TMCnet High Definition Digital Week in Review

By Carrie SchmelkinTMCnet Web Editor
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We might still be a few months away from the summer heat, but things were certainly heating up the high definition digital space this week.

Kicking off the week, Toshiba (News

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TMCnet Embedded M2M Solutions Week in Review

By Carrie SchmelkinTMCnet Web Editor
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This week the embedded M2M solutions space charged forward with innovation as not even the thought of impending April showers could get these technology leaders down.

Kicking off the week, Sprint (News

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TMCnet Virtualization Week in Review

By Jamie EpsteinTMCnet Web Editor
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If you are in need of an efficient solution that can help dramatically reduce costs and allow you to keep up with increasing demands from clients, all you need is a virtualization solution as this technology can offer those capabilities.

This week, Carousel Industries, a major provider in the space, revealed that it was participating in Enterprise Connect (News - Alert) 2012, which took place from March 28-28, in Orlando, Fla.

At the event, the company showcased its UC/Virtualization solutions at its station, where it demonstrated how virtual desktop environments can drive productivity while simultaneously powering an ultra high level of security. As more organizations allow their workers to work remotely, it is imperative to implement a virtualization solution until it’s too late to do so and competitors have taken away a large amount of customers. 

Within Carousel’s portfolio, the company has multiple offerings including infrastructure consolidation, data center automation and virtualization acceleration, as well as desktop virtualization which can be used by any business to see multiple benefits.

In addition, as virtualization becomes increasingly popular around the world, IT departments are beginning to utilize this solution in order to make disaster recovery just another easy to use, always available service. According to a report from Computerworld, “Sometimes they are using the same servers, network and storage that run order entry, email, application development or other services.”

When combining both the disaster recovery functionality with virtualization solutions, companies can protect their businesses from cyber attacks, as well as human made errors or faulty equipment. 

Computerworld reporter Robert L. Scheier added, “Since 2010, the IT shop has been cutting costs and meeting its service and disaster recovery commitments by using a hybrid cloud made up of its own virtualized hardware at collocation facilities in Chicago, Frankfurt and Singapore. We're always using that architecture for something,"

Finishing out the week, ING DIRECT, Australia’s fifth-largest mortgage lender, was searching for a way to improve IT efficiency with a cloud-enabled operating solution that could ramp up the time to market of new products and services.

The company ultimately decided to go with Microsoft’s “Bank in a Box” service, a private cloud infrastructure, in conjunction with Dimension Data (News - Alert), Cisco and NetApp. Touted as a fully integrated solution that would allow for rapid provisioning of entire environments, the virtualization solution combined the bank’s applications, services, configurations and 5.5 terabytes of data all in one robust environment.

For the latest and greatest news in the virtualization industry, be sure to stay tuned to the Virtualization Community, exclusively on TMCnet!

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Article comments powered by Disqus Virtualization Related Articles Rennert Vogel Deploys DataCore's SANsymphony -V Storage Hypervisor CiRBA Secures $15 Million in Funding Led by Tandem Expansion Carousel Industries to Present Virtualization and UC Solutions at Enterprise Connect 2012 Hybrid Cloud Makes Disaster Recovery Another Service

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TMCnet Free Call Center Week in Review

By Jamie Epstein
TMCnet Web Editor

What tops a call center solution that lives in the cloud? A call center solution that frees up an agent’s time, of course, by powering multiple capabilities including an automatic call distributor, CRM scripting and real-time statistics.

This week, TMCnet reported that Kunnect, a provider of a free call center solution called Kunnect Free, delivers high performance right party contacts directly to agents’ screens. By being able to target campaigns at a prospective audience with ideal scripts, the company can not only draw in customers but retain current ones.

To reduce agent idle time, the free call center solution enables agents to seamlessly integrate both inbound and outbound capabilities including predictive dialing, call center scripting, digital recording and FTC (News - Alert) Compliance mode with ACD, skills-based routing and IVR. When setting up Kunnect’s solution, according to the company’s website, it will work with call center managers to find the perfect balance between real-time resource availability and demand across multiple media and multiple tasks in order to maximize staff productivity.

In addition, Fonality (News - Alert), a provider of affordable call center solutions, will now be offering free around-the clock call center support for people relocated due to the March 2011 Tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disasters in the city of Iwaki.

Fonality’s trixbox Pro, an IP-PBX (News - Alert) software based, hybrid-hosted platform, will help to connect Japanese citizens to crucial departments that can help them receive medical attention or give them assistance finding alternate housing.

“The adaptability of Fonality’s technology is an ideal fit for this extremely important call center,” said QLOOG CEO Kazuhiro Arao, in a press release. “With the innovative combination of premise-based reliability and cloud-based flexibility that trixbox Pro offers, we are extremely confident that this project will be successful.”

Closing out this week, Sentient Solutions introduced Scorebuddy, a new hosted software solution designed specifically for call centers that offers a flexible, easy-to-use solution for much better accuracy. In addition, this call center solution helps to equip agents with the tools they need to succeed in the long term, as well as ramp up productivity.

When leveraging Scorebuddy, contact centers no longer have to use spreadsheets and documents, as this solution guarantees an efficient way to enable quality managers and team leaders to score agents and track and review outcomes.

Be sure to check back here next week for the most up-to-date news in the free call center space!

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Friday Recap: Nano-SIM Vote Delayed, Tim Cook Tops CEO List, Lumia Preorders

The weekend is here, and with comes the final installment of our daily recap for the month of March. But hey, don’t be sad or blue -- there will be plenty more tech news coming on Monday, when we jump head first into the month of April and see what new and delightful surprises the spring season might bring us. In the meantime, sit back and ride out the rest of March by catching up on the news for Friday, March 30, 2012.

Nano-SIM Standards Vote Delayed by ETSI Due to Apple, Nokia Bickering

AppleInsider is reporting that the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ESTI) has chosen to delay voting on the new nano-SIM standard. A meeting to decide the fate of the SIM card’s future was held on Thursday and a vote was expected today, but a decision was made to postpone for

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The 10 Hottest Apple News Stories, The Week of March 30th

"
Chances are you've noticed all these app updates making things Retina pretty for the new iPad. With developers hustling to bump their image specs, it's quiet times for new releases, but we still found
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Recorders.com Announces One Year Free Support for Dragon Medical Practice Edition

By Rajani Baburajan
TMCnet Contributor

Recorders.com, a Texas-based supplier of digital dictation equipment in the United States, announced a special offer -- free support for one year – with the purchase of Dragon Medical Practice Edition Upgrades.

The new offer is a tribute to speech recognition technology’s groundbreaking advances, which stared in the early 1930s, according to Recorders.com. 

A significant advancement in speech recognition occurred in 1978 when the first single-chip voice synthesizer debuted in “Speak and Spell,” an educational hand-held toy from Texas Instruments (News

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Communication Test Equipment Providers Hear Good News as Material Testing Market is Recovering

 By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Contributor

The material testing equipment market has stabilized and is now in recovery, according to a new study from Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert). That is good news for communication testing equipment providers, who are seeing renewed interest from typical end-user industries.

The material testing equipment market saw $495.6 million in revenue during 2010 and it may be as high as $591.1 million during 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan. The overall market saw losses during the recession.

"2009 was one of the most difficult periods for the material testing market," Frost & Sullivan Program Manager Vijay Mathew said in a statement. "However, demand from traditionally strong users of material testing equipment such as automotive, aerospace, primary metals, and plastics have helped the industry bounce back."

In addition, new uses in biomedical, composites, medical devices and nanotechnology could increase revenues in future years, according to Frost & Sullivan.

"The material testing market comprises a range of competitors of varying size and reach," Mathew said. "The top three market participants occupy a significant amount of market and mind share and drive critical parameters that define this market, such as price points and regulatory and standardization trends, making it difficult for emerging participants to gain a foothold."

Smaller firms may be more successful by focusing on emerging opportunities, the study added.

"With the emergence of new application markets and technology areas, niche opportunities do exist," Mathew said. "Also, certain customers located in certain geographies prefer working with local test equipment vendors rather than multinational organizations."

In related news, Trilithic announced that the Wild-Cat Ethernet Cable Tester is now being offered. It measures the performance of CAT3, CAT5e, and CAT6 Ethernet cable. It adheres to ANSI/TIA/ EIA-568-B and ISO/IEC (News - Alert) standards.

It has auto test functions, including wire map, length, propagation delay, DC loop resistance, and insertion loss. Detailed reporting is also offered through Ethernet Cable Tester software, the company said.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli


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Conferencing Outfit Arkadin Helps Customers, Partners Expand their Horizons

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

Arkadin (News - Alert) is investing in the channel and plans to develop additional initiatives on that front going forward. That’s the word from Scott McMaster, vice president of sales at the company, which sells audio and web conferencing services and unified communications solutions.

The company’s strategy revolves around integrating best-of-breed solutions, he said, so Arkadin is one part SaaS (News

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Facebook's Social Commerce Revolution is Among Us; Are You Ready for the Fight Amazon?

By Carrie Schmelkin , TechZone360 Web Editor
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In case you didn’t already spend enough hours of the day on Facebook – from checking to see what your friends thought of “The Hunger Games” to sifting through your newsfeed for enough evidence that you should buy a lotto ticket before 11 p.m. EST tonight – Mark Zuckerberg wants you to spend a little bit more time at his site.

Accordingly, he has given businesses the options to have a “Shop Now” tab on their Facebook business profiles, a tab that allows you to purchase your favorite items from that brand you claim you “like” – all without ever leaving facebook.com. Is Amazon sitting there with its tail between its legs figuring out how it can still be the Internet mogul with all the fancy tricks? You betcha.

A casual visit to CoverGirl’s Faceook profile page, for example, might blow you away. Sure, there’s the obvious Timeline makeover (though that’s old news at this point as all businesses were forced to switch to the new Timeline by the end of the month). But now, the site also includes a “Shop Now” section in which anyone – even those who don’t admittedly let their social network know they “like” CoverGirl – can peruse the latest eye shadows, foundations, mascaras, etc., and make a purchase right then and there. When you click on “Shop Now,” you might be fooled for a minute into thinking you have strayed from Facebook and headed for CoverGirl’s website, but you would be wrong. Conversely, you can shop and purchase on the CoverGirl Facebook page without ever leaving that social networking site you have so come to love.

As you search each product, what you do get (and what you won’t get at CoverGirl’s website), is the number of people who like each product. You also have the option to share the product with others with a simple click.

Then, once you find that lip gloss that all your friends like and you have added it to your virtual shopping cart, you get to “checkout” – which once again keeps you in Facebook. What’s really neat is you can literally talk to your friends through Facebook chat as you are shopping. So instead of having to go with a friend to the mall and ask “Is this too expensive for lip gloss?,” you can ask her from the comfort of your own home while you are shopping on Facebook.

When you get to checkout, you can either insert your credit card information or use the Facebook Credits that you have already purchased (i.e. you can charge $200 to your credit card at one time to receive 2,360 credits to use when you shop so you don’t have to always pull out your credit card). And, voila – a few number insertions later, you have just made your purchase. It is hard to say how many buisnesses have rolled this out already, but if past Facebook trends have taught us anything, it's only a matter of days.

So folks, whether we are ready for it or not, we are in the age of social commerce.

No longer do we want advertisers and marketers shoving down our throats where to shop and what to buy. Instead, we want to know what our friends, long lost friends and even celebrities are buying. Facebook apparently believes strongly enough that when you see that your college roommate just bought that eye shadow you have been lusting after at CoverGirl (which you find out if she elects to have this purchase show up on her Facebook newsfeed), you might be more inclined to finally push the button yourself.  And since Facebook is where you are, why bother gassing up the car for your next purchase?

When you think of how far Facebook has come in less than a decade, it’s certainly exciting, albeit terrifying. What started as a site to connect college friends quickly metamorphosed into a marketer’s best friend, an individual’s break into the competitive business world and Amazon’s worst nightmare.

Facebook’s social commerce ploy is unabashedly Facebook’s attempt to oust Amazon, and similar sites, from cyberspace. The mogul’s latest platform also demonstrates its intent to keep charging forward until it becomes the consummate Internet search engine.

So where is Facebook headed next? Some suggest the social networking empire will soon become larger than Google as it will craft a search engine capable of searching the World Wide Web for anything, just as Google does. Others posit that cable providers will quickly be brought down once the Zuck and his minions determine how to bring cult following TV shows to the social networking site. And still others speculate that colleges will soon altogether abandon tools like Blackboard and conduct all their classroom activities via Facebook.

You might think a one-stop shop Facebook site sounds incredible –as you can stalk, search, sell, share and shape all from one site. But what about all the companies Facebook is about to bring down? What about all the jobs that will be lost because of it? And, perhaps we are forced to ask ourselves: Are we single-handedly paving the way for the biggest economic monster we have seen in centuries?

Edited by Rich Steeves



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Shares Double in Millennial Media IPO

By Patrick Lambert, TMCnet Contributing Writer

Millennial Media (News - Alert), a mobile advertising company, which recently debuted on the stock market last Thursday, saw an large rise in its stock price. These shares were hot commodities and went way up at more than double its initial price.

This follows the earlier LinkedIn (News - Alert) IPO where shares closed at 109 percent up on the first day of trading. The stock symbol for Millennial Media is MM and is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange. They are one of four companies going public this past Thursday and 10 overall this week.

The state of the IPO market has not been very encouraging in the past couple of years, especially with technology companies. Many preferred to stay privately owned rather than go through all the requirements of filing an IPO. However with high profile debuts like LinkedIn, the soon to be Facebook (News - Alert), and now Millennial Media, it's clear that investors are eager to get into the tech sector again.

The fast growing demand for smartphones and tablets is clearly one of the factors behind the popularity of mobile ads such as the ones provided by Millennial Media. As the market itself grows, so does the company's potential market. It's a very positive situation which hasn't escaped the stock investors who flocked to buy these early stocks.

The Baltimore company raised $132.6 million in initial capital with the offering of 10.2 million shares on Wednesday night. Shares ended up priced at $13 each, up from an earlier estimate of $9 to $11. The money gathered by this initial offering will be used by Millennial to pay for general corporate purposes like expanding around the globe, and develop new products. Its revenue so far is $103.7 million over the past year, although it's not making a profit quite yet, losing $5.3 million so far this year. By the end of the open market day on Thursday, the shares finished at $25.20 each.

It's hard to predict growth in such a fast changing market, but the mobile ads sector is said to be one of the most interesting field currently. There are billions of people around the globe who are going to use a phone as their first computing device, and tailoring content for them will be a very profitable business proposition. Millennial Media is one of many companies hoping to cash in with this fast growing market.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli
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Report Finds Increase of Almost 100 Percent in Medical Data Breaches

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It’s hard to believe, but a recent report by Redspin, Inc. found an astounding 97-percent increase in protected health information (PHI) data breaches in 2011, across a sample of healthcare organizations in the US, according to a story at healthitnewsdirect.com.

Another report recently revealed that over the last two years, “health care organizations have reported 364 incidents involving the loss or theft of information ranging from names and addresses to Social Security numbers and medical diagnoses on nearly 18 million patients – equivalent to the population of Florida.”

And what’s it costing us? At last count, $6 billion. After surveying 72 healthcare organizations, the Ponemon Institute and ID experts found that, on average, the cost of data breaches to organizations surveyed rose $183,526 to $2,243,700 from 2010, and extrapolating the study to the entire healthcare industry, Ponemon estimates that data breaches could cost the U.S. healthcare industry between $4.2 billion and $8.1 billion a year, or an average of $6.5 billion, according to a story by George V. Hulme at csoonline.com.

Redspin Inc., a provider of penetration testing and IT security audit services, said analyzing 385 breaches (affecting 500 individuals or more) turned up an estimated 19 million people on various health databases, and at least 46 U.S. states had their medical files breached since August 2009 when the interim final breach notification of the HITECH Act was passed.

Redspin found in its survey a 525-percent increase in records breached due to unencrypted device loss, and “an increase of 76 percent of breaches involving a business associate between 2010 and 2011, which made up 59 percent of the total number of breaches.”

The improper security processes, followed by the organizations which had the breaches, contributed to the two largest and three of the top five breaches, according to the story.

When you look at the value of PHI, when sold on the black market (estimated to be around $50) and “its use to commit Medicare fraud, the rate of breaches has increased to 60 percent, occurring with a malicious intent like theft and hacking,” according to Redspin.

But it’s not all about careless employees and files that were not properly encoded. The report also found a surge in the amounts of PHI on unprotected storage devices, and a “lack of security on portable devices (39%), like laptops, mobile phones and tablets, and desktop computers or servers (25%) contributing to breaches,” according to the story.

Edited by Braden Becker
By Deborah Hirsch , HealthTechZone Contributor

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Amazon Looks to Bring 550 Jobs to Lexington with New Call Center

By Steve Anderson , Contributing TechZone360 Writer
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A development for the state of Kentucky has emerged as a subsidiary arm of Amazon, and is looking to bring a new customer service outlet to the city of Winchester – about 20 miles to the east of Lexington.

The state of Kentucky – along with the rest of Clark County – is looking to offer up to $10.25 million in tax incentives, should they go ahead with plans to bring the customer service center in, and a $250,000 economic development bond to help offset the costs of the expansion. Costs are expected to reach $20 million.

Tax incentives and bonds won't come without costs to Amazon, however, which must create 550 jobs within its first three years of operation. Jobs in question must average an hourly pay of at least $15. But Kentucky's Economic Development Finance Authority projects that once the cost of benefits is factored in, the jobs will pay an average of $20 an hour.

This will no doubt come as welcome news to residents of the area, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics' preliminary numbers put the Lexington-Fayette area of Kentucky at a 7.9 percent unemployment rate.

This is, of course, before the underemployment rate and the rate of those who dropped out of the labor force entirely are considered, which will make the picture necessarily worse and the news of potential new jobs to come all the better.

Amazon has been seen recently as a substantial threat to big-box retailers like Best Buy, and thus jobs with Amazon should bear a note of extra security as Amazon is improving its position as a retailer overall, even in a weak economy with consumer confidence only starting to make a comeback from its lows.

It's not a done deal yet, though, but for the short term Kentucky residents should polish their resumes and get ready for a new arrival, a representative of the new way of shopping.

Edited by Braden Becker



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Wind Currents Communications Introduces V2VIP Video Phones

By Ray DeckTMCnet Contributing Writer Share

Enterprise VoIP solutions are a vast and diverse as any telecommunications market, but Wind Currents Communications brings something new to the table in its offering of V2VIP video phones. The six year old company has announced a product that is dramatically cheaper than other videoconferencing systems and has a major features advantage on any other telephone hardware against which is might compete.

Capitalizing on the rise in gas prices, Wind Currents is marketing their video phones as a cost-effective alternative to in-person meetings, though they are more likely to steal market share from Cisco, GoToMeeting Telepresence (News - Alert) and other videoconferencing services than they are from airlines. The video phone offers a 7” color LCD screen that transmits 30 frames per second of video while still allowing for crisp extension to extension, national or global calling to any standard telephone.

Wind Currents specializes in both voice and Voice over IP solutions for medium sized businesses, and prides itself in cost-effective business bundles. Most of Wind Currents’ customers conduct telemedicine and telehealthcare through the video phone products. This solution fits into a nice niche that is more reliable than Skype (News

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Polycom Makes Deal with HP and Microsoft

By Miguel Leiva-Gomez, TMCnet Contributor

Polycom, Inc., one of the biggest companies offering unified communications (UC) solutions, just announced a package of two interoperable solutions to interact with HP and Microsoft's technology, creating a perfect combination between Polycom (News

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Mobile App Testing Not Limited to One Approach

By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Contributor

A single bug in a mobile app can mess everything up for developers. That’s why it’s necessary to test the app via multiple layers. Leigh Williamson, an IBM engineer, told ReadWriteMobile a few suggestions for such a testing method.

There are both automatic and manual test, he explained. To test manually put the code on the device and use it like you would in the real world. If something is wrong, log it and dig back through the code.

Manual tests are inefficient and expensive, Williamson added, but they are still needed. In addition, manual tests tend to come at the end of an app development process.

On the other hand, Crashlytics offers an SDK to explain why an app crashed. It will specify the line of code and environmental data occurring when the crash took place, the report states.

In addition, with mobile app developers now reaching to The Cloud there are other cloud-related tests, too. IBM (News

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IBM Focuses on 'Big Data' at Rutgers

By Raju Shanbhag, TMCnet Contributor

High-Performance Computing (HPC) helps customers with powerful, innovative solutions to meet their most challenging and complex problems. It also allows them to innovate, make critical technical and business decisions and get a sustainable competitive advantage.

IBM recently collaborated with Rutgers to launch a high-performance computing (HPC) center at the university. According to IBM (News

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Most Effective Marketing: Combining Social Media and Email Campaigns

By Rachel Ramsey, TMCnet Contributor

Companies seem to think they have two choices when choosing marketing campaigns: through email or social media.

Email marketing campaigns continue to be a popular form of marketing. Forrester Research released a report revealing that consumers will receive more than 9,000 email-marketing messages annually., and the spending on email marketing in the U.S. will reach $2 billion by 2014.

Social media offers a wide variety of platforms including Facebook business pages, Twitter (News - Alert), and daily deals to reach a wider audience.

Combining the two, however, allows companies to reach a greater number of interested parties while spending the same amount of time on marketing. A recent article by NBC 5 gave tips to combine and keep track of social media and email marketing campaigns for the most effective outcome.

Keep email and social media efforts together by adding “share” buttons, and pair an email newsletter with a Tweet or Facebook (News - Alert) status message with the same content. A great way to keep your message and content forwarding on is to encourage existing customers and followers to spread the word about your company. Some companies may offer a deal or reward for existing customers who refer new clients.

Covering as many platforms as you can throughout the campaign is the best way to reach as many people as possible. It’s possible to automate messages so they simultaneously appear in Twitter, LinkedIn (News - Alert) and Facebook without having to go to each individual page.

VerticalResponse examined the effectiveness of the combination of email and social media marketing. Organizations that use its email marketing service and also engage in social media marketing for their business report a 28 percent higher open rate on their email marketing campaigns compared to those that don’t.

The data analysis indicates that non-profits, real estate, marketing and advertising, Internet, and health and wellness are the top five industries that use both email marketing and social media.

Forrester Research (News

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Enterprise Fax over IP: Considering the 'Paper Problem' in Healthcare

By Juliana Kenny, TMCnet Managing Editor

The healthcare and medical industry has some of the most dreaded and complicated paper trails and processes out of most industries (legal probably pulling a close second). Issues involving compliance, security, and financial details leave healthcare organizations looking for paperless solutions. Unfortunately, once an organization adopts a paperless solution that does not necessarily mean it’s automatically relieved of compliance issues.

The folks over at OpenText did some research and found out that compliancy fines in the U.S. are at an all-time high for healthcare organizations. These compliancy violations can exceed seven figures, so at stakes that high, organizations need to be aware of the penalties possible and actively work to prevent accruing them.

The risks associated with paper-based communications and processes are not widely known, especially amongst enterprises. Education on these processes is really the only way to ensure that a business will not get booby-trapped into compliance fines and expensive legal proceedings.

A webinar planned for Thursday, April 12 at 2 p.m. ET is designed to shed some light on the best practices for companies that have implemented digital fax solutions and paperless procedures. Titled “A Simple and Compliant Solution to the Paper Problem in Healthcare: Expert Insight and an Example from the Real World,” the webinar intends to discuss security, privacy, and risks.

OpenText will reveal how it integrates its digital faxing solution to achieve HIPAA compliance, improve processes, and dramatically lower costs. Members of healthcare organizations in the compliance and managerial tiers will learn ways to improve productivity and patient care while maintaining the security of data and patient information. Attend the webinar on the 12th to get the whole scoop on what the paperless industry is doing for healthcare.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli


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Visa-MasterCard Account Breach Currently Under Investigation

By Steve Anderson , Contributing TechZone360 Writer
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A payment-card processor's network, which handles transactions for Visa and MasterCard alike, has reportedly been breached. As a result, more than 10 million card numbers may have been compromised.

Banks nationwide were put on alert following the breach with warnings that specific payment cards may have already been used fraudulently. MasterCard went on record saying they were currently conducting their own investigation into the possibility of a breach, stating their concern over any possibility that cardholders could be inconvenienced.  MasterCard also stated that none of its own systems had been compromised in the breach. Visa, for its part, is planning to issue a statement later on.

Investigators are currently suspecting, according to reports from USA Today, Dominican street gangs that managed to enter the system via a series of knowledge-based authentication questions and that the fraud is currently targeting commercial credit and debit card accounts. The breach is being described as “mushrooming”, so even those accounts not currently affected may well be in the days to come. Regardless of where the breach originated, the onus will now fall on card issuers to make their potentially affected customers aware of the situation.

Stronger laws have recently been put in place for data breach disclosure. These new laws mean that banks and credit unions alike will be hard pressed to rapidly notify the potentially affected cardholders. Failure to do so in a sufficiently rapid fashion, or failure to meet a variety of disclosure requirements, could result in stiff fines levied against the merchants that issued the cards. One case suggested that one million customers across ten states who were affected and the resulting fines from that hypothetical case reached $1.6 million.

With the world economy still unsteady at best, incidents such as these will likely increase, and their severity will also likely worsen. It will prove to be a prudent move to keep an eye on personal credit card usage in the coming months as events like these crop up.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli




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Yahoo May Layoff Thousands Next Week

By Joe Eitel , TechZone360 Contributing Writer
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Anonymous sources broke the news today that Yahoo plans to lay off thousands of employees starting next week. The following week, Yahoo plans to roll out a new restructuring plan for the future of the company.

Reuters reports the layoffs will not take place all at once, but rather gradually over a period of weeks. News was released at the blog AllThingsD, stating there were several anonymous sources claiming the news was indeed true.

The layoffs will reportedly affect primarily the marketing, product and research groups at Yahoo. The goal, according to AllThingsD, is to cut thousands of employees from the close to 14,000 currently working for Yahoo. There are about 2,500 employees in these departments at Yahoo.

Yahoo’s reorganization plan reportedly includes the creation of a global media division consisting of decentralized units. Yahoo’s advertising business and search engine may also be restructured or eliminated in the coming weeks. Scott Thompson, Chief Executive at Yahoo, has already spoken with Google and Microsoft regarding Yahoo’s ad and search engine business, according to AllThingsD.

The layoff and restricting plan would mark the biggest move by Thompson, the former president of PayPal, who took the lead position at Yahoo in January. Thompson, along with consultants from Boston Consulting Group, presented the reorganization plan to yahoo senior executives this past Tuesday.

Yahoo ended 2011 with a decline in revenues due in part to stiff competition by Facebook and Google.

There’s certainly more news to come in the next two weeks regarding Yahoo’s layoffs and reorganization plan.

Edited by Braden Becker




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J.D. Power Calls Cadillac A Champion Of Customer Service

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

It's been said that a top-notch customer service experience is the key to not only getting new customers, but keeping the old ones. J.D. Power and Associates has recently designated Cadillac as a 2012 Customer Service Champion.

J.D. Power and Associates' Customer Service Champion program takes the opinions of consumers, as relates to 800 different brands across 20 industries, focusing on five key areas: People, Price, Process, Presentation, and finally, Product. It then distilled those customer opinions in those five key metrics down into just 50 brands that were worthy of J.D. Power and Associates' Customer Service Champion ranking. Of the 50 brands that made it into the rankings, only four car brands managed to earn the designation.

Cadillac has earned the designation two years running, thanks to what they describe as a customer-centered approach, using its customer base to affect design processes. Cadillac's XTS sedan, for instance, draws heavily on customer research to provide features like ample trunk space and high-end communications systems and media services. Cadillac also leans toward providing extra face time to customers at the dealership level, a tactic in increasingly short supply with the advent of online shopping, where the potential customer has no face time at all with a vendor.

An old marketing adage declares that customers will tell, on average, ten people about every bad experience they have while far fewer will be told about a good experience. While this adage is often debated by most who hear it, including some who like to introduce the modifier effect social media introduces, the key point is that the customer experience is still a primary driver of a business' fortunes, no matter what size it is.

A designation like J.D. Power and Associates' Customer Service Champion is an important one to have, and visible proof that an organization like Cadillac is doing all it can to ensure the best experience for customers possible.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli
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Big Data Enables Healthcare to Process Massive Amounts of Data for Clues into Illness

By Deborah Hirsch TMCnet Contributor

It’s only just being talked about, but it’s been around for awhile. The name is clean, simple and says it all. Big Data — the ability to crunch the massive amounts of data out there and process and interpret it, according to Ben Rooney of the Wall Street Journal.

TMCnet contributor Nathesh recently reported that a study by research firm IDC has shown that “the Big Data technology and services market is growing at 40 percent a year and by 2015 will reach $16.9 billion” – seven times the overall information technology and communications business growth rate.

Healthcare is one of the places it may play out most.

In the past, wrote Rooney, healthcare was one doctor looking at one patient with only the information the doctor had at that time. But what if a doctor has access to thousands, or even tens of thousands, of people? And all the data that goes with them?

Acquiring medical data has historically not been easy, wrote Rooney, as it is “wrapped in layers of regulations and stringent safeguards and is expensive to collect.” Even more difficult to interpret and use, it hasn’t represented the whole population – just the ones who are sick.  

So while health services can already collect information from laboratories, hospitals and front-line doctors, the problem is that “It is massively skewed. It is highly biased by the people who go to doctors; the ill, the hypochondriacs and the elderly,” Shamus Husheer, CEO of Cambridge Temperature Concepts, told Rooney.

Big data is no stranger to other industries. It’s storage technology is being used to power advanced research across universities and to extract clinical and operational data from iPads and digital pens “for visualization into dashboards and drill-down analyses and in the creation of reports.”  

One of the applications in the healthcare world made by Husheer's company using big data is a sensor that women wishing to conceive wear 24 hours a day “which records movement and changes in body temperature (an indication of ovulation), up to 20,000 readings a day,” valuable information that is obtained only through searching through mounds of data.

Edited by Braden Becker
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U.S. State-Federal Consortium to Spur Offshore Wind Projects in Great Lakes Region

By Cheryl KaftenTMCnet Contributor
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On March 30, U.S. President Barack Obama joined with the governors of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania as well as the representatives of a number of federal agencies in signing a bipartisan Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will streamline the development of offshore wind resources in the Great Lakes region. 

The creation of the Great Lakes Offshore Wind Energy Consortium responds in part to a request to the president from a bipartisan group of governors last June to establish a combined intergovernmental state-federal task force on wind energy development. It also supports the Obama Administration’s “all of the above” approach to renewable energy production and fossil fuel independence.  

Located near the U.S.-Canada border, Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario comprise 21 percent of the world's surface fresh water. The total offshore wind potential in the Great Lakes regions is over 700 gigawatts (GW). This represents about one-fifth of the total offshore wind potential in the United States.



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IVR Systems and Voice Apps Abound

By Juliana Kenny, TMCnet Managing Editor

Voice applications are everywhere these days – you can’t turn a street corner without hearing about Skype (News

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General Informatics Becomes Champion Partner of ShoreTel

By Mandira SrivastavaTMCnet Contributor Share

To cope with the intense international and domestic competition as well as with the increasingly large resource required for growth, many companies are trying to concentrate their efforts to adopt strategic method that could help their business to grow. With this in mind, General Informatics and ShoreTel (News

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Apple TV: Troubleshooting wireless connections

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Plex Introduces New Media Server Beta with PS3, Xbox DLNA Support

We love us some Plex here at MacLife.com, where we’ve converted an aging Mac mini into a fine home theatre server with a minimum of effort. Now that recent versions of the Plex application have separated the server software from the client software, all sorts of goodies have been coming -- such as DLNA streaming support with a new server update this week.

The wizards at Plex have announced a new Plex Media Center 0.9.6.0 beta release on Thursday which adds support for the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) streaming standard. While that may not sound so exciting in and of itself, DLNA brings a variety of new options for Plex lovers, including streaming to many HDTVs, Blu-ray players and game consoles such as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.



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Changes at Foxconn Bring Additional Worry, Stress for Workers

As we reported Thursday evening, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) has released the findings of their Foxconn audit, resulting in a reduction of working hours at the Apple supplier and cutbacks in overtime. While the news has advocates for workers’ rights busy patting themselves on the back, the workers in China most affected by the decision are more worried than ever.

Reuters is reporting on worker reaction to the changes at Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer where many of Apple’s biggest hits are assembled. While the focus here in America has been on how Foxconn employees are overworked and underpaid, many of them now have another worry: Even less money thanks to cuts in working hours and overtime.

"We are worried we will have less money to spend,

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British Scam Nets Huge iTunes Royalties from Unknown Artists

You’ve got to hand it to criminals -- sometimes, the tricks they come up with to dupe folks out of money is just amazingly clever. For example, the case of a gang of 11 in England who used stolen credit cards to buy their own unknown music from iTunes and Amazon and score big on royalty payments.

BBC News England is reporting that a clever scam involving stolen credit cards and royalty payments has been shut down after a gang of 11 young men from Kent, Derby, Birmingham and Wolverhamption were finally caught.

According to the report, the 24-year-old ringleader of the group purchased 24 identical laptops, then obtained

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How to Control an iOS Device With Another iOS Device

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Free App Friday: Fotopedia Heritage

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iBooks Author Review

by Steve Paris 0Comments Are digital interactive textbooks and the means to create them finally here?

Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and even Apple’s iBooks have been working on moving us away from reading physical books and toward embracing the digital revolution. But until now, there was very little to convince us just how good an idea this could be, since digital books look very much like their real-world counterparts, right down to the page-turning effect.

You can save a lot of weight if you tend to carry a few books with you, but no title appeared to offer the limitless potential of a truly digital book, something more akin to what you can achieve with apps, for instance.

Now Apple wants to help users achieve that limitless potential, with the free content-creation application iBooks Author. It aims to revolutionize modern textbooks by bringing interactivity to the learning experience. Not only can you add images to your pages, the reader can zoom in or out of them. You can insert Keynote slides, and embed movies that can be viewed inside a page or full screen. It’s even possible to create short quizzes to test your readers’ knowledge retention.

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Subway Hires NEXCON and Real Digital Media to Launch In-store Media Campaign

By Ray Deck, TMCnet Contributing Writer

The world’s largest restaurant chain is breaking into the digital content market by launching an in-store TV and radio station. Subway will be playing hand-selected and independently created content in all of its more than 36,000 restaurants in over 99 countries worldwide.

The appetite-building content will play on NEXCOM’s fanless NDiS 161 media player and Real Digital Media’s NEOCAST digital signage platform. The two combine to make a powerful communication medium for Subway franchisees to better inform customers of menu options and entice additional sales. 

The contract between Subway, NEXCOM and Real Digital Media represents one of the largest in the industry. Immediately the two hardware manufacturers are moving to execute over 1,000 installations in the United States alone as they strategize expansion into international locations.

Subway had the unique requirement of needing to support both national messaging efforts and empower local markets and franchisees to select the content that best fit the needs of their specific restaurants with marketing messages changing throughout the day to accommodate breakfast, lunch and dinner menus in a unique way.

Long operating hours, a wide variety of temperature conditions and changing content across regions and throughout the day makes this one of the most complex such in-store installation ever attempted.

NEXCOM, founded in 1992, develops products that incorporate the latest technology to meet critical resolution requirements. It offers a wide range of solutions from cost-effective to high-performance, feature rich digital signage solutions.

Subway chose the company’s flagship media player that boasts superior temperature control, longevity and durability due to its fanless design. The hardware accelerated decoder generates full HD video playback with faster response time and lower power consumption than any other similar device on the market.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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Communications Provider SaskTel International Recognized in Stratecast's '10 to Watch in 2012' Global OSS/BSS Report

- Alert)) environment, cost-effective communications can no longer be viewed in isolation from the rest of a business. As media integration increases and workforces grow more mobile, well-defined support system can be a critical component to help meet 24/7 company demands.

Today’s media-rich business environments require a complex combination of voice, email, mobile, and data capabilities to serve their employees and customers. Of these capabilities, customer relationship management (CRM) is increasingly important as network loyalty falls to the wayside in the face of wide-ranging device and application options. 

The movement toward cloud computing has further implications regarding this workforce mobility and productivity. Recently, Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), offered an excerpt from Making Innovation Matter – Global OSS/BSS 10 to Watch in 2012, which distinguishes companies that have built visionary solutions that meet current and business-critical objectives. 

As increasing numbers of businesses look to update their communications networks in order to take advantage of cost savings and productivity-enhancing features, they are being challenged on all fronts. The report distinguished SaskTel International, as an organization that has established its market position solidly through clearly ascertained, differentiating factors. SaskTel International (News - Alert) is recognized as a global innovator and experience-backed software solution provider that has successfully enabled clients to develop, enhance, and expand their business operations for over 25 years.

According to SaskTel International President and COO Steve Sousa, “SaskTel International continues to make significant investments in our software portfolio and organization as a whole in the drive to ensure that our software remains at the forefront. Our recognition by Stratecast as a 10 to Watch in 2012 company solidifies this commitment to continued innovation as applied to the depth and functionality of our software offering.”

Easing management issues allows companies to focus exclusively on business concerns. The high-functioning communications and support systems provided by a quality service provider like SaskTel International  ensure that employees can immediately respond to the needs of colleagues and customers alike. Solutions such as these that are durable, accessible, cost-efficient and secure solutions call for minimal replacement of and integration with existing OSS/BSS, IT infrastructure and they will continue to lead this market. 

Stratecast Strategy Director – OSSCS Nancee Ruzicka stated, “For some vendors, transitioning value propositions and advancing corporate cultures to reflect these values will require prolonged, costly and challenging applications.  The more OSS/BSS can ease this evolution for CSPs, the better positioned they will be to manage successful transformation efforts. SaskTel International gained an intimate understanding of the customer perspective as well as the challenges CSPs worldwide face through their roots as an internal support subsidiary. The organization sees the value and need for simplifying offerings and building end-to-end solutions that provide multilateral and interoperable services.”

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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President and Co-founder of LivingSocial Steps Down

By David Gitonga, TMCnet Contributing Writer

LivingSocial (News - Alert) co-founder and president, Eddie Frederick, has stepped down from the board. According to an email sent out by LivingSocial CEO, Tim O’Shaughnessy, “Eddie is moving on to pursue new challenges and adventures. Eddie has been with the company since its start, having originally created the Visual Bookshelf app that saw the creation of Hungry Machine, the company that would eventually form LivingSocial.” LivingSocial is a direct competitor to Groupon which went public late last year.

According to an email, headlined ‘Living Socialites’, O’Shaughnessy mentioned that Frederick has been a significant driving force behind the success of LivingSocial. He mentioned Frederick’s work in user acquisition efforts such as A/B testing button colors for their Facebook (News - Alert) Apps and his efforts behind the move to push for the launch of Me

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KnoahSoft Quality Monitoring Drives Market Differentiation

  By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor The contact center is so much more than just an interaction point between the customer and the company. Today, this important division within the company is responsible for managing the customer experience. The key differentiator for any company is in how well their contact center agents are able to handle the customer experience. Optimal performance is often the result of quality monitoring.



To tackle this issue and guide others in the industry toward excellence, KnoahSoft’s (News - Alert) Vice President, David Lewy, was on hand for the Contact Center Online Summit event, March 13th – 15th.  His focus included the proper management of the customer experience and how it can easily result in increased profits, performance levels and employee engagement. He also stressed the importance of harnessing customer feedback, and turning it into business intelligence to take the organization to the next level.

To that end, KnoahSoft offers the Harmony 3.0 solution, designed specifically to help businesses improve customer satisfaction, while also increasing operational awareness. Through its quality monitoring capabilities, KnoaSoft is providing formal and informal IP-based contact centers with a solution that is both low in cost and Web-based.

The solution was built from the ground up to leverage VoIP, supporting performance management, quality monitoring and call recording. A collaborative work environment is built by providing contact center leaders with the information they need to do their jobs.

Calls, emails and chat sessions are ready for review in a PCI (News - Alert)-compliant, open-reporting framework that is services-oriented. Advanced reporting and real-time dashboards reduce liability risks and operating expenses, while also improving the effectiveness and satisfaction of the contact center staff. Web 2.0 is inherent in this quality monitoring platform to strengthen the bottom line and enhance the overall experience for the customer.

Quality monitoring with KnoahSoft allows for the effective management of business operations with real-time and even offline data. Agent performance and quality is improved through the capture of business data through surveying, voice recordings and speech analytics. In a collaborative environment, contact center supervisors can positively support agents with messaging, monitoring, eLearning and coaching modules.

Agents within the contact center environment generally have a clear direction on performance expectations, but do they have the tools to consistently drive improvement while optimizing the customer experience? With quality monitoring in place, supervisors can effectively coach agents on what they do well, and where improvements could have a positive impact.

KnoahSoft provides the necessary quality monitoring tools to create a positive environment, enabling the contact center to achieve that quality differentiation in the market that so many consumers demand. 




Edited by Jennifer Russell
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White Space Hopes to Bring Reliable Broadband Connectivity to UK's Rural Areas

By Nick Ruble MobilityTechzone Contributing Writer

It’s a well-known fact that broadband services are less available in rural areas, but with the digital dividend from television’s analog to digital transformation, there is a whole new horizon open for exploration. A newly implemented means of broadband delivery, dubbed “White Space”, is in its early stages of testing on the small Scottish Isle of Bute.

This new solution travels through the now-unused UHF band and is capable of delivering speeds upwards of 8Mbits/s – about the average rate of a DSL connection. Traditional hard-wired methods of delivery are impractical in remote areas due to the need for excessive resources.

The farther a cable line is stretched, the weaker the signal gets, which is clearly demonstrated by Bute’s average connection speed of less than 1Mbit/s. Chris Gibbs of BT, the company running the trials, stated, “Although it has the same characteristics as copper – the further you go the worse the signal gets – it goes a bit further, and that's the advantage”

BT warns that this new means of connectivity is still in its early days, but at the same time are seeing promising results. With the already blazing fast speeds of 4G networks though, one has to ask; will White Space really catch on? Sure, it may be the only means of Internet access in a great deal of rural areas, but will there even be enough consumers to support it?

The answers to these questions and many more will be made clear when pricing and conclusive test results are announced, but like BT said, things are looking very promising thus far.

New ideas and methods of broadband deployment are always surfacing, and BT’s White Space solution could very well prove effective. If so, businesses and consumers across the UK would surely benefit – Internet access is becoming a necessity in just about everyone’s lives, and those living in rural areas shouldn’t have to be an exception.

Edited by Jennifer Russell

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Executive Shakeup at PayPal

- Alert) has named its mobile unit chief, David Marcus, the new CEO of PayPal (News - Alert). Marcus who is currently PayPal’s vice president of Mobile, will begin his new job as CEO of PayPal on Monday.

Former PayPal CEO Scott Thompson left in January for a new job as CEO at Yahoo in a very peculiar way. According to sources inside of Yahoo, Thompson “cold-emailed” his way into a job. Yahoo’s executive search firm Heidrich & Struggles got him the job at eBay, so it was contractually bound from approaching him about the Yahoo job. Thompson decided to take matters into his own hands and reach out directly to Yahoo board members and began pitching himself for the job. Obviously it worked, since Scott Thompson began as Yahoo’s CEO in January.

His predecessor at PayPal, David Marcus (News - Alert), was chosen by eBay to bring a “startup energy” to the Office of Chief Executive at PayPal. eBay acquired the online payments business in 2002 and today it accounts for 40 percent of sales on Ebay.com. PayPal is a large and fast-growing business. Sources inside of eBay said that it was in search of an entrepreneur with experience building businesses from scratch to handle the firm. Marcus will report to John Donahoe, present and CEO of eBay, PayPal’s parent company.

PayPal faces new competition from startups Venmo and Square, but it is rising to the challenge by announcing a card-swiping device that scans checks and works with all four major credit-card networks. The reader, called PayPal Here, can be plugged into any smartphone or tablet and accepts payments for offline purchases. The device is aimed directly at Square which makes its living on the offline purchase enabled by its app and card-scanner.

The choice of an internal candidate is a strong vote of confidence for PayPal’s existing management team and sends a message that eBay is serious about continuing its focus on mobile technologies.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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YTel's Voice Broadcast Increases Efficiency

By Rachel Ramsey, TMCnet Contributor

An effective method of marketing in the mortgage industry is getting in touch with potential customers over the phone. Voice broadcast makes it easy to increase sales leads and revenue, reduce infrastructure costs, and decrease agent hand dialing. The company provides cloud-based telephony solutions and support, and offers two types of automated dialers: predictive dialers and voice broadcast dialers.

The YTel Dialer increases efficiency up to 500 percent over dialing numbers manually. It can bypass disconnected numbers, fax machines and answering machines automatically and can even leave pre-recorded voicemails.

The dialer reaches out to customers with a 5 to 1 dialing ratio, and once a customer has been reached the YTel Dialer offers features such as taking notes, scheduling follow up calls, and separating data into customizable folders. It integrates seamlessly with most Web-based CRM systems for easy follow up and tracking of leads, and allows for live transfers, customizable caller ID’s, recording of calls, and live agent monitoring.

The voice broadcast solution powered by YTel allows users to load contact lists, upload professional messages or record one over the phone and broadcast a prerecorded message to a large amount of people per hour. It also gives the option to allow customers to connect to a live agent to make a payment or leave a voicemail.

In addition, the company also has a call tracking dashboard and 800 numbers with IVR and call routing coming soon.

The FCC has recently announced that it will now require telemarketers to acquire written permission, including electronic forms, from consumers before placing a robocall, and all robocalls must now include an automated opt-out option so consumers can instantly inform telemarketers that they no longer want to receive calls. Marketers will face a new challenge in reaching existing and prospective customers.

Collection Advisor Magazine recently released a list of its top four choices for voice broadcasting solutions in 2011. Criteria that the companies had were having dynamic real-time “Do Not Call” lists at hand, moving to the cloud, and having a full-service offering.

Edited by Jamie Epstein

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Telax Call Center Agent Version 10.2 Now Comes with Microsoft Lync Integration

By David Gitonga, TMCnet Contributing Writer

Telax Call Center Agent version 10.2 is out and it comes with significant changes including Microsoft (News

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Scantronix Boosts Website Visits with Redesign

By David Delony, Contributing Writer

Scantronix, a provider of medical and business document scanning systems, has beefed up their Web presence with the help of LA Dezign, a Los Angeles-based Web design firm.

Scantronix and LA Dezign also teamed up with a CMS provider, Adrecom, and Colocation America (News - Alert) for data hosting.

“The large-scale increase in site conversions was a direct result of a redesign and repositioning of the Scantronix website that was initiated to ensure that visitors to the site would be enticed to learn about their scanning services and to contact Scantronix for more information,” a press release by LA Dezign said.

LA Dezign then created a wireframe that would outline the design of the new website, which they hoped would be easy to navigate and would look more professional.

The new website was also deployed on Adrecom’s eCMS software. This gave Scantronix employees the ability to update blogs and other content on the site themselves, including press releases and video, images and podcasts. Since Adrecom is integrated with Google (News

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Pinnacle Engines Uses ArkadinVideo for Communicating with Partners

By Carolyn J DawsonTMCnet Contributor Share

Pinnacle Engines has enhanced its communications with its associate in Asia through the use of ArkadinVideo powered by Vidyo (News - Alert), resolving production issues. This hosted, multi-point HD video conferencing system has been instrumental for Pinnacle Engines’ ability in meeting the 2013 engine launch date, put at risk due to language and cultural misunderstandings.

"Pinnacle's experience demonstrates the value of web-based HD video conferencing for solving visual and cultural communications challenges,” said Mark Alexander, President, Arkadin (News - Alert) North America. “We're thrilled that ArkadinVideo is an effective solution for showcasing their engine architecture, while helping to bridge communications challenges so common in dealing with distant partners."

The auto industry across the world is eagerly waiting for the patented, extremely resourceful engine from Pinnacle capable, offering at least 30 percent improved fuel saving. Pinnacle needed an economically viable, efficient video conferencing solution for discussing technical information with its Asian associate as deadlines were being missed and production schedules were at risk.

 It was not possible to discuss the advanced and extremely technical information involved in engine architecture on the conventional conference calls and web-based meetings. Similarly, it was not feasible for Pinnacle to send its employees frequently to Asia for discussions.

While Pinnacle could not afford the expensive proprietary systems, they were also not satisfied with the video quality offered by the consumer-centric solutions. Pinnacle therefore decided to use ArkadinVideo as it met all their needs, helping them build more trusting and dedicated relationships.

"It makes a big difference to see the people you are talking to,” said Tom Covington, VP, Marketing, Pinnacle Engines. “We've found a greater sense of trust and commitment between our partners since using ArkadinVideo. If people commit to a deadline, they are more apt to honor it if you see them face-to-face. PowerPoint visuals are an important part of our design process, but they can only get you so far. We can now share the physical model in CAD which is very useful.”

Edited by Braden Becker


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8x8 Sharpens Call Centers' Cloud Presence with Advanced Chat, Conferencing

- Alert) Inc., who recently acquired Contactual (News - Alert), a provider of cloud-based call center solutions, just announced several enhancements to its Virtual Office PBX phone service and a Virtual Office Pro unified communications solution.

8x8 Inc. is a source for communication technologies for businesses in the cloud. Its merger with Contactual fosters virtual call centers resulting from several adaptations in IaaS and SaaS (News

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ServicePilot Unveils ISM Enterprise Version 8.1

By Raju ShanbhagTMCnet Contributor Share

ServicePilot Technologies has announced the availability of ISM Enterprise version 8.1, its latest version including support for Avaya VoIP and UC products and Acme Packet (News

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TMC's Smart Grid and Oracle Present a Webinar

TMCnet News

NORWALK, CT (March 30, 2012) – Smart Grid, the leading website dedicated to the rapidly developing technologies that enable and harness Smart Grids, and Oracle (News

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Network Optix Unveils Video Surveillance Management Solution

By Carolyn J DawsonTMCnet Contributor
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Network Optix is set to launch its innovative video surveillance management solution, HD WitnessV1.0, at the International Security Conference, or ISC West, organized in Las Vegas, NV from March 28-30. Network Optix will showcase its offerings at booth #16119.

Enterprises can now supervise high definition or HD surveillance video using HD Witness, the latest, stylish yet simple HD video management platform from Network Optix. Enterprises are offered infinite scalability with the extremely optimized architecture of this latest video management solution, allowing for enormous enterprise bandwidth savings. The solution also features computerized device discovery and configuration and offers minimal total cost of implementation and ownership to the enterprises.

HD Witness is installed in a simplified manner, and upgraded effortlessly. With features like real-time enterprise connectivity, flawless transition from live to archived footage, computerized device discovery, android mobile streaming, HD screen recording and multi-video wall display, enterprises are guaranteed an enriching experience with this powerful interface.

HD Witness features a perceptive user interface and a dynamic UX, and is compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac.

Developed by some of the best experts from the megapixel IP video, HD Witness has dealt with the primary difficulties and restrictions of administering enterprise HD video currently facing enterprises. Network Optix has also addressed issues regarding video and digital media transfer, and derived a new solution for deploying wide scale, HD video in the enterprise.

Interested users can download HD Witness on March 28 at the company’s website, www.networkoptix.com/products/hdwitness.

The company has been instrumental in launching products in dynamic compression and resolution scaling, logic based stream tagging, social media live sharing and video processing methodology.

Edited by Braden Becker

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SoftSyl Launches Outbound Calling Platform

By Carolyn J Dawson
TMCnet Contributor

SoftSyl Technologies has introduced an outbound calling platform called CallPunch, using the industry-compliant VoiceXML (News - Alert) technology. An assortment of call centers and other companies across the nation can now avail CallPunch, added to SoftSyl’s current portfolio.

Customers can now launch IVR campaigns in an economically viable manner at an enterprise level with CallPunch, eliminating expensive in-house infrastructure.

CallPunch is available as a cloud-based solution which offers an easily accessible online dashboard. The solution is also available with the hosted option and includes features like system management, maintenance and technical assistance. Companies can also implement CallPunch at their sites.

Various types of industries will find the CallPunch VXML dialer from SoftSyl beneficial. The CallPunch VXML dialer can either be used as an independent solution or incorporated with SoftSyl’s popular OmniUVX and AsterUVX platforms. Customers, especially in medicine, implement the CallPunch VXML dialer and receive appointment reminders, emergency notifications and voice broadcasting systems.

The major academic institutions can use the solution to collect medical research information from its study members. Schools, non-profit organizations and politicians will also find this solution useful.

Organizations can deliver actionable content to any phone by incorporating CallPunch with SoftSyl's current interactive voice response or IVR platforms, allowing interactivity with the person called. The solution also helps capture data, allowing organizations to collect payments, donations, responses and so much more.

CallPunch uses artificial intelligence through email to follow up with contacts. Organizations are also given do-not-call list compliance and privacy controls by the system, which can interoperate with other unified communications platforms like Cisco, Avaya and ShoreTel (News

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AGT, Yorktel Team Up, Develop Video Services

By Rahul Arora
MSP News™ Contributor

Applied Global Technologies (AGT), a major MSP and Unified Communications (News - Alert) technology provider for interactive and mobile video conferencing solutions, recently announced it has signed an agreement with Yorktel, a global provider of video services.

AGT’s mobile video conferencing solutions will now be a part of Yorktel’s service portfolio, according to the terms of the agreement. AGT will also have an access to Yorktel branded apps, available in the Mac App store.

 “AGT’s valued partnership with Yorktel expands our global footprint and further proves the industry demand for a mobile video platform that can either be attached to existing infrastructure or deployed in a cloud environment,” stated Mike Valletutti, Chief Executive Officer of AGT. “With this partnership, two industry experts – and former competitors – team up to further advance leadership positions in the emerging mobile video conferencing market.”

AGT’s video conferencing technology delivers the flexibility, mobility, pricing, upgraded features, IT support, automatic quality monitoring and fast return on investment that affects a business’s bottom line. The company offers both Managed Video Services and Cloud Services to give clients the scalable video conferencing solution to fit their Unified Communications strategy.

 “AGT’s mobility technology provides a secure, on-premise attach solution for our clients that require a single-port solution for peering private networks,” explains Bin Guan, Chief Technology Officer of Yorktel. “This partnership strengthens our mobility portfolio by enabling business-to-business applications and support for disparate video endpoints”

Edited by Braden Becker
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Aspect and Comarch Pair Up for Diverse Communication Solutions

- Alert) platform solutions, recently announced it has signed a partnership agreement with IT specialist Comarch. According to the terms of the agreement, Comarch (News - Alert) will now sell a range of products and services from Aspect. Comarch will also offer the consulting, implementation and support services for Aspect products.

Aspect (News - Alert) is recognized by global industry analysts for its market-leading capabilities in workforce management, outbound dialing and inbound ACD routing, and is a top Microsoft National Systems Integrator. The company has helped organizations of all sizes take advantage of software to meet key business goals, including more than two-thirds of the Global Fortune 50.

The company’s service teams help lay the foundation for the new enterprise model with platform services for Microsoft Lync, SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other technologies, as well as through consulting and application development. 

“As one of the pioneers in customer contact, Aspect has unique experience and an impressive product portfolio,” Marcin Pepas, Business Unit Director, Networking and Telecommunications Solutions at Comarch, said in a statement. “We see huge potential, especially with regard to integrating our ERP/CRM solution with Aspect’s unified customer contact platform and we are excited and looking forward to working together.” 

Comarch also specializes in innovative IT solutions for the Telecommunications and Financial Services industries, Government, Large Enterprise and Small and Medium Businesses. The company offers solutions for billing, network management, ERP systems, IT security, CRM and loyalty management, EDI, sales support, electronic communication and business intelligence.

 “Comarch is a European IT specialist with deep knowhow and we are pleased to welcome them as our partner”, said Ingo Brod, Channel Sales Manager at Aspect. “As both our companies continue to align business with Microsoft, our customers will undoubtedly benefit from additional synergies.”

Edited by Braden Becker


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Procera Wins Fourth Follow-On Order from US MSO for PacketLogic Solutions

- Alert) reportedly won the fourth follow-on order from a Tier-1 US MSO for its PacketLogic solutions. The operator, undergoing an expansion process, will deploy the solution in sites where bandwidth has increased over the past six months.

Procera's PacketLogic solution is expected to enable the MSO to deliver personalized services for millions of its subscribers.

Revenue from this $2.5 million follow-on order will be included in the company’s financial report for the first quarter of 2012, Procera said in a press release.

“Large deployments like this are proving the scalability and ease of expansion of the Procera solution for Tier-1 operators,” said Vice President of Global Marketing for Procera Cam Cullen. “Tier-1 operator networks require more performance and scalability out of the overall PacketLogic solution, and Procera's ability to meet these scaling challenges is the primary reason we see continued follow-on business from large customers.”

Procera explained on its Web site that broadband providers trying to keep pace with the Digital Lifestyle require detailed analyses of trends in consumer behavior. Procera's PacketLogic Intelligence Center (PIC) with PacketLogic Report Studio ensures that Marketing and Finance departments understand what applications are most prevalent among the clients’ user base, where those applications are used most frequently, and how changes in service plans affect network congestion.

By providing succinct, digestible and customizable reports, PIC helps drive profitable services and efficient network management. In the press release Procera claimed that its PacketLogic Report Studio analytics have become integral to the business planning process at the Tier-I MSO.

The implementation of PacketLogic solutions into existing FlowSync and QueueSync domains will enable the operator to scale the deployment without complicated traffic re-routing or clustering. The ease of scaling individual sites and geographic redundancy are two capabilities that make PacketLogic solution perfectly suitable for large scale deployments, Procera said in the release.

The deployment will also support the operator’s IPv6 rollout project. The solution provides visibility of IPv6 traffic and IPv6 service offerings for the business and consumer markets.

Procera Networks recently unveiled PacketLogic 20000 (PL20000), a new 100GE-capable Intelligent Policy Enforcement (IPE) platform.

Edited by Braden Becker


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Lowe’s Uses iPhone to Put Power In Hands of Employees and Customers

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Mindshare's New Call Center Training Software Features Instant Feedback Surveys

By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor

Mindshare Technologies, specializing in call center training, announced the availability of their new automated callback service, Outbound Dial, for its call center and service industry customers.

Outbound Dial can also be used by clients gauging the quality of their customer interactions through a system that can’t be manipulated by agents.

Outbound Dial features a callback function that provides the administrator or supervisor with a quick, customized survey within three minutes of an interaction between an agent and customer. It gives the opportunity to rate specific aspects of the interaction and provide real-time feedback to call center management for training.

 “Many call centers and service clients already use some sort of follow-up method that measures the performance of their agents, but our clients were looking for an easier, cost-effective option that would increase the quality of customer interactions,” Jon Grover, VP of product development at Mindshare, said in a statement.

Outbound Dial includes a scheduling component with time zone support, so agents can make follow-up calls at appropriate times. Follow-ups can be configured to occur immediately or in daily batches.

“We developed Outbound Dial with this in mind, and have included several features that simplify the process while optimizing outcomes,” Grover added. “And because the survey is managed by Mindshare rather than being done in-house, it really cuts down on the potential for fraudulent results.”

Surveys provided through Outbound Dial are available in different languages.

With this new call center training, Mindshare targets not only the call center and services clients, but other industries focused on building customer relationships. Outbound Dial is one of the many specialized VoC technologies Mindshare offers to its clients to transform customer feedback to improve operational efficiencies.

Mindshare recently announced it tripled the size of its text analytics team with the addition of product managers, developers and text analytics engineers. The Mindshare Text Analytics Suite is currently used by household name brands in the retail, restaurant and call center industries.

Edited by Braden Becker


» More Call Center Training Feature Articles Related content you may also be interested in…Call Center Training for Field RepsCall Center Training to Manage Today's Difficult CallersCall Center Training Needs Increase with U.S. Center Expansions

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Calabrio Call Recording Solutions Now Available to Cisco MediaSense Customers

By Rajani BaburajanTMCnet Contributor

Calabrio (News - Alert), a provider of enterprise call recording and contact center workforce optimization software, announced the availability of Calabrio solutions for Cisco's (News

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American Telesis Puts Focus on the Channel

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

American Telesis (News - Alert), a provider of wholesale wide area network solutions, is ramping up its agent program with new learning and selling opportunities.

“The channel is critical to our business, and it has been since day one,” said Heather J. Selbert, vice president of operations at American Telesis. Selbert spoke to TMCnet this week at the Channel Partners event in Las Vegas.

New hire William Kendrick joined American Telesis to help the company with the initiative, including new lunch and learn programs to educate agents, and specific material to bring them up to speed on a managed security solution American Telesis will launch in the second quarter.

The new managed security service will help small and medium businesses install firewalls and other security tools and procedures. The service complements other services offered by American Telesis.

American Telesis aggregates services like T1 circuits and Ethernet private lines from its 80 service provider partners. While other companies selling services focus on pushing their specific products and price points, American Telesis uses a consultative sales approach to match the best solutions with customer needs. The company provides customers whatever WAN connectivity they need, and perform ongoing network maintenance and management of those services as needed.

Over the past two decades American Telesis has built a strong loyalty both with its agents and end customers by offering customized solutions and related customer service designed specifically with customer requirements in mind, Selbert told TMCnet.

Adding to that value proposition for the channel is the fact that American Telesis contracts are simple (80 percent of the markup is kept by agents), and that it’s never changed its contracts with agents or made other changes to the program, “which is very unique in the channel.”

Edited by Braden Becker
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