Lenovo Canada Wins Top Reseller Choice Awards

Lenovo Canada Wins Top Reseller Choice Awards

Lenovo chosen as industry leader for channel programs and channel support

 

TORONTO, ON – February 13, 2013:  Lenovo Canada today announced it was chosen as Vendor of the Year matched with leading awards at the 6th Annual eChannel News Reseller Choice Awards ceremony. For this particular year, over 500 vendors were nominated in 82 categories. The eChannel Awards are based on the results of 16,000 votes from value added resellers across Canada.

 

“These are important awards for Lenovo, so we are humbled by the attention and you have my commitment, and the commitment of my teams that we will work hard to live up to these accolades,” said Stefan Bockhop, director channel sales Lenovo Canada. “We’re a channel-first organization, so to have validation from the partners means that we’re doing the right things. We’re bringing the products to market that they want to deliver to their customers.

 

“Lenovo programs and support are what our partners need to be successful and profitable. It’s a really important validation for us.”

 

In addition to the coveted Vendor of the Year award, Lenovo also won in the following categories:

 

Hardware Awards

Best Business Notebook

Best Business Desktop

Best Tablet Computer

Best Workstation

 

General Awards

Best Profitability

Best Vendor Support

Best Channel Programs

 

In reference to the 2012 awards, Bockhop stated: “Most of the changes we’ve made to our channel program in the past few years have come as direct feedback from our business partners -- how to make it easier, more effective or quicker to do business with our mutual customers. I hope our partners continue to give us feedback and engage with our teams, both informally but also through events like our yearly Accelerate conference.”

 

Accelerate 2013, is Lenovo’s annual channel partner forum, taking place April 29 to May 1 at Mandalay Bay, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event provides channel partners with hands-on access to Lenovo’s newest products, programs, and solutions. Attendees will be able to hear from Lenovo’s top executives during keynotes, industry expert presentations and feedback roundtables. For more information, visit http://www.lenovoaccelerate.com

 

 

Resources
Follow Lenovo online at:
Blogs -
http://social.lenovo.com/
Facebook- 
https://www.facebook.com/lenovo
Flickr -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenovophotolibrary/
Google+ -
https://plus.google.com/+Lenovo/
LinkedIn -
http://www.linkedin.com/company/lenovo
Twitter -
https://twitter.com/Lenovo_Canada
YouTube -
http://www.youtube.com/lenovo/

About Lenovo

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a US$30 billion personal technology company – the second largest PC maker in the world and an emerging PC Plus leader – serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution.  Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the Company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo, a global Fortune 500 company, has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina.  For more information see www.lenovo.com.

CONTACT:
John Swinimer
Lenovo Canada
PR & Communications
jswinimer@lenovo.com
(416) 383-2874

CA Technologies ARCserve MSP Program 3.0 Sets New Standard for Simplicity and Service Provider Enablement

CA Technologies ARCserve MSP Program 3.0 Sets New Standard for Simplicity and Service Provider Enablement

 

Extends Leadership in Data Protection Offerings for MSPs With Unmatched Licensing Flexibility, Expanded Technology and New Promotional Resources

 

ISLANDIA, NY, February 13, 2013—CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) today announced the third major release of its industry-leading Managed Service Provider (MSP) licensing program for CA ARCserve®.  With a further simplified licensing structure, new partner enablement resources and an expanded technology portfolio, the CA ARCserve MSP program empowers partners to quickly and cost-efficiently deliver effective, profitable data protection services.

 

The enhanced program includes options for MSPs to license CA Technologies industry-leading data protection technology on their choice of per-server, per-workstation, per-socket, per-virtual machine or per-terabyte models—allowing them to structure their software costs to best align with their individual go-to-market strategies.

 

This flexible approach to licensing complements the CA ARCserve MSP Program’s true pay-as-you-go pricing model, which adds a new pricing tier that provides even more incentive, margin, and revenue opportunity for its growing MSP partner community.  MSPs only need to pay for what they have used in the previous month—with no minimum volume and no extended lock-in period.

 

“A combination of factors—including exponentially growing data volume, limited IT budgets and an abundance of available network bandwidth—have created tremendous opportunities for MSPs in the data protection services market,” said Chris Ross, vice president, Worldwide Sales, Data Management, CA Technologies.  “With zero upfront commitment and flexible subscription licensing, the CA ARCserve MSP Program uniquely enables MSPs to capitalize on this market opportunity.”

 

The CA ARCserve MSP Program has also been enhanced with a smaller, simpler set of product SKUs that make it easier for MSPs to put together their market offerings.

 

MSP Zone Streamlines Enrollment

 

In addition, a new dedicated “MSP Zone” on CA ARCserve.com streamlines MSP enrollment.  New resources include service use-case playbooks that provide high-level descriptions of services, licensing options and sample service level agreements.

 

A new, easy-to-use solution chooser helps MSPs to identify the best managed service and technology to offer their customers. The online tool provides a simple decision tree that helps MSPs tailor their managed service offerings to meet customers’ Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).

 

The MSP Zone also includes an invitation-only area that showcases select MSP profiles and links to their respective sites to give them greater market visibility.

 

"CA ARCserve provides the ideal combination of comprehensive data protection and unmatched time-to-value," said Phil Ware, director at Allware Systems Ltd. a UK provider of IT consultancy services to small and medium enterprises. "The latest enhancements to the CA ARCserve MSP program enable us to go to market even more quickly and efficiently with robust data protection service offerings that meet our customers' needs while improving margins for everyone in the chain."

 

To learn more about the CA ARCserve MSP Program visit arcserve.com/mspzone.

 

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

 

Legal Notices

 

Copyright © 2013 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. The information and results illustrated here are based upon the speaker’s experiences with the referenced software product in a variety of environments, which may include production and nonproduction environments. Past performance of the software products in such environments is not necessarily indicative of the future performance of such software products in identical, similar or different environments.































































































CA Technologies ARCserve MSP Program 3.0 Sets New Standard for Simplicity and Service Provider Enablement

CA Technologies ARCserve MSP Program 3.0 Sets New Standard for Simplicity and Service Provider Enablement

 

Extends Leadership in Data Protection Offerings for MSPs With Unmatched Licensing Flexibility, Expanded Technology and New Promotional Resources

 

ISLANDIA, NY, February 13, 2013—CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) today announced the third major release of its industry-leading Managed Service Provider (MSP) licensing program for CA ARCserve®.  With a further simplified licensing structure, new partner enablement resources and an expanded technology portfolio, the CA ARCserve MSP program empowers partners to quickly and cost-efficiently deliver effective, profitable data protection services.

 

The enhanced program includes options for MSPs to license CA Technologies industry-leading data protection technology on their choice of per-server, per-workstation, per-socket, per-virtual machine or per-terabyte models—allowing them to structure their software costs to best align with their individual go-to-market strategies.

 

This flexible approach to licensing complements the CA ARCserve MSP Program’s true pay-as-you-go pricing model, which adds a new pricing tier that provides even more incentive, margin, and revenue opportunity for its growing MSP partner community.  MSPs only need to pay for what they have used in the previous month—with no minimum volume and no extended lock-in period.

 

“A combination of factors—including exponentially growing data volume, limited IT budgets and an abundance of available network bandwidth—have created tremendous opportunities for MSPs in the data protection services market,” said Chris Ross, vice president, Worldwide Sales, Data Management, CA Technologies.  “With zero upfront commitment and flexible subscription licensing, the CA ARCserve MSP Program uniquely enables MSPs to capitalize on this market opportunity.”

 

The CA ARCserve MSP Program has also been enhanced with a smaller, simpler set of product SKUs that make it easier for MSPs to put together their market offerings.

 

MSP Zone Streamlines Enrollment

 

In addition, a new dedicated “MSP Zone” on CA ARCserve.com streamlines MSP enrollment.  New resources include service use-case playbooks that provide high-level descriptions of services, licensing options and sample service level agreements.

 

A new, easy-to-use solution chooser helps MSPs to identify the best managed service and technology to offer their customers. The online tool provides a simple decision tree that helps MSPs tailor their managed service offerings to meet customers’ Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).

 

The MSP Zone also includes an invitation-only area that showcases select MSP profiles and links to their respective sites to give them greater market visibility.

 

"CA ARCserve provides the ideal combination of comprehensive data protection and unmatched time-to-value," said Phil Ware, director at Allware Systems Ltd. a UK provider of IT consultancy services to small and medium enterprises. "The latest enhancements to the CA ARCserve MSP program enable us to go to market even more quickly and efficiently with robust data protection service offerings that meet our customers' needs while improving margins for everyone in the chain."

 

To learn more about the CA ARCserve MSP Program visit arcserve.com/mspzone.

 

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

 

Legal Notices

 

Copyright © 2013 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. The information and results illustrated here are based upon the speaker’s experiences with the referenced software product in a variety of environments, which may include production and nonproduction environments. Past performance of the software products in such environments is not necessarily indicative of the future performance of such software products in identical, similar or different environments.































































































CA Technologies Streamlines Identity and Access Management for the Hybrid Enterprise with Latest Rollout of CA CloudMinder

         

CA Technologies Streamlines Identity and Access Management for the Hybrid Enterprise with Latest Rollout of CA CloudMinder

 

CA IAM-as-a-Service Extends On Premise and Cloud Applications Support, and Helps Organizations Strengthen Customer Relationships

 

ISLANDIA, NY, February 12, 2013 – CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) today announced the next rollout of its CA CloudMinderTM identity and access management (IAM) service solution. With extended out-of-the-box support for social identities and additional on-premise and cloud applications such as Microsoft Office 365TM, CA CloudMinder helps organizations strengthen customer relationships, while streamlining how they manage users and their access for greater operational and cost efficiencies. 

 

CA CloudMinder provides enterprise-grade IAM for both cloud-based or on-premise applications in a highly scalable multi-tenant IAM as-a-Service solution. The three components of CA CloudMinder can be deployed individually or together in a single, integrated IAM service:

 

·         CA CloudMinder Advanced Authentication protects against unapproved and unauthorized access using multiple forms of strong authentication and risk analysis to validate a user’s identity.

·         CA CloudMinder Identity Management provides user provisioning and de-provisioning to a broad set of on-premise applications and cloud services as well as comprehensive user management capabilities. With the ability to operate and synchronize with existing on-premise identity stores such as Active Directory or other LDAP-compliant directories, CA CloudMinder Identity Management leverages existing technologies for faster deployment.

·         CA CloudMinder Single Sign-On (SSO) supports today’s extended and hybrid enterprise with reliable identity federation in a unified, cloud-based single sign-on solution. Leveraging CA SiteMinder® technology, CA CloudMinder Single Sign-On is scalable and controls access for millions of users from within or outside an organization. 

Companies have seen the benefits that IAM as-a-service can provide. “In one test, CA CloudMinder allowed a team to accomplish in just three days what had taken almost two months of building, installing, configuring and testing with an on-premise approach,” said Drew Koenig, president, CA Security Global User Community. “That company estimated it could employ CA CloudMinder for a reduced cost and get three IAM capabilities versus just one plus free up staff time. By not having to work on maintaining the on-premise infrastructure, the team can focus more on strategic identity initiatives.”

 

Leveraging CA Technologies leading IAM technology and more than a decade of experience providing Authentication as-a-Service, CA CloudMinder provides a single source of identity and access control across the hybrid enterprise and drives cost efficiencies through speed of deployment, predictability of expense and reduced infrastructure and management needs.

 

“Identity and access management demands are evolving as organizations employ different ways to save money and grow the business, such as incorporating cloud services, adopting bring-your-own-device policies and supporting social identities as a way to get closer to the customer,” said Mike Denning, general manager, Security business at CA Technologies. “This evolution and customer demand drove our vision for CA CloudMinder to be able to function as that single bridge that manages the identities and access for employees, partners and customers to cloud or on-premise applications no matter what device or what identity they chose to use.”

 

New capabilities in CA CloudMinder include:

 

Support for Social Identities: With support for OpenID, OAuth, WS-Fed and SAML, CA CloudMinder provides SSO and self-registration to vendor sites using Facebook and Google identities, helping to drive social media marketing campaigns. CA CloudMinder Advanced Authentication also adds step-up security to the typical user name and password login. Extending the support of CA CloudMinder to help drive customer engagement, satisfaction and retention increases the value of IAM to an organization beyond the traditional demands of security, compliance and operational efficiencies. 

 

Extended Support for On Premise and Cloud Applications: CA CloudMinder helps organizations save money by reducing the time it takes to deploy identity management capabilities. By adding more than 30 connectors for provisioning, including support for Office 365, mainframes and other popular enterprise applications, CA CloudMinder has increased its number of out-of-the-box configurations for improved deployment time.

 

Support for IAM Choice: CA CloudMinder gives customers a choice in how they support their IAM needs on the operational back end, while streamlining management and administration on the front end. By connecting to the CA Technologies provisioning, federation and advanced authentication solutions already in place on-premise, CA CloudMinder preserves the investment in configuring those solutions as it unifies IAM administration into the CA CloudMinder interface. This gives customers a choice: they can use CA CloudMinder IAM as-a-service alone to manage all on-premise or cloud applications, or they can use a mix of CA CloudMinder with CA Technologies on-premise IAM solutions – all managed from a single user interface.

 

Partner Ecosystem

 

CA CloudMinder also presents a variety of opportunities for partners, including hosting the CA CloudMinder service operations in their own data center and / or managing the IAM administration on behalf of the customer in its tenant environment. These options enable partners to focus on their strengths, while leveraging CA Technologies IAM knowledge and experience.

 

“Efficiently managing identities and their access across the hybrid enterprise with an eye toward the future is a complex and resource-intensive challenge for many of the organizations we work with today,” said Jeremy Britton, a director in Deloitte & Touche LLP’s security & privacy practice and its CA alliance leader.  “This is especially true with the large number of external users that businesses are now bringing into their applications. By combining an IAM service that can remove the hardware and operational burden with Deloitte’s application management offering, which provides the staff and knowledge to manage IAM administration, organizations can outsource their IAM function and apply resources to other areas to drive business growth.”

 

The latest release of CA CloudMinder is available today. Pricing starts with a base tenant set-up fee of $10,000 plus $5,000 per service. Monthly fees are based on the number and types of users (internal business users or external consumer users).

 

For additional information, please visit http://www.ca.com/mindyourcloud.

 

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

 

Legal Notices

 

Copyright © 2013 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. Microsoft, Office 365 and Active Directory are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. Some information and results identified above are based upon the speaker’s experiences with the referenced software product in a variety of environments, which may include production and nonproduction environments. Past performance of the software products in such environments is not necessarily indicative of the future performance of such software products in identical, similar or different environments. 
















































































































































Apigee Experiencing Over 200% Growth as Enterprises Embrace Apps


 

Apigee Redefines Big Data Analytics in the App Economy

 

Apigee Insights Empowers Organizations to Make Better Business Decisions by Analyzing Data from APIs, Apps, Social and Mobile Ecosystems – with Context

 

PALO ALTO, Calif. – February 12, 2012 –Apigee, the API company, today launched Apigee Insights, a big data analytics platform that lets organizations gain new business insights using "broad" data generated in the app economy. With Apigee Insights, businesses can connect and analyze potentially massive amounts of external data from APIs, apps, social, and mobile ecosystems, together with other data sources for context. Apigee Insights is the industry's first broad data platform that empowers organizations to get full visibility into customer, developer and partner behavior by integrating and analyzing all points of customer interaction -- from both inside and outside the enterprise.

 

"In the app economy, where business is often conducted through mobile and social channels, organizations no longer own -- much less control -- all the data they need to make accurate business decisions," said Chet Kapoor, Apigee CEO. "Every enterprise needs to rethink their data platform for this new world. Those that can capture, add context and analyze new broad data sources outside of the enterprise will succeed."

 

"With the introduction of Apigee Insights, along with our leading API platform, we now deliver a powerful complement of solutions to extend and optimize our customers' business success in the app economy," continued Kapoor.

 

New Sources of Data in the App Economy

As organizations increasingly interact with customers, developers and partners through mobile, social and other app experiences, the data it needs to understand is expanding beyond the enterprise core.  For example, when a company exposes its services through an open API, important customer interactions can happen in third-party apps across millions of mobile devices. Traditional data solutions are not designed for this dynamic new world, where the data can change continuously in volume, size and shape -- creating new requirements for accurate analytics.

 

"The information an enterprise typically collects – point of sales, procurement, even website data – is not enough anymore," said Anant Jhingran, Apigee vice president of products. "In this new world of apps and APIs, the real value of data - the interaction with customers - has moved one or two tiers away from the enterprise.  The more you know about the data in your app ecosystem, your 'broad' data, the better you’ll understand your business."

 

Apigee Insights is a highly distributed platform that stitches together data from a customer's API programs with data from internal systems and online data sources. It delivers in-depth analysis and performance with a multi-channel data aggregator, distributed processing engine, intelligent data storage, analytic accelerators and expert services. Apigee Insights is flexible enough to deal with the changing number, volume, size and sources of app economy data, and it enables customers to get near real-time feedback loop to test, experiment and rollout changes immediately.  It allows enterprises to gain insights through the entire app value chain or to focus specifically on the context of the app user, the app developer, or on information analytics.

 

Apigee Insights is specifically designed for the big, continuously changing and less structured broad data in the app economy. It can serve as a powerful stand-alone analytics solution or a complement to existing legacy data warehousing or ETL systems.

 

mBlox,  the leading global provider of B2C mobile engagement services, is using Apigee Insights to build a developer adoption model that combines multiple data sources such as its API access logs, app and API traffic, GitHub data and Google analytics for its developer Web pages.

"Apigee Insights takes API analytics to a completely new level," said Michele Turner, chief product officer at mBlox. "By combining data on our API usage with many other sources of data that enable broader usage context, we now have a much deeper understanding of what our developers need and how we can best optimize app development." 

 

Pricing and Availability

Apigee Insights is offered today as technology and services solution for an introductory price of $5,000 per month. It is available with "Analytic Accelerators" that include pre-defined data models and sample user interfaces to help customers quickly gain insights into their developer adoption, customer behavior and data usage.

 

For more information about Apigee Insights, visit the Apigee website at http://apigee.com/about/product/insights.

 

In another announcement today, Apigee announced that it is experiencing over 200 percent year-over-year growth as businesses increasingly expand their digital ecosystems into the app economy.  Apigee revealed that 30 percent of its new 2012 customers are listed on the Fortune 500 or Global 500 lists of the largest companies in the world.   

 

About Apigee

Apigee is the leading provider of API technology and services for enterprises and developers. Hundreds of companies including Walgreens, Bechtel, eBay, Pearson, and Gilt Groupe as well as tens of thousands of developers use Apigee to simplify the delivery, management and analysis of APIs and apps.  Apigee's global headquarters are in Palo Alto, California, and it also has offices in  Bangalore, India; London; and Austin, Texas. To learn more, go to www.apigee.com.

# # #

Apigee is a registered trademark in the U.S.  Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

 

 

 

Apigee Experiencing Over 200% Growth as Enterprises Embrace Apps

 

API Leader Closes Record Fiscal Quarter on Heels of Major Expansion in 2012 

 

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Feb. 12, 2013 – Apigee, the API company, today announced that it is experiencing over 200 percent year-over-year growth as businesses increasingly expand their digital ecosystems into the app economy. Apigee's fiscal quarter that ended January 31, 2013 set a record for the company in terms of both licenses and total revenues, coming on the heels of an unprecedented year of expansion and growth in 2012. The company's success has been fueled by the growing demand by businesses – including many of the world's largest companies -- to expand and innovate in the app economy. Apigee revealed that 30 percent of its new 2012 customers are listed on the Fortune 500 or Global 500 lists of the largest companies in the world.  

 

"Apps are becoming transformative to everything we do – dictating how we get information, shop and communicate with people -- and even our cars. This has catapulted us into an undeniable 'app economy,' said Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor.

 

"APIs are the nervous system of the app economy, and in the last year, we saw a significant uptick in businesses of all sizes delivering APIs to drive mobile strategies, create new revenue opportunities and spur innovation. In 2013, we look forward to aggressively broadening our API offerings to help customers drive ongoing business value from APIs and the apps built on them."

 

Today, 20 percent of the Fortune 100 and six of the largest 12 U.S. retailers use Apigee, including the largest drugstore chain in the United States, Walgreens. To learn more about how Walgreens is using Apigee, go to http://apigee.com/about/customers/walgreens-putting-api-around-their-stores.

 

Apigee experienced growth and expansion in many areas last year.  Major 2012 milestones included:

 

In another announcement today, Apigee launched Apigee Insights, a big data analytics platform that lets organizations gain new business insights using data generated in the app economy. For more information about Apigee Insights, go to the Apigee website at http://apigee.com/about/product/insights.

 

About Apigee

Apigee is the leading provider of API technology and services for enterprises and developers. Hundreds of companies including Walgreens, Bechtel, eBay, Pearson, and Gilt Groupe as well as tens of thousands of developers use Apigee to simplify the delivery, management and analysis of APIs and apps. Apigee's global headquarters are in Palo Alto, California, and it has offices in Bangalore, India; London, Austin and Detroit. To learn more, go to www.apigee.com.

 

# # #

 

Apigee is a registered trademark in the U.S.  Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

 



























































































VMware to Acquire Virsto

VMware to Acquire Virsto

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Feb 11, 2013) -  VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Virsto® Software, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of software that optimizes storage performance and utilization in virtual environments. 

"VMware is committed to continuing to deliver software innovations that bring significant efficiencies to our customers while simplifying infrastructure and IT," said John Gilmartin, vice president of storage and availability, VMware. "We believe that the acquisition of Virsto will accelerate our development of storage technologies, allowing our customers to greatly improve the efficiency and performance of storage in virtual infrastructure."

Organizations are looking for solutions to address the increasing complexity and cost of storage within virtual and cloud environments, particularly for virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI), large software development and test centers and to support business-critical applications. Virsto provides breakthrough storage optimization technologies that improve storage performance and utilization in these environments. When implemented within a VDI, Virsto can reduce the cost of storage per desktop by as much as 70 percent. 

As part of its strategy to deliver the software-defined datacenter, VMware continues to invest and innovate to extend the benefits of virtualization to every domain in the datacenter -- compute, network, storage and the associated security and availability services. VMware has been at the forefront of innovations to storage in virtual environments, and the acquisition of Virsto will expand VMware's storage portfolio, which includes the storage virtualization and management capabilities of VMware vSphere® and the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance™. In addition, EMC Corporation plans to license the Virsto technology, extending the cooperative efforts between the two companies in storage architectures.

"VMware and Virsto share a highly aligned vision to remove complexity and increase efficiencies through virtualization," said Mark Davis, CEO, Virsto. "We are excited to combine forces with VMware to provide customers a more cost-effective, efficient, and agile storage architecture."

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition is scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2013 subject to customary closing conditions.

Additional Resources

  • Read VMware's John Gilmartin blog "VMware to Acquire Virsto Software" here
  • Read Virsto's Mark Davis blog "I Have a Dream" here
  • Connect with VMware on Twitter and Facebook

About Virsto
Virsto® Software Corporation changes the economics of storage in virtualized environments by improving utilization, increasing performance, and accelerating VM storage provisioning. Virsto reduces the cost and complexity of storage for VDI, test and development, business-critical application virtualization, cloud computing and other virtualization initiatives. Founded in 2007, Virsto is backed by leading Silicon Valley venture firms. For more information, visit www.virsto.com.

About VMware 
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2012 revenues of $4.61 billion, VMware has more than 480,000 customers and 55,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware, vSphere, and vSphere Storage Appliance are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Forward-Looking Statements 
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the consummation of the acquisition of Virsto, the planned integration of Virsto technologies with VMware product offerings, plans to license Virsto technology in conjunction with EMC Corporation and the prospective benefits to customers. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) the satisfaction of closing conditions for the transaction; (ii) the successful integration of Virsto and VMware technologies; (iii) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (iv) delays or reductions in consumer or information technology spending; (v) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization market, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (vi) our customers' ability to develop, and to transition to, new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing and desktop virtualization; (vii) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (viii) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software and platforms for cloud and desktop computing; (ix) changes to product development timelines; (x) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; (xi) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees and (vii) the ability to license Virsto technology on terms satisfactory to VMware and EMC. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

Contact Information

VMware Introduces VMware vSphere(R) With Operations Management™ and VMware vSphere Data Protection™ Advanced

VMware Introduces VMware vSphere® With Operations Management™ and VMware vSphere Data Protection™ Advanced

New Offerings Help Organizations Achieve Greater Value From Their VMware vSphere Environments

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Feb 12, 2013) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today introduced two new offerings to help customers further leverage their investments in VMware vSphere - VMware vSphere with Operations Management andVMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced.

"Increasingly, customers have standardized on VMware vSphere® as the core of their data centers," said Mike Clayville, vice president, product marketing, cloud infrastructure, VMware. "To help maximize the value of their investments in VMware vSphere, customers require purpose-built, integrated solutions to more efficiently manage, optimize and protect their virtualized environments. We've made it convenient for new and existing customers of VMware vSphere to enhance the core capabilities of their virtual infrastructure with vCenter™ Operations Management Suite™ and VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced™."

Today, VMware is announcing a new VMware vSphere product line that combines the industry-leading virtualization platform with the award-winningVMware vCenter Operations Management Suite. In addition, VMware is introducing a new edition of VMware vSphere Data Protection, the backup and recovery solution first introduced as part of VMware vSphere 5.1 in August 2012. With these new offerings, customers can:

  • Reduce Capex costs by up to 30 percent; (1)
  • Optimize capacity, improving utilization by up to 40 percent and consolidation ratios by 37 percent; (2)
  • Improve application availability and performance, cutting downtime by more than a third and reducing the time it takes to find and resolve problems by up to 26 percent; (2) and,
  • Reduce backup storage capacity by up to 95 percent and backup on network traffic by up to 99 percent. (3)

New Offerings Enhance Management, Backup Capabilities of VMware vSphere

  • VMware vSphere with Operations Management - Improve performance, health and utilization of virtualized environments
    VMware vSphere with Operations Management unites the leading virtualization platform for all applications, including business-critical and low-latency applications, with patented analytic capabilities to provide insight into the performance, health and efficiency of virtualized environments. By providing a simple, visual and holistic view of the entire environment, VMware vSphere with Operations Management allows customers to proactively monitor and maintain performance and improve availability while optimizing the virtual environment through integrated capacity planning. The VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite helps customers nearly double the operational savings they receive from VMware vSphere. 
    Learn more about VMware vSphere with Operations Management
  • VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced - Proven, efficient and simple backup solution built for VMware vSphere
    Developed for mid-sized VMware vSphere environments, VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced offers increased scalability and new backup and recovery capabilities for business critical applications specifically Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server. Based on EMC Avamar, VMware vSphere Data Protection delivers the most efficient backup solution with industry-leading deduplication, full support of Changed Block Tracking and single-step restores. Tight integration with VMware vSphere enables administrators to manage their virtual infrastructure, including back and recovery, from a single console. 
    Learn more about VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced

"VMware selected EMC Avamar software to provide the underlying technology for the introduction of VMware vSphere Data Protection," said Shane Jackson, vice president of marketing, EMC Backup Recovery Systems division. "Customers have enthusiastically adopted this solution, and they expect that we will continue to leverage the technology collaboration between EMC and VMware to deliver enhanced backup and recovery capabilities for customers. The introduction of VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced does just that by incorporating EMC Avamar features that can extend the value proposition for VMware customers. As a result, they gain an easy path to more scalability and additional support for business critical applications which are in demand in rapidly growing virtual environments."

Pricing and Availability 
VMware vSphere with Operations Management is expected to be available in Q1 2013, and will be offered in three editions: Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Pricing starts at $1,745 per processer with no core, vRAM or number of VM limits. Go to VMware vSphere Pricing/Buy page. For a limited time, existing VMware vSphere edition customers will be able to upgrade to VMware vSphere with Operations Management editions or Acceleration Kits at 15 percent off the list price. New customers will be able to purchase VMware vSphere with Operations Management Acceleration Kits at 15 percent off the list price.

VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced is expected to be available in Q1 2013, and will be priced at $1,095 per processor with no restrictions on number of protected VMs per license. VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced is a separate, standalone solution that will be available for purchase a-la-carte and included with VMware vSphere with Operations Management Acceleration Kits (Enterprise and Enterprise Plus Editions). 
Go to VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced Pricing/Buy page

Additional Resources

About VMware
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2012 revenues of $4.61 billion, VMware has more than 480,000 customers and 55,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware, vCenter Operations Management Suite, vSphere Data Protection, and vSphere are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

EMC and Avamar are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

(1) Forrester Consulting, "The Total Economic Impact Of VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite," December 2012 
(2) Management Insight Technologies, "The Benefits of VMware's vCenter Operations Management Suite," September 2012 
(3) EMC, "EMC Avamar: Deduplication Backup Software and Systems," March 2012

Contact Information

Canadian Digital Media Network Adds Five More Ontario Innovation Centres to its Cross-Canada Network

Canadian Digital Media Network Adds Five More Ontario Innovation Centres to its Cross-Canada Network

WATERLOO REGION, ON, Feb. 12, 2013 /CNW/ - The Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN)announced today that five more Ontario digital media innovation centres have been added to the CDMN's cross-Canada network. The additional 'nodes' on the network include: The Accelerator Centre Waterloo; Innovation Factory Hamilton; NORCAT Sudbury; NWO Innovation Thunder Bay; and WEtech Alliance Windsor. This brings the number of nodes located coast-to-coast on the CDMN network to 21.

"Thanks to an excellent climate of collaboration and the strong Ontario Network of Excellence program, Ontario boasts numerous digital media hubs and we're pleased to add five more to our national network," said Kevin Tuer, CDMN Managing Director. "These centres and the existing nodes are dedicated to furthering Canada's competitiveness in the digital economy by accelerating time to market for innovative ideas."

Here is a look at the unique focus of each of the new nodes:

Accelerator Centre, Waterloo: Located in the heart of Waterloo, the Accelerator Centre (AC) is a centre for the cultivation of technology entrepreneurship, dedicated to accelerating the creation, growth, and maturation of sustainable new technology companies.

Innovation Factory, Hamilton: Innovation Factory helps advance Hamilton's innovation community, serves as an expert resource for entrepreneurs and fosters connections across the community to accelerate growth for all.

NORCAT, Sudbury: The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) is a leading private, non-profit organization that empowers clients, staff, and community partners to drive a culture of productivity, innovation, and life-long learning.

NWO Innovation, Thunder Bay: The Innovation Centre offers support to innovative entrepreneurs, businesses, and community projects in the region of Northwestern Ontario. The Centre looks to improve, enhance and invigorate a commercialization system in the region, and is a driving force to improve economic vitality.

WEtech Alliance, Windsor: WEtech Alliance is Windsor-Essex's Technology Accelerator; an industry-led non-profit organization focused on driving the growth and success of Windsor-Essex's technology centric companies & entrepreneurs through, mentoring, programs and connections. WEtech strives to identify, find solutions and foster the development of the technology industry and innovation sector, as well as companies who utilize technology.

Today's announcement follows addition in December, 2012 of Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centreand Tech South East (Moncton, N.B.) to the CDMN.

By joining the CDMN, nodes have at their disposal Canada's largest members-only online collaboration of commercialization resources, immediately expanding their client support capability while enabling national access to their regional resources. They also gain domestic and international market exposure for their organizations and client companies, and have access to unique services that enable their facilities and their clients to leverage proven regional programming and best practices of network members.

About The Canadian Digital Media Network
The Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN), a federal Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research (CECR), is dedicated to establishing Canada as a world leader in digital media (ICT + mobile) by creating and enabling connections and collaboration between entrepreneurs, companies, research institutes, government and intermediary organizations across the country.  CDMN helps bring more digital media solutions to market to create more companies, jobs and wealth in Canada.

Learn more at www.cdmn.ca or follow @CDMN on Twitter, join the Canadian Digital Media Network Group on LinkedIn, and like the Canadian Digital Media Network Page on Facebook.

SOURCE: The Canadian Digital Media Network















































































Gartner Says That by 2017, 25 Percent of Enterprises Will Have an Enterprise App Store

STAMFORD, Conn., February 12, 2013View All Press Releases

Gartner Says That by 2017, 25 Percent of Enterprises Will Have an Enterprise App Store

Growing Number of Enterprise Mobile Devices and Enterprise Adoption of MDM Will Drive Demand and Adoption of Enterprise App Stores

Analysts Examine the State of the Industry at Gartner Application Architecture, Development

By 2017, 25 percent of enterprises will have an enterprise app store for managing corporate-sanctioned apps on PCs and mobile devices, according to Gartner, Inc. Enterprise app stores promise greater control over the apps used by employees, greater control over software expenditures and greater negotiating leverage with app vendors, but this greater control is only possible if the enterprise app store is widely adopted. 

"Apps downloaded from public app stores for mobile devices disrupt IT security, application and procurement strategies," said Ian Finley, research vice president at Gartner. "Bring your own application (BYOA) has become as important as bring your own device (BYOD) in the development of a comprehensive mobile strategy, and the trend toward BYOA has begun to affect desktop and Web applications as well. Enterprise app stores promise at least a partial solution but only if IT security, application, procurement and sourcing professionals can work together to successfully apply the app store concept to their enterprises. When successful, they can increase the value delivered by the application portfolio and reduce the associated risks, license fees and administration expenses." 

Gartner has identified three key enterprise app store trends and recommendations of how organizations can benefit from them: 

The increasing number of enterprise mobile devices and the adoption of mobile device management (MDM) by enterprises will drive demand and adoption of enterprise app stores.

Enterprises already have numerous choices for downloading software onto PCs, but most of them don't include support for smartphones and tablets. Enterprises are beginning to formalize more standard support for these devices, and are looking for ways to manage mobile application provision, especially as they develop their own in-house apps to extend more complex data to these devices. 

"Many enterprises have looked to MDM vendors to provide these capabilities as part of the suite of services that MDM providers are selling," said Phillip Redman, research vice president at Gartner. "Today, most MDM providers have a simple way of extending apps to mobile devices, usually through a basic agent on the device, but many are launching more-sophisticated app stores that can host enterprise and third-party apps to be accessed by smartphones, tablets and PCs. The development of mobile apps and the support of MDM will drive most enterprise app store implementations during the next 12 to 18 months." 

Organizations begin by assessing the realistic need for immediate adoption of enterprise app stores and looking for providers that offer cross-platform support for Web, PC and mobile apps, as well as for different devices. App stores should be part of an MDM bundle of features and should be purchased along with a full mobile management solution. 

Enterprise app stores can support a more diverse and competitive automated software process requiring less procurement intervention.

The enterprise app store offers a way to automate the procurement of enterprise software licenses from app stores under corporate control as part of the normal requisitioning process. By delegating choice to end users, organizations can delegate many important price and performance decisions down to the end-user level, enabling them to make the best choice to meet their needs with the knowledge that the cost will require management approval and/or chargeback to their business unit.

"Enterprise app stores enable procurement to broaden user choice by encouraging providers to submit competing apps, and to monitor demand for popular apps that may benefit from better negotiation of license terms and prices," said Stewart Buchanan, research vice president at Gartner. 

The long-term success of an enterprise app store hinges on a dramatic increase in the supply of software solutions.

Few companies are still in the position to control their entire mobile value chain. Enterprise IT organizations should be transitioning from the traditional approach of selecting devices and software for users and instead, establishing transparent and enforced app curation policies — as is currently found in public app stores.

This shift in control will be challenging for many IT organizations. But even more profound will be the enablement of choice. Without a dynamic selection of apps to choose from, users will eventually have little reason to continue to visit an enterprise app store. An app store can be a natural way to share new applications within the enterprise, recognize great applications, provide feedback to development teams and even create a bit of competition between them — all to drive the development of better solutions. A dramatic increase in the app options available to internal stakeholders is a precondition of any successful enterprise app store.
 
"The implementation of an enterprise app store should be seen as a component of an organization's application strategy, rather than infrastructure strategy," said Brian Prentice, research vice president at Gartner. "The primary determinant of success is app supply. As a result, application leaders should be given overall responsibility for any app store initiative, but they should work in a collaborative fashion with other teams. The types of apps downloaded and used provide important information as to what types of solutions are of value to each type of user." 

More detailed analysis is available in the report "Enterprise App Stores Can Increase the ROI of the App Portfolio" The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=2325115

Gartner analysts will present additional findings on the future of the applications at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit 2013, May 16-17 at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London, U.K. For further information on the Summit, please visit http://www.gartner.com/eu/aadi. Members of the media can register for the Summit at no cost by contacting Rob van der Meulen, Gartner PR on + 44 (0) 1784 267 738 or at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com

Additional information from the event will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc using #GartnerAADI.

Contacts
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.

Caching In: How Some Organizations Are Using Big Data to Change the Way They Do Business

Caching In: How Some Organizations Are Using Big Data to Change the Way They Do Business
Feb. 12, 2013
As big data access shifts to the masses, The Weather Company and other top global companies are showing the world how it's done.

REDMOND, Wash.  Feb. 12, 2012  Big data is changing the way organizations do business, make discoveries, and interact with each other. In fact, pundits are predicting that 2013 will be the year organizations across a range of industries begin implementing big data strategies, or face obsolescence. As David Selinger wrote in a recent article on Forbes online: “If executives don’t find a way to trap, tame, and train their data monsters, they’ll be extinct in two years—fossils who’ve missed the new world order.” 

Microsoft believes that big data has the power to drive practical and theoretical insights that have eluded people to date. In the past, high costs and technology limitations have constrained access to data storage infrastructure and the tools needed to manage and analyze large quantities of data. This is finally starting to change. 

With big data, we are helping our customers understand the data and take action in real-time.
Bryson Koehler , chief information officer at The Weather Company

And as many grapple with the “what” and “why” of big data, there are already customers leading the way and winning with better, faster insight. No organization knows this better than The Weather Company, parent company of The Weather Channel. Weather is at the core of many decisions that people make on a daily basis, and The Weather Company is at the forefront as they manage, consume and generate big data. The 1,200-person organization, based in Atlanta, Georgia, recognizes the opportunity that big data represents and is working to help consumers and businesses make intelligent decisions.

“Weather is probably the biggest big data platform. It plays a role in how you work, how you live, how you play and how you shop,” says Bryson Koehler, chief information officer at The Weather Company. “It impacts a significant portion of the world’s activity, and big data is about understanding how consumer behavior intersects with and is influenced by weather. With big data, we are helping our customers understand the data and take action in real-time.” 

The Weather Company isn’t alone in this effort. A growing number of organizations are now thriving in the new world of big data. By using Microsoft solutions—including technologies that encompass machine learning and distributed computing—they have been able to ease the synthesis of big data to uncover powerful insights, effectively transforming massive data stores into a major competitive advantage. Some of these organizations include:

  • Bank New Zealand. BNZ implemented a self-service data analysis tool that can process data queries 60 times faster than its previous solution, making it possible for analysts to respond more quickly to market conditions and get higher quality insights.

  • CROSSMARKA leading provider of sales and marketing services, CROSSMARK recently launched a new self-service data portal powered by Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 business intelligence tools. The company uses the portal to deliver actionable, real-time business insights to its manufacturer and retailer clients in the consumer goods industry. In 2012 alone, CROSSMARK supported 26 million in-store activities for its clients, generating enormous amounts of point-of-sale (POS) data. Now, through its Microsoft solution, the company can provide highly scalable, on-demand access to consolidated reporting to help clients maximize revenue.

  • Department of Veterans Affairs. By using Microsoft technologies, the VA—which is the single largest medical system in the United States—has consolidated its entire analytics infrastructure and established a state-of-the-art data warehousing and big data computing environment to synthesize its immense health information database and support initiatives to improve patient care and organizational performance.

  • Great Western Bank. With a new data warehousing and BI solution, the bank can make it fast and easy for nontechnical employees to get exactly the information they are looking for, such as lists of categories of account holders for marketing campaigns. Users can more easily ensure a better fit between customers and bank services.

  • National Health Index. NHI provides internet access to the most comprehensive reservoir of healthcare data at the zip code level. The organization’s newly announced solution with Microsoft Corp., called the National Clinical Trial Network (NCTN), delivers a platform providing a comprehensive database of clinical trial options to providers. NCTN will also be a data warehouse transforming isolated data repositories into an integrated, searchable, national archive, permitting the rapid identification of representative samples of risk populations who might benefit from a proposed therapy.

  • Super 8 Hotels (China) Co., Ltd. In just one system, Super 8 Worldwide gets data analysis, data integration, and data reporting, so management can more easily analyze the business from multiple dimensions. It intends to use the technology to intelligently expand from 450 hotels to 1,000 hotels in three years.

  • Stein Mart. By implementing a Microsoft data warehouse and business intelligence (BI) solution, the company can manage information more efficiently and cut reporting time from hours to minutes.

  • University of Washington. Renowned as one of the world’s premier research universities and widely regarded as a center of technology innovation, the various departments that make up the University of Washington need to manage and process enormous amounts of data each day. To fulfill its mission in fostering the development of big ideas and transformational solutions, University Advancement has moved one of its reporting solutions to the Windows Azure cloud platform. The greatest value it has gained is enabling non-technical teams to quickly uncover insights from hundreds of millions of columns of data, providing increased scalability and easier management to better tailor outreach efforts to its alumni, donors and friends.

“Our big data customers stand at the forefront of a technology super-trend, one that can unleash human creativity on a scale never seen before,” says Susan Hauser, corporate vice president of the Enterprise and Partner Group at Microsoft. “Big data’s shift from obstacle to asset can only happen when one can easily unearth insight, and that requires broad availability of great analytics tools. Microsoft intends to facilitate an era of unmatched innovation and creative disruption.”

Still, the promise of big data remains largely unfulfilled. Technology companies need to do more to empower more people, which will push big data forward into the mainstream. Microsoft’s goal is to bring big data to the masses, believing that when you empower more people to use technology, you pave the way for new opportunities and understanding on a global scale. This fundamental belief that technology can change the world and improve people’s lives is what drives Microsoft’s long-term investments.