and change frequency, and synchronize changes across all dependencies.
• Audit and alert so that the requester, purpose, and duration of each privileged access request is documented.

For more information see www.liebsoft.com/2012_Security_Survey/.

About Lieberman Software Corporation
Lieberman Software provides privileged identity management and security management solutions to more than 1000 customers worldwide, including 40 percent of the Fortune 50. By automatically discovering and managing privileged accounts throughout the network, Lieberman Software helps secure access to sensitive systems and data, thereby reducing internal and external security vulnerabilities, improving IT productivity and helping ensure regulatory compliance. The company developed the first solution for the privileged identity management space, and its products continue to lead the market in features and functionality. Lieberman Software is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA with an office in Austin, TX and channel partners throughout the world. For more information, visit www.liebsoft.com.

Product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

For more information, please contact:
Catherine Eyres
Eskenzi PR
Catherine@eskenzipr.com
+44 207 1832 842

Kevin Franks
Marketing Communications Manager
Lieberman Software Corporation
512-583-9762
www.liebsoft.com

www.identityweek.com
www.twitter.com/liebsoft

kfranks@liebsoft.com

Further Information

Director
Tel: 02071832833
Email: neil@eskenzipr.com

Tufin Technologies, the market-leading provider of Security Policy Management solutions,today announced Stephan Mesguichas vice president of Sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Ed Greene as vice president of Sales, the Americas.These two accomplished leaders bring more than 40 years of combined sales and operations experience to Tufin, furthering its ability to capitalize on the increased global demand for firewall management solutions. Tufin’s ongoing ability to attract top notch talent aligns with its strong and consistent growth, high customer satisfaction ratings, and steady stream of accolades including its fourth, consecutive five-star review from SC Magazine,recognition from Deloitte as the fastest growing technology company in Israel and making Network Computing UK’s shortlist for “Company of the Year.”

“Our customers don’t have the time to manage one vendor for PCI DSS compliance and another for firewall change management – they want strategic partners that can support their ability to be successful across their entire scope of duties,” said Ed Greene.  “Tufin really gets this – the focus here is on adding value, and we do that by delivering superior technology,service and support. This commitment to excellence is what has fueled the company’s growth, and I look forward to contributing to its future success.”

As vice president of Sales for the Americas, Ed Greene brings to Tufin more than 20 years of building and leading sales organizations in the IT Security industry.  Prior to Tufin, Ed was vice president of Sales at MarkMonitor, an enterprise brand protection company recently acquired by  Thomson Reuters.  While at MarkMonitor, Ed grew sales by 300%. Prior to MarkMonitor, Ed was vice president of Global Sales at Skybox Security, a provider of automated IT risk management solutions. Prior to Skybox, he held senior sales positions at Zone Labs (acquired by Check Point Software), Entercept Technologies (acquired by McAfee), Lucent, and Digital Equipment Corporation.  Ed holds a B.S. in Business Management from New York University.

Stephan Mesguich was tapped to lead the Company’s sales efforts in EMEA after dramatically expanding Tufin’s market share as its Regional Manager for Southern Europe.  Prior to Tufin, Stephan was vice president, Southern Europe and Benelux for Verdasys, a data security company.  Prior to Verdasys, Stephan was vice president of Sales and Co-Founder for Bee Ware, a leading web application security company, where he helped raise $11 million in funding,grew the company to more than 500 customers and successfully established Bee Ware infive countries. Prior to Bee Ware, Stephan joined Check Point as one of the Company’s first employees in EMEA and spent more than eight years in various sales and management positions. Stephan holds a B.A in Economics and International Business from ISEG Business School in Paris, France.

“I have worked in IT Security for a long time, and can recognize when a solution hits the market that solves the right problem at the right time,” said Stephan Mesguich. “Tufin is responding to a problem that has hit critical mass with a top-notch solution and the market has responded in kind. I look forward to helping Tufin grow while ensuring that our customers achieve the greatest business benefitfromour solutions.”

About Tufin Technologies
Tufin™ is the leading provider of Security Policy Management solutions that enable companies to cost-effectively manage their firewall, switch and router policies, reduce security and business continuity risks, and ensure Continuous Compliance with regulatory standards. The award-winning Tufin Security Suite provides security teams with powerful automation that slashes the time and costs spent managing change and successfully passing audits. Founded in 2005, Tufin serves more than 1000 customers in industries from telecom and financial services to energy, transportation and pharmaceuticals. Tufin partners with leading vendors including Check Point, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, F5, Blue Coat, McAfee and BMC Software, and is known for technological innovation and dedicated customer service.

For more information visit www.tufin.com, or follow Tufin on:

• Twitter: http://twitter.com/TufinTech
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Tufintech
• Google+: https://plus.google.com/s/tufin
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/tufin-technologies
• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Tufintech
• The Tufin Blog: http://www.tufin.com/blog

Press Contact
Darshna Kamani
020 7183 2839
darshna@eskenzipr.com

Further Information

Director
Tel: 02071832833
Email: neil@eskenzipr.com

Guildford, England, September 13, 2012 – ESSA Academy, one of the country’s most modern learning institutions, will start the school year with a new state-of-the-art communications system from Avaya and will introduce video conferencing technology for staff and students. In the process the school expects to improve the collaborative working between staff, students and parents which underpins the school’s learning ethos, and reduce communications costs.

The Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad application will be installed onto staff and student devices giving easy ‘swipe-of-the-finger’ access to their essential communications tools. For pupils, this will give them direct access to learning within the walls of the academy, and also via learning institutions all over the world.

Working with Avaya Silver Partner and SME expert Pennine Telecom, ESSA Academy will also deploy Avaya Aura Midsize Enterprise 6.1, Avaya One-X Communicator software clients for MacBooks, and One-X Mobile SIP iOS licenses to deliver voice over wifi to Apple mobile devices. As a result, the school will have no need for costly cabling or mobile phone contracts and will completely eliminate the need for desk phones within the institution.

Every staff member will have their own extension number and will be contactable via the soft phone on their iPad or iPod, which is now standard issue for all Academy staff. Calls can be made or answered via the school’s wifi network or even routed via their home broadband using the same school number.

As well as encouraging staff to communicate across department and directly with parents for very little cost, giving staff a dedicated number on a mobile device will also remove the need for staff to have their own rooms, giving the academy greater flexibility over both use of space and communications.

ESSA Academy is a new breed of secondary school which first opened its doors in 2009. It is jointly sponsored by Cohens Chemist and Bolton Council and its purpose is to create a 21st century learning environment which will prepare students for a successful adult and working life in a constantly changing world. Formerly Hayward School, the academy’s technology lead approach to learning has seen GCSE pass rates soar with 100 percent of students achieving at least five A*-C GCSE passes – as compared to just 26 percent of students in 2006.

Quotes
“The revenue savings we’ve made from deploying Avaya technology is a justification for the project in its own right. However, it’s the “softer” benefits that I am most excited about. We’re revolutionising the way pupils are educated – fostering productive conversations between staff and parents and creating a genuinely collaborative approach to learning. In our mission to promote a collaborative learning environment, I really believe we’ve been able to harness the best of modern technology and all the cost and time saving benefits it can deliver.”
—Abdul Chohan, Director, ESSA Academy

“Our experience of working with other education providers meant that we understood the impact ESSA wanted to achieve both on its pupils and its bottom line. We were able to deliver a solution that genuinely improves the learning environment for students and frees up resource for the academy sponsors to invest into its 21st century learning philosophy.”
—Geoff King, Sales Director, Pennine Telecom

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad and Avaya Aura Communications Manager
• Visit ESSA Academy

London – 13 September, 2012 - Emailvision Holdings Ltd., the leader in marketing automation and customer intelligence, today announced it has acquired PredictiveIntent Ltd., a pioneer in behavioural targeting and predictive analytics technology. With this acquisition, Emailvision is extending its customer intelligence offering to help marketers deliver more relevant and personalised marketing experiences on their websites and email marketing campaigns.

PredictiveIntent’s SaaS solution enables marketers to transform their websites into a dynamic, personalised sales environment. Its patent-pending predictive analytics technology presents relevant content to every site visitor in real time. With intelligence about product preferences from PredictiveIntent, marketers can automatically target subscribers with highly personalised email campaigns.

Emailvision’s Founder and CEO Nick Heys said of the acquisition, “Behavioural targeting is transforming the world of relationship marketing. Digital marketers who use PredictiveIntent see double-digit percent increases to conversion rates and sales. We see tremendous business potential for marketers who integrate predictive analytics into their online relationship marketing programmes.”

Neil Hamilton, CEO and Co-Founder of PredictiveIntent, comments, “PredictiveIntent’s vision has been to increase our customers’ revenues through enabling real time personalised digital experiences. Our customers are integrating our service into both their websites and email marketing, the most prolific being joint users of PredictiveIntent and Emailvision services. The synergy between our goals, customers and culture was uncanny. We're delighted to be part of a truly global marketing software company and look forward to expanding our technology offering and reach."

As Senior Customer Intelligence Analyst Joe Stanhope writes in Forrester Research Inc.’s June 2012 report entitled ‘Behavioral Targeting Powers Customized Content and Increased Conversion’, “Today’s sophisticated Internet consumers have high expectations for the websites they visit. As the Internet grows increasingly noisy and competitive, consumers demand well-designed, relevant experiences.

Behavioural targeting empowers marketers to meet these growing demands by delivering content and promotions that are tuned to the behavior and characteristics of website visitors.”

Virgin Media Business is giving small resellers and local dealers even more support with the announcement of two new Strategic Alliance partners in the North and South of the UK. The new partners will make it even easier for resellers to get their hands on Virgin Media Business’ range of data products and services, whilst making sure they have the support to deliver the best service possible to customers.

The new partnership with Abtec Network Systems and, Channel Telecom will mean Virgin Media Business can serve the smaller reseller and dealer communities more widely across the UK, giving them access to all of the benefits of its fibre-optic network.

Virgin Media Business only selects partners that share its philosophy of delivering top levels of customer service and going above and beyond to help organisations innovate. These two new partners share that mind-set and have the perfect locations to provide support right at the doorstep of the reseller and dealer community.

Jason King, head of business partners at Virgin Media Business said, “We want to make sure that small regional resellers get the very best support and can access all of our innovative services. With our Strategic Alliance partnerships, we have found a way to deliver this and have chosen partners that are able to deliver a truly Virgin experience. Resellers and dealers will have access to a portfolio of our best products and will also be able to call on Abtec Network Systems and, Channel Telecom for regional support. This includes the smallest of resellers who wouldn’t have had access to our portfolio before because of their size.

“This latest move is part of our on-going commitment to deliver a better channel program than any of our competitors. It’s because of our network, our unique services and our Virgin philosophy, we’re able to give partners something different and really shake up the B2B telecoms market.”

Foreign exchange experts launch new 30 seat true cloud contact centre to provide agile customer service

Today foreign exchange specialist First Rate Exchange Services announces the launch of its first true cloud contact centre with NewVoiceMedia. The new technology replaces on premise hardware  and provides First Rate with greater agility and analytics that improves its customer experience. The true cloud architecture gives First Rate visibility of its agents’ performance 24/7, with easily scalable capacity and more effective disaster recovery.

NewVoiceMedia’s ContactWorld is true cloud and deployed quickly and efficiently. All agents need is a phone line and internet connection to get up and running with this service. Handling seasonal increases in customer service has become a breeze; the company can now just increase and decrease the number of agents when it needs to and at a moment’s notice. What’s more, it provides reports and analytics straight out of the box and in real-time, giving First Rate more control over its customer service than ever before.

Mark O’Doherty, Head of Customer Service at  First Rate said: “ We had been using reliable technology but is was good to see how far the market had progressed within the  cloud , even in the last few years. Most small to medium sized call centres face significant investment choices with on-site solutions that are conveniently removed with a cloud based solution. We use management information to continuously improve our customer experience and manage resources, so having the extra granularity of the reporting suite NewVoiceMedia provides as standard has enabled us to improve our overall delivery.

“One of the biggest enhancements is the way we can act in a disaster recovery scenario or lack of access to our main facility. For the first time we can switch calls to another site or allow any agent with a broadband connection and a pc work from home and manage them remotely.”

Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia adds: “Being agile and always switched on is something that the modern customer expects from businesses. It’s great to see organisations like First Rate Exchange embrace new true cloud technology to improve the way they deliver customer service. The fact is flexible cloud solutions give businesses the freedom to grow and improve, with faster response times when you’re busy and lower costs when you’re not.”

The new system was up and running within eight weeks, enabling First Rate to take advantage of all the benefits quickly and start providing a better service than ever to their customers.

Tribold employees and board members cycle in non-stop relay from South Wales to London to raise money for Cerebra and GOSH

London, UK – September 13th, 2012: Today, Tribold employees and board members begin the grueling challenge of cycling 200 miles from South Wales to London in 24 hours. This tremendous endeavor is in support of two well–known children’s charities, Cerebra (www.cerebra.org.uk) and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (www.gosh.org).

This inaugural Tribold Charity Cycle Challenge is a team effort with an end goal of supporting two very important causes. Simon Muderack, founder and CEO at Tribold, commented: “We are very excited about the success of this event as the charities have a special place in our hearts. I am humbled by the support of our employees and board members along with our event sponsors and those who donated though JustGiving. We look forward to many more successful charity events in the future.”

Board members, Chairman Jonathan McKay, as well as Mark Farmer, General Partner and Owner at Eden Ventures, are among a few entrepreneurial participants joining in on the event.

The TM Forum is confirmed as Platinum sponsor for the cycle. Keith Willetts, Chairman of TM Forum commented: “On behalf of everyone at TM Forum, we are very delighted to be a part of such a wonderful event, supporting two great causes. Our longstanding relationship with Tribold makes being Platinum Sponsor even more rewarding.”

Other sponsors for the cycle include, Acorn and Strallen.

The ride starts on Thursday, September 13th from the Tribold Wales office in Cwmbran and will finish at Tribold’s London headquarters on Friday September 14th. A BBQ and party will mark the end of the cycle in the Hub in Regent’s Park.

To find out more information on Cerebra and Great Ormond Street Hospital, click on the following links:
www.cerebra.org.uk/
www.gosh.org/

To donate to the Tribold Charity Cycle Challenge, click here.

Brocade MLXe Core Routers and Brocade ADX Application Delivery Switches Provide New Levels of Scale and Control for SDN-enabled Core Networks

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) today announced the industry’s highest core router density with the introduction of the new 24-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) module for Brocade® MLXe® Series routers, delivering industry-leading density and performance for software-defined networking (SDN), with the ability to scale up to 768 ports of 10 GbE in a single chassis. Based on Brocade MaxScale-160 Packet Processor technology with fourth-generation silicon innovation, the new module triples existing 10 GbE density and is purpose-built for high-capacity, high-performance data centre core and service provider networks. Brocade also introduced the 12.5 software release for Brocade ADX® Application Delivery Switches, delivering a new multitenancy capability without compromising performance or flexibility.

Massive increases in data traffic – driven by video, mobile devices and the cloud – have changed network traffic characteristics, creating the need for new network architectures from data centres to the service provider core. The Brocade MLXe router with the new 24-port 10 GbE module is optimised for large-scale service provider “Supercore” networks and Internet data centre core applications where high port density, scalable MPLS, rich routing and deep buffering capabilities are required. The router’s industry-leading 10 GbE density and performance, coupled with Brocade 100 GbE technology and massive MPLS capacity, enable dramatic simplification and capacity scalability of core networks.

Using the new 24-port 10 GbE module, carriers can create highly scalable BGP-free MPLS “Supercore” networks optimised for high-speed transport and fast convergence. By reducing the number of devices and eliminating IP routing from the core of the network, providers can greatly simplify their architectures and reduce both capital expenditure and operational costs. This approach is also a key enabler of SDN that leverages technologies such as OpenFlow to control individual traffic flows up to 100 Gbps using the Brocade MLXe router. As a result, Brocade customers can maximise network resource utilisation and improve traffic control to deliver differentiated SLAs and significant business value to their own customers.

For network operators in large data centres, the 768-port density achieved with the new 24-port 10 GbE module provides significant advancements for consolidation at the core of the network. With advanced Layer 3 switching capabilities – and full-feature support for access control, routing and forwarding with industry-leading 64-port Link Aggregation (LAG) capacity – the Brocade MLXe router in the core of the data centre seamlessly complements Brocade VCS® Fabric technology running on the family of Brocade VDX® switches in the access and aggregation layers.

“Network operators are challenged to scale their networks and manage increasing complexity – with more routers, more subnets and massive dynamic flows,” said Ken Cheng, vice president of Service Provider and Application Delivery Products at Brocade. “The Brocade MLXe Core Router with the new 24-port 10 GbE module and industry-leading SDN technology will enable them to significantly scale their core networks to do more while greatly reducing network complexity and cost.”

Today Brocade also introduced significant enhancements to the Brocade ADX Application Delivery Switch with the 12.5 software release, which delivers a new multitenancy capability supported in hardware. This feature combines the flexibility of application delivery resource virtualisation with the performance of purpose-built hardware. It significantly advances application delivery deployment models for cloud and hosting providers and service-oriented enterprise IT organisations by enabling them to create highly consolidated, multitenant environments while delivering the same SLAs and granular tiered-service offerings.

This true carrier-grade multitenant architecture isolates customers or applications with dedicated hardware allocation of application delivery resources, and a flexible design enables these resources to be cost-effectively scaled up or down as requirements change. This flexibility, along with the Brocade Network Subscription capacity-on-demand subscription model that aligns infrastructure cost to business needs, gives providers a highly elastic infrastructure acquisition and deployment model that matches the way they deliver cloud services. By fully virtualising their networks to simplify the provisioning of new services and maximise infrastructure utilisation, they can achieve much higher network efficiency – reducing the number of devices to deploy and manage from 32 to just one while lowering associated power and space costs by up to 70 percent.

Continued Commitment to Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
The new products introduced today support SDN, building on Brocade’s strategy and vision for SDN announced earlier this year. SDN is gaining broad support from network operators within enterprises and cloud service providers, as it enables new levels of control over the network, transforming the network from a static, monolithic framework into a dynamic, agile and intelligent architecture. According to IDC, the SDN market is set to reach $2B by 2016.[1] Through the implementation of SDN, customers can unleash the full potential of their networking infrastructure in order to realise increased business agility, additional revenue streams from new service models and better IT asset utilisation.

With support for OpenFlow in Hybrid Mode, the 10 GbE and 100 GbE Brocade MLXe solutions seamlessly integrate with existing networks to enable SDN in conjunction with traditional networking capabilities, providing the flexible flow control to respond to dynamic traffic patterns and address business needs. Brocade ADX platforms are also optimised for SDN, providing an application services fabric with a unified control plane and an API for resource assignment, enabling customised orchestration and provisioning of both physical and logical resources.

Continued Momentum and Broad Industry Support
Brocade continues to drive innovation around various aspects of SDN through its close collaboration with key technology partners, industry regulatory bodies and early adopter customers.

Rob Vietzke, Vice President of Network Services, Internet2 : “Internet2 is a consortium made up of research and higher education facilities from around the country, supplying the world’s leading research facilities with advanced networks and services to support high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities,” said Rob Vietzke, vice president of network services at Internet2. “Because our customers depend on us to provide them with high availability, advanced data movement 24×7 and the ability to innovate new applications to support breakthrough science, we needed a solution like OpenFlow with support for flows greater than 10G. We needed both high-performance 100G and the innovation capabilities of SDN and OpenFlow. Brocade has recognised those needs and made the investments to make that advanced production environment for innovation possible.”

Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation (ONF) : “Many of the products that member companies are announcing are instrumental in helping advance the adoption of SDN and OpenFlow,” said Dan Pitt, executive director at ONF. “We applaud the Foundation’s member companies as they continue to execute on SDN strategy and roadmap. By building products with industry-leading density and performance, member companies will enable customers across the industry to adopt SDN and OpenFlow technologies in a logical and predictive manner.”

Additional Resources

• Event – Register to view sessions from Brocade Analyst and Technology Day 2012 (www.brocade.com/analystandtechnologyday)
• Video – Keith Stewart, senior director, Brocade (http://youtu.be/509edW163IA)
• Video – Brocade Enables Hardware-Based Application Delivery Virtualisation to Optimise Cloud Service Delivery (http://youtu.be/5Z0BrN0OHNU)
• Video – Internet2 Leverages Brocade to Provide 100GbE and Support SDN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F0dq_ChCY&feature=youtu.be)
• Video – Brocade Drives Network Innovation with Software-Defined Networking (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu9R_LaZbF0)
• Additional News Today: Brocade Expands Ethernet Fabric Scalability with the New Brocade VDX 8770 Switch (http://newsroom.brocade.com/)
• Images: Flickr Page: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/33437642@N02/sets/)

Risk and decision analysis software simplifies modelling, integrates with both Microsoft Excel and Project

London, September 13, 2012 — Risk and decision analysis software provider Palisade Corporation today released version 6.0 of its DecisionTools® Suite package for Microsoft Excel. The latest version will enable companies across a wide range of industry sectors to use quantitative analytics to analyse risk and make smarter decisions to minimise it. 

An integrated set of analytical tools, the DecisionsTools Suite empowers organisations to make decisions in a variety of business disciplines, such as new investments, product design, portfolio optimisation, mergers and acquisitions and project cost estimations. Anchored by Palisade’s industry-leading risk analysis software @RISK, the DecisionTools Suite 6.0 also includes new versions of PrecisionTree®, RISKOptimizer®, TopRank®, Evolver®, NeuralTools®, and StatTools®. Together, the products provide sophisticated Monte Carlo simulation, decision trees, optimisation, statistical and neural network analysis, all from a common Excel platform.

“Decision makers benefit from the DecisionTools Suite’s ability to tell them not just what might happen in a given situation, but the probabilities of different scenarios occurring,” said Randy Heffernan, vice president at Palisade. “This is powerful insight that it is impossible to gain from a standard spreadsheet.”

Continued Heffernan, “Our customers tell us that what they need now is simpler modelling, better reporting tools, and more push-button power analytics. Version 6 accomplishes this with new learning aids, interface improvements, simpler graphs, and simulation of time-series processes and project schedules – all in the same integrated package.”

Key enhancements in the DecisionTools Suite 6.0 include:

• Integration with Microsoft Project for simulation of schedules
  The integration of Microsoft Project with Excel via a new interface layer enables users to import project schedules to Excel and @RISK. The Excel interface enhances the flexibility of schedule modelling and – for the first time – allows project managers to integrate cost and schedule models in a single location. As a result, project managers can determine the actual probabilities of meeting deadlines or budgets and plan contingencies accordingly.
• Improved graphs enhance reporting
  @RISK’s new double-sided tornado graph is much easier to understand, making it important for management reporting. The new chart displays exactly how much each risk factor causes the output to change, enabling better mitigation strategies. In addition, @RISK now offers spider line graphs for sensitivity analysis, as well as flexible options for conveniently displaying desired statistics and data in the same window as the graph.
• New tutorials and examples
  To ensure that all users maximise the benefits of using the software, Palisade commissioned operations research expert Dr. Christian Albright of Indiana University to overhaul all product examples and tutorials. Tutorials are now available in a new, interactive format that walks users through hands-on, step-by-step guidance on developing and running models, and example spreadsheets are available for nearly all industry applications. In addition, all resources make extensive use of video technology.
• Simplified ribbon and toolbar
  Users can now access common tasks more quickly and find different analyses more easily with a better-organised ribbon, context-sensitive commands, and a pop-up in-sheet toolbar, making the toolset straightforward for both newcomers and experienced users.
• Time-series simulation modelling
  @RISK now offers a new set of functions for simulating time series processes or values that change over time such as stocks, oil prices, or rainfall. Any future projection of time series values has inherent uncertainty, and @RISK now lets users account for that uncertainty by looking at the whole range of possible time series projections in their model. This is particularly useful in financial modelling, hedging strategies, and portfolio simulation.
• Crystal Ball model converter
  @RISK can now convert distributions and other model elements created in Crystal Ball software to native @RISK functions, helping Crystal Ball users to save time because they can use old models previously developed.

Industry decision-makers believe DecisionTools Suite 6.0 will have a positive impact on their business. "This tool, version 6 of Palisade’s DecisionTools Suite, is outstanding. The time scale reports make my life so much easier for forecasting," noted Paul Bradley, an analyst at Chevron.

“Our agricultural biotechnology product development timelines have long durations, sometimes as long as ten years,” said Ross Gilmour, program leader, DuPont Agricultural Biotechnology. “The project timeline modelling tools now incorporated in @RISK 6.0 have extended the understanding of our development timelines by enabling us to quantitatively estimate their duration and likelihood of success,” “This capability will significantly improve how we manage our research and development portfolio.”

For more information on The DecisionTools Suite 6.0 and to download a free trial, please visit:http://www.palisade.com/decisiontools_suite/6/WhatsNew.asp

Powerful New Modular Switch Delivers Unmatched Scale, Performance and Automation for Private and Public Cloud Networks

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD), the industry leader in fabric networking, today announced a revolutionary switching platform, the Brocade® VDX® 8770 Switch, along with VCS® Fabric technology enhancements that take data centre network simplicity, efficiency and resiliency to a new scale. The Brocade VDX 8770 is designed for enterprises and service providers striving to both simplify and scale-out their data centre infrastructure in order to accelerate new service introduction and drive innovation, while also lowering costs.

With more than 700 customers who have already installed Brocade VDX switches, Brocade is building on the success of its VCS fabric-enabled switch portfolio with the addition of the modular Brocade VDX 8770 Switch. The newest family member is built to support the largest data centres, delivering unprecedented simplicity and automation along with massive scalability and performance—all while offering superior investment protection. 

Simplicity and Automation
The Brocade VDX 8770 and VCS Fabric technology deliver a radically simplified data centre network. Designed specifically for highly virtualised environments, Ethernet fabrics built on VCS Fabric technology accelerate application deployment and enable faster virtual machine (VM) migrations through zero -touch VM discovery, VM mobility and VM port configuration migration. Using VCS fabrics, customers can manage dozens of switches as a single logical device, dramatically reducing operational costs. They can also save installation time as new switches self-provision when they are connected to the fabric. 

Scale and Performance
With today’s virtualised and cloud-centric data centre architectures, application performance is highly dependent on the efficiency and utilisation of the network infrastructure. VM density per server is also rapidly increasing as customers seek to maximise server utilisation. To support these requirements, they need a high-performance network that can scale out on demand to address immediate business needs.

The Brocade VDX 8770 provides unprecedented fabric scalability for the world’s largest data center environments, enabling customers to expand a single VCS fabric up to 8000 switch ports with up to 384,000 VMs attached to the fabric—20 times the scalability of the leading competitor. Designed for today’s real-time applications, the Brocade VDX 8770 also delivers the industry’s lowest port-to-port latency at 3.5 microseconds across all 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 10 GbE and 40 GbE ports—half the latency of the nearest competitor.

Moreover, the Brocade VDX 8770 sets a new standard for network efficiency and fault-tolerance with improved scalability and load balancing of Layer 3 gateways in the fabric. Combining this Layer 3 innovation with VCS fabric trunking and TRILL-based Layer 2 ECMP, customers can realise significantly improved network resiliency and superior application performance by maximising available network bandwidth.

State-of-the-Art Design for the Future
The Brocade VDX 8770 is specifically built to address the evolving needs of tomorrow’s data centres and to support the latest technologies. With an industry-leading 4 Tbps backplane, the Brocade VDX 8770 chassis is designed to support future technologies such as dense 100 GbE, providing ample performance capacity for years to come. The Brocade VDX 8770 is also engineered for emerging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architectures, with flexible hardware support for network virtualisation through technologies such as VXLAN overlay networking.

Continued Leadership in Ethernet Fabrics
In 2010, Brocade began articulating a vision for transforming networking to support the next-generation cloud-optimised data centre. Later that year, Brocade delivered on the first phase of this vision by pioneering the Ethernet fabric category with the introduction of Brocade VCS Fabric technology and the Brocade VDX 6720 VCS-enabled switch. In 2011, Brocade delivered on the second phase of its vision by expanding the Brocade VDX family with the Brocade VDX 6710 and 6730 switches. Continuing the revolution of the data centre networking and Ethernet fabric category, the introduction of the Brocade VDX 8770 represents the third phase of Brocade’s vision. This vision focuses on helping the largest-scale data centres utilise VCS fabrics that deliver superior automation, resiliency and efficiency to support the most advanced private and public cloud environments.

Pricing and Availability
The Brocade VDX 8770 is orderable now. U.S. list price starts at $65,000 ($833/10G port). The Brocade VDX 8770 and other Brocade networking solutions are available direct, through Brocade channel partners and via Brocade Network Subscription.

Additional Resources

• Event – Register to view sessions from Brocade Analyst and Technology Day 2012 (www.brocade.com/analystandtechnologyday)
• Video - Jason Nolet, vice president, Brocade  (http://www.brocade.com/fabricarchitecture)
• Additional News Today: Brocade MLXe Core Routers Take Leadership Position with Highest 10 GbE Density in the Industry (http://newsroom.brocade.com)
• Customer videos (http://www.brocade.com/fabricarchitecture)
• Images: Flickr Page: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/33437642@N02/sets/