Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced that Adobe® Genesis™, powered by Omniture®, has surpassed 1000 accredited customer implementations, reaching an unprecedented industry milestone.

Genesis, which boasts digital marketing’s largest ecosystem of application providers, automates the integration of partner solutions with the Adobe Online Marketing Suite. These Genesis integrations easily and reliably bring together data in one place, enabling customers to analyze and optimize campaign and conversion performance across multiple applications.

“Businesses have to interact with their customers in more relevant and personal ways across an ever-growing number of touch points, making it essential for marketers to have a holistic view of all their digital marketing initiatives across multiple applications,” said John Mellor, vice president of strategy and business development, Omniture Business Unit, Adobe. “The record-setting number of customer implementations of Genesis integrations, coupled with the 50 percent year-over-year growth in Genesis customers, is indicative of the value and importance our customers place on the Adobe Online Marketing Suite as the hub of their digital initiatives.”

Genesis provides the only online marketing platform where partners can create pre-built cloud connectors and test them via standard APIs and a development sandbox, then submit them for accreditation. With Genesis, ad technology and agency partners have access to self-serve development and testing tools through the Online Marketing Suite Developer Connection and an extensive and advanced customer base. Customers benefit from one standard view across all their marketing initiatives and the ability to target consumers at the best time and place and with the most relevant message.

“Online marketers need more efficient ways to drive actions from their data,” said Bill Gassman, research director, Gartner. “Fortunately, an ecosystem of cloud-based digital marketing solutions is available, offering self-service integration with analysis tools, so that an intelligent process for optimizing marketing performance can be achieved.”

Adobe Genesis accredited partners offer integrations in multiple categories, including: email, ad serving, social media, performance management, user experience, ratings and reviews, site search, CRM, marketing optimization, site auditing, ad network, content management, content optimization, SEO, chat, and customer satisfaction.

“Relevant, actionable data that gives us a clear picture of where our customers are coming from, what they are buying and why they are converting is critical for our success and continued growth”, remarked Sandy Martin, senior manager of marketing, Dollar Thrifty. “Adobe Genesis provides us with the technology necessary to connect to the Online Marketing Suite platform to create and send highly relevant email, remarketing campaigns to customers, resulting in significant growth in our email program,” she added.

Tim Kopp, chief marketing officer, ExactTarget added: “Eliminating silos between online channels is essential to creating effective interactive marketing. Through a seamless integration with ExactTarget, Adobe Genesis provides our more than 400 joint clients with a powerful and reliable solution to easily harness their Web data to create highly personalized real-time email campaigns that drive conversion and generate new revenue.”

eEye Digital Security, a provider of IT security and unified vulnerability management solutions, will exhibit at the Phoenix ISSA Chapter’s Information Security Conference on June 7, 2011 at The Buttes resort in Tempe, Arizona. The Phoenix ISSA Chapter conference provides an educational forum for its members through industry-expert and thought-leadership presentations, as well as open discussions on topics highly relevant to the information security industry.

eEye CTO, Marc Maiffret, is a featured speaker in the conference’s “Security Technology” track. He will present “On the Frontline of the Threat Landscape” to inform attendees about the latest IT security dangers, including zero-day vulnerabilities, recent high-profile attacks, and how many of these can be avoided through a combination of technology solutions and pragmatic security practices.

In the conference’s vendor exhibition, eEye will showcase its Retina CS Management solution, Retina Insight reporting engine, as well as add-on modules for Configuration Compliance, Regulatory Reporting, and Patch Management.

“Especially given the numerous high-profile breaches of major enterprises in the past weeks, members of the Phoenix ISSA chapter will likely have plenty of questions and concerns to be addressed,” said Marc Maiffret, CTO, eEye. “I look forward to sharing the latest ‘threat landscape’ information with them and providing guidance on best practices and other strategies to protect their organizations.”

eEye will also encourage conference attendees to take advantage of free resources that the company provides to the IT security community, including a free vulnerability scanner, Retina Community. Most recently, the Company released a new IT security research report, In Configuration We Trust, which outlines simple configuration changes that can dramatically improve an organization’s security posture. eEye’s Zero Day Tracker provides an online catalogue of the newest zero-day vulnerabilities, instructions for quick remediation, and a historical record of past vulnerabilities. eEye’s Vulnerability Expert Forum (VEF) webinars, hosted monthly by CTO Marc Maiffret and the eEye Research Team, continue to attract hundreds of IT security professionals seeking insight and information on recently announced critical vulnerabilities from Microsoft and other software vendors.

About eEye Digital Security
Since 1998, eEye Digital Security has made vulnerability and compliance management simpler and more efficient by providing the only unified solution that integrates assessment, mitigation, protection, and reporting into a complete offering with optional add-on modules for configuration compliance, regulatory reporting, and integrated patch management. eEye’s world-renowned research and development team is consistently the first to uncover critical vulnerabilities and build new protections into our solutions to prevent their exploit. Thousands of mid-to-large-size private-sector and government organizations, including the largest vulnerability management installations in the world, rely on eEye to protect against the latest known and zero-day vulnerabilities. More at eeye.com.

Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced that Sundar Raghavan, chief product and marketing officer, will host a hands-on cloud development and test technical workshop at the concurrent Better Software and Agile Software Development conferences in Las Vegas on June 5-10.

Hands-On Workshop for Cloud Enabled Development & Test

What: Want to learn how Ellie Mae and LANDesk accelerate their development and test cycles? They use Skytap to automate their cloud projects. Register Today for Skytap’s technical workshop.

When: Wednesday, June 8 at 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. PDT

Where: Better Software / Agile Software Development conference
Sicily Room, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV

The first 25 pre-registered participants will get hands-on experience to build a sample development/test environment in the cloud, collaborate with developers, and resolve complex bugs in their application using Skytap.

In this workshop, Sundar Raghavan delivers a step-by-step learning session, enabling attendees to create a multi-machine development/test environment on-demand, test an N-tier retail application in production-like data centers, identify a complex bug and collaborate with developers to resolve it.

Be sure to visit Skytap, a Gold Sponsor, at exhibitor booth #1 on the expo floor.

Not attending the show? Register for the DevOps Web Seminar

The upcoming Skytap DevOps Web seminar takes place on June 14 at 10 a.m. PDT and features Rachel Chalmers, research director at The 451 Group.

DevOps is quickly becoming the new process for leading IT organizations that are enabling development teams to embrace agile methodology and launch new applications faster. Smarter IT professionals are upgrading their IT skills and leading the Cloud IT change to make processes move smoother and faster. The Skytap seminar will show attendees how DevOps techniques enable development and test teams to expedite their software shipping cycles, and how acquiring DevOps skills will enable IT professionals to bring order to the complex world of agile application development and testing.

Register today or to learn more visit www.skytap.com.

About Skytap, Inc.

Skytap is the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions for dynamic workloads. Skytap enables users to run enterprise applications unchanged in the cloud, collaborate securely with global teams, and gain unparalleled business productivity. Additionally, IT organizations can gain visibility and control over cloud projects, align capacity with demand, and reduce costs by 70% or more. Enterprises can securely connect Skytap to their data centers and create virtual private clouds. Skytap is ideal for any dynamic workload including application development, testing, virtual training, application migration and sales demonstration projects. To buy or learn more, visit www.skytap.com.

What: AgilePalooza is a community event presented by VersionOne. Meant to be a fun, low cost event linking internationally recognized coaches and trainers with the local software community, AgilePalooza is a day of collaboration, education and advancement of agile methods.

For $89 attendees receive a full day of agile learning, lunch and a choice of participating in one of two tracks; Practicing Agile or Planning Agile. These tracks offer topics ideal for those newer to agile as well as more experienced practitioners.

Where: AgilePalooza Philadelphia will be held at:

Crowne Plaza Valley Forge
260 Mall Boulevard
King of Prussia, PA 19406
Phone: 610-265-7500

When: June 10, 2011

Who: AgilePalooza Philadelphia has secured a line-up of experienced and talented agile experts and educators, including:

Diana Larsen consults with leaders and teams to create work processes where innovation, inspiration, and imagination flourish. With more than fifteen years of experience working with technical professionals, Diana brings focus to the human side of organizations, teams and projects. Diana co-authored Agile Retrospectives:

t’s been said that familiarity breeds contempt, but in the world of backup and recovery software, it looks like it might be breeding contentment. Backup application users seem more pleased than ever with their programs. The Storage magazine Quality Awards for Backup and Recovery Software surveys have seen overall scores climb steadily for both midrange and enterprise backup apps over the years, and that trend continues in the sixth edition of the award, with the highest winning scores we’ve ever tallied in both categories and the highest average overall scores for all products.

EMC Corp.’s Avamar coasted to victory in the midrange group by sweeping all five rating categories on its way to a very impressive overall 6.69 rating. In the past, Avamar didn’t garner enough survey responses to become a finalist. Among the five enterprise finalist backup apps, Symantec Corp.’s NetBackup prevailed with a strong 6.46 in a tough competition with IBM’s Tivoli Storage Manager (6.33).

To put the high scores in perspective, consider that all five qualifying enterprise products racked up overall scores of 6.00-plus; in the past we’ve never had more than two products break the 6.00 barrier. On the midrange side, only Avamar ended up with a rating higher than 6.00, but the four other midrange finalists all had scores that could have won past competitions.

Thirty-three products were included in the survey (see “Products in the survey” at left); five midrange and five enterprise products emerged as finalists based on 566 product evaluations made by 345 survey respondents.

Able sales teams

Buying backup software is a lot more than just making a simple purchase. It represents a commitment that will likely shape how a company protects its data for years to come. As such, storage managers need the assurance of a capable sales and sales support team before taking the plunge. The Quality Awards sales-force competence rating category endeavors to measure the intangibles that contribute to a confident purchase. In the enterprise product group, Symantec NetBackup and IBM TSM topped the group with average scores of 6.50 and 6.43, respectively, divvying up top honors for the seven statements in the category. IBM came out on top for having a well-prepared sales force, with leading scores for the statements “My sales rep is knowledgeable about my industry,” “My sales rep understands my business” and “My sales rep keeps my interests foremost.” Symantec’s strengths were having a knowledgeable sales support team, being easy to negotiate with, being flexible and having licensing schemes that offered good value. The last is particularly notable as Symantec has taken some heat in the past over its licensing programs.

In the midrange group, EMC Avamar’s category average of 6.71 was the highest sales-force competence rating recorded to date, helping it to easily outdistance the other four products. Avamar’s commanding score was achieved by coming out on top for all seven statements in the category and was highlighted by two 7.00-plus scores: a 7.10 for “The vendor’s sales support team is knowledgeable” and a 7.05 for “The vendor’s licensing formula offers good value.”

With a category score of 5.91, CA ARCserve Backup just barely nosed out Symantec Backup Exec (5.90) to take second place. Microsoft Corp. Data Protection Manager (DPM), a first-time finalist, followed closely with a 5.83.

First impressions

The worst thing that can happen with software (for both users and vendors) is to have it sit on a shelf or struggle through a long, painful implementation. Judging from the scores in the initial product quality rating category, neither is likely to happen with these vendors and their backup products.

NetBackup cruised to a win among enterprise products by posting the highest ratings for five of the seven statements in the category en route to an average 6.34 rating, which topped EMC NetWorker (6.06) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co.’s Data Protector (6.02). NetBackup’s strong scores came for “This product uses tape efficiently” and “This product delivers good value for the money” — a key statement.

Ironically, IBM’s scores for those two statements were just a bit higher, and it came out on top for the other two statements. However, its overall 5.93 score was pulled down by less impressive ratings for “This product did not require professional services,” as well as configuration and ease-of-use issues.

For midrange apps, Avamar led the category with a 6.32 rating, putting it ahead of Symantec Backup Exec’s 6.13. Avamar had the highest scores for six of the seven statements, highlighted by a 6.86 for “This product delivers good value for the money.” Its margin of victory could have been greater but for a relatively low 5.14 for the professional services statement; Acronis Inc.’s 6.00 was the highest rating for that statement.

Do you consider your business to be small? Do you feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle to remain competitive with the so-called big boys of the business world? If you answered yes to both of these questions, you’ll likely be pleased to learn what’s being done with technology to level the playing field in terms of customer relationship management.

The 2011 class of companies, schools, educators and business leaders have been announced as winners of TechPoint’s Mira Awards program — Indiana’s top annual honors for technology achievement and excellence.

Since I first joined TechPoint in 2003, we have had the unique opportunity to review hundreds of detailed nominations and interview close to 500 company executives for this awards program. What struck me during the competition this year is just how many robust customer relationship management solutions are now available to small business owners.

The chasm of advantage separating big from small businesses is solidly bridged through technology, and in some cases, small businesses now have the advantage. As we saw this year and in years past during the Mira Awards, Indiana firms are leading the way both in developing these new technologies and using them to their own advantage.

The best part is some of the customer relationship management technologies used by these award winners could be put to use immediately in just about any business, large or small.

Seize opportunity

In today’s fast-paced, information-based business environment, managing customer relationships is a top priority. The costs associated with traditional customer relationship management software are pretty expensive and may be out of reach for many small businesses.

Don’t get me wrong, traditional CRM software is a great value for many enterprises. However, it may be viewed as unwieldy for small businesses that operate with just a few salespeople. CRM software is often complex and may require extensive training and regular upgrades. This causes some small businesses to be priced out of utilizing many of the most popular CRM packages, but managing customer relationships is no less important to their bottom line.

In this year’s Mira Awards competition, we recognized a few firms that have seized upon this marketplace need and developed software-as-a-service solutions that are specifically designed for small businesses and nonprofits and cost as little as $10 per month at the entry level.

Indianapolis-based startup AddressTwo markets what it calls “simple CRM,” a system for managing small business relationships. Fellow Indy startup TinderBox makes it possible to create, manage, deliver and track web-based business proposals. And finally, WebLink International Inc., which is also based in Indianapolis, provides member management software and website services to chambers of commerce, trade associations and tourism communities.

Firms like AddressTwo, TinderBox, WebLink and others offering simplified relationship management solutions are helping small businesses to enhance their services and compete at a higher level.

Keep your eyes open

The fact is, however, that companies both big and small are collecting enormous amounts of information about their customers. Larger organizations have departments focused on gathering and analyzing customer information and then using it to market to specific customer segments. Small business owners are likely doing this on their own and could benefit from some of the service providers who are cooperating with one another.

Online forms have made it easy to create customer profiles, surveys and other means of collecting data that can be incorporated into website and landing pages through simple embed codes. But putting this data to good use is where many organizations struggle.

Many providers are now working together to integrate their databases so that information collected can be immediately, and automatically, incorporated into direct digital marketing campaigns. Indianapolis-based Formstack LLC, for example, offers the ability to seamlessly transfer customer contact information and preferences to e-mail and interactive marketing provider ExactTarget. This allows the user to activate relationships with new or potential customers without delay and without multiple data entry.

This is, of course, just one example of the many providers who are offering software solutions that level the playing field and allow small businesses to manage customer relationships much like larger companies do but at a lower cost and greater efficiency than was previously available.

Small business owners (and large business owners, for that matter) who are frustrated with their current customer relationship management operations should look into the promising new small business CRM options and data collection software providers — especially the startups in Indiana.

James L. Jay is president and CEO of TechPoint, Indiana’s technology industry and entrepreneurship growth initiative. Jay also serves as president and CEO of TechPoint Ventures, which has invested more than $16 million in early-stage capital in twelve Indiana-based technology companies through HALO Capital Group since 2009. An Indianapolis native, Jay has a successful track record as an entrepreneur, business leader and public servant. To learn more about the 2011 TechPoint Mira Awards, visit www.techpoint.org/mira.

Social collaboration in the enterprise was intended to facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing and productivity. According to a new report commissioned by Harmon.ie and conducted by online market research firm uSamp (United Sample), social collaboration tools may be having the reverse effect.

Social Interruptions

The report, which surveyed 500 employees in U.S. businesses of all sizes, found that nearly 60% of work interruptions now involve either using tools such as email, social networks, text messaging and IM, or switching windows among disparate standalone tools and applications. Additionally, 45% of employees work only 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted, and 53% “waste” at least one hour a day due to all types of distractions.

While traditional activities such as phone calls, talking with coworkers, and ad hoc meetings account for 43% of work interruptions today, the report found that most distractions are now electronically based. Respondents reported getting sidetracked in email processing (23%), switching windows to complete tasks (10%), personal online activities such as Facebook (9%), instant messaging (6%), text messaging (5%) and Web search (3%).

Multiple devices on the desktop also contributed to the problem, with 65% of respondents reporting that they use up to three additional monitors and/or mobile devices simultaneously with their main computer screen as they work.

Social Implications

While the survey links distraction to wasted dollars, the implications are quite clear — social media causes fractured work. But is it necessarily a bad thing? Of course, when you add up the potential dollars of times spent presumably “wasted,” it sounds bad, but what about ideas, insight and inspiration gained from being “distracted” by a tweet, clicking on a link and reading an article about a relevant work topic? I doubt there’s a measurable value for that.

And what about mobile workers? Successful mobile workers don’t see things like emails, social media or multiple devices as distractions; rather they view them as opportunities for connections, conversations and collaboration.

The Lack of Information Management is Distracting

There is another part of the survey that does hold some weight. The amount of time users spent looking for documents is significant. Users spend an average of 2 1/2 hours per week trying to find the documents they need in multiple local, corporate and cloud repositories. Such activity adds up to 16 work days annually, costing businesses $3,900 per $30/hour employee per year to subsidize inefficient document management.

Not surprisingly, email is the culprit, as most users use email as an archive of attachments, conversations and other necessary information. Only 9% look to cloud storage for documents.

The Cost of Worry About Social Media Disruption

The thing about social media, networking and collaboration that often goes overlooked is that it’s all about transparency. The more open and honest you are about it, the less intrusive these behaviors become. A lot of efforts goes into sneaking around to check Facebook, Twitter and other social collaboration tools when it’s not integrated into a company’s culture. Having access to social collaboration tools doesn’t inherently make you more productive. Having the freedom to experiment, explore and discover does.

Alas, social media has posited itself as a chicken-and-egg theory, allowing us to “waste” most of our days worrying if it has caused disruption or that its disruption is merely the result of companies that have yet to fully invest in it.

One of the more controversial ecommerce-related topics is the use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter to increase sales. There is ample evidence to suggest that, in spite of its popularity, social media produces a dismal return on investment. Respondents to a January 2011 Practical eCommerce survey, “Does Social Media Help Your Ecommerce Business?,” revealed that social media accounted for less than five percent of their overall sales.

Social Media Better Utilized as Referral Source

Many practitioners argue that social networks are best utilized as referral sources — versus self-contained shopped carts, where visitors complete transactions without leaving the social platform. Practical eCommerce recently addressed this issue in a webinar titled “The Great Facebook Commerce Debate.”

One presenter — Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy, a conversion and abandoned-cart recovery firm — warned ecommerce merchants about relying on Facebook for a material amount of sales, either as a referral source or in a Facebook-enabled shopping cart. In Nicholls’ estimation, social commerce is still too early and not right for most ecommerce merchants.

But as early as February 2009, Practical eCommerce senior contributing editor Armando Roggio discussed benefits to using social media apart from sales in his article titled “Ecommerce Know-How: Social Media as a Marketing Tool.” In the article, Roggio stated that an “integrated social media marketing strategy can help you and your ecommerce site increase brand visibility, improve customer loyalty, and gain important insights about the markets you serve.”

Facebook Positions Itself as Social Commerce Platform

Facebook is apparently positioning itself to be a social commerce-enabled platform. The company recently created a new website, Facebook Studio, that bills itself as “a community for marketers, creatives and fans.” Its purpose is to train digital agencies on how to use the network for marketing. Topics included on the site are “Marketing with Facebook,” “Facebook Pages,” “Facebook Ads,” and “Facebook Places & Deals.”

Perhaps even more telling, Facebook recently instituted HTTPS protocols to provide greater security for its members and, perhaps, to prepare the platform to better manage sales transactions.

Facebook created opportunities for local businesses to offer special deals similar to those offered by location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla. What’s more, in April the company created its own version of group coupon deals like Groupon and LivingSocial, a product Facebook calls “Deals.”

Investment Capital Pouring In

Another signal is the amount of capital being invested into companies that specialize in social commerce.

• Milyoni, a company that provides a Facebook-enabled shopping cart, has raised $3 million in venture capital, according to the company.
• ShopIgniter, which provides services similar to Milyoni, received $8 million in a second round of funding, the company announced.
• Payvment, a company that also provides a Facebook shopping cart, last year raised $6 million in Series B funding, according to TechCrunch.

Webinar to Address How Best to Use Social Media for Ecommerce

Practical eCommerce is hosting a webinar, “How to Sell to Fans and Followers,” on Tuesday, June 7, at 3 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time to address the topic of social commerce. “How to Sell to Fans and Followers” acknowledges the fact that many, if not most, companies now participate in social media to some degree. The webinar will target those companies that wish to learn how to use social media to increase sales, but do so in a way that doesn’t alienate participants — such as Facebook Fans and Twitter followers — in the social networks.

The June 7 webinar is sponsored by Zmags, a provider of interactive, multi-platform digital publications. Taylor Duffy, senior product marketing manager at Zmags, and I will present the webinar, which covers the following topics:

• Money-Making Opportunities. The opportunity for companies to monetize social relationships;
• Selling Tools. How social media participation has evolved from a marketing tool to a selling tool;
• Social Commerce Options. What options are available to participate in social commerce; and
• Checklist for Success. How to launch your own social commerce campaign — a checklist for success.