PROMISE Technology, a leading supplier of sophisticated RAID storage solutions, today announced the Acronis Backup & Recovery Server OEM software bundle program with the VessRAID 1000 Series storage systems. Designed to increase data services coverage for the SMB storage product line, the program features a single, free-of-charge license for use of the software when the license server is installed on the host machine to which the VessRAID storage system is attached via FC, iSCSI, or SAS connection. This innovative bundle also provides an upgrade kit for users to purchase additional unlimited licenses to allow unlimited number of backup client installations.

The Acronis Backup and Recovery Server (ABRS) OEM for VessRAID 1000 Series is a customized 3rd-party software solution that provides easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection for physical, virtual and cloud environments. This special software build will detect the VessRAID device presence during the installation process and provides limited data backup and recovery functions compared to Acronis’ standard ABR10 Advance Server software.

“For SMBs today, backing up and protecting data is still not an easy task. Technology can be complex and daunting. With the OEM bundle, both Acronis and PROMISE are committed to provide SMB users an easy-to-use and affordable solution for the protection of their digital assets,” said Acronis APAC President Bill Taylor-Mountford.

“The bundle makes client application backup and restore easy for SMB users when used with our VessRAID 1000 Series, providing improved user convenience and enhanced data protection features that greatly benefit all our VessRAID users,” said Alice Chang, CMO, PROMISE Technology. “The strategy of our storage business is to deliver storage products that help customers run mission-critical business applications better and this is what we are doing now.”

Core features delivered in the OEM build include:

• Acronis Drive Snapshot
• Multi-volume Snapshots
• Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Support
• Backup Scheduling
• Bootable Backup Media, and
• Individual Files Restoring from Image or Bare-metal Restoring.

For customers who want more advanced features of the software, the ABRS OEM for VessRAID 1000 Series can be upgraded to regular version ABR10 Advance Server with fully enabled capabilities. The ABRS OEM build provides an upgrade in the graphic user interface where users learns upgrade details from Acronis or visit the direct web upgrade link at http://www.acronis.com/backup-recovery/server-windows/oem/upgrade/index.html for purchase.

Availability
For businesses that had already purchased, just purchased or about to purchase the VessRAID 1000 Series storage systems, the Acronis single-license software is available through distribution in the form of a physical CD bundle or web download for implementation. The upgrade kit is available only through the PROMISE global network of authorized distributors and resellers.

AtTask, Inc. (www.attask.com), creators of the first true social work management platform and worldwide leader in on-demand project and portfolio management software, announced the appointment of Bill Conroy, former President and CEO at Initiate Systems, an IBM company, to its Board of Directors.

A demonstration of the AtTask work management software can be viewed at http://www.attask.com/view-demo?o=pressrelease

“We are very pleased to have Bill join the AtTask board,” said Scott Johnson, CEO of AtTask. “The expertise and experience that Bill brings to the team will be instrumental in making our innovative work management platform the choice for organizations who want to better understand and organize their work.”

Conroy brings more than 20 years of experience in the software and information technology industry to AtTask. Bill has an extensive sales and management experience with a stellar track record for building the necessary infrastructure for software companies. Prior to leading Initiate Systems, Bill was President and COO of Click Commerce, where he successfully restructured the company. As a partner with Insight Capital Group, a global private equity firm that invests in the information technology industry, he provided in-depth operational assistance to several portfolio companies.

“I’m excited to join the AtTask team,” said Bill Conroy, President and CEO of Initiate Systems. “AtTask has a unique opportunity to reinvent and become the dominant player in one of the world’s oldest software categories. I’m looking forward to playing an active role with AtTask as they continue to revolutionize the way people organize and understand their work.”

Stoneham, MA, July 11, 2011: Open-E, Inc., a global leader and developer of innovative storage management software, is now providing partners the ability to become an Open-E Certified Engineer (OECE). This new training will offer engineers the opportunity to gain the necessary skills for implementing Open-E DSS V6 into their customer’s storage environments.

Engineers get trained by Open-E’s technical experts, are able to gain hands-on skills and knowledge about Open-E DSS V6 and learn how to work with it. Finally, after passing a theoretical and practical exam, they become certified. An OECE can easily implement Open-E DSS V6 to an IT-environment and has comprehensive knowledge and experience of the software.

“The certification as an OECE verifies the ability to work smoothly withour Storage Software, especially Snapshots, Backups and Replications”, says Krzysztof Franek, President and CEO of Open-E. “We are glad to offer our partners this great opportunity and have already received a lot of positive feedback in the run-up to our first training events.”

The first OECE Trainings will be held in Munich, Germany, and Reading near London, United Kingdom. More training events will follow in the coming months.

ExactTarget, a global provider of interactive marketing solutions, announced today that business media site AlwaysOn has named the company an “AlwaysOn Global 250” top private company for 2011.

AlwaysOn selected ExactTarget for the second consecutive year, citing its innovation, market potential, commercialisation, stakeholder value, and media buzz from among thousands of international technology companies.

“Being named one of world’s top private companies is a great honor and another clear validation of our industry-leading strength and record-setting growth,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget’s chief executive officer and co-founder. “This award is an incredible honor and reflects our continued commitment to providing our clients the most powerful and effective interactive marketing solutions available.”

The AlwaysOn Global 250 companies are the top emerging companies that are creating new business opportunities in today’s hottest technology markets, and were nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders.

“This year’s AlwaysOn Global 250 are companies driven by the biggest mega-trends, including the accelerating growth of mobile users, cloud computing, SaaS offering, globalization, and the socialization of commerce and basically everything online,” said Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “This year’s winners clearly represent some of the highest-growth opportunities we’ve seen in the private company marketplace in the history of the global Silicon Valley.”

ExactTarget and the AlwaysOn Global 250 companies will be honored at AlwaysOn’s ninth annual Innovation Summit on July 28 in Santa Clara, Calif. A full list of all the AlwaysOn Top Global 250 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn website.

The AlwaysOn honor follows Dorsey’s recent award as Executive of the Year from the American Business AwardsSM. Dorsey garnered the national title of top computer services executive in the annual Stevie® Awards for leading the company to become the largest privately held interactive marketing technology firm and accelerating delivery of new interactive technologies to market.

In the past year, ExactTarget has earned a host of awards and accolades including:

• Wall Street Journal Next Big Thing – list of 50 most promising venture-backed companies;

• Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies for the fifth consecutive year;

• Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (fourth appearance in past five years);

• ‘Innovation of the Year’ by TechPoint for the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing HubTM;

• Best Places to Work in Indiana for the fifth consecutive year;

• Indiana Chamber of Commerce HR Professional of the Year – ExactTarget’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources Todd Richardson; and

• 2010 American Business Awards Finance Executive of the Year – ExactTarget’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer Traci Dolan.

News of the AlwaysOn Global 250 award follows ExactTarget posting record first quarter performance. The company increased revenue 52 percent year over year, marking the 41st consecutive quarter of growth. In the past 24 months, ExactTarget has acquired three companies, launched an international division with operations in the UK and Australia and added more than 500 employees. The company posted annual revenue growth of 41 percent in 2010 finishing the year with $134 million in revenue.

“Many of our companies have spread Scrum outside of development into sales, marketing, finance and senior management,” says Jeff Sutherland. Perhaps best known in QA circles for his work with Ken Schwaber on formalizing the Scrum methodology, Sutherland has had an impressive career as an Agile consultant, medical doctor, and Air Force Fighter pilot. One of the Agile Manifesto signatories, he will be attending the reunion and celebration of manifesto author’s at the upcoming Agile 2011 conference event in Salt Lake City, August 8^th.

Before signing the manifesto, Jeff was a Chief Technical Officer at several bio/medical startups; after signing it, he went on to serve as CEO of Scrum Inc and as partner at OpenView Venture Partners, a venture-capital investing firm.

Most recently Jeff has been interested in expanding Scrum outside of the IT Shop, including broader concepts in product development and management.

Matt Heusser: Is it fair to say that most of your recent focus has been on Scrum outside of the software group? What made you want to focus in that?

Jeff Sutherland: Most of my work with Scrum is still with IT groups, although that has been expanding into development operations. However, since 2006 I have been working with OpenView Venture Partners and they use Scrum for everything. Our investment team, search team, finance and admin team, and company support teams are all Scrum. As a result, many of our companies have spread Scrum outside of development into sales, marketing, finance, and senior management. Several of our CEOs have Scrum boards in their office. I started up a new Scrum team in December to run Scrum Inc. — sales, marketing, finance, training, consulting and new business development are all run by Scrum. Everyone is on a Scrum team including the CEO. This team went from a velocity of 40 story points in December to over 160 points today, the first office team to go hyper-productive. Because of these initiatives I am increasingly asked to help expand Scrum beyond IT and am starting to get people in Scrum training that are not IT people.

Huesser: Specifically, your Agile 2011 talk is on “Scrum in Sales;” what drew you specifically to sales?

Sutherland: I’m the Agile coach for iSense, a Netherlands based consultancy. The CEO is focusing the company on Scrum in the Netherlands and with their Indian subsidiary. I attend the quarterly management meetings of the company to review progress. The sales team was selling Scrum consulting and training and decided to do Scrum themselves to understand the process better. To their surprise, it made the sales process predictable and controllable and gained more revenue for them and a competitive advantage in the market. Every time I visited the company, I reviewed their Scrum board and talked about what they were doing. I suggested they write a paper on their findings and their CTO, Rini van Soligen, helped out a lot. It will be presented at Agile 2011 in Salt Lake City.

Huesser: Tell us about your talk. What are you going to say? What do you expect the audience to take home?

Sutherland: Scrum in sales works. The challenge is to understand your product backlog (the sales funnel) and build a self-organizing and self-motivated team that can understand and control the sales pipeline to drive more revenue and a competitive advantage. Understanding and implementing Lean practices is very helpful in sales. Many people do not understand that Scrum is an implementation of W. Edwards Deming’s PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act). This is the same cycle that is implemented at Toyota. Lean comes from the book, “The Machine That Changed the World,” which is an American understanding of what Toyota was doing 20 years ago. Scrum is based on the work of Tacheuchi and Nonaka who consult with Toyota and write books on Toyota. Their deep understanding is that “knowledge generation” based on team dynamics is what drives innovation. Thus Scrum is based on a deep and advanced understanding of what the Americans call Lean. Toyota has changed a lot in the last 20 years and redefined their processes and the Toyota Way. Tacheuchi and Nonaka’s understanding of what drives Toyota has not changed and is the essence of Scrum. This understanding is what we need to drive into sales.

Huesser: How do you see sales intersecting with Scrum? Have you worked with teams that have adopted the method?

Sutherland: When sales implements Scrum, they understand the essence of Scrum, and they can communicate with the client that they know what they are talking about. Sales go up and that drives increased revenue which is what sales is all about. At the same time, they understand what the developers are doing and how to avoid selling what the developers cannot achieve. So the relationship with development improves a lot.

Huesser: Can you describe the transition a “typical” sales team might go through when moving to Scrum?

Sutherland: In the paper, we describe the sales team before the implementation of Scrum. They were an isolated group of individuals focused on their own quota, not working as a team, and not working together to get better to improve company revenue. The first step in implementing Scrum will show the sales people they are not a team. Then they have to fix this. They will probably need coaching from experienced Scrum people to get the team process working. They have to see their sales go up and see they can control their revenue stream to become believers. Then they have to build the discipline to sustain that competitive advantage as a team. Instead of lone wolves they need to become a wolf pack. They will take down more meat as a pack. They will need someone to bite them when they get out of line.

Huesser: What does “success” mean for a sales team adopting Scrum? Can you quantify it?

Sutherland: Success means they exceed their quota and increase their company market share at a much faster rate than before Scrum. As a wolf pack, lone salesmen can no longer compete with them. With developers behind them doing good Scrum, their customers are happier, their quality is higher, and their costs are cheaper. Customers prefer working with them rather than their competition.

Huesser: This is great stuff, Jeff. Where can we go for more?

Sutherland: My website http://scrum.jeffsutherland.com has a link “Jeff Sutherland’s Papers,” and there you can find the paper we will present at Agile 2011 on Scrum in Sales.

Exinda, a provider of WAN optimization and application performance management solutions featuring Unified Performance Management, announced the commercial launch of ExOS 6.1.

Commenting on the new release, Kevin Suitor (News – Alert), Exinda’s vice president of marketing, said, “ExOS 6.1 enriches our UPM model, which has generated a tremendous response from the marketplace and fueled Exinda’s growth worldwide.”

The ExOS 6.1 is the new ExOS operating system forming part of the company’s family of Wide Area Network (WAN) Optimization appliances. The ExOS 6.1 release features the Exinda Edge Cache, increased optimization scalability, and support for IPv6, said company officials in a release.

These features are capable of catering to network issues including increase in rich media like video traffic on the WAN and increase in numbers and complexity of users and devices besides ensuring a better user experience.

Also the ExOS 6.1 release enables the company to offer Unified Performance Solutions that include full visibility, control and optimization of each of the users and applications on the network, with a single WAN Optimization appliance, added officials.

“Many of the enterprise customers that Exinda now deals with have made the switch to our UPM-based solutions because of our unique ability to combine a comprehensive visibility solution with a very granular dynamic policy control engine and comprehensive application acceleration into a single unit that is more cost-effective to install and expand on over time,” Suitor added.

Officials explained that the Exinda Edge Cache enables single-sided caching of Internet-based content encompassing Web objects, videos and software updates with a single Exinda WAN Optimization appliance at the branch office or data center.

The ExOS 6.1 firmware release has helped Exinda expand Optimization Scalability, which gives a boost to number of accelerated connections on Exinda’s current hardware platforms. This allows more users to be supported on a single appliance enhancing performance for more users, besides eliminating the need for fresh hardware upgrades.

Exinda also announced the appointment of Adam Davison (News – Alert) as vice president of the company, according to a recent report in TMCnet.

Exinda, a global provider of WAN optimization and application performance management solutions, achieved record sales growth and product development milestones in Q2 2011.

The company achieved revenue growth of more than 130% for both the three and six months ended June 30, 2011, compared with the same periods in 2010

Officials say the growth was fueled by the expansion of its sales and support capabilities in both domestic and key international markets.

The company also reported sequential quarterly revenue growth of 29% compared with Q1 2011.

“Exinda’s growth has outpaced many in our industry, and we continue to attract new customers and expand our market reach with our Unified Performance Management approach to managing and optimizing WAN traffic,” said Michael Sharma, CEO of Exinda. “While we are excited about the rapid pace of our new customer growth, we are extremely pleased that a large percentage of our existing customers are placing follow-on orders for Exinda’s solutions. We will continue to invest in delivering the high level of service that our customers deserve as we build out our teams in key markets.”

Among the new customers that selected Exinda in Q2 2011 were higher education facilities including Ryerson University and Ball State University. Vodafone (News – Alert) and GITN were among the existing telecommunications customers that placed follow-on orders for Exinda’s WAN Optimization solutions.

Q2 2011 Highlights

Exinda expanded its technology leadership and market presence during the second quarter of 2011. The company expanded the capabilities of its WAN Optimization technologies with the introduction of the Exinda Edge Cache™, the Network Reporting Centre, and its ExOS 6.1 software. The ExOS 6.1 release includes several key features and enhancements including the Exinda Edge Cache™, increased Optimization Scalability, and support for IPv6. These features address network issues including the increase in rich media such as video traffic on the WAN, the growing number and complexity of users and devices, and the rising demand for a better user experience.

“The Exinda Edge Cache and other features in our ExOS 6.1 software release address many of the specific challenges our customers are facing today, such as the growth of video traffic and virtualization. I am proud of our team’s ability to execute on our product development initiatives and deliver solutions that make a difference to our customers’ businesses,” added Sharma.

In Q2, the company strengthened its global sales capabilities with the addition of a new VP of Sales for EMEA; total company headcount has almost doubled in the past 12 months. Exinda also increased its market presence through its participation in several industry events including Interop (News – Alert) in Las Vegas and HP Discover.