Laptops - Refurbished and Used

Dell Acquires AppAssure

2012-02-24T10:31:00.003-08:00

Date : 2/24/2012

Round Rock, Texas

AppAssure’s award-winning technology delivers reliable application recovery from customers’ servers to their datacenter and their cloud.
AppAssure’s technology enhances Dell’s storage and software portfolios, enabling it to offer backup and recovery software that protects a company’s entire application infrastructure.
AppAssure is the first software acquisition by Dell since the formation of its software group.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) today announced it has acquired AppAssure, a global leader in complete application protection for virtual, physical and cloud infrastructures. The acquisition of AppAssure, the nation’s fastest-growing¹backup software technology company, further extends Dell’s comprehensive storage and software strategy.

Dell has taken significant steps over the past three years to expand its storage portfolio to offer customers a complete range of world-class storage products and solutions. AppAssure’s leading backup solutions enhance Dell’s existing storage capabilities by providing customers confidence that their applications and data are fully protected.

Dell provides customers with solutions that help manage the growing complexity in IT and the rapid explosion in data. Today, Dell offers a full portfolio of Storage Area Network and Network Attached Storage solutions, based on its Fluid Data architecture, and is complementing these offerings with security, data compression and backup and restore capabilities. Dell simplifies technology to make storage products more accessible to businesses of all sizes.

AppAssure Leadership
AppAssure recently reported 194 percent revenue growth year-over-year in 2011² and 19 consecutive quarters of growth and Inc. Magazine³ has ranked AppAssure as the nation’s fastest-growing backup and replication software company.

AppAssure’s award-winning⁴ technology delivers reliable application recovery from customers’ servers to their datacenter and their cloud. AppAssure goes beyond simply protecting data, to protecting entire applications enabling service providers and enterprises to adopt a cloud model to deliver fast, reliable and secure data protection. AppAssure delivers the industry’s fastest backup and recovery⁵ of virtual servers, including VMware, Hyper-V and XenServer, as well as physical servers.

AppAssure was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Reston, Va. Bain Capital Ventures is the lead institutional investor in AppAssure and the remainder of the company is employee-owned. Dell plans to keep AppAssure’s approximately 230 employees and will continue to invest in additional engineering and sales capability to grow this business. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Quotes
“AppAssure’s unique architecture delivers innovative cloud-enabled backup and replication solutions that meet the challenges of protecting the explosive growth of data in both virtual and physical environments,” said Brad Anderson, president, Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell. “At a practical level, AppAssure enables Dell customers to seamlessly move and replicate data across our existing platforms -- from an EqualLogic array in a remote office to a Compellent array at a data recovery site.”

“Dell’s acquisition of AppAssure is a strategic industry move given its relentless focus on providing innovative solutions to protect customers’ applications and data in cloud, virtual and physical environments,” said Najaf Husain, president and CEO, AppAssure. “Combining Dell’s global brand, scale, reach and existing storage portfolio with our innovative technology provides customers with world-class data protection and recovery capabilities in their virtual, physical and cloud environments.”

"AppAssure's speed and ease of use are great, and the continuous backup makes recovery go really smoothly," said Dave Buzzell, CIO of Sedona Group. "Our IT environment is constantly changing, and only AppAssure has been able to keep up with it. We estimate that we can keep three years of continuous backups just due to AppAssure's true global deduplication and compression technology. That's amazing."

About AppAssure
AppAssure, the No. 1 backup for VM, physical and cloud environments, is a global leader in complete server, application and data protection. The company provides a unified and integrated backup and replication software that is engineered on innovative and groundbreaking technologies which offer near-zero recovery time, 100% recoverability assurance, and cross-platform virtual and physical server recovery (P2V, V2V, V2P or P2P). Building on a history of innovation and multiple industry firsts, AppAssure continues to set the standard in virtual and physical server data protection.

About DellDell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers worldwide innovative technology, business solutions and services they trust and value. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

Motorola Mobility Launches RAZR™ in White at Phones 4u in the UK

2012-02-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

Slick design and features comes with added wow factor as Phones 4u customers get a chance to show off their latest smartphone at Snowbombing – the greatest show on snow

Feb. 23, 2012

LONDON – Feb. 23, 2012 – More seductive than ever, the astonishing Motorola RAZR^™ fromMotorola Mobility UK Limited just got cooler with the availability of a pristine white version at Phones 4u. This impossibly thin and lightweight smartphone is distinguished by its unique design, and now offers two classic colour choices – original black or pristine white.

Motorola RAZR in white is available for pre-order starting today, both online and in-store, from free from £21.50 a month on contract. All customers who pre-order or purchase the Motorola RAZR in either black or white before 25^th March, 2012, will be entered into a prize draw to win 2 tickets to Snowbombing, the greatest show on snow, taking place in Mayrhofen, Austria (April 9-14).

“We are delighted to be the first UK retailer to stock Motorola RAZR in white, offering our customers even more choice when it comes to this iconic handset. Customers have often had to make a choice between fashion and function, however this feature-packed smartphone delivers the best of both worlds,” said Scott Hooton, Phones 4u Chief Commercial Officer. “We’re confident that the white edition and the fantastic Snowbombing promotion that kicks off today will be a huge hit with our customers.”

Motorola RAZR boasts a gorgeous sculpted, glass screen, diamond-cut aluminum accents, and a hyper-vibrant 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display for incredible vivid images. It also sports KEVLAR^® fiber (yes, that KEVLAR) and Corning^® Gorilla^® Glass to help the screen stand up to scratches and scrapes. And every part of the Motorola RAZR is protected by a splash-guard coating, which even extends to the electrical boards inside.

“Since we re-imagined the iconic RAZR brand, the new Motorola RAZR has wowed consumers across the globe with its beauty inside and out,” said said Victoria McManus, UK marketing director, Motorola Mobility. “Brits are renowned for their style, sophistication and love of cutting-edge technology, so the new white Motorola RAZR will surely stand out from the smartphone crowd, whether it’s destined for the runway or the boardroom.”

Motorola RAZR is beautiful on the inside too, with 1GB of RAM and a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and Android^™ 2.3.5, enabling a lightning-fast user interface and the power to multi-task like never before.

You can rock your playlists while checking email, breeze through photos – all at the same time, without delay. Motorola RAZR comes preloaded with the Motorola MotoCast^™ app¹, giving the power to stream or download content from a home or work computer straight to the device so your personal content is always within reach.

Watch movies on a screen that sports a wider range of colors than most LCD HDTVs. And when tired of watching (as if), use the cinematic-quality front-facing 720p HD video camera and 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with even sharper 1080p HD video capture to create your own movies – all with image-stabilization technology to turn your life into art without breaking a sweat.

Work Smart, Not Hard

Government-grade encryption ensures that your email, contacts and calendar are fully protected. Even your strict IT manager will be impressed. Motorola RAZR offers remarkably intelligent, preloaded application Smart Actions – that that lets you automate everyday tasks and enable better battery life. Smart Actions can turn down the ringer when you step into work, change the Bluetooth^® and GPS settings when you get home to save battery, or send a text to someone if you cannot answer their call.

Availability

For further information on, or to pre-order the Motorola RAZR today, click here.

The Motorola RAZR in white will be available from 1st March. Free from £21.50 a month on contract, on a choice of networks.

About Motorola Mobility
Motorola Mobility, Inc. (NYSE:MMI) fuses innovative technology with human insights to create experiences that simplify, connect and enrich people's lives. Our portfolio includes converged mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets; wireless accessories; end-to-end video and data delivery; and management solutions, including set-tops and data-access devices. For more information, visit motorola.com/mobility.

Oracle Offers Free Trial of Innovative Ksplice Zero-Downtime Updates to Red Hat Customers

2012-02-22T08:08:00.001-08:00

Also Makes Ksplice Zero-Downtime Updates Available for Oracle’s Red Hat Compatible Kernel

Redwood Shores, Calif. – February 22, 2012

News Facts

Oracle today introduced a 30-day free trial of Oracle’s Ksplice zero-downtime kernel update technology for Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers.

Oracle is the only enterprise Linux provider that can offer zero-downtime updates that enable customers to apply security updates, diagnostic patches and critical bug fixes without rebooting.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers can experience the benefit of Ksplice zero-downtime kernel updates for the kernels they have installed today without any system reconfiguration.

Access the 30-day free Ksplice trial here. Terms, conditions and restrictions apply.

Oracle also announced that Ksplice zero-downtime kernel updates for Oracle’s Red Hat Compatible Kernel are now available to Oracle Linux Premier Support customers. Zero-downtime updates for Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel have been available since September 2011.

Additionally, Oracle extended the support lifecycle for Oracle Linux from eight to ten years, further enhancing the industry’s most comprehensive and low-cost Linux support program.

Oracle’s Linux support program has distinguished itself from the start by offering more value to customers through lifetime support policies, premier backporting, comprehensive legal indemnification, best practices for deployment, and lower cost.

Supporting Quote

"From day one, Oracle has been focused on offering the best Linux for enterprise computing, both from a product and support perspective,” said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle senior vice president, Linux and Virtualization Engineering. “With the innovative zero-downtime update capabilities delivered through Ksplice, and the extended support lifecycle for Oracle Linux, Oracle continues to set the industry standard for Linux in the enterprise.”

Supporting Resources

30-day Ksplice trial for RHEL customers

Oracle Linux

Oracle Linux Support

Oracle and Ksplice

Oracle Linux Blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

About Oracle

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

Trademarks

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

LG U+ Trials Cisco Mobile Internet Solutions for Voice-over-LTE

2012-02-21T07:57:00.001-08:00

Korea's First Voice-over-LTE Network Will Provide Reliable Voice Services to Increasing Number of 4G Customers

Related Information

Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Internet Technology Group, Cisco

Cisco ASR 5000

SEOUL, Korea, and SAN JOSE, Calif., USA, Feb. 21, 2012 – Cisco today announced that LG U+, the leading total telecommunication service provider in Korea, will trial two Ciscomobile Internet solutionsto deliver voice, video and messaging services to LG U+'s rapidly growing number of 4G long-term evolution (LTE) customers.

The Cisco® V2oLTE (Voice and Video over Long-Term Evolution) solution, based on the Cisco ASR 5000 Series multimedia core platform, will help LG U+ meet the performance challenge of carrying voice traffic over LTE. Cisco provides a complete solution for V2oLTE that includes the industry's highest-performing Call Session Control Function, unique deployment flexibility and a comprehensive application layer portfolio.

Highlights/Key Facts

VoLTE is a standard way of delivering voice and messaging services for Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network, which is an all Internet Protocol (IP) system. The system utilizes IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) specifications as its basis.

LTE is a wireless broadband technology that supports roaming Internet access via mobile phones and devices. It has been labeled fourth-generation, or 4G, technology because of its download speeds and quality are superior to existing 2G and 3G networks.

LG U+ is experiencing rapidgrowth in 4G LTE devices. As LG U+ approaches millions of LTE customers, it needed a high-performance solution to manage the resulting growth in signaling traffic.

With its industry-leading scalability and reliability, the Cisco ASR 5000 Series provides LG U+ with a cost-effective increase in performance and capacity without adding a large amount of additional equipment.

The Cisco ASR 5000 Series provides significant cost savings for LG U+, as it reduces the number of Call Session Control Function nodes in the network, a central component to signaling and control within the LG U+'s IP IMS network. In addition, the Cisco ASR 5000 Series has the control-plane capacity to handle message floods during mass registration events and increasing amount of control traffic that is occurring as smart devices and applications proliferate.

The Cisco ASR 5000 Series is also designed specifically for mobile broadband networks and features a distributed architecture with maximum scalability and integrated intelligence.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) mobile data traffic inKorea will grow eightfold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of50percent. Overall, in Korea, mobile data traffic is expected to grow two times as fast as fixed IP traffic from 2011 to 2016. This rapid growth raises the demand for high-quality mobile broadband networks.

Supporting Quotes

Chang Woo Lee, senior vice president, Network Operations,LG U+

"LG U+ has always prided itself on the quality of its voice services, and we expect to provide the same level of quality to our 4G LTE customers. We expect the Cisco V2oLTE solution will help enable us deliver the highest levels of performance, quality and reliability to our customers -- anytime, anywhere."

Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Internet Technology Group, Cisco

"We are proud to be a part of LG U+'s efforts to improve its IP IMS network for the benefit of its customers. We look forward to working with LG U+ over the coming months to develop and deploy these innovative Cisco Mobile Internet solutions."

Supporting Resources

LG U+
Cisco
Cisco Service Provider Solutions
View the full Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Forecast update for 2011-2016
Keep up with Cisco's news by visiting the company's Platform Blog
For more information about Cisco's service provider news and activities visit SP360 or Twitter @CiscoSP360and @CiscoSPVideo
To join the conversation on Mobility: Cisco Mobility Community
Subscribe to Cisco's SP360 Feed

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go tohttp://newsroom.cisco.com.

Source: Cisco

Motorola Mobility and Movistar Deliver the Smartphone that Works and Plays as Hard as You Do: Motorola PRO+

2012-02-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

A powerful smartphone optimized for business but fun enough to use for your personal life – Motorola PRO+ is your personal assistant and best friend

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Feb. 16, 2012 – Life is full of demands, and we all could use a little extra help. With the sleek and sophisticated Motorola PRO+, brought to you by Motorola Mobility of Argentina S.A. and Movistar, you can have your own personal assistant that fits right in your pocket. Motorola PRO+ gives you the power to edit important documents on the go, multitask when every second counts, and encrypt sensitive work information so your IT manager can sleep at night. This sublime blend of touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard and Android™ 2.3 (Gingerbread) makes this smartphone ready for anything. The Motorola PRO+ will be available in Argentina through Movistar starting next days with a price of $1199 with a plan of $199, or $1399 with a plan of $149. Movistar Business and Professionals clients will also be able to access to the same promotional price of $1199, acquiring the Business and Professionals plan 1000 (PLMC20 $208+imp); and to the $1399 with a Full Navigation plan (ECE1GB $125 + imp).

Motorola PRO+ has a quick 1GHz processor and physical QWERTZ keyboard for more efficient typing and texting when you need to update a client on the fly. The device is also packed with productivity features to make your life easier and to help you impress your boss, including the pre-loaded Quickoffice Connect for accessing, creating and editing documents on-the-go. We know that it’s a fast-paced world, going in and out of widgets wastes precious time, so now key widgets – such as your calendar and email – are scrollable, direct from your home screen

Motorola PRO+ merges all of your personal and business information for you in a convenient system designed to make your life easier. Take the pressure off knowing Motorola PRO+ syncs services from multiple sources, so all your contacts are viewable the way you want them, calendar options are available to arrange, edit, and respond to meeting invites, and even direct dial conference dial options, and intuitive email solutions that can even anticipate who you may be sending an email to before you do. Its 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities enables you to connect multiple devices, such as a laptop or tablet, for quick access to the Web, corporate email and calendar synching. Plus, it features scratch resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass so tossing your phone in your bag or pocket doesn’t have to be a disaster

“Motorola PRO+ is an incredibly efficient smartphone; built to consolidate work and personal life for an advanced smartphone experience,” said Germán Greco, marketing product director, Motorola Mobility. “Why shouldn’t you expect your smartphone to make your life easier and to give you an edge at work? That’s our goal at Motorola.”

Motorola PRO+ knows how to have fun too – it is ready for full customization to bring you the games and applications most important to you. It is preloaded with Music Player and Gallery so you can listen to your music, receive updates on music news and events with your favorite artists, and stay in touch with friends whether you’re at work or play. Plus, with Adobe® Flash® Player 10.3, you’ll be able to access the online content you love. Motorola PRO+ is also preloaded with the latest *Google Mobile™ services including Google Maps™ 5.0, Google Talk™ and over 400,000 apps from Android Market™.

Motorola PRO+ is a smartphone that you and your IT department can agree upon. Nothing says business ready better than the leading security features; whether it’s remote wipe to your device and SD card, password expiration and history, or full encryption, your IT manager will breathe a sigh of relief. Motorola PRO+ also comes loaded with 25 Exchange ActiveSync security policies – including PIN lock, auto-discovery of Exchange Servers, Extended Device Management API’s and 3LM integration. Your sensitive information – your career – is guarded in this virtual vault with Motorola PRO+.

Smart Accessories
A suite of smart accessories ensures users get the most from the Motorola Pro+. Available accessories include Bluetooth Headset, Bluetooth Car Kit, Portable Power, and Car Charger For more information on Motorola PRO+ please visit www.motorola.com/mobility.

Availability
Motorola PRO+ is expected to be available in Argentina through Movistar starting next days with a price of $1199 with a plan of $199, or $1399 with a plan of $149. For further information about Motorola PRO+, please visit www.motorola.com/mobility

About Movistar in Argentina
Movistar is the operator of Telefónica Group's cellular market inArgentina, a country with more than 16.7 million customers, giving it leadership in the domestic market and a leading position in the launch product and service innovations in mobile telephony.

About Telefónica Group
Globally, Telefónica is the first company in Latin America, the second integrated telecommunications company in the world andthe third by market capitalization in the industry, serving more than295 million customers in 25 countries.
In Argentina has more than 16.7 million mobile lines, 1.5 millionbroadband accesses and 4.6 million fixed lines.

AT&T Poll Says Use of Tablets, 4G Devices, GPS Navigation Mobile Apps on the Rise Among Small Businesses

2012-02-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

Small Businesses in Dallas and Washington D.C. Rank Highest in 'WiQ' Among Markets Surveyed

Dallas, Texas, February 17, 2012

When it comes to technology, small businesses continue to ratchet up their use of emerging wireless solutions, including tablet computers, 4G devices, and GPS navigation mobile apps. This according to the just-released 2012 AT&T* Small Business Technology Poll**. More specifically, the national survey of small businesses revealed the following:

General Wireless Technologies:

Nearly all small businesses (96%) surveyed use wireless technologies in their operations, with almost two-thirds (63%) indicating that they could not survive — or it would be a major challenge to survive — without wireless technologies.
More than four in 10 (43%) small businesses surveyed report all of their employees use wireless devices or technologies to work away from the office, a nearly 80% jump from three years ago.
Despite being a relatively new technology, two-thirds (67%) of small businesses surveyed indicate that they use tablet computers, up from 57% a year ago.
By end of 2012, some 50% of small businesses surveyed expect to have all their employees using wireless technologies to work away from the office.

Smartphones:

85% of small businesses reported using smartphones for their operations, up from 80% last year and more than double the usage five years ago (42%).
4G Devices***:
One third of smartphones used by small businesses for business purposes are 4G.
- Nearly nine in 10 (86%) of the businesses using 4G smartphones are satisfied with the speed.
- Of those who don’t have 4G devices, more than one-third (35%) report that they expect to purchase 4G smartphones within the next year, and more than half (54%) within the next two years.
Keypads:
- 50% of small businesses indicated that touchscreen is the predominant type of keypad in their operations, followed by traditional QWERTY keypads at 21%.
  21% indicated that their businesses use both types of smartphone keypads.

Mobile Applications:

Almost one-third (30%) of small businesses surveyed use mobile apps for their business, with key reasons being to save time, increase productivity and reduce costs.
Mobile apps are gaining in importance for small businesses that use them, with half (50%) saying they could not survive – or it would be a major challenge to survive – without mobile apps, a 31% jump over the past year.
Of small businesses using mobile apps, GPS navigation and mapping are by far the most popular with 80% of business owners using them, followed by location-based services (44%) and social media marketing (42%).

Regional Variations: Based on responses to questions regarding four factors – perceived importance of wireless, use of wireless technology, use of mobile apps, and percentage of employees using wireless to work remotely – a Wireless Quotient, or “WiQ,” was calculated for each of the 12 markets surveyed. Rankings from highest to lowest follow:

Dallas
Washington, D.C.
Atlanta
Indianapolis
San Francisco
Miami
San Diego
Chicago
Boston
Oklahoma
Kansas City
Cleveland

Quotes

“More than ever, we’re seeing small businesses leverage the benefits afforded by wireless technologies, whether they be smartphones, tablets, mobile apps, or 4G speeds,” said Ebrahim Keshavarz, AT&T vice president of Small Business Product Management. “There’s no doubt that with ‘virtual offices’ and remote workforces becoming more and more prevalent, AT&T will remain committed to offering innovative and affordable mobility solutions, helping small businesses reduce costs and increase productivity over both the short- and long-term.”

For more information and additional results from the AT&T Small Business Technology Poll, including market variations, please visit the poll’s media kit. Also, here’s a video, highlighting poll results.

General Information

Small businesses that want more information about all AT&T products and services can visit AT&T Small Business. For free business resources such as webinars, articles, case studies and best practices, they can visit AT&T Small Business InSite.

Additionally, real-time information and updates can be found on the AT&T Small Business Facebook page and AT&T Small Business Twitter channel.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

** Study Methodology – The results of the “AT&T Small Business Technology Poll” are based on an online survey, conducted in November 2011, of 2,513 small business owners and/or employees responsible for Information Technology (IT). Specifically, 1,232 surveys were completed by small businesses located throughout the United States (National data) and 1,281 surveys were completed by small businesses located in 12 markets – about 100 in each market (Market data). The sample of participating small businesses, having between 2 and 99 employees, was drawn from e-Rewards’ online business panel of companies. Eleven of the 12 metropolitan areas are based on DMAs (Designated Market Areas). The other market is the state of Oklahoma.

***4G speeds delivered by LTE in select markets, or HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul, where available. Deployment ongoing. Compatible device and data plan required. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Learn more at att.com/network

About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse^® and AT&T |DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available athttp://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.

^© 2012 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. Mobile broadband not available in all areas. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies.

VMware Partners with Peake Healthcare Innovations to Deliver New Collaborative Medical Imaging Cloud

2012-02-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

Proven Cloud Infrastructure and End-User Computing Platforms from VMware, Supported by Intel Technology, Can Help Health Care Providers Improve Patient Care

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Feb. 16, 2012 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced that its solutions will underpin a new approach to delivering cloud-based collaborative patient care from Peake Healthcare Innovations, a joint venture of Harris Corporation and Johns Hopkins Medicine. Peake is working with VMware and Intel Corporation to provide a secure cloud platform for the management and delivery of enterprise medical imaging to any health care facility by enabling physicians and other health care personnel to quickly and securely access medical images from a variety of end-user devices.

"The medical imaging cloud is an ideal application for virtualization and cloud infrastructure technology because it can improve the quality of patient care by enabling physicians to review patient images in a collaborative, secure environment," said Frank Nydam, senior director, Healthcare, VMware. "We are pleased to be working with Peake Healthcare Innovations to bring to market an innovative offering that can transform the quality and delivery of patient care, along with the ability to lower costs."

Intel technology will help support the Peake cloud solution and enable visualization of medical imaging. Intel and VMware have collaborated closely on the architectural enhancements in the Intel® Xeon™ processor and software optimization in VMware vSphere® to boost performance intelligently, increase consolidation ratios and enable servers of different generations to be easily managed from the same pool of infrastructure resources. In addition, desktop virtualization via VMware View™ enables doctors and other healthcare personnel to access and collaborate on high-resolution medical images required by medical personnel due to its ability to deliver fully lossless images. Healthcare IT based on Intel and VMware innovation enables organizations of all types to provide high quality, accessible, and economical products and services.

"Intel's technology is enabling cloud-computing usage models that synergize compute power, performance, and protection to help health care organizations control costs and meet stringent security and compliance requirements. We are excited about the opportunity to work with Peake Healthcare Innovations to bring this new collaborative medical imaging cloud to market," said Rick Cnossen, Worldwide Director of Health IT, Intel.

Federated Image Archive to Connect Teams Within and Between Enterprises

Peake Healthcare Innovations will move enterprise image storage and anytime, anywhere clinical and diagnostic viewing into the cloud, creating enhanced capabilities and clinical value not available today. By aggregating imaging records within and between health care institutions, and delivering a cloud-based solution leveraging a unique virtualized platform, Peake will provide economies of scale and can lower the total cost of ownership over traditional “on premise” delivery, while maintaining the performance, reliability and security associated with business-critical systems.

This new offering will enable diagnostic viewing by leveraging VMware vSphere® and VMware View™.

"Peake is entering the marketplace at an important inflection point as health care providers feel more and more pressure from regulatory and reimbursement challenges. Our goal is to deliver solutions that take the burdens of cost, security and performance off our customers and put them squarely on our shoulders,” said Adam Zaricki, president of Peake Healthcare Innovations. “Our deployment of VMware and Intel technologies gives us the opportunity to exceed the expectations of our market and the valued customers we serve."

VMware Solutions for Healthcare Providers

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 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 300,000 customers and 25,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

About Peake Healthcare Innovations
Peake Healthcare Innovations is an information technology company providing health information and medical image management solutions for global markets. A joint venture of Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) and Johns Hopkins Medicine, Peake offers transformative, cloud-based medical image management solutions and services that deliver security, high performance and reliability at lower cost. The PeakeSecure™ cloud archiving platform facilitates the aggregation and sharing of medical images across all PACS within a multi-facility enterprise, while providing a choice of integrated best-in-class viewing applications. The solution leverages secure , multi-site replication, advanced master person index (MPI) technologies, and standards-based architectures to deliver highly reliable services. Peake is building a connected community that for the first time enables choice, while advancing information accessibility and reliability for all. To learn more, visit www.peakehealthcare.com.

Source: VMWare

VMware Unveils New Programs, Solution Competencies, Rewards Designed to Help Partners Deliver Solutions That Motivate Customers to Transform IT for the Cloud

2012-02-15T09:02:00.001-08:00

Training, Enablement Momentum Underscores VMware Commitment to Help Partners Become Trusted Advisers to their Customers Beyond Core Virtualization

LAS VEGAS, Nev., Feb. 14, 2012 –Today at VMware Partner Exchange 2012, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, unveiled new solution competencies, programs and rewards designed to help partners guide their customers into the Cloud Era. More than 4,000 attendees are expected – growth of more than 20 percent compared to 2011 – as well as more than 90 sponsors and exhibitors including Arrow ECS, Avnet, Carahsoft, Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Ingram Micro, Kapersky Lab, Mozy, NetApp, Quest Software, PeakColo, Symantec, Tech Data Corp., Trend Micro, Veeam Software and Wyse Technology. With broad industry participation, VMware Partner Exchange continues to attract IT experts from around the world to hear about the latest virtualization and cloud technology trends and learn hands-on how they can become the trusted advisers that will move customers to the next phase of IT as a Service.

"Our partner community is the strategic channel for educating and enabling customers from small and medium businesses to the enterprise on the immediate opportunity of the cloud,” said Scott Aronson, senior vice president, Global Channels and Alliances, VMware. “VMware Partner Exchange offers partners the chance to learn how to help customers progress on their cloud journey, with extensive content and engagements that are designed to expand partners’ expertise in a pragmatic way yet are grounded in VMware’s forward-looking technology vision. With our continued investments in partner enablement programs for the VMware Partner Network and our technology leadership, VMware is ideally suited to be the preferred business partner to help grow and transform businesses for the cloud."

New Programs, Solution Competencies, Rewards Drive Continued Partner Success, Differentiation and Leadership and Innovation

VMware unveiled new programs, solution competencies and rewards at VMware Partner Exchange 2012 designed to help partners prepare for the arrival of the Cloud Era while simplifying the experience of doing business with VMware:

New Solution Provider Program Enhancements and Solution Competencies: Research shows partners with at least one solution competency on average sell 3.5x more than those without a competency. Solution competencies are also key to unlocking additional rewards. Premier- and Enterprise-level partners in the VMware Partner Network are now asked to achieve additional solution competencies in order to strengthen their strategic value to their customers, drive partner success, and increase their competitive differentiation for delivering complete cloud computing solutions.

In addition, VMware is introducing or making available these three solution competencies:

Virtualization of Business-Critical Applications (VBCA): Available today, this solution competency is designed to enable partners to provide guidance and solutions for virtualizing business-critical applications such as Exchange, SQL, Oracle and SAP.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):Available today, this new competency is designed to accelerate partner delivery of and extend their expertise in VMware hybrid cloud solutions and services in a growing market.
Management: Available later in Q1 2012, this solution competency is designed to enable and reward partners that help customers simplify and automate the operations of virtual and cloud environments with the VMware vCenter™ Operations Management Suite.

Incentive Rewards Program Optimization: Enhancements to VMware’s advantage+ and Solution Rewards incentive programs can enable partners to double their incentives in 2012. Partners that register deals through advantage+ for net-new VMware customers will now be eligible for a new backend bonus rebate. Through Solution Rewards, partners with solution competencies will now be eligible for a first-time sale bonus rebate when they sell a new solution outside the Infrastructure Virtualization solution competency to an existing customer for the first time.

Consulting and Integration Partner Program (CIPP): A new program for partners whose predominant business model is consulting, CIPP provides practice-based technical enablement and a collaborative approach to field engagement. Program benefits include optimized technical and marketing enablement, support for industry- and technology-specific solutions, joint business planning, and project pipeline management.

Enhanced Programs for Small and Medium Businesses: Announcing an increased investment in small and medium business (SMB) partner programs, VMware unveiled new tools and incentives designed to help speed the delivery of solutions for SMBs. These enhanced programs provide new demand creation tools, customer offers, on-demand access to free training videos, and increased incentives for SMB-related sales – all designed to enhance partner expertise in and delivery of SMB solutions.

Partner Recognition for OEM Sales: VMware is partnering with Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu Technology Solutions, HP and IBM to enable partners to apply their OEM-branded sales of VMware products as credits toward the VMware partner programs in which they participate. These credits can help partners progress to higher levels or achieve higher attainments within these programs, which can result in greater benefits and rewards.

VMware® Solution Exchange: Announced last month, this is a new online virtualization and cloud solutions marketplace where customers, partners and developers can converge to help simplify the process of evaluating and selecting business solutions through a centralized, self-service portal. VMware Solution Exchange features more than 2,000 technology partners that have built 3,500+ applications and 6,000+ infrastructure products that are compatible with VMware's portfolio of products – offering partners a broad range of validated joint solutions for the cloud and enabling both customer-to-partner and partner-to-partner collaboration.

Partner Rewards Incentive Management Platform: A new tool that provides partners easy-to-use dashboards and reports for tracking and managing their financial rewards achieved through the new advantage+ and Solution Rewards incentive program enhancements.

VMware Partner University Trains Record Number of Partners

Underscoring VMware’s investments in and commitment to providing programs that help partners and their customers progress on the cloud journey, VMware Partner University demonstrated another record year in 2011 for training and enabling partners to deliver VMware cloud solutions:

VMware Partner University: More than 215,000 individuals trained in 2011
Solution Competencies: More than 21,000 individuals took courses toward at least one solution competency:
- Infrastructure Virtualization: 28 percent growth (11,000+ individuals trained)
- Business Continuity: 48 percent growth (3,900+ individuals trained)
- Desktop Virtualization: 41 percent growth (6,200+ individuals trained)
Sales Accreditations: More than 23,000 individuals earned VMware Sales Professional (VSP) accreditations globally, representing 58 percent growth; more than 18,000 individuals earned VMware Technical Sales Professional (VTSP) accreditations globally, representing 59 percent growth
- VSP5, VTSP5 courses launched in Q3 2011 to train partners on the robust new features of the VMware vSphere® 5 platform
Technical Certifications:
- More than 5,600 individuals earned VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certifications globally, representing 39 percent growth
  - VCP5 launched in Q3 2011 to certify partners on the robust new features of the VMware vSphere 5 platform
- More than 450 individuals achieved the VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) certificate globally, demonstrating demand for this advanced designation
vmLIVE: More than 55,000 hours of training were delivered, with training now localized in EMEA and APJ regions
SolutionTrack and TechExpress: More than 40,000 hours of training were delivered, with four new course offerings focused on cloud infrastructure and desktop virtualization

Additional Resources

About VMware Partner Exchange 2012
VMware Partner Exchange 2012 is the leading global event for virtualization and cloud partners, bringing thousands of members from the VMware partner ecosystem together to discuss the future of the industry. With more than 170 breakout sessions and an extensive exhibitor pavilion, partners gain valuable insight on how to leverage new technologies to deliver next generation enterprise hybrid cloud solutions to customers. To learn more about VMware Partner Exchange visit www.vmwarepartnerexchange.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 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 350,000 customers and 50,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

Fastway Ushers In Cable Digitization with Next-Generation Cisco Set-Top Boxes

2012-02-14T10:30:00.001-08:00

HDTV, Video On Demand Among New Services To Be Available To Consumers

NEW DELHI, India, February 13, 2012 - Cisco today announced that it has been chosen by Fastway Transmissions Private Ltd (Fastway) to usher in cable digitization across its customer base in the key states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. As part of this initiative, Fastway is expected to deploy more than 2 million next-generation digital set-top boxes from Cisco, over the next two years. In addition to being one of the largest cable digitization projects in the country, Cisco® set top box comes at an affordable price point with an optimum feature set to suit Indian preferences.

By enabling services like residential TV, HDTV, gaming, digital video recording, video on demand and future ‘connected home' servicestoretail consumers, Fastway can now evolve from a cable distribution company to a lifestyle-experience provider. Fastway plans to provide broadband services and is currently working with universities and institutes in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to offer educational services. Cisco's cable digitization solutions provide the massive scaling and operational cost optimization benefits that cable operators need to transition to a digital platform, apart from being able to take advantage of Cisco Capital® leasing and finance options.

Supporting Quotes

Mr. Gurdeep Singh, managing director, Fastway commented, "Unlike direct-to-home players we do not charge our consumers upfront for set-top-boxes. The cost is recovered over multiple years. Cisco Capital has helped us with a great financing option that matched our cash flows. I am extremely excited to work with Cisco on this massive technology transformation from analog to digital, which I believe, will be a game changer for Fastway and the sector."

Mr. Peeush Mahajan, chief executive officer, Fastway, said, "By utilizing Cisco's next generation digital set top box, we can enhance the quality of our services, curb piracy and increase our subscription revenue by offering a plethora of innovative and interactive services giving us the competitive edge over direct-to-home players. Cisco's technology leadership and their understanding of the complexities of the cable distribution business helped them cement this deal."

Mr Sanjay Rohatgi, senior vice president, Service Providers, Cisco India & SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), said, "Today's consumers want their television viewing to be personal, social and an interactive experience. They want content to be delivered anytime, anywhere and on any device. Digitization opens a huge opportunity for cable service providers to monetize investments, and evolve as ‘experience providers'. I am happy that Fastway has taken a pioneering role in ushering digitization and I look forward to a long standing relationship with them."

Mr Vish Iyer, director, Video Architecture, Cisco Asia Pacific, said, "With Cisco's Connected Home Solutions portfolio, Fastway can evolve from a cable distribution company to a lifestyle-experience provider by enabling services like residential TV, HDTV, gaming, video on demand and broadband services to retail consumers. We are excited about this opportunity and look forward to working with Fastway in offering its consumers tailor-made entertainment and services that suit the regional tastes and preferences."

About Fastway

Fastway is one of the largest cable distribution companies with a strong emphasis on quality of service and content. This has enabled Fastway to cater its services to 119 cities and 25 districts across Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. With fiber optic backbone across its networks and state-of-the-art distribution set ups, Fatsway ushers in the digital age through cable, transforming the way viewers receive information and entertainment.

About Cisco

Source: Cisco Press Room

Cisco to Resell Citrix XenDesktop to Deliver Virtual Workspaces Anywhere on Any Device

2012-02-13T12:05:00.001-08:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. — February 13, 2012 — Cisco today announced that it will resell Citrix XenDesktop® as part of an integrated desktop virtualization solution based on the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). This integrated desktop virtualization solution simplifies the deployment of high-definition virtual desktops and applications to all users across the enterprise. The solution is one of the core modules of Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) that delivers a complete virtual workspace by unifying virtual desktops, voice and video to enable exceptionally flexible, secure work environments and uncompromised user experience.

Key Facts / Highlights:

Cisco and Citrix help customers scale, secure and simplify virtual desktop deployments

The Cisco UCS and Citrix XenDesktop solution helps desktop and data center IT managers accelerate desktop virtualization, while lowering costs with a simplified, secure, and scalable solution.
The integrated solution includes customized kits for Citrix XenDesktop user scenarios substantially ease operations by accelerating deployment times. The Starter Kit allows customers to easily get started with the first 300 virtual desktops. An Expansion Kit allows customers to scale to thousands of additional desktops and users in a plug-and-play modular fashion.
This new resale agreement builds on the October 2011 announcement where Cisco and Citrix outlined a comprehensive five-year strategic agreement to deliver rich-media enabled virtual desktops and applications.
By the end of second quarter of 2012, distributors, channel partners, and customers will be able to purchase Cisco and Citrix integrated virtual desktop solutions directly from Cisco. In the meantime, the integrated solution can be purchased from Cisco and Citrix channel partners.
Citrix XenDesktop® is a comprehensive desktop virtualization solution that can deliver Windows applications and Windows desktops as an on-demand service to over 1.5 billion devices, including tablets, Smartphones, Macs, and Android devices. The solution enables customers to rapidly adapt to business change by providing centralized delivery of desktops, applications and data with easier management and enhanced security.
Cisco VXI builds on Cisco's network-based architectures from Collaboration to Borderless Networks to theUnified Data Center, combined with services and support to deliver a comprehensive virtual workspace solution that simplifies deployment, reduces overall costs and minimizes implementation risk.
As part of Cisco VXI, Citrix HDX™ is supported in Cisco Wide Area Application Services™ (WAAS) WAN optimization solutions as well as Cisco VXC thin client devices. Together with Citrix XenDesktop, Cisco VXI delivers a cost-effective, scalable and high-performance solution for hosting, securing and optimizing the delivery of virtual desktops and applications to any device, anywhere.
Through this resale agreement, customers can take advantage of Cisco Capital financing offerings when purchasing the integrated Cisco and Citrix desktop virtualization solution which can reduce capital expenditures and spread out the cost.

Supporting Quotes:

Phil Sherburne, vice president of Enterprise Systems and Architectures for Cisco

"Building on our successful strategic alliance with Citrix, the combined solution will dramatically simplify the deployment of industry leading virtualized desktop environments that are both affordable and secure."

John Fanelli, vice president of product marketing, Enterprise Desktops and Applications at Citrix

"The new resale agreement between Cisco and Citrix is yet another step in our ongoing 5-year strategic agreement. The pre-architected and optimized joint solution is speeding the enterprise adoption of desktop virtualization. The Cisco UCS with Citrix XenDesktop provides customers with a simplified, scalable industry leading solution that can deliver desktops, applications and data as an on-demand service to billions of devices."

Supporting Resources:

Learn more about Cisco and Citrix solutions, www.cisco.com/go/citrix.
For more information about Cisco VXI and UCS, by visiting www.cisco.com/go/vxi andwww.cisco.com/go/getucs
Cisco Validated Designs
Blogs:
- Cisco: The Platform ; Channels; Data Center Networks
- Cisco Data Center Networks
- Citrix blogs

About Cisco

VMware Introduces VMware vCloud® Integration Manager™ to Help Service Providers Accelerate the Delivery of vCloud Services

2012-02-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

Nearly 90 VMware Service Providers now deliver VMware vCloud® Powered Services Based on VMware vSphere®, VMware vCloud Director™ and the vCloud API

PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 7, 2012 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today introduced VMware vCloud® Integration Manager™, a new solution designed to help service providers automate the delivery and operations of VMware vCloud Director™ -based clouds. VMware also announced that nearly 90 service provider partners now offer services that have met VMware criteria as VMware vCloud Powered, an almost 3x increase since Q3 2011.

"Service providers are looking to get high-margin cloud services to market as quickly as possible," said Mathew Lodge, senior director of cloud services, VMware. "Until now that involved wrangling manual processes, diverting scarce development resources onto writing glue code and portals, or choosing to implement complex and expensive third-party systems. With VMware vCloud® Integration Manager™, providers of VMware vCloud services will have the tools they need to automatically provision services, enable reseller partners and speed customer on-boarding."

VMware vCloud Integration Manager software will allow service providers to quickly create and deploy cloud service offerings, operate at maximum efficiency and scale to meet customer demand in a reliable, repeatable and cost-effective manner. VMware vCloud Integration Manager will help service providers:

Accelerate time to revenue: vCloud Integration Manager will be tightly integrated with VMware vCloud Director, VMware vSphere®, VMware vShield™ Edge and VMware vCenter™ Chargeback Manager to automate and accelerate the provisioning and delivery of infrastructure and associated services. vCloud Integration Manager will provide a REST-based API to integrate with a service provider’s back office systems (CRM, billing, etc.), and a Web-based administration portal.
Simplify operations to increase efficiency and reduce costs:vCloud Integration Manager will include Web-based portals to streamline and automate service plan, customer lifecycle and reseller management. With the click of a button, service providers will be able to standardize product configuration and delivery, manage customer lifecycles from sign-up to decommission, and reduce the time and overhead involved in transacting with resellers.

VMware vCloud Powered Program Gains Traction
Almost 90 service providers have launched vCloud Powered services since VMware introduced the program in February 2011. The VMware vCloud Powered program requires VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) partners to offer services based on VMware vSphere and vCloud Director while exposing the vCloud API and supporting the Open Virtualization Format (OVF). Compliance with these requirements helps ensure that VMware vCloud Powered services offer customers on-demand access to virtual infrastructure from a public cloud, a secure and robust platform, and application and API portability between their internal datacenters and the VMware vCloud Powered services of their choice.

Providers of VMware vCloud Powered services are based in the United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, catering to a variety of use cases ranging from compute resources for pre-production environments to seasonal and transient workloads to disaster recovery in the cloud.

Pricing and Availability
VMware vCloud Integration Manager is expected to be available in Q1 2012 and will be priced on a usage-based subscription model familiar to vCloud Service Providers. For more information, visit the vCloud Integration Manager landing page on Partner Central.

Additional Resources

Learn moreabout VMware vCloud Integration Manager
Learn more about VMware private and public cloud computing services
Learn moreabout the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP)
Read "vCloud Integration Manager and More Clouds in More Countries" blog post by VMware senior director of cloud services, Mathew Lodge
Find, learn about and quickly test drive vCloud services at vcloud.vmware.com
To learn how to offer a vCloud Powered service, click hereto join the VMware Service Provider Program

Oracle Announces Availability of Oracle Advanced Analytics for Big Data

2012-02-09T11:15:00.001-08:00

Oracle Integrates R Statistical Programming Language into Oracle Database 11g

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. - February 8, 2012

News Facts

Oracle today announced the availability of Oracle Advanced Analytics, a new option for Oracle Database 11g that bundles Oracle R Enterprise together with Oracle Data Mining.

Oracle R Enterprise delivers enterprise class performance for users of the R statistical programming language, increasing the scale of data that can be analyzed by orders of magnitude using Oracle Database 11g.

R has attracted over two million users since its introduction in 1995, and Oracle R Enterprise dramatically advances capability for R users. Their existing R development skills, tools, and scripts can now also run transparently, and scale against data stored in Oracle Database 11g.

Customer testing of Oracle R Enterprise for Big Data analytics on Oracle Exadata has shown up to 100x increase in performance in comparison to their current environment.

Oracle Data Mining, now part of Oracle Advanced Analytics, helps enable customers to easily build and deploy predictive analytic applications that help deliver new insights into business performance.

Oracle Advanced Analytics, in conjunction with Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine, delivers the industry’s most integrated and comprehensive platform for Big Data analytics.

Comprehensive In-Database Platform for Advanced Analytics

Oracle Advanced Analytics brings analytic algorithms to data stored in Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Exadata as opposed to the traditional approach of extracting data to laptops or specialized servers.

With Oracle Advanced Analytics, customers have a comprehensive platform for real-time analytic applications that deliver insight into key business subjects such as churn prediction, product recommendations, and fraud alerting.

By providing direct and controlled access to data stored in Oracle Database 11g, customers can accelerate data analyst productivity while maintaining data security throughout the enterprise.

Powered by decades of Oracle Database innovation, Oracle R Enterprise helps enable analysts to run a variety of sophisticated numerical techniques on billion row data sets in a matter of seconds making iterative, speed of thought, and high-quality numerical analysis on Big Data practical.

Oracle R Enterprise drastically reduces the time to deploy models by eliminating the need to translate the models to other languages before they can be deployed in production.

Oracle R Enterprise integrates the extensive set of Oracle Database data mining algorithms, analytics, and access to Oracle OLAP cubes into the R language for transparent use by R users.

Oracle Data Mining provides an extensive set of in-database data mining algorithms that solve a wide range of business problems. These predictive models can be deployed in Oracle Database 11g and use Oracle Exadata Smart Scan to rapidly score huge volumes of data.

The tight integration between R, Oracle Database 11g, and Hadoop enables R users to write one R script that can run in three different environments: a laptop running open source R, Hadoop running with Oracle Big Data Connectors, and Oracle Database 11g.

Oracle provides single vendor support for the entire Big Data platform spanning the hardware stack, operating system, open source R, Oracle R Enterprise and Oracle Database 11g.

To enable easy enterprise-wide Big Data analysis, results from Oracle Advanced Analytics can be viewed from Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite and Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine.

Supporting Quotes

“Oracle is committed to meeting the challenges of Big Data analytics. By building upon the analytical depth of Oracle SQL, Oracle Data Mining and the R environment, Oracle is delivering a scalable and secure Big Data platform to help our customers solve the toughest analytics problems,” said Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president, Oracle Server Technologies.

“We work with leading edge customers who rely on us to deliver better BI from their Oracle Databases. The new Oracle R Enterprise functionality allows us to perform deep analytics on Big Data stored in Oracle Databases. By leveraging R and its library of open source contributed CRAN packages combined with the power and scalability of Oracle Database 11g, we can now do that,” said Mark Rittman, co-founder, Rittman Mead.

Supporting Resources

About Oracle Big Data

About Oracle Advanced Analytics

About Oracle Big Data Appliance

About Oracle Big Data Connectors

About Oracle Exadata Database Machine

About Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine

About Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite

About Oracle Database 11g

Connect with Oracle Database via Blog, Facebook and Twitter

About Oracle

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

Trademarks

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

TELUS Launches Optik TV Mobile Experience with Cisco Videoscape

2012-02-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. and VANCOUVER, B.C – February 7, 2012 –Cisco and TELUS today announced TELUS has deployed key components of the Cisco Videoscape^™ platform in order to extend its successful Optik TV services to mobile devices through its ‘Optik on the go' offering. Cisco Videoscape is a comprehensive TV platform allowing service providers and media companies to extend content across devices and networks to create a new, truly immersive home and mobile television experience. Videoscape utilizes the cloud, network, and client devices together to deliver new, high-quality video experiences over the Internet.

Through the use of Cisco Videoscape, TELUS is differentiating its consumer video experience in an increasingly competitive market, while simultaneously extending opportunities for revenue generation to its growing customer base of Optik services subscribers and TELUS wireless subscribers in Alberta and British Columbia.

"Our vision for Optik on the go is to offer customers a simple, straightforward way to view Optik TV content across any number of mobile screens or devices," said David Fuller, chief marketing officer, TELUS. "With Cisco Videoscape we can now mobile-enable content and offer customers an innovative, world-class TV experience – at home and on the go."

With Videoscape, TELUS will offer Optik customers in Alberta and British Columbia a unique TV experience, allowing them to take their TV service with them on the go. TELUS has employed Cisco's technology and service delivery expertise in managing synergies between the cloud, network and client devices, to launch a fully hosted video content management platform to increase service velocity.

"Service providers like TELUS are well-positioned to do for the TV experience what the mobile Internet did for the cellphone – allow anywhere, anytime access," said Pankaj Patel, senior vice president, Engineering and general manager, Cisco Service Provider Business. "Today's consumers want a personalized video experience, regardless of location or device. With Cisco Videoscape technology powering ‘Optik on the go', TELUS further enhances their premium video customer experience."

Key facts:

Launched in June, 2010, Optik TV is powered by TELUS' innovative and market leading fibre-optic network. Optik TV offers innovative functionality features such as PVR Anywhere, and more than 500 channels, including more than 100 in high definition. Cisco Videoscape will allow TELUS to deliver a consistent Optik TV experience across a diverse set of mobile devices.
Videoscape elements TELUS is deploying:
- Cisco Videoscape Media Suite, a cloud-based service that offers full life-cycle content management so that service providers can efficiently and cost-effectively manage and publish content across multiple screens.
- Cisco Videoscape Clients, software clients that extend the Videoscape experiences to a wide variety of home and mobile devices.
Cisco Advanced Services provided the design and application development expertise, bringing together interdependent cloud, network and client components into a single integrated solution.

Supporting Resources:

Tags/Keywords:

Cisco, cloud, Internet video, IP, IP video, network, online video, streaming video, Video, Videoscape, Videoscape Media Suite, Videoscape Soft Client, TELUS, Optik, Optik TV

RSS Feed for Cisco: http://newsroom.cisco.com/rss-feeds

About TELUS

TELUS (TSX: T, T.A; NYSE: TU) is a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, with $10.3 billion of annual revenue and 12.6 million customer connections including 7.2 million wireless subscribers, 3.6 million wireline network access lines, 1.3 million Internet subscribers and more than 450,000 TELUS TV customers. Led since 2000 by President and CEO, Darren Entwistle, TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services including data, Internet protocol (IP), voice, entertainment and video.

In support of our philosophy to give where we live, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed $245 million to charitable and not-for-profit organizations and volunteered 4.1 million hours of service to local communities since 2000. Eleven TELUS Community Boards across Canada lead TELUS' local philanthropic initiatives. TELUS was honoured to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company to receive this prestigious international recognition.

For more information about TELUS, please visit telus.com.

About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go tohttp://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

TELUS, the TELUS logo, and Optik are trademarks of TELUS Corporation, used under licence.

HP Powers Application Performance Testing in the Cloud

2012-02-07T07:24:00.001-08:00

HP today launched a new offering that allows partners to provide a branded solution for application performance testing in the cloud, helping their customers to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver high-quality applications.

Enterprises need to quickly deliver web and mobile applications to ensure productivity and gain a competitive advantage. However, ensuring applications can perform in a production environment requires setting up a test environment for performance validation, which can be costly and time-consuming. Organizations with limited budgets are unable to invest in on-premise software and must rely on inexpensive or open source performance testing solutions.

With the new HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud offering, qualified partners use the flexible, on-demand service model of the cloud to deliver consumption-based performance testing of Web 2.0, AJAX, mobileand other applications to their customers. The new offering complements HP’s own solutions for performance validation, which span on-premise, software as a service and managed services.

HP’s performance validation solutions and robust service portfolio enable clients to select the offerings that best meet their testing requirements, timeline and budget. The HP performance testing services portfolio is complemented by the on-demand, pay-per-use LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud solution available from partners, including performance testing-as-a-service, as well as testing from anywhere with large loadtests.

“Organizations that do not have robust performance testing may face application delivery delays or risk performance bottlenecks if they are unable to get timely access to testing resources,” said Matthew Morgan, senior director, Product and Solution Marketing, Software, HP. “The HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud offering allows partners to deliver cost-effective, on-demand access to leading performance testing in the cloud.”

The HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud partner offering, coupled with a partner’s cloud infrastructure, enables customers to:

Accelerate time-to-market with access to the hardware and software resources required to conduct application performance testing anytime, anywhere.
Deliver high-quality applications with a comprehensive view of system performance that identifies and eliminates potential bottlenecks before the application is deployed in production.
Simplify performance testing of complex applications with HP LoadRunner’s TruClient, an easy-to-use, toolkit-agnostic solution that reduces testing cycles by cutting script time and correlation for Web 2.0 applications by as much as 50 percent.⁽¹⁾
Ensure cost-efficiency through subscriptions, with which customers can consume and pay for the application performance testing resources they need on a daily basis.

HP partners to deliver high-quality applications faster

HP performance testing partners Orasi Software Inc., Genilogix and J9 Technologies have selected the HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud partner offering. The companies will use it to introduce new public cloud offerings that extend their existing portfolios with short-term, pay-per-use web and mobile application performance testing solutions.

“Our clients are looking for a solution that offers flexible consumption for their performance testing initiatives,” said Caleb Billingsley, area vice president, Performance Technology, Orasi Software Inc. “With HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud, we can offer robust, industry-leading performance testing capabilities in a short-term, on-demand model that helps them meet their goals, without breaking the bank.”

“Composite architectures, with so many moving parts, can easily become points of failure if not tested prior to deployment,” said Dennis Matson, director, Sales, Genilogix. “We are pleased to partner with HP to deliver a pay-as-you-go, on-demand option for application performance testing that enhances application quality and accelerates time-to-value.”

The HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud partner offering is a key component of the HP IT Performance Suite, which helps businesses and governments in their pursuit of an Instant-On Enterprise. In a world of continuous connectivity, the Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

HP’s premier client event, HP Discover, takes place June 4-7 in Las Vegas.

Pricing and availability

The HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud partner offering is currently available to qualified HP partners based in the United States and Canada for servicing their customers based in the United States and Canada.

Market pricing of the HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud solution is determined by participating partners on an individual basis.

More information about the HP LoadRunner-in-the-Cloud partner offering is available atwww.hp.com/go/loadrunnercloud.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

VMware Opens Online Virtualization and Cloud Solutions Marketplace

2012-02-06T16:14:00.001-08:00

The VMware® Solution Exchange Enables Customers to Discover, Evaluate and Expedite Buying Process for Joint Solutions through Direct Engagement with Partners and Developers

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- (Jan. 25, 2012) – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today unveiled the VMware Solution Exchange, an online virtualization and cloud solutions marketplace where customers, partners and developers can converge to help simplify the process of evaluating and selecting business solutions through a centralized, self-service portal.

A New Way to Find Solutions for the Private and Public Cloud

VMware has a robust community of more than 2,000 technology partners who have built more than 3,500 applications and 6,000 infrastructure products that are compatible with VMware’s portfolio of products.
The VMware Solution Exchange offers partners and developers who complement, integrate or interoperate with VMware's portfolio of products a one-stop location to market and sell their solutions to potential customers.
The proliferation of social media tools has evolved the way many people use the Internet to search, share and discover information, with user-generated feedback and community engagement playing an important role.
- The VMware Solution Exchange looks to provide this familiar experience, by empowering customers to utilize search tools, explore rich multimedia content, and directly engage with partners and developers to help ease the process of finding the right solution for their businesses.

Additional VMware Solution Exchange features include:

Partners and developers can feature their solutions and supplement their listings with rich multimedia content, including the ability to embed YouTube videos, provide product overviews, select technology categories, downloadable trial software, screenshots of their products, downloadable whitepapers, architecture blueprints and other marketing collateral.
Each partner and developer will be able to provide an overview of their solution, with VMware and third party software version compatibility, VMware certification details, including their VMware Ready logo and contact information.
Customers of all sizes, from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), to enterprise buyers, will be able to discover new solutions and directly engage with partners and developers with inquiries for licenses, trials, support and sales requests.
In addition, the VMware Solution Exchange provides customers with the opportunity to use a five-star rating system and provide a written review about their experience with the solution. They can also vote on a particular version of a partner’s solution.

User interface

The home page of the VMware Solution Exchange showcases featured and popular listings from VMware partners and developers.
Solutions from partners and developers are categorized by technology type and industry type, along with the VMware product with which they are compatible or integrated with.

Executive Quote

Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware
"With the VMware Solution Exchange, we are offering our robust partner network a new and centralized marketplace to promote their solutions and directly connect with customers to help expedite the sales process. For customers, our goal is to empower them to quickly and easily find the resources they need to make purchasing decisions to accelerate their journey to the cloud, while also helping our technology partners deliver and manage joint solutions in a single, self-service location."

Industry Support

Quote sheet

Additional Resources

Visit the VMware Solution Exchange
Follow VMware on Twitter: @VMware
Twitter hashtag: #VMwareVSX
VMware Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vmware
VMware YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/VMwareTV

For more VMware news, please visit:

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/

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 2011 revenues of $ 3.77 billion, VMware has more than 300,000 customers and 25,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware is a registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

UBISOFT SURPASSES 25 MILLION JUST DANCE® VIDEO GAMES SOLD THROUGH WORLDWIDE

2012-02-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

Paris, France – January 13, 2012– Today, Ubisoft announced that, according to internal estimates, Just Dance 3 sold through more than 7 million units since its release, bringing total sell-through of the Just Dance franchise to more than 25 million units worldwide. Launched in October, Just Dance 3 has consistently been in the top five video game sales charts in both the U.S. (NPD) and Europe (GfK Chart Track). People spend a collective 23 million minutes playing Just Dance 3 each day around the world, having fun dancing to more than 7.5 million songs every day.*

In 2011, Ubisoft’s Just Dance franchise came to the Kinect™ for Xbox 360® and the PlayStation® Move for PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system for the first time, in addition to its continued availability on the Wii™ system from Nintendo. Ubisoft recently broadened the brand with the release of Just Dance 2 Extra Songs and Just Dance Kids in EMEA, and launched Just Dance in Japan and Korea, selling more than a half a million copies in those two countries.

Ubisoft also expanded its dance game offerings throughout the year with the release of ABBA You Can Dance, The Black Eyed Peas Experience, Michael Jackson The Experience, and The Smurfs Dance Party. According to internal estimates Ubisoft games accounted for 64 percent of the dance game genre in EMEA in calendar year 2011.

“The Just Dance franchise continues to be first choice for customers around the worldlooking for games that let them dance and get the party started in their living rooms.” said Geoffroy Sardin, chief EMEA sales and marketing officer at Ubisoft. “Our diverse dance game offerings ensure that everyone can find an accessible and enjoyable title regardless of platform, and that we have a broad base upon which to bring new ideas and titles in the years to come.”

For more information about Just Dance, please visit:www.justdancegame.com.

* Extrapolated numbers based on the tracked data from October 7, 2011 to December 31, 2011.
About Ubisoft
Ubisoft is a leading producer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products worldwide and has grown considerably through a strong and diversified line-up of products and partnerships. Ubisoft has offices in 26 countries and has sales in more than 55 countries around the globe. It is committed to delivering high-quality, cutting-edge video game titles to consumers. For the 2010-11 fiscal year Ubisoft generated sales of € 1.039 billion. To learn more, please visit www.ubisoftgroup.com.

HP Simplifies Networking with Broadest Choice of OpenFlow-enabled Switches

2012-02-03T08:23:00.001-08:00

HP today announced a portfolio of OpenFlow-enabled switches, providing customers with the broadest choice in the industry for simplifying network management while meeting a wide range of bandwidth, performance and budget needs.⁽¹⁾

The portfolio spans 16 models and includes the HP 3500, 5400 and 8200 series switches.

Additionally, HP plans to expand support for OpenFlow across all switches in the HP FlexNetwork architecture this year, making HP the only major networking vendor to offer a complete portfolio of OpenFlow-enabled solutions.

OpenFlow is an emerging network virtualization technology that provides customers flexibility and control to configure their networking environments to their specifications.

Deploying the OpenFlow standard enables enterprises to significantly reduce the complexity of network devices and automate tasks using simplified network management. By reducing the time it takes to make changes to the network, OpenFlow allows IT staff to better respond to changing needs in real time.

Customers and partners can now access a free upgrade to HP’s OpenFlow-enabled software for their HP switches here.

“To help enterprises uniformly manage network traffic flow across the data center, HP became an early innovator of the OpenFlow standard, supporting more than 60 universities and research centers in trials, development efforts and practical real-world applications,” said Bethany Mayer, senior vice president and general manager, Networking, HP. “With more than 10 million OpenFlow-capable switch ports deployed and the broadest portfolio currently available on the market, HP is leading the move to the OpenFlow standard and further simplifying networks for our enterprise clients.”

HP pioneers OpenFlow-enabled switches, drives real-world deployments

HP switches with OpenFlow-enabled software have been deployed by academic and commercial researchers worldwide to achieve simplified management. The extensive testing and practical application of OpenFlow technology on HP switches over the last four years in these environments have helped to ready the standard for broad enterprise use.

HP partners and customers include Indiana University, Stanford University and the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) Project. The GENI Project, operated by Raytheon BBN Technologies and funded by the National Science Foundation, is a virtual laboratory that explores future applications and services for efficient, agile networks.

“Enterprise data centers are in the midst of a massive transformation driven by data center consolidation, server virtualization, web-based applications and new security requirements, which our research indicates has created numerous network challenges that can’t be addressed with existing legacy networks and manual processes,” said Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “OpenFlow holds the promise of breaking the logjam in network flexibility as well as paving the way for network innovation in the data center – and vendor support from companies like HP is crucial for advancing this technology in 2012.”

HP is a founding member of the Open Networking Foundation, which continues to advance the OpenFlow standard in order to lower network operating costs for enterprises through simplifying hardware, software and management processes. Additionally, HP Labs – the company’s central research arm – has been developing programmable networks since 2008, and has published research on evolving OpenFlow technology for broader deployment by enterprises.

More information about HP Networking solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/networking.

HP Networking is a key component of HP Converged Infrastructure, which enables the Instant-On Enterprise. The Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

HP’s premier client event, HP Discover, takes place June 4-7 in Las Vegas.

About HP

FiberCorp Provides Virtualization Services With Cisco Technology

2012-02-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

The company will offer virtual private services to 25,000 customers in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, February 1, 2012 - FiberCorp announced today that it will offer virtual private services (VPS) to its customers as part of a cloud services family of services based on Cisco networking technology. The VPS initiative is scheduled to launch in 2012. FiberCorp offers integral telecommunications solutions to large, medium-sized and small companies as well as stores, professional organizations and governmental entities.

Unlike a traditional server, this new service gives the client access to a virtual infrastructure where processing, memory and disk space are combined according to need. Companies will be able to run their applications, perform activities, and host their data in a virtual infrastructure with a high degree of security without the expense of acquiring and maintaining equipment.

Key Facts

This first cloud service offered by FiberCorp is mounted on an operating platform called FlexPod, which combines networking, computing and storing in a shared infrastructure. This platform is formed by Cisco network products (Nexus® 7000, 5000 and 2000 Series solutions and Cisco UCS™ servers), VMware virtualization solutions and NetApp storage.
No equipment is installed; it is hired as a service, called IaaS (infrastructure as a service).
Desca was the Cisco Gold Certified Partner in charge of the implementation.

Supporting Quotes

Ignacio Ardohain, commercial manager, FiberCorp

"Virtualization is part of our constant way to innovation, which allows us to share the process of expansion of our customers and the technology of the future. Cisco helps us create the technological structure which supports our services."

"Today, any company in Argentina, despite its size, can access the latest technology without an investment in equipment; it just needs to hire our service, which will surely help it optimize its business."

Hernan Piñero, account manager, Cisco Service Providers

"With FiberCorp we are working to develop an effective model on the long term to offer its customers competitive cloud services in the local market. Currently with the IaaS service, FiberCorp offers flexibility and capacity on demand to its customers without the need of investing in equipment."

To know more (links):

About FiberCorp

FiberCorp is a trademark of the Corporate Business Unit of Cablevisión, which offers integral telecommunication solutions to large, medium-sized and small companies as well as stores, professionals and governmental entities. Started in 2010, it offers access solutions dedicated to Internet, Broad Band Internet access, multipoint dedicated networks for data transmission, virtual private networks (VPNs), voice and video services and data center solutions, among others. In addition, it has the technological resources and professional equipment to be able to offer the proper solution for every kind of company.

About Cisco

# # #

Financial Institutions Select Oracle FLEXCUBE Solutions and Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications to Optimize Operational Efficiency and Profitability, Elevate Customer Service and Reduce Risk

2012-01-31T12:58:00.001-08:00

News Facts

A growing number of financial services organizations worldwide are selecting Oracle Financial Services solutions, including Oracle FLEXCUBE and Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications, to help them innovate and achieve competitive differentiation, ensure regulatory compliance and deliver more personalized service and greater value to customers.

Recent Oracle Financial Services Customer Milestones

Nouvobanq has selected Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking Solution and Oracle FLEXCUBE Direct Banking Solution to support the bank’s growing retail and corporate banking operations. The bank’s previous solution, used for the last 22 years, caused bottlenecks due to technology limitations that could not meet modern banking demands. The implementation of Oracle FLEXCUBE will help create new efficiencies visible throughout the bank’s business.

Leading pan-African bank, Ecobank Transnational Inc., has implemented Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking and Oracle FLEXCUBE Direct Banking solutions, as well as Oracle’s Financial Services Risk Analytics, to standardize its processing platform across its affiliates in 30 sub-Saharan African countries. Enabling Ecobank to service more than 7 million customers via more than 1,100 bank branches, this represents Oracle FLEXCUBE’s largest multi-country implementation in Africa to date.

Banque Pour Le Commerce Exierieur Lao Public (BCEL) is preparing to implement Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking on Oracle Exadata Database Machine to modernize its core banking system. BCEL’s core banking modernization project is a critical milestone in increasing the bank’s efficiencies around risk and growth management, while improving overall profitability of the business in a highly converging industry.

Ping An Bank in China implemented Oracle FLEXCUBE. The system supports the bank’s rapid growth in business and customer base and meets and improves customer service, operations and risk management. The implementation was completed in a record timeframe of 18 months.

Australia’s Suncorp is preparing to implement Oracle FLEXCUBE Next Generation Platform to overhaul its core banking infrastructure, with the overall goal of simplifying the banking system. The bank also recently upgraded its customer relationship management (CRM) environment with Oracle technology.

Silicon Valley Bank, the first successful deployment of Oracle FLEXCUBE in the United States, is in the midst of its Oracle FLEXCUBE rollout with the solution currently supporting multicurrency deposit accounts and customer data. The solution will also support the bank’s trade finance and asset-based lending as well as processing for all products. Oracle FLEXCUBE has helped the bank improve client reports and achieve straight-through processing for multicurrency accounts.

Supporting Quotes

“Financial services organizations around the globe face a common set of business challenges as they seek new ways to better serve customers, differentiate themselves in the market, expand business intelligence and reduce overall organizational risk,” said Frank Brienzi, senior vice president and general manger, Oracle Financial Services. “Oracle is dedicated to helping banks meet these challenges head on through industry leading hardware and financial services-specific applications that enable organizations to achieve new levels of efficiency, insight and performance.”

Supporting Resources

Oracle Financial Services

Oracle FLEXCUBE

Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications

Oracle Financial Services and Insurance Forum

Follow Oracle Financial Services on Twitter

Join the Oracle Financial Services Community on Facebook

Subscribe to the Oracle Financial Services YouTube channel

About Oracle

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

About Oracle in Industries

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

Oracle Financial Services and Insurance Forum

Oracle will demonstrate its leadership and vision for the financial services and insurance industries at the 3rd Annual Oracle Financial Services & Insurance Forum, on February 7, 2012 in New York City. Attendees can hear Mark Hurd, Oracle President, speak on Oracle’s strategy for both industries, as well as participate in breakout sessions on high-level industry topics.

Trademark

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

Texas Instruments advanced signal conditioners deliver industry's highest performance at lowest power

2012-01-30T10:38:00.001-08:00

Easy-to-use repeaters/retimers extend FR-4 signal reach beyond 50 inches at 10-Gbps, reduce BOM cost in enterprise servers, routers and switches

DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) today introduced 10 signal conditioners designed to drive high-speed interface standards such as 10G/40G/100G Ethernet, 10G-KR (802.3ap), InfiniBand, Fibre Channel and CPRI. The new integrated circuits (ICs) join a comprehensive family of repeaters and retimers that combat signal impairments caused by insertion loss, jitter, reflections and crosstalk in high-speed enterprise servers, routers and switches. Manufactured using TI's high-performance BiCMOS SiGe process technology, these new signal conditioners deliver the industry's highest signal reach performance at less than 6-mW per gigabit. For more information on these products, and to learn about TI's signal conditioning technology up to 28G, visit www.ti.com/sigcon-pr.

"As transmission rates increase, signal integrity requirements become more stringent," said Linley Group Senior Analyst Jag Bolaria. "Highly integrated ASIC and ASSP solutions with shrinking transistor geometries, lower voltage rails and lower output voltages further compound the problem, making systems more susceptible to random jitter and crosstalk interference. TI's new retimer and repeater products resolve these complex signal integrity impairments while consuming low power."

Key features and benefits of the DS1xxDF410, DS1xxRT410 and DS100KRxxx families:

Extend reach to exceed 50+ inches of FR-4 backplane or 20 meters of 26-AWG copper cable
- 36-dB input EQ and 12-dB output de-emphasis (DE).
- Multi-tap decision feedback equalizer (DFE).
- Clock and data recovery (CDR) with internal clock synthesis.
- Repeaters consume 65-mW per channel; retimers with CDR consume 150-mW per channel.
Reduce bill of materials (BOM) cost and simplify system design
- Fully adaptive EQ simplifies link tuning.
- Internal clock synthesis avoids the need for an external reference clock.
- Built-in eye monitor and PRBS generator simplifies system debug.
- Single power supply without the need for external RF chokes.

These signal conditioners are used to drive optical and direct-attach passive copper cables in latency-sensitive, front-port line cards, while meeting SFF8431 (SFP+) specifications. They also can be used to compensate for loss and crosstalk in backplanes, and reduce gauge thickness in active copper cable assemblies. Offered as a pin-compatible IC family, system designers can choose from repeaters (EQ and DE driver), retimers (EQ, CDR and DE driver), and advanced retimers (EQ, CDR, DFE and DE driver) to achieve the desired link performance and system cost without having to redesign their board:

The DS125DF410 (9.8G to 12.5G), DS110DF410 (8.5G to 11.3G) and DS100DF410 (10.3G) multi-rate quad-channel advanced retimers provide multi-tap DFE, adaptive EQ, CDR, and DE driver.
The DS125RT410 (9.8G to 12.5G), DS110RT410 (8. 5G to 11.3G) and DS100RT410 (10.3G) multi-rate quad-channel retimers provide adaptive EQ, CDR, and DE driver.
The DS100KR800 octal-channel (unidirectional) and DS100KR401 octal-channel (bidirectional) repeaters support x4/x8 10G-KR (802.3ap) connectivity, and seamlessly allow end-to-end transmit equalization negotiation between the host controller and endpoint as specified by the 802.3ap standard.

To support redundancy and fail-over applications, TI offers new 10.3G and 14.2G mux/buffers that support two- and four-port switching capability. Both devices support 10G-KR transmit link training.

The DS100MB203 multi-rate, dual lane 2:1/1:2 mux/buffer provides EQ and DE and supports data rates up to 10.3G.
The SN65LVCP114 quad-lane 2:1/1:2 mux/buffer provides a linear EQ and supports data rates up to 14.2G.

TI also offers the TLK10002 10G multi-rate transceiver, LMK03806 clock generator, and SIMPLE SWITCHERs and temperature sensors to complement the signal conditioners in a system.

Tools and SupportTI offers evaluation modules as well as IBIS-AMI simulation models for the retimers, and H-Spice models for the repeaters and mux/buffer.

Availability, packaging and pricing The ICs are sampling now, with volume production scheduled for late first quarter 2012. The DS1xxDF410 and DS1xxRT410 quad-channel retimers are offered in 7-mm x 7-mm, 48-pin leadless LLP packages, and the DS100KRxxx octal-channel repeaters and DS100MB203 dual-lane mux/buffer are supplied in 10-mm x 5.5-mm, 54-pin LLPs. The SN65LVCP114 quad-lane mux/buffer is packaged in a 12-mm x 12-mm, 167-pin BGA. Suggested retail pricing for these 10 ICs ranges from $9.95 to $18 in 1,000-unit quantities.

Learn more about TI's advanced signal conditioners by visiting the links below:

Order samples and evaluation modules: www.ti.com/sigcon-pr.
Watch the video: www.ti.com/sigconv-pr.
See the TI interface portfolio: www.ti.com/interface-pr.
Ask questions in the Interface Forum in the TI E2E™ Community: www.ti.com/interfaceforum-pr.

About Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments semiconductor innovations help 80,000 customers unlock the possibilities of the world as it could be – smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more fun. Our commitment to building a better future is ingrained in everything we do – from the responsible manufacturing of our semiconductors, to caring for our employees, to giving back inside our communities. This is just the beginning of our story. Learn more at www.ti.com.

TrademarksTI E2E is a trademark of Texas Instruments. All other trademarks and registered trademarks belong to their respective owners.

TXN-P

SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated

Warp Begins Teleporting to Players This February

2012-01-27T10:02:00.001-08:00

Highly Anticipated Indie Game Kicks Off Microsoft`s Xbox LIVE Arcade "House Party" program on February 15; PSN and PC March 13

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Independent game developer Trapdoor and EA Partners, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) today announced that Warp™, the highly anticipated, downloadable stealth-action puzzler will kick off Microsoft's Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party series on February 15, 2012 for 800 Microsoft Points.

In Warp, gamers play as Zero, a loveable - yet lethal - little orange alien with a big score to settle. Captured and experimented on by cruel scientists, Zero must escape the Commander's research facility by deploying powerful and deadly abilities. The choice is up to players to take bloody revenge on every human in the incarcerating facility, or hide and plan their escape for a no-kills, stealth game. With endless combinations of abilities and upgrades, Warp lets players discover the most effective ways to solve puzzles and move throughout levels and challenge rooms, perfecting their skills and topping competitive leaderboards.

"We're very excited to have Warp kick-off Microsoft's Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party, an event that spotlights the work of independent developers," saidKen Schachter, Founder, Trapdoor. "Warp delivers an experience that is unique, original and allows gamers to defy the traditional rules of videogames, letting them play the game their way. We are very proud of what we've been able to accomplish and hope players embrace it as well."

Warp will be available on PlayStation®Network in North America and PC on March 13, 2012 for $9.99 USD. Warp will be available in Europe on PlayStation®Network on March 14, 2012.

For more information on Warp, please visit www.ea.com/warp.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company's game franchises are offered as both packaged goods products and online services delivered through Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets. EA has more than 100 million registered players and operates in 75 countries.

In fiscal 2011, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.6 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for critically acclaimed, high-quality blockbuster franchises such as The Sims™, Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, Need for Speed™, Battlefield, and Mass Effect™. More information about EA is available at http://info.ea.com.

About Trapdoor

Based in Montreal, Quebec, Trapdoor is an independent game developer committed to making games with unique personality and distinctive style. Trapdoor's first original IP, Warp™, is scheduled for release in early 2012. For more information about Trapdoor, please visit www.trapdoorinc.com.

Oracle Utilities Meter-to-Cash Applications Running on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Demonstrate Unprecedented Throughput for 10 Million Interval Meters

2012-01-26T11:18:00.001-08:00

Oracle Processes more than One Billion Meter Reads and 500,000 Customer Bills within Eight Hours

News Facts

Oracle announced the unprecedented ability to process more than one billion records and generate 500,000 customer bills within an eight-hour nightly window using Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway – integrated using Oracle Application Integration Architecture and running on Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud X2-2. The test data was a subset extracted from 30 billion interval meter reads, a volume level typical for a large utility.

The test, designed according to real business scenarios, processed data reported from 10 million smart meters, each reporting nearly 100 reads per day, which is representative of the daily processing needs for a typical utility service provider.

The test used one month of historical meter data via Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (30 billion meter readings) and a six-month billing history on Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing (60 million bills). The test billed each account using three different rates (simulating “peak,” “shoulder” and “off-peak” rates).

The configuration tested was able to compress archive data at up to a 45X ratio using Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression, enabling storage efficiencies that generate significant cost savings to utilities storing smart grid and other data.

Supporting Quote

“New technologies and business processes are dramatically increasing the volume of data utilities handle during the meter-to-cash process. This test – the only one of its kind to date – proves that Oracle's complete, integrated mission-critical software solutions running on Oracle’s engineered systems help utilities correctly size their data warehouses to process the high volumes of consumption data generated by smart meters. That data, in the end, helps utilities help their customers to monitor and manage energy use with greater flexibility and control,” said Rodger Smith, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.

Supporting Resources

Oracle White Paper: Meter-To-Cash Performance Using Oracle Utilities Applications on Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic

Oracle Utilities

Oracle Utilities on Facebook

Oracle Utilities on LinkedIn

Oracle Utilities on Twitter

Oracle Utilities on Diigo

Oracle Utilities YouTube Channel

Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management Running with Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Demonstrates Extreme Performance in Processing Data from Smart Meters

Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing with Oracle Exadata Database Machine Demonstrates Extreme Performance for Utility Bill Processing

About Oracle Utilities

Oracle Utilities delivers proven software applications that help utilities of all types and sizes achieve competitive advantage, business performance excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle's industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware, database technologies, as well as servers and storage. The software enables customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet ever-evolving customer demands and deliver on environmental conservation commitments. Additionally, Oracle Utilities helps utilities prepare for smart metering and smart grid initiatives that enhance efficiency and provide critical intelligence metrics that can help drive more-informed energy and water usage decisions for consumers and businesses. For more information, visit www.oracle.com/goto/utilities.

About Oracle in Industries

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

About Oracle

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

Trademark

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

Texas Instruments' solutions help developers create the next generation of breakthrough products for the Smart Grid market

2012-01-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

Metering ICs, connectivity, reference designs and software ease development for energy management applications

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A leading innovator in energy management, communication and control for the Smart Grid, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) today announced it has expanded its portfolio in utility metering, home and building automation and Smart Grid infrastructure with technology and tools that help developers create secure, economical and future-proof solutions for the Smart Grid.

The world's most accurate, flexible and robust energy metering ICs

Demonstrating its commitment to advancing the efficiency of utility metering, TI recently introduced 24 new energy meter integrated circuits (ICs) that deliver industry-leading accuracy, flexibility, robustness and system cost savings for 1-phase, 2-phase and 3-phase electricity meter solutions. The new MSP430F673x/F672x family of energy meter ICs combines the lowest power, most advanced metrology and clocking functionalities for high precision and robust electricity measurements design. The new energy meter ICs offer developers more flexibility in electricity metering and energy monitoring applications. For more information, visit www.ti.com/dtech-pr-msp430.

TI demonstrates most integrated ZigBee® Smart Energy system-on-chip

An active leader in the development of the ZigBee Smart Energy™ standard, TI's CC2538 system-on-chip (SoC) is the most powerful ZigBee SoC designed to support developers creating both current and next generation Smart Energy devices, without the added cost of a microcontroller or external memory. This cost-effective radio frequency (RF) solution for Smart Grid communication eases development of control applications for electricity, gas or water smart meters and in-home displays. Also being introduced is TI's high performance CC1200 RF transceiver, an evolution of the CC1120 sub-1 GHz RF performance line, that supports the full bandwidth of the 802.15.4g standard for wireless smart utility networks in the sub-1 GHz bands. For more information, visit www.ti.com/dtech-pr-cc2538.

Smart Grid infrastructure platform saves time and moneyFulfilling the need for solutions to support the Smart Grid Infrastructure (SGI), TI offers the new PLC data concentrator reference demo on the SGI evaluation platform that helps developers reduce time-to-market. TI's new data concentrator give developers the option to add PLC communication supporting different protocol standards in one design, rather than change hardware as previously required. The SGI board supports various PLC standards, including PRIME, G3, FlexOFDM libraries and more, all on the same hardware. For more information, please visit www.ti.com/dtech-pr-sgi.

Smart Grid solutions support new G3-PLC standard

Demonstrating its commitment to provide reliable power line communication (PLC) solutions, TI announced its support of the new power line communication (PLC) protocol, G3-PLC, as board of director of the G3 alliance. TI's G3 software package supports its PLC product offerings such as the PLC development kits and PLC data concentrator, enabling application compatibility with a variety of international requirements. With unique modular hardware architecture and flexible software framework, TI's PLC solutions are the industry's only PLC-based technology capable of supporting multiple protocol standards and modulation schemes with a single platform. For more information, visit www.ti.com/dtech-pr-g3.

Visit TI @ DistribuTECH 2012

Stop by booth 4735 to see TI's Smart Grid demonstrations and solutions at DistribuTech 2012. Be sure to also follow @TXInstruments on Twitter for exclusive show updates and giveaways!

TI's Smart Grid solutions

With millions of energy meter ICs shipped over the past decade, Texas Instruments is the global systems provider for innovative, secure, economical and future-proof solutions for the worldwide smart grid. TI offers the industry's broadest smart grid portfolio of metrology expertise, application processors, communication systems, wireless connectivity and analog components in readily available silicon, with advanced software, tools and support for compliant solutions in grid infrastructure, utility metering and home or building automation. Learn more at www.ti.com/smartgrid.

Find out more about TI's Smart Grid solutions

TI's Smart Grid solutions: www.ti.com/smartgrid
Smart Grid E2E community: http://www.ti.com/dtech-pr-e2e
TI's ZigBee solutions: www.ti.com/zigbee-pr
TI's wireless connectivity solutions: www.ti.com/wirelessconnectivity
TI's demonstration of Smart Energy video: www.ti.com/dtech-pr-video
Make the switch to TI microcontrollers: www.ti.com/maketheswitch

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments semiconductor innovations help 80,000 customers unlock the possibilities of the world as it could be – smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more fun. Our commitment to building a better future is ingrained in everything we do – from the responsible manufacturing of our semiconductors, to caring for our employees, to giving back inside our communities. This is just the beginning of our story. Learn more at www.ti.com.

Trademarks

All registered trademarks and other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated

Oracle Announces Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics

2012-01-24T10:10:00.001-08:00

Pre-Built Dashboards Deliver 69 Out-of-the-box, Graphical Answers to Utilities’ Most Pressing Metering Data Issues

News Facts

Building upon Oracle's smart grid capabilities, Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics– another in a growing family of analytics products – identifies multiple ways utilities can improve meter data system performance and maximize the business value of consumption data.

As utilities continue to roll out smart grid and smart meter programs, they need solutions like Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics to help them turn the resulting influx of huge data volumes into intelligent business processes. Better business processes help utilities operate more efficiently and improve customer satisfaction.

The solution includes eight pre-built dashboards that analyze consumption trends, gauge the performance of head-end systems and service providers, track unreported usage, alert staff to revenue protection events, and track meter installation efforts. Utilities can also use the solution to improve business processes like targeting customer segments for specific energy efficiency and demand management programs or decreasing losses from unbilled energy.

Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics permits staff to drill down into details behind the graphics. The solution also makes it easy for staff to examine specific instances and events contributing to trends by drilling back into the underlying applications—Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing.

Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics is built on the industry-leading Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) platform. The product is part of the Oracle Utilities Business Intelligence family of products.

Supporting Quote

“Far too many so-called business intelligence products today provide little more than an additional analytic engine or reporting framework requiring months of consulting time to implement and extensive staff time and training to use and maintain. Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics is a major step beyond those costly halfway measures. It answers utilities’ most pressing metering questions at the click of a mouse. While others deliver ‘tools’ and ‘foundations,’ we deliver out-of-the-box results,” said Rodger Smith, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.

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

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Motorola Mobility Launches Motorola XOOM™ 2 in Italy

2012-01-23T09:09:00.001-08:00

Motorola XOOM™ 2 is powerful, portable and ready to take on the world

Jan. 23, 2012

MILAN – Jan. 23, 2011 – Building on the success of Motorola XOOM^™, Motorola Mobility is rocking the tablet world yet again with a new addition that brings enhanced experiences to Italy. Motorola XOOM 2 with 3G capabilities boasts powerful productivity, rich entertainment and customizable experiences – the answer to consumers looking for a tablet that can keep up with their lifestyle. Motorola XOOM 2 is available today at TIM stores for 599 Euro (all taxes included).

“Tablets are quickly becoming a must-have tool for staying connected, getting work done and having fun at home and on the road,” said Paolo Prearo, Mobile Devices Business general manager, Motorola Mobility Italia. “We are very excited about this new new addition to our tablet portfolio that builds on the success of the original Motorola XOOM to now deliver more powerful tablet experiences to the European market.”

The new Motorola XOOM 2 features Android^™ 3.2, a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, brilliant displays with Corning^® Gorilla^® Glass for scratch resistance and a splashguard coating for a go anywhere, do everything attitude. In addition, both tablets include the new MotoCast^™ app that lets you stream all your music, photos, videos and documents between your computer to your tablet without any media tools, apps, or cords.

Motorola XOOM 2: Lighter and Brighter

Motorola XOOM 2 sports a 10.1-inch widescreen HD display and Android 3.2 Honeycomb like its predecessor, but the similarities end there. The display is brighter and more vibrant than before with colour enhancement, and the edges have been strategically designed to make the tablet more comfortable to hold -- this tablet is easy on the eyes, and easy on the hands. Motorola XOOM 2 is loaded with Business Ready features like VPN support and data encryption.

Motorola XOOM 2 also features MOTOPRINT integrated into key apps so you can print wirelessly from your tablet. It is approximately 100 grams lighter than the original Motorola XOOM to make it even easier to take on the road, and can withstand poolside use, spilled drinks or dashes out to the car in the rain thanks to its new splash-guard coating. A battery delivering more than 10 hours of video playback means it can go with you wherever you need to be.

Accessories to connect to your life easier, from anywhere

With the Work and Play kit, plug your tablet into the HD Multimedia Station to connect to your HDTV, speakers and other peripherals for large-screen entertainment. Get more done, faster with the included keyboard and mouse with Bluetooth technology. Now, when your tablet is docked, the Smart Controller lets you MC the show from the comfort of your couch.

Technical Details

Processor: 1.2GHz dual-core processor
Software: Android 3.2 Honeycomb
Display: 10.1” HD display with Corning^® Gorilla^® Glass
Special features: Splash-guard and special flattened edges for easier holding
Camera: 1.3 MP front and 5 MP rear-facing HD cameras with digital zoom, auto focus, and LED flash
Memory: 1GB RAM; 32 GB storage
Battery life: 10+ hours Web usage or over 1 month stand-by
Sound: 3D virtual surround sound
Dimensions: 253.9 mm x 173.6 mm x 8.8 mm
Weight: 599 g
Enterprise features Business Ready with enterprise-grade security and Active Sync for work email, contacts and calendar. USB and Ethernet connectivity, pre-loaded Citrix^®Receiver^® and Citrix^® GoToMeeting^®. Preloaded with MotoCast so you can access and stream your files from your computer to your tablet.

For more information on Motorola XOOM 2 visit www.motorola.com/mobility.