Rona Inc. and Air Transat to Measure Cost-Efficiency of Facebook Campaigns Using Parta Dialogue's New e-Value™ Analytics Tool

Rona Inc. and Air Transat to Measure Cost-Efficiency of Facebook Campaigns Using Parta Dialogue's New e-Value™ Analytics Tool

MONTREAL and PARIS, Feb. 7, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - PARTA Dialogue Inc. (TSXV: PAD), experts in Social Campaign Optimization and Social Learning, announce the addition of Rona Inc. and Air Transat to the list of companies and brands (Post Foods Canada Corp., Van Houtte® and Koodo Mobile®) already testing and evaluating their e-Value™ social media analytics tool.

e-Value™ is a software as a service tool designed to calculate the cost-efficiency of corporate social media campaigns by comparing natural (earned) engagement behavior of online communities against the paid promotion and management efforts deployed by companies to build these followings. All performance results are measured against a growing list of benchmarked social media accounts from global brands with a strong social media presence. As of today, over 1500 brands have their e-Value™ benchmarked.

According to Parta Dialogue, e-Value™ is a critical starting point that will allow brand managers to establish ROI for social media spending - a major request from top marketing management in 2012.

"We welcome the brands that have joined us as early adopters of our e-Value™ service. With their help, we are on the way to creating a new industry benchmark that will answer brand managers most pressing questions," states Parta's CEO, Paul Allard.

For information about e-Value™ analytics: http://www.socialmediaefficiency.com/

About PARTA

Parta Dialogue offers Social Media and Social Learning solutions to its clients from offices in Montreal, Paris and Mexico. Many visionary businesses already employ PARTA's solutions for internal and external online engagement. Among these are Renault, Orange, Michelin, Hydro-Québec, Iusacell (Mexico), the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Nestlé Waters, Crédit Agricole, and Fondaction.

PARTA is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol PAD. PARTA has a subsidiary that specializes in Social E-Learning, Edu-Performance Canada Inc (www.eduperformance.com).

For more information, please visit www.partadialogue.com.

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release." 

For further information:

Paul Allard, President & CEO
+1 (450) 466 - 7275 ext 35
paul.allard@partadialogue.com

Tom Liacas, VP Social Media
+1 (514) 771 - 5120
tom.liacas@partadialogue.com

GuestLogix' Onboard Store Technology 'Goes Live' Across Entire Aer Lingus Carrier Network

GuestLogix' Onboard Store Technology 'Goes Live' Across Entire Aer Lingus Carrier Network

GuestLogix Expands European Footprint Through Deployment of Its Onboard Retailing Platform With Ireland's Flagship Carrier

TORONTO, ONTARIO, Feb 07, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- GuestLogix Inc. CA:GXI +9.09% ("GuestLogix" or the "Company"), the leading global provider of onboard store technology solutions to airlines and the passenger travel industry, announced today that it has deployed its onboard retail platform across the entire Aer Lingus route network of nearly 70 destinations throughout Ireland, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and the United States. The implementation represents approximately 10.5 million annual passenger trips, and an opportunity for the airline to drive further ancillary sales and create a seamless customer travel experience across all flights.

"This deployment signifies the Company's goal to expand its footprint and increase market share in Europe through current airline customers and new strategic channel partnerships," said Tom Douramakos, President and CEO of GuestLogix.

"The establishment of the Company's regional operations in Europe in 2011 paved the way for a successful Aer Lingus deployment," said Richard Cushing, Senior Vice President and General Manager of GuestLogix Europe. "Through our localized delivery and service infrastructure, we are able to offer customers more robust deployment of our technology solutions, improved customer service and timelier turnaround for device logistics to keep their operations running smoothly."

In addition to revenue from low fares, Aer Lingus generates revenue from sales of products and services that are ancillary to its core passenger operations including inflight sales of merchandise, entertainment and meals. GuestLogix' onboard retailing platform integrates the sale of these items and much more based on specific routings and passenger demographics.

"GuestLogix provides the necessary technology to enable us to fully understand our customers' needs and buying preferences. The deployment of this technology will assist us in providing Aer Lingus customers with the mix of products they want onboard their flight," said Aidan Power, Director of Catering at Aer Lingus.

About GuestLogix

GuestLogix Inc. is the leading global provider of onboard store technology and merchandising solutions, which help airlines and other travel operators create, manage, and control onboard retail environments tailored to their needs and their passengers. Serving approximately 90% of the North American airline passenger traffic and 40% of the global airline passenger traffic, GuestLogix has become a trusted onboard transaction processing partner to airlines around the world. The Company's global headquarters and centre for product innovation is located in Toronto, Canada with regional head offices around the globe including GuestLogix USA, serving the Americas, located in Dallas, Texas; GuestLogix Europe, located in London, UK, serving Europe, Middle East and Africa; GuestLogix Asia Pacific, located in Hong Kong; and a sales and support office located in Singapore. Logistics centres are situated in Toronto, Dallas, London and Seoul with a software development centre located in India. On February 1, 2012, the Company marked a major milestone celebrating its 10th Anniversary. Since its founding in 2002, the Canadian technology startup has established itself as a pioneer of the onboard retail revolution through its innovative technology solutions. GuestLogix is pleased to be recognized as one of Deloitte's North America Technology Fast 500 and Canada Technology Fast 50 companies. GuestLogix is publicly traded on The Toronto Stock Exchange (GXI.T). More information is available at www.guestlogix.com .

Copyright 2012 GuestLogix. All Rights Reserved. (R)OnTouch is a trademark of GuestLogix Inc. and is registered in the United States and may be pending or registered in other countries. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.

Contacts: GuestLogix Ruth Morayniss Media Relations 416-987-7057 rmorayniss@guestlogix.com TMX Equicom Kristen Dickson Investor Relations 416-815-0700 ext. 273 kdickson@equicomgroup.com

SOURCE: GuestLogix Inc.

mailto:rmorayniss@guestlogix.com mailto:kdickson@equicomgroup.com

Rogers redefines how Canadians connect with one number

Rogers redefines how Canadians connect with one number

- New Rogers service merges wireless and web communications under one number-

TORONTO, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Rogers Communications today announced the launch of another industry first, Rogers One NumberTM, a service that allows Canadians to extend their Rogers wireless number to their computer. Available for free exclusively to Rogers wireless customers. Rogers One Number lets you text and talk from your computer and video chat with other Rogers One Number users on your computer, all using your wireless number.

"Canadians have told us that with more and more technology, their lives have become more confusing and complicated. We now have a seamless and easy-to-use solution for them with Rogers One Number," said John Boynton, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Rogers Communications. "By extending your Rogers wireless number to your computer, we're transforming and simplifying how Canadians connect with family and friends."

With Rogers One Number, customers can use their mobile number to manage everything from their computer. Features of the service include:

One unified inbox and contact list:
With Rogers One Number, texts, calls and emails1 can be organized into one unified inbox and contacts can be synched across customer's wireless phone and the Rogers One Number website.

Talk and send texts Canada-wide from your computer with no additional wireless charges:
Wireless calls can be instantly switched to your computer, or vice versa, with the click of a button. You can also text with friends from your computer. Canadians already spend more time on the internet than any other nation and the amount of time Canadians spend online is nearly double the worldwide average2.

Use your computer to call any Canadian number, from anywhere for free: Whether you're a student abroad or travelling on business, by using Rogers One Number on your computer, all calls, video chats with other Rogers One Number users and outgoing text messages sent to Canadian wireless numbers are free of charge, even if you are in the US or an international destination.

"When you're a Rogers wireless customer it's not just about you and your phone, Rogers One Number extends your mobile number to your computer, unifying your communication and giving you an enhanced identity," said John Boynton. "This service reflects our commitment to customer-driven innovation and creating world-leading internet experiences that evolve with our customers' relationship to technology."

Rogers has brought many new advances to the Canadian market, building on a proud history of innovative firsts and commitment to investing in Canada's digital future. Rogers was the first to launch LTE in Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver and surrounding areas, and the first carrier in Canada to launch a complete and robust network in Toronto. Rogers was also first to launch Android smartphones, and the iPhone in Canada; the first carrier in the world to launch BlackBerry devices, rolled out the first coast-to-coast GSM network in 2001 and one of the first 10 carriers worldwide to offer HSPA+.

Rogers wireless customers can set up their Rogers One Number profile online by following three simple steps on www.RogersOneNumber.ca

About Rogers Communications
Rogers is a diversified Canadian communications and media company. We are Canada's largest provider of wireless voice and data communications services and one of Canada's leading providers of cable television, high speed internet and telephony services. Through Rogers Media we are engaged in radio and television broadcasting, televised shopping, sports entertainment, magazines and trade publications, and digital media. We are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B) and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RCI). For further information about the Rogers group of companies, please visit www.rogers.com.

  1. Currently Yahoo! Mail and Gmail are available with the service.
  2. The comScore 2010 Canada Digital Year in Review (March 8, 2011) analyzes overarching trends in digital media usage in Canada, including overall Internet usage, high-growth categories, online display advertising, online video, search and mobile.

SOURCE Rogers Communications Inc.

EMC VFCache Signifies a New Era for Enterprise Flash Technology + EMC FAST Technology Shipped with Over One Exabyte of EMC Storage


1) EMC VFCache Signifies a New Era for Enterprise Flash Technology –
Makes Leap from Storage to Server
2) EMC FAST Technology Shipped with Over One Exabyte of EMC Storage

Thank you.

----------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EMC VFCache Signifies a New Era for Enterprise Flash Technology –
Makes Leap from Storage to Server

Together, EMC VFCache and EMC Storage Bring PCIe Flash Benefits to
Mainstream Mission Critical Applications – Delivers Lightning-Fast
Performance, Intelligence and Enterprise-Class Protection

News Summary:

* EMC delivers EMC VFCache
(http://www.emc.com/storage/vfcache/vfcache.htm)™, formerly known as
“Project Lightning,” a new hardware and software solution
leveraging PCIe Flash technology and intelligent caching software that
dramatically increases throughput and reduces latency.
* The powerful combination of EMC Flash-enabled enterprise storage
arrays with VFCache extends the benefits of PCIe Flash technology from
edge case social media and Internet to mainstream applications. Testing
in mission-critical database environments (such as Microsoft SQL Server
and Oarcle) showed up to 3X throughput improvement and 60 per cent
reduction in latency.
* VFCache extends a new “high performance” tier of storage into the
server, integrating with and leveraging the benefits of intelligent EMC
FAST (http://www.emc.com/about/glossary/fast.htm)(Fully Automated
Storage Tiering) technology.
* New VFCache extends the protection benefits of EMC’s market-leading
Symmetrix VMAX (http://www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix/vmax.htm)™,
Symmetrix VMAXe (http://www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix/vmaxe.htm)™, EMC
VNX (http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnx-series.htm)® and EMC VNXe
(http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnxe-series.htm)® Flash-enabled storage
arrays into the server, delivering advanced data services including high
availability, integrity, reliability and disaster recovery.
* EMC is previewing “Project Thunder,” a purpose-built,
low-latency, server-networked Flash-based appliance that is scalable,
serviceable, and shareable. Designed for real-world applications,
“Project Thunder” will deliver I/Os measured in millions and
timed in microseconds.

Full Story:

HOPKINTON, MA – February 6, 2012 – EMC Corporation
(http://www.emc.com/) (NYSE:EMC) today introduced EMC VFCache™, a new
server Flash caching solution. Together, VFCache and EMC Flash-enabled
storage systems dramatically improve application performance by
leveraging intelligent software and PCIe Flash technology – testing
resulted in up-to 3X increased throughput while reducing latency by 60
per cent. With today’s announcement, EMC is extending Flash technology
to the server and evolving the benefits of PCIe Flash technology from
edge case social media and internet to mainstream mission critical
applications such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Now databases (CRP,
ERM), OLTP, email, Web, and reporting – any read-intensive workloads
with cacheable working sets – can benefit from the powerful
performance benefits of PCIe Flash.

VFCache combined with VMAX
(http://www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix/vmax.htm), VMAXe
(http://www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix/vmaxe.htm), VNX
(http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnx-series.htm) and VNXe
(http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnxe-series.htm) storage delivers
turbocharged performance with the protection (high availability, data
integrity, reliability, and disaster recovery) for which EMC storage is
trusted around the world. While VFCache is the next evolutionary step of
EMC’s Flash strategy – requiring no disruption to customers’
existing storage architectures – it delivers revolutionary benefits.

VFCache is the latest in a line of enterprise Flash innovation firsts,
beginning in 2008 when EMC was the first to integrate Flash drives into
an enterprise storage array. Putting Flash drives into th
e storage array
achieved an order of magnitude better performance – 300X faster data
access than 15K HDD. Now, placing Flash technology in the server on a
PCIe card can accelerate performance up to another order of magnitude
– 4,000X faster data access than 15K HDD.

Coming in the next year, EMC will add deduplication technology to
VFCache, enabling customers to achieve even more efficiency from Flash
technology. Additional Flash capacity and form factors will also be
supported. VFCache will also more deeply integrate with EMC storage
management technologies, and additional integration with FAST
architecture. EMC’s vision for VFCache is delivering the industry’s
most comprehensive, efficient and intelligent I/O path from the
application to the data store. The result will be a networked
infrastructure that is dynamically optimized for performance,
intelligence, and protection for both physical and virtual environments.


EMC VFCache Technology Benefits

* Turbocharged Performance: VFCache is the fastest PCIe server
Flash-caching solution available today. VFCache resides in the server,
eliminating the need for hot data to travel through the network to the
storage array – boosting throughput performance in some cases up to 3X
and reducing latency by 60 per cent. EMC is offering the industry’s
best architecture – the PCIe Flash cards deliver better throughput and
response, while using four times less CPU and memory resources than
competing solutions.
* Automated Intelligence: VFCache is enabling a new tier of high
performance storage in the server. VFCache extends the EMC FAST
(http://www.emc.com/about/glossary/fast.htm) architecture to facilitate
an intelligent end-to-end data tiering and caching strategy from the
storage to the server. EMC’s focus on enabling customers to exploit
the cost and performance benefits of FAST technology has catapulted
EMC’s leadership in enterprise Flash (see related announcement
(http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2012/20120206-02.htm)).
* Enterprise-Class Protection: VFCache enables customers to benefit
from total protection with “write-through caching” to the storage
array. When data is written to VMAX, VMAXe, VNX or VNXe storage,
customers have the confidence of knowing data is protected by the
industry’s highest availability storage with data integrity, data
reliability and disaster recovery. The information remains shareable and
scalable – without any stranded storage.

EMC also plans an early customer access program for “Project
Thunder” in the second quarter of 2012. “Project Thunder,”
optimized for high-frequency, low-latency read/write workloads, will
build upon the advanced PCIe technology delivered in VFCache to leverage
the power of Flash through a dedicated server-networked, Flash-based
appliance.

Customer Quotes

Frank W. Smith, Senior IT Infrastructure Manager, PPG Industries
“PPG Industries (http://www.ppg.com/en/Pages/home.aspx) manufactures
coatings and specialty products for the construction, consumer products,
industrial and transportation markets. Putting Flash in the server was
an easy decision for us. We know that the closer data on Flash is to an
application, the better it will perform. However, we need more than just
crazy fast I/O. Our data is the lifeblood of our operations, so we
require a solution we can count on to protect our mission-critical data
while adding performance. That is why we chose EMC VFCache for our
Oracle environment, which complements our Symmetrix VMAX storage running
FAST VP. With EMC, we get performance with protection – crazy fast I/O
coupled with EMC’s trusted networked storage. There is no other
solution on the market today that comes close to offering VFCache’s
comprehensive performance, intelligence, and protection.”

Craig VanHuss, IS Manager, Enterprise Systems, Crutchfield Corp
“Crutchfield Corporation is a leading catalogue and Internet retailer
of consumer electronics products. We've been impressed with the
performance and efficiency benefits of Flash drives and FAST Suite in
our Microsoft SQL Server database environment, responsible for hosting
www.crutchfield.com. After being introduced to EMC VFCache, we started
thinking about the performance benefits of having data on Flash drives
that are even closer to our SQL Server application – the closer to the
application, the better it will perform. The potential performance
benefits got us really excited. Deploying VFCache together with our
Flash-enabled VNX running SQL would enable Crutchfield to protect our
mission critical data while adding insanely fast performance.”

Brian Carpenter, Vice President of Information Technology, Heritage
Auctions
“Heritage Auctions (HA.com) is the largest collectibles auctioneer,
and third-largest auction house in the world. All of our data resides on
EMC storage, which is the backbone of our mission-critical Microsoft SQL
Server environment. Using Symmetrix VMAXe with FAST VP enables us to
leverage Flash drives to increase performance for faster response time
to bidders. VFCache means we can extend the intelligence of FAST into
the server – providing unparalleled response to our bidders.”

Industry Analyst Quote

Dave Vellante, Chief Analyst, Wikibon.org
“EMC landed a haymaker in 2008 when it introduced Flash into
Symmetrix VMAX arrays and set the precedent for maximizing Flash
technology in storage arrays. In 2012 we're seeing the extension of the
storage hierarchy where flash is being managed from the server all the
way through to the spinning disk array. An important development is
software that intelligently places data at the most appropriate location
in this emerging storage hierarchy. Combined with FAST, EMC VFCache is a
leading example of this trend coming to market as a solution.”

EMC Executive Quote

Pat Gelsinger, President and Chief Operating Office, EMC Information
Infrastructure Products
“EMC identified very early on that Flash technology would change the
industry forever, and became the first to bring Flash to enterprise
storage. With today’s announcement, EMC also becomes the first to
implement PCIe Flash in a way that ensures mission critical applications
reach new levels of performance, at the right cost, and with the level
of protection and intelligence that customers demand.”

Technology Partner Quotes

Jason Nolet, Vice President, Data Center and Enterprise Networking,
Brocade
“EMC and Brocade
(http://www.brocade.com/partnerships/oems/emc/overview.page) have a
long-standing relationship in the delivery of high-performance, highly
resilient data centre solutions. The deployment of EMC VFCache and FAST
storage tiering technology will better enable customers to gain the
business efficiencies of Flash with the confidence that their data is
fully protected throughout its information lifecycle. Brocade
fabric-based networks, which feature industry-leading performance and
built-in resiliency, are a natural connectivity choice for EMC’s new
offering.”

Satinder Sethi, Vice President, Data Center Solutions, Server Access
and Virtualization Technology Group, Cisco
“EMC VFCache extends the benefits of Flash storage into the computing
system to dramatically improve application performance. VFCache
complements the high density of the Cisco UCS platform to deliver higher
performance computing needed in a virtualized data centre environment
and to support big data and business analytics applications.”

Eugene Saburi, General Manager, SQL Server Product Marketing, Microsoft
Corporation
“SQL Server customers who are looking to increase caching and storage
performance can now take advantage of recent innovations in enterprise
Flash technology. By extending PCIe Flash caching technology to the
server with VFCache – and putting data even closer the application –
EMC is aiming to supercharge performance. EMC VFCache with SQL Server
has the potential to boost caching and storage performance, while
maintaining enterprise-clas
s data protection.”

Raghu Raghuram, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cloud
Infrastructure and Management, VMware
“Our customers are focused on simplifying management for the cloud.
With VFCache EMC is extending its expertise in information management
and exploiting the benefits of Flash directly to the server – whether
in a physical or virtual environment. VFCache coupled with VMware cloud
infrastructure and EMC storage can deliver heightened levels of
performance with data protection, easing our customers' journey to
transform their IT infrastructures.”

Channel Partner Quotes

Jamie Shepard, Executive Vice President, Technology Solutions,
International Computerware, Inc.
“VFCache is a brilliant addition to EMC's already comprehensive,
Flash-optimized portfolio. VFCache will deliver a performance boost
unmatched in the industry today – and with the protection our
customers have come to expect from EMC storage. This new solution will
change application performance as we know it today.”

Keith Norbie, Vice President, Nexus
“VFCache allows Nexus (http://keithnorbie.wordpress.com/) to provide
our clients with a unique performance AND protection blend – while
leveraging the benefits of EMC's Flash-optimized storage arrays. What
our clients will gain in performance and protection is complemented with
the intelligence of EMC’s unique automated storage tiering technology
through EMC FAST. VFCache will help us satisfy the performance boost
requirements, protection needs and automated intelligence for our
customers with mission-critical, hybrid cloud environments.”

Additional Resources
* Read about VFCache
(http://www.emc.com/storage/vfcache/vfcache.htm#!)
* Read the VFCache data sheet
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/h9581-vfcache-ds.pdf)

* Read the Demartek VFCache evaluation paper
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/demartek-vfcache-evaluation-ar.pdf)

* Read the EMC paper
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h10502-vfcache-intro-wp.pdf)
on VFCache
* Read about VFCache accelerating Oracle with VNX
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h10501-vfcache-accelerates-oracle-vnx-wp.pdf)
and VMAX/VMAXe
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h9538-vfcache-oracle-vmax-wp.pdf)

* Read about VFCache accelerating virtualized Oracle with VMAX/VMAXe
and VMware vSphere
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h9537-vfcache-virtualized-oracle-vmax-wp.pdf)

* Read about VFCache accelerating Microsoft SQL Server with VNX
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h9539-vfcache-accelerates-microsoft-sql-server-vnx-wp.pdf)

* Connect with EMC via Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/emccorp),
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/emccorp), YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/user/EMCCorp), andLinkedIn
(http://www.linkedin.com/company/emc)

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service
providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service.
Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing.  Through
innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud
computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze
their most valuable asset – information – in a more agile, trusted
and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at
www.EMC.com.

EMC Canada (www.EMC2.ca), headquartered in Toronto with nine offices
from coast to coast, is a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation.

- 30 -

For more information contact:
Mike Martin/Michelle Chang
StrategicAmpersand
416-961-5595
mike@stratamp.com
michelle@stratamp.com


EMC, EMC VFCache, VMAX, VMAXe, VNX, VNXe are either registered
trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and
other countries.All other trademarks used herein are the property of
their respective owners.


If you do not wish to receive news releases from EMC Canada please
reply to this e-mail
with "remove" in the subject header.

----------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EMC FAST Technology Shipped with Over One Exabyte of EMC Storage

News Summary:

* Customers have purchased 1.3 Exabytes of EMC storage enabled by the
power of EMC® FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering
(http://www.emc.com/about/glossary/fast.htm)) technology since its
introduction in January 20101.
* Rapid adoption of EMC FAST technology, one of EMC’s fastest-growing
storage software products, demonstrates its unique ability to achieve
higher levels of performance, cost efficiency and storage utilization in
virtual data centres
(http://www.emc.com/services/it-services/product-category/virtual-data-center-services.htm)
by exploiting the benefits of Flash drives and a tiered architecture.
* In 2011, EMC shipped over 24 PBs of Flash drive capacity – more
than any other storage vendor in the market today.
* In related news
(http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2012/20120206-01.htm), EMC
announced the availability of EMC VFCache™, formally known as “Project
Lightning,” which is a new hardware and software solution leveraging
PCIe Flash technology and intelligent caching software that reduces
latency and increases throughput – dramatically improving application
performance.

Full Story:

HOPKINTON, MA – February 6, 2012 – EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) today
announced that the company’s industry-leading EMC® FAST technology,
which was first introduced to the market in January 2010, has already
shipped with 1.3 Exabytes of information on EMC storage solutions and
represents one of EMC’s fastest-growing storage software products.

This milestone clearly establishes EMC’s leadership as a pioneer in
Flash technology and automated tiering for enterprise storage.
Delivering unmatched levels of performance, cost efficiency, and storage
utilization, EMC’s FAST software combined with Flash technology is
delivering customers incredible economic savings and value. The
combination of FAST software and Flash has resulted in the following
achievements:

* In 2011, EMC shipped over 24 PBs of Flash drive capacity
* EMC has seen 8X growth in Flash capacity shipped to customers in 2011
compared to 2009

As enterprise customers continue their journey to gain real-time
intelligence out of larger and larger data sets, technologies such as
EMC FAST enable customers to automatically maximize performance in
transactional and analytical “Big Data” environments for faster
response and query times and shorter batch windows.

In related news, EMC today unveiled EMC VFCache™, formerly known as
“Project Lightning,” enabling a new tier of high performance
storage in the server. Together, VFCache and EMC Flash-enabled storage
systems dramatically improve application performance by leveraging
intelligent software and PCIe Flash technology.

Cost and Efficiency Benefits

EMC FAST technology moves high-performance – or “hot” – data to
enterprise Flash drives to improve application and storage system
performance, and moves less-active data to SAS/FC and NL-SAS/ SATA
storage tiers to reduce costs. In addition to performance and cost
benefits, FAST delivers heightened levels of efficiency – including
lowering power and cooling expenses, while dramatically improving –
and lowering – operating expenses. The below examples are based on 1.3
Exabytes of information being managed by FAST compared to single tier or
monolithic systems2.

* Reduced data centre footprint by 64 football fields: With FAST,
customers have leveraged high-performance Flash drives combined with
fewer, higher-capacity drives to support more performance in smaller
systems – reducing footprint requirements by more-than 19,200 linear
feet, or the equivalent of the length of 64 football fields.
* Saved enough power to operate 15.2 million iPads a year:
Consolidating more applications into a smaller storage footprint for
reduced power consumption is a key data centre requirement. FAST
prov
ides customers with an annual savings of over 556,000,000 kWh,
equivalent to the energy required to power 15.2 million iPads per year.
* Eliminated over 20 million hours of manual storage administration:
Automation and efficiency is a key storage requirement necessary for
information growth. FAST reduces time spent on storage administration by
50 per cent, eliminating over 20 million hours of manual storage
administration – saving over US$1.1 Billion in storage administration
resource costs.3

Customer Quotes

John Saki , Lead Technical Consultant , Moen Incorporated
“We purchased FAST VP (Virtual Pools) to fully utilize the tiered
storage in our EMC VMAX (http://www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix/vmax.htm)
array. We know, through analysis, that only a percentage of the data in
our large databases is extremely active, and that active data is a
moving target. FAST VP moves the data to the proper storage tier
automatically, and has resulted in a noticeable improvement in response
time.”

Brian Welch, Manager of Network Services, Clovis Unified School
District
“FAST VP helps us get the best utilization possible from our EMC VNX
(http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnx-series.htm)® unified storage
solution. It’s so simple, I just set the priorities and it
automatically moves the data to the appropriate drive. We can manage our
resources efficiently and match performance with the needs of the
application, while taking almost no administrative time to do it.”

Industry Analyst Quote

David Floyer, CTO & Co-founder, Wikibon
“Technologies such as EMC FAST ensure that data is automatically
placed in the correct storage tier in order to provide the optimum
performance – at minimum cost. Today, automated storage tiering is a
powerful technology that delivers customers better control over both
their capital and operating expenses, and is evolving to become a staple
of storage environments. Wikibon recentlypublished research findings
(http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Automated_Tiered_Storage_Ready_for_Prime_Time)which
found EMC as the functional leader in early adopter environments of
automated storage tiering technology for high-end storage arrays. EMC
has built its automated tiering technologies on a platform of being the
first to integrate Flash drive technology into its enterprise storage
arrays. EMC has aggressive plans to extend the high-performance Flash
tiering into the server layer, with the potential to enable new
categories of data-rich applications with potential transformation
capabilities to improve enterprise productivity. ”

EMC Quote

Jeremy Burton, Chief Marketing Officer, EMC
“FAST is the most disruptive, game-changing innovation in the storage
industry. The technology’s dramatic adoption is entirely due to IT
organizations’ clearly seeing – and achieving – dramatic
performance and efficiency results with Flash technology. FAST
automatically brings unmatched performance and efficiency to demanding
storage environments – enabling customers to propel their business, be
more agile, and deliver more performance and efficiency for managing the
most critical applications and workloads. FAST is enabling our customers
to transform their IT operations efficiently.”

Additional Resources

* Read
(http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Automated_Tiered_Storage_Ready_for_Prime_Time)
Wikibon’s latest research findings on automated storage tiering
* Read
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/esg-vmax-enginuity-5875.pdf)
the ESG Lab Analysis Report about FAST VP for VMAX
* Read
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h8058-fast-vp-unified-storage-wp.pdf)
about FAST VP for EMC VNX
* Read
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8131-storage-tiering-oracle-vmax-wp.pdf)
about FAST VP on VMAX for Oracle environments
* Watch
(http://www.emc.com/collateral/demos/microsites/mediaplayer-video/cox-comm-vmax-fast-vp-cp.htm)
the Cox Communications customer video
* Read the Safe Systems customer profile
(http://
www.emc.com/collateral/customer-profiles/h8877-safe-systems-cp.pdf)
and video ( )
* Connect with EMC via Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/emccorp),
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/emccorp), YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/user/EMCCorp), and LinkedIn
(http://www.linkedin.com/company/emc)

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service
providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service.
Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing.  Through
innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud
computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze
their most valuable asset – information – in a more agile, trusted
and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at
www.EMC.com.

EMC Canada (www.EMC2.ca), headquartered in Toronto with nine offices
from coast to coast, is a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation.

- 30 -

For more information contact:
Mike Martin/Michelle Chang
StrategicAmpersand
416-961-5595
mike@stratamp.com
michelle@stratamp.com


EMC, EMC VFCache, VMAX and VNX are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other
countries.All other trademarks used herein are the property of their
respective owners.

1Information managed from first quarter 2010 through the fourth quarter
2011
2Based on EMC calculations
3Based on the average System Administrator salary from Gartner IT Key
Metrics Data 2011, December 17, 2010


If you do not wish to receive news releases from EMC Canada please
reply to this e-mail with "remove" in the subject header.

Symantec Aims to Fix Backup with Updates to NetBackup and Backup Exec 2012


Symantec Declares Better Backup for All Sized Organizations and Calls for 80 Percent Reduction in Operating Costs

 

New survey data reveals that the current approach to backup modernization is broken

 

TORONTO, ON. – Feb. 6, 2012– Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced it will deliver a new approach for modernizing backup and recovery,  a process that has become unnecessarily complicated and expensive as organizations’ data stores grow exponentially. Compared to traditional backup, Symantec’s approach enables 100 times faster backup, eases management and simplifies recovery if a disaster occurs, helping customers realize significant cost savings while better protecting their business information.  Over the last 20 years data has exploded, virtualization has become widely adopted and service level agreements (SLA’s) have become near impossible to meet. These challenges also affect the smaller businesses that struggle with backup complexity and are at risk of data loss due to a disaster.  The current approach to modernization introduces an ever-growing collection of point solutions resulting in added complexity, increased costs and headaches for backup administrators, network administrators and executives.

 

“The single most dramatic change is scale – or volume – of data, applications and virtual machines which cannot be processed by current backup environments.  Organizations have increased service level agreements, rising expectations of availability and the need to run in a 24/7 business model.  When combined with trying to integrate new technologies, it adds up to a disruptive environment with a huge impact on IT teams.  Organizations small and large need a holistic protection strategy, a single platform or solution, to handle the variety of data types and workloads as opposed to integrating a number of disparate point solutions, which proves to be costly and time consuming,” said Dave Russell, vice president of Storage Technologies and Strategies, Gartner.

 

Click to Tweet: Symantec declares better backup for all sized organizations and calls for 80 percent reduction in operating costs: http://bit.ly/z8W7X6

 

“Today, Symantec unveils a radical new plan to modernize data protection that will drive out 80 percent of the operating costs associated with backup over the next five years,” said Deepak Mohan, senior vice president of Symantec’s Information Management Group.  “Symantec is announcing a new set of solutions that address the problems in backup – from the most complex of enterprise data centers requiring a true tiered-recovery strategy to the smallest business that needs the confidence that they can easily recover their data.”

 

Symantec recently surveyed more than 1,400 IT professionals worldwide on their backup practices and their ability to recover information in the event of a disaster.  The findings reveal that traditional approaches to backup are broken and a new approach is vitally needed:

·         49 percent of respondents can’t meet service level agreements (SLA’s) due to too much data

·         72 percent of respondents would switch backup product if speed doubled

·         28 percent say they have too many backup tools

·         Organizations average four backup solutions to protect physical systems, and three for virtual

·         42 percent of respondents believe that their virtualization backup is not adequately or perfectly working

·         More than a third (36 percent) of respondents would not bet their paychecks that 100 percent of backed-up data could be recovered

 

According to Symantec’s 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, SMBs are not making disaster preparedness a priority until they experience a disaster or data loss.  Half of respondents do not have a plan in place and 41 percent said that it never occurred to them to put together a disaster recovery plan. The survey data reveals that the cost of not being prepared is high, putting an SMB at risk of going out of business.

 

Key components to Symantec’s unique approach to data protection are the NetBackup 7.5 and Backup Exec 2012 software and cloud solutions, designed to help Symantec’s more than two million backup customers address backup issues common to companies all over the world.  Symantec’s strategy focuses on the following areas:

·         Change the Operating Model of Backup: Symantec’s strategy is to eliminate 80 percent of the operating cost of backup by delivering an integrated platform that replaces multiple solutions typically used in backup today.  Symantec backup appliances can drive down costs even more than traditional appliances by combining backup software and deduplication into a single solution supported by a one vendor, that is fast to deploy and easy to manage.  The ability to combine software, appliance and cloud-based backup solutions provides customers greater choice and flexibility.

·         Break the Backup Window: 100 times faster backup with NetBackup 7.5, compared to traditional approaches, means organizations can complete full backups at the speed of incremental backups without sacrificing recoverability to meet critical service levels.

·         Fight Infinite Retention: Too many organizations keep backups for too long. Knowing when information can be deleted can significantly reduce costs and management burdens on IT.  New backup search capabilities in NetBackup give IT the ability to separate out what is relevant to legal or compliance investigations while keeping the rest of the backup infrastructure running on a more typical 30-60-90 day backup cycle. Infinite retention is infinite waste for IT and infinite risk for legal.

·         Unify Snapshots and Backup: A snapshot without NetBackup is just a snapshot.  A snapshot with NetBackup is data protection, manageability and recoverability. Unifying snapshots and backup with NetBackup gives organizations the speed of snapshots with the recoverability of backup.

·         Stop Putting Tapes on Trucks: With the help of Symantec NetBackup technology, organizations can modernize their disaster recovery strategies and stop the practice of shipping tapes by truck. Symantec NetBackup Auto Image Replication (AIR) allows customers to eliminate volumes of physical assets and prioritize files that can be sent over the network, while significantly reducing the chance for human error.

·         Unite Virtual and Physical Backups: Reduce operating costs around virtualization with patent pending Symantec V-Ray technology that enables organizations to have deeper visibility into their VMware and Hyper-V machines for virtual backups with a single product. Integrated in NetBackup and Backup Exec, V-Ray delivers load balanced virtual machine backups to eliminate backup storms, improve virtual machine performance and reduce storage by deduplicating data everywhere, whether it is on VMware, Hyper-V or physical servers resulting in up to 90 percent storage reduction.

·         One Product for Any Recovery:  Symantec provides one solution for all backups whether they are based on tape, disk, or in physical or virtual environments.  Customers can recover any application or system to a virtual machine whether they have the hardware or not.  Physical to virtual recovery is now included for free in Backup Exec, simplifying disaster recovery by automatically creating a virtual machine when recovery is needed. New backup to virtual (B2V) technology is also available to accelerate the migration from physical to virtual servers as part of the backup process.

·         Eliminate Complexity: Backup Exec has eliminated backup management complexity by simplifying the user interface, utilizing insights from millions of users, policies and licensing.  This allows IT administrators and SMB owners to have a professional data protection strategy without being backup professionals.

·         Easy Backup: Symantec introduces Backup Exec Small Business Edition ensuring smaller companies can set-up proper data protection in less than 10 minutes and in three simple steps.  In addition Symantec expands Backup Exec.cloud into Europe providing those customers who prefer a simple, automated and hosted backup offering a reliable, secure solution.

 

Related

·         Press Kit: Symantec Delivers Better Backup for All  

·         Webcast: Better Backup for All 

·         Webcast: NetBackup 7.5 Technical Deep Dive

·         Webcast: BackupExec 2012 Technical Deep Dive

·         SlideShare: Better Backup for All

·         Blog Post: Virtual Visibility: Why you need X-Ray Vision to Backup Virtual Machines

·         Blog Post: NetApp Storage Efficiency Insights

·         Survey: Broken Backup Environments Need New Approach

·         Website: Countdown to Better Backup

·         Video: Managing and Reducing Costs of Enterprise Data Protection Video featuring Dave Russell, Gartner and Brian Dye, Symantec

 

Connect with Symantec

·         Follow Symantec on Twitter

·         Follow NetBackup on Twitter

·         Join Symantec on Facebook

·         Join NetBackup on Facebook

·         View Symantec’s SlideShare Channel

·         Subscribe to Symantec News RSS Feed

·         Visit Symantec Connect Business Community

About Storage from Symantec

Symantec helps organizations secure and manage their information-driven world both on-premise and in the cloud with storage management, archiving and eDiscovery, backup and recovery solutions.

 

About Symantec

Symantec’s Canadian operations are headquartered in Toronto with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver.  For more information on Symantec products or current promotions, access Symantec’s Canadian Web site at www.symantec.ca. Symantec is an active member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA).


Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world.  Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

 

###

 

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

 

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Forward-looking Statements: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products or programs is preliminary and all future release or delivery dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future program plans, or release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality, or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making program participation or product purchasing decisions.

 

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

 

Forward-looking Statements: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality, or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.


Symantec NetBackup Ends the Backup Window with 100 Times Faster Backups

 

TORONTO, ON. – Feb. 6, 2012 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the latest edition of Symantec NetBackup 7.5 to help enterprise organizations overcome their data protection challenges.  The current approach to backup modernization offered by other vendors is broken. Data growth has been exponential while backup performance gains thus far have been incremental.  At the same time, backup teams are frustrated with missed backup windows and non-integrated solutions for physical and virtual backups, deduplication and snapshots.  Ultimately, organizations face a situation where recovery, the end goal of why backups exist, is complex and unnecessarily expensive.  

 

Symantec is delivering a new approach to data protection and introducing NetBackup 7.5 with new options, including NetBackup Accelerator to speed backups by up to 100 times while delivering “Instant Full Recovery” capability, NetBackup Replication Director to integrate NetApp® Snapshots™ with backup, and NetBackup Search to allow simple search and recovery of backup data and selective legal hold.  Unlike other backup technology that relies on the IT team to integrate multiple disparate backup solutions, NetBackup is available as a single integrated appliance for the data center, remote office and virtual environments, providing customers with simplified deployment and operations.

 

Read more detailed blog post: Taking the Pain out of Backup: http://bit.ly/zjlDvs

 

Symantec is also announcing an expanded partnership with NetApp to integrate with NetBackup Replication Director, enabling customers to unify Snapshot and backup management, and remove the cost and risk associated with multiple backup and recovery tools.  Replication Director enables organizations to reduce costs and complexity by recovering and managing backup and replicated Snapshots from a single, NetBackup management console.

 

“Just as 911 is the single point of contact for police, fire or medical emergency support, NetBackup is the single point of recovery for tape, disk, physical, virtual, snapshot or cloud backups,” said Simon Jelley, senior director, Information Management Group, Symantec.  “Symantec NetBackup 7.5 will speed backups by up to 100 times, unify snapshots and backup, and unite physical and virtual protection. The days of running seven different backup solutions are numbered, and the task of making it all work together no longer falls on the backup administrator.”

 

Click to Tweet: Symantec @NetBackup 7.5 Accelerates Backups by 100x; Partners w/ @NetApp to Unify Backups and Snapshots: http://bit.ly/yv8c3T

 

 NetBackup 7.5 will deliver the following benefits: 

·         Break the Backup Window with 100 Times Faster Backups: According to a recent Symantec survey of 1,425 enterprises, 72 percent of respondents stated that they would switch backup products if backup speeds doubled.  NetBackup Accelerator delivers 100 times faster backup with “Instant Full Recovery” through a single click in NetBackup’s management console.  This gives backup administrators the speed of incremental backups with the benefits of a full backup without the overhead and cost at recovery time.

·         Unify Snapshots and Backup: NetBackup 7.5 includes NetBackup Replication Director to centralize management and speed the recovery of hundreds of replicated Snapshots.  Replication Director leverages NetBackup’s 10 years of experience with snapshots and the advanced API in Symantec’s popular OpenStorage (OST) interface that can integrate with storage-efficient NetApp Snapshots and replication (SnapVault® and SnapMirror®) for faster backup and recovery.  Replication Director gives organizations the speed of Snapshots with the centralized management and recovery capabilities of NetBackup.  

·         Fight Infinite Retention:  Many businesses have tremendous legal risk and cost exposure resulting from over retention of backup tapes.  NetBackup Search ends infinite retention by helping organizations identify what information to archive and what to delete based on relevance to legal discovery or compliance cases. This reduces the time and cost IT spends on eDiscovery and eliminates the need to keep backups forever.

·         One Product for Any Recovery:  Survey results showed that the average enterprise is running seven different backup solutions, which creates operational complexity. Symantec NetBackup is the single point of control for backup, deduplication and recovery whether from tape, disk, virtual machines, physical machines or cloud.  Symantec is also the only vendor to integrate all of these solutions on a single NetBackup appliance. To reduce capital expenses NetBackup has added support for cloud storage from AT&T, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace, in addition to its existing partnership with Nirvanix.  Enhanced WAN optimization and encryption in NetBackup enable these partners to deliver cloud storage for backup as a cost effective alternative to tape.

·         Unite Virtual and Physical with V-Ray:  NetBackup 7.5 powered by Symantec V-Ray offers X-Ray like visibility into VMware VMDK files and Hyper-V VHD files to deliver true granular recovery without copying or mounting the data.  Patent-pending V-Ray technology also enables deduplication across physical and virtual environments from a single solution. NetBackup’s Virtual Machine Intelligent Policy (VIP) automatically detects and protects new, moved or cloned virtual machines and load balances backups for optimum performance.   

·         Stop Putting Tapes on Trucks:  NetBackup 7.5 simplifies disaster recovery by providing Auto Image Replication (AIR).  AIR automates backup and replication between multiple NetBackup domains or locations and allows customers to eliminate volumes of redundant data and prioritize files that are sent over the network for disaster recovery purposes.  AIR also removes the need to rely on physical movement of backup images via tape and eliminates the risk of disaster recovery not being possible due to human error. This offers a significant advantage over traditional tape-based off-site storage in which backups must be duplicated to tapes that are then shipped to the disaster recovery site, a time consuming and costly activity with the added risk that tapes could be lost or stolen in transit.

 

Availability

Symantec NetBackup 7.5 will be generally available for purchase in spring 2012 through Symantec’s worldwide network of value-added authorized resellers, distributors and systems integrators or directly.

 

Supporting Quotes

“NetApp and Symantec are focused on collaborating to help customers manage growing data volumes, drive greater efficiencies and reduce overall costs,” said Tim Russell, vice president, Data Lifecycle Ecosystem Group, NetApp. “Customers are increasingly turning to NetApp Snapshots and replication for faster backup and recovery and meet demanding business requirements. The expanded integration is a major step in enabling customers to simplify management of Snapshots, replication, backup and recovery and maximize their investments in NetBackup and NetApp storage systems.” 

 

“Organizations are running out of space to store information from both a budget and physical data center perspective. Rackspace’s partnership with Symantec NetBackup will allow customers to move backup data into the cloud for a less expensive tier of storage to address data growth in an effective way,” said Chris Cochran, vice president of strategy, Rackspace. 

 

“We run full backups over the weekend which takes 48 hours to backup more than 500 GB and 4.4 million files.  NetBackup Accelerator will save us a fortune on bandwidth and tapes we ship around the country to replace faulty ones and will reduce time spent on backups.  We look forward to implementing the new version of NetBackup 7.5 with NetBackup Accelerator option to achieve 100 times faster backups so I can use that time on other priorities,” said Neil Evans, technical support manager, MM Electrical Merchandising.

 

Related

·         Press Kit: Symantec Delivers Better Backup for All  

·         Webcast: Better Backup for All 

·         Webcast: NetBackup 7.5 Technical Deep Dive

·         SlideShare: Better Backup for All

·         Blog Post: Virtual Visibility: Why you need X-Ray Vision to Backup Virtual Machines

·         Blog Post: NetApp Storage Efficiency Insights

·         Survey: Broken Backup Environments Need New Approach

·         Website: Countdown to Better Backup

·         Video: Managing and Reducing Costs of Enterprise Data Protection Video featuring Dave Russell, Gartner and Brian Dye, Symantec

 

Connect with Symantec

·         Follow Symantec on Twitter

·         Follow NetBackup on Twitter

·         Join Symantec on Facebook

·         Join NetBackup on Facebook

·         View Symantec’s SlideShare Channel

·         Subscribe to Symantec News RSS Feed

·         Visit Symantec Connect Business Community

 

About Storage from Symantec

Symantec helps organizations secure and manage their information-driven world with storage management,  archiving, eDiscovery, backup & recovery solutions. 

 

About Symantec

Symantec’s Canadian operations are headquartered in Toronto with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver.  For more information on Symantec products or current promotions, access Symantec’s Canadian Web site at www.symantec.ca. Symantec is an active member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA).


Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world.  Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

 

###

 

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

 

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Forward-looking Statements: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products or programs is preliminary and all future release or delivery dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future program plans, or release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality, or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making program participation or product purchasing decisions.

 

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

 

Technorati Tags

Symantec, backup, recovery, virtualization, backup appliance, Backup and recovery, cloud storage, information management, data protection, data retention, Backup Exec, NetBackup, deduplication


Symantec Releases Backup Exec Dedicated to 100 Percent Virtual Environments and Expands Data Protection for Small Businesses

 

TORONTO, ON. – Feb. 6, 2012 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced Backup Exec 2012 to help users eliminate complexity, perform backups in 100 percent virtualized environments and deliver instantaneous and cloud-based recovery through a single solution.  As part of the new release, Symantec transformed Backup Exec’s user interface and configurability to provide a significantly simpler customer experience.  Symantec is also expanding its leading technology to small businesses with Backup Exec Small Business Edition and Backup Exec.cloud, enabling growing organizations to back up their information in three simple steps in less than 10 minutes.

 

“Backup is a critical part of a protection strategy, and with mounting digital assets and shrinking IT budgets, growing organizations need to find a way to keep costs down without compromising availability of their information,” said Amit Walia, vice president, Information Management Group, Symantec.  “With close to two million businesses worldwide trusting in Symantec Backup Exec, it is our responsibility to help IT professionals and small business owners become backup heroes.”

Ricoh Canada Introduces Toronto Date for "Ricoh and U" Tour - A Seminar Exploring the Value of Managed Document Services


Ricoh Canada Introduces Toronto Date for "Ricoh and U" Tour - A Seminar Exploring the Value of Managed Document Services


MISSISSAUGA, ON, Feb. 6, 2012 /CNW/ - Ricoh Canada Inc. ("Ricoh") today announced the addition of a Toronto date to the highly informative "Ricoh and U" tour, currently completing a twelve-city run across North America.

The "Ricoh and U" tour is a powerful education session designed to demystify Managed Document Services (MDS), and help businesses explore and leverage its many advantages. This industry best-practice is dramatically changing the way organizations think about their information, technologies, people and processes — and is significantly reducing costs and improving efficiencies in the process.

The Toronto session will feature input from recognized industry experts, Ricoh Executive Management, and existing MDS customers who will lend their own real-world experiences to the discussion. Attendees will hear from Executive Vice President and Chief Research Officer, Crawford Del Prete - a leading authority on IT from Industry analyst, IDC. In addition, the MDS experience from the customer side will be presented by Richard Sullivan, Associate Partner and Chief Procurement Officer at Deloitte, and by Ron Johnson, Chief Technology Officer from Eastern Health, representing the Finance and Healthcare spaces respectively.

The day's itinerary also includes discussion on general best practices, cloud technologies and mobile printing, technology trends and what it takes to lead transformational change in your organization. The session also underscores MDS as a key corporate strategy, highlighting a Ricoh Company Limited investment of $300 million in MDS over the next three years.

Ideally positioned for senior executives and IT professionals, the "Ricoh and U" tour makes its Toronto stop at 9:00 am on February 16th, 2012 at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Toronto.

About Ricoh Canada Inc.

Ricoh Canada Inc., headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh Americas Corporation, which is a subsidiary of Ricoh Company Ltd., the 75-year old leading supplier of office automation equipment and electronics, with fiscal year 2010 sales in excess of $23 billion.

Ricoh Canada Inc. is a leading provider of document solutions. Ricoh's fully integrated hardware and software products help businesses share information efficiently and effectively by enabling customers to control the input, management and output of documents.

Information about Ricoh's complete range of products and services can be accessed on the World Wide Web at www.ricoh.ca.

For further information:

Dan Newman
Ricoh Canada Inc.
905-795-5788
dan.newman@ricoh.ca


MAD FOR MOBILE - More Than Four In Ten CIOs Say Their Firms Have or Will Offer a Mobile Application In Coming Year

MAD FOR MOBILE - More Than Four In Ten CIOs Say Their Firms Have or Will Offer a Mobile Application In Coming Year

TORONTO, Feb. 7, 2012 /CNW/ - "There's an app for that" may apply to more than four in ten Canadian businesses before the year is over, a new survey by Robert Half Technology shows. Thirty-one per cent of CIOs polled recently said their companies already offer a mobile application, while another 12 per cent said they plan to offer one in 2012.

The survey was developed by Robert Half Technology, a leading provider of information technology (IT) professionals on a project and full-time basis. It was conducted by an independent research firm and is based on telephone interviews with more than 270 CIOs from companies across Canada with 100 or more employees.

CIOs were asked, "Has your company developed a mobile application for customers and clients, or do you plan to offer one in the next 12 months?" Their responses:

You have one now..................................................... 31% You don't have one now but plan to offer one in the next 12 months ...12% You don't have one and don't plan to offer one in the next 12 months ......................................................55% Other/don't know ......................................................1% ------ 99%* *Responses do not total 100 per cent due to rounding.

As mobile applications become more prevalent, there is no shortage of issues for the IT teams tasked with developing them. In the same survey, CIOs said the two greatest challenges for IT teams developing these applications are keeping them up to date and finding IT professionals with the skills to build them.

CIOs were asked, "What is the greatest challenge for IT teams when developing a mobile application for the business?" Their responses:

Keeping the application up to date .................................. 41% Finding and hiring IT professionals with the necessary expertise .... 18% Collaborating across departments .................................... 16% Gaining approvals from the application store or market ............... 5% Other/don't know .................................................... 20% ------ 100%

"The use of mobile media, such as smart phones and tablets, is taking off at an exponential rate and as a result, firms are looking to create mobile applications that compliment their business strategy," said Lara Dodo, a Canadian regional vice president of Robert Half Technology. "When developing these programs, it's critical that these IT professionals not only have the necessary development expertise, but also the ability to effectively and frequently update the application's content."

As more companies look to develop mobile apps, the demand for IT professionals who specialize in this area has increased, according to the Robert Half Technology 2012 Salary Guide, which shows starting salaries for mobile applications developers are expected to increase 8.2 per cent next year -- one of the largest increases of any IT position researched.

To access the free Robert Half Mobile App, visit http://www.rht.com/mobileapp

About Robert Half Technology

With more than 100 locations worldwide, Robert Half Technology is a leading provider of technology professionals for initiatives ranging from web development and multiplatform systems to network security and technical support. Robert Half Technology offers online job search services at www.rht.com. Follow Robert Half Technology on Twitter at twitter.com/RobertHalfTech.

For further information: TO SPEAK WITH A LOCAL EXPERT, CONTACT: Robert Half Technology, Contact: Nadia Santoli, (416) 350-2330, nadia.santoli@rhi.com

Microsoft looking to Canadian students to help solve world's toughest problems

Microsoft looking to Canadian students to help solve world's toughest problems

The Imagine Cup Canada 2012 registration now open

TORONTOFeb. 6, 2012 /CNW/ - Microsoft Canada is challenging Canadian high school and post-secondary students to imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems during the Imagine Cup Canada2012. Registration is now open for this global competition which requires students to creatively use technology to solve real-world problems.

Students can register for Imagine Cup Canada 2012 at www.microsoft.ca/imaginecup to compete in one of two Canadian platform categories: Windows Phone 7 Game Design, registration closes February 14; and Software Design, registration closes March 13. Microsoft will fly the top three teams from each category to Toronto for the Canadian Finals.  The winning Software Design team in Canada and the top 10 international finalists in the Game Design category will then be flown to compete in the Worldwide Finals in Sydney, Australia this July.

"The Imagine Cup is a global competition that empowers and inspires passion and idealism in students and encourages them to apply classroom learning to solve real-world problems," said Gladstone Grant, Vice President, Developer & Platform Group, Microsoft Canada Inc.  "Microsoft is proud to support our Canadian students through this annual competition which cultivates a spirit of social and technological entrepreneurialism." 

By participating in the Imagine Cup 2012, students have the chance to learn new technological skills and win cash, grants and prizes.  They also have the opportunity to network with peers, pursue career opportunities and test themselves against the brightest students from around the world.  Last year, more than 350,000 students representing 183 countries and regions entered the competition.

"Competing in the Imagine Cup is a unique experience that offers students the opportunity to creatively apply classroom learning to real-world problems, while pushing the envelope to create ideas never thought of before," saidWilliam Hoang, Engineer Team Lead on team Bamboo & Papyrus: embedded software design, 1st place finalist Imagine Cup Canada 2009.  "At the same time, students gain valuable technical skills and learn how to overcome challenges while building friendships and gaining real-world experience. Imagine Cup Canada is an unforgettable experience for any student."

For inspiration, students can review some of the world's most challenging social issues as identified within the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. From designing mobile healthcare applications to enabling access to quality education for all children and creating mobile games that teach youth disease prevention or environmental sustainability, young social innovators are using technology to make a difference in the life of people around the world and in their own communities. Canadian students can also enter to compete globally in additional categories as identified on the global Imagine Cup website.

Every student team has the opportunity to engage a mentor - someone to inspire them, answer their questions and guide them through the competition.  Mentors can be faculty members from the students' schools or industry experts who wish to support the next generation of student developers.  More details on mentorship can be found on theCanadian Imagine Cup website.  

About the Imagine Cup 
The Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world's premier student technology competition.  Eligible students from around the world are invited to use their imagination and passion to create a technology solution that addresses the Imagine Cup 2012 theme: Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problem.  In ten years, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real-world problems. Since 2003, more than 1.4 million students have participated in the Imagine Cup with 358,000 students representing 183 countries and regions registering for the Imagine Cup 2011 competition. This year, the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals take place inSydney, Australia in July.

About Microsoft Canada 
Established in 1985, Microsoft Canada Inc. is the Canadian subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq "MSFT") the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft Canada provides nationwide sales, marketing, consulting and local support services in both French and English. Headquartered in Mississauga, Microsoft Canada has nine regional offices across the country dedicated to empowering people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. For more information on MicrosoftCanada, please visit www.microsoft.ca

For further information:

For media inquiries, please contact: 
Livy Feldgajer, High Road Communications
416-644-2280 or livy.feldgajer@highroad.com

Best Canadian Banking Websites Revealed by Keynote -- New Study Assesses Brand Perception and Acquisition Rates

Best Canadian Banking Websites Revealed by Keynote -- New Study Assesses Brand Perception and Acquisition Rates

BusinessWire · Feb. 6, 2012 

Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group ofKeynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), today announced the results of the Keynote Competitive Research Industry Study examining the marketing websites of leading Canadian banks. The study assesses the sites’ effectiveness in encouraging positive brand perception and increasing customer acquisition rates. In the 2011 Canadian Banking Prospects Study, BMO Bank of Montreal took first place for Best Overall Customer Experience and Scotiabank came in first for Best Overall Technical Quality. The entire study is available for immediate purchase. To request more information please visit: http://bit.ly/CanadianBanks.

Winning companies are invited to participate in the Keynote Online Excellence Program which recognizes the "best of the best" websites as ranked in the studies. The rankings are based on responses from real users whose entire clickstream is captured as they accomplish tasks on each of the sites studied, as well as on real performance data collected through Keynote website monitoring to assess the technical quality of the sites. For each study, Keynote recognizes the companies with the overall top ranking, as well as those exhibiting excellence in specific categories.

For the ‘Customer Experience’ portion of the study, Keynote observed and conducted online interviews with 1,750 prospective online banking customers as they interacted with the websites of a total of seven leading Canadian banks (250 consumers per site): BMO Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, President’s Choice Financial, RBC Royal Bank, Scotiabank and TD Canada Trust.

For the ‘Technical Quality’ portion of the study, Keynote performed 2,000 total measurements for each site, for a total of 14,000 total measurements, from four locations in Canada.

Keynote Competitive Research produces leading industry research using the company’s commercially available Web performance monitoring and real user experience testing products. Keynote regularly evaluates the current state of online customer experience, technical quality (responsiveness/reliability) and implementation of best practices on leading websites across a wide variety of vertical markets including financial services, automotive, media/entertainment, retail, travel and technology.

More Information about the Customer Experience Rankings for Canadian Banking Websites

For the ‘Customer Experience’ component of the study, Keynote sent 250 Canadian resident Internet users to each of the seven bank marketing sites. First, the online panelists explored the bank’s home page. Panelists then used the site to find a chequing or savings account that might suit their needs and then explored online banking and bill payment. The panelists were then asked to proceed through the process of opening a deposit account online, going as far as possible without actually submitting the application. Panelists concluded their evaluation by learning about the site’s commitment to privacy and security and completing a customer support task.

The study revealed that when tested by actual users BMO Bank of Montreal offers the strongest Overall Customer Experience, placing first in Brand Impact and Customer Satisfaction, two key drivers of business success. Other key findings include:

  • BMO Bank of Montreal performed better than the other sites studied in Customer Satisfaction;
  • BMO Bank of Montreal is in the top tier of sites for 4 out of 6 top drivers;
  • President's Choice Financial is a top site for 3 drivers;
  • Privacy & Security, Help and Support, Visual Appeal, and Ease of Opening Account are all key drivers for brand impact and customer acquisition.

“Our quantitative and qualitative analysis of the attitudes and behavior of actual consumers using their own computers to interact with bank marketing sites revealed that six site experiences drive Brand and Acquisition. Of particular interest to marketers, we found that the nine site aspects that combine to form the Site Organization driver are the leading predictor of Brand and the second leading predictor of Acquisition,” said Christopher Musto, general manager of the Keynote Competitive Research group at Keynote. “We are using that insight to help clients determine where to focus site investment to improve business results with new-to-bank prospects.”

More Information about theTechnical Quality Rankingsfor Canadian Banking Websites

In addition to evaluating customer experience with its panel of actual users, the Keynote study also examined two broad aspects of technical quality: responsiveness and reliability. Responsiveness comprises: high speed response, DSL (midband) response, response time consistency, geographic uniformity and load handling, while reliability is comprised of availability and outages.

For the ‘Technical Quality’ portion of the study, using measurement computers located in four cities across Canada, Keynote measured a typical transaction of starting at the bank’s Home Page and going through the process of finding and applying for a Chequing account, stopping where applicants were asked for their identity. Based on the thousands of transactions monitored over the course of the study, Scotiabank ranked first in Overall Technical Quality, scoring tops in both Responsiveness (or speed), and Reliability, with perfect scores of 1,000 in both.

“Based on the rigorous testing that Keynote performed for this study Scotiabank.com outperformed all the sites studied in both speed and reliability, scoring perfect 1,000s on the Keynote scale for each metric,” said Ben Rushlo, director of performance management at Keynote. “This commitment to technical excellence serves them well; as our research indicates that banking customers increasingly expect a flawless online experience.”

In order to collect the Technical Quality data Keynote used itsTransaction Perspective® product, the leading real browser based service for measuring and monitoring website performance from the end user perspective. With Keynote Transaction Perspective the company examines website performance from multiple geographic locations by simulating users clicking through transactions on a website. Keynote collected more than 14,000 data points that detailed each of the sites’ technical performance in terms of page responsiveness and reliability.

The study is available for purchase from Keynote and comes with extensive analysis of brand impact, acquisition impact, reliability and responsiveness and the factors that drive sites’ performance in these areas. Clients will receive an executive presentation, extensive back-up charts and illustrations, and online access to all clickstreams, verbatims, question responses and panel facts for all panelists at all sites for all tasks and can download and use this data in their own research. To inquire about a copy, please visit us online: http://bit.ly/CanadianBanks.

Follow Keynote on Twitter at:www.twitter.com/KeynoteSystems andwww.twitter.com/Keynote_Mobile

About Keynote Systems

Keynote® Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ:KEYN) is the global leader inInternet and mobile cloud testing and monitoring. Keynote maintains the world’s largest on-demand performance monitoring and testing infrastructure for web and mobile sitescomprised of over 4,000 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 275 locations around the world that enable companies to continuously improve the online and mobile experience. Known as ‘The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote offers three market-leading product platforms:

Keynote Perspective® provides on-demand performance monitoring for enterprise web and mobile sites including online portals, e-commerce sites and B2B sites. Over 2,000 customers rely on Keynote Perspective services to know precisely how their websites, content, and applications perform on actual browsers, networks, and mobile devices.

Keynote DeviceAnywhere is an enterprise-class, cloud-based, mobile application lifecycle management (ALM) testing & quality assurance platform. It is used by over 1,000 mobile developers and enterprises to deliver mobile applications, content and services faster while reducing downtime and testing costs.

Keynote SIGOS offers active end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) testing and monitoring solutions for mobile, fixed and VoIP communications. Its SITE and Global Roamer products are used by over 200 network operators, content providers, carriers and regulators in over 100 countries worldwide.

Keynote's 4,000 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies and include American Express, AT&T, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Google, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Keynote Systems is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at http://www.keynote.com/ or by phone in the U.S. at 1-800-KEYNOTE.

Keynote®, DataPulse®, CustomerScope®, Keynote CE Rankings®, Keynote Customer Experience Rankings®, Perspective®, Keynote Red Alert®, Keynote Traffic Perspective®, Keynote WebEffective®, The Internet Performance Authority®, MyKeynote® , SIGOS®, SITE®, Keynote™, The Mobile & Internet Performance Authority™ and Keynote FlexUse™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2012 Keynote Systems, Inc.

Contacts

Keynote Systems, Inc.
Dan Berkowitz, 650-403-3305
dberkowitz@keynote.com

BMO "Virtually" Shortens the Distance Between Financial Experts and Customers in Remote Regions of Canada

BMO "Virtually" Shortens the Distance Between Financial Experts and Customers in Remote Regions of Canada

More Locations Added in Rural Communities for Customers to Use Video Conferencing to Reach Financial Planners

- Making Money Make Sense "virtually" in over 50 locations in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia

- BMO expands video conferencing service so more customers can now access financial planners, commercial and small business specialists, investment advisors

- Video conferencing offers timely access for TFSA and RRSP contributions



TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 18, 2012) - BMO has added more locations for its free video conferencing service so customers in remote and rural communities can chat live with a financial expert. The service has also been expanded, so customers can access specialists in retail banking; commercial and small business; and wealth management.

BMO is using CISCO high-definition, desk-top video conferencing technology to allow customers and financial experts to have a conversation, share research and presentations and use BMO tools and calculators.

Started as a pilot in 2009, the service now includes access to Financial Planners, Small Business bankers, Commercial Account Managers, Commercial Deposit Specialists and BMO Nesbitt Burns Investment Advisors.

The video conferencing service is available in 51 locations, with many in remote and rural areas:

  • British Columbia: Vancouver, Parksville, Port Alberni, Penticton, Port Moody, Squamish
  • Manitoba: Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage La Prairie, Dauphin, Neepawa, Carberry
  • Ontario: Mindemoya, Gore Bay, Little Current, Elliot Lake, Sault Ste. Marie, Orillia, Sudbury, Campbellford, Port Hope, Northbrook, Tweed, Stirling, Kingston, Verona, Kenora, Sioux Lookout, Schreiber, Dryden, Harbour Crossing, Thunder Bay, Bracebridge, Haliburton
  • Quebec: Baie Comeau, Sept-Iles, Place du Saguenay
  • Nova Scotia: Sydney, Canso, Port Hawkesbury

"This service allows us to reach customers in remote locations that do not have immediate access to financial specialists," said Paul Dilda, head of branch channel for North America, BMO Bank of Montreal. "It also enables employees to cut down on travel time and cover regions more effectively, rather than having to wait and set up meetings with clients that could take a month."

Mr. Dilda noted that BMO opted for video conferencing rather than self-service video kiosks; a branch employee always helps the customer reach the remote specialist at the other end of the video conferencing setup. "We wanted the service to be seamless, secure, private and free," added Mr. Dilda.

With the New Year underway, many Canadians are turning their attention toward their investments, with the upcoming Registered Retirement Saving Plan (RRSP) deadline of March 1 just around the corner. Video conferencing is a helpful tool for customers looking for advice from a BMO financial expert about their RRSP or other investment needs.

"Securing your retirement is essential to your overall financial well being," said Tina Di Vito, Head, BMO Retirement Institute and author of 52 Ways to Wreck Your Retirement... and How to Rescue It. "One of the best ways to get started is by meeting with a financial planner - whether by using the video conferencing tool or the many other services provided by BMO - who can help you to prioritize your financial goals and provide advice and assistance in developing a strategy to help you achieve them."

For more on investing and maximizing RRSP contributions, visitwww.bmo.com/smartinvesting.

Media Contacts:
Matthew Duffin, Toronto
(416) 867-3996
matthew.duffin@bmo.com

Sarah Bensadoun, Montreal
(514) 877-8224
sarah.bensadoun@bmo.com

Laurie Grant, Vancouver
(604) 665-7596
laurie.grant@bmo.com