All posts by Richard

Brand, CitizenHawk, Intellectual Property, Legal, MarkMonitor, Tools, Trademark, Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy

CitizenHawk Introduces Cloud-Based Online Brand Protection Platform

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CitizenHawk, a global provider of online brand protection and enforcement services, has introduced a powerful online brand protection tool that enables users to search the entire Web and detect use of trademarked terms and phrases, helping uncover instances of brand abuse ranging from counterfeiting to cybersquatting.

HawkDiscovery is a cloud-based technology platform that lets users monitor content on specific websites and produces alerts notifying them of new activity. HawkDiscovery features a fully integrated workflow and case management system that acts as a kind of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for brand protection. The system lets users analyze and assess particular instances of online infringement, determine appropriate responses, and manage remediation activities from initial detection through final resolution – with every action tracked, recorded and shared with appropriate personnel.

“Companies realize their brands are most precious corporate assets, and they invest considerable time and money promoting them to consumers, investors and others,” said David Duckwitz, CitizenHawk’s president and chief executive. “Unfortunately, well known and popular brands are particularly attractive to typosquatters and others seeking to exploit them on the Internet. Marketing, legal, compliance and IT professionals can now fight back with cost effective tools that not only can uncover such abuse, but effectively respond to it.”

CitizenHawk is also introducing an array of complementary online brand protection tools, each designed to detect a specific form of online brand infringement:

HawkTypos can generate literally thousands of domain-name permutations, confirm whether such domains are registered, and identify common ownership, notwithstanding efforts to obfuscate such ownership via asset shielding or inexpensive privacy services.

HawkImages is a powerful tool for determining how a company’s logo and other proprietary images are being used – or misused – on the Internet. HawkImages’ advanced pixelation technology can help confirm whether business partners are fully compliant with agreed-upon standards. It also can detect unauthorized use, such as false claims of affiliation.

HawkAuctions continuously monitors brands on the world’s top auction, exchange and classified advertising sites – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Users can obtain real-time information to permit fast response; assess impact based on product identification, sales volume and pricing (e.g., unauthorized discounting); and detect sales patterns and identify sellers operating under numerous aliases. HawkAuctions’ automated processes fully support eBay’s VeRO (Verified Rights Owner) and NOCI (Notice of Claimed Infringement) programs.

HawkKeywords enables users to ascertain whether affiliate publishers are complying with the specific terms of marketing agreements. It also provides valuable competitive intelligence by showing where competitors rank in search paid placement, and provides insights on their keyword bidding strategies – including whether they are actually bidding inappropriately on trademark terms.

HawkSocial lets users monitor what people are saying about their brand(s) on the world’s most popular social networks, while measuring the sentiment of such communications. It can provide a fast, easy-to-read “footprint” of a brand’s social media presence, whether by geography or by specific social network.

HawkUDRP gives users a powerful tool for pursuing and winning UDRPs (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy). CitizenHawk, one of the world’s most successful filers of UDRPs, has taken advantage of its expertise to create an automated system that allows users to collect evidence, generate necessary documentation and complete the domain recover process quickly and cost effectively.

While each of these tools has a specific function and capability, they are all seamlessly integrated into the HawkDiscovery platform.

“While we offer extensive levels of customer support, we’ve designed these tools for ease of use, enabling virtually anyone to begin benefitting from them almost immediately,” said Duckwitz.


American Academy of Sleep Medicine, American Sleep Apnea Association, Medical, Polysomnography, Sleep apnea, Sleep Center, Sleep disorder

NovaSom Launches AccuSom Deliver, Uses Cloud to Move Sleep Testing to the Home

NovaSom, Inc., the leader in home sleep testing and cost-saving solutions for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) management, announces the launch of AccuSom Deliver, a turnkey program for Sleep Centers offering Out-of-Center Sleep Testing (OCST), will be featured at the SLEEP 2012 meeting in Boston, MA, June 9-13.

AccuSom Deliver provides a complete OCST logistics solution while the participating Sleep Center maintains complete clinical control of their patients. The new offering includes a cloud-based portal for Sleep Centers to enable efficient management of uncomplicated adult OSA diagnosis via OCST. The new portal is integrated with the AccuSom® testing device, the first and only wireless out-of-center sleep study device approved by the FDA. Leveraging NovaSom’s mHealth partnership with Verizon, data recorded by the device in the patient’s home is wirelessly transmitted to the Sleep Center portal for timely, efficient diagnosis.

Michael Coppola, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs, NovaSom, said, “The simple truth is Sleep Centers alone don’t have the capacity to test the upwards of 40 million undiagnosed OSA sufferers across the country. OCST offers a highly convenient option with the potential to significantly improve patient access to testing. NovaSom’s Sleep Center program is unique in that it offers a clinically accurate solution that radically shortens time to diagnosis, while removing the capital expenditure and administrative burdens that often make out-of-center sleep testing impractical for centers to implement at scale.”

Leveraging more than ten years’ experience with turnkey OCST, the AccuSom Deliver program allows Sleep Centers to enjoy the scale and operating efficiency of the NovaSom’s proprietary MediTrack® operating platform and StudyViewer® interpretation portal. Once a sleep specialist prescribes an OCST through the cloud-based portal, NovaSom ships the device directly to the patient’s home. NovaSom’s Clinical Team provides proactive, 24/7 clinical support to patients throughout the testing protocol. Upon completion, test data is transmitted wirelessly via the Verizon Network to the portal and presented in a user-friendly display ready for sleep specialist interpretation.

Richard Hassett, MD, CEO, NovaSom, said, “As major healthcare payers increasingly require home sleep testing for uncomplicated OSA, it makes sense for Sleep Centers to incorporate an accurate, efficient out-of-center sleep testing model to ensure patients continue to be cared for by trained sleep specialists. Our AccuSom Deliver partnership program is designed to facilitate out-of-center sleep testing in a way that is flexible with the Sleep Center’s daily spike in demand. It offers Sleep Centers the ability to significantly extend their reach in the community with a highly convenient test to expand their market opportunity.”

Dr. Coppola, also President and Chief Medical Officer of the American Sleep Apnea Association and a practicing board-certified sleep specialist in Massachusetts, will be available to discuss AccuSom Deliver at the SLEEP 2012 Conference in NovaSom’s booth #120, from June 9-13, 2012.

NovaSom’s sleep testing technology directly measures the parameters recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to diagnose OSA, and has been proven clinically equivalent to traditional polysomnography in two peer-reviewed publications. For more information about NovaSom’s OCST technology and the AccuSom Deliver program, please visit www.NovaSom.com.


Data center, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity, Green Cloud, Venture Funding, Virtualization, VMware

Green Cloud Technologies Gets $2,750,000 for Data Center Expansion

Green Cloud Technologies, a Cloud-based technology solutions provider headquartered in Greenville, SC, has concluded a $2,750,000 round of financing that is a mix of Series B Preferred Units and three-year Convertible Notes. The bulk of the financing comes from Millry Corporation, a 70-year-old Incumbent Local Telephone Carrier serving southwestern Alabama. The additional financing will be used for market expansion and the build-out of the company’s second data center facility in Nashville, TN. Green Cloud previously secured $1,250,000 through the sale of Series A units in 2011.

“This is another vote of confidence for Green Cloud’s strategy from a very savvy and experienced investor group,” said Shaler P. Houser, CEO of Green Cloud. “This financing further enables Green Cloud to help businesses transition to our secure, reliable, and robust Cloud-based infrastructure and increase the efficiency and performance of their businesses.”

Green Cloud’s offerings include VMware-based Virtual Servers, Mirror-Imaged Disaster Recovery, and Hosted Telephone Services.

“We are excited about the opportunity to invest in this area of communications,” added Paul Brown, president of Millry Corporation. “Since 1941, we as a company and family have invested directly in local telephone service, Internet access, cellular telephone service, and wireless digital voice/data services and continue today to search for product offerings that will be required for the marketplace. The platform and services that are being offered by Green Cloud are the latest evolution in the industry and will attract business clients through cost savings and, more specifically, customer service. We look forward to the growth of Green Cloud as its CEO and employees concentrate on providing a best-in-market service offering.”

Green Cloud recently announced expansion plans into the Myrtle Beach – Charleston – Savannah corridor and the Huntsville –Nashville – Chattanooga area. The company is 100% dedicated to Authorized Partner distribution and uses no direct sales force. By partnering with local consultants, IT managed service providers, and PBX distributors, Green Cloud enables its partners to leverage the benefits of Cloud technologies without making the substantial investments necessary to deploy fully-redundant Cloud services.


Benchmark Capital, Carmel Ventures, Clarizen, Collaboration, DAG Ventures, Project management, Social, Venture Funding

Clarizen Gets $12 Million for Social Project Collabortion

Image representing Clarizen as depicted in Cru...

Clarizen today announced that it has completed a $12 million Series E financing round led by Vintage Partners. Existing Clarizen shareholders Benchmark Capital, Carmel Ventures, DAG Ventures and Opus Capital also participated. The funding will support continued expansion, strategic partnerships, and product development designed to enhance the end user experience.

Clarizen makes organizations more effective by combining the tools needed to plan and execute work within a collaborative cloud-based environment that puts data, structure, and communications all in one place. Simple to use, yet robust, Clarizen’s project management suite eliminates the need for multiple disconnected planning and communication tools. Clarizen’s unified, collaborative environment gives team members and organizations better visibility into their work and provides the tools to get projects executed more quickly.

“Clarizen’s vision for today’s social workforce reflects our understanding that successful organizations need much more than task management or another way to communicate,” said Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO and co-founder of Clarizen. “The workplace we enable is powerful, because Clarizen helps move information and communications out of silos, gives them structure, and makes this data actionable. This funding comes at an exciting point as we look to accelerate our investment in mobile access and global expansion.”

Clarizen recently introduced its native Android application to complement its existing iPhone app, providing users with real-time access to their tasks and projects from their mobile devices. In addition, the company introduced Clarizen Anywhere, a browser-application and Microsoft Outlook-based toolbar that provides users with immediate access to Clarizen without the need to login.


Alert Logic, Covera Ventures, DFJ Mercury, Updata Partners, Venture Funding

Alert Logic gets $12.2 Million for Cloud Security

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Alert Logic (Security-as-a-Service for the cloud) today announced that it has closed a $12.2 million round of financing led by new investors Industry Ventures and DH Capital, and joined by all existing investment firms and several members of the company’s management team including Updata Partners, Covera Ventures, DFJ Mercury, OCA Ventures and Access Venture Partners. Alert Logic will use the funding to accelerate the growth of its new Web Security Manager product line, including deployment of Web Security Manager throughout Alert Logic’s channel of hosting and cloud service provider partners, and to accelerate the growth and adoption of the company’s new elastic cloud security solutions.

“After tripling the size of our company in less than three years and building a customer base of over 1,700 customers representing nearly $30 million in annual recurring revenue, we remain focused on delivering security and compliance solutions to customers of cloud providers,” said Gray Hall, president and CEO at Alert Logic. “Adding new product lines such as Web Security Manager, and new deployment models such as our elastic cloud solutions, is exactly what our customers and partners are asking us to do. This additional capital gives us the ability to move more aggressively in each of these strategic new directions.”

“We are excited about adding Alert Logic as a portfolio company,” said Justin Burden, partner at Industry Ventures. “Having previously invested in security industry leaders such as Fortinet, Sourcefire and Tripwire, we consider cloud security to be one of the strongest investment themes in the IT industry and we believe Alert Logic will prove to be a cloud security market leader.”

“DH Capital has been the leading provider of financial advisory services to hosting and cloud service providers since the inception of the industry segment,” said Peter Hopper, co-founder and CEO of DH Capital. “Alert Logic has the strongest and most-developed channel of service provider partners in the industry, and is setting the standard for delivering SaaS managed security service solutions.”

Alert Logic’s Security-as-a-Service solutions provide customers four distinct advantages: market-leading security tools, a fully outsourced and managed SaaS delivery model, integrated 24×7 Security Operations Center (SOC) services to monitor and provide expert guidance, and the ability to deploy wherever a customer has IT infrastructure – including the cloud.


App Store (iOS), Business Processes, Collaboration, iPad, Mobile

FileTrek Releases Management Tool on iPad

Image representing iPad as depicted in CrunchBase

FileTrek, Inc. today released FileTrek for iPad, a management dashboard tool designed for workgroup managers and other team members to easily and transparently track the flow of projects, data and collaborative activity while on the go. FileTrek for iPad provides live activity updates of projects, displays how project files are related and how those files are being changed, with real-time data syncing and updates. The FileTrek iPad app is built for members of workgroups that require timely distribution of frequently updated files and the ability to track those files and data wherever it resides.

“The speed of the mobile work environment can make it very difficult for managers and team members alike to meet in-person to review and report on the status of shared projects,” said Carol Mason, Director of Product Management at FileTrek. “Managers want to view data and activity while on the go, and team members want to report the status of their work without having to write a report or make a phone call. FileTrek for iPad simultaneously presents three up-to-date feeds of information – people, projects and data, all on a single pane of glass. It will change everyone’s mindset as to how to get projects done with greater efficiency, and even have some fun while doing it.”

The dashboard app is an extension of the FileTrek solution launched on February 15, 2012. The application is the only combined cloud-based file sharing and tracking solution on the market. FileTrek is designed to allow secure file sharing, project collaboration, and the ability for managers to track content and data with enhanced compliance-friendly audit reporting. The solution is easy to use, transparent to users and can scale across thousands of desktops and mobile devices to maximize individual and workgroup productivity.

FileTrek for iPad features include:

With FileTrek for iPad, a worker in the field can access data through a tablet and have the same secure view of spreadsheets, presentations and memos as a manager in the company offices. Any existing FileTrek project or document that has been synced or shared can be added to the dashboard with a single click. There are no limits to the number of “favorite” projects, people and files that can be tracked.

FileTrek’s innovative data tracking feature allows users to obtain a comprehensive view of all activity within a workgroup or project, who has worked on it, and the various changes that have been made to it. The app provides reliable access to the most recent versions. A file map tracks project dependencies and illustrates how files are related.

Receive live activity updates of all your FileTrek projects, access and revisions. You can see up-to-date sharing activity within a project, who has been added, who has been removed, information on what files have been reviewed, changed or removed, An intuitive cover flow interface allows users can visually flip through snapshots of files to easily access and view all the documents and files related to the project(s) they are working on.

FileTrek for iPad is an innovative solution for people that manage multiple projects at any given time such as sales staff, real estate agents, creative services professionals, health care providers, etc. The dashboard is particularly useful for members of workgroups that require timely distribution of frequently updated files.

FileTrek for iPad is free and available now for existing Team and Enterprise accounts from the iOS App Store. Follow this link to download. For any company registering a new Team or Enterprise account with 20+ users on an annual purchase plan prior to July 31, 2012, they will receive a new iPad free.


Arrowpath Venture Partners, Identity management, Venture Funding, Xceedium

Xceedium Gets $12 Million for Identity Management

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Xceedium, Inc., provider of Zero Trust privileged identity and access management solutions, today announced that is has closed a $12 million Series B financing extension led by existing investor ArrowPath Venture Partners. The new funds will be used to fuel continued growth and expansion of the company, with specific emphasis on Xceedium’s new cloud-based initiatives. As part of this aggressive growth strategy, the company also announced today the launch of Xsuite Cloud.

“The market for privileged identity and access management solutions is constantly growing and the push for enterprises to move to the cloud has only increased its potential,” said Morgan Rodd at ArrowPath Venture Partners. “Xceedium’s track record and strong management team were the key drivers for this extension. Xceedium has proven resources in place to capitalize on the growing demand for products that control and monitor privileged network access.”

Large enterprises and global government agencies have adopted Xsuite as a critical component of their security infrastructure to meet stringent security and compliance requirements – eliminating the risk of allowing employees and third parties unchecked privileged access to their networks. This financing round allows Xceedium to maintain that leadership position and to aggressively fuel its cloud-based initiatives with Xsuite Cloud. Xsuite Cloud is a comprehensive privileged identity and access management platform designed to provide additional protection for organizations that are taking advantage of the cost, power and scalability of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in conjunction with existing datacenter infrastructure.

“We are very pleased to be announcing this latest round of financing coincident with the unveiling of our new Xsuite Cloud offering,” said Glenn Hazard, Xceedium CEO. “We are seeing significant adoption of our privileged identity and access management solutions within both the commercial and federal sectors. As these customers adopt cloud and hybrid architectures, Xsuite Cloud along with this latest funding extension uniquely positions us to take full advantage of this growing market opportunity.”

In addition to ArrowPath Venture Partners, new investor Western Technology Investment joined existing investors in the Series B financing extension.


Amazon Web Service, Appcara, Application programming interface, Enterprise software, IT Management, Rackspace, VCloud, VMware

Appcara Debuts Its AppStack Release 2 Platform, A Dynamic Application Layer Above the Cloud

Appcara, maker of cloud application lifecycle solutions, announced a major new version of its AppStack application and portability platform that helps enterprises and service providers accelerate complex applications into the cloud and deliver new application-based revenue sources. Incorporating a real time Dynamic Application Environment layer that eliminates the need for server templates or scripting, AppStack Release 2 changes the rules of cloud computing. With AppStack 2, enterprises and service providers gain exceptionally fast time-to-market for key business applications – maximizing time, knowledge and profitability.

While cloud deployments are common for simple web apps, the $385 billion enterprise application market remains the province of on-premises data centers, in large part because IT staffs lack the tools required to truly govern VMware, Citrix, or other private and hybrid applications running on Amazon Web Services, Citrix CloudStack or VMware vCloud. While cloud app management solutions exist, they require deep technical knowledge of application stacks, and a lot of manual, error-prone effort to use.

AppStack provides an advanced application layer above public and private clouds – to capture application components, configurations and dependencies in real-time in the industry’s only dynamic Configuration Repository – thereby automating all aspects of the application lifecycle. By decoupling apps from low-level dependencies such as operating systems and machine images into its uniquely visual, intuitive, real time environment, AppStack 2 enables total application portability, even across different public clouds – for instance, from Amazon to Rackspace – as well as from public to private clouds. AppStack allows cloud computing to expand beyond simple, predefined workloads, and into the realm of serious enterprise applications – with a single pane of glass management interface, and eliminating vendor lock-in.

“For a long time enterprises have been seeking to leverage cloud environments for more complex business applications and take advantage of the flexibility, faster time to market and markedly lower cost structures delivered by the cloud. AppStack’s ability to capture and assemble these application graphically, in real-time, is something that’s businesses can truly leverage for improved efficiency and faster time to market,” said William Fellows, analyst at 451 Research.

A major new capability in AppStack 2 is the App Marketplace functionality that connects application publishers and consumers and provides a platform to enable usage-based applications, so that:

  • Corporations have immediate access to business applications, enabling
    them to integrate applications without the need to purchase, install &
    configure apps as with packaged software.
  • ISV’s can readily publish business applications for usage-based
    consumption
  • Distributors can resell applications in a usage-based model in the
    cloud, and to move away from traditional box-based software sales.

“Many of our clients come from the Life Sciences industry where they have very sophisticated, mission critical applications running on their servers. Making a move to the cloud wasn’t an option worth considering until the AppStack solution came along,” said Tim Caulfield, chief executive officer at American Internet Services (AIS). “The idea that AppStack can do the heavy lifting on the back-end and provide the user with a very clean, single-pane-of-glass interface, is quite appealing and fits nicely with our BusinessCloud1 offering.”

AppStack 2 builds upon existing AppStack patent-pending components that have been in use by service providers and enterprise customers, including:

  • Dynamic Application Engine – which
    captures user-defined app environments, settings and relationships in
    real-time, construct data models and insert into Configuration
    Repository. It automates provisioning, lifecycle management, and
    portability.
  • Configuration Repository – which stores
    application settings, dependencies and change records for all
    application workloads. This enables speedy provisioning of application
    workloads as well as the ability to de-couple lower level components
    such as operating systems for portability across cloud vendors.
  • Cloud Target Optimizer – which maps
    provisioning elements and instructions to vendor specific API’s and
    available capabilities.

“Enterprises need to get critical apps to market with the least effort and cost possible, and the solutions on the market today help with only simple, static environments,” said John Yung, founder and CEO of Appcara. “AppStack keeps it simple, fast, and visual to deploy and manage even complex applications in the cloud, so customers and service providers can lower their IT costs – even with enterprise applications – and focus on scaling their business.”

AppStack Release 2 will ship in July 2012. Appcara is showcasing its latest version of AppStack at Cloud Computing Expo New York, in its booth #257.


Electronic health record, Health Care, Medical, Medical imaging, Partnerships, SeeMyRadiology.com

PACSGEAR Adds SeeMyRadiology.com to Open Image Exchange Network

PACSGEAR, a provider of imaging connectivity for electronic health records, today announced an agreement with SeeMyRadiology.com, a collaborative, cloud-based medical imaging solution, to participate in the Open Image Exchange, a cloud-based network designed to securely share medical images and results. PACSGEAR has incorporated the application programming interface (API) from SeeMyRadiology.com to upload images and reports to the company’s secure network. The Open Image Exchange will be demonstrated live at the upcoming SIIM Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

“Our industry has a history of coming together to solve challenges like image exchange,” said Eli Rapaich, PACSGEAR’s CEO. “By incorporating SeeMyRadiology.com’s API, we strengthen the Open Image Exchange network and provide customers with options to share medical images electronically. We welcome the inclusion of all open APIs to accelerate image sharing and health information exchange,” Rapaich said.

“The Open Image Exchange network will deliver value throughout the entire process of care delivery, from healthcare organizations, to physicians, to patients,” said Willie Tillery, CEO at SeeMyRadiology.com. “Through partnering with PACSGEAR and serving as the first available integrated API partner in the Open Image Exchange, we are committed to making medical image exchange more broadly available, ultimately improving the quality of patient care.”

Open Image Exchange will be featured at PACSGEAR’s Booth #513 at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM 2012) in Orlando, Florida from June 7 – 10, 2012.


Business Processes, Cloud DataGenius, Databases, Tools

Cloud Datagenius Set to Launch in June, Aims for Custom Data Applications Without Programming

Swiss company Konnektix is set to launch a new web-based service that lets you build custom relational-data applications quickly, without programming.

According to Vedran Vlajki of Konnektix, “You don’t need to read a manual to drive a car, or use Google. So why should it be different when it comes to managing your company data? We are building a powerful tool that requires zero training. No programmers, no DBA, no complicated options, no weird shortcuts.”

Cloud DataGenius runs on Microsoft Azure, and as a native Azure application it takes advantage of  underlying technologies, including SQL Azure databases, table and blob storage, messages, etc. Customer data is kept safe in Microsoft Data Centers, and the service is replicated worldwide for best performance.

Cloud DataGenius is aimed at small businesses, entrepreneurs and working groups inside large organizations, and has a planned starting price tag of $45 per month.

Here’s the first of their tutorial videos.

More information is available at www.clouddatagenius.com.