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How Next Generation Computing Power is Redrawing the Relationship Between Technology and Management
UK Start-Up Solves Drone Safety Threat on a Global Scale
A UK tech start-up has unveiled a ground breaking service that will address one of the world’s most pressing concerns in aviation – drone safety.
Plus: Business Trends in the IT Rental Market Amazon finds retail opportunity for new technology with 3D printing store Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
Welcome to the latest issue of Soft Tech Magazine. Big data is the latest industry innovation which is changing the face of the technology market. We explore the reasons why managers should embrace this new technology and how they can utilise it to the best of their advantage. The issue of drones damaging aircraft whilst flying in airspace has been solved thanks to pioneering new software from Altitude Angel which enables drone operators to specify ‘alert regions’ that the firm’s cloud platform monitors in real-time for low-flying manned aircraft, proactively sending a push notification via email or SMS to the drone operator to ensure they have time to move out of the way safely. Bizagi 11, a new digital business platform, is set to help enterprises accelerate the speed of transformation. Finally, we examine the newest innovations which are taking over the market, such as Amazon’s latest foray into 3D printing and the launch of sonar for VMware Horizon. We hope you enjoy this issue.
Contents 4. News 10. New Dimension in 3D Printing 12. How Next Generation Computing Power is Redrawing the Relationship Between Technology and Management 14. Bizagi set to Ignite Digital Transformation with Digital Business Platform Launch 16. UK Start-up Solves Drone Safety Threat on a Global Scale 18. Sonar for VMware Horizon Announced 20. Business Trends in the it Rental Market 22. New Leader in Cloud Security Sector 24. Wolters Kluwer and Geniac Announce Cloud Partnership to Help SMES Focus on Growth 26. Deals
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
News
BLAZEMETER CONTRIBUTES LATEST DEVELOPMENTS TO THE JMETER ECOSYSTEM BlazeMeter speeds up testing for JMeter users with a Step-by-Step Debugger and Keyboard Shortcuts, demonstrates open source test orchestration tool Taurus at Velocity Conference.
BlazeMeter’s Chief Scientist Andrey Pokhilko also released the Plugins Manager --- a faster and easier way to work with JMeter Plugins. Historically, installing and removing plugins by downloading file bundles was a complex and manual process that often resulted in menus cluttered with extra plugins. The Plugins Manager eliminates these issues by enabling JMeter users to install and remove plugins through one simple user interface.
BlazeMeter, the leader in open source-based continuous performance testing, has released a number of key contributions to the JMeter community, helping to advance JMeter from a scripting and load generation tool to a more complete environment where practitioners can develop, debug and execute tests. Leading the list is the BlazeMeter Step-by-Step Debugger, which simplifies and expedites script development in JMeter 3.0 by allowing testers to debug scripts step-by-step and receive updates in real time. Testers can also skip over the step-by-step approach by setting breakpoints and running scripts until that breakpoint is reached. Now JMeter users can easily pinpoint precisely where the components are executed, understand how JMeter scoping works and, for the first time ever, view the execution order of the test plan. The debugger provides testers with a professional-grade tool to speed design and troubleshooting of sophisticated tests. A detailed guide on how to install and use the debugger is available on the BlazeMeter blog.
“We’re always looking to develop new features that support the core JMeter community,” said Pokhilko. “We’ve heard from developers that several common functionalities could be improved, so we worked on capabilities that make for an easier and more productive experience with JMeter.” “The BlazeMeter Step-by-Step Debugger adds professional-grade power to test development and speeds onboarding of developers and seasoned test practitioners to JMeter,” said Dave Karow, Director of Product Marketing at BlazeMeter. “Andrey’s Plugins Manager reduces complexity and the Keyboard Shortcut feature enables power users to create test plans in the blink of an eye. These features come directly from our engagement with hundreds of enterprise customers who want to move faster and more confidently with JMeter as they distribute responsibility for performance testing out to agile teams, closer to where development occurs.”
Additionally, a new Keyboard Shortcuts feature dramatically speeds scripting with an entirely new way to drop components into the test plan. Instead of manually inspecting menus to find components, JMeter users can select the command key with another predefined key, enabling them to build entire test plans with a series of keystrokes. As a core JMeter feature, Keyboard Shortcuts is available to all users by default when they install JMeter 3.0. For a demo of this and other helpful new features in JMeter 3.0, view our recent webcast: What’s New in JMeter 3.0 and Q&A.
BlazeMeter’s open source initiatives extend beyond the scope of its JMeter contributions. The company continues to support and enhance the open source project Taurus, which offers an automation friendly framework for continuous testing using JMeter and other leading open source tools.
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NYMBUS ACQUIRES SHARP BANCSYSTEMS, INC. Acquisition Represents Most Significant Transaction for Dominant Player in API Core Space. NYMBUS, the world’s first complete, full-stack, API-driven core processing platform, has announced the acquisition of Sharp BancSystems, Inc. (SBS), a Texas-based software provider founded in 1987. The transaction is the most significant for Nymbus to date, as it continues growing rapidly in expanding its capabilities, geographic footprint and client base nationwide. The company now owns $200 million of intellectual property, running software that has been tried and tested in publicly-traded financial institutions. “SBS is a true pioneer in the industry, running a best-in-class organization with nearly three-decades of success,” said Alex Lopatine, Founder. “For that reason we’re thrilled to welcome them to the growing NYMBUS family, and fortify our position as the true leader in this new generation of core processing.” For many years, SBS offered clients the most comprehensive integrated banking software solution available in the marketplace at extremely competitive pricing. The company provided client banks with a one-stop vendor for all their IT related needs, including all in-house functions such as Core, Item Processing, Online/Mobile, ATM/Debit Card Processing, Loan & Deposit Account Origination. However, SBS management identified the need to rewrite and replace the back-end core system with something nimbler in 2014. When it became apparent that significant capital was required, a partnership strategy became an attractive option. In mid-2015 SBS and NYMBUS identified each other’s synergies, began discussions and closed the deal in early 2016. “We’ve always put the customer first, and this partnership will render incredible results for our trusted clients. The functionality that allowed banks to be on the top performing list for all these years is being developed in the NYMBUS core today,” said Scott Sharp, Chief Operating Officer of Nymbus and formerly CEO and shareholder of SBS. “There are inherent efficiencies built into the single stack application approach with a modern user experience, and there won’t be anything that can touch us in side-by-side comparisons in the very near future,” added Sharp. “SBS brings unparalleled banking knowledge and NYMBUS had a platform for rapid application development. This is a perfect partnership in that each party has benefited and, most importantly, so will our valued clients,” added Scott Killoh, Chairman of the Board of NYMBUS.
INMOMENT ACQUIRES WORLD CLASS ENTERPRISE TALENT TO FUEL INNOVATION AND GLOBAL GROWTH New executives are experts in delivering enterprise technology and services. InMoment has announced three new senior leaders to support the company’s strategic growth and technology innovation. Senior Vice President JD Nyland will spearhead product management and user experience. Keith Christensen will serve as vice president of engineering. And Matt Wachter joins as senior director, customer experience to support InMoment clients in designing and evolving their Voice of Customer initiatives to deliver successful customer experience and business outcomes. “For most companies, customer experience is not a new endeavor,” said InMoment President Lonnie Mayne. “And as companies mature their CX efforts, they need increasingly sophisticated partners with the right combination of technical acumen, experience, and subject matter expertise to help them evolve to the next level of opportunity. With the new leaders announced today, other recent talent acquisitions, and our legacy team members, InMoment is making the right investments to maintain our hard-earned reputation as one of the most innovative, trusted technology partners in the CX space. This combined talent will ensure we can help our existing clients grow, and are prepared to forge new relationships with organizations ready to reap even more business value from their own customer experience investments.” JD Nyland, SVP Product Management Fresh from a long history of building analytics solutions at Adobe and Omniture, JD Nyland is an experienced product management executive who is passionate about working with customers to understand their needs and translate those needs into innovative software products and solutions. His experience includes all facets of product management and creation, SaaS, mobile app and video analytics, Net Promoter Score/Customer Advocacy, business development, and cross-functional team leadership. He brings vast expertise and industry knowledge in large-scale SaaS analytics systems, customer experience and digital marketing. Prior to Adobe, Nyland ran product management at Move Networks and Novell.
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Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
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CLOUDIFY UNVEILS TELCOTAILORED VERSION OF OPEN SOURCE ORCHESTRATION PLATFORM, TARGETING NFV DEPLOYMENTS Upcoming version of Cloudify open source NFV MANO platform will deliver a new Telecom Edition tailored to NFV needs.
Cloudify is an open source orchestrator used by a growing group of large telecoms and Tier 1 network operators that are pursuing network functions virtualization (NFV).
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“Cloudify is an open source cloud orchestration platform that simplifies the transition from physical to cloud-based networks. Cloudify enables telcos to manage and orchestrate their NFV deployments on hybrid infrastructure including containers, through a single pane of glass,” says William Fellows, Research Vice President of 451 Research. “This new telecom edition brings DevOps best practices to the world of NFV by automating formerly complex processes of deploying virtualized network functions (VNFs) to the cloud, chaining them, monitoring and managing them throughout their entire application lifecycle, while providing scaling and healing out of the box.”
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VNF updates for running VNFs and services NIC ordering Support for Cloud Native services through Kubernetes plugin Multi-VIM - Now fully open source vCloud and vSphere plugins, alongside OpenStack native support Overlay Service Chaining Enhanced Platform Awareness coupled with Data Plane Acceleration through integration with Intel Drag and drop Cloudify Composer with VNF-specific components Native integration with ARIA Support installation within environments with no internet access
The Cloudify Telecom Edition, based on the telecom-friendly TOSCA standard, will be delivered with the ARIA TOSCA Orchestration Engine at its core, an open source and open governance embeddable reference implementation of TOSCA targeted for NFV users. Cloudify, as the only open source NFV MANO leveraging TOSCA’s native multi-VIM interoperability capabilities, has built-in support and blueprints for OpenStack, as well as the entire VMware stack, including vCloud Director, VMware Integrated OpenStack and vSphere. It also enables extensibility of hybrid workloads and microservices, as well as bursting to public clouds for disaster recovery applications.
Cloudify has tailored the Telecom Edition to the needs of NFV operators by adding a robust set of new features, NFV-specific plugins, and blueprints showcasing how to mode VNFs and SFC (Service Function Chaining), including: • Netconf plugin • Clearwater vIMS blueprints and plugins • F5 BigIP plugin • Network service management • TOSCA/YANG data modeling interoperability
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PROTECTWISE LAUNCHES 100% CHANNEL PARTNER PROGRAM Fishtech Labs, GuidePoint Security and Optiv to Offer Cloud-Delivered Network Security Technology for Real-time and Retrospective View of Threats. ProtectWise, provider of the industry’s first Cloud Network Security technology for complete detection, visibility and response to enterprise threats, today announced its channel program with Fishtech Labs, GuidePoint Security and Optiv as tier-1 anchor partners. The company uses a conflict-free 100% channel business model to maximize deal opportunities and revenues for its partners. ProtectWise harnesses the power and scale of the cloud to deliver unprecedented visibility and detection of enterprise network threats that dramatically accelerates incident response. ProtectWise sensors capture all network traffic for continuous real time and retrospective analysis using the massive compute resources of its cloud platform. The cloud-delivered technology includes next-generation visualization of network activity that presents security professionals and incident responders with high priority events from which they can instantly pivot into a deep-dive forensic workbench. “We’re honored to be partnering with such a world-class group of partners right out of the gate,” said Mark Rotolo, VP of Global Sales for ProtectWise. “Unlike most security vendors we are 100 percent channel-focused and committed to the success of our partners. Given the fact that our Network Security Platform is delivered and runs in the cloud, indirect sales is an extension of our business model.”
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Matt Wachter, Senior Director, Customer Experience Matt Wachter is a seasoned CX professional, bringing years of experience from both a practitioner and consulting perspective to InMoment. He is Net Promoter Certified with expertise in building, training, leading and motivating world-class service teams, enhancing customer experience to drive revenues, developing and implementing strategies to enhance customer experience, and creating analytics processes to identify and resolve costly operational problems. Wachter served as functional strategy manager at global systems integrator, Accenture, where he counseled enterprise clients in creating outcome-focused customer experience programs. Prior to Accenture, Wachter held several CX roles at Cricket Communications in the areas of customer analytics, customer relationship management and as senior director of customer experience. He has a unique combination of experience, vision, and education that allows him to take customer relations processes and transform them from a traditional cost center into a multi-million dollar revenue-generating machine. Keith Christensen, VP, Engineering Keith Christensen will lead the team of engineers charged with building and supporting the InMoment platform. Christensen is a proven technology leader with the ability to build high performing teams, instill a positive organizational culture and identify optimal ways to deliver business value. He’s an expert at anticipating and resolving technical challenges throughout a project lifecycle and developing solutions to business and technical concepts. Christensen excels at managing day-to-day operational and strategic aspects of multiple, large scale projects, implementing engagement reviews and quality assurance procedures to ensure profitable and successful execution, anticipating client needs, and proposing alternative business solutions when needed. He recognizes opportunities to capitalize on opportunities to increase customer satisfaction, deepen client relationships, build software solutions and software development teams, and lead software engineer teams.
ProtectWise Partner Program Highlights • Competitive compensation structure including industry-leading discounts and points • Dedicated account manager and technical support resources • Joint promotion opportunities • Simple deal registration • Free training by ProtectWise sales engineers • Trial and demo account of the ProtectWise Platform Channel Ready Technology ProtectWise uses lightweight software sensors to compress, optimize and passively replay all network traffic into the ProtectWise secure cloud platform. Partners can deploy an unlimited number of sensors at a gateway, in the DMZ, in the corporate cloud and at the network core. Meanwhile, the ProtectWise Wisdom Engine leverages cloud economies of scale to provide powerful threat detection capabilities that are not possible using standalone appliances. These include continuous, cross-customer correlation of threat intelligence and the industry’s only automated retrospection. To enable service providers to cut through the noise and quickly identify and respond to threats, the ProtectWise Visualizer delivers an at-a-glance view of network security that pivots into a deeper forensic workbench.
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
News
TRIFACTA ACCELERATES MOMENTUM AS #1 DATA WRANGLING SOLUTION FOR THE HORTONWORKS DATA PLATFORM Trifacta, the global leader in data wrangling, strengthened its partnership with Hortonworks, Inc., and has announcing deepened technical integration with the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP). Trifacta, the global leader in data wrangling, strengthened its partnership with Hortonworks, Inc., and has announcing deepened technical integration with the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP).
“Trifacta and Hortonworks are foundational pieces of our analytics strategy at PepsiCo. The Hortonworks Data Platform gives us the scale and flexibility to work with virtually any type of data while Trifacta’s data wrangling solution provides our analysts with an extremely intuitive and efficient application for exploring and preparing data for various analytic uses. With Trifacta’s expanded support of HDP components such as Apache Atlas and Ranger, we’ll be able to accelerate the adoption of Hadoop at PepsiCo to handle new use cases and more users,” said Mike Riegling, data analyst, customer collaborations & VMI planner, PepsiCo.
The announcement includes joint customers, new industry certifications and ground-breaking technical integrations for the Hortonworks Data Platform, including the industry’s first certification for Apache Atlas. The Atlas integration enables Hortonworks customers to more effectively leverage metadata within the Hortonworks Data Platform by enhancing it with user-generated metadata from the Trifacta data-wrangling process. This seamless connection gives data analysts an easy way to publish metadata to Atlas, and data architects a single, consolidated view of technical and business metadata. The result: better collaboration between Line of Business and IT, and faster time-to-value for Hadoop initiatives.
The new integrations build upon Trifacta’s existing Hortonworks Data Platform and YARN Ready certifications, making Trifacta the presumptive data-wrangling choice for Hortonworks customers. Trifacta has also collaborated with Hortonworks on industry-focused big data solutions in insurance and retail with common customers in both verticals.
“Trifacta empowers business analysts to interact with and visualize the data stored in the Hortonworks Data Platform. We are excited that Trifacta further extends its visualization and wrangling capabilities with Apache Atlas integration within the Hortonworks Data Platform. Leveraging Atlas’ unmatched cross-component lineage features, customers can now track dataset activity and lineage across traditional platforms and HDP,” said Matt Morgan, vice president of product and alliance marketing, Hortonworks.
“Integrating with Hortonworks’ compliance and security frameworks is critical to providing our customers with an industry-leading data wrangling solution on Hadoop,” said Wei Zheng, vice president, products, Trifacta. “We are excited to be the first data wrangling application to integrate with Apache Atlas and believe it’s a critical step toward providing a more holistic approach to data governance and metadata management on Hadoop that both business and IT can benefit from. This integration and our ongoing relationship with Hortonworks is fundamental to driving more analytics use cases on Hadoop and enabling a broader set of users to work directly with the HDP.”
Trifacta has also received the Hortonworks Security Certification through integration with Apache Ranger, the security and encryption framework for the Hortonworks Data Platform. Customers can seamlessly support security policies established within HDP when using Trifacta.
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NEW DIMENSION IN 3D PRINTING Amazon finds retail opportunity for new technology with 3D printing store. Amazon, the global online retailer, has announced a new application for 3D printing technology with the expansion of their online 3D printing store.
customers the freedom to be designers and create one-of-akind items.’ Amazon’s online store is one of the largest online destinations for customers to purchase customizable 3D printed products, and this new range of products marks a key growth strategy as the firm attempts to make the technology more accessible to a retail market. The store also has a service aimed at business, allowing brands to offer print on-demand product designs.
3D printing, the revolutionary new technology which allows users to create a physical product from a three dimensional model, has so far been the domain of experimenting technology firms and the construction industry. However, as Amazon announces a new wave of expansion for their online retail store, which opened last year, the market for the technology is expanding, albeit at a slower rate than previously envisioned.
Currently the store sells customizable 3D printed jewellery, as well as other products such as printed home decorations and electronics accessories, but currently the product range is limited. Despite this Amazon is keen to promote the number of products on offer, stating that since its launch the number of products has grown by over 150%.
The announcement states that the new service will allow customers to personalize characters from their favourite characters from numerous popular video games, by selecting a character and then using the personalization widget to create unique poses, use armor configurations or apply various different weapons and accessories to their character. Then they use the 3D product preview function to see a 360 degree view of their masterpiece from any angle, after which the customer goes through an approval and checkout process before the product is 3D printed on-demand and shipped directly to the customer. Most of the designs are created by Sandboxr, a 3D printing firm which specializes in gaming and video game character creation.
‘The 3D Printed Products store gives customers access to thousands of fun and unique items, many that can be customized by material, style and color variations, and personalized with text. The 3D Printed Products store is one of the largest online destinations to discover customizable 3D printed products and features convenient search tools, interactive 3D preview functionality and the product personalization widget.’
The three main personalisation packages are Smite, which allows customers over ‘30,000 ways to create customized characters’; Primal Carnage, which gives the option for ‘more than 12,500 customized set framed poses and character options’ and Infinity Blade, which offers users ‘over 12 million combinations to personalize the characters with unique poses, armor configurations, weapons and accessories’.
By appealing to customers with an interest in gaming and introducing a new, more interactive means of creating the 3D products Amazon broadens their reach in the industry and making the products more attractive to customers, with the personalization allowing the technology to be used to its full potential as opposed to simply being a new means of manufacturing products.
The cost of this service depends on the level of personalization, with the price starting at just $29.99, with larger customized characters rising in price to $49.99 up to $89.99. These prices make the figures more accessible to casual customers wishing to purchase a limited number of the products for recreational use.
Customers can also purchase 3D printing technology for themselves from stores such as iMakr, but with prices in the thousands for the machines they are currently not accessible to casual users. Printing machines are also being gradually introduced into the manufacturing industry but as yet customers wanting a service allowing them customizable products which can be printed for them have a limited choice.
Steve Johnson, Director for the Amazon Marketplace, made it clear that although the product range in the online store was still in the early stages of growth, this new range marked a key expansion for the 3D printing range.
Amazon’s service is appealing to customers because it allows the advantages of 3D printing, namely the ease of creating complex products, allowing for personalization without the customer having to print the products themselves.
‘There is a lot of passion and excitement in the culture of gaming, as well as 3D printing, and by combining these two worlds and allowing customers to design and personalize their favorite video game characters we can bring enthusiasts even closer to the games they love. 3D Printed Products on Amazon is still in its early days, and we are eager to offer
The new range will introduce a new group of customers to the technology, as well as heralding a big expansion for the store. However, as the technology slowly becomes more accessible Amazon may have to diversify further to compete in the growing market.
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HOW NEXT GENERATION COMPUTING POWER IS REDRAWING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT Why you should love your technology department and your data. In the age of next generation, in-memory computing all businesses can, and should, be data-driven. We’ve all heard the buzzword ‘Big Data’, but what does this mean? It means that managers no longer have to make decisions in the dark. They can gain insights from their data, on-demand, by working with their technology department to minimise the risk associated with all business decisions. The fact that IT can tap into the data means the relationship between the technology department, which was often thought of as a function on the periphery of the business, and the business leaders themselves, is being redrawn. Technology and management no longer work in silos. They work alongside each other to find vital insights from their deluge of data. These insights have seen online retailers increasing. In a nutshell, faster, smarter data analysis enables management to know who their customers are, what they are doing and how to keep them coming back for more. So why is next generation, in-memory data analysis making such a difference to the business of management? The latest business intelligence applications are providing unprecedented levels of speed, scale and simplicity to storing and accessing data at a price most companies can now afford. As a result valuable nuggets of information can be found by management and businesses have never been in a better position to capitalise on the real-time demands of their customer base. Managers can now access and visualise decision-changing data as soon as it is needed and this means that technology is gaining new ground as integral across all areas of the business - from marketing to product development - not just as a function on the periphery, but central to it. Businesses that have managers who are embracing in-memory database technology are seeing unprecedented growth with levels of insight never seen before. Here
are a few examples of how data analytics is working in the real world for a number of different companies: Channel 4 Since 2006, C4’s focus on becoming a data-led broadcaster has meant that management has worked closely with technology to implement cutting edge data warehouse and analytics tools to really understand its audiences’ viewing habits on its hugely successful on-demand website, 4OD. Powerful and superfast data analytic capabilities have consequently brought real-time intelligence to C4 that enables it to provide a number of value-add services such as allowing viewers to resume a programme in the right place, across all platforms; or by offering viewers a menu of programmes that are likely to be of interest based on their previous viewing history. Coop -EG coop installed a new data warehouse-based business intelligence solution in 2011 to consolidate receipt data across all its stores and make overall evaluation possible in real-time. As a result of the new system, coop management was able to respond immediately to specific spikes in product demand at particular stores and adjust stock accordingly depending on seasonal fluctuations, bank holidays, weather forecasts, school holidays or events and promotions in neighbouring stores. Wooga Rapid growth and the continuous development of social games placed great demands on the database technology that this leading, global mobile and social games developer used. The increasing amounts of data being produced that needed processing within a very short time, meant the company quickly adopted a high performance database with superfast, reliable analysis tools so that management was able to analyse and respond to user behaviour in real time and on an ad hoc basis. Real-time business intelligence and a new, powerful database meant that Wooga could cope easily with peak periods of global game play and remain attractive to users on a long-term basis.
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BIZAGI SET TO IGNITE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WITH DIGITAL BUSINESS PLATFORM LAUNCH Bizagi 11 to help enterprises accelerate the speed of transformation.
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Bizagi, a leading global provider of digital process automation software, has launched Bizagi 11 – The Digital Business Platform – a solution powerful enough to deliver rapid digital transformation effectively across a wide range of business environments. The release of Bizagi 11 ensures the company continues its independently recognized technology leadership by providing a single, proven platform that delivers both efficiency and engagement improvements across employee and customer digital touchpoints. By easily wrapping legacy IT systems with Bizagi technology, enterprises of all sizes can seamlessly orchestrate processes, communication channels, data streams and devices to deliver the operational agility required by incumbent businesses to win in today’s disruptive digital economy. Bizagi 11 is uniquely enhanced by harnessing the shared insight and innovations created by Bizagi’s global community of more than 500,000 process pioneers – business and technology professionals committed to improving digital transformation. Through the Bizagi Xchange, users can access the process applications, integration connectors and user interface widgets created by their peers across this global community, further accelerating their transformation programs. Bizagi 11 – The Digital Business Platform – focuses on delivering against three core pillars that underpin successful enterprise-wide transformation: • Agility: The platform delivers collaborative innovation and experimentation between business and IT teams, boosting operational productivity and speed, while still maintaining IT control. • Engagement: By intelligent use of data-driven
processes, Bizagi’s platform empowers knowledge workers with personalized, contextualized experiences to engage better with each other and their ultimate customer. • Connections: Bizagi 11 offers native integration Connectors to help incumbents immediately wrap any legacy IT system landscape with a super-fast agile process layer, and connects those processes with knowledge workers across the extended enterprise through any channel. Gustavo Gomez, CEO, Bizagi commented, “All enterprises already understand and are acting on the digital transformation agenda. However, real digital transformation is proving very hard for the majority to deliver – and they need to deliver fast. Bizagi 11 is designed to make it easier. Bizagi’s Digital Business Platform is the first platform to the market that has been designed specifically to empower and assist knowledge workers and IT professionals to make true transformation happen, and happen fast. Bizagi works with over 500 global brands to deliver software that enables agile process automation across the enterprise, helping boost employee engagement and operational efficiencies, as well as improving overall customer experience. “We are passionate and committed to helping our customers ignite their digital transformation strategies and overcome the digital constraints that hold back so many enterprises today. Bizagi 11, is unique in its ability to help large enterprises, otherwise bound by inflexible legacy systems and a culture fearful of experimentation, to facilitate the ideas, collaboration and rapid change that underpin all successful digital businesses. The global launch we’re announcing today is an important milestone for both our customers and the broader market,’” added Gomez.
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UK START- UP SOLVES DRONE SAFETY THREAT ON A GLOBAL SCALE A UK tech start-up has unveiled a ground breaking service that will address one of the world’s most pressing concerns in aviation – drone safety. Altitude Angel is a drone cloud services company offering enhanced situational awareness information, real-time ‘air traffic control for drones’, as well as plug-in geofencing data targeted at manufacturers and developers. It has now unveiled a global airspace monitoring system that promises to help drone operators fly more safely and responsibly – Airspace Alerts. The new software, the world’s first, enables drone operators to specify ‘alert regions’ that the firm’s cloud platform monitors in real-time for low-flying manned aircraft, proactively sending a push notification via email or SMS to the drone operator to ensure they have time to move out of the way safely. The service will soon also send out important weather information, as well as alerts whenever no-fly zones are activated or deactivated. Combined with its free Drone Safety Map that helps drone operators identify no-fly zones or ground hazards around the world before they ‘take to the skies’, the firm believes its new Airspace Alerts service will contribute towards the safer integration of drones into our skies. Being able to ‘reach out’ to push important information to a drone pilot is absolutely critical to safety. The technology watches aviation traffic globally in real-time, aggregating data from multiple sources. It receives around 12 million messages every minute, which are then filtered to provide updates on low-altitude air traffic (below 800m) – the kind that drone users need to be aware of. “Once we have a filtered set of aircraft data, we perform analysis to determine if the aircraft’s trajectory is likely to encroach on an area our users are flying within, and can tell the drone operator where to look – and when – to help them avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Richard Parker, founder and CEO of Altitude Angel. The Airspace Alerts service is launching at a time when even the Queen has raised concerns about drones, and there are calls from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the British
Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) to introduce regulations following “a spate of serious near-misses”. Under current legislation, drone operators and enthusiasts are personally responsible for making sure they are flying drones safely and complying with a variety of other regulations, which are often too complex for general drone pilots to understand. “Drone pilots everywhere are crying out for better information,” said Parker. “The majority of people want to ‘do the right thing’ and check for no-fly zones, obstacles and relevant regulations before they fly, but many don’t have the training, time or even access to everything they’d need in order to make better safety choices. It’s the industry’s job to help solve this problem.” “In light of the ever-increasing use of unmanned aerial systems, and the extremely important legislation that covers their use, this is a great way to enhance aviation safety and to help operators become responsible aviators in this exciting and fast-moving industry,” said Zander Cornish-Moore, operations and marketing manager at AM-UAS - one of the UK’s leading CAA approved operators of Unmanned Aerial Systems. Although Altitude Angel’s longer-term mission is to deliver safety and navigational data directly to automated drones, they are very much focused on empowering their human operators today to access fresh, relevant safety data as well as useful monitoring to reduce the risk of a serious incident occurring. “The more we can do to help drone operators identify risks, and minimize the chances of a collision between a drone and a manned aircraft, the more we increase safety, and the chances of the drone industry flourishing,” said Parker. The Altitude Angel team, which is made up of ex-Microsoft cloud services developers and consultants, created their own software and have spent more than six months testing as well as working with regulators, manufacturers and user groups across the USA and Europe.
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
SONAR FOR VMWARE HORIZON ANNOUNCED Leading independent provider of cloud and virtualization solutions, Xtravirt, has announced the release of the Sonar Management Pack for VMware Horizon®.
Sonar analyzes virtual infrastructures and VDI environments with speed and simplicity, unlocking powerful actionable insights for IT management and operations. Context-rich analytics focus on optimizing performance, reducing waste and avoiding issues. Built-in guidance enables improved operational practices resulting in less downtime, more predictable change, and reduced risk and cost. Baselining, trending and tracking changes with standardized measurable KPIs enables rapid and sustained ongoing improvement.
plate and user assignment, and provisioning status • Capacity assessment including asset and resource analysis for desktop pools. Supports floating and dedicated pools, including Microsoft RDS pools and display protocols • Enables a unified view of multiple and distributed VDI infrastructures, and enhanced optimization of resources and forward planning • Identification of faults preventing normal operation. Deep event profiling and historic trending enables identification of repeat offenders and areas to optimize • Virtual desktop configuration and resource distribution assessment including CPU, memory, operating systems and virtual hardware levels • Consolidated application inventory, configuration and status. Supports standard and ThinApp published apps, user assignment, presentation type and app groups • Achieve a powerful and complete VDI and virtual infrastructure management solution by pairing the Horizon Management Pack with the Sonar VMware vSphere® Management Pack
The Sonar VMware Horizon Management Pack takes the monitoring and management capabilities of virtual desktop infrastructures to greater levels while delivering new and unique insights. “Developing the Horizon pack was a natural and exciting next step as part of an expanding Sonar product”, said Xtravirt CEO, Gavin Jolliffe. Currently available on early release, it allows managers and system administrators to improve planning, management and support of Horizon VDI environments. It enables all components including Connection servers, Security servers, vCenter, virtual desktops, resource profiles, published applications, desktop pools, templates and operating systems. The Horizon Management Pack is licensed per environment enabling organizations to continually analyze the entire solution on demand, including unlimited hosts and VMs, with the flexibility to change or expand without the need to re-license. Key Features: • Over 72 individual VMware Horizon analytics built from more than 210 key metrics delivered through convenient collections of assessments and insights • Supports Horizon 6.x – 7.x, including ThinApp • Targeted Horizon environmental health including a comprehensive 23-point scorecard assessment with best practice guidance • Horizon component level infrastructure assessment supporting Connection servers, Security servers, vCenter, and Horizon Events database • Desktop insights including pool management, tem-
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BUSINESS TRENDS IN THE IT RENTAL MARKET We’ve all been there: a last-minute meeting, client review or training session crops up and we need to impress pronto. That’s where IT rentals can save the day.
The primary benefits of renting include: • Reducing business expenditure • Avoiding technical issues • Fulfilling on-demand requirements • Accessing the latest technology
Here, Hire Intelligence take a look at business trends in the IT rental market and gain a better insight into how the industry meets the demands of businesses that rely on technology.
Popular IT Devices Whether you need to rent to make an impact at a client review, company meeting, conference or internal training session, IT equipment can help you to present professionally and make your session a memorable one.
IT Rental Business Trends The IT rental market is booming. As the B2B industry continues to evolve, it’s never been so important for your business to keep up in order to fulfil the industry’s needs.
So which IT devices are most popular for UK businesses? The most popular item hired is the desktop PC. In fact 42.1% of businesses surveyed stated that desktop PCs were their go-to piece of kit when it came to hiring IT devices. Second in line, with 31.6%, were laptops PCs.
The ERA Market Report 2015 states that the UK equipment rental sector grew by 15% in 2015 to £5,679 million and that this will increase by a further 3.7% in 2016. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the other business trends to date in IT hire.
Other popular IT devices include: • 28.9% iPads • 21.1% Plasma/LED Screens • 15.8% iPhones • 15.8% Projectors • 15.8% Servers
Business Benefits of Renting IT Equipment Research shows that there are a whole host of reasons why businesses choose to rent their IT equipment as rather than buying it outright. 81.1% of businesses state that IT rentals provide good value for money.
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What does this tell us about the behavioural patterns of UK businesses? These figures reveal that the fixed workstation remains a popular choice for many businesses. However, the high number of laptop PCs and iPads being rented shows an increase in mobile working. This enables flexible working in other offices and locations, as well as on the move. iPads also allow users to showcase data in a more engaging way.
they need. Whether this is for last-minute, on-demand rentals or essential pieces of conference tech hired well in advance, your business needs will be met.
Number of Devices Hired Research shows that 42.1% of UK businesses hire between one and three items each year. Most devices, such as projectors and screens, play a supporting role for others, so these findings make sense. Alternatively, businesses may just be in need of numerous pieces of tech to get them fully operational, for example start-ups.
To stay ahead, it’s clear that flexibility is key and, luckily, the IT rental market is responding to the needs of consumers and businesses.
It’s clear that there’s a trend for renting more than one IT device at a time. 18.4% of businesses surveyed stated that they hire between 10 and 12 items on an annual basis. 2.6% said that they rent 19 items or more every year. These numbers reflect the size of the company so those that hire in greater volume are likely to be the larger businesses, corporations and organisations. Why Business Choose To Rent Businesses choose to rent IT equipment for a whole host of reasons. When we surveyed a number of UK professionals, the top reason for renting was for conferences, in-house training and internal projects (34%). Further reasons for renting were: • 26.3% exhibitions • 26.3% trade shows • 21.1% staff presentations • 10.5% disaster recovery • 5.3% moving offices Popular Rental Periods Rental equipment provides businesses with the flexibility
The most popular IT rental periods are monthly (9.6%) and annually (9.6%). So how long are businesses keeping their devices for? 23.1% of businesses say that they used their hired equipment for a week before returning it.
Value of IT Rentals So how much is the nation spending on IT rentals each year? 15.8% of respondents said that their business spends between £1,501 and £2,000 on hired equipment annually. The same figure, 15.8%, also told us that they spend between £501 and £1,000 on IT tech hires each year. 7.9% of businesses stated that they spend £5,001+ on renting IT equipment each year. The figures are relative to the size of each business but show that there is huge demand out there for IT rentals, whether on-demand or long-term. You can read the full survey report here. Conclusion The IT rental market shows no sign of halting, so it’s more a case of what’s next than when will it stop. As wearable and virtual technology becomes more commonplace, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if we started to see virtual meetings taking place much more frequently in years to come. Now that you’ve seen the statistics, would your business benefit from renting or buying IT equipment? For help deciding, take a look at Hire Intelligence’s interactive guide.
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
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NEW LEADER IN CLOUD SECURITY SECTOR Blue Coat extends enterprise security leadership with comprehensive cloud security platform. 22
Blue Coat Inc., Inc., a leading provider of advanced web security solutions for global enterprises and governments, has introduced a comprehensive set of cloud security capabilities and services backed by a broad cloud security industry ecosystem. Blue Coat is focused on making the transition to the cloud easier and safer by delivering a robust solution for addressing several pressing enterprise security and compliance risks introduced by the cloud. The announcements showcase Blue Coat’s ability to rapidly integrate key CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) innovations gained from its recent, acquisition of Elastica, resulting in a powerful global security platform that provides visibility, control and data-level security across cloud, on premise and hybrid cloud environments. Blue Coat is a leading provider of advanced web security for global enterprises and governments, protecting 15,000 organizations every day. Through the Blue Coat Security Platform, Blue Coat unites network, security and cloud, protecting enterprises and their users from cyber threats – whether they are on the network, on the web, in the cloud or mobile. Blue Coat was acquired by Bain Capital in March 2015. Currently enterprises are experiencing a fundamental shift in the way their employees and customers consume technology. The influx of personally owned devices, ubiquitous high-speed Internet connectivity and cloudbased applications are redefining the enterprise network well beyond the traditional responsibilities of the CIO (chief information officer). Sometimes referred to as a dissolving network perimeter, the reality is that it represents an expansion of the traditional enterprise network, to include cloud and mobile users. This new enterprise reality is rapidly redefining IT. The Blue Coat Security Platform is specifically designed to secure the expanding enterprise network. The newly defined enterprise and new work patterns driven by mobility and the rapid growth of cloud applications can bring substantial productivity gains to organizations and individuals, but also introduce new security and compliance risks. These are the issues facing the “Cloud Generation” in which enterprises seek to leverage the opportunities offered by cloud applications and services, while also maintaining and growing the traditional corporate network, enabling mobile users and addressing the looming challenge of IoT. The Cloud Generation mandates a new model of security. Blue Coat provides a robust, open platform that integrates critical security and compliance frameworks to deliver a comprehensive set of controls to protect the user and the organizational data with which they interact. As the leader in the Secure Web Gateway market, Blue Coat brings an ideal architecture and set of integrated security technologies to address these new challenges, defining a new security stack for the continuum of cloud-connected devices, networks and applications, and in effect creating a “gateway” to the cloud. “The new era of cloud usage brings with it a host of benefits, but can also be a significant challenge for security teams, as the expansion of the attack surface grows along the three dimensions of devices, networks and applications,” said Michael Fey, Blue Coat president and chief operating officer. “As the global leader in web security, Blue Coat brings its unique web security architecture and large install base to bear on this issue, designed to
establish a new extended protective barrier between the world of the cloud and users. We help enterprises safely transition to the cloud, reestablishing control and visibility to the entire IT infrastructure.” As critical components of its Blue Coat Security Platform, the company has introduced new solutions focused on areas of great risk for today’s enterprises including: - An integrated solution to discover and control Shadow IT -- Blue Coat announced the integration of the Elastica Audit subscription service with AppFeed – a real time data feed delivering Shadow IT intelligence to Blue Coat’s Secure Web Gateway products. The combination allows customers to not only gain visibility into shadow IT usage and risk, but also to take actions through powerful cloud access security policies to mitigate those risks. Through Elastica and the integration of its cloud application data feeds into Blue Coat’s market-leading Secure Web Gateway, comprehensive controls are now available over cloud application usage whether sanctioned or not. Customers who purchase the Elastica Audit service (discovery, usage and risk analysis, reporting on web and cloud access) will automatically receive access to AppFeed, containing 8,400+ application classifications and attributes, which enable powerful policy controls over cloud application usage. This allows customers to control cloud access that may be putting enterprise data security and compliance at risk. -
A powerful security solution for Office 365 -- Blue Coat announces a full suite of security and governance controls for Microsoft Office 365, now the most widely deployed enterprise cloud application. The solution includes integrated access control, advanced threat protection, breach detection, forensic investigation, data security, Cloud-DLP (Data Loss Protection), and granular cloud security policy specifically for Microsoft Office 365. These features deliver powerful security, governance and performance to enable an effective transition to cloud-delivered Office 365.
- A broad Cloud Security Partner Ecosystem – The newly announced Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner Program is the industry’s broadest Cloud Security Partner Ecosystem, creating an open framework to allow a select set of security vendors and SaaS companies to deeply integrate and certify their services and cloud applications directly into the Blue Coat Security Platform. This level of integration allows customers make the transition to the cloud while maintaining critical visibility and control between users and applications. Charter members of the Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner program are: AirWatch, AlienVault, Box, Centrify, Dropbox, E8 Security, Exabeam, Fortscale, Gemalto, HP, Seculert, Splunk and Symantec. “As businesses adopt cloud technologies to become more productive and collaborative, security is paramount,” said Roger Murff, vice president of business development & technology partnerships, Box. “At Box we see value in ecosystems like the Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner Program that make it easier for businesses to find services that work seamlessly together and add new layers of security and control to their most valuable content.”
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
WOLTERS KLUWER AND GENIAC ANNOUNCE CLOUD PARTNERSHIP TO HELP SMES FOCUS ON GROWTH Wolters Kluwer has announced a partnership to deliver its cloud accounting software to thousands of British small businesses through Geniac, the UK’s leading “office as a service platform”. As part of the collaboration, Geniac customers will get access to Twinfield cloud accounting software which allows businesses to collaborate with their accountants and tax advisers. Specialist Wolters Kluwer compliance, accounting and tax content will also be added to Geniac’s offering.
As well as delivering cloud accounting to users, the partnership will give Geniac customers access to specialist content from Wolters Kluwer that provides specialist insights into HR, Health & Safety, tax compliance and accounting requirements to growing businesses. Among the service, will be ready-to-complete business documents that cover model contracts and employee dispute resolution.
Claire Carter, UK Managing Director of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, said: “Integrating our cloud software into the Geniac offering will help entrepreneurs keep on top of their financial position without taking time away from their business.”
Wolters Kluwer is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the areas of health, tax and accounting, finance, risk and compliance, and legal. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services.
Geniac Co-Founder, Eduardo Martinez, said: “We started Geniac because we were small business owners and we could not find a product that delivered what we needed, so we built it ourselves.
Wolters Kluwer reported 2015 annual revenues of €4.2 billion. The group, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide.
“Through our partnership with Wolters Kluwer, we are able to provide our customers with additional functionality, meaning they can get expert accounting support quickly so they can spend more time focusing on growing their business.”
Wolters Kluwer shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices. Wolters Kluwer has a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt program. The ADRs are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. (WTKWY).
Using a unique approach that combines personal account management and leading technology, Geniac packages up everything an entrepreneur needs to run and scale their business, including accounting, tax, legal, HR and corporate administration, into one smart service.
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Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
Deals VODAFONE’S EFI ACQUIRES NEW OPTITEX ZEALAND UNIT TO MERGE WITH SKY NETWORK TELEVISION
Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (Nasdaq:EFII) announced today the acquisition of Optitex Ltd., an emerging, fast-growing global leader in integrated 3D design software that enables the textile industry’s digital transformation and accelerates the adoption of fast fashion. Privately-held Optitex will be integrated into EFI’s Productivity Software business unit. Optitex’s 3D technology and best practices enable the textile industry’s leading retailers, brands and manufacturers to transform how they do business, gaining benefits of significantly improved time-to-market, cost and efficiency, as well as enabling new capabilities for their design, sales and marketing activities.
Vodafone Group PLC plans to add pay TV to its New Zealand operations through a 3.44 billion New Zealand dollar (US$2.44 billion) merger of its local unit with Sky Network Television, as the world’s big telecommunications companies continue to pivot toward TV and online video.
“We are thrilled to add the Optitex team and its fast-growing base of industry-leading customers to the EFI family,” said Gabriel Matsliach, senior vice president and general manager, EFI Productivity Software. “Optitex technology, combined with EFI Reggiani digital printers, will expand our textile ecosystem and help our customers set new standards for time-to-market, on-demand manufacturing, cost efficiency and automation in the Textile industry.”
Sky said Thursday it will issue new shares to Vodafone at NZ$5.40 a share—a 21% premium to its last closing price before trading was halted Wednesday—and pay NZ$1.25 billion in cash, giving Vodafone a 51% stake in the combined entity. Russell Stanners, currently chief executive of Vodafone New Zealand Ltd., will head the new business.
Well-known for its superior customer service and consulting capability, Optitex has developed strong partnerships with its customers, serving as their trusted advisor for their digital transformation.
The move follows a trend by telecommunications companies to do deals that will help them bundle media content into their offerings to differentiate themselves from competitors and reduce customer churn.
“We are very excited to join the EFI family,” said Asaf Landau, CEO of Optitex. “EFI’s global presence, holistic solution approach, strong professional services abilities, and growing portfolio of innovative textile industry-specific products will be of great benefit to the leading companies we serve worldwide in the fashion, automotive, aerospace and technical textiles industries. I am truly enthusiastic about what is to come for these industries in the years ahead.”
Last year, AT&T Inc. acquired U.S. satellite-television company DirecTV for US$49 billion, and Verizon Communications Inc. acquired AOL Inc., for US$4.4 billion, gaining technology that plays videos and serves up ads. While U.K.-based Vodafone, the world’s second-largest mobile carrier, behind China Mobile Ltd., once focused on selling only mobile-phone subscriptions, it has been investing heavily in recent years in adding fixed lines for cable television and broadband, enabling it to sell combo packages with both wireless and fixed line services.
The maximum purchase price of approximately $52.8 million includes a $20 million upfront cash payment, $3 million of which was placed into escrow, and annual cash earnout payments over three one-year periods of up to an additional $32.8 million in total. Payment of each tranche of the earnout is contingent upon the achievement of annual profitability and growth targets, with the revenue targets in the three earnout periods exceeding $73 million in the aggregate in order to achieve the full earnout payment. While the acquisition is not expected to be material to EFI’s Q2 results, it is expected to contribute $4 million to $6 million in revenue for the balance of 2016 and be neutral to EPS during that time.
Last year it announced plans to launch television services in the U.K. to boost revenues amid greater competition from incumbent players who had been strengthened by a round of industry consolidation. For Sky, the deal with Vodafone comes as it struggles to battle competition from on-demand and streaming content providers such as Netflix Inc. “It’s a real survival strategy,” said Morningstar analyst Brian Hann. “By going down this route they have basically admitted that as a stand-alone pay-TV single product company, we simply can’t compete.”
Landau and the approximately 100 members of the Optitex team have joined EFI, with Landau serving as EFI Optitex’s general manager. Optitex has offices in the U.S., Italy, India, Hong Kong and Israel. A presentation with additional information on the transaction is available on the investor relations portion of EFI’s website at ir.efi.com/events.cfm.
Sky is the leading pay TV operator in New Zealand with more than 830,000 subscribers serving almost half of all New Zealand households.
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COMMUNICATIONS SALES & LEASING TO ACQUIRE TOWER CLOUD Communications Sales & Leasing, Inc. (“CS&L” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq:CSAL) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Tower Cloud, Inc. (“Tower Cloud”) for $230 million in cash and stock. Tower Cloud is a leading provider of data transport services, with a particular focus on providing infrastructure solutions to the wireless and enterprise sectors, including fiber-to-the-tower backhaul, small cell networks, and dark fiber deployments. Tower Cloud’s fiber network currently consists of 90,000 fiber strand miles in service across the southeastern United States, with 181,000 fiber strand miles awarded for future deployment for the major wireless carriers. “Tower Cloud significantly expands our backhaul network and greatly accelerates our entry into the high growth small cell and dark fiber businesses,” said Kenny Gunderman, President and Chief Executive Officer of CS&L. “We continue to grow our wireless carrier relationships across all asset classes and are seeing an increasing number of opportunities arise as carriers densify their networks and look toward the deployment of 5G and related technologies.” This transaction provides substantial benefits, including: Expands national wireless carrier relationships. Over 90% of Tower Cloud’s revenues are from national wireless carriers. The acquisition of Tower Cloud advances CS&L’s diversification strategy by increasing its exposure to the national wireless carriers with long term contractual revenues. Accelerates CS&L’s small cell and dark fiber businesses. Tower Cloud’s recent dark fiber and small cell awards with national wireless carriers will accelerate the Company’s initiatives in this mission critical infrastructure class. Tower Cloud is currently constructing dark fiber routes in Florida and Georgia with total contractual revenues of $175 million.
E2OPEN ACQUIRES POINT OF SALE ANALYTICS LEADER ORCHESTRO E2open, the largest and most comprehensive supply chain operating network, today announced that it has acquired Orchestro, the leading provider of demand signal repositories and preemptive analytics for retail and omni-channel fulfillment. The combination delivers the world’s only demand-driven Supply Chain Operating Network. Orchestro, founded in 1999, harmonizes retail Point of Sale (POS), syndicated, internal ERP, and 3rd party data into a common view of demand for the world’s leading brand owners. Today, over 210 global brands from multinational manufacturers including Newell Brands, Del Monte, and General Mills, and their omni-channel retail partners rely on Orchestro’s analytics to improve on-shelf availability, promotional effectiveness, new product introductions, and forecast accuracy. Orchestro’s data, visibility and analytics solutions strategically complement E2open’s recent acquisition of Demand Sensing solutions from Terra Technology. By leveraging Orchestro’s daily omni-channel data, Demand Sensing can provide 20-40% better forecast accuracy than traditional solutions for brand owners and their retail partners. E2open is now the only technology provider to bundle pre-packaged Point of Sale data from any retailer with Demand Sensing technologies, the foundation of the demand-driven supply chain.
Substantial operational synergies. CS&L expects to achieve annual run-rate cost synergies of $6 million within three years after closing by combining the operations of PEG Bandwidth (“PEG”) and Tower Cloud. In addition, our sales and product platform should result in significant potential as CS&L leverages its combined sales organizations, and capitalizes on bundling and cross sale opportunities for the full suite of infrastructure solutions.
“ERP systems were not designed to address the complexities of multi-enterprise supply chains. Manufacturers are accelerating their use of trading partners for manufacturing, distribution, and transportation. E2open’s solutions allow the best-run supply chains to thrive within today’s vastly more complex operating environment. With the addition of Terra Technology and Orchestro, E2open is the only company that can provide true endto-end planning, collaboration and execution, from raw materials to final delivery to the consumer,” said E2open CEO Michael Farlekas. “Our recent acquisition of Terra Technology allowed us to help our clients sense demand across the network. With the addition of Orchestro, we will leverage daily, store-item data to create the world’s only demand-driven Supply Chain Operating Network.”
Quality assets in 15 markets. Tower Cloud is a leading provider of communications infrastructure services across 15 markets in the southeastern United States and has achieved strong success as evidenced by significant revenue growth over the last five years. The Tower Cloud footprint complements PEG’s network coverage and will grow CS&L’s network to encompass 4.2 million fiber strand miles.
“Orchestro’s vision was to leverage Big Data to make big decisions in the retail and consumer packaged goods supply chain,” said Orchestro CEO PV Boccasam. “We can now combine one true demand signal with Demand Sensing technologies to enable manufacturers to become pro-active in preventing out of stocks, provide actionable insight from source to shelf, and preempt expensive disruptions in the supply chain.”
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
Deals BOUNCE EXCHANGE ACQUIRES TECHSTARS SEATTLE GRAD GOCHIME
BLUE STAR SPORTS ACQUIRES PRIMETIME SPORTS Blue Star Sports is rapidly growing and today announces the acquisition of PrimeTime Sports, its 4th acquisition in 90 days. PrimeTime Sports is a premier sports-event management company. As one of the most recognized basketball, soccer, and 7-on-7 football tournament companies in America, it currently manages about 168 events on 51 weekends and holds a spot as one of the top 5 basketball event operators in the country. The combination of sport events management with Blue Star Sports’ existing product portfolio offers a more advanced suite of tools to simplify the management of youth sports for club organizations, coaches, parents, volunteers and players.
Bounce Exchange, a New York-based marketing software company, has acquired direct marketing startup GoChime for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was announced Tuesday and though the terms will be kept under wraps, GoChime CEO Austin Evarts describes the cash and stock deal as “a great outcome for all parties.” GoChime graduated from the Techstars Seattle startup accelerator in 2011, attracting the attention of high-profile investors, such as Pioneer Square Labs co-founder Geoff Entress and former BigDoor CEO Keith Smith. They were among several investors in a $630,000 round that GoChime raised shortly after graduating from the incubator.
“If you want to host a tournament or sporting event, now you can rely on Blue Star Sports for a complete solution and a professional customer experience.” The Blue Star Sports vision from the beginning has been to connect all the technologies and services in the market and invest in the development of new products with a laser-focused goal to provide a single solution to simplify the management of youth sports organizations globally. Keeping the customer experience as the driver for their strategy, Blue Star Sports continues to evaluate and anticipate the needs in the industry, and there are already more solutions under development that will be introduced soon.
“That was a huge role in what got us here,” Evarts told GeekWire via phone this afternoon. “We’re based in New York City now but if it wasn’t for Techstars we wouldn’t have made it this far.” GoChime is an online marketplace that connects individuals with brands, based on information they post to their social media channels. Under the Bounce umbrella, GoChime will be converted into a product called “Behavioral Audiences.”
While individually payments, websites, registration and performance capabilities are not unique features in the market, the way Blue Star Sports combines them into a comprehensive solution is a matchless product in the industry. Now, with the additional feature of sport-events management, customers can truly rely on Blue Star Sports for every aspect of a successful sport season.
The acquisition will allow Bounce Exchange to continue to build out its behavioral marketing offerings. GoChime’s product helps Bounce compete in the business-to-business marketing space. “We’re fully integrated into Bounce Ex’s team here,” Evarts said. “We’re working on building the new version of the product and integrating our customers over. We have a lot of work ahead of us but we’re able to take what we’re doing with GoChime and really apply it to the massive scale that is Bounce Exchange. That’s something we’re really, really excited about.”
“Blue Star Sports has been aggressively growing since the beginning. We have no interest in slowing down and maintain our position as the #1 authority in youth sports. Our goal is to combine the best companies in the youth sports industry and create one multifaceted product for our current and future customers,” says Rob Wechsler, Blue Star Sports Founder & CEO. “If you want to host a tournament or sporting event, now you can rely on Blue Star Sports for a complete solution and a professional customer experience.” “We’ve grown exponentially over the last 16 years, from initially hosting a single basketball tournament, to an entire sports management company. I’m excited about how much more we can do now that we are part of Blue Star Sports,” said PrimeTime Sports CEO David Stephens. “Our two brands share many of the same core values and joining this family will add esteemed proficiency to our already great competences.”
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STARBREEZE ACQUIRES FRENCH VIRTUAL REALITY, AUGMENTED REALITY & TOYS-TO-LIFE TECHNOLOGY COMPANY EPAWN Starbreeze AB, an independent creator publisher and distributor of high quality entertainment products, today announced its acquisition of the French toys to life, VR and augmented reality tech company ePawn for a total consideration of 4 MEUR (approximately 37.8 MSEK) in Starbreeze B-shares and 1.5 MEUR (approximately 14.2 MSEK) in cash. To complete the deal, the Board resolved to issue 1 901 656 B-shares under its mandate from the AGM, based on a market share price determined at SEK 19.90 and an exchange rate of 9.461. The issue represents 0.7% of the capital and 0.2% of the votes on a fully diluted basis. “With ePawn, we will significantly diversify our virtual reality and toys-to-life offerings, as well as speed up the development of existing internal projects already in the works,” said Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO. “The ePawn team has already innovated and productified their technologies and we acquire not only many good ways of applying them, but also a solid portfolio of patents that will benefit Starbreeze for many years to come.” ePawn is a next generation VR and toys-to-life company merging real life gaming experiences with their digital counter part through its gaming boards and mats in table and room scale sizes. ePawn’s patented technology captures everything that happens on the game board and feeds digital applications with information. Up to 40 objects equipped with off-the-shelf NFC (Near Field Communication) tags can simultaneously be put into play on a game board and ePawn’s technology will calculate their position, orientation and altitude in real-time and at the millimeter level. ePawn has developed several versions of its technology to fit many gaming-related markets, such as video games, toys, board games and greatly enchanted augmented reality support between for example a toy and a mobile device. Virtual reality applications include large and flexible flooring tiles that can be assembled to equip spaces with a solution for affordable positioning system capable of tracking several people in a room.
ELITETELE. COM PLC ACQUIRES CLOUD SPECIALISTS NETCENTRIX AND SYSTEMHOST Leading unified communications provider, Elitetele. com plc is pleased to announce the strategic acquisition of Cloud specialist NetCentrix Limited and SystemHOST Limited. Elite Founder and CEO Matt Newing said, “This deal cements our position at the forefront of unified communications and broadens our capabilities in cloud based technologies.” Carnforth based NetCentrix and SystemHOST specialise in architecting bespoke cloud platforms for a mixture of public and private sector clients. This is a key move for Elite as it continues to grow its Managed IT and Cloud division by acquiring an established group offering a complimentary, innovative product set. The business is located just 20 minutes from Elite’s Chorley offices and the specialist technical team will enhance Elite’s existing 150 strong workforce. NetCentrix was founded in 2002 and enjoys an excellent reputation for designing, implementing and managing enterprise IT solutions for corporate and public sector clients, however more recently it has been guiding clients in their transition towards cloud based solutions for storage and workforce collaboration. In 2004 Phil Scanlon created SystemHOST, a wholly owned subsidiary specialising solely in hosted IT solutions which allow SMEs and corporate clients to outsource part or all of their IT function. NetCentrix is Elite’s eleventh acquisition since 2008 and, with further deals in the pipeline, marks a return to M&A for Newing and his management team. Matt added: “There is an ever increasing demand for fast, reliable and secure data hosting and storage solutions. This acquisition brings a third data centre on-net to Elite’s UK wide NGN core network. We have increased our capacity to offer IT and Cloud solutions and we have exciting plans for further innovation in the market with NetCentrix and SystemHOST on board.” Phil Scanlon, Managing Director and founder of NetCentrix says: “We are extremely excited to be joining Elite and becoming part of the team. Our products greatly complement Elite’s existing solutions and we are very much looking forward to launching the combined offering into the market.”
Soft Tech INTL / July 2016
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