All posts by Richard

Business Intelligence, Business Processes, Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise resource planning, ERP, Mobile

New Mobile Cloud Technology and Analytics Revitalize Next-Generation ERP Implementations

VAI, an ERP software provider, unveiled two new white papers — authored by renowned IT consultant Michael Dortch — that provide top-line guidance on how to maximize the value of existing ERP implementations with new innovations in mobile cloud technology, analytics and business intelligence. The papers, exclusively available from VAI at www.vai.net, outline specific steps that both business and IT professionals should take to add new functionality and value to ERP deployments while leveraging existing investments with minimal user disruption.

Dortch, long recognized as an ERP implementation expert for the past 25 years from his post at DortchOnIT.com, offers his advice to business leaders in the IT + “ERP3” = More Business Value paper and to IT staff in the “ERP 3” = From Enterprise Resource Planning to Enabling Rock Solid Processes. Both papers can be downloaded here at the VAI news page.

Among the key highlights of both papers is a look at how key industries will be transformed by adding new mobile cloud technology to their ERP implementations. Below is a quick snapshot of how five industries will benefit:

  • Distribution: workers at any point in the value chain will
    access real-time inventory information, uncover slow-moving or
    out-of-stock items, and improve order fill rates, inventory turns and
    responses to customer demands
  • Food Service: workers will hasten production and lower
    operational costs by replacing manual, error-prone paperwork with
    integrated solutions for tablet sand smartphones
  • Manufacturing: mobile networked devices and on-demand software
    will enable seamless integration, tracking and optimization of tasks
    from inventory, shop floor and warehouse management to capacity and
    materials planning and product quality control
  • Retail: automation of tasks and processes will improve
    inventory, purchasing, warehouse management and customer relationship
    management at point of sale, both in-store and online
  • Service: improved integration of customer interaction and
    product-related information will ease and hasten superior service and
    repair, increasing customer satisfaction dramatically

“Mobile cloud technology will improve cost and operational efficiencies while expanding collaboration with customers, vendors and partners,” said Dortch. “That, coupled with new innovations from IBM’s Websphere portal and Cognos Business Intelligence, can ignite existing ERP implementations with graphically rich personalized dashboards and easy-to-use yet highly functional e-commerce applications.”

In both papers, Dortch offers specific guidance on how to get started with adding new functionality to ERP implementations such as:

  • Embrace Customization as a way to reinvigorate existing ERP
    investments
  • Conduct an Audit to examine your organization’s readiness to
    add mobile cloud functionality
  • Develop Specific Criteria for upgrading ERP systems based on
    detailed feedback from both IT and business stakeholders
  • Create an ERP Playbook that outlines ERP goals, processes and
    supporting IT resources that will be embraced by both IT and business
    teams.


Amazon AWS, Business Processes, CDC Software, Enterprise resource planning, ERP

CDC Software Launches Ross 7.0, Its Next Generation Suite of ERP Applications

CDC Software, an enterprise software provider of on-premise and cloud technologies, today announced the general availability of Ross ERP 7.0, the major release of its next generation of ERP applications offering improved interoperability, increased collaborative capabilities, enhanced usability, new mobility features and more advanced traceability that can lead to higher productivity, faster decision-making, and reduced costs and risk – all with a low total cost of ownership.

Ross ERP 7.0 takes ERP to the next level in enterprise visibility, collaboration, reporting, mobility and social manufacturing with new functionality featured in Enterprise Viewer, Document Connect, Event Management Framework, and Ross Mobile 2.0. Advanced collaborative techniques found in Facebook and Google were incorporated into Ross Enterprise Viewer and EMF. For example, utilizing “Subscribe and Follow” techniques, Enterprise Viewer allows sales reps to subscribe to a sales “widget” then follow the sales of their own customers on their dashboards. As another example, EMF delivers real-time alerts to the sales rep whenever one of their customers exceeds certain credit limits. Continuing Ross’ focus on vertical-industry needs for the process manufacturer, Ross 7.0 offers deeper functionality in traceability, pricing, product costing and quality control.

We are very excited to launch our next generation of Ross Enterprise that was designed in partnership with our customers and various industry associations,” said Sherri Rodriguez, president of Ross Systems, a business unit of CDC Software. “Ross ERP 7.0 takes an intuitive, social networking, collaborative and proactive approach to information management that can transform a process manufacturer into an agile business with broad visibility into its operations. Notably, with the new, extensive enhancements in the core modules, Ross 7.0 also offers one of the market’s most comprehensive and feature rich quality management application available today.“

Highlights of Ross ERP 7.0:

  • Enterprise Viewer. This new user interface employs “widgets” to push
    relevant, real-time information to users. A “widget” displays specific
    information about customers and products, such as “Orders Due To Ship
    Today” and “Inventory Availability.” After subscribing to a given
    “widget,” a user can then follow their selected customers or products,
    with the ability to execute drill downs and key commands directly from
    the widget, helping to increase user productivity and customer service
    levels.
  • New Document Connect. This new feature allows users to drag and drop
    documents, including videos, directly into Ross ERP screens from their
    desktops, then later access these same documents from the screens,
    eliminating the need to manually store and retrieve documents on one’s
    file server. The feature automatically stores and indexes
    transactional documents in a preconfigured SharePoint file structure.
  • Event Management Framework’s (EMF) alert engine. This new feature
    delivers real-time, actionable alert messages to users’ dashboards,
    emails and mobile devices. In addition to exception conditions, users
    can be alerted to non-events, such as no response to a purchase order
    or an overdue delivery.
  • Ross Mobile 2.0. This new native mobile application offers access to
    customer, sales, inventory and other key enterprise information on
    iPhone and Android devices, helping to expedite one’s decision-making
    and improving customer service.
  • Enhanced TraceExpress. New enhancements included in Ross ERP 7.0
    reduce the number of product trace paths and allow users to review the
    details of a Lot Trace within a certain Date Range, helping to
    expedite product recall notifications and facilitate compliance even
    further.
  • Ross Reporting Services. Based upon Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting
    Services, this new feature offers embedded graphical objects and
    transactional links within its report templates to generate
    interactive reports in a variety of formats across the ERP modules.


Emergency Notification, Intellectual Property, Notification system, Patent, SchoolMessenger, Voice, Voice message

SchoolMessenger Awarded Patent for Highly Available Notifications

SchoolMessenger, provider of communication solutions for education, today announced it has been awarded a patent (U.S. Pat. No. 8,131,269) for a voice message delivery system and method which uses a highly distributed architecture to deliver extremely large volumes of mass notifications originating from many locations nearly instantaneously. The geo-dispersion technology allows the industry-leading hosted notification solution to achieve near-infinite scalability and an unmatched level of redundancy and performance. 

“When an emergency or threat happens on a school campus, our customers must be absolutely certain their message gets to parents as quickly as possible,” said Howard Wood, SchoolMessenger’s co-founder, chief technology officer and one of four inventors named in the patent. “Our patented technology not only delivers the highest degree of fault tolerance available today, but also supports near linear scalability of end-to-end capacity to allow for continued growth and expansion. Our customers know that platform size and scale matter when it comes to delivering uninterrupted service, and have trusted us for more than a decade to continually innovate and lead the K-12 market in fast, secure and reliable notification services.”

The patented technology in SchoolMessenger’s hosted notification system prepares voice messages and delivers them in mass, to a single recipient or to a particular group or household, more quickly and with a higher degree of redundancy than earlier generation architectures. It also provides the intelligence necessary to effectively allocate those messages across its highly distributed nationwide infrastructure, increasing the overall redundancy and resiliency of the system.

Even in today’s budget-conscious environment, demand for notification systems continues to grow.  Over the last 10 years, SchoolMessenger has delivered billions of messages for thousands of educational facilities in all 50 states.


Education, Emergency Notification, Intellectual Property, Patent, SchoolMessenger, Voice, Voice message

SchoolMessenger Awarded Patent for Highly Available Notifications

SchoolMessenger, provider of communication solutions for education, today announced it has been awarded a patent (U.S. Pat. No. 8,131,269) for a voice message delivery system and method which uses a highly distributed architecture to deliver extremely large volumes of mass notifications originating from many locations nearly instantaneously. The geo-dispersion technology allows the industry-leading hosted notification solution to achieve near-infinite scalability and an unmatched level of redundancy and performance. 

“When an emergency or threat happens on a school campus, our customers must be absolutely certain their message gets to parents as quickly as possible,” said Howard Wood, SchoolMessenger’s co-founder, chief technology officer and one of four inventors named in the patent. “Our patented technology not only delivers the highest degree of fault tolerance available today, but also supports near linear scalability of end-to-end capacity to allow for continued growth and expansion. Our customers know that platform size and scale matter when it comes to delivering uninterrupted service, and have trusted us for more than a decade to continually innovate and lead the K-12 market in fast, secure and reliable notification services.”

The patented technology in SchoolMessenger’s hosted notification system prepares voice messages and delivers them in mass, to a single recipient or to a particular group or household, more quickly and with a higher degree of redundancy than earlier generation architectures. It also provides the intelligence necessary to effectively allocate those messages across its highly distributed nationwide infrastructure, increasing the overall redundancy and resiliency of the system.

Even in today’s budget-conscious environment, demand for notification systems continues to grow.  Over the last 10 years, SchoolMessenger has delivered billions of messages for thousands of educational facilities in all 50 states.


Infinitely Virtual, VCloud, Virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere

Infinitely Virtual Announces VMWare vCloud Director Capability, Giving IT Pros Greater Control and Flexibility in Managing Applications

Infinitely Virtual, a provider of virtual server cloud computing services for businesses, today announced it has added VMWare’s vCloud Director to its hosting platform, giving IT managers more “self-service” options when needing to quickly reconfigure networking resources, move data between different clouds, or change virtual applications.

Integrated with Infinitely Virtual’s upgrade to VMWare’s vSphere5, VMware vCloud Director saves IT managers time and money by giving them more autonomy and control over important aspects of their virtual infrastructure.

“We recognize that IT managers want the scalability and relative low investment cost of employing cloud-hosted services,” said Adam Stern, Infinitely Virtual founder and CEO. “At the same time, we know they sometimes want the ability to make quick changes to applications or to migrate workloads between different clouds without having to go to the cloud service provider.

“Adding VMWare’s vCloud Director continues Infinitely Virtual’s mission to deliver the most flexible, cost-effective cloud-hosting services to our customers,” Stern said. “We host and manage the secure, cloud platform while our IT customers have increased autonomy to make application and networking changes as they wish. It’s a smart division of labor that advances our goal of enabling clients to use their virtual infrastructure as a growth engine.”

Customers deploying vCloud Director benefit from an exceptionally user-friendly interface that provides end-users with the tools to foster a self-service networking and creative cloud environment. The product saves IT professionals precious time, which they can then devote to other business-critical tasks.

Infinitely Virtual’s vCloud Director integration offers these advantages:

  • Gives IT professionals the ability to self-manage virtual applications
    (vApps) without the assistance of the cloud service provider,
    facilitating quick changes, or changes on short notice due to current
    business needs
  • Allows IT to upload vApps into a catalog which can be used at a later
    date, without involving the cloud service provider
  • Enables greater control in moving and distributing workloads between
    different clouds
  • Cuts network configuration time down to a matter of minutes, using
    automated features
  • Provides the ability to power up or power down at will – without the
    need to contact the cloud service provider every time
  • Manages the end-user’s own firewalls and allows them to change ports
    without requiring any workload from the cloud service provider
  • Facilitates changes in security due to changing department needs –
    changes that can be made on the fly.

“Businesses that move resources and retool network configurations on a regular basis will find vCloud Director to be exceptionally well designed for that purpose,” said Stern.


GraphOn, Intellectual Property, Patent, United States Patent and Trademark Office, United States patent law, Web server

GraphOn Awarded Patent for “Multi-Homed Websites”

GraphOn Corporation, a developer of cloud application delivery and Web-enabling solutions, announced today that it has been issued a new patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

U.S. Patent 8,117,298, issued February 14, 2012, is directed towards an easily configurable Web server that has the capability to host (or provide a home for) multiple Web sites at the same time. This patent helps small companies or individuals create the same kind of Web presence enjoyed by larger companies that are able to afford the cost of multiple, dedicated Web server machines.

This patent protects GraphOn’s unique technology for “configuring” a Web server that has the capability to host multiple Web sites at the same time – called “multi-homing”. This multi-homing capability of the Web server provides the appearance to users of multiple distinct and independent servers at a lower cost. Functionally, a multi-homed Web server consists of, in effect, multiple virtual Web servers running on the same computer. The patent claims a design in which features can be readily added to one or more of the virtual servers. For example, a new software module having additional features or different capabilities might be substituted for an existing module on one of the virtual servers. The new features or capabilities may be added without affecting any other of the virtual servers and without the need to rebuild the Web server.

“We continue to recognize the vital importance of intellectual property in today’s marketplace,” stated Eldad Eilam, GraphOn’s interim chief executive officer. “We are pleased to add this new patent to our intellectual property portfolio, which helps to protect fundamental technology relating to both the Internet and GraphOn’s own products. Our portfolio now includes twenty-five patents, and more than 30 patent applications are pending. Our objectives include continuing to add significantly to our patent portfolio, maximizing the value of that portfolio, contributing technology to our current GO-Global product line, and providing opportunities for development of new products.”


Audio, Conference call, Eircom, Ireland, Video, Videoconferencing, Voice, Web conferencing, Webinar/Webcast/Presentation

eircom, PGi Announce Alliance Offering Video, Web, Audio Conferencing Solutions

Eircom Logo

eircom, Irish provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications, and PGi, a provider of virtual meetings whose European headquarters are located in Clonakilty Co. Cork, today announced a new, multi-year strategic alliance.

With this new alliance, eircom will offer PGi’s full suite of video, web and audio conferencing solutions, including iMeet and GlobalMeet, to its business customers in Ireland. iMeet delivers secure, cloud-based video conferencing that enables up to 15 people to meet face-to-face online – anytime, anywhere, from their desktop, tablet or mobile device. GlobalMeet has an easy-to-navigate user interface, requires no software downloads for meeting guests and offers a unique “connect me” feature that automatically calls attendees, making dial-in numbers and passcodes obsolete.

Commenting on the announcement, Peter Smyth, director of marketing & product development for eircom said “eircom is committed to offering the most up to date technology and innovative solutions to our customers. We are delighted to work with PGi who are experts in delivering fully integrated web conferencing and audio conferencing solutions. The new range of products will be of huge benefit to our business customers and will undoubtedly lead to greater efficiencies for them. In today’s business environment where managing time and costs are key, more and more businesses are moving towards web and audio based meetings and our new services facilitate these requirements.”

“We are excited about our new strategic alliance with eircom,” said John Stone, PGi EVP Europe & Managing Director. “eircom has incredible scale and a strong enterprise customer base in Ireland, which is a solid complement to PGi’s deep expertise in the virtual meetings space. Together, we look to provide Irish companies with solutions that help them collaborate in more meaningful ways whilst increasing business productivity.”


Collaboration, DropBox, File Management, Google Drive, My Docs Online, Online and offline, Shared resource, Syncplicity

Syncplicity Launches Group Sync, Sharing Capabilities for Businesses

Image representing Syncplicity as depicted in ...

Syncplicity today announced the beta rollout of first-of-its-kind Group Sharing and Permissions features for business users. With the launch, Syncplicity is the first solutions provider to make it easy to share and sync folders across large groups of users within an organization, while allowing them to organize their files the way they want on their own computers and devices, and seamlessly collaborate from anywhere. By enabling group-based folder sharing directly from a user’s local file system on their computer or mobile device, users can more easily collaborate with dynamic cross-functional teams, freed from checking files into rigid organizationally-aligned file servers or dragging and dropping them into a new place to share and collaborate from. At the same time, the new features give businesses the security, transparency, compliance and manageability they require.

“Group collaboration can now occur without hassle, marking a seismic positive change for the industry,” said Leonard Chung, Syncplicity Co-Founder and Chief Product Strategist. “IT Administrators need a solution to the chaos and security headaches introduced by unmanaged and uncontrolled sharing through consumer-grade solutions. We’ve answered the call with innovative group capabilities that maintain the business-class administrative, mobile, and security features today’s organizations require, while enabling users to safely and automatically sync and share files and folders easily on a large scale.”

Syncplicity speeds access to shared files and eliminates information silos by ensuring everyone in a group has seamless online and offline access to files in shared folders without the burden of sharing them with each new group member. With the new Group Sharing functionality, Syncplicity users and Admins can easily share folders with pre-defined, centralized groups of users along with individuals. Every member of the group gains immediate access to all the files in the shared folders and organizes them however they prefer on their own computer. As new users join the group the shared folders are automatically synced to their computers. And, when users leave the group they automatically lose access to those folders and the files can be automatically wiped from their synced locations for additional security.

Syncplicity’s Group sharing also dramatically reduces the time and cost of supporting users and protecting company data. As new users are added to the system, IT Administrators can easily add them with groups, giving group members immediate access to all folders, including shared folders from corporate file servers. This reduces end-user file server connectivity and permission issues and reduces the support cost of VPNs. Because groups are centrally managed, users who are removed from a group lose access to shared folders and files associated with that group immediately.

Additional key features of the Syncplicity group sharing and permissions beta include:

Admins can create an unlimited number of groups and easily add users
Admins can avoid complexity and uncertainty by having constant
visibility into what folders have been shared with the group and what
users are members of each group
Admins can share folders from on-premise file servers so members of
the group get online, offline, and mobile access to those folders
without having to map drives or configure a VPN
Folders can be shared with “read only” or “read-write” access to
protect files from inappropriate changes; Syncplicity determines an
individual user’s access rights based on permissions granted through
group membership and individual shares (e.g. a user can be granted
read-write access individually even if they belong to a group that
just has read-only access)
As an added protection, Syncplicity prevents data loss by not allowing
any user to permanently delete files unless they are the original owner
Synced group folders can be accessed online and offline— if offline,
changes are synced to the group as soon as the user connects and
Syncplicity automatically handles version conflicts

Syncplicity customers interested in participating in the beta program can register at https://syncplicity.wufoo.com/forms/m7x1s1/ for additional details.


Big Data, Biomax Informatics AG, DNA sequencing, Illumina, Ingenuity Systems, Knome, Medical, Real Time Genomics, Strand Life Sciences

Illumina Introduces BaseSpace Apps Genome Informatics

Illumina, Inc. today introduced BaseSpace Apps, a dedicated applications store for BaseSpace, the Company’s genomics cloud computing platform. Informatics solutions available through BaseSpace Apps will allow customers to connect with a growing community of academic, commercial and open source tool providers who are building applications around Illumina data to dramatically simplify and accelerate genomic data analysis.

BaseSpace Apps will include a publicly available API (application programming interface) that allows developers to create and deploy new applications for the analysis of genetic data generated on Illumina systems. Diagnomics, GenoLogics Life Sciences, Genomatix, Golden Helix, Ingenuity Systems, Knome, Omicia, Spiral Genetics, Omixon, Real Time Genomics, Station X, Integromics Inc., Biomax Informatics AG, and Strand Life Sciences were named as initial application development partners.

“The rapid adoption of BaseSpace coupled with BaseSpace Apps will help us achieve our goal to create an ecosystem where users of Illumina next generation sequencers can easily access a broad range of genome analysis tools from the world’s leading bioinformatics vendors,” said Alex Dickinson, Illumina’s Senior Vice President, Cloud Genomics. “By providing an open API and collaborative environment, we can encourage more rapid proliferation of the tools that will enable scientists to analyze, understand and make use of massive amounts of genetic data.”

Illumina also introduced its iSAAC genome alignment tool today. Historically, alignment has been the most time consuming and processor-intensive step in genome analysis. Available on BaseSpace as well as standard workstations, iSAAC maps sequencing reads to their proper location up to 10 times faster than existing aligners, significantly expediting and simplifying a critical component in data analysis.

Through BaseSpace Apps, a diverse array of new data analysis applications and programs such as iSAAC will be available as part of a growing toolset within the BaseSpace cloud for MiSeq® and HiSeq® systems. Collectively, the tools will provide a wide range of functionality, from workflow management and downstream data analysis, to data visualization and biological interpretation.

BaseSpace is a scalable cloud-computing environment for all of Illumina’s sequencing systems that can be accessed securely from anywhere in the world. MiSeq system data already can be seamlessly transferred to BaseSpace for storage, analysis and sharing between researchers and their peers around the world, all in a secure and user-friendly environment. HiSeq data storage and analysis capabilities will be commercially released later this year.


GlassFish, Hosting, Java package, Jelastic, MongoDB, NoSQL, Platform as a service

ServInt Launches Jelastic Java Cloud Hosting Platform

ServInt, a provider of managed cloud hosting for enterprises worldwide, today announced the commercial availability of Jelastic, the world’s first software stack-agnostic, platform-as-a-service cloud hosting offering for Java applications. ServInt is the exclusive provider of Jelastic cloud hosting services in the United States, and the first service provider to offer Jelastic commercially.

ServInt’s Jelastic release follows the introduction last month of the ServInt Flex line of “dedicated cloud” servers, which combine the scalability advantages of cloud hosting with the sole-owner benefits of dedicated servers. ServInt now offers hosting products in both the IaaS and PaaS categories, with more cloud offerings and enhancements scheduled for release soon.

“This isn’t the first PaaS solution on the market – even for Java – but it’s the first one that leverages best-of-breed systems from both the hosting and the PaaS software industries,” said ServInt CEO Reed Caldwell. “The folks at Jelastic are amazing software developers. We are a world-class hosting provider. Too many PaaS providers try to be too many things to too many people, and that lack of focus makes them ineffective. We have collaborated directly with Jelastic every step of the way to ensure that Jelastic is the best designed, most reliable and best supported PaaS on the market.”

Jelastic COO Dmitry Sotnikov added, “Since we launched our public beta in October of last year, we have been growing at a rapid pace. Demand hasn’t slowed and the question of commercial availability has become even more frequent. Today, through our U.S. partner ServInt, Jelastic is now commercially available. This is a major step toward making our vision of a truly global, no lock-in, standards-based Java PaaS a reality.”

Unlike other Java PaaS and IaaS options on the market, Jelastic does not require customers to code to any specific API. Jelastic dynamically and instantaneously allocates resources for hosted applications, scaling servers up and down to make sure hosted apps have the resources they need, when they need them.

ServInt’s Jelastic customers are charged only for the actual RAM and CPU resources they consume, rather than for any predefined hosting service package or server they might otherwise purchase. This means hosting costs automatically go down when applications are off or not being used.

Jelastic measures resources being consumed in “cloudlets”, with one cloudlet equal to 128 MB of RAM and 200MHz of CPU processing power. Pricing is set at $0.02 per cloudlet/hour and there is no practical limit on the number of cloudlets that can be deployed. Jelastic does not require any application code changes. This means developers can simply upload their Java package or specify connection to their SVN or GIT code repository, and have their application running in the cloud in a few minutes – with no lock-in whatsoever.

Jelastic is fully compatible with all major Java software stacks, including Tomcat, GlassFish, Jetty and JBoss application servers – as well as with SQL (MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, CouchDB) databases.