Monthly Archives: January 2013

Amazon, Amazon AWS, Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, IVONA, Kindle Fire, M&A Activity, Speech synthesis, Voice

Amazon Acquires IVONA, Makers of Kindle Text-to-Speech Tech

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that it has acquired text-to-speech technology company IVONA Software. IVONA technologies power the “Text-to-Speech,” “Voice Guide” and “Explore by Touch” features on Kindle Fire tablets. Additionally, IVONA delivers text-to-speech products and services for thousands of developers, businesses and customers around the world.

“IVONA’s exceptional text-to-speech technology leads the industry in natural voice quality, accuracy and ease of use. IVONA is already instrumental in helping us deliver excellent accessibility features on Kindle Fire, including Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore by Touch,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “The IVONA team shares our passion for innovation and customer obsession, and we look forward to building great products to deliver world-class voice solutions to customers around the world.”

“For more than ten years, the IVONA team has been focused on creating innovative text-to-speech technologies,” said Lukasz Osowski, CEO and co-founder of IVONA. “We are all thrilled that Amazon is supporting our growth so that we can continue to innovate and deliver exceptional voice and language support for our customers.”

IVONA offers voice and language portfolios with 44 voices in 17 languages and more in development.

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AppDynamics Pulls in $50 Million

AppDynamics is a four-year-old start-up that can tick off all the current buzzwords that make a VC get out a pen and write a check – to wit, it manages and accelerates federated web apps in the cloud, tries to make sure they stay up and spots problems with their web sites.
So it’s gotten a juicy $50 million D round led by Institutional Venture Partners after the VC discovered that a lot of its portfolio companies were using the stuff.
Other enterprise customers include Cornell University, Orbitz, Expedia, Tivo, Overstock.com, Fox News, Staples, Time Warner Cable, Intuit, Priceline and Netflix. It reportedly has 500 clients.

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CIO, Miscellaneous IT, Twitter

Top CIOs on Twitter

By Ben Stephenson, Journey to the Cloud

Vala Afshar (@valaafshar) of Enterasys Networks recently posted a list of the 50 most social CIOs on Twitter, along with 20 rising stars. If you’re on Twitter and looking to connect with peers and gain useful information, these CIOs are worth checking out. Vala’s list is below…What do you think? Did he leave anyone off that you think was worthy of making the list?

Top 50 CIOs on Twitter: [Name — Company, Twitter Alias]

  1. Oliver      Bussmann — SAP, @sapcio
  2. Jason      Smylie — Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop, @capriottisjason
  3. Jonathan      Reichental — City of Palo Alto, CA, @Reichental
  4. Peter      Yared — CBS Interactive, @peteryared
  5. Mike Kail      — Netflix, @mdkail
  6. Brenda      Cooper — City of Kirkland, WA, @brendacooper
  7. Ben Grey      — Oak Lawn-Hometown District 123, IL, @bengrey
  8. John      Halamka — Beth Isreal Deaconess, @jhalamka
  9. Susan      Bearden — Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy, @s_bearden
  10. Kelly      Walsh — College of Westchester, @EmergingEdTech
  11. Casey      Coleman — General Services Administration, @caseycoleman
  12. Victor      Fetter — LPL Financial, @vpfetter
  13. Joe Palmer      — Jefferson County, CO, @CIOJoe
  14. Phil      Komarny — Seton Hill University, @PhilKomarny
  15. Brett      Bobley — National Endowment for the Humanities, @brettbobley
  16. Rachel      Wente–Chaney — High Desert Education Service District, OR, @rwentechaney
  17. Ben Haines      — Pabst Brewing Co., @bhaines0
  18. Steven      VanRoekel — Executive Office of the President, @stevenvDC
  19. Aaron      Batalion — Livingsocial.com, @abatalion
  20. Dan Webber      — Prime Holdings BV, @SocialDanWebber
  21. Stephen      diFilipo — Cecil College, @S_dF
  22. Paul Slot      — KPN Corporate Market, @Tri4Ever
  23. Vivek      Kundra — Salesforce.com , @VivekKundra
  24. Sonny      Hashmi — Deputy Chief Information Officer, GSA, @sonny_h
  25. Michael      Skaff — LesConcierges, @mskaff
  26. Adam      Gerrard — LateRooms group, @CIO_Adam
  27. Linda      Cureton — NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, @curetonl
  28. Mark      Brewer — Seagate Technology, @brewerma
  29. Jos Creese      — Hampshire, @JosCreese
  30. Will      Weider — Ministry Health Care, @CandidCIO
  31. John David      Son — Naperville 203 School District, IL, @JDSCIO
  32. Kim      Stevenson — Intel Corporation, @Kimsstevenson
  33. Brian      Miller — Davenport University, @suydam
  34. Paul Coby      — CIO and Head of BA Services at British Airways, @PaulCoby
  35. Drex      DeFord — Steward Health Care, @drexdeford
  36. David      Sullivan — City of Norfolk, VA, @ciophoto
  37. Glenn      Lanteigne — South West LHIN, @GlennLanteigne
  38. Stephen      Lamb — British Columbia Institute of Technology, @SEE_EYE_OH
  39. Laurent      Maumet — SOITEC, @lmau
  40. Steve      Huffman — Memorial Health System of South Bend, @SteveHuffmanCIO
  41. Brian      Nettles — Sigma Solutions, Inc, @7bn
  42. Ganesan      Ravishanker — Wellesley University, @ravishan
  43. Jon Walton      — City of San Francisco, CA, @SFCityCIO
  44. Paul Dale      — ITV, @paulcdale
  45. Bruce Maas      — University of Wisconsin, @uwmadisonCIO
  46. Sean      O’Donoghue — DreamWorks Animation, @seanwod
  47. Susan      Kellogg — Kenan-Flagler Businss School, UNC, @susankellogg
  48. Thabo      Ndlela — Sun International, @ThaboNdlela
  49. Steve Spot      — Alarm New England , @SteveSpott
  50. Kelly      Flanagan — BYU, @kelflanagan

20 Rising Star CIOs on Twitter (Name — Company, Twitter Alias)

  1. Baz      Abouelenein — Kansas City Kansas Community College, @CIO_Baz
  2. A. Michael      Berman — California State University, Channel Islands, @amichaelberman
  3. Raechelle      Clemmons — St. Norbert University, @rclemmons
  4. Sabine      Everaet — Coca-Cola- Europe, @S_Everaet
  5. Scott      Fenton — Wind River Systems, @sdfenton
  6. Bill      Greeves — County of Roanoke, VA, @bgreeves
  7. David      Hinson — Hendrix College, @davidjhinson
  8. Rick      Holgate — Bureau of the ATF, @rickholgate
  9. Jeanette      Horan — IBM, @jeanettehoran
  10. Roxane      Reynolds-Lair — Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, @IBMiCiO
  11. Tom      LaPlante — Top Golf, @tomlap
  12. Ernest      Lehmann — Nicholas H. Noyes Memorial Hospital, @ernestlehmann
  13. John D.      McMillen — Graves County Schools, Kentucky, @ujdmc
  14. Brian      Nettles — Sigma Solutions, Inc, @7bn
  15. Dan Petlon      — Enterasys, @DanPetlon
  16. Sukumar      Rajagopal — Cognizant Technology Solutions, @rsukumar
  17. Bill      Schrier — (former)City of Seattle, WA, @billschrier
  18. Wayne      Shurts — Sysco, @wayneshurts
  19. Trad      Robinson — SC School for the Deaf and Blind, @TradRobinson
  20. Joanna      Young — University of New Hampshire, @unhcio

 

Enjoy!

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Cisco and NetApp Expand Partnership to Unify Data Center and Public Cloud

Cisco and NetApp on Thursday announced an expanded partnership to deliver new converged infrastructure innovation to unify branch office, data center and public cloud infrastructures under the FlexPod architecture. The partnership expansion includes efforts in technology integration, solution development, and continued go-to-market collaboration — all designed to make it easier for customers to deploy and access next-generation cloud infrastructure solutions.
Current IT architectures comprise a fragmented combination of infrastructure along with public, private and hybrid clouds offered by different organizations and addressing distinct customer needs. Through a shared vision of a unified data center, Cisco and NetApp offer the ability to simplify deployment, management and orchestration — connecting enterprise clouds to service providers, enterprises to branch offices, consumers to enterprises, and clouds to clouds.

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Security and the Cloud

Is now the time to make the move to cloud services with all the current IT security concerns? Security and the cloud seems to be the topic of conversation for many businesses and IT groups today. As you prepare for that decision making process around your IT infrastructure security, remember to take a risk based approach to help ensure a sound decision from an information security perspective.
Rather than spend months learning, digesting, and attempting to implement a structured formal risk management framework, regard your strategic security planning with these four pillars of risk management.

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Apple Disappoints; Punters Flee Stock; Google Smirks

As soon as Apple’s fiscal first-quarter numbers hit Wall Street Wednesday,
its stock dropped.

Thirty minutes into the after-hours conference call it was down 8% to
under $475 after losing 30% of its value since it hit a $705 all-time high in
September and was roundly cheered as the most valuable company on earth.

Fifteen minutes later it was down 10% to $462 and change. By the end of
the call it was grazing the other side of $460, down 11%.

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Cloud cited as key driver for redefining CIO role [infographic]

A new survey from Brocade has revealed the extent of the changing CIO role in enterprise – and put cloud adoption as a major driver of it.

The research, which asked 100 CIOs from the EMEA sector (Europe, Middle East, Africa) found the following top-line takeaways:

  • 50% of the CIOs polled expect that cloud adoption will result in their jobs involving less time fretting over the company IT infrastructure
  • One third of CIOs confirmed that cloud services had been deployed by their business without involving the IT department
  • Two in three envisage that by 2020, this trend will continue with business units procuring cloud services much more frequently

There were other interesting results, with 75% of respondents unsure whether their company’s SLAs (service level agreements) will meet minimum requirements, which may come as a surprise.

Of course, a downwardly revised SLA will mean downtime and greater IT costs, but Forrester …

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On the up: Changing lives in Brazil

Just over ten years ago I went backpacking in Brazil for a month with some friends. We arrived in Rio de Janeiro, one of the world’s great party towns, at nightfall and found, to our dismay, that we couldn’t get a caipirinha for love nor money. It turned out that we’d landed on the day of the presidential elections and there was a blanket ban on sales of alcohol because the authorities were concerned that violence might erupt if politics mixed with booze.

Eventually we managed to persuade a man running one of the street food outlets on the Copacabana beach to sell us a beer. He told us that the winner of the election would be a man known as Lula. Lula, leader of PT, the worker’s party, went on to become perhaps the most popular president in the history of Brazil, introducing sweeping social reforms designed to lift millions of Brazilians out of poverty.

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Cloud Computing: Red Hat to Merge ManageIQ with Its CloudForms IaaS

Red Hat closed its acquisition of ManageIQ in December shortly after it agreed to buy the joint for $104 million and on Tuesday morning it said in a webcast that it’s going to integrate ManageIQ’s cloud management and automation widgetry with its CloudForms Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform to expand its all-important open hybrid cloud portfolio.
When this will happen is unclear.
ManageIQ lets users deploy, manage and optimize across private clouds, public clouds and virtualized infrastructures.
Red Hat’s Cloud Business Unit general manager Bryan Che said, “We’ve worked with ManageIQ as a partner to our Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platform with successful joint customers and saw an opportunity to expand our hybrid cloud management capabilities with an even closer relationship with ManageIQ’s compelling portfolio. With the closing of the acquisition, we now begin work to integrate ManageIQ’s enterprise cloud management and automation technologies with our complementary Red Hat CloudForms hybrid Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution and our open Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization management solution. With this combination, we can offer our customers an unparalleled open hybrid cloud management portfolio.”

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