Category Archives: Partnerships

North State Communications to Acquire Stalwart

North State Communications, a leading fiber optic network, data center and cloud services provider, has announced its plans to purchase Stalwart, an IT security integration firm. The purchase will complement DataChambers, North State Communication’s data center and cloud computing subsidiary. While North State Communications said that it expects to close the deal in the third quarter, no details pertaining to the deal were disclosed.

datachambers

 

Royster Tucker III, CEO of North State describes, “North State is extremely pleased to be gaining such a highly qualified and well-rounded IT security firm as Stalwart. Their professional integrity and mastery of advanced threat protection are ideal counterparts for DataChambers’ data center and cloud offerings. Bringing Stalwart onboard further fuels our strategic growth and helps round out our ability to effectively address some of the greatest IT challenges facing businesses today.” Tucker also said that the deal originated from North State Communication’s search for ways to add value for business customers.

Tucker also said, “As businesses begin to move into the cloud and IT infrastructure becomes distributed and moves into the cloud, we wanted to build that business and Stalwart has real expertise in IT infrastructure and security. Today more than ever, you have to wrap that in an envelope of security, and that’s what Stalwart brings to the table.”

Bill Cooper, CEO of Stalwart, also shared his opinion of the deal:  “North State is a strategic acquirer who shares our core virtues and beliefs. This, more than anything, will continue to make Stalwart unique and better. It is exciting to think of the myriad ways our team will now be able to create additional value for our coveted and growing customer base.” Bill Cooper will continue to lead Stalwart as it joins North State.

The post North State Communications to Acquire Stalwart appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

ErenNiazi.org Provides Lazarex Cancer Foundation with Free Technology Services

ErenNiazi.org, a nonprofit that offers free technology services to charities, announced today that it will assist the Lazarex Cancer Foundation with rebranding, website redesign, digital marketing and data storage. By drawing on the experts and resources of WSpider, The Coding Tree and Open Source Storage—three Bay Area tech companies—the project will help Lazarex gain visibility and earn donations critical to serving late stage cancer patients.

Founded in 2006 in Danville, California, Lazarex Cancer Foundation advocates for late stage cancer patients who have been told there is no hope. Lazarex’s team guides patients through clinical trial options and provides the financial assistance they need to continue fighting the disease. In total, Lazarex has given its patients 210 extra years of life beyond doctor’s expectations. To spread greater awareness of these services and improve fundraising efforts, Lazarex began exploring ways to build its online presence. Learn more about Lazarex Cancer Foundation at www.lazarex.org.

Alerted to Lazarex’s needs at a private fundraising event, Eren Niazi, founder of ErenNiazi.org, offered to help Lazarex revamp the foundation’s branding, website, marketing strategy and database solution. The new online strategy will help Lazarex build a stream of small, web-based donations to complement fundraising events and other outreach efforts.

Karen Ambrogi, Communications Manager for Lazarex Cancer Foundation, participated in the redesign. She notes “We were surprised and excited by Mr. Niazi’s offer. We know that these much needed technology updates will greatly improve Lazarex’s ability to raise funds and awareness. Additionally the money we save as a result of this donation will give many cancer patients the gift of hope and time.”

While most nonprofits need donations to operate, ErenNiazi.org taps into Niazi’s tech businesses and a volunteer network of experienced technologists to provide charities like Lazarex with the mentorship, services, software and support they need to advance their missions.

WSpider, Niazi’s internet marketing firm, will develop SEO, social media and paid advertising strategies for Lazarex. The Coding Tree, his custom software development shop, will spearhead all aspects of the rebranding and web design. Finally, Open Source Storage, an enterprise storage solutions provider Niazi re-launched in November, will provide hosting and low-cost database services that can grow with Lazarex into the future.

“Organizations like Lazarex need web technology to share their mission with a wider audience, but the costs can be prohibitive,” said Niazi. “By providing our tech expertise at no cost, we can help Lazarex preserve funds that save lives and help the foundation build a technological platform for long-term growth and impact.”

Over the past 10 years, ErenNiazi.org has supported charities dedicated to a wide variety of causes including child welfare, AIDS, cancer, human trafficking and education. In addition to Lazarex Cancer Foundation, ErenNiazi.org is currently providing technology services for The A21 Campaign, Polyphony Foundation, International Sanctuary and the California Kidney Cancer Center.

Cloudian, Storage Made Easy Partnered for Universal File Search

Storage Made Easy has partnered with Cloudian to enable Cloudian customers to access their cloud files no matter their device or location.

Cloudian is an Amazon S3-compliant cloud object storage platform that enables service providers and enterprises to build reliable, affordable and scalable cloud storage solutions. With this new integration, Cloudian’s clients can use Storage Made Easy’s technology to synchronize all their storage locations – cloud, NAS/SAN, network, and local, with any device, ensuring easy search and access.

Storage Made Easy unites public, private and SaaS data into a single, secure environment, guaranteeing file access and cross-service search; it is pre-integrated into existing identity management systems such as Active Directory and LDAP. Storage Made Easy provides a comprehensive unified Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing (EFSS) solution built on top of the SME Cloud Control Gateway. Offered either a SaaS or as a hybrid on-premise solution, it delivers the highest levels of management, security, compliance, audit, and access services for corporate data.

Cloud Elements Releases Unified Twilio, SendGrid Messaging Hub

Cloud Elements, today announced the availability of a new developer tool to connect Twilio and SendGrid, the two leading cloud API platforms for SMS messaging, voice and email respectively via a single uniform application programming interface (API). The Cloud Elements Messaging Hub provides a single console to provision, integrate, monitor and maintain these services, providing an integrated messaging platform that delivers seamless interaction between the leading SMS, voice and email service providers. With Cloud Elements’ Messaging Hub, software developers now have the quickest and most cost-effective way to bring Twilio and SendGrid services into their SaaS applications.

Available without charge for the remainder of 2013, the Cloud Elements Messaging Hub allows developers to easily provision and integrate services within their specific environments with a simple click of a mouse. The Element’s singular dashboard offers automated monitoring, innovative tagging for granular account tracking, and seamless, interoperability between services (e.g., send an email, receive a text confirmation).

“Twilio is the top innovator in SMS and voice messaging services and SendGrid leads the email services market,” said Mark Geene, CEO of Cloud Elements. “Cloud Elements’ mission is to make it easier for developers to integrate, monitor and maintain the cloud services their applications depend on. Cloud Elements brings these two messaging leaders together with a uniform API and consolidated monitoring, logging and analytics. Developers can use both of their services in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the code.”

”We’re excited by what Cloud Elements is doing with their new Messaging Hub,” said Lynda Smith, CMO of Twilio. “Developers often work with multiple APIs in the process of building out their solutions. The Cloud Elements approach allows them to manage them from a single dashboard, freeing up more time to create cool things. We can’t wait to see what Cloud Elements’ customers build with this new tool.”

“Our mission at SendGrid is to make email simple, easy and fast for developers,” said Jim Franklin, CEO of SendGrid. “Cloud Elements is bringing our existing partnership with Twilio to the Cloud Elements customer ecosystem, and is making it even easier for developers to integrate both email and messaging by offering a singular, uniform API and dashboard. The resulting streamlined integration, maintenance and management benefits are big wins for any developer looking to save time and money.”

FinancialForce, Bluewolf Partner For Apps+Consulting

FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company, and Bluewolf, the global business consulting firm “born in the cloud,” today announced a strategic global partnership. Together, Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com will help companies access and improve visibility into data that speeds bookings-to-billing cycles and enriches customer engagement.

Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com will provide cloud-based applications and services to joint customers that eliminate the borders between the front and back office, and consolidate information across disparate customer relationship management (CRM), back office and supply chain applications. This will allow companies to organize as teams around their customers, instead of internal departmental structures.

“Rather than invest in the maintenance of rigid, on-premises systems, the cloud frees us to focus on customizations and innovations that meet customer needs and create a first-mover advantage in the market,” said Jonathan Adlerstein, CIO of Plymouth Rock Energy. “Working with Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com, we have integrated our sales, customer care, marketing and billing information in the cloud, enabling employees at every level to own any customer interaction.”

Two areas of focus for the Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com partnership will be media billing and general accounting processes.

“Billing reconciliation is a problem for online media companies as most back office systems used to manage ad billing are unequipped to handle changes in orders and invoices. This can result in long billing cycles, unacceptable Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and in some cases, lost revenues,” said Jeremy Roche, president and CEO of FinancialForce.com. “FinancialForce.com’sMedia and Accounting offerings coupled with Bluewolf’s expertise in the industry will make us the go-to team for customers seeking a proven end-to-end solution.”

As partners, FinancialForce.com and Bluewolf will provide customized and scalable cloud-based billing solutions that reduce the time it takes organizations to send invoices, resulting in a faster turnaround on receivables.

Weidlinger Launches PZFlexCloud 3D Virtual-Prototyping SaaS Using CliQr Technologies CloudCenter, HP Cloud

Weidlinger Associates, Inc., the developer of PZFlex, a 3D virtual-prototyping and wave-propagation analysis software, and CliQr Technologies announced the launch of PZFlexCloud on CliQr’s CloudCenter platform. PZFlexCloud extends the market reach and performance of PZFlex’s engineering software by exploiting the power, elasticity, and ubiquity of the cloud. Running on HP Cloud Services, HP’s public cloud, PZFlexCloud is offered as a professional service as well as an additional feature of the full PZFlex solution suite.

“Cloud computing’s almost infinite on-demand resources, with its utility billing model, combined with our PZFlex finite element analysis [FEA] software as a service, is a game changer for the scientific and engineering communities,” said Dr. Robert Banks, PZFlex director and senior associate at the Mountain View, California, office of global engineering firm Weidlinger Associates. “PZFlexCloud represents a step change in the way high-fidelity FEA solutions can be accessed by a broad set of users, from large enterprises to innovative departments and individuals.”

By taking advantage of the power and elasticity of cloud computing, PZFlexCloud will permit experienced users to realize unprecedented performance and flexibility of use. An accurate multi-run 3D simulation for piezoelectric and wave propagation analysis that traditionally took 32 days was recently completed with the CliQr platform and PZFlexCloud in just 14 hours, allowing for more test iterations and shorter analysis times. PZFlexCloud also makes advanced FEA available to a broader market. With CliQr and PZFlexCloud, new users who have had to compromise on functionality can now use the PZFlex suite on a pay-as-you-go basis without the costs and complexities of building and maintaining capital-intensive physical computing resources.

Dr. Banks added, “PZFlexCloud eliminates the longstanding trade-offs between advanced speed, functionality, and approachable economics. Customers can get simplified access and high-performance use of the PZFlex solution without having to design, build, or maintain their own information-technology infrastructure.”

Contributing to PZFlexCloud’s success, the CliQr Technologies CloudCenter platform simplifies the migration and runtime management of the PZFlex software suite without requiring any modification of the leading FEA software. With CliQr’s CloudCenter, PZFlex was able to benchmark the price and performance of their application across all possible cloud environments and determine where their offering could deliver the best value for their customers. Running on HP Cloud Services, PZFlexCloud makes it easy, powerful, and secure to perform complex FEA on the cloud.

“CliQr shares Weidlinger’s value and vision to make the most sophisticated cloud solutions approachable and manageable by the broadest user base,” said Gaurav Manglik, CEO and co-founder of CliQr Technologies. “CliQr understands that software vendors want to take advantage of the cloud while protecting the time and investments they have already made in their core offerings. CliQr provides a complete platform for businesses like Weidlinger and their PZFlex offering, looking for an integrated approach to commercially use the cloud and maintain the ability to flexibly adapt to future changes in the cloud-computing landscape.”

“Scientific and engineering communities are looking for ways to access 3D virtual-prototyping solutions without having to build and maintain their own physical infrastructure,” said Dan Baigent, senior director, Business Development, Cloud Services, HP. “Running on HP Cloud Services, PZFlexCloud provides users with the ability to access PZFlex in the cloud in one click, which leads to much shorter analysis time at much lower cost.”

Spanning Cloud Apps Launches Reseller Program for Spanning Backup

Spanning Cloud Apps, Inc., creators of Spanning Backup for Google Apps, has launched the Spanning Authorized Resellers Program.  Through the program, partners can provide their customers a product for protecting Google Apps data.

Spanning Backup provides backup and recovery of the complete Google Apps suite: Gmail, Drive, Sites, Calendar and Contacts.  The solution features a secure cloud-to-cloud environment for protecting Google Apps data and SSAE 16 Type II audited processes that ensure its integrity.  Spanning also provides constant monitoring of data backup, allowing administrators to correct issues before they become problems.

“We have designed a program that extends the value of reseller services, and brings together the key support pieces for their ongoing success,” said Jeff Erramouspe, chief revenue officer, Spanning.  “We’re excited to already be working with leading VARs and system integrators worldwide and look forward to expanding into new relationships.”

“As enterprises encounter obstacles in moving to the cloud, Spanning Backup provides a unique solution that solves the challenges facing our customers in North America, Europe and Asia,” said Doug Shepard, president of the Google Business Unit for Cloud Sherpas, the world’s largest cloud services brokerage and two-time Google Apps Global Partner of the Year.  “We look forward to a successful partnership with Spanning as we integrate their solution into an overall cloud strategy for our clients.”

Key features of the Spanning Authorized Reseller program include:

  • A discount structure with strong margins that gives reseller partners complete control over end-user pricing and a higher average revenue per user (ARPU); potential for increased ARPU by 60-80 percent over selling Google Apps alone
  • Lead referral and distribution of new business opportunities
  • A simple contracting process to get resellers into the market quickly and efficiently
  • Customized marketing programs for specific territories, market segments and business practices, including email marketing, webinars and other co-marketing activities

“We have found Spanning Backup to be an excellent platform for delivering value-added services to our clients,” said Rob Morgan, managing director for PIT Group in Wollongong, Australia.  “Managing data protection policies isn’t always easy and many of our customers contract with PIT Group to do that for them.  The Spanning program gave us the flexibility to bundle our services with Spanning Backup and deliver them both to our clients in one cost-effective package.”

Spanning has partners reselling Spanning Backup around the globe, including in North and South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia/New Zealand.

TWD & Associates, IP Data Solutions Partner For Compliant Cloud-based eDiscovery

TWD & Associates, Inc. (TWD), a communication and collaboration solutions provider for the public sector, today announced it has partnered with IP Data Solutions (IPDS), a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, to provide electronic discovery (eDiscovery) solutions for archived content systems.  Archived content, including legacy email and data files, are migrated to a secure, cloud-based environment with sophisticated, integrated software search tools, allowing users to quickly and easily locate documentation for litigation, research, Inspector General (IG),General Counsel, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) requests.

“Government agencies must comply with data retention and email archival legislation to ensure information is available and accessible,” said Larry Besterman, President and CEO, TWD.  “A normal eDiscovery process could require weeks to cull through existing archives.  Our solution allows a search to be performed in seconds.”

The eDiscovery solution works with customers’ current cloud strategies and is compliant with all federal mandates.  By placing archived email and files in the cloud, users have infinite scalability, allowing their data to grow or reduce in accordance with their retention policies.  It also has synergy with existing discovery systems, if current systems are in place across an organization.  The solution requires no hardware or software and is provided as a managed service, improving efficiencies, increasing cost savings and allowing accessibility from any location by an authorized user.  It allows agencies to integrate their storage, archiving and eDiscovery needs into one solution, reducing the requirements for duplicative data storage.

“Electronic discovery has traditionally been a very expensive and reactive activity,” said Gary Thompson, President, IPDS.  “Given these times of intense budgetary constraints, a solution like ours is valuable because it helps clients implement a more proactive, cost-effective and efficient approach to what is normally a complicated process.”

The cloud-based infrastructure is Statement on Accounting Standards (SAS) 70 Type II, PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Level 1, International Organization of Standards (ISO) 27001 and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliant.  Additionally all client data resides within the continental United States (CONUS).

To learn more about the joint TWD and IPDS eDiscovery solution, call IPDS at (301) 519-8015.

NetDNA, YC’s Leftronic Partner on Real-Time CDN Monitoring

Content delivery network provider NetDNA today announced its partnership with Y-Combinator-funded Leftronic, to develop high-performance, secure and real-time data visualization dashboards for its CDN services.

Now, NetDNA or MaxCDN customers can get a bird’s-eye view of their traffic, including daily, weekly or monthly statistics on popular files, popular file types, status codes, cache hit percentage, statistics by location and more.  All of which are presented in a Web browser using Leftronic’s real-time, large screen metric dashboard platform.

The companies also worked together to provide dashboards measuring traffic on NetDNA’s Bootstrap CDN project, samples of which are available online.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Leftronic because monitoring traffic is a critical step to receiving the full benefits of our CDN service.  Now they can do that in a big and beautiful way using only a browser,” said Justin Dorfman, NetDNA’s Developer Advocate.

“We could see an immediate synergy between our two companies when NetDNA shared with us the demand for better CDN reporting it saw in its customer base,” said Rajiv Ghanta, CEO of Leftronic. “The company is truly developer friendly with its well-supported API and fast customer support.  We’re looking forward to a lasting relationship with the company.”

Leftronic has created a data visualization platform that helps companies monitor and track their business metrics. The platform has no software to download, instead everything is shown in a Web browser for easy accessibility and organization. The technology is combined with a simple-to-use front-end interface for visualizing the data and has an API for integrating custom company data.

With more than 10,000 customers trusting its content delivery services, NetDNA provides simple, efficient and affordable web performance optimization solutions that help customers to increase and improve their website speed. Most recently, NetDNA’s MaxCDN service has been its leading, popular solution among businesses because of its easy sign up system and versatile web performance acceleration.

 

KZEN Launches Predictive Offers for Salesforce.com

KXEN today announced the launch of Predictive Offers on salesforce.com’s AppExchange, empowering businesses to connect with customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways. Now, predictive analytics, which traditionally has only been available on-premise to large B2C companies with dedicated teams of data scientists, is available to salesforce.com customers of all sizes. Predictive Offers takes all the rich CRM and social profile data residing in Salesforce to deliver personalized offer recommendations.

In contrast to rule-based offer systems which are complicated to setup and maintain and often are based on intuition or outdated analysis, a predictive model-based next best activity solution learns by itself, analyzing all available information to create a mathematically optimal score.

Built on the Salesforce Platform, the world’s leading cloud platform for social and mobile business apps, Predictive Offers is currently available on the AppExchange.

“We are bringing the power of predictive analytics to Salesforce, where in the past, only large companies with dedicated resources could benefit from this level of analytic sophistication,” said John Ball, CEO of KXEN. “Predictive Offers™ simplifies the next best activity process so that customer service agents in every company can make the right offer to the right customer at the right time.”

“Personalizing customer conversations in real-time is essential to accelerate success in the cloud,” said Alex Bard, senior vice president, Service Cloud, salesforce.com. “By harnessing the massive amounts of customer and social data in Salesforce, KXEN is leveraging the power of the Salesforce Platform to provide customers with the right tools – such as real-time next best activity solutions – to drive their transformation into customer companies.”

With KXEN’s cloud-based Predictive Offers, there is no complicated setup, no need to manually define what makes a good offer and no prior analytical knowledge required. Salesforce users simply install the application, add an offer, and the solution instantly starts learning. Offer models are uniquely built for each Salesforce customer, automatically, using both native and custom fields.

Key Features of Predictive Offers:

  • Packaged with the Salesforce Service Cloud
  • Service Cloud Console agent recommendation
  • Add multiple offers or promotions in clicks
  • Custom offer models for every org’s unique data
  • Simplified rule-based constraints
  • Offer call scripts
  • Offer tracking and history
  • Asset creation for accepted offers
  • Continuous self-learning
  • Brain-dead easy administration
  • Out-of-the-box dashboards and reports