The recent Competition Tribunal hearing into Telkom’s monopolistic practices of the past reminds South Africans of the days when telecommunications was very expensive, unreliable and the service was poor.

Today, the situation has changed dramatically and the country has more competition in the telecoms market, but we still pay a premium for communications and the level of service is still unreliable.

The norm inSouth Africais to provide telecoms as a “best effort” service. This means that while a service provider (SP) may agree to provide a certain amount of bandwidth to a client, there are no guarantees, even if it is in a service level agreement (SLA), and the customer will only receive the SP’s best effort to deliver on the terms of theSLA.

The result of this is that when companies purchase the bandwidth they feel should be sufficient for their business needs, they often find employees are not as productive as they should be because of latency on the wide area network (WAN). The common answer is simply to purchase more bandwidth, which never actually resolves the problem.

To solve or prevent bandwidth issues, it is crucial to implement anSLAthat meets the client’s needs, and not a standard or generic contract. To be able to do this, the SP must assess the client’s business, understand how the business operates, what its network requirements are, then design and implement a bespoke solution. The day-to-day operation of the WAN must be governed by anSLAthat specifically addresses that client’s business and its unique operating environment.

Clients also need to understand theSLAand its deliverables, and measure and assess the service they receive to ensure they get what they’re paying for. It’s only when both parties take responsibility for managing the WAN that effective service delivery and problem resolution can be maintained. The alternative is to see the business relationship descending into an acrimonious blame-slinging match that benefits neither party.

Self-management is also important because sometimes a company’s lack of understanding of the intricacies of WAN communications can also lead to its own systems sabotaging its communications infrastructure. As more companies adopt cloud computing strategies over the next few years, effectively managing their WAN will be even more imperative if companies are to take full advantage of cloud solutions.

Companies have two clear choices. They can either accept that effective management of the WAN is a dual and shared responsibility that must be governed by anSLA, which ensures internal ICT systems and SPs perform at peak capacity. Or they can accept an ‘off-the-shelf’SLAand continue paying for more and more bandwidth without knowing whom or what is consuming their network capacity. The old saying of “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” could have been written for today’s telecoms SLAs.

Exinda

Exinda is a proven global supplier of WAN optimisation and application acceleration products. The company has helped more than 2 000 organisations in over 80 countries worldwide improve the end-user experience, manage application performance, manage congestion over the WAN, and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

Editorial contacts

Exinda

Alan Rehbock

(+27) 11 655 7390

Sales Director, sub-SaharanAfrica

[email protected]

News Facts:

• Zmags, the leading provider of rich media mobile and social merchandising, today announced that Michael Schreck, president and CEO, will present tomorrow at the Annual Montgomery Technology Conference (MTC) in Santa Monica, CA.
• The conference takes place on Wednesday and Thursday, March 7^th and 8^th, 2012.
• This highly-select event hosts more than 1,000 senior-level private equity and venture capital investors and corporate industry executives.
• Presenting companies at the MTC include emerging brands in the e-commerce, mobile, SaaS, digital media, social and cloud computing sectors.
• The conference consists of presentations from these 150 high-quality growth companies, in addition to industry-specific panel discussions, and keynote by industry-leading speakers.

Supporting Quotes:

“For Zmags, 2011 was a transformational year, as we expanded our product suite particularly around the exploding tablet, mobile and social commerce opportunities,” said Michael Schreck, president and CEO, Zmags. “The MTC provides a compelling opportunity for Zmags to share our market vision with the broader online shopping ecosystem.”

About Zmags

Zmags helps thousands of the world’s most progressive global retailers and brands design brilliant and consistent marketing and merchandising campaigns across social, mobile, tablet, and e-commerce platforms, driving product discovery and inspiring purchases.

Using the Zmags on-demand rich media merchandising platform, leading brands have measurably and dramatically increased customer engagement, conversion rates, order size and brand loyalty without the burden of IT constraints. Zmags is among the fastest growing technology companies in North America, ranking #70 on the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500.

Zmags is headquartered in Boston, MA. with European offices in London and Copenhagen. For more information about Zmags, please visit www.zmags.com. 

Contact:

Samantha McGarry
1-781-966-4107
[email protected]

Pattonair, which specialises in supplying critical components plus value-added services to a number of aerospace and defence manufacturers, including Airbus, Agusta and Rolls-Royce plc, required improved visibility of its network, and to efficiently diffuse data bottlenecks.

With a growing number of sites around the world, including the UK, France and Italy, with a healthy brokerage arm and an important services provisioning business, Pattonair’s 800+ employees required increasing collaboration via the company’s global back office system; more than the company’s legacy WAN optimisation solution had ever been able to support fully.

Nick Farley, Global Network Manager at Pattonair, explains: “As traffic between our global sites grew, some of our larger shared files were simply becoming unusable, leading to a rise in user complaints. Following the installation of the Exinda technology across six European sites, four of which are in the UK, network speeds accelerated markedly.”

“The Exinda solution, installed last year, also very quickly gave us improved visibility of the network, to enable us to see where the bottlenecks were, what traffic was running over it, and to put in place policies to ringfence bandwidth for critical applications and data. The drill down functionality afforded by the Exinda solutions just made that all very clear and easy.”

The solution was purchased and deployed via Data Systems (Computers) Ltd, a Pattonair preferred IT partner for twelve years. The company had an excellent understanding of the network infrastructure and the IT challenges facing the business. The units enabled Pattonair to introduce and maintain the new hardware for less than the cost running the original equipment.

They also provided granular user information as to which employees were generating traffic, plus the ability to prioritise mission-critical traffic by groups, or even by application. This intelligent acceleration is key to delivering unified communications over networks without delay, jitter etc.

Nick concludes, “The Exinda deployment has been so successful, we have already put an additional unit in our Italian office and have expanded into five US locations. We are also actively looking to install further systems in Singapore, as the business continues to grow.”

About Exinda®

Exinda is a proven global supplier of next generation WAN Optimisation and Application Acceleration products. The company has helped over 2,500 organisations in over 80 countries worldwide improve the end user experience, manage application performance, manage congestion over the WAN and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

About Pattonair

Pattonair is a leading international provider of value-added distribution and supply chain outsourcing services to customers in the aerospace and defence market. Its customers include Rolls-Royce plc, BAE Systems, Safran Group, Parker Aerospace, Goodrich, Thales Aerospace, Turbomeca and Eaton
http://www.pattonair.com

Acronis®, a leading provider of disaster recovery and data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments, today announced it has entered into a new distribution relationship with Supertron Electronics Ltd, one of India’s fastest growing IT solutions distributors, to provide protection for businesses threatened by potential technology disasters in India. While Indian businesses have shown remarkable resilience in the wake of natural disasters during the last few years, Acronis Disaster Recovery Index 20121 showed that 60% of Indian businesses suffer downtime due to human error, and on average, suffer 1.7 days of system downtime costing each business USD$392,083 each year in lost productivity.   “Businesses are increasingly aware of the exorbitant cost of downtime and are placing disaster recovery to the top of boardroom agendas in the recent years. Demand and adoptions of disaster recovery and data protection solutions present a tremendous revenue opportunity for value-added resellers in the Indian market,” said V. K. Bhandari, Chairman & Managing Director, Supertron Electronics Ltd. “With Acronis solutions, we will provide channel partners with the technology and resources they need to successfully address this market opportunity and help them build competitively differentiating business practices that help organisations of all sizes simplify and automate backup and disaster recovery processes.” Bill Taylor-Mountford, President of Acronis APAC said in signing the deal: “We are pleased to be able to work with Supertron for the India market. With its long-established alliances with globally renowned IT vendors and broad-based pan-India distribution network, we believe the partnership will allow more comprehensive coverage and support for Acronis’ suite of disaster recovery and data protection solutions to service the needs of the businesses in India.” Under the new alliance, Supertron will sell, market and support Acronis’ suite of disaster recovery and data protection solutions to resellers and managed service providers (MSPs) throughout India. As a result, Supertron’s channel partners will have access to a wider range of data protection and business continuity solutions provided by Acronis. Acronis Disaster Recovery Index 2012 is an annual barometer that provides a country-level ranking of backup and disaster recovery confidence levels and capabilities of businesses around the world. The survey was conducted by the Ponemon Institute across 18 countries in September and October 2011. About Supertron Supertron Electronics Ltd is a leading Information Technology and Telecom company of India and among the country’s top eighth largest IT product distribution intermediaries with a turnover of over INR 1100 crores. Established in 1993 in Kolkata by Mr. V.K. Bhandari, the Chairman and Managing Director, Supertron Electronics is driven by an overarching mission to bring world-class technology to an under-penetrated India and empowering users. The company’s flagship business is the distribution of a wide variety of IT products including servers, desktops, laptops, netbooks, PC components, peripherals, memory modules, storage products, networking products and consumer electronic products of brand-enhancing international vendors. Supertron ranked in the 84th position among the top 100 IT companies in the country. Today, the company operates through 29 branch offices in India. Supertron is a ISO 9001:2008 Quality Certified company. Follow us on www.supertronindia.com About Acronis Acronis is a leading provider of easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments. Its patented disk imaging technology enables corporations, SMBs and consumers to protect their digital assets. With Acronis’ disaster recovery, deployment and migration software, users protect their digital information, maintain business continuity and reduce downtime. Acronis software is sold in more than 90 countries and available in up to 14 languages. For additional information, please visit www.acronis.com.sg. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Acronis.APAC Acronis® is a registered trademarks or trademarks of Acronis Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. For press backgrounder on Acronis click here Media contact details Tricia Sim, Acronis Asia Pte Ltd, +65 6496 9211, [email protected] Utpal Banerjee, Supertron Electronics Ltd, +91 9830715095, [email protected]

Bill Taylor-Mountford, president of Acronis Asia-Pacific, citing a recent study the company had commissioned the Ponemon Institute to conduct, noted that about 49 percent of Asian small and midsize businesses (SMBs) were confident their backup and disaster recovery (DR) plans would help them successfully ride out any unforeseen system failure.

Globally, this figure was slightly higher at 50 percent.

The study polled over 6,000 SMBs in 18 countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Norway and the United States.

Japan and Singapore, in particular, exceeded the regional confidence level, Taylor-Mountford pointed out. Some 78 percent of companies in Japan were confident in their plans, while 51 percent of Singaporean businesses felt the same way, the study showed.

China, on the other hand, was a “laggard” as only 35 percent were confident in their companies’ ability to recover from setbacks, he noted.

Key to the region’s DR confidence was the fact that companies felt they had ample resources to enable a backup and disaster recovery operation. SMBs in Hong Kong cited this most, at 61 percent, as a reason for their DR confidence, followed by India at 59 percent.

Asked why Japanese organizations emerged the most confident, Taylor-Mountford said this could be because of their experiences dealing with natural disasters that hit the country last year. He related that many of the companies he spoke with recovered their critical information, and added that 90 percent of Acronis customers in Japan were able to do likewise.

Having experienced positively the usefulness and efficiency of having disaster recovery plans in place, he said 48 percent of Japanese companies polled in the survey indicated plans to implement full-scale disaster recovery strategies.

Guarding against complacencies

Taylor-Mountford, however, underscored the need for companies to guard against human errors to prevent system downtimes. He pointed to the survey which found that 60 percent of unplanned system downtime in 2011 was due to people making mistakes.

Other major areas of fallibility highlighted in the study were unexpected updates and patches as well as server room environment issues such as overheating, at 56 percent and 44 percent, respectively, he said.

The average cost of system downtime for Asian SMBs per year rang up to US$394,691, which was somewhat higher than the global average of US$366,363, he noted.

These were costs smaller companies could ill-afford to incur, he said, stressing the need for companies to put DR implementations higher up their list of priorities.

Asked why bigger establishments such as Singapore’s DBS Bank were still experiencing system failures and downtime despite being aware of the risks, Taylor-Mountford said it really boiled down to each company’s desire to spend on mitigating these risks.

He noted that among financial services institutions, most would usually aim to achieve “two 9s”, or 99 percent, service availability, having factored in the 1 percent risk in their overall calculations. Companies that desire to achieve “five 9s” would probably have to set up additional data centers which would significantly increase the overall disaster recovery implementation costs, he added.

Such heavy investments, however, were unlikely to happen due to a lack of boardroom support among the region’s businesses, he stated.

According to the Acronis survey, 24 percent of Asian SMBs spent less than 5 percent of their IT budgets on backup and DR implementations, while 25 percent did not spend a single dollar on such plans.

Taylor-Mountford said: “Decision-makers like to talk about and hear only the good stuff such as revenue-making schemes, and disaster recovery is not [part of] that, which is why it tends to not be discussed much.”

Other reasons for the lack of support for DR include the perception among decision-makers that the costs of these initiatives are prohibitive and companies, particularly SMBs, lack the expertise and manpower to deploy and maintain such backup systems, he explained.

As such, he reckoned there needs to be more education and awareness among top-level executives for disaster recovery projects to be given more prominence, and this will likely be seen in the coming years.

Monetate, the leader in online marketing technology, today published an eBook that provides tips for brands to optimize the website experience for tablet shoppers.

Free to download, the 25-page eBook provides strategic insight and best practices for brands to deliver a better and more relevant tablet website experience, and to improve conversions, average order value, and other key performance metrics. The informative guide illustrates best practices for reaching tablet shoppers in the following ways:

• Identify activity and volume to execute a website audit.
• Highlight key website elements such as the browser bar and search capabilities.
• Optimize website features by identifying opportunities to update content, account for touch and swipe functionality, and support navigation flyout.
• Increase accessibility by using larger buttons and highlighting site search.
• Streamline product detail pages to ensure the effectiveness of page real estate.
• Utilize alternative payment options to help simplify the checkout process and boost conversions.

“We strive to be at the forefront of tablet innovation by offering marketers educational resources like our new eBook, the recent webinar on increasing tablet ROI, and more,” said Monetate CMO Kurt Heinemann.

“With tablet shoppers converting at a rate of between 4-5%*, devising and deploying an effective tablet strategy has become an essential area of focus for digital marketers.”

Monetate LiveTarget, part of the company’s Agility Suite of website optimization products, provides marketers unparalleled segmentation abilities allowing them to identify tablet users and engage them in more effective ways. By connecting with this key segment of website traffic in real time, marketers can change the website experience for their visitors who use devices like iPads and Kindle Fires and deliver a relevant customer experience.

• Source: Forrester Research, Why Tablet Commerce May Soon Trump Mobile Commerce:

http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/why_tablet_commerce_may_soon_trump_mobile/q/id/59096/t/2

About Monetate

Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, QVC, Urban Outfitters, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser technology to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages.

The Monetate Agility Suite includes advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting, and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands.Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams.

For more information visit http://monetate.com/ and follow us on Twitter @Monetate.