meganarketinglove-blog - Tumblr blog

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Cash, fear and uncertainty: The Holy Trinity of Bitcoin and blockchain

http://cyberparse.co.uk/2016/04/12/cash-fear-and-uncertainty-the-holy-trinity-of-bitcoin-and-blockchain/

The Snowden factor unnerving your bank Feature Writing anything about Bitcoin or blockchains is a challenge. It’s not the easiest technology to understand – not because it’s particularly complex, but because it’s grown into something of a confused mess of different technologies and applications. It also “looks” strange compared to most technologies that we’re used to. Plus, it tends to be quite emotive because although it’s all open source and open standards, it’s all about “money,” and that gets everyone excited. Stuck in the middle The point of the blockchain is that it looks to “disintermediate trust.” Whilst “disintermediation” might be a term you’d be keen to see on a game of Hipster Bingo, we’ve all been desperately in love with disintermediation since the internet became a big deal because at its core, disintermediation is what the internet “does.” Disintermediation is about removing intermediaries, and we generally like to remove middlemen because although they provide value, they also take our money for their profit. Take the intermediary out of a system, and others in the chain have a little bit more money.

The internet is the most powerful tool for disintermediation we’ve ever seen. We tend to call this process “disruption.” What actually happens is that some previously successful business wakes up and finds out it no longer has one because someone has ruined their business model by negating their value as intermediaries in the value chain. Most businesses don’t see this coming, because most businesses are fairly inept at modelling and understanding risk. But there is one type of business that’s very good at managing out risk: banks. Risk To a bank, Bitcoin is a tremendously scary thing. Most of what a bank does is designed to keep them sitting in the middle, adding some value, and taking a cut for providing that value. A considerable amount of the value they provide comes from helping people store and move money around. For the “end user,” having money in some digital form is a lot easier than dealing with cash, hence why we pay the banks to reward them for provisioning that value. Bitcoin is digital cash. It can be stored and exchanged without having to have an intermediary involved, because at its core it is a disintermediated system. You can buy a miner, refine electricity into Bitcoin, and send those Bitcoins to anyone in the world – all without needing a bank account or asking a bank to transfer the money for you. It’s this disruption that banks fear. This is why we see banks talking so much about blockchain and Bitcoin, although most of them are talking about blockchain rather than Bitcoin. (Which is fair, because Bitcoin itself is a bit of a basket case.) What we see is the banks making a huge investment in blockchain because rather than burying their heads in the sand, they see a huge risk to their position as intermediaries. They are managing out that risk through investment – know thine enemy, etc etc. Look for references to “R3 CEV” – a commercial entity that manages a consortium of around 42 banks, all of which are big players. It’s a bit Bilderberg-ish. Reality If you’re not a bank, the blockchain is unlikely to present such a specifically clear threat. The blockchain is a very specific type of database. Right now, however, most people get very excited about it and run around with a hammer thinking everything they see is a nail. In reality, it’s hard to find good use cases for it. Blockchains allow an application developer to create a distributed database that can be read by anyone, but can only be written to by consensus. This consensus isn’t done by voting. Writing to a blockchain takes a considerable amount of processing time, and this is a deliberate design requirement. Running a computer takes real money, because you have to buy electricity. Therefore, if you want to write data into a blockchain, you have to be motivated to put your hand in your pocket and pay for that electricity. This approach grounds the whole system in real-world economics. It’s this part that makes Bitcoin as a system make sense – it has refined electricity the same way that the “normal” money that we use at some point maps down to some refined scarce resource. However, once the data is in there, anyone can read it. For example, anyone can download all of Bitcoin’s blockchain and read out every transaction that’s ever been on the system since the original so-called “genesis block.” Coming back to use cases, we now have a database system with use cases that involve groups of entities, who don’t really trust each other, who all want to update a single system, but who don’t really mind about transaction times. (Because all this proving of work by definition takes a very, very long time compared to normal database.) Moreover, we’re talking about groups of entities that cannot be bound into trusting each other through some other form – e.g., contracted terms. Generally in our society, we’re fairly good at building contracts that define how entities work with each other. From a non-commercial perspective, some sort of new version of Twitter that used a blockchain to record messages would fit that model because all the messages (“transactions”) are public, and getting everyone to trust each other is impossible. Commercial use-cases are well suited to systems where the entities which are involved include a regulatory authority or government agency. Imagine an aircraft maintenance firm where all the work orders and dockets are put into the blockchain, where the FAA, CAA and other such bodies can examine the records after a crash knowing they cannot be lost or modified. The reason why I’ve included regulatory authorities in that example is because it highlights the advantage of these sorts of systems, where exposing data publicly is key. In this case, we have a public interest element but it could simply be that it’s advantageous to be more visible with your customers. If you don’t need to open up the data-set, it may well be satisfactory just to stick with traditional systems. I’m melting, I’m melting The hype around blockchain comes from the fact that it looks to disintermediate banks. Fundamentally, a non-fiat currency that behaves like cash – whether that’s Bitcoin or something else – is terrifying to a bank. So they’re investing in understanding the risk. And we listen, because when banks invest, it attracts attention because it tweaks our nerves around fear or around greed. Although the hype starts with money, the question is “will the hype sustain”? In a post-Edward-Snowden world, “trust” is a complex idea. If we centralise trust, it’s possible for certain types of actors to try and exploit the centralised nature of this system. Think CIA in Snowden-type examples, think the FBI in “please-give-us-a-specific-version-of-iOS-so-that-we-can-brute-force-this-iPhone”-type examples. The blockchain is our first real example of a technology that allows us to build systems with disintermediated trust. That aspect itself is beyond hype – from a societal perspective we’ll likely gravitate towards systems where trust cannot be exploited, and the blockchain is a great way of building those types of systems. ® Sponsored: The LOGICnow cyber threat guide

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Can You Hack the Pentagon? Prove It

http://cyberparse.co.uk/2016/04/12/can-you-hack-the-pentagon-prove-it/

The Defense Department’s new bug bounty program, “Hack the Pentagon,” runs from April 18 to May 12.

Can you find bugs on government networks? Uncle Sam might have a little cash for you. The Department of Defense’s new bug bounty program, called “Hack the Pentagon,” will run from April 18 to May 12, and while “individual bounty payments will depend on a number of factors,” the program has $150,000 to dole out. Interested would-be hackers can sign up for the program now.  “This initiative will put the department’s cybersecurity to the test in an innovative but responsible way,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a statement. “I encourage hackers who want to bolster our digital defenses to join the competition and take their best shot.”  Hack the Pentagon is the first-ever commercial bug bounty program from the U.S. government, and is intended “to explore new approaches to [U.S.] cybersecurity challenges, and evolve to adopt the best practices used by the most successful and secure software companies in the world.” Participants must have a U.S. taxpayer ID and Social Security number, and be eligible to work within the U.S.

“If you submit a qualifying, validated vulnerability, you may be eligible to receive an award, pending a security check,” information on HackerOne’s page reads. “Specific information on payment eligibility will be provided upon acceptance into the program.” Bug bounty programs have been used by a wide range of tech companies, from Google to Uber, to name a few. In most cases, white-hat hackers try to find vulnerabilities, and inform the companies of their findings. Depending on the severity of the bug, those hackers can make hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Defense Department’s move comes as the U.S., is increasingly a target by nation states looking to nab criticial information.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

GPS Fleet Tracking: What Can It Do for Your Business?

GPS fleet tracking your connection to your vehicles. From your computer, get real-time updates on vehicle locations and driver statuses. Keep an eye on travel times and fuel use to see where you can improve your business operations. With the right GPS fleet tracking software, you will see dramatic results.  

Push Forward with Teletrac Fleet Director® GPS Fleet Tracking Software

Teletrac helps your business perform at its highest level without leveling out your time, fuel, and budget. Our cloud-based GPS fleet tracking software tracks your vehicles around-the-clock and provides regular performance updates to show you what you need to do to succeed.

The Benefits of GPS Fleet Tracking:

Real-time monitoring of vehicles and assets

Reducing fuel consumption

Cutting idling and emissions

Cutting back on vehicle wear and tear

Eliminating inefficiencies in your fleet

See more GPS fleet tracking benefits here

Who Uses GPS Fleet Tracking? Hear From A Few Teletrac Customers:

We've been a client of Teletrac for over 3-years. Running approx. 50 trucks on their GPS fleet tracking system. Telematics is a technology that is constantly evolving, and proving daily how helpful it is to have onboard. The Teletrac team has been readily available from the start, and is quick to understand what we're looking for, enabling us the ability to customize to our business needs. - Cresco Equipment Rentals

Safety is a large part of our daily tasks being an electric, water, and sewer utility. Teletrac's GPS fleet tracking software allows us to monitor people being at their assigned locations and they maintain safe speeds including emergency response.

- West Point Utility

Fleet Director allows us to keep accurate track of not only where the trucks go but how long they take to make their stops. Our company rules dictate that drivers follow a specific route. When a driver deviates from his assigned route, he is given a copy of the printout and a warning. Needless to say, we now have less problems with our drivers because of Teletrac GPS fleet tracking software.

- Manhattan Food Exchange

Being able to measure your fleet is critical. We are measured continually by insurance carriers, the DOT and the motoring public on our overall safety. Not to mention fuel economy and the ever increasing cost of fuel. If you cannot measure it, you cannot control it. If you cannot control it, you cannot improve it. Having Teletrac's GPS fleet tracking system and the ability to see each vehicle and driver behavior has helped us correct many issues and behavior in our driving fleet. Everything from fuel economy to speeding.

-Three Star Trucking Company

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Oracle Unveils Suite of Breakthrough Services to Help Simplify Cloud Adoption by Global Corporations First-of-a-kind services enable organizations to bring the Oracle Cloud Platform inside their own datacenter

Oracle today launched a new family of offerings designed to enable organizations to easily move to the cloud and remove some of the biggest obstacles to cloud adoption. These first-of-a-kind services provide CIOs with new choices in where they deploy their enterprise software and a natural path to easily move business critical applications from on-premises to the cloud.

Oracle Cloud Machine

While organizations are eager to move their enterprise workloads to the public cloud, many have been constrained by business, legislative and regulatory requirements that have prevented them from being able to adopt the technology. Today, Oracle is making it easier for organizations in every industry to make this transition and finally reap the performance, cost and innovation benefits of Oracle Public Cloud Services and run them wherever they want—in the Oracle Cloud or in their own datacenter.

“We are committed to helping our customers move to the cloud to help speed their innovation, fuel their business growth, and drive business transformation,” said Thomas Kurian, president, Oracle. “Today’s news is unprecedented. We announced a number of new cloud services and we are now the first public cloud vendor to offer organizations the ultimate in choice on where and how they want to run their Oracle Cloud.”

Unveiled today, Oracle Cloud at Customer enables organizations to get all of the benefits of Oracle’s cloud services—agility, simplicity, performance, elastic scaling, and subscription pricing—in their datacenter. This is the first offering from a major public cloud vendor that delivers a stack that is 100 percent compatible with the Oracle Cloud but available on-premises. Since the software is seamless with the Oracle Cloud, customers can use it for a number of use cases, including disaster recovery, elastic bursting, dev/test, lift-and-shift workload migration, and a single API and scripting toolkit for DevOps. Additionally, as a fully managed Oracle offering, customers get the same experience and the latest innovations and benefits using it in their datacenter as in the Oracle Cloud.

By extending the Oracle Cloud into their data center, customers can:

Have full control over their data and meet all data sovereignty and data residency requirements that mandate customer data remain within a company’s data center or contained within a geographic location while still taking advantage of the benefits of the cloud

Enable workload portability between on-premises and cloud using identical environments, toolsets, and APIs

Easily move Oracle and non-Oracle workloads between on-premises and the cloud based on their changing business requirements

Comply with security and privacy regulations such as PCI-DSS for the global credit and debit card industry, HIPAA for the US healthcare industry, FedRAMP for the US federal government, Germany’s Federal Data Protection Act, the United Kingdom's Data Protection Act, and other industry- and country-specific regulations

Today, Oracle is announcing the availability of the following Oracle Cloud at Customer services:

Infrastructure: Provides elastic compute, elastic block storage, virtual networking, file storage, messaging, and identity management to enable portability of Oracle and non-Oracle workloads into the cloud. Additional IaaS services that complete the portfolio, including Containers and Elastic Load Balancer will be available soon.

Data Management: Enables customers to use the number one database to manage data infrastructure in the cloud with the Oracle Database Cloud. The initial set of Database Cloud Service offerings will be followed by Oracle Database Exadata Cloud for extreme performance and a broad set of Big Data Cloud services, including Big Data Discovery, Big Data Preparation, Big Data Cloud, and Big Data SQL.

Application Development: Develop and deploy Java applications in the cloud using Oracle Java Cloud, soon to be followed by other services for polyglot development in Java SE, Node.Js, Ruby, and PHP.

Enterprise Integration: Simplify integration of on-premises applications to cloud applications and cloud application to cloud application integration using the Oracle Integration Cloud Service. Additional capabilities for SOA, API Management, and IoT will be added soon.

Management: Unifies the experience of managing workloads seamlessly on-premises and in the Oracle Cloud.

The Oracle Cloud has shown strong adoption, supporting 70+ million users and more than 34 billion transactions each day. It runs in 19 data centers around the world.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

5 Powerful Ways to Build Your Personal Brand You should do everything possible to improve your personal brand--the image you project to the world.

You might not be looking for a job right now, but chances are you will sometime in the future. Before you do, however, you should do everything you can to improve your own personal brand--the image you project to the world.

According to Susan Vitale, CMO at iCIMS, a provider of HR software, "Having a killer personal brand is no longer an option, but a requirement when it comes to landing that job you've always wanted." Here are 5 great ways to improve your brand--and your job prospects as a result.

1. Bother important people

Personal branding is not very effective if no one knows who you are. Make appearances at industry conferences and fairs, and make sure you introduce yourself to all the right people. Do some research beforehand and target the heavy hitters with your charm and thoughtful small-talk. Afterward, direct message your new contact on LinkedIn or through e-mail thanking them for the time they spent talking to you. Being "the guy who sends thank-you notes" is never a bad thing, and will make your face stand out in the sea of other schmoozers from that event.

2. Get ready for your close-up

Technology evolves at an almost uncomfortable rate. Not only are paper resumes very nearly obsolete, electronic text resumes are beginning to fall from fashion as well. Making your name a bigger font on the top of your resume won't do much to make you stand out in the cloud of data most companies are pulling from these days. Instead, consider putting together a video cover letter. Even if the video simply lives on your LinkedIn profile page, this unique way of introducing yourself to prospective employers will give you an edge and let your personality shine through in a way text simply cannot. Have some fun with it, but try not to scare them away!

3. Start blogging

Guest blogging is a great way to put yourself out there. Showcase your knowledge, talents, and skills by writing about what you already know. Easy, right? If you can get a spot on well-known, respected blogs in your field--great! If not, start your own. Help employers better understand your brand with posts about everything from your thoughts on social media marketing campaign best-practices, to how you feel about the new Star Wars movie. Keep in mind, however, that if you commit to blogging, you must continue to post regularly. Otherwise, you can come off as disorganized or unfocused to potential employers.

4. Scrutinize your online presence

If it's online, everyone can see it--including potential employers. In fact,approximately 76% of recruiters say that they always or sometimes perform a Google search on candidates before hiring them, and 40% report finding online information that has disqualified a candidate from consideration. Go through all of your social media profiles and make sure every aspect is complete and what you want prospective employers to know about you. From favorite books to past work experience--it all counts.

5. Go ahead--be a showoff

Some may call it bragging, but the savvy job hunter knows that singing your own praises works to improve and support your personal brand. Complete a big project at work? Post about it. Head up a successful volunteer activity in your community? Post about it. Cook a nice meal for two? Don't post about it. Nothing bothers the masses more than social media over-sharers, especially when your targeted audience is your future boss. Don't forget, your personal brand is a supplement to your resume. Show potential employers you are active in your industry and successful in your endeavors with regular--not obsessive--Twitter posts or LinkedIn updates.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Job Hunting in the Digital Age

Like many recent college graduates, Ben Kim felt he was casting his résumé into an abyss when he clicked “apply online” for the hundredth or so time. “The most common response was nothing,” he said.

That may be because, before capturing an employer’s eye, job hunters in the digital age often have to get past a round of robots scanning their résumé for keywords.

Although the business of hiring is still largely a manual process, employers are experimenting with increasingly sophisticated technology. Some companies are setting loose automated recruiters that crawl the web for the perfect hire, based on an algorithm. Others are asking job candidates to answer their first round of interview questions via video — perhaps not a huge ask for members of the YouTube generation.

Use Keywords

Many recruiters use tracking systems to sift through virtual piles of résumés searching for specific qualifications — say, software developers fluent in a programming language — or previous jobs that illustrate leadership qualities. What does this mean for applicants?

“Make sure you are carefully reviewing the job description and aligning your experience and transferable skills based on what the organization is looking for,” said Mercy Eyadiel, associate vice president of career development and corporate engagement at Wake Forest University. “If you don’t, you risk not showing up in the list of potential candidates for consideration,” which is often based on keyword searches. That doesn’t mean regurgitating job descriptions or being untruthful, but it does require imagination. “If they are looking for project management skills, and you ran for student government and had to run big projects,” Ms. Eyadiel said, “that counts.”

For tech jobs, be sure to list what computer hardware and software you know so it’s picked up in keyword searches. “Know the acronyms, and also spell it out,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director at the job placement agency Robert Half.

Enterprise Holdings, the car rental company, hires thousands of new graduates each year as part of its management training program. It uses iCIMS, a type of talent acquisition software, to sort through volumes of candidates, generally 50,000 a month, and identify those who meet five or so minimum requirements, including a bachelor’s degree, satisfactory driving record and some kind of leadership position or customer service experience. Candidates who pass the screening process are then connected with a recruiter.

Stay Current

Keep your online persona up-to-date, particularly if you add new skills. Why? Some employers maintain a pool of candidates who have applied (but were rejected) for specific jobs, so that they can reach out if a more suitable position arises.

Recruiters’ software also trolls profiles on LinkedIn and other social media sites, analysts said, providing employers with updates.

Be Camera Ready

Before asking candidates to come into the office, some employers try to get to know them better. They might conduct an interview over, say, Skype, or send a company-branded link to a set of questions whose answers the candidates can record on their computer’s webcam.

Sometimes employers record applicants performing a task, like computer coding. “The way the camera is set up, the recruiter can see the candidate doing the work,” said Claire Schooley, a principal analyst at Forrester Research who tracks recruitment-software providers.

Go Offline

Ramit Sethi, author of “I Will Teach You to Be Rich,” suggests avoiding the “apply online” black hole altogether. “It is this tired old tune that people predictably and understandably sing because they send out 500 résumés and get zero response,” said Mr. Sethi, who offers online video courses on topics like finding your dream job. “That is a very passive way of finding a job.” He recommends getting to know the company and someone inside first.

Paul D’Arcy, a senior vice president at Indeed.com, the job search site, also sees technology as the scapegoat for futile job searches. “If you have applied to 200 jobs and aren’t hearing back,” he said, “then you need to change your strategy. It could be you are looking in an area where supply and demand is so out of balance that it is not a promising field. And the other option is, you are not taking the time to personalize your communication, or your résumé isn’t clearly communicating what you bring.” Fixing one or both of those things, he said, “should change the results you are getting.”

Mr. Kim did both. He had started applying for jobs, largely in marketing, as a senior at the University of Notre Dame, and continued the job hunt from his parents’ house in Los Angeles. To earn pocket money, he worked odd jobs — as an SAT tutor, an office assistant — and tried graduate school for a semester.

But about a year after graduation, he finally found “the bottom of the ladder I wanted to climb,” software user-experience design, and overhauled his approach. He located software designers who lived nearby, went to their meet-ups and asked how they got started and what books they read. He also started freelancing, and made a short list of companies he wanted to learn more about.

A fortuitous exchange on Twitter with the head of one of those companies led to an internship, and ultimately a full-time position — two years after graduation.

His biggest lesson? “Talk to people and not to a résumé website,” he said. “You would be surprised how receptive people are when you just email them or message them on LinkedIn and just ask for help.”

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Spireon Tackles Historic Rise in Auto Loan Delinquencies with New Collateral Tracking and Management Solution Spireon Introduces GoldStar Lender for Auto Finance Professionals to Better Manage Portfolio Risk

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Spireon Inc., the industry’s leading open connected vehicle platform company with over 2.5 million active subscribers, today introduced GoldStar Lender, the Company’s next generation GPS vehicle tracking and Collateral Management System (CMS) that has proven to help customers increase their loan portfolio performance by up to 20 percent.

@Spireon Tackles Historic Rise in #AutoLoan Delinquencies with New GPS Tracking and Collateral Management System

According to Transunion credit services, overall auto delinquency rates have hit their highest rates since 20101, while the delinquency rates among subprime borrowers hit a 20-year high, according to Fitch Ratings2. Spireon’s new GoldStar Lender product is a GPS-based vehicle tracking and collateral management solution that revolutionizes how auto lenders mitigate this increasing portfolio risk and significantly increases returns on borrowed capital.

Spireon’s GoldStar Lender solution adds new product features to Spireon’s legacy of industry leading automotive finance products for managing and mitigating risk in subprime lending for Buy Here Pay Here (BHPH) dealerships and lenders. The value in adopting GPS vehicle tracking for auto finance professionals and lenders is proven, with the following significant results based on Spireon customer feedback:

84 percent of customers report reduced delinquencies after installing Spireon GPS vehicle tracking

78 percent of Spireon customers have been able to finance customers with lower credit

68 percent of customers have been able to finance customers with smaller down payments

Additionally, Spireon’s GoldStar Lender provides features to achieve state and federal lending regulatory compliance, including Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulations.

“The greatest risk in subprime lending is a potential loss of collateral, when the borrower defaults and the lender is unable to recover the vehicle,” stated Kristina Lowe, director of product marketing at Spireon. “Building on the legacy of our groundbreaking auto finance products that we first introduced over ten years ago, the new GoldStar Lender solution extends our ability to greatly reduce this rising delinquency problem, while also delivering new features and the government regulatory compliance that our customers need.”

AFSA Vehicle Finance Conference & Exposition 2016 Spireon will be exhibiting at Booth 317 at the annual American Financial Services Association (AFSA) Vehicle Finance Conference & Exposition, March 29-31 in Las Vegas. For additional information about Spireon’s auto finance and lender offerings, visit http://www.spireon.com/goldstar-gps-vehicle-tracking/.

About Spireon Spireon, Inc. is the industry’s leading open connected vehicle company, providing businesses and consumers with powerful Big Data insights to track, manage and protect their most valuable assets. The award-winning Spireon NSpire open platform delivers rich information from any GPS connected vehicle or asset, converting that information into actionable insight. Headquartered in Irvine, CA, Spireon’s open connected vehicle platform now supports more than 2.5 million active subscribers across the company’s growing suite of product offerings for new and used car dealers, lenders and financial institutions, rental car agencies, insurers, consumers, and fleet, trailer and asset management companies.

Learn more at www.spireon.com

Connect with us: https://twitter.com/spireon https://www.facebook.com/SpireonCorporate https://www.linkedin.com/company/spireon-inc- https://plus.google.com/+Spireon https://www.youtube.com/user/spireoninc

1 http://transunioninsights.com/IIR/ 2 https://www.fitchratings.com/site/fitch-home/pressrelease?id=1000871

Contacts

Spireon Steve Johansson Director of Communications and Digital Strategy sjohansson@spireon.com

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Why Pingdom?

Pingdom is a powerful web performance monitoring solution.

Why Should You Consider Pingdom?Pingdom is a global performance monitoring solution for your websites and web applications. We help you give your customers the best possible web experience by offering a Powerful Web Performance Monitoring Solution – Pingdom isn’t just uptime monitoring. You can get access to uptime monitoring and these advanced capabilities:UPTIME MONITORINGTest and verify your websites availability every minute automatically – over 60 global polling locationsREAL USER MONITORINGGain valuable insight into the performance of your website from actual visitors to deliver a better experience.TRANSACTION MONITORINGEnsure important interactions like signup, search, or downloadable files on your website aren’t slow or broken.PAGE SPEED MONITORINGTest the load time of your website to find bottlenecks that affect your customers end-user-experience.RELIABLEAll issues are verified by a second opinion to filter out false alerts by double-checking downtime.ROOT CAUSE ANALYSISDetermine the reason behind a website or server outage to resolve the issue and prevent any recurrences.INCIDENT MANAGEMENTImprove your team’s incident workflow with the right alerts to the right person at the right time.APIAutomate your interactions to create your own applications with the functionality you find in the interface.About PingdomWe are a team based in Sweden, who all share two things: the passion for web performance, and a commitment to making products that are easy to use.Since 2007, we have earned the trust of more than 700,000 users in over 200 countries includingSpotify, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Zendesk, MailChimp, and more. In addition, customers enjoy Pingdom’s reliability which allows us to filter out false alerts using a second opinion process to double-check downtime from another location before we consider the website or application as down. Our extensive network of 60+ probe servers in North America and Europe help to reduce false alerts and maintain our high levels of reliability.With Pingdom, customers will be the first to know of any issues with their website, DNS, email server, or any other infrastructure they choose to monitor. Pingdom alerts customers of any issues so that they can focus on their daily business. The platform allows customers to easily and quickly set up monitoring without all the technical work normally involved. All that is needed is a URL, Pingdom will take care of the rest.Affordable PlansWe offers a number of reasonably priced plans which vary based on your needs. While Pingdom does not strive to be the cheapest monitoring solution on the planet, the value (e.g. features, reliability, and ease of use) that you get for the cost is very high. Don’t forget that you can sign up for a free 14 day trial and easily change your monthly plan in our control panel.Pingdom is part of the SolarWinds Cloud portfolio.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Behind-the-Scenes with John Shier, senior security advisor at Sophos

For a behind-the-scenes view of what it’s like to be on the frontline of tracking security trends, we interviewed John Shier, senior security advisor and nine-year Sophos veteran.

John works closely with SophosLabs to study and analyze all types of cyberattacks emerging around the world. He’s also an expert on the advanced technology needed to combat these threats.

Here’s John’s insider take on what you need to know to stay one step ahead.

Q1. As a security advisor at Sophos, tell us about your average day

The first thing I do every day is monitor security news. This includes checking in with SophosLabs, scanning Naked Security and other news sites, and much more. The outcome of this effort often directs the rest of my day. If there’s a breaking security story, then we prepare for interest from journalists wanting reaction and insight and outreach to customers. The rest of the day usually involves researching threats, consulting internally and getting ready for my next talk at an industry event. When I’m not in the office, you can find me at one of many security conferences around the world.

Q2. We’re seeing ransomware in the news right now. What can you tell us about ransomware as a growing cyber threat?

Unfortunately, ransomware continues to be big news, and it doesn’t show any signs of letting up. We are seeing all kinds of ransomware with different tactics and technology. Some encrypt your files with a public key, which makes it nearly impossible to reverse, while other ransomware uses a locally stored key. They might encrypt your networked file shares or encrypt the master boot record of your computer, locking you out of the operating system.

Recently, there have been some high-profile cases of ransomware infecting hospitals in the U.S., including a California hospital that paid $17,000 for the decryption key. The infection caused so much disruption that staff had to resort to the “old-fashioned” method of using pen and paper for record keeping. In March, another hospital in the U.S., this time in Kentucky, was infected with Locky ransomware, but was able to recover using offline backups. Unfortunately, it took administrators five days to return to normal operation.

In many cases, phishing is the infection vector for ransomware attacks, but malvertising is also playing an increased role in making this type of threat more viable. At SophosLabs, we are seeing Cryptowall,TorrentLocker, CTBLocker, TeslaCrypt and, now, Locky as the most prevalent ransomware families.

Offline backups are probably the most important measure organizations can take to protect against ransomware. Of course, using up-to-date proactive protection is also a big part of a company’s defense, as is ensuring that all of your computers have the latest security patches. If ransomware does manage to make it past your security technologies and infect an unpatched computer, you can use those backups to recover files without sending money to the crooks.

Q3. What are some other evolving threats, such as geo-malware or location-based cyber attacks, you’re seeing? Are there any locations in particular that are activity hotbeds?

Geo-malware – tailoring and targeting malware based on victims’ geographic locations – is an interesting problem. Like many popular global retail outlets, cybercriminals are now tailoring their messaging and malware “products” to suit the local language and culture. It doesn’t make good business sense to display German ransomware instructions to an Italian victim. You’re also less likely to get your ransom paid if you infect victims in developing countries versus people or companies in wealthier nations.

All of this leads to cybercriminals designing malware that blends into local environments, appears more realistic and is more financially rewarding. At SophosLabs, we have seen many examples of this type of intentional geo-targeting. Ransomware largely infiltrates North America, Europe and Australia. Some banking Trojans are quite prevalent in South America, while one in particular, Yebot, is found almost exclusively in Hong Kong.

SophosLabs is also tracking the concept of “un-targeting,” which is when crooks specifically determine that their malware doesn’t execute if it lands on a particular system, such as a Russian language operating system, a Chinese keyboard or malware researcher’s virtual machine. Geo-malware is this precise, which gives you a glimpse into the serious and determined intent of some cybercriminals.

Q4. What are your thoughts on malvertising as a way to infect and spread viruses? How and what types of businesses are vulnerable?

Malvertising (malicious online advertising) has been around for a while now, but has increased in prevalence over the last couple of years. Last month, there was a high-profile campaign that affected BBC, Newsweek, The New York Times and MSN. From the crook’s point of view, malvertising provides a method of delivering malware that can be extremely targeted, difficult to detect and track, and uses the trustworthy reputation and bandwidth of an established site. For example, using geo-IP information, hackers can target their malicious campaigns against particular countries. And then, using demographic information, they can further zero-in on narrower segments of the population.

Many of these campaigns run over weekends and are short lived, but can have massive impact if they’re spread on highly trafficked sites. Unfortunately, by infecting the networks that feed ads to legitimate businesses online, everyone is equally at risk.

Q5. As threats increase in complexity, what do we need to do to defend against them?

Crime is organized so why not do the same with our defenses? Complex threats are the new normal and security solutions have to evolve in order to address this reality. Historically, we have deployed product after product to deal with different facets of the threat. Now we have a suite of security products, each doing their own thing with little to no meaningful correlation. Cybercriminals have known this for a while and have been purposefully designing their attacks to weave between the layers of security.

A strong coordinated defense is needed to protect against a complex threat. It’s not enough to just keep throwing products at the problem anymore. We need to use our existing products in a coordinated way. One way to do this is by providing context to all the data that is being generated by your security technologies. If the products can communicate and share intelligence, they can better respond to multi-vector threats. Innovation will still play a part, but instead of being another standalone service, it can integrate into this coordinated platform.

Q6. As a security advisor who “sees it all,” what are your three top online safety tips?

1. Keep all software up to date. Let the software do all the work for you. Enable automatic updating on all of your security software and operating systems. Include any applications that support auto-updating. Don’t forget that mobile devices and apps need updating, as well.

2. Use multi-factor authentication. Even if a crook gets hold of your password – you know, the one that’s complex and unique ;-) – they won’t be able to get into your account unless they also control the second factor. Two-step verification is good (think SMS codes), two-factor authentication is best (think hardware token or biometric).

3. Connect with care. Be suspicious of all emails you receive that contain attachments or links. Especially the ones that urge you to act right away. Phishing emails are better than ever. Take the extra time to spot anything that looks odd and even verify the communication. You’re not sure your mom actually sent you that online animated card for your birthday? Give her a call and ask. You’ll be doing yourself a favor, and she would love to talk to you.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Intel to Revise Financial Reporting Structure

Beginning with the publication of Intel Corporation’s first-quarter earnings report on April 19, 2016, the company will revise the presentation of its financial results to reflect changes to certain operating segments. The company is providing the revised financial reporting structure now, as shown below, in order to give visibility into the new model.

Intel’s operating segments will be:

Client Computing Group (CCG)

Data Center Group (DCG)

Internet of Things Group (IOTG)

Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG)

Intel Security Group (ISecG)

Programmable Solutions Group (PSG)

All other

New Technology Group (NTG)

The company is electing to separately disclose the operating results of NSG, ISecG, and PSG, although none of these operating segments meets the quantitative thresholds to qualify as a reportable operating segment. Intel previously disclosed the results of NSG within the “all other” category and aggregated the results of ISecG and Software and Services Group (SSG) as the “software and services” operating segments.

PSG was formed as a result of our acquisition of Altera Corporation. Additionally, the company formed NTG, which includes Intel’s perceptual computing efforts and products designed for wearables, drones and other market segments. Lastly, the company determined that SSG will no longer be an operating segment. SSG’s historical results will be included in the “all other” category.

^Results for the Programmable Solutions Group will not include any results prior to the first quarter of 2016.

Revenue for our reportable and non-reportable operating segments is primarily related to the following product lines:

Client Computing Group: Includes platforms designed for notebooks (including Ultrabook™ devices), 2 in 1 systems, desktops (including all-in-ones and high-end enthusiast PCs), tablets, phones, wireless and wired connectivity products, and mobile communication components.

Data Center Group: Includes platforms designed for enterprise, cloud, communications infrastructure, and technical computing segments.

Internet of Things Group: Includes platforms designed for Internet of Things market segments, including retail, transportation, industrial, and buildings and home use, along with a broad range of other market segments.

Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group: Includes NAND flash memory products primarily used in solid-state drives.

Intel Security Group: Includes security software products designed to deliver innovative solutions that secure computers, mobile devices, and networks around the world from the latest malware and emerging online threats.

Programmable Solutions Group: Includes programmable semiconductors (primary field-programmable gate array) and related products for a broad range of market segments, including communications, networking and storage, industrial, military, and automotive.

All other consists of the following:

Results of operations from our New Technology Group;

Corporate: Revenue, expenses, and charges such as:

Amounts included within restructuring and asset impairment charges;

A portion of employee benefits, compensation, and other expenses not allocated to the operating segments;

Divested businesses for which discrete operating results are not regularly reviewed by our chief executive officer;

Results of operations of startup businesses that support our initiatives, including our foundry business;

Acquisition-related costs, including amortization and any impairment of acquisition-related intangibles and goodwill.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Webinars

Boomi's web seminars help you to learn more about what AtomSphere can do for your business and receive training on our solution— right from your desktop. You can participate in a live web seminar or watch a previously recorded web seminar. All web seminars include both visual and audio content, and many include product demonstrations.

All online training sessions are released in the Customer Support Portal. To view these sessions, log into Boomi AtomSphere and click "Help".

Atomsphere iPaaS and API Management in the Cloud

Join Paul Pasko, Sr. Sales Engineer with Dell Boomi, as he demonstrates how you can leverage Dell Boomi AtomSphere integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and Dell Boomi API Management to integrate both cloud and on-premises applications as well as create and manage web services for consumption across applications. Source: CloudCon: Integration & Web APIs

Register Now

LinkedIn Automates Lead to Cash with Integration by Dell Boomi

Duration: 60 minutes

What if you could reduce the complexity of the data sharing between applications within your organization? Or eliminate missed upsell opportunities? Even process more orders, faster? LinkedIn did just that, and more—using Dell Boomi AtomSphere integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to automate their lead-to-cash process by integrating Salesforce.com and Oracle eBusiness. Watch this video to learn how LinkedIn achieved

80 percent reduction in the number of data entry fields required

72 percent reduction in order cycle time

100 percent reduction in missed upsell opportunities

And more

Register Now

ON DEMAND Webinar: Mastering your cloud MDM implementation

Duration: 60 minutes

There are few challenges as daunting as consolidating, cleansing and synchronizing your data across multiple domains and data sources. And as organizations like yours manage more information from even more cloud and on-premise sources, it’s becoming increasingly important to keep the information consistent and accurate without adding strain to already-limited resources. Watch this on-demand webcast to learn how cloud master data management (MDM) can help your organization ensure data accuracy and consistency, as well as improve performance and reduce costs. Learn how you can:

Adopt cloud MDM deployment in a hybrid IT environment

Model, match, synchronize, cleanse and enrich master data across domains

Scale your MDM to accommodate growth in data varieties, business applications and user demands

Implement comprehensive data-governance controls

Register Now

ON DEMAND Webinar: Using Dell Boomi to Unleash the Power of Salesforce Analytics Cloud

Duration: 60 minutes

Sol Waters, Sr. Sales Engineer with Dell Boomi, demonstrates how Dell Boomi AtomSphere integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and Dell Boomi MDM harness the power of Salesforce Analytics Cloud to enable every business user to instantly and confidently gain key business insights from their data, from multiple sources, from any device. Source: CloudCon: Integration & Web APIs, Integration Developer News

Register Now

ON-DEMAND Webinar: Big Ideas in Integration and Their Impact On Business

Duration: 60 minutes

View this engaging thought leadership panel discussion, hosted by Ray Wang, founder and CEO of Constellation Research

And insightful Q&A with experts in integration, including

Register Now

Webinar: Cloud-Managed Master Data Management with Dell Boomi MDM

Date: December 12, 2013 Time: 10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET Duration: About 60 minutes

See how to easily and affordably create and manage master data when you join us for this educational session. You’ll learn about a scalable approach that will empower you to ensure data accuracy and consistency across multiple applications and systems. With our expert’s techniques, you’ll improve performance and reduce costs across all areas of business operations.

Find out how you can easily:

Accelerate time to insight with improved analytics.

Model, match, synchronize, cleanse and enrich data across domains.

Scale to accommodate growth in data volume, business applications, and user demands.

Implement comprehensive data governance controls

Speaker:Rob Moyer, MDM Product Manager, Dell Boomi

Watch Now

Webinar: Cloud-speed integration of applications in a regulated environment: Thomas Barton of Novartis Pharmaceuticals

Duration: About 60 minutes

It takes a scalable, future-ready integration strategy in order to adopt new cloud-based and mobile applications without the creation of new silos threatening productivity or operational efficiency. But there’s a deeper benefit to be found when you use an integration solution that’s cloud-enabled like Dell Boomi: you gain the agility and speed cloud provides even when deploying applications that must be secure, compliant, on-premises, or all three.

A concrete example of this comes from Novartis Pharmaceuticals, which is steadily overhauling its middleware solution with Dell Boomi to be more responsive and contain costs while remaining fully compliant. In this exclusive webcast, we hear from Thomas Barton on today’s application integration challenge and the kinds of very tangible benefits Novartis is experiencing from their new approach.

Speaker:Thomas Barton, Global Enterprise Architect and Head of Integration Services, Novartis

Watch Now!

Webinar: SAP to Salesforce.com – Enterprise and Cloud Application Integration

Duration: About 60 minutes

In this real-world example of a lead-to-cash business process, we’ll cover integration fundamentals and how a native cloud integration platform can bring unique benefits including quick time to value without software, appliances or coding.

This on-demand webinar will highlight the unique capabilities of the Dell Boomi AtomSphere platform as we integrate enterprise ERP to cloud applications using SAP and Salesforce.com as the example.

Join us for an inside look into the industry’s largest Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) and learn how your business can benefit too.

Speaker:Wes Manning, Senior Sales Engineer, Dell BoomiCsaba Lorinczy, IT Architect and Technical Sales Specialist

Watch Now!

Webinar hosted by Information Management

Webinar: LinkedIn’s Cloud Integration in a Hyper-growth Environment

Duration: About 60 minutes

A professional network with 200M+ members who create, manage and share their professional identity, access shared knowledge and insights online, LinkedIn Corporation has revolutionized how their customers Hire, Market and Sell.

Join Andres Bang, Head of Global Sales and Operations Systems and Alex Lai, Senior Manager of Sales Systems at LinkedIn, who will talk about their experience using AtomSphere, Dell Boomi’s Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), to automate their lead-to-cash process by integrating Salesforce.com and Oracle eBusiness. This will be followed by a live Q&A with the LinkedIn Team.

Speakers include:Andres Bang, Head of Global Sales and Operations Systems, LinkedInAlex Lai, Senior Manager of Sales Systems, LinkedInJJ Ferroni, Cloud Evangelist, Dell Boomi

Watch Now!

The Big Connection: Integrating Cloud with Enterprise Systems

Duration: 60 minutes

Integrating cloud solutions with existing infrastructures poses formidable challenges for most organizations, especially when key business applications are complex, or spread across disparate systems. Companies need to leverage and analyze their data no matter where it lives, and they need the flexibility to make changes as needed. Achieving this level of agility requires a new kind of application integration that natively harnesses cloud architectures.

View this episode of The Briefing Room on-demand to learn from veteran Analyst Robin Bloor as he explains how the maturation of cloud services and platforms has improved application integration techniques. He'll be briefed by Wes Manning and Csaba Lorinczy of Dell, who will tout their company’s cloud integration offering, which includes the ability to integrate hallmark solutions like SAP and Salesforce with on premise or SaaS-based applications. They will also share a demo of Boomi Suggest, a community-developed repository of data mappings that can greatly accelerate integration projects.

Speakers include:Dr. Robin Bloor, Chief Analyst, The Bloor GroupWes Manning, Sales Consultant, Dell BoomiCsaba Lorinczy, Senior Software Sales Engineer, Dell BoomiModerator:Eric Kavanagh, CEO, The Bloor Group

Watch Now!

Webinar: Successful ISV Partnering in the Cloud

Duration: 60 minutes

Partnerships can be powerful. By leveraging the collective strengths of two ISVs, both companies are strengthened and positioned for exponential growth through partnership. Cloud companies have even greater opportunity because their model provides for a rapid go-to-market that benefits both their joint customers and the partnership.

Join Warren Davidson, Director of OEM Cloud for SuccessFactors and JJ Ferroni, Cloud Evangelist for Dell Boomi, as they present a case study on partnering in the cloud. They’ll discuss why their OEM partnership has accelerated growth for both companies. You’ll also learn how to partner for success and what you can expect as a result of partnering with another ISV.

Speakers include:Warren Davidson, Director OEM Cloud, SuccessFactorsJJ Ferroni, Cloud Evangelist, Dell Boomi

Watch Now!

An SAP to Salesforce.com Integration Working Session

Duration: 60 minutes

Today's business world requires adoption of multiple evolving technologies as well as agility and adaptability. But how do you integrate SAP with Salesforce.com while keeping up with mobile devices and social media?

View this webinar on-demand to learn more about how SAP, Twilio and other applications can easily be integrated with Salesforce.com, and you'll test it all -- live. You'll also have the opportunity to get all of your technical questions answered in great detail.

Topics covered include:

SAP, Salesforce.com, and Dell Boomi integration fundamentals

Live Demo: Sales Cloud + SAP + Chatter + SMS (mobile via Twilio)

Extended techincal Q&A session

Speakers include:Rick Nucci, General Manager & Founder, Dell BoomiWes Manning, Sales Engineer, Dell Boomi

Watch Now!

Cloud-Managed Master Data Management

Duration: 60 minutes

Join Dell Boomi for a recorded webinar featuring an introduction to Dell Boomi MDM – a simple, cost-effective and scalable way to create and manage master data. We’ll show you how to assure data integrity across multiple applications and systems, while retaining data security with next-generation MDM.

Speakers include:Chris McNabb, Director of Product Management, Dell BoomiRob Moyer, MDM Product Manager, Dell Boomi

Watch Now!

Taking Integration-Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) Beyond Cloud Integration

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes

iPaaS is increasingly being deployed beyond cloud services integration, replacing on-premises middleware. John Zur of Brady Corporation and Rick Nucci of Dell Boomi discuss Brady's growing adoption of iPaaS. From an initial iPaaS to integration of SAP to Salesforce to replacing their on-premises middleware, Brady is successfully moving beyond cloud integration.

Watch this exciting session to learn about Brady's journey.

Speakers include:John Zur, Integration Engineer, Brady CorporationRick Nucci, General Manager & Founder, Dell Boomi

Watch Now!

EDI & B2B Integration in the Cloud with Dell Boomi

Duration: 60 minutes

Did you know?

Dell Boomi has over 1500 trading partners enabled

AtomSphere has support for standards such as AS2, HL7, EDIFACT & X12

Hundreds of Dell Boomi customers use AtomSphere for EDI

Attend this informative webinar to learn more about Dell Boomi’s EDI and B2B capabilities. Dell Boomi enables organizations to quickly connect ERP applications, such as NetSuite, with value added networks (VANs) and AS2 connections—with faster time to value and no maintenance. This enables you to manage your trading partner network of any size using the same scalable, secure integration platform you use for application integration.

Topics covered include:

Trading partner enablement with Dell Boomi

Use Case: GoPro

Live Demo: EDI and B2B functionality

Speakers include:Marc Simmons, Product Manager, Inc.Michael Frontera, Sales Engineer, Dell Boomi

Watch Now!

SAP & Salesforce.com Integration Made Easy in the Cloud

Duration: 60 minutes

Moving data between ERP and CRM applications and keeping them synchronized has historically been extremely difficult and time consuming. Organizations that utilize SAP® as their ERP solution often struggle to integrate SAP with other systems in their enterprise or in the cloud such as Salesforce.com®, and in turn fail to automate or optimize their business processes. This means data inconsistencies that cause loss of track-ability, incomplete reporting and lots of manual fixes. While many SAP integration approaches are complex, expensive, and difficult to employ, a new approach— using Dell Boomi®— changes the game.

Steve Tseng, Enterprise Architect Dell Boomi and Wes Manning, Sales Engineer Dell Boomi, will introduce the SAP-certified Dell Boomi connector and cloud integration solution, and Michael Hubbs, Director of IT, Emtec, Inc., will illustrate how implementation of Dell Boomi enabled shortened time-to-value and a lower cost of integration between SAP and Salesforce.com.

Topics covered include:

SAP integration fundamentals, including IDocs, BAPIs and RFCs

Live demonstration of a Dell Boomi SAP-to-Salesforce.com integration in the cloud

Use case: Emtec, Inc's immediate ROI and improved quote-to-cash process

Speakers include:Michael Hubbs, Director of IT, Emtec, Inc.Steve Tseng, Enterprise Architect, Dell BoomiWes Manning, Sales Engineer, Dell Boomi

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Xero Adds Georgia Payroll, Now Supports Over 60% Of U.S. Small Businesses

SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 5, 2016 – ​Cloud accounting software company, Xero, today released Payroll for the state of Georgia, taking the number of states serviced directly in the small business platform to 21. By building a seamless online accounting platform that incorporates payroll, data flows seamlessly between the two functions meaning books and business financials are kept up­to­date and the amount of data entry required is slashed. Discussing the release, Xero Partner John Ray from Ray Business Advisors & Bookkeeping Express of Greater Atlanta, said having tailored payroll software in the state of Georgia will provide accountants in the region a more efficient way to manage payroll. “Having payroll directly integrated on the same platform as your accounting solution simplifies the life of a small business owner,” Ray said. “Working in the cloud, on the same ledger and using the same set of data, also opens up a direct line of communication between a small business owner and their advisor. “The simplicity of having all the information in one place cuts out the need for many manual processes, enabling small business owners to get on with running their operations and leaving the numbers to their accountant.” Employees in Georgia can now be paid through Xero All the payroll calculations are taken care of automatically so small business owners can pay their employees through direct deposit or with instant paychecks. And timesheets are included at no extra cost for all employees. Detailed reports are also available to help you keep track of your company’s payroll information. Employees can even enter their own timesheets, and view time off and pay history through their own employee app. “Over 150,000 small businesses in Georgia employ at least one employee – and Xero is truly excited to provide an accounting and payroll solution that will not only make running their business much easier but also make them much more efficient,” Xero’s U.S. President, Russ Fujioka said. The platform is also set up to remind small business owners when they have to file and pay payroll taxes so they don’t miss deadlines. Xero will soon support electronic filing and payments for your payroll tax. More states coming soon With more than 600,000 subscribers now using Xero, we’ve been busy building out payroll functionality across the U.S.. Xero Payroll is now up and running in California, Texas and New York State, as well as 18 more states. Many also include e­filing capabilities. “With the release of Georgia, Xero now support 21 states – which allows us to provide payroll support to over 60% of the US small business population. This release is also a great milestone as we are well on our way of bringing payroll support to all 50 states,” Fujioka said. Connect with Xero Like Xero on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Xero.Accounting/ Follow Xero on Twitter: @xero About Xero Xero is beautiful, easy to use online accounting software for small businesses and their advisors. The company has over 600,000 subscribers in more than 180 countries. Xero boasts more than 500 third­party integrations and was ranked No. 1 by Forbes as the World's Most Innovative Growth Company in 2014 and 2015. Contact Alex Heber, uspress@xero.com; Reed Handley, reed@blissintegrated.com; (212) 840­0088

[meganarketinglove-blog]

IBM Watson Health Closes Acquisition of Truven Health Analytics

Armonk, NY - 08 Apr 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM) Watson Health today announced it has completed the $2.6 billion acquisition of Truven Health Analytics, a leading provider of cloud-based healthcare data, analytics and insights. Truven brings more than 8,500 clients to the Watson Health portfolio, including U.S. federal and state government agencies, employers, health plans, hospitals, clinicians and life sciences companies. Data and insights from Truven inform benefit decisions for one in three Americans.

With the completion of the acquisition, IBM and Truven data scientists will begin the process of using Watson Health’s cognitive capabilities to derive insights from Truven's health data. Through Truven, IBM gains extensive data spanning cost, claims, quality and outcomes information. IBM anticipates that healthcare organizations will tap into this cloud-based data to take previously disparate data sets, including vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, and combine them together to create unique insights that help inform a broad range of health decisions in an effort to improve the quality of care at lower cost. Data from Truven, along with an array of solutions and services, will also help optimize IBM offerings for value-based care.

This is IBM’s fourth major health data related acquisition since launching the Watson Health unit in April 2015. Truven will become part of IBM Watson Health and the acquisition bolsters the business unit’s global talent footprint to more than 5,000 employees, including hundreds of clinicians, epidemiologists, statisticians, healthcare administrators, policy experts and healthcare consultants.

About IBM Watson Health

Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing capability representing a new era in computing. The system, delivered through the cloud, analyzes high volumes of data, understands complex questions posed in natural language, and proposes evidence-based answers. Watson continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. In April 2015, the company launched IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform. The new unit will help improve the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers to innovate by surfacing insights from the massive amount of personal health data being created and shared daily. The Watson Health Cloud allows this information to be de-identified, shared and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing aggregated view of clinical, research and social health data. For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/watson. For more information on IBM Watson Health, visit: ibm.com/watsonhealth.

Contact(s) information

Lorie Fiber IBM Media Relations 1 (646) 318-0575 lfiber@us.ibm.com

Ariana Nikitas Truven Health Analytics 1 (312) 533-3437 (office) 1 (773) 490-5657 (cell) ariana.nikitas@truvenhealth.com

[meganarketinglove-blog]

1-800-FLOWERS.COM Partners with IBM Commerce on Cloud for Digital Transformation Leading Gift Provider Delivers Seamless Omni-channel Customer Experience across Multiple Brands

ARMONK, NY - 08 Apr 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. has chosen IBM's Commerce on Cloud solution to provide the retailer's global customers with a seamless experience that makes it easy to transact across all 1-800-FLOWERS.COM's brands, from Harry & David, to Wolferman’s to Fannie May to 1800-FLOWERS.COM, and deliver customers a unified omni-channel experience across the web, mobile or call center channel.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc has selected IBM Commerce on Cloud to manage tens of thousands of customer interactions occurring daily across all of its brands from Harry & David and Wolferman’s to Fannie May and 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. (Credit: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM)

Using

IBM Commerce on Cloud

order management capabilities,

1-800-FLOWERS.COM

can now address the omni-channel e-commerce needs of their customers by being able to better manage the order process across all their brands. The biggest challenge 1-800-FLOWERS.COM had was solving the complexity introduced by having separate fulfillment processes for every brand and providing customers ordering from more than one brand the visibility into the status of their multi-brand orders online. With more customers placing orders across multi brands, it became critical for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM to adopt a fulfillment capability that could deliver the seamless experience expected by today’s customers. By implementing their order and fulfillment solution on the

IBM Cloud

, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM will now enhance its customer experience, significantly reduce the amount of time and costs associated with managing large infrastructures and more efficiently manage seasonal spikes that are prevalent in their business.

"Our customers are coming to us, across all of our brands, to help them address their many gifting and celebratory needs. It’s our job to deliver a convenient and enjoyable customer experience every time we interact with them. We do this through a combination of truly original products and an expanding range of services – and IBM’s Commerce on Cloud solution is helping us deliver on that promise,” said Chris McCann, President,

1-800-FLOWERS.COM

, Inc.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM continues to digitally transform itself to create delightful moments for its customers. Now, the leading gourmet food and floral gift provider will realize significant benefits in speed and agility offered by IBM Cloud, which allows it to handle large volumes of orders without having to worry about the limitations of server space. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM's future plans include infusing IBM’s cognitive capabilities into the platform to enhance its ability to provide highly personalized customer experiences.

"IBM Commerce is helping industry leaders like 1-800-FLOWERS.COM deliver the best personalized online experience for their customers that results in increased brand loyalty and revenue for our clients,” said Steve Mello, VP, Strategy & Offering Management, IBM Commerce. “With the IBM Commerce on Cloud order management capabilities, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM will make it easy for their customers to transact across all of their brands, delivering an exceptional customer experience with every touch point.”###

Learn more about today's news on the IBM Commerce Blog http://ibm.co/1RHRcuk

About IBM Commerce on Cloud IBM Commerce on Cloud enables clients to quickly go-to-market with eCommerce and fulfillment solutions, while helping clients understand customer behavior and use insights to help deliver highly personalized and relevant experiences at every touch point. For more information on IBM Commerce on Cloud, please click here.

Contact(s) information

Lizette Kodama IBM Media Relations 1 (646) 675-0750 lkodama@us.ibm.com

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Advertise in this space.

To easily process consumer behavior data, serve ads in real time, and deliver Web and mobile sites for custom campaigns, you need an infrastructure provider with power and flexibility.

SoftLayer infrastructure provides the performance, control, and scalability you need to build the perfect environment for digital marketing, advertising, and media applications.

Higher Performance

Maximize performance with on-demand deployment of bare metal servers (with single to quad processors, using four to 16 cores) and virtual servers (with guaranteed 2.0GHz cores and no oversubscription). Provision exactly what you need, including RAM, OS, storage, network, and more. Our cloud servers meet your most rigorous demands for ad serving, content streaming, and anything else you can dream up.

Better Scalability

SoftLayer servers and services are available in real-time via our portal or API. Get automated deployment of virtual servers, bare metal servers, firewalls, load balancers, and more, whenever you need them. When a client requests a new ad campaign or you need to scale at the last minute, your SoftLayer environment can be ready to handle the additional workload quickly. All services are billed by the hour or by the month with no long-term contracts for flexible paying-as-you-go.

Exceptional Network Performance

Our unique multi-layer network architecture seamlessly integrates distinct public, private, and data out-of-band management connectivity. Our public network provides more than 2,000Gbps of bandwidth and offers unmetered inbound traffic ensuring fast and easy data transmission to users around the world. Our private network connects all SoftLayer data centers and points of presence for true global availability and secure out-of-band management.

Total Flexibility & Control

Enjoy complete freedom to choose the technology that best fits your needs. Deploy a bare metal server, and if your application needs change, use our Flex Images technology to image it and redeploy on a virtual server (or vice versa). Control it all via our robust API, Command Line Interface, easy-to-use portal, or mobile apps for iOS, Android, or Windows Phone.

SoftLayer Cloud Solutions at Work

To see how digital marketing companies are using SoftLayer’s cloud platform to succeed, check out the following customers’ stories:

Create Your Own Digital Marketing Solution

No two digital marketing infrastructure solutions are the same. SoftLayer allows you to design (and only pay for) the infrastructure your that solution requires. Here are some of the typical components you’ll find in many digital marketing infrastructure solutions.

Load Balancing

Increase application or site availability and performance by distributing traffic across local or globally diverse resources.

Learn More

Database Servers

Customize bare metal servers’ RAM and CPU configurations for optimal I/O speeds for specific database applications.

Learn More

Application Servers

Power applications with robust physical dedicated servers for fast response times.

Learn More

Web Servers

Scale virtual cloud servers on-demand to meet site load requirements during traffic spikes.

Learn More

Object Storage

Tag, store, and find data in a robust, infinitely scalable object storage solution with built-in search and CDN integration.

Learn More

Content Delivery Network

Put content on 24 nodes throughout the cloud, keeping it closer to end users to minimize the distance the data has to travel.

Learn More

Hardware Firewall

Protect servers from malicious activity with enterprise-grade firewalls provisioned on demand.

Learn More

Backup

Customize bare metal servers’ RAM and CPU configurations for optimal I/O speeds for specific database applications.

Learn More

Considering a move to cloud resources?Calculate how much you can save compared with on-premises IT.

The benefits of cloud computing extend beyond the technology benefits of scalability, flexibility, and performance. Compare the costs of an on-premises IT environment with equivalent resources on the SoftLayer platform to calculate the capex and opex savings of our cloud resources.

[meganarketinglove-blog]

Zendesk Announces Date of First Quarter 2016 Financial Results

SAN FRANCISCO – April 6, 2016 – Zendesk, Inc. (NYSE: ZEN) today announced that it will release financial results for the first fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2016, following the close of the U.S. markets on Tuesday, May 3, 2016.

This quarter, Zendesk will introduce a new approach and format for its quarterly earnings announcement and conference call. In conjunction with its earnings press release, the company will post a detailed shareholder letter to its Investor Relations websitehttps://investor.zendesk.com. The letter will provide commentary from the senior management team regarding the company’s financial and operational performance, and the conference call will focus on answering questions about the results.

Zendesk will host a conference call to answer questions at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, on Tuesday, May 3, 2016. A live webcast of the conference call will be available at https://investor.zendesk.com. The conference call can also be accessed by dialing 877-201-0168, or +1 647-788-4901 (outside the U.S. and Canada). The conference ID is 85341528. A replay of the call via webcast will be available at https://investor.zendesk.com or by dialing 855-859-2056 or +1 404-537-3406 (outside the U.S. and Canada) and entering passcode 85341528. The dial-in replay will be available until the end of day May 5, 2016. The webcast replay will be available for 12 months.

About Zendesk

Zendesk provides a customer service platform designed to bring organizations and their customers closer together. With more than 69,000 paid customer accounts, Zendesk’s products are used by organizations in 150 countries and territories to provide support in more than 40 languages. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, Zendesk has operations in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.