Government of Canada Protecting Canadian Consumers and Businesses: Consultations Have Begun on Draft Regulations for Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation and Fight Spam Website Launches

Government of Canada Protecting Canadian Consumers and Businesses: Consultations Have Begun on Draft Regulations for Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation and Fight Spam Website Launches

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Photo Gallery:

Photo of the Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Industry

Québec City, Quebec, August 1, 2011 — The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Industry, today called attention to the regulations pursuant to Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation that were pre-published in the Canada Gazette, Part I, on July 9, 2011, for a 60-day consultation period and celebrated the launch of the Fight Spam website. On June 30, 2011, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) called for comments on its proposed regulations under the Act. The Act will likely come into force early in 2012.

"We are working to make Canada second to none in anti-spam legislation," said Minister Paradis. "This legislation will lead to a safer and more secure online environment, positioning Canada as a leader in the digital economy."

The legislation aims to increase consumer confidence in electronic commerce by protecting Canadian consumers and businesses from unwanted spam and related threats. Online threats are a real concern to individuals and businesses, as they can lead to the theft of personal data, such as credit card information (identity theft), fraud involving counterfeit email and websites (phishing), and the collection of personal information through illicit access to computer systems (spyware).

"By advancing this law and its regulations, our government is standing up for Canadian consumers and businesses," said Minister Paradis. "Canadian shoppers should feel just as confident in the electronic marketplace as they do at the corner store."

The legislation allows for administrative monetary penalties to be levied against those who violate the law by sending unsolicited commercial electronic messages, installing computer programs without consent, posting or sending false or misleading online messages, and attempting to steal personal information.

The legislation also provides a private right of action, which would allow individuals and businesses to take civil action against those who violate the law.

For links to the draft regulations and for information on how Canadian consumers can better protect themselves from spam and related online threats, visit the Fight Spam website (fightspam.gc.ca). The site will grow to include more detailed information for consumers and businesses once the regulations are official.

For further information (media only), please contact:

Richard Walker
Director of Communications
Office of the Honourable Christian Paradis
Minister of Industry
613-995-9001

Media Relations
Industry Canada
613-943-2502

Blue Coat Identifies New Fake Anti-Virus Attack Driven by Web Advertisements

Monday, August 8, 2011
Blue Coat Newsroom

Blue Coat Identifies New Fake Anti-Virus Attack Driven by Web Advertisements

Blue Coat WebPulse Service Automatically Blocks New Malware Payload to Protect 75 Million Users

SUNNYVALE, Calif., August 8, 2011 – Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), a leading provider of Web security and WAN optimization solutions, today announced that Blue Coat Security Labs has identified a new variant of a fake anti-virus attack that uses Web advertisements to relay users into the Shnakule network, which is currently the largest and most effective Malware Delivery Network on the Internet.  The Blue Coat® WebPulse™ service identified the fake anti-virus payloads as malware and automatically blocked them, protecting 75 million customers worldwide. 

The Shnakule network has averaged around 2,000 unique host names per day with as many as 4,357 in a single day.  On an average day, the WebPulse service logs more than 21,000 requests into that network.  Shnakule has been very active with fake anti-virus attacks typically conducted via search engine poisoning. With this latest attack, it is now using malvertising to conduct its attacks.  To date, the Blue Coat WebPulse service has identified more than 15,000 user requests related to the latest form of the attack.

The latest Shnakule attack is a three-staged attack that utilizes malicious Web advertisements.  In the first stage, malicious ad servers were set up as independent entities, not directly associated with each other or any existing Shnakule sub-networks, to route users to malware.  In the second stage, a new Shnakule subnetwork relays users to the malware. The final stage is the malware payload, which changes frequently in an attempt to avoid detection from anti-virus software.  The malware payload comes from servers that have already been identified by WebPulse as part of the Shnakule Malware Delivery Network.  Because of its visibility into the Shnakule network, the Blue Coat WebPulse service was already blocking the malware payload before the attack was launched.

“Though this attack initially launched in late June, it is still continuing, and in a recent check of the payload by Blue Coat Security Labs against 43 anti-virus engines only two of those engines identified the payload as malicious or suspicious,” said Chris Larsen, senior malware researcher for Blue Coat Systems.  “Web-based malware changes far too quickly these days for traditional single-layer defenses like anti-virus to keep pace.  The most successful defense against this type of attack is one like WebPulse that can correlate the evidence and automatically identify and block the network responsible, regardless of how the payload is encrypted.”

In the current attack, none of the rogue ad servers appears by name in the pages that host its ads, indicating that the victimized legitimate sites are not directly using these ad servers.  Each of the rogue ad servers had been set up with different registrars at least a month prior to launching the attack, which was long enough to successfully convince Web advertising companies that they were serving legitimate ads.

The Blue Coat WebPulse service is a collaborative defense that provides proactive threat protection for 75 million users worldwide.  With more than three billion requests per week, WebPulse has a comprehensive view of user activity on the Web.  By correlating dynamic lures with relays and malware payloads, Blue Coat can identify and block Malware Delivery Networks and the future attacks they launch.

About Blue Coat Systems

Blue Coat Systems is a leading provider of Web security and WAN optimization solutions. Blue Coat offers solutions that provide the visibility, acceleration and security required to optimize and secure the flow of information to any user, on any network, anywhere. This application intelligence enables enterprises to tightly align network investments with business requirements, speed decision making and secure business applications for long-term competitive advantage. Blue Coat also offers service provider solutions for managed security and WAN optimization, as well as carrier-grade caching solutions to save on bandwidth and enhance the end-user Web experience. For additional information, please visit bluecoat.com.

Blue Coat, WebPulse and the Blue Coat logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

HP Research Reveals 56 Percent Rise in Cost of Cybercrime

HP Research Reveals 56 Percent Rise in Cost of Cybercrime

Security and risk management solutions critical to mitigating impact

PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 2, 2011

HP today unveiled new research indicating that cyberattacks increasingly plague businesses and government organizations, resulting in significant financial impact, despite widespread awareness.(1)

Conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the Second Annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study revealed that the median annualized cost of cybercrime incurred by a benchmark sample of organizations was $5.9 million per year, with a range of $1.5 million to $36.5 million each year per organization. This represents an increase of 56 percent from the median cost reported in the inaugural study published in July 2010.

The study found that recovery and detection are the most costly internal activities, highlighting a significant cost-reduction opportunity for organizations that are able to automate detection and recovery through enabling security technologies.

“Instances of cybercrime have continued to increase in both frequency and sophistication, with the potential impact to an organization’s financial health becoming more substantial,” said Tom Reilly, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Security, HP. “Organizations in the most targeted industries are reducing the impact by leveraging security and risk management technologies, which is grounds for optimism in what continues to be a fierce fight against cybercrime.”

Cyberattacks have become common occurrences. Over a four-week period, the organizations surveyed experienced 72 successful attacks per week, an increase of nearly 45 percent from last year. More than 90 percent of all cybercrime costs were caused by malicious code, denial of service, stolen devices and web-based attacks.

The Second Annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study provides insight into the level of investment and resources needed to prevent or mitigate the consequences of a cyberattack. Key findings include:

  • Cyberattacks can be costly if not resolved quickly. The average time to resolve a cyberattack is 18 days, with an average cost to participating organizations of nearly $416,000. This represents a nearly 70 percent increase from the estimated cost of $250,000 over a 14-day resolution period in last year’s study. Results also showed that malicious insider attacks can take more than 45 days to contain.
  • Deploying advanced security intelligence and risk management solutions can mitigate the impact of cyberattacks. Organizations that had deployed security information and event management (SIEM) solutions realized a cost savings of nearly 25 percent, resulting from the enhanced ability to quickly detect and contain cybercrimes. As a result, these organizations experienced a substantially lower cost of recovery, detection and containment than organizations that had not deployed SIEM solutions.

“As the sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks increases, so too will the economic consequences,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute. “Figuring out how much to invest in security starts with understanding the real cost of cybercrime.”

HP enables risk management through the Security Intelligence and Risk Management Framework, which helps businesses and governments in their pursuit of an Instant-On Enterprise. In a world of continuous connectivity, the Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, partners, and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

On Aug. 3, HP will host a webinar highlighting findings from the Second Annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study. Additional details are available at www.arcsight.com/webinars/watch/2nd-annual-cost-of-cyber-crime-findings/.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.


(1) “The Second Annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study, “Ponemon Institute, July 2011. The study reflects interviews with a representative sample of data protection and IT security practitioners from 50 benchmark corporations across various industry sectors.


© 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.


Editorial contacts:

Kristi Rawlinson, HP: kristi.rawlinson@hp.com

Rochelle Williams, Burson-Marsteller for HP: rochelle.williams@bm.com

Resellers Rate Epson's TM-T88 Series POS Printer Best Channel Product Three Years in a Row

Resellers Rate Epson's TM-T88 Series POS Printer Best Channel Product Three Years in a Row
Epson Tops the Charts in Business Solutions Magazine's Annual Survey
Aug 4, 2011 ShareThis

On August 1st, 2011, Epson America, Inc., a leading supplier of value-added point-of-service (POS) solutions, announced that its TM-T88 series, the world's best-selling receipt printer with over 5.5 million units sold worldwide, has been named Best Channel Product for the third year in a row. In Business Solutions Magazine's Best Channel Products 2011 Survey published in August 2011, resellers named Epson's TM-T88V this year's winner. Known for its workhorse reliability, Epson's TM-T88V was the first receipt printer to be ENERGY STAR® qualified, and delivers industry-leading energy and paper saving features.

"Resellers are looking for reliable printers that cut overall operating costs and produce a tangible ROI," said Mike Helm, Director of Sales and Marketing, Epson Business Systems Group. "The TM-T88V offers the lowest power consumption in its class as well as reduced paper usage for receipts up to 30%, which can translate to over $300 of savings in five years - which covers the cost of the printer."

From May to June 2011, Business Solutions Magazine collected nearly 12,000 votes from 1,490 unique reseller organizations to complete the survey. Resellers ranked Epson's TM-T88V in five categories, including: Richness of Features / Functionality, Product Reliability / Durability, Ease of Integration, Ease of Upgrade and VAR's Ability to Service. Resellers were asked to rate products on a scale of 0 (worst) to 5 (best). Epson's TM-T88V received the highest scores in Product Reliability / Durability (4.49) and Richness of Features / Functionality (4.43).

About Epson America, Inc.
Epson is one of the world's leading manufacturers of highly reliable point-of-service technology, including printers, precision printing mechanisms and digital image scanners. Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Long Beach, CA, Epson America, Inc. is the U.S. affiliate of Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, a global manufacturer and supplier of high-quality technology products that meet customer demands for increased functionality, compactness, systems integration and energy efficiency. The Seiko Epson organization is proud of its ongoing contributions to the global environment, and for the third year in a row is part of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index - an indicator for leading companies in economic, environmental and social criteria. Epson offers the most comprehensive line of POS printers, as well as the widest selection of ENERGY STAR qualified models available today. For more information on Epson's retail solutions, please visit pos.epson.com.

More than 100 Customers Select or Implement Oracle Utilities Technologies in Fiscal Year 2011

More than 100 Customers Select or Implement Oracle Utilities Technologies in Fiscal Year 2011

Oracle Press Release

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative Selects Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management to Support Smart Grid and Green Initiatives

Redwood Shores, Calif. – July 29, 2011

News Facts

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC), a member-owned utility servicing more than 155,000 connections in 22 Virginia counties, has selected Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and plans to upgrade its Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing application to support its smart grid and green initiatives. REC will work with Red Clay, a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) and Platinum OPN member Lockheed Martin on the implementation and upgrade.
With Oracle, REC plans to connect advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) usage data and presentment tools, helping to empower customers to effectively monitor their energy use and reduce consumption. REC will also leverage Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management to verify, store, process and format data it collects from approximately 150,000 smart electric meters, providing every department, application and business process with the metering information it needs.
Additionally, using Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, REC plans to improve the information it presents to customers on monthly bills and through its Web self-service offering. With these Oracle applications, the utility will have a centralized storage of interval metering data that can provide more real time usage and cost information to customers.
REC hopes to see an improvement in member satisfaction scoring as well as a decrease in member call volume through Web self-service adoption growth, which will help provide REC customers with up to date energy usage information, running on Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing.
REC is one of more than 100 customers who have selected or implemented an Oracle Utilities product in fiscal year 2011. Additional customers include: Cobb Electric Membership Corporation, Greystone Power, Pacific Gas & Electric, San Jose Water Company and Seattle City Light, amongst others.

Supporting Quotes

“We look forward to expanding our relationship with Oracle Utilities as we implement and integrate the technologies to achieve our smart grid goals. The Oracle solutions will help us to organize vast quantities of consumption data generated by smart meters and turn it into intelligence that ultimately will empower our customers to effectively monitor and manage their energy use,” said Sterling Schoonover, manager of member services, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative.
“Oracle is pleased to support Rappahannock Electric Cooperative in its mission to provide better customer service and improve its billing processes. Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management's interoperability with multiple Oracle solutions will give REC the scalability and functionality it needs to manage large meter data volumes and provide useful information to the utility’s various departments and its customers," said Bill Vellante, group vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.

Supporting Resources

 

About Oracle Utilities

Oracle Utilities delivers the proven software applications that help utilities achieve competitive advantage, business performance excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle’s industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware and database technologies. Oracle Utilities enables its customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet ever-evolving customer demands, and deliver on commitments to environmental conservation. For more information, visit http://www.oracle.com/industries/utilities.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Info

Candice van der Laan
Oracle
+1.650.506.0814
candice.van.der.laan@oracle.com

Janice Hazen
O’Keeffe & Company
+1.404.254.5881
jhazen@okco.com

Announcing Hitachi VSP Customer Success

NEWS RELEASE                            

For Immediate Release

 

Organizations Worldwide Achieve 50 Percent Performance, Sustainability and Cost Savings Improvements with Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform
Hitachi Reports Strong Adoption Worldwide with More Than 1,400 Virtual Storage Platforms Shipped in First 10 Months

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — August 2, 2011 — Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), today announced that enterprise customers across all industries are transforming their data centers and laying the foundation for cloud computing models using Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP). By offering best-in-class performance, capacity and open, multivendor storage virtualization for large businesses and enterprises, Hitachi VSP helps organizations build massive scalability with virtualized server environments and pave the way for cloud deployments. Customers include GRZ IT Center Linz (Austria), Schweizerische Mobiliar (Switzerland), Seattle Children’s (United States), and Teliti Datacentres (Malaysia). In less than one year, HDS has shipped more than 1,400 VSP systems to hundreds of customers and added new footprints, making VSP the most successful product introduction in HDS history.

“Organizations continue to look for simple and effective solutions to develop and manage their virtualized data centers to reduce risk and operational costs, increase sustainability, and realize greater return on their storage assets,” said Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems. “Hitachi VSP is a cornerstone of our vision to transform data centers into dynamic information centers where content is seamlessly accessible and resides in a virtualized environment. Customers benefit from the ability to scale up, out and deep for unprecedented levels of agility and cost savings in their virtualized data centers. Coupled with the system’s data migration and page-level dynamic tiering, enterprises can greatly reduce outage windows and automate data movement to the most appropriate storage location to simplify and optimize tier costs and performance.”

According to a recent survey conducted by TechValidate, an independent research organization that provides organizations with third-party customer data, more than half of enterprises powered by Hitachi VSP have increased performance up to 50 percent. These enterprises point to simplification of storage management as the most critical business challenge addressed by VSP in their data centers. Additionally, organizations expect to save up to 50 percent on administration and energy costs as compared to competitive offerings, making it the most efficient enterprise storage platform on the market today.

Supporting Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Customr Quotes

·         GRZ IT Center Linz GmbH, Austrian computer center: “In the business intelligence division of GRZ IT Center Linz , a powerful data warehouse solution is a prerequisite for queries in seconds, as well as up-to-date records and borderless OLAP cubes. As the existing storage infrastructure was at its full capacity, GRZ IT Center Linz needed to invest in a new system and advanced technology. We selected Hitachi VSP based on its easy integration into the existing tiered storage approach, improved performance, higher scalability, an excellent cost-performance ratio, and optimal service quality. Since implementation, we’ve seen extremely impressive performance results, including throughput of a single database server of 2.5 MB/sec and reduced loading time in half. Furthermore, with Hitachi VSP, we have massively reduced the storage costs per TB.” – Ernst Nimmervoll, managing director

·         Schweizerische Mobiliar, Swiss insurance organization: “The scalability and performance of Hitachi VSP fully meets our expectations while at the same time reducing energy costs. Furthermore, management of the new Hitachi Command Suite has become significantly easier. In summary, the result is a TCO savings of 25%.” – Renato Grendelmeier, head of storage

·         Seattle Children’s, premier child health care and pediatric center: “As a clinical care facility with a team of over 4,700 employees, we depend on Hitachi VSP as a core component of our IT infrastructure to deliver unified access to a wealth of hospital applications and provide exceptional patient care. We deployed Hitachi VSP as part of our Virtual Desktop Infrastructure project. We are benefiting from faster response times and improved desktop performance.” – Mike Kindle, senior director, Enterprise Architecture

·         Teliti Datacentres, premier IT service provider in Malaysia: “Our data center offers cloud computing services with virtualization capabilities and provides provisioning on demand with thin provisioning technology. Hitachi VSP, deployed with VMware technology, enables Teliti to deliver benefits in performance, flexibility, power consumption and TCO to our customers. Additionally, VSP enables Teliti to reduce disk drive costs by up to 70% compared with non-tiered and non-virtualized storage platforms and achieve significant reductions in power, cooling and floor space costs.” – Encik Musa Mohd. Lazim, chief executive officer

Recent Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Milestones

Alongside Hitachi Command Suite management software, which can scale many virtual machines and manages even the largest infrastructures and application deployments, Hitachi VSP received the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s prestigious Machine Design Award sponsored by Business and Technology Daily News in Japan. Hitachi VSP was also awarded the iF Product Design Award for 2011 , China Information World 2010 Editors’ Choice for “Innovative Product,” and the 2011 Information Age Data Centre Award – all of which champion superior technology products and designs for the data center.

Web Resources

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Read what Hu says about Hitachi VSP success

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Canadian PR/Media Contact:
Lizanne McReelis
lizanne@echo-communications.com


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Randstad Canada reveals which sectors are leading job growth in IT

Randstad Canada reveals which sectors are leading job growth in IT
Randstad Technologies President Mike Winterfield discusses job growth in IT, the
hottest sectors to watch out for and dealing with the looming skills shortage.

TORONTO, Friday August 5, 2011
– As the IT sector continues to experience
growth through Canada’s post-recession phase, Randstad Canada is seeing growth in
several key areas.

Growth in the IT sector is evident as indicated in the recent release of the Labour
Force Survey (LFS) on ICT employment in Canada by the Information and
Communications Technology Council (ICTC) for June 2011. According to the June 2011
results, the unemployment rate for IT continues to be lower than the national average
unemployment rate. Both the labour force and employment rate for IT are climbing.

Randstad Technologies President Mike Winterfield has observed a similar trend through
a significant growth in permanent hiring demands. "There has been a 57% increase in
permanent IT hiring demands in Q1 2011 over the same time last year, especially in
the Financial Services, where permanent placements have doubled over last year, and
High Tech industries, where there has been a 38% increase over last year”, he says.

The survey indicates Business Information Analyst is the IT occupation showing the
strongest long-term annual growth (7.6%), while Software Engineers have shown
spectacular short-term growth (20.5%) between June 2000 and June 2011.
"The increasing demand for business analysts and software engineers is not surprising
as companies feel more confident and ready to invest in new project development
cycles," adds Winterfield.

But as many IT occupations push forward to the leading edge of job growth, the
demand for many specialized IT skills will increase. “Access to skilled and available
talent will become both more difficult and more important. Businesses can respond by
ensuring they map out their short and long-term ICT needs. Organizations that
understand their future ICT needs will be able to hire staff in a strategic manner to
help drive future growth,” says Winterfield.

About Randstad Canada
: Randstad Canada is the Canadian leader for staffing,
recruitment and HR Services. We excel at matching exceptional candidates with select
companies in industries as diverse as financial services, manufacturing,
telecommunications, information technology, the energy sector and government. We
help Canada’s leading employers achieve their goals through improved access to their
most important resource, talent.

About Randstad Technologies
: Randstad Technologies (formerly Sapphire Canada)
is the country’s leading provider of IT staffing services. Since 1981, Randstad
Technologies has worked with organizations across North America to create highly
successful solutions for full-time recruitment, contract staffing, payroll management
staffing. Last year, Randstad Technologies placed approximately 3,000 IT professionals
in jobs across the country and currently maintains approximately 2,100 consultants on
client sites at any given time.

Randstad Canada anticipates tremendous growth in 2011 and is seeking top talent to
fill positions in nearly every area of the business. Visit
http://www.randstad.ca/about/internal_careers.aspx for internal job openings and to
learn more about why Randstad is one of the best places to work.

Meltwater acquires blogsearch leader, IceRocket Inc., to extend leadership in social media intelligence

 

Meltwater Acquires blogsearch leader, IceRocket Inc., to Extend Leadership in Social Media Intelligence

San Francisco & Dallas — August 4, 2011 — The Meltwater Group, one of the world’s leading online media intelligence companies, today announced the acquisition of IceRocket, a top social search engine. Together, the companies will provide public relations, marketing, communications and advertising professionals with the most comprehensive set of tools for monitoring, analyzing and engaging in relevant conversations across social channels. All of IceRocket’s employees will join Meltwater.

Meltwater has grown to a $100 million company by delivering online news and social media monitoring and search engine marketing solutions. The company has 57 offices around the world serving more than 20,000 customers. IceRocket is an advanced real-time search engine that crawls over 200 million blogs, and an array of tweets, news, and videos that are each profiled, categorized and ranked for accurate results.

IceRocket offers market-leading blog search options for identifying trends, influencers, shared links and popular topics. IceRocket will continue to operate as a standalone search engine while its technology will be integrated with the Meltwater Buzz product, creating the most comprehensive and engaging social media intelligence platform on the market today.

“The acquisition of IceRocket gives us access to one of the richest sources of social media in the market,” said Jorn Lyseggen, chief executive officer and founder of Meltwater Group. “We arm our customers with sophisticated tools for mining social media for business insights, and this requires high quality sources. IceRocket helps Meltwater secure an enviable leadership position in the social media intelligence space. This acquisition represents an important step toward achieving our goal of generating $100 million in social media business within three years.”

“Since its launch in 2004, IceRocket has been at the forefront of social search – starting with blog searches and later expanding to social networking and microblogs,” says Blake Rhodes, IceRocket founder. “That’s why we’re thrilled about this acquisition and the potential to take social search to the next level. IceRocket’s integration with Meltwater Buzz will provide access to more sophisticated capabilities, such as measuring and analyzing social engagement and influence. We’re excited for this next chapter.”

In addition to IceRocket, Meltwater acquired social CRM company JitterJam in March 2011 and BuzzGain last year. The company intends to acquire more businesses and technologies to help further expand its product suite.

About IceRocket

IceRocket, a privately owned and operated search engine, is a global leader in commercial search services on the Internet, providing new and more powerful ways for customers to find exactly what they are looking for. IceRocket is pioneering commercial search by putting the interests and wants of consumers before advertisers. The company has innovative blog search technology to search the blogosphere and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

About The Meltwater Group

The Meltwater Group is a privately held software company founded in Norway in 2001, serving more than 20,000 clients through 57 offices located across North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Meltwater is committed to challenging existing business models by introducing disruptive technologies. The Meltwater Group delivers B2B solutions based on search engine technology, cloud computing and search engine marketing. For more information, please visit http://www.meltwater.com.

Contacts:

Kimling Lam

Meltwater Group

408-718-4995     

 

Travis Murdock

Edelman

 

 

HP Launches Global Authentication Service to Fight Counterfeit Drugs

HP Launches Global Authentication Service to Fight Counterfeit Drugs

Expanded reach of service offers peace of mind to consumers in one of world’s largest markets

PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 3, 2011

HP has launched its Global Authentication Service, a cloud-based track-and-trace solution based on technology that has been used to fight the global problem of counterfeit and stolen drugs, estimated to claim 700,000 lives every year(1) and representing an illegal $75 billion global industry.(2)

The HP Global Authentication Service allows pharmaceutical companies to monitor the movement of products through their global supply chains with a much higher degree of accuracy. This helps protect consumers against dangerous or ineffective drugs and enables pharmaceutical companies to protect their revenue and intellectual property from the growing black market.

The service is initially being rolled out in India due to the phenomenal growth in the country’s pharmaceutical industry, which also is seeing the development of a parallel counterfeit drug market. The service, which runs on scalable, cloud-based technology, also can be deployed in other industry sectors, offered in any geographical region and incorporated into an existing drug production system.

The service’s underlying technology engine was originally developed by HP Labs – the company’s central research arm – and the HP Software Professional Services Cloud Services Innovation Center to monitor goods in HP’s supply chain. It was later adapted for use in product recalls in the food industry.

The solution was most recently adapted and deployed in collaboration with the African nonprofit social enterprise mPedigree to track, trace and authenticate a range of life-saving medications in Nigeria and Ghana, with a rollout planned for more countries later this year.

The HP Global Authentication Service works in conjunction with HP’s global printing partners who are able to print quality labels in high volumes very efficiently even when required in some of the world’s most remote locations.

“HP technology is not only providing commercial benefits to our clients, but also is helping to save lives,” said Prith Banerjee, senior vice president, Research, and director, HP Labs. “The success to date with mPedigree and subsequent commercialization of our Global Authentication Service highlights how valuable social innovation initiatives can be in helping bring innovative service offerings to the market.”

Background

As of 2009, India’s pharmaceuticals industry was estimated at $21.04 billion.(3) As this industry grows, so does the associated risk of a counterfeit market. While India is a leading manufacturer and exporter of high-quality generic and patent drugs, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ranked the country as the largest source of counterfeit medicine, with 75 percent of counterfeit drugs worldwide having some origins in India.

  • Counterfeit drugs often contain the wrong quantity of active pharmaceutical ingredients, which can result in illness or death.
  • Counterfeit drugs account for approximately 10 percent of the global drug market.(3)
  • The use of counterfeit drugs is estimated to finance a $75 billion global counterfeit pharmaceutical industry.(2)
  • The World Health Organization estimates that counterfeit drugs constitute 25 percent of the drug market in developing countries.(4)
  • Across Africa, 30 percent of malaria medications are estimated to be counterfeit.(1)

Supporting resources

More information about HP’s work in social innovation for healthcare is available at HP’s Office of Global Social Innovation website.

Additional information regarding the work of mPedigree is available in an interview with founder Bright Simons and at Data Central, the HP corporate blog.

Information about HP’s award-winning work with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and social enterprise mPedigree also is available at Data Central.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

Dell and Cloudera Collaborate to Enable Large Scale Data Analysis and Modeling through Open Source Solution

Dell and Cloudera Collaborate to Enable Large Scale Data Analysis and Modeling through Open Source Solution


Enterprises looking to process massive application datasets can now utilize the industry’s first complete Apache Hadoop solution, resulting from a relationship between Dell and Cloudera Inc. The Dell | Cloudera solution for Apache Hadoop combines Dell servers and networking components with Cloudera’s Distribution Including Apache Hadoop (CDH), as well as management tools, training, technology support and professional services, to give customers a single source to deploy, manage, and scale a comprehensive Apache Hadoop-based stack.

Aimed at financial services, energy, utility and telecom companies, research institutions, retail businesses, and Internet/media groups, The Dell | Cloudera solution for Apache Hadoop can reduce the complexity of deploying, configuring, and managing Hadoop systems. By combining the leading open source Apache Hadoop-based software platform and purpose-built hardware, the integrated Dell | Cloudera solution for Hadoop enables organizations to analyze large amounts of complex, dynamic data at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than proprietary solutions.

The Dell PowerEdge C line is designed and optimized to work in large scale-out computing environments which highlight the company’s approach to producing best of breed solutions. This offering brings simplicity and power helping enable more organizations to process big data sets in order to spot business trends and buying patterns, conduct risk modeling, direct customer profiling and retention programs, determine buying patterns or simulate physical, biological, and environmental processes. Enabling the analysis of large amounts of data gives customers the power to derive greater and faster insights that lead to a tangible business advantage.

“Many companies today are recognizing the inherent value in analyzing the vast amount of structured and unstructured data currently being stored across their organization. Apache Hadoop enables companies to perform complex analyses, including detailed special-purpose computation across large collections of mixed data. However, deployment and management complexity, as well as requirements for highly specialized knowledge, have been barriers to adoption,” said Merv Adrian, Research VP, Information Management at Gartner. “Providing complete end-to-end solutions for Apache Hadoop deployments will be key to significantly speeding its adoption within mainstream enterprise environments.”

The Dell | Cloudera solution for Apache Hadoop consists of CDH, Dell Crowbar software, and Cloudera Enterprise combined with a Dell PowerEdge C2100 server (other models to be added shortly) and PowerConnect 6248 48-port Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 switch. Joint service and support and a deployment guide are also included. Available for purchase directly from Dell within the next 30 days, The Dell | Cloudera solution for Apache Hadoop is designed to offer customers:

  • Streamlined Deployment: Cloudera Enterprise and Dell Crowbar enable enterprises to manage the complete operational lifecycle of their Apache Hadoop systems. The combination simplifies the deployment and management of Apache Hadoop services, including the ability to install and configure Apache Hadoop in minutes from a central dashboard and continue to make configuration updates while the system is running.
  • Increased Efficiency: Designed with inspiration from Dell’s Data Center Solutions (DCS) business, the PowerEdge C series is a high performance data analytics, cloud compute platform and cloud storage server line-up. Feature- and power-optimized to provide lower total cost of ownership in addition to saving on space and energy, it is an ideal platform for high performance computing (HPC), Web 2.0, gaming, social networking, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and public and private cloud infrastructures.
  • Low-Risk: Built on CDH, the leading distribution of Apache Hadoop in commercial and non-commercial environments, and Dell’s performance-based PowerEdge C hardware, The Dell | Cloudera solution for Apache Hadoop is tested, validated, and supported by Dell, one of the industry’s most experienced providers to hyperscale computing environments.
  • Complete Support: Led by Dell, customers will have access to comprehensive and collaborative service and support for the entire solution, from installation, configuration, and deployment to optimization and tuning with existing IT infrastructures.

This solution also leverages Dell’s popular Crowbar software, which Dell has released to the community as open source. Crowbar manages the Apache Hadoop deployment from the initial server boot to the configuration of the primary Apache Hadoop components allowing users to complete bare metal deployment of multi-node Hadoop environments in a matter of hours, as opposed to days. Once the initial deployment is complete, Crowbar can be used to maintain, expand, and architect a complete data analytics solution, including BIOS configuration, network discovery, status monitoring, performance data gathering, and alerting. Crowbar provides the necessary tools and automation to manage the complete lifecycle of Hadoop environments.

“Dell is committed to providing our customers with the best solutions for expanding IT capabilities without creating additional management requirements. Our PowerEdge C servers are purpose-built for performing Big Data analytics. Through our relationship with Cloudera, companies can now take advantage of the leading distribution of Apache Hadoop along with Dell servers and networking capabilities to easily and quickly deploy an end-to-end solution for Hadoop,” said John Igoe, executive director of Cloud Solutions at Dell. “Organizations can begin solving business challenges by analyzing structured and unstructured data while knowing that they have the backing of Dell service and support and access to Cloudera training and management tools, all via a single point of contact.”

“Our relationship with Dell is a natural fit as we continue to expand the footprint of Apache Hadoop across mainstream commercial environments. Enterprises can now quickly and easily deploy an entire solution for Apache Hadoop that is optimized for production level environments,” said Ed Albanese, head of business development at Cloudera. “Cloudera customers have spoken clearly. They want a Hadoop configuration that has been validated from end–to-end and is available from a single vendor. We are excited that Dell is investing to meet this demand.”

Additional Information
Dell Hadoop Solutions
Dell PowerEdge C Servers
Dell Crowbar Installer Blog
Cloudera Blog

About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com or email hadoop@dell.com.

About Cloudera
Cloudera, the leader in Apache Hadoop-based software and services, enables data driven enterprises to easily derive business value from all their structured and unstructured data. Cloudera's Distribution including Apache Hadoop (CDH), available for free download at www.cloudera.com/downloads, is the most comprehensive, tested, stable and widely deployed distribution of Hadoop in commercial and non-commercial environments. Organizations can subscribe to Cloudera Enterprise, comprised of Cloudera Support and a portfolio of software including Cloudera Management Suite. Cloudera also offers consulting services, training and certification on Apache technologies. For more information, visit www.cloudera.com