Tracking Equipment Goes Mobile - Innovative New Mobile Application Saves Time and Money For Finance and IT Executives

Tracking Equipment Goes Mobile - Innovative New Mobile Application Saves Time and Money For Finance and IT Executives

Konica Minolta Signs with Tracker Networks to Manage Fixed Assets by Smartphone

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Quote startThe Tracker Networks system uses our blackberries and other PDAs as scanners and will make it much easier and less expensive to track and audit our assets in the field.Quote end

Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) August 13, 2012

In today’s cost conscious business environment, there is a compelling case for improved fixed asset management. Konica Minolta and Tracker Networks announced today that Konica Minolta has signed as a Tracker Networks customer to track Konica Minolta’s assets using smartphones and the IT Tracker System from Tracker Networks.

Many organizations have a poor and outdated view of the assets they manage. As a result, they buy new equipment they do not need, have misaligned insurance coverage, and do little to deter theft and misuse. Even worse, they often make unnecessary overpayments on taxes, support agreements and insurance policies.

Managing assets is especially challenging in current times, with organizations facing workforce cutbacks, changing technology and distributed work environments. Old approaches to equipment labelling and scanning with dedicated scanners and printers are expensive and time consuming. Fixed asset tracking functions in ERP and finance systems are often limited and out-of-step with current business requirements. Flying audit teams across the country with scanners to conduct physical audits is expensive and hard to justify in challenging times.

“In the past, our physical audits were expensive and time-consuming, and so they did not take place as often as they should,” said Julia Kwan, Chief Financial Officer of Konica Minolta Canada. “The Tracker Networks system uses our blackberries and other PDAs as scanners and will make it much easier and less expensive to track and audit our assets in the field.”

IT Tracker is a web-based software tool and mobile application that makes it easier for Finance and Technology executives to track all of their equipment, software, support agreements, telecom contracts, consultants, services and other expense areas. Using analysis and benchmarking against the Tracker Networks market database with over 30 million items, the system helps manage costs and find ways to provide better service to the business and customers.

“We listened to the market and our customers,” said Roger Mahabir, Chairman and CEO of Tracker Networks, “they want to use modern and open technology, and they need to find ways to lower costs.” “We responded by creating a mobile application that uses standard Blackberries and smartphones to scan assets without the need for dedicated scanners.”

“We can now make use of our staff in the field to do audits more often,” said Kwan, “and they do not need special training or equipment.” “This is one of the ways that we are doing more for less with the help of smart technology.”

“Bring-Your-Own-Device and the proliferation of devices in general are making it extremely difficult for CIOs and finance executives to track and manage their assets,” said Mahabir, “Our IT Tracker system leverages innovative and flexible approaches to make it easier to track a myriad of devices.” “We are very pleased to be helping Konica Minolta with this.”

About Konica Minolta

With offices in 35 countries, Konica Minolta is a leading global provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies, for applications ranging from the desktop to the print shop. The world of imaging is expanding like never before, brimming with new potential made possible by exciting new digital and networking technologies. Konica Minolta is playing a key leadership role in these developments. For more information, please visit http://www.konicaminolta.ca.

About Tracker Networks

Tracker Networks Inc. is an innovative and fast growing software company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Tracker Networks helps technology and business executives to track equipment, services, contracts, resources and costs – to help find ways to lower costs, improve service and increase revenue. Tracker Networks systems import and track thousands of quotes and contracts per day, for over 150 manufacturers and many leading IT organizations in Canada, the US, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit http://www.trackernetworks.com
Contact

For Konica Minolta
Norm Bussolaro
Tel 905.890.6600
Email norm.bussolaro@bt.konicaminolta.ca

For Tracker Networks
Jason Doel
Tel 416.848.7347
Email jason.doel@trackernetworks.com

Gartner Says Worldwide Sales of Mobile Phones Declined 2.3 Percent in Second Quarter of 2012

Gartner Says Worldwide Sales of Mobile Phones Declined 2.3 Percent in Second Quarter of 2012

Android Extended Lead While Apple iOS Market Share Growth Paused

Egham, UK, August 14, 2012—                    Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419 million units in the second quarter of 2012, a 2.3 percent decline from the second quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales accounted for 36.7 percent of total mobile phone sales and grew 42.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012.

 "Demand slowed further in the second quarter of 2012," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. "The challenging economic environment and users postponing upgrades to take advantage of high-profile device launches and promotions available later in the year slowed demand across markets. Demand of feature phones continued to decline, significantly weakening the overall mobile phone market.

 "High-profile smartphone launches from key manufacturers such as the anticipated Apple iPhone 5, along with Chinese manufacturers pushing 3G and preparing for major device launches in the second half of 2012, will drive the smartphone market upward. However, feature phones will continue to see pressure," Mr. Gupta said.

In the second quarter of 2012, Samsung's mobile phone sales remained very strong — up 29.5 percent from the second quarter of 2011 (see Table 1), and managed to extend its lead over both Apple and Nokia quarter on quarter. This quarter's growth was driven by record sales of Galaxy smartphones, meaning smartphones now account for 50.4 percent of all Samsung mobile devices, or 45.6 million units. Demand for the new Galaxy S3 was particularly strong, exceeding Samsung's own expectations, with a reported 10 million units reached in the two months after its release. The Galaxy S3 was the best-selling Android product in the quarter and could have been higher but for product shortages.

In the second quarter of 2012, consumer demand for the Apple iPhone weakened as sales fell 12.6 percent from the first quarter of 2012, but grew 47.4 percent year on year. Depending on the exact launch date of the new iPhone, Apple might experience another weaker-than-usual quarter in the third quarter of 2012, while Apple will be ready to take advantage of the strong holiday sales in North America and Western Europe that have historically remained immune to economic pressure.

"Samsung and Apple continued to dominate the smartphone market, together taking about half the market share, and widening the gap to other manufacturers. No other smartphone vendors had share close to 10 percent," Mr. Anshul said. "In the race to be top smartphone manufacturer in 2012, Samsung has consistently increased its lead over Apple, and its open OS market share increased to one-and-a-half times that of Apple in the second quarter of 2012."

Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q12 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q12

Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

2Q11

Units

2Q11 Market Share (%)

Samsung

90,432.1

21.6

69,827.6

16.3

Nokia

83,420.1

19.9

97,869.3

22.8

Apple

28,935.0

6.9

19,628.8

4.6

ZTE

17,936.4

4.3

13,070.2

3.0

LG Electronics

14,345.4

3.4

24,420.8

5.7

Huawei Device

10,894.2

2.6

9,026.1

2.1

TCL Communications

9,355.7

2.2

7,938.9

1.9

HTC

9,301.2

2.2

11,016.1

2.6

Motorola

9,163.2

2.2

10,221.4

2.4

Research In Motion

7,991.2

1.9

12,652.3

3.0

Others

137,233.4

32.8

152,989.70

35.7

Total

419,007.90

100.0

428,661.15

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2012)

Nokia's mobile phone sales declined 14.8 percent in the second quarter of 2012. Nokia is battling fiercely with white-box and new emerging device manufacturers to defend its feature phones sales. Nokia succeeded, to a certain extent, in winning feature phone market share as its sales grew quarter-on-quarter. While posting sequential growth in the feature phone market, Nokia's Lumia devices continue to struggle to find a place in consumers' minds as a replacement for Android.

"Declining smartphone sales is worsening Nokia's overall position, as it had already lost the No. 1 position to Samsung in the previous quarter and is facing reduced profitability due to continuous declining sales of premium smartphones," said Mr. Gupta.

In the smartphone OS market, Android extended its lead with an increase of 20.7 percentage points in market share in the second quarter of 2012 (see Table 2). While Apple's iOS market share slightly grew year over year (0.6 percent), it declined 3.7 percentage points quarter on quarter, as users postponed their upgrade decisions in most markets ahead of the upcoming launch of the iPhone 5.

Gartner analysts said the arrival of the iPhone 5 should provide the greatest upgrade opportunity yet as the expected new design with a larger screen and likely other stylistic changes to the form factor will certainly make a strong case for iPhone 4 users to upgrade.

Table 2
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q12 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System

2Q12

 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

2Q11

 Units

2Q11 Market Share (%)

Android

98,529.3

64.1

46,775.9

43.4

iOS

28,935.0

18.8

19,628.8

18.2

Symbian

9,071.5

5.9

23,853.2

22.1

Research In Motion

7,991.2

5.2

12,652.3

11.7

Bada

4,208.8

2.7

2,055.8

1.9

Microsoft

4,087.0

2.7

1,723.8

1.6

Others

863.3

0.6

1,050.6

1.0

Total

153,686.1

100.0

107,740.4

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2012)

Additional information can be found in the Gartner report "Market Share: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 2Q12." The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=2117915.

Contacts:

Rob van der Meulen
Gartner
+44 0 1784 267892
rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com

Christy Pettey
Gartner
+1 408 468 8312
christy.pettey@gartner.com


About Gartner:
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the valuable partner to clients in 12,000 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 5,000 associates, including 1,280 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, www.gartner.com.

Salesforce.com Unveils Salesforce Communities

Salesforce.com Unveils Salesforce Communities

Now any company will be able to create private social communities to connect with customers and partners in entirely new ways

Salesforce Communities is the only community platform that combines the power of social networking with business processes for breakthrough collaboration and productivity

New technology will accelerate the industry's transformation to the social enterprise

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today unveiled Salesforce Communities, which will enable any enterprise to create private social communities to connect with customers and partners in entirely new ways. Salesforce Communities will combine social networking features such as profiles, real-time feeds, trending topics, recommendations and influence measurement, with the business information and processes in Salesforce. With Salesforce Communities, enterprises will be empowered to deliver completely new levels of collaboration and productivity through custom, branded communities.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)

Comments on the News:

  • "Today, more than ever, companies need to put customers at the heart of their business," said Doug Bewsher, senior vice president, Salesforce Chatter. "With Salesforce Communities, enterprises will be able to break the boundaries of their companies, connecting them much closer to their customers and partners."
  • "Our goal was to build deeper relationships with our mid-size business partners across the world, and be seen as builders, not just bankers," said Ian Forrest, vice president, Global Marketing, GE Capital. "With Access GE built on Salesforce Communities, we have deployed more than 50 custom communities, leading to stronger partnerships with companies."
  • "Salesforce Communities will enable companies to build stronger, more valuable relationships with customers, partners and employees through custom communities – designed to address and support specific business needs," said Mary Wardley, vice president, CRM and Enterprise Applications, IDC. "When delivered within the context of the business process of Salesforce, Communities has the potential to facilitate strategic collaboration across enterprises and with customers and partners above the capabilities of online peer communities, which have the tendency to be either entirely conversational or entirely transactional."

Connect Customers, Partners and More with Salesforce Communities
Legacy technology has failed to deliver on the promise of connecting companies with their customers and partners. Existing offerings are either entirely conversational, such as discussion forums or entirely transactional, such as portals, and so are disconnected from the business.

Today, more than ever, enterprises need to connect with their customers and partners in meaningful ways to increase efficiency and productivity. Combining the simplicity of developing groups and hangouts on the social Web with the trusted business processes salesforce.com is known for, companies will now be able to quickly deploy communities to: 

  • Connect with Customers: Salesforce Communities will help social enterprises combine knowledge-driven, peer-assisted and agent-assisted customer service communities into a single unified experience giving customers better and faster service, every time. Companies will also be able to create a variety of marketing communities around events, campaigns or even spin up focus groups on the fly.
  • Connect with Partners: Companies, along with their partners, suppliers and distributors, can create custom communities to drive more sales through seamless deal registration, access to proven sales tools and collaboration with the right experts.
  • Connect with Any Community: Deploy communities to support any business process - from franchises sharing best practices, to high-end retailers delivering custom shopping experiences, to universities looking to connect students with alumni.

Deploy Private Social Communities Instantly with the Trust of Salesforce
In order to be successful, companies must engage with the right people, at the right time - seamlessly across multiple communities. Because Salesforce Communities is built on the Salesforce Platform, the world's most-trusted cloud platform, companies will be able to:

  • Quickly build and deploy branded communities within minutes, all with the trust and private sharing model of the Salesforce Platform;
  • Move seamlessly across multiple communities with a single identity; and,
  • Scale instantly to support communities of all sizes - from a few people to communities with millions of members.

Accelerating the Social Enterprise Transformation
The number of social networking users has surpassed e-mail users. Nearly a quarter of all time spent online is spent on social networks like Facebook. People access the Internet more from mobile devices than from desktops. Salesforce.com is helping companies meet the challenge of this social revolution with its social enterprise solution. By providing new and more powerful ways for companies to connect with their customers and partners, the introduction of Salesforce Communities will continue to accelerate the industry's transformation to the social enterprise.

Pricing and Availability

  • Salesforce Communities is currently scheduled to be available in limited pilot in fall 2012.
  • Salesforce Communities is currently scheduled to be generally available the second half of 2013.
  • Pricing of Salesforce Communities will be announced at general availability.

Additional Resources:

Tweet This:

  • Click to Tweet: Extend your #social transformation to customers and partners with private social communities @Salesforce Communities

About Salesforce.com
With more than 100,000 customers, salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company that is leading the shift to the social enterprise. Social enterprises leverage social, mobile and open cloud technologies to put customers at the heart of their business. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's platform and application services allow customers to:

  • Create employee social networks with Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Rypple and Salesforce Force.com.
  • Develop customer social networks with the Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Data.com, Salesforce Service Cloud, and Salesforce Site.com.
  • Connect with customers on public social networks with Salesforce Heroku, Salesforce Radian6.
  • Empower small business to become social enterprises with Salesforce Desk.com and Salesforce Do.com.
  • Extend a company's social enterprise with apps from the leading enterprise app marketplace, AppExchange.
  • Run apps on Database.com, the first social enterprise database.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

©2012 salesforce.com, inc.  All rights reserved. Salesforce.com, Salesforce, Chatter, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Radian6, Jigsaw, AppExchange, Force.com, Heroku, and all associated logos are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. in the United States and other countries. Salesforce.com offers its Siteforce products and services in Germany under the Force.com Sites trademark. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.  Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE salesforce.com


Canadian Digital Media Network Helps Startup Cyborg Trading Establish New York Presence and Attract Investment


Canadian Digital Media Network Helps Startup Cyborg Trading Establish New York Presence and Attract Investment


WATERLOO REGION, ON, Aug. 13, 2012 /CNW/ - Cyborg Trading, a startup that develops automated trading technology for financial firms, was able to be in the right place at the right time to build the business thanks to a 'soft landing' program recently introduced by the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN) in concert with Communitech. With financial support to take critical staff to New York, Cyborg Trading was able to close a $2 million equity round with Canadian investors, garner two long-term deals valued at close to $200,000 per year, attend a key trade show and gain market intelligence from being at the core of 'the city that never sleeps'.

The CDMN recently introduced its program to help startups in the digital media and mobile space gain traction in other countries, as well as enabling companies from outside Canada to locate here, creating jobs and opportunities.

"Canadian startups that need to be where the investment dollars are available or where new business is emerging can find support 'landing' outside Canada through our soft landing program," said Kevin Tuer, Managing Director of the CDMN.

Cyborg's CEO and Chief Financial Officer were New York bound, but the company also needed Cyborg's Chief Technology Officer and algorithm engineer to travel to New York to gain market intelligence at a major industry event. However on a startup budget, bringing more people to New York wasn't feasible. CDMN's soft landing program was able to fund the additional travel costs and as well, provide hoteling space at an incubator space in Manhattan for three months.

"It's pretty much a sink or swim scenario when you hit New York, and you need to spend time in the city to be taken seriously by investors," said Ben Bittrolff, Cyborg Trading CFO. "Being part of the CDMN's soft landing program opened doors and enabled us to get closer to the market."

Cyborg, which has subsequently opened a New York sales department at the NYU-Poly Varick Street Incubator where they were 'hoteled', is on its way to expanding from a team of 25 to 36 people in the coming year. The company also has locations at the Communitech Hub in Waterloo and in London, Ontario. Cyborg specializes in developing automated trading technology for hedge funds, brokers, banks and professional lenders.

CDMN's soft-landing program provides up to three months of residency in partner facilities equipped to support companies' growth, and up to $4,000 Canadian for transportation and hotel costs. Bittrolff says the CDMN program is an enviable support system for emerging startups.

"Quite a few of the incubator startups in New York wished they had the programs that we have access to in Communitech and CDMN," said Bittrolff.

The soft landing model unfolding in Waterloo Region is being replicated across the country working with other CDMN 'nodes' in all provinces. Communitech is not only the tech association representing the close to 1,000 tech companies in Waterloo Region, but is also a CDMN node and a federal centre of excellence in commercialization and research.

About The Canadian Digital Media Network:

The Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN) www.cdmn.ca is dedicated to establishing Canada as a world leader in Digital Media by enabling connections and collaboration of people across the country - entrepreneurs, companies, research institutes and government - and bringing more digital solutions to market. The CDMN comprises Canada's largest concentration of business-driven digital media research, technology development, and digital commercialization expertise; it connects digital media expertise and capability from coast-to-coast, creating a digital convergence corridor. Digital Media covers a broad spectrum of technology and services, and includes any information created and shared virtually.

SOURCE: Communitech Ltd.


CA Technologies Announces Competitive Upgrade Program for Data Backup and Recovery

CA Technologies Announces Competitive Upgrade Program for Data Backup and Recovery

 

Users of Symantec, CommVault, Veeam, Acronis and Other Data Backup and Recovery Products Can Trade Up Today and Earn Rebates on Select CA ARCserve Products

 

ISLANDIA, NY, August 13, 2012—CA Technologies today announced a competitive upgrade program for North American users of data backup and recovery software.

 

From now until Dec. 31, 2012, eligible participants who displace any competitor’s backup or disaster recovery software with an eligible CA ARCserve® competitive upgrade product through a qualified North America reseller/retailer will receive a rebate of up to $700 per license or up to $5,000 per order.

 

CA ARCserve is a comprehensive hybrid data protection solution that enables customers and service providers to rigorously safeguard the availability of critical data, applications and services across their increasingly diverse mix of virtual, conventional, and cloud resources.  It unifies data management functions through a scalable, modular architecture that also facilitates integration with third-party software such as remote monitoring tools, management platforms, and solutions from service providers.

 

CA ARCserve recently earned the Network Testing Labs (NTL) “World Class Award” for best data protection and business continuity by significantly outperforming Symantec™ Backup Exec™ 2012 in every category of a recent comparative review that was commissioned by CA Technologies.

 

"With data volume growing, budgets tight and tolerances for data loss approaching zero, companies of all shapes and sizes are ready to make a change when it comes to how they do backup and recovery," said Steve Fairbanks, vice president, Data Management, CA Technologies.  "With our new competitive upgrade program, CA Technologies is reducing the cost of making this change—allowing customers to substantially improve the performance, scalability, reliability and cost-efficiency of their data protection processes."

 

About CA Technologies

 

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) provides IT management solutions that help customers manage and secure complex IT environments to support agile business services.  Organizations leverage CA Technologies software and SaaS solutions to accelerate innovation, transform infrastructure and secure data and identities, from the data center to the cloud.  Learn more about CA Technologies at www.ca.com

 

Follow CA Technologies

 

Twitter

Social Media Page

Press Releases

 

CDC Software and Consona Corporation Merge to form a Comprehensive Enterprise Application Software Company

CDC Software and Consona Corporation Merge to form a Comprehensive Enterprise Application Software Company


The Two Companies Come Together as Aptean
 

Atlanta, August 7, 2012 — CDC Software (CDC) and Consona Corporation (Consona), both enterprise application software (EAS) providers of on-premise and cloud technologies, today announced they have merged to form Aptean.

The new brand signifies the coming together of two leading EAS companies with similar histories of success, unified under one name. As a combined organization, Aptean has over 9,000 customers, 1,500 employees, and a worldwide network of sales and support operations.

Monte Ford, president of Aptean, said, “This merger supports our business model and fits with our strategy by increasing Aptean’s exposure in well-defined vertical markets. Consona and CDC have complementary solutions in key application areas, including customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM). As Aptean, we look forward to further developing our relationships with the customers of both CDC and Consona. We are committed to protecting our customers’ software application investments through continued enhancement of all our existing software platforms, while developing new products, features and delivery capabilities. Aptean will maintain world-class customer support with efficient and effective implementation services.”

“We’re excited about the opportunity to deliver greater value and an even broader range of solutions to our customers,” said Scott Malia, chief operating officer of Consona. Both companies have an extensive history in the enterprise application software market and will combine valuable and insightful industry expertise with complementary, high quality products.”

CDC Software and Consona Corporation have both successfully delivered software and services to companies of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to Global 2000 enterprises, and in targeted vertical markets including financial services, manufacturing, distribution, medical, high tech, and professional services.

About CDC Software

CDC Software (CDC) is a global provider of enterprise software for on-premise and cloud deployments. CDC Software's solutions include enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing operations management, enterprise manufacturing intelligence, supply chain management (SCM), global trade management, e-Commerce, human capital management, customer relationship management (CRM), complaint management and aged care solutions.

CDC Software delivers innovative and industry-specific solutions to customers worldwide within the manufacturing, distribution, transportation, retail, government, real estate, financial services, health care, and not-for-profit industries. For more information, visit www.cdcsoftware.com.

About Consona Corporation

Since Consona was founded in 2003, the company has been in the business of acquiring software applications that enjoy a leadership position across a diverse set of global, niche markets. Consona offers technology and services across the following software application categories: ERP, CRM, knowledge management, eService, network management and product configuration. Consona’s software and services are used by companies of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to Global 2000 enterprises, across a number of industries, including manufacturing, distribution, high tech, help desks, and telecommunications. Prior to its merger with CDC Software, Consona was a portfolio company of private investment firms Battery Ventures and Thoma Bravo. For further information, visit www.consona.com.

About Aptean

Aptean, a global leader in enterprise application software (EAS), gives businesses of all sizes a competitive edge. We empower people and businesses with end-to-end, industry-specific solutions to address complex business challenges more effectively. Our software applications and professional business services enable more than 9,000 customers, in more than 100 countries, to more successfully manage their business. Software built specifically for our target markets, aligned with deep knowledge across vertical industries, allow businesses to satisfy their customers, operate most efficiently, and stay at the forefront of their industry. For more information, visit www.aptean.com, e-mail info@aptean.com, or call 1-855-411-APTEAN (1-855-411-2783).

For More Information

Media Relations

Julie Bevacqua, Aptean
(604) 699-8021, julie.bevacqua@aptean.com






















































































UBM Studios Unveils eLearning Light, Offers a New Paradigm of Learning

UBM Studios Unveils eLearning Light, Offers a New Paradigm of Learning
CHICAGO, Aug. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- UBM Studios, the global leader in digital events, environments and communities, today unveiled eLearning Light, an interactive and collaborative educational destination.  eLearning Light is a digital environment that aggregates training and information and also serves as a robust solution to track learners' activity, comprehension and engagement. 

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120809/NY55034LOGO )

"eLearning Light offers organizations a solution to extend learning nationally and globally to save on face-to-face training and costs.  It also offers learning collaboration and the sharing of best practices in open discussions as well as rich data and reporting capabilities for educators to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the learning program," said Michele McPhail, VP, Product Development, UBM Studios. "We created this new offering because we saw the potential of this type of learning – from increasing retention to engaging learners – it can create a new paradigm of learning."

eLearning Light is built on a robust platform that enables quick and efficient setup while still allowing the interface to meet the specifications of an organization and learning program -- live, on-demand or blended.

eLearning Light facilitates highly engaged learning interaction.  It offers:

  • Live Chat (Open, scheduled and/or moderated; Text, Audio or Video; and Group, Private One-on-One, Private Multi-User);
  • Pre/Post Assessment Testing;
  • Group Exercises/Breakout sessions;
  • Video conferencing;
  • Social/Informal learning;
  • Discussion forums;
  • Course ratings and feedback; and
  • The ability to deliver a live or on demand curriculum with integrated webcasting solutions

eLearning Light also includes social tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others to increase connectivity and awareness beyond the environment.

In addition, eLearning Light allows educators to track and understand the learning paths of users. Educators can track user activities including length and frequency of attendance, sessions viewed, participation in group activities/tools, materials downloaded, badges earned, and tests completed.  In addition, educators can use assessment testing to understand skill gaps and learning needs to better understand modules and content that will best help learners.

Through UBM Studios' Webcast Plus integration, eLearning Light allows students to personalize the learning console to their own preferences; incorporates content to the session by pulling in YouTube videos, cross-reference supporting materials such as Wikipedia pages, other websites and much more.

For additional information on UBM Studios, contact Max Gerstein at 773 687 4317 or max.gerstein@ubm.com

Follow UBM Studios on Twitter (http://twitter.com/UBMStudios), Facebook, or LinkedIn for all the latest news.

About UBM Studios (www.ubmstudios.com)  
UBM Studios is the global leader in digital events, environments and communities.  UBM Studios creates powerful and intuitive digital communities that help organizations connect, educate and engage with audiences to capitalize on growth opportunities connecting the right content to the right audience with the right user interface. UBM Studios is part of UBM Connect – which also includes UBM Canon Media and UBM Medica US, providing marketing services across a number of communities, the largest of which are healthcare, medical device design and advanced manufacturing. UBM Connect is a UBM plc company. (UBM.L)

For additional information on UBM Studios, visit www.ubmstudios.com.

About UBM
UBM plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world's buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewellery traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,634 staff in more than 31 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

For more information, go to www.ubm.com; follow us at @UBM_plc to get the latest UBM news.

Contacts
Erica Krutsch                                                   
UBM Studios                                                  
erica.krutsch@ubm.com                                              
773 687 4315   

SOURCE UBM Studios

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Toronto-based GroveWare Technologies Sees Growing Adoption of MobiTask by Mechanical, Plumbing and HVAC Contractors

GroveWare Technologies Sees Growing Adoption of MobiTask by Mechanical, Plumbing and HVAC Contractors

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Aug. 8, 2012) - GroveWare Technologies, Ltd. (OTCQB:GROV) one of North America's leading providers of mobile solutions to enterprise, connecting workforces by mobile device to a wide selection of ERP systems and helping American businesses and institutions to enhance productivity and improve profitability by mobilizing and automating business processes, has been actively expanding the market scope for MobiTask, its flagship solution designed to help transition business and government away from paper-based processes to the modern, wireless world. While its successes to date have largely been achieved in the government arena, the Company has recently been making inroads into businesses in the mechanical trades, plumbing, and HVAC sectors.

Such businesses are installing MobiTask on their wireless devices, smartphones and tablets, and using this robust solution to monitor and record mechanical problems, schedule and track installation, maintenance and repair tasks, collect and record work completed, labor-time, costs and billing information. MobiTask has been successfully implemented by mechanical and contractors in several north-eastern and mid-south states, specifically in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina with several more pilot projects in our pipeline. These customers are now reporting that, by providing them with accurate and "real-time" data sent through MobiTask by their off-site installation and service crews, GroveWare is allowing them to better serve their own clients, while enjoying higher levels of labor efficiency, lower administration costs and accelerated invoicing and receivable turnover.

"We see a new category of potential customers emerging from the mechanical services industry," says GroveWare's CEO, Harry Achkarian. "Manta Media lists over 20,000 mechanical contractors in the USA and every one of them would likely realize improved efficiencies and profitability by adopting MobiTask for their business. We are already receiving new customer referrals from existing users and by working closely with our wireless channel partners to provide more focus on the needs of these businesses. Since each of these contractors has an average of 50 employees working on various jobsites, there are over 1,000,000 mobile workers in this sector. We are targeting 5,000 users (.5%) from this client group by the end of next year, which would provide significant revenue growth for our company."

About GroveWare Technologies Ltd.

GroveWare is one of North America's leading providers of mobile solutions to enterprise, connecting workforces by mobile device to a wide selection of ERP systems and helping American businesses and institutions to enhance productivity and improve profitability by mobilizing and automating business processes. GroveWare's showcase software, MobiTask, is a wireless client application compatible with all smartphones and tablets including: iPhone®, iPad®, BlackBerry®, PlayBook™, and all devices using the Android™ or Windows Mobile® wireless platforms. MobiTask mobilizes employee tasks in the field and connects them directly to the organization's enterprise software systems. MobiTask allows organizations to rapidly and cost-effectively deploy mobile solutions for workers on the go. MobiTask provides the convenience of using dynamic electronic forms created using GroveWare's eXFORMA™ middleware to collect field data, manage workflow, HR and CRM tasks wirelessly, store documents locally and integrates quickly with most ERP systems and back-end databases on any application such as Oracle® e-Business Suite™, PeopleSoft™, SharePoint™, Kronos® Workforce Central™, MS Dynamics™ or SAP®. Users can remotely and wirelessly clock-in/out, approve and initiate workflow tasks, or use dynamic e-Forms for inspections, licensing and data collection all from their smartphones. GroveWare is especially targeting the government, construction, healthcare, and law enforcement sectors and its successes to-date and rapidly growing interest from these and other quarters of business, provide exciting growth challenges and opportunities for the company.

Safe Harbor Statement: Certain statements and information included in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Federal Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied in such statements. An additional discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's projections, estimates and expectations is contained in the Company's SEC filings. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or developments, except as required by federal securities laws.

Contact Information

Investors:
GroveWare Technologies Ltd.
W. Scott Boyes
Chief Financial Officer
416-644-5111
investorrelations@groveware.com

Oracle Financial Services Introduces Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Stress Testing & Capital Planning Analytics

Oracle Financial Services Introduces Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Stress Testing & Capital Planning Analytics

Enterprise-Wide Reporting Application Helps Facilitate Compliance With Dodd-Frank and Basel Requirements and Expand Insight Into Capital Management

REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire - Aug 9, 2012) - Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL)

News Facts

  • Oracle Financial Services today introduced Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Stress Testing & Capital Planning Analytics, an enterprise-wide reporting tool that helps financial institutions assess the impact of adverse scenarios on their risk and performance, improve capital management and strategic planning, while efficiently facilitating compliance with emerging regulatory requirements around stress testing.
  • Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Stress Testing & Capital Planning Analytics provides out-of-the-box regulatory templates designed to address stress testing requirements mandated by the US Federal Reserve as part of the Dodd-Frank regulations.
  • The application also supports a comprehensive set of pre-built dashboards and reports designed to support compliance with the reporting requirements of various regional regulations and governing bodies around enterprise stress testing, including:
    • Basel III Pillar I
    • Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP)
    • U.S. Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR)
  • Financial institutions can now manage capital planning by capturing and reporting the potential impact of adverse scenarios on risk and performance metrics. This can also be applied across the planning horizon based on the same stress scenarios thereby helping organizations facilitate consistency and comparability between the various metrics.
  • Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Stress Testing & Capital Planning Analytics provides on-demand reporting for multiple risk scenarios, giving financial institutions a single, consistent view of income statements, balance sheets and risk measures under baseline and stressed conditions. It can also compare results across scenarios, helping organizations identify potential risks affecting the enterprise as a whole and manage them efficiently.
  • Financial institutions can use the same scenarios to project profit and loss, income and capital to drive consistency in the capital planning process.
  • A 360-degree view of enterprise-wide data helps eliminate silos and facilitate efficient regulatory compliance, helping financial institutions to concurrently comply with reporting requirements for multiple jurisdictions, including the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA), U.S. Federal Reserve and Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

Supporting Quote

  • "Traditionally, stress testing has been carried out in individual risk silos, ignoring the interdependence between the risk and finance functions of an institution," said S. Ramakrishnan, group vice president and general manager, Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications. "Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Stress Testing & Capital Planning Analytics enables a more holistic approach to stress testing. It helps banks efficiently comply with both management and regulatory reporting while providing a single, consistent view of current and future financial and risk metrics across baseline and stress conditions thereby providing actionable insight to the capital management process."

Supporting Resources

About Oracle
Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.

About Oracle in Industries
Oracle industry solutions leverage the company's best-in-class portfolio of products to address complex business processes relevant to financial services, helping speed time to market, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge.

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

Contact Information

Contact Info

Carla Foster
Oracle
+1.650.506.8611
Email Contact

Mary Tobin
O'Keeffe & Company
+1.503.658.7396
Email Contact

St. John's-based Bluedrop Secures $1.2 Million Contract with Second Canadian Province

Bluedrop Secures $1.2 Million Contract with Second Canadian Province

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following on the heels of its very successful workforce development project in Newfoundland and Labrador, Bluedrop Performance Learning (TSX-V: BPL) announced today that a second Canadian province has signed on to CoursePark to deliver targeted online learning to its workforce and small business sector. Details are expected in September at a formal announcement where the province’s premier, a partner organization and Bluedrop will officially launch the program.

“We are pleased to have a second Canadian province select CoursePark as its online platform to develop its small business capacity and workforce excellence. We look forward to announcing the details of this exciting initiative in September.”

This initiative will soon deliver online professional development courses for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as its not-for-profit constituents. The initiative will also allow SMEs to access CoursePark to build, manage, track and deploy learning. The decision to move forward came after reviewing the speed and scope of the transformative benefits that SMEs realized after the CoursePark initiative launched in March 2011 in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“CoursePark is an amazing collaborative learning network that is changing the competitiveness and productivity of small businesses and the workforce at large. It is unique in the world and is well suited to help a region position its workforce and small businesses to compete and grow,” explained Emad Rizkalla, President and CEO of Bluedrop. “We are pleased to have a second Canadian province select CoursePark as its online platform to develop its small business capacity and workforce excellence. We look forward to announcing the details of this exciting initiative in September.”

Bluedrop is currently developing projects in other parts of Canada, the United States internationally.

About Bluedrop

Bluedrop Performance Learning (TSX-V: BPL) is an innovator in effective workplace learning for individuals, corporations, the military and the public sector. Through the development and implementation of pragmatic learning technologies and content, Bluedrop improves opportunities for individuals and the overall performance of organizations. CoursePark® (www.coursepark.com) is Bluedrop's cloud-based learning management solution for enterprise and individual learning and contains over 5000 third party online courses from the world's leading publishers and the expert down the street. The CoursePark platform launched in 2011 and is growing quickly with registered users in 100 countries. It aims to transform workplace learning globally. Bluedrop is also a recognized leader in producing mission critical training solutions for Defence and Aerospace, and provides custom online courseware, virtual training devices and virtual reality simulation for international military and commercial aviation clients. Founded in 1992, Bluedrop has over 120 employees and is headquartered in St. John's, NL with 5 additional offices in Canada and the US.

Contacts

Bluedrop
Deirdre O’Sullivan
deirdreosullivan@bluedrop.com
709-739-9000
or
800-563-3638