Vancouver's Destiny Media Files for Seven Patents for Disruptive Streaming Video Technology

Destiny Media Files for Seven Patents for Disruptive Streaming Video Technology

New Video Format Streams Across Smart Phones and Computers Without Streaming Servers or Player Plug-ins

VANCOUVER, June 25, 2012 /CNW/ - Destiny Media Technologies (TSXV: DSY) (OTCQX: DSNY) is pleased to announce a series of steps have been taken to protect the intellectual property behind its new Clipstream® G2 (second generation) streaming format.

Clipstream® videos can be uploaded to any web server where they will play directly on most web browser enabled devices (computers, smart phones, tablets, etc.).  The publisher doesn't require costly streaming server infrastructure and the viewer doesn't need to download, install and maintain plug-in player software.

Other solutions require the video to be transcoded (converted into multiple formats) because the web lacks a video standard.  Competing technologies deliver a separate stream to each viewer  with video encoded in the format associated with that device and browser.  By contrast, Clipsteam® is standards based and compatible with web caching infrastructure, so each stream is broadcast to be reused to reach ten or more viewers.  This efficiency reduces bandwidth and infrastructure costs by 90% or more and reduces the need for third party content delivery networks.

Other techniques require users to install and maintain plug-in players, limiting the ultimate audience for the content.  Clipstream® G2 does not require any third party software as the video is directly rendered by the browser to iPhones, iPads, Androids, tablets, Blackberries, Mac's, PC's, and a wide variety of other compliant devices.  This results in a nearly 100% play rate.

Streaming video data transfer is growing at 48% compounded annually and represents more than half the total data transfer on the internet.  Destiny CEO, Steve Vestergaard says that besides the cost, ISP's are running up against physical bandwidth and infrastructure limits that make it more difficult to stream video and which limit the audience size, "Content delivery networks are now a $3 billion annual business and transcoding is projected to be a $1.6 billion annual cost and our solution reduces the need for those services.  We believe our simple, standards based approach, will be widely adopted by anyone that wants to put streaming video into a website or email."

In August 2011, Destiny established a priority date by filing a provisional patent application with the USPTO, then in December 2011, filed a second expanded provisional application. An application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) was filed with the World Trade Organization in May 2012, providing the company the option of filing patent applications in 140 PCT contracting states. In June, the company filed the last of seven United States non-provisional patent applications which claim priority from the earlier-filed provisional applications and which assert protection for various novel and innovative aspects of this technology.

Clipstream® G2 is in final development and is expected to soft launch imminently with public demos.

About Destiny Media Technologies, Inc.

Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony and one thousand other labels use Destiny's secure distribution service to deliver most of their pre-release music to radio, online retail, DJ's, sports stadiums, journalists and VIP. Destiny's instant play streaming includes internet radio, internet TV, online surveys and new cloud and mobile offerings. Patents include watermarking, peer to peer locking and pending cross platform playerless streaming video.

For further information:

Media Contact:
Steve Vestergaard
CEO Destiny Media Technologies, Inc.
604 609 7736 x222
steve@dsny.com

















































GSI Expands Service Team and Opens First International Office in Canada in Response to Continuing Growth

GSI Expands Service Team and Opens First International Office in Canada in Response to Continuing Growth

ATLANTA and EDMONTON, Canada, June 25, 2012 /CNW/ - In response to a stronger than expected first half year, Atlanta-based GSI, Inc. (www.getGSI.com) has opened its first international office in Canada and announced a broadening of its U.S.-based services and consulting teams.

The new Canadian office is based in Edmonton, Alberta and is led by Marcus Jarrett, principal solution architect. Mr. Jarrett has more than 10 years of experience in the IT industry. He was the CNC team lead at Flint Energy Services and worked as a senior systems analyst at North American Construction Group and as a systems specialist at PCL Construction. The Canadian office will support GSI's clients in Canada as well as organizations in the U.S.

"Despite an unsettled domestic economy, GSI's business has grown strongly in 2012 on top of the banner year we enjoyed in 2011," said Kevin Herrig, president and CEO, GSI, Inc. "Increasing requests for support in Canada, and our booming domestic business, have allowed us to expand our international presence and to further invest in our team by hiring some of the strongest JD Edwards software specialists in the market."

Recent additions to the GSI team include:

- a vice president of delivery who will manage the company's largest accounts and help to ensure the delivery of consistent quality service for all customers;

-two principal support consultants;

-two additional client managers committed to making sure clients obtain the value they have come to depend on GSI for; and

-one principal field consultant who will interact with clients on site in their facilities.

About GSI
GSI, Inc. (www.getGSI.com), founded in 2004 as Global Systems Integration, is a customer-service focused ERP software integration specialist with a primary focus on Oracle's JD Edwards (JDE) products. The company has more than 300 years of JDE experience and offers a comprehensive suite of project services, support services and staffing solutions – all backed by a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. Headquartered in Atlanta and with satellite offices and consultants nationwide, GSI is one of the fastest growing service providers in the market.

SOURCE GSI, Inc.

For further information:

Savannah Tikotsky, +1-212-808-4903 or Henry Feintuch, +1-212-808-4901, both of Feintuch Communications, gsi@feintuchpr.com, Newsroom: www.feintuchcommunications.com/gsi

http://gsi-solutions.com

Two Thirds of Senior Management Don’t Know Where Their Company Data Is

Two Thirds of Senior Management Don’t Know Where Their Company Data Is

And 5 simple tips to ensure they will in future

London, UK, 25th JUNE 2012 – Research from Varonis Systems Inc. (http://www.varonis.com), the leading provider of comprehensive data governance software, has found that 67% of respondents say that senior management in their organizations either don’t know where all company data resides or are not sure. In addition, 74% of organizations reported that they do not have a process for tracking which files have been placed on third party cloud digital collaboration and storage services. The survey was distributed to the attendees at EMC World and individuals from over 400 companies participated in the survey. With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – particularly mobile and tablet devices – and file synch services booming, companies are open to a wave of potential devastation. Files kept on third party cloud services can be lost, misplaced, accessed by unauthorized people or leave the company with the employee, causing data privacy and compliance issues.

Alarmingly, of those that are allowing cloud-based file synchronization services, only 9% of respondents’ companies have a process for authorizing and reviewing access to cloud repositories in place, with another 23% still developing their access policies. The remaining 68% either have no plans in place that they are aware of, or live without formal processes for granting and reviewing access. Without control over access, or knowledge of where potentially sensitive organizational data resides, data is virtually ‘up for grabs’.

Given the risk and operational implications of moving data into a cloud environment, it is hardly surprising that 78% of those surveyed would prefer to use their existing permissions and storage if they were able to provide collaboration and file synchronization services similar to those available in the cloud. Equally, the majority of respondents (57%) reported that BYOD would be more attractive for their organization if they could provide secure access to their internal file shares for collaboration.

“The results clearly show a lack of control by those organizations that have adopted cloud file sync services”, said David Gibson, VP of Strategy at Varonis. “The most disturbing findings were the number of companies that report they have no way to track what data is being stored in the cloud, no process to manage access to that data (or plans to do so), and that management doesn’t know where enterprise data is stored. This should act as a wakeup call for organizations to develop a conscious strategy to ensure secure collaboration as quickly as possible.”

David Gibson’s tips for secure collaboration are:

  • Create an inventory of your most used collaboration platforms to get an overview where data lives, who has access to it, and who is using it.
  • Identify data owners for each data set and have owners perform a preliminary entitlement review to see if data is stored in the right place and if the right people have access to it.
  • Remediate any exposures, such as data that is accessible to too many people or regulated/sensitive content that is stored in the wrong place.
  • Monitor access to all data – this will help easily identity data owners and identify unused data and abuse.
  • Put a process into place that provides secure collaboration for remote employees – including synchronization, mobile device support and extranet functionality – that works within the existing enterprise servers and infrastructure.

To download the full Cloud Synchronization Services Research report, visit http://hub.varonis.com/CloudSurvey

About Varonis Systems

Varonis is the leader in unstructured and semi-structured data governance software. Based on patented technology and a highly accurate analytics engine, Varonis solutions give organizations total visibility and control over their data, ensuring that only the right users have access to the right data at all times from all devices, all use is monitored, and abuse is flagged.

Varonis makes digital collaboration secure, effortless and efficient so that people can create and share content easily with whom they must, and organizations can be confident their content is protected and managed efficiently.

Voted one of the “Fast 50 Reader Favorites” on FastCompany.com, and winner of the SC Magazine Innovation, Product or Service of the Year, and Best Network Security Awards, Varonis has more than 4,500 installations worldwide and is headquartered in New York, with regional offices in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Varonis, the Varonis logo, DatAdvantage®, DataPrivilege® and the IDU Classification Framework® are registered trademarks of Varonis® Systems in the United States and/or other countries and Metadata Framework™ is under a registration process in the United States and/or other countries. All other product and company names and marks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.

www.varonis.com

Press Contact:
Regine Hartmann
Eskenzi PR Ltd.
Tel: +44 20 7183 2834
Email: regine@eskenzipr.com




















































City of Regina Calls on the Windows Azure Cloud to Launch Open Data Initiative

City of Regina Calls on the Windows Azure Cloud to Launch Open Data Initiative
June 25, 2012
Local government chooses Microsoft cloud technology to enhance transparency and improve service delivery for citizens and businesses alike.

REDMOND, Wash. June 25, 2012 Harnessing the power of Microsoft Windows Azure cloud services, the city of Regina, Canada, recently launched an innovative, Web-based open data initiative to put important information directly in the hands of citizens virtually anytime, anywhere. With the city’s Open Data Portal, Regina citizens will now be able to visit a user-friendly online portal that offers easy access to data sets such as ward boundaries, points of interest, solid waste collection and land use — and this is just the beginning.

“The city is committed to open government and transparency, and this open data initiative is a big part of that,” said Alyssa Daku, city of Regina manager, Corporate Information Governance. She added that before offering data in the portal, the city of Regina manually processed more than 2,000 data requests every year, many of which were duplicates. With Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) DataLab, the city, individuals and businesses are all expected to benefit from this increased access to information.

“OGDI DataLab allows us to work more efficiently, which, in the end, leads to better use of funds and improved public services,” Daku said. “This increased access to information is also great for citizens. It is so exciting to think about the possibility of new services, local innovation and economic growth that it could lead to.”

Using open standards and application programming interfaces, the city of Regina can submit its data to the OGDI DataLab repository for use by external developers, government employees or citizens. OGDI DataLab promotes the use of the city’s data by capturing and publishing reusable software assets, patterns and practices. Local developers can share and interact with this data via Windows Azure and develop applications with more ease and at a lower cost to the city.

“Government innovators in Canada and across the globe are increasingly providing open data portals for the public — promoting better governance, increased transparency and improved delivery of public services,” said Nik Garkusha, Open Platforms lead, Microsoft Canada. “Customers and technology partners are telling us that open data is a win-win situation for everyone.”

More information on how publically available government data can be easily accessed is available at Microsoft’s Open Government Data Initiative.

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available in the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.


Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

Oracle Exhibits Oracle Customer Experience Strategy

Oracle Exhibits Oracle Customer Experience Strategy

Oracle Outlines Company’s Vision During Collaborative Town Hall Discussion with Leading Enterprises

Redwood Shores, Calif. – June 25, 2012

News Facts

Ushering in a new era for improving customer relationships, at a unique customer experience event tonight, Oracle President Mark Hurd will introduce Oracle Customer Experience, Oracle’s revolutionary customer experience strategy.
The Experience Revolution special event will feature a collaborative town hall discussion with leading enterprises, industry thought leaders and Oracle executives about the customer experience imperative and suggested strategies to help business leaders meet the challenge.
The event experience will be cataloged on several social networks where those interested in joining the conversation can actively participate by sharing stories, strategies and solutions to improve the customer experience:
Twitter – Oracle CX
Oracle will continue this discussion at the Oracle Customer Experience Summit in San Francisco during Oracle OpenWorld 2012, showcasing trends, innovations and best practices to succeed in the new era of the empowered customer.

The Customer Experience Revolution

Organizations today operate in an environment where traditional methods of differentiation are less effective and customer experience has become the primary differentiator and driver of business value. In fact, according to the December 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report, a full 89 percent of consumers will switch brands for a better customer experience.
Only Oracle offers a complete end-to-end solution to help organizations deliver great experiences across the customer lifecycle and at every interaction point to differentiate their brands and drive measurable results, allowing companies to create consistent, connected and personalized brand experiences across all channels and all devices.
With Oracle Customer Experience, organizations can centralize and create a single, real-time view of customer information, coupled with predictive and semantic analysis of all interactions that can be leveraged across departments to enhance the customer experience.

Cross-Channel Customer Engagement

The 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report also revealed that 73 percent of consumers are brand loyal because of a great customer experience. Oracle’s comprehensive Customer Experience Suite can help organizations deliver exceptional customer service with critical functionality that is unmatched in the industry today. Combining web commerce capabilities, a knowledge base with guided search and navigation, real-time recommendations, and integrated marketing and loyalty applications that provide the following benefits:

Improved Customer Acquisition: With device-optimized websites, dynamic content and cross-channel engagement, companies can deliver superior customer experiences across all customer touch points including the web, contact center, mobile devices, social media and physical stores.
Increased Sales: Oracle Customer Experience provides companies with an automated, predictive recommendation engine to quickly suggest the most relevant products to each shopper across multiple channels, helping to improve conversion rates.
Enhanced Customer Retention: The ability to integrate customer retention and advocacy programs together with marketing, loyalty and proactive social engagement helps to increase customer retention and brand loyalty.


Cross-Channel Fulfillment and Service

Again, according to the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report, 86 percent of customers will pay more for a great customer experience. To help companies leverage this knowledge, the Oracle Customer Experience suite delivers exceptional order fulfillment and customer service capabilities through the web, call center and social networks, providing:

Accurate Order Fulfillment: To improve order accuracy and fulfillment, Oracle Customer Experience applications enable organizations to create, validate and manage customer orders. This capability helps ensure that orders are complete and accurate before they are delivered to the customer.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Today’s modern consumers demand fast, accurate, consistent information across all communication channels. To improve satisfaction and deliver superior customer experiences, Oracle Customer Experience helps companies to capture, track, assign and manage customer requests, from initial contact through resolution across all channels, including social media.
Reduced Customer Support Costs: Enterprise knowledge management capabilities, coupled with web self service tools, help customers find answers to questions quickly and easily. This capability, available in the Oracle Customer Experience suite, helps companies to reduce customer support costs and streamline information delivery.

Actionable Customer Experience Insight

Oracle’s Customer Experience suite enables organizations to centralize and create a streamlined and intelligent view of customers in real-time, leading to:

Increased Conversion Rates: Oracle Customer Experience solutions offer behaviorally-driven customer support capabilities that deliver targeted and personalized customer experiences, which help to increase conversion rates and cultivate repeat purchases.
Real-time Business Intelligence: In this age of the empowered consumer, companies must respond quickly to customer trends. This is possible with the real-time business intelligence capabilities available in the Oracle Customer Experience suite.

Supporting Quote

"Delivering excellent customer experiences is what sets the winning brands apart from the losers in today’s era of the empowered consumer," said Anthony Lye, SVP of Oracle CRM. "Consumers want organizations to make it easy and rewarding to do business with them, and organizations that can best deliver this will ultimately reap ongoing rewards. Oracle has deeply invested in a strategy and suite of products with Oracle Customer Experience, which will deliver and define Customer Experience in a fresh, incredible and indelible way."

Oracle CX on Social Media

Twitter – Oracle CX

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

Trademarks

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

Contact Info

Christine Randle
Oracle
+1.571.455.0415
christine.randle@oracle.com

Susie Penner
Oracle
+1.650.506.1973
susanne.penner@oracle.com



































The State of Web Readiness 2012: Overconfidence Behind World Wide Performance Problems

The State of Web Readiness 2012: Overconfidence Behind World Wide Performance Problems

The O'Reilly Velocity Conference, Santa Clara, California - The average website is based on an overestimation regarding its capability to handle visitors by 3.4 times. This is shown in the report The State of Web Readiness 2012, drawing on data about load testing habits in 132 different countries compiled by Load Impact, the worlds largest online, cloud-based load testing service. The report also shows that e-commerce sites tend to be more concerned with being able to handle traffic peaks than other websites.

Download the report from: http://loadimpact.com/readiness

The report analyzes data from 8,522 load tests executed in 132 different countries. The tested sites range from government organizations that have to be prepared for emergencies and e-retailers who need to cope with seasonal peaks, to media companies and smaller sites that may need to handle a "Slashdot effect" when a larger website links to them.

"Site owners tend to be overly confident that their site can handle expected traffic levels, which means the risk of crashes is probably higher than most of us think. In light of this, most organizations have had a web site for the past 15 years or so, and since the web is a truly vital part of modern business, it is remarkable that website performance is not given higher priority", said Ragnar Lönn, CEO and founder of Load Impact.

E-commerce sites distinguish themselves from other types of sites in the survey. Among the top 100 sites surveyed, the largest e-retailers are on average investing three times as much on load testing compared to media sites, event sites and corporate/organization sites.

"The report shows that e-commerce sites are most likely better prepared to handle heavy traffic during visitor peaks. They lose money immediately when the site becomes slower due to an increase in the number of visitors, so it is natural that they see a direct benefit of staying informed regarding the performance of their site. It allows them to optimize and plan ahead so they can cope with Christmas sales or other sales peaks”, said Ragnar Lönn. “It is a bit surprising that ad-funded sites, like many media sites, don’t seem to be equally concerned."

When comparing different regions, North American companies invest the most in load testing, followed by South America and Europe. Asia/Pacific spends the least.

Facts about the report
The report “The State of Web Readiness 2012” measures load tests performed by companies and organizations all over the world. The overconfidence factor in the report indicates the number of concurrent users that effectively cause the server response-time to double from its initial level, compared to the maximum number of concurrent users the load test was configured to simulate. So an overconfidence factor of 3.4, as in this case, means the average load test was configured to simulate 3.4 times as great a load on the site as was required to achieve a 100% increase in load time.

Number of tests: 8,522
Number of websites: 3,968
Nationalities: 132
Download the report from: http://loadimpact.com/readiness 

For more information, please contact:
Ragnar Lönn
CEO Load Impact
+46 709 39 09 90
ragnar@loadimpact.com






















































Jennifer Evans Named ITAC Chair for 2012/2013

Jennifer Evans Named ITAC Chair for 2012/2013

TORONTO, June 22, 2012 /CNW/ - Jennifer Evans, a digital media pioneer, serial entrepreneur, community builder and social media guru, is succeeding outgoing Chair, Doug McCuaig, President, Canada, CGI Group Inc. as Chair of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) for the 2012/2013 term.

"When Jennifer joined our Board of Directors in 2009, she was the only woman on the board. Although she is not the first woman to chair ITAC, she is the first female owner entrepreneur to step into the role," said Karna Gupta, President and CEO, ITAC. "I am confident that Jennifer will provide the leadership and guidance needed to help ITAC to reach new heights in an increasingly complex business environment."

Jennifer Evans is the founder, owner, CEO and chief strategist of Sequentia Environics, a Toronto-based digital agency that helps clients like HP, GE, and The Globe and Mail build relationships with their communities to drive traffic, generate sales, build loyalty, reduce costs, and gain valuable insights. She speaks and writes extensively on the frenetic world of Web 2.0 and has helped to guide many organizations, including ITAC, in harnessing the power of social media to strengthen communities and drive business outcomes. In short, she brings a fresh perspective to the association combined with sound business skills and a highly collaborative approach that is a core credential in social media.

"I want to thank Doug for all his hard work and effort during the past year," said Jennifer Evans, incoming Chair of ITAC. "I don't think there has ever been a period in the life of the organization where the Chair has made such a strong commitment and dedicated the time and energy that Doug has over the past 12 months. He has been an inspiration to all of us and it shows as the association is healthier and stronger as a result."

Doug McCuaig will continue to play a role within ITAC as Past Chair.

About Jennifer Evans:
Jennifer Evans is a pioneer and leader in the digital space. As founder, owner, CEO and Chief Strategist of Sequentia, Jennifer has led revenue generating digital communications strategies for clients such as The Globe and Mail, Purina, HP and Yahoo! Canada. She is a globally sought-after digital strategist with patents pending on many of her methodologies, including "The Sequence", Sequentia's ground-breaking approach to community engagement, and the company's content measurement framework.

Jennifer also sits on the board of advisors for DigitalJournal and was the co-chair of the White Ribbon Campaign for six years. She's written extensively on technology for The Globe and Mail and PCWorld.ca, and she makes regular media appearances, speaks at conferences and events and guest lectures at universities and colleges.

About Doug McCuaig
As President of CGI's operations in Canada, Doug is responsible for driving the company's strategy and growth across Canada. He joined CGI in 2004 from Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, where he held the position of Senior Vice-President and Managing Director, Consulting Services Canada. Doug completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario and Ryerson University. He holds an MBA in Marketing and International Business from McMaster University and received executive management training at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

About ITAC:
The Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) is the voice of the Canadian information and communications technologies (ICT) industry. ITAC represents a diverse ICT community spanning telecommunications and internet services, ICT consulting services, hardware, microelectronics, software and electronic content. ITAC's community of companies accounts for more than 70 per cent of the 572,700 jobs, $155.3 billion in revenue, $6.2 billion in R&D investment, $30.4 billion in exports and $11 billion in capital expenditures that the ICT industry contributes annually to the Canadian economy. The ICT sector currently represents 4.9 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) and accounted for 9.4 per cent of all real GDP growth since 2002. ITAC is a prominent advocate for the expansion of Canada's innovative capacity and for stronger productivity across all sectors through the strategic use of technology.

For further information:

Lynda Leonard 
Senior Vice President, ITAC
(613) 238-4822 ext. 2223

Wayne Hendry
Manager of Communications, ITAC
(613) 238-4822 ext. 2224

British Columbia Egg Marketing Board boosts food safety and improves operations with business analytics

British Columbia Egg Marketing Board boosts food safety and improves operations with business analytics

IBM provides up-to-the-minute business-critical data and metrics to ensure a steady supply of fresh and safe eggs

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA and MARKHAM, ONTARIO, June 20, 2012 -- The British Columbia (BC) Egg Marketing Board is using IBM [NYSE: IBM} analytics to save money, reduce workload, improve farmers’ profitability and ensure the safety and availability of the more than 816 million eggs produced in the province each year.

The BC Egg Marketing Board is responsible for planning and controlling BC’s egg production, to ensure supply meets fluctuating demand. The Board works with more than 130 egg producers, overseeing 2.7 million chickens.

Using analytics from IBM, the BC Egg Marketing Board is now able to integrate and analyze production and inspection data from hundreds of farms across the province and perform complex calculations on chick maturation and egg-laying life-spans, to determine the number of chickens needed in production to meet demand and to scale hatchery operations accordingly. The system also includes the potential for the Board to pinpoint the flock a particular egg came from, in the event of a disease outbreak.

“We’re now being proactive in improving the quality and safety of egg production processes and products,” said Anne-Marie Butler, Director of Finance and Administration at the BC Egg Marketing Board. “By making data easier to collect, analyze and share, we are seeing efficiencies that allow us to go beyond the bare minimum for compliance.”

Previously, data collection was paper-intensive, manual and disjointed, but with the analytics solution, real-time production data from all farms is captured electronically, while data about egg safety and other inspection criterion is collected and entered by on-site inspectors using tablets. This has reduced farm inspection workload by 66 per cent, and created an annual cost savings of $100,000.

“I now have online access to data that allows me to monitor my farm’s daily production and other activities, share it with my farm manager so we can track and adjust, as well as benchmark against other producers in a similar category. It eliminates speculation or basing decisions on what I presume others are doing. The facts and data speak for themselves, and give me a great overview of where I stand in relation to industry averages,” says Walter Siemens, an egg farmer in Abbotsford, B.C.

The analytics solution was recently augmented by a Web-based producers’ portal, which replaces the paper, monthly production statement the Board previously faxed to its members. It gives egg producers mobile, tablet or Web-based, real-time access to the Board’s range of data on farm- and flock-level operations, providing metrics such as egg size, egg type, average price per dozen, weekly and year-to-date production and revenue totals, historical comparisons, provincial benchmarks and more.

IBM worked with business partner Peritas Solutions to integrate the analytics data onto the portal. “Using IBM Cognos 10, producers can measure themselves against their peers and are using these key insights to drive expenses down and margins up, and deliver a higher quality, more predictable product into the marketplace, ” said Chris Foster, an account executive at Peritas.

“The IBM analytics behind BC Egg Board’s system serves to simplify every part of the supply chain by providing producers with the unprecedented ability to access, compare and derive insights from data, enabling them to solve problems, make adjustments and increase profitability,” said Jamie Spiller, IBM’s smarter commerce lead.

Each year, $15 trillion is lost as a result of inefficiencies from wasted products in the global supply chain. In addition, there is $1.2 trillion globally in excess inventory stockpiled in supply chains. By tracking trends and sentiment and interacting with consumers in new ways, organizations can strengthen connections to their customers and improve business processes.

Through the Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM is taking the lead in helping organizations respond to market shifts in real-time, automate marketing, selling and fulfillment, and create a consistent global brand experience.

About IBM
For more information on IBM and Smarter Commerce, please visit here. To join in the conversation on Smarter Commerce, join us on Twitter or YouTube.

For more information about IBM, please visit www.ibm.com/services.

About The BC Egg Marketing Board
The BC Egg Marketing Board is a non-profit organization that is represented by approximately 132 small, family-owned and operated egg farms. Eggs are produced in a manner that reflects the spirit of responsibility, accountability, and integrity of all our stakeholders. Farms operate independently, without government subsidies, and with respect for resources and the products they produce.

For more information on the BC Egg Marketing Board, watch:

Contact(s) information :

Leslie Plant
IBM External Communications
(b) 416-478-9840
(m) 416-526-5647
laplant@ca.ibm.com
Twitter: @LesliePlant

Megan Ward
British Columbia Egg Marketing Board
(o) 604.854.4498
(m) 604.835.1220
Twitter: meganw@bcegg.com










































Customers Use Agile Data Infrastructures to Fuel Business Success

Customers Use Agile Data Infrastructures to Fuel Business Success

NetApp Recognizes Visionary Customers with Annual Innovation Awards Event

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—June 21, 2012—A culture of innovation provides businesses with the technology, products, people, and services that allow them to outpace, out innovate, and outperform the competition to achieve remarkable results for business.

During this year’s eighth annual Innovation Awards, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) honored a few of the exceptional visionaries who joined in the journey with NetApp to show that IT can be foundational to business success. The award winners have one thing in common: They had the vision to think differently to achieve results that are remarkable. NetApp announced the winners and finalists of the Innovation Awards program on Wednesday, June 20, 2012, during a distinguished awards ceremony at The Tech Museum in San Jose, California.

"Change is hard. The Innovation Awards are about recognizing people with the courage to think differently about how IT can drive business," said Dave Hitz, founder and executive vice president of NetApp. "These role models show what is possible, and hopefully they will inspire others to follow."

Dave Hitz discusses the business impact and game-changing innovations customers and partners achieved as well as the importance of having a culture of innovation. View Dave’s video blog post.

NetApp thanks everyone who submitted achievements to the 2012 Innovation Awards program. The over 200 global nominations that were submitted by customers and partners validate the fact that an agile IT foundation can deliver great outcomes for business success. Customer submissions came from wide-ranging industries, including healthcare, financial services, entertainment, energy, and education, each highlighting new and innovative ways to impact business. The award categories address the business impact of IT: Efficiency Innovation, Flexibility Innovation, and Visionary Leadership. In addition to these categories, The Innovator of the Year category recognizes one winner from each of four global geographies: Americas, APAC, EMEA, and U.S. Public Sector.

2012 NetApp Innovation Award Winners and Finalists

Innovator of the Year—AMERICAS
WINNER: Mercy Healthcare System
FINALISTS: Blackboard, Symantec Services Group, Yahoo! Inc.
Innovator of the Year—EMEA
WINNER: T-Systems Austria
FINALISTS: Eden Project, Nelt CO. D.O.O.
Innovator of the Year—APAC
WINNER: Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd.
FINALISTS: Suncorp Group, Volkswagen India Pvt. Ltd.
Innovator of the Year—USPS
WINNER: Iowa Workforce Development (nominated by NetApp partner IP Pathways)
FINALISTS: Illini Cloud, Fairfax County Public Schools
Visionary Leadership
WINNER: Teradata Labs
FINALISTS: Revlon, Verizon Digital Media Services
Flexibility Innovation
WINNER: Verizon Communications Inc.
FINALISTS: Geometric Limited, Pima County, Trafford Council
Efficiency Innovation
WINNER: ING DIRECT
FINALISTS: Taylor Morrison, Transplace

Supporting Quotes

  • Andrew Henderson, CIO, ING DIRECT
    "ING DIRECT Australia implemented an efficient storage capability that has given the business a competitive edge in the retail banking sector by enabling ING DIRECT’s frontline developers and testers to bring new banking products to market faster. We were able to accelerate banking application testing and refreshes from six weeks to one day by leveraging NetApp’s on-demand private cloud."
  • Gary Bateman, CIO, Iowa Workforce Development
    "Iowa Workforce Development executed a cost-effective virtualization project leveraging NetApp storage, which saved our state government agency $6.5 million annually and accelerated the deployment of 1,500 virtual desktops across Iowa in less than six months. The scalability of our storage infrastructure is instrumental in reducing storage needs by nearly 50% while improving public services to Iowa’s employers and workers."
  • Joe Shields, President and Owner, IP Pathways
    "IP Pathways’ focus has always been to partner with companies that consolidate and simplify data storage and management, while optimizing the user experience for business needs. In collaborating with NetApp we’ve created a relationship that supports innovative award-winning IT deployments for our customers."
  • Jeff Bell, Former COO, Mercy Healthcare System
    "Mercy Healthcare built a state-of-the-art data center and implemented a flexible cloud infrastructure to effectively deploy an Electronic Medical Health Record for storing and protecting patient information and, in the future, to support smaller clinics and healthcare systems. With the help of the NetApp FlexPod® architecture, we have saved over 40% of storage space, reduced power consumption by 50%, and now provide rapid access to and data protection for 1,742K patients."
  • Rahul Sharma, Assistant Vice President, IT Network Operations, Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd.
    "Oxigen was successful in achieving business goals to save costs and increase capabilities by implementing storage efficiency, deduplication, thin provisioning, and server virtualization features using NetApp’s storage infrastructure. Since implementing our new data structure Oxigen has saved 40% on storage efficiency and 20% on cost savings."
  • Scott Gnau, President, Teradata Labs
    "Teradata’s storage foundation is a key part of our ability to handle challenging data warehousing and analytic workloads while improving performance and allowing for uninterrupted operations. The integration of NetApp E-Series storage solutions contributed to our growth in 2011 and helped our customers make the best decision possible, enabling them to outperform and outmaneuver their competition."
  • Erwin Schuster, Sr. Consultant, Enterprise Architecture and Strategy, T-Systems
    "To better serve T-Systems’ multinational corporations and public sector institutions, we are deploying a reference cloud infrastructure to deliver and operate cloud-enabled applications with rapid development and go-to-market cycles. With storage and management from NetApp, T-Systems offers virtualization across the entire stack for maximum scalability, availability, and efficiency while customers benefit from reduced risk and accelerated applications lifecycle management."
  • Michael Blake, Director, Information Technology, Verizon Network Technology and Corporate Systems
    "Verizon successfully established a virtualized standard operating environment to merge multiple and dated IT infrastructures without disrupting service to 120,000 employee portal users. With NetApp Snapshot™ and SnapVault® technology, backups that previously took 12 to 20 hours and impacted overall performance now take just a few minutes. As a result, we are able to back up numerous databases every two hours, delivering more robust data protection."

The NetApp Innovation Awards program distinguishes itself by relying on a prestigious third-party panel of international judges for the four main categories. These judges determine the award winners based on their outside expertise and a critical, unbiased assessment of real-world deployments at customer sites.

NetApp 2012 Innovation Award Judges

  • Deni Connor, Principal Analyst, Storage Strategies NOW; and Contributing Editor, InformationWeek
  • Carsten Knop, Senior Business Editor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  • Vijay Ramachandran, Editor-in-Chief, IDG Media India Pvt. Ltd.
  • Benjamin S. Woo, previously Program Vice President, Worldwide Storage Systems Research; and Lead Analyst, Big Data Infrastructure

Additional Resources

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

Press Contact:
NetApp PR
(408) 822-3287
xdl-uspr@netapp.com

NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, FlexPod, Snapshot, and SnapVault are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

SAP Benchmarking Report Reveals Companies With Mature Mobile Best Practices Likely Double Operating Margins...

SAP Benchmarking Report Reveals Companies With Mature Mobile Best Practices Likely Double Operating Margins, Experience Three Times Higher Revenue Growth

SAP NEWSBYTE - June 20, 2012 - To better understand the degree of mobile adoption, maturity of best practices and impact on enterprise performance across industries, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today released a benchmarking report. The report found that companies with mature best practices double their operating margins and experience three times higher revenue growth compared to those with average mobile practices. The global study is comprised of more than 300 SAP customers of all sizes and across all industries such as banking, consumer products, high tech, professional services, public sector, telecommunications and utilities.

The study's analysis framework evaluated customers in four areas for competitive advantage, including mobile strategy, creation of mobile apps, control of mobile devices and consumption of mobile apps. For each of the four categories, participating companies were evaluated on the maturity of their best practices and greatest business impact and then divided into five levels of maturity. The leading, most mature companies displayed a clear set of common characteristics that include:

  • A mobile strategy in place for all departments and relevant processes; input obtained from all external and internal stakeholders
  • Established operating system standards and a reliable platform deployed; all security and scalability issues addressed
  • A strong, well-documented security policy, centralized device monitoring and an excellent device authentication mechanism in place
  • End-user involvement early in the development cycle and feedback phase; training on new applications and all wireless issues; mobile access to all enterprise applications

The leading companies from the study reported that 37.5 percent of users with mobile access to cross-functional applications experience more than 43 percent higher productivity compared to companies in the bottom tier. On average, survey participants were most mature when managing and controlling mobile applications but least mature when developing a mobile strategy.

While the average company reported that less than 32 percent of its workforce is mobile, 97 percent of those companies have centralized IT departments managing their mobile solutions. In addition, the leading companies experienced almost 28.6 percent decrease in IT spend as compared to less mature companies. Of more than 25 industries represented in the survey, insurance companies have the highest maturity for enterprise mobility while postal services are least mature.

"While mobile is now the primary way people communicate, connect and transact, our latest benchmarking report supports the fact that mobile adoption in the workplace is still in the early stages," said Nick Brown, senior vice president, Mobile Strategy and Market Development, SAP. "The benefits of mobile are well documented and understood by most organizations, but a successful implementation requires a clear strategy and comprehensive platform. SAP mobile platform is the only unified mobile solution capable of meeting all mobile app needs, and we expect to reach millions of developers that will create thousands of applications for more than 1 billion people by 2015."

SAP business performance benchmarking serves as a forum for SAP customers to understand current and emerging trends in technology and business processes, identify drivers of performance and understand implications of adopting best practices. More than 10,000 participants from more than 3,000 companies have participated in SAP performance benchmarking studies to date.

SAP is attending Mobile Connect 2012 this week in Boston. Visit booth 200 to learn more. For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

Media Contacts:
Amisha Gandhi, SAP, +1 (415) 341-7101, amisha.gandhi@sap.com, PDT
Scott Malinowski, SAP, +1 (978) 287-1793, scott.malinowski@sybase.com, EDT