AtTask wins award for project management solution — AtTask, Inc., creator of the first true social work management platform and worldwide leader in on-demand project and portfolio management software, was named Best Project Management Solution by the Software and Information Industry Association, and was honored with its third CODiE Award in four years.

AtTask was selected from among 425 nominations in its category, which recognizes the best business applications that automate the management of project-based business activities. Nominated products underwent an extensive review by judges via live demonstration, trial product access and analysis of product documentation.

This award comes on the heels of several other awards for AtTask, including being a Red Herring Global 100 award-winner, listed on the Inc. 500 list for a third consecutive year, named a UV50 Fastest Growing Company, and a finalist for the Stoel Rives Utah Innovation Awards.

For more information about AtTask visit www.attask.com.

Most conversations on corporate blogging – in both marketing and investor relations – seem to revolve around whether to do it, and what the benefits are. The actual mechanics of using a corporate blog (or other social media environment) to drive engagement and returns tend to get less attention, especially in the business-to-business space. Whether you’re dealing with clients who buy big-ticket items or the institutional investors that capitalize your company, it pays to have mastered the mechanics.

IR magazine’s group marketing director, Tom Johansmeyer, in this video produced by venture capital firm OpenView Venture Partners, discusses one of the ways you can use your corporate blog to gain and maintain an audience: the ‘killer statistic’.

The success of a corporate blog rests, in part, on having exclusive information that’s relevant to your target market. You need to demonstrate that you have rare and unique insights that can help your clients, institutional investors and other stakeholders make better decisions.

You can take this concept to the next level with data. If you have stats that tell a unique story – or that are difficult to generate – you become an important source of information. It will be natural for your target audience to become repeat visitors, which drives the success of your corporate blog.

Disaster recovery and data protection specialist Acronis has fired up a new worldwide partner program designed specifically to take account of growth in virtualized and cloud environments in the SMB sector.

The four-tier program has been designed to offer “an enriched experience for Acronis partners selling … disaster recovery and data protection solutions across physical, virtual and cloud environments.”

“We have taken partner type and size into consideration in creating this program, hoping to provide a new experience to partners,” said David Blackman, Acronis’ general manager of northern Europe.

“With the IT and partner landscapes developing in tandem, as a vendor we are responsible for providing our partners with the right tools and full support they need to implement end-to-end solutions and services in a hybrid world,” he added.

Acronis, a leading provider of easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments, today launched a new global channel partner program aimed at enhancing the capabilities and skills of its broad spectrum of partners to keep up with the business changes which the advent of virtualization and cloud are bringing to the small- to medium-size (SMB) IT landscape.

The new Acronis Partner Program is a four-tier program which offers an enriched experience for Acronis partners selling Acronis’ disaster recovery and data protection solutions across physical, virtual and cloud environments. All levels of partners will have easy access to unlimited technical support and demand generation assets from Acronis. The program will also build on the existing foundations such as Acronis’ comprehensive training for the partner community, allowing them to improve their knowledge and skills.

The program is segmented to enable and address all types of Acronis’ partners, from VARs to resellers, system integrators and service providers. To reach each tier of partnership, partners are required to achieve a certain level of revenue and certification accreditations, in return for discounts and more opportunities.

“Channel partners are the key assets to Acronis. We have taken the partner type and size into consideration in creating this program, hoping to provide a new experience to partners that can help them grow and keep up with the evolving market,” commented David Junca, vice president Sales and Channels, Acronis Americas. “With the IT and partner landscapes developing in tandem, as a vendor we are responsible for providing our partners with the right tools and full support they need to implement end-to-end solutions and services for their customers in a hybrid world.”

David Javaheri, president at Direct IT Corp, an existing Acronis partner, added, “The development opportunities and healthy profit margins that Acronis has presented to us within this program are going to be fundemental to growing our business. Acronis also provides a solid technology solution which is easy to use across physical, virtual and cloud environments, allowing us to perfectly target SMBs and branches of enterprise companies.”

The partner program is designed to boost margins in various ways so partners at all levels can take the approach that best suits their business model. Some of components of the partner program include:

• Global Support Program
  Partners benefit from dedicated channel support from a global network of Acronis support professionals.
• Opportunity-Registration Program
  When a partner introduces a new customer to Acronis, as long as the deal is registered on the Acronis Partner Portal and the same reseller closes it, the reseller will get an attractive extra rebate on the registered opportunity.
• Training and Certification
  Acronis Academy training to arm partners with the right knowledge to sell and implement solutions.

“Acronis is a company that puts its channel partners first. By offering affordable, easy to use disaster recovery and data protection solutions across physical, virtual and cloud-based environments, married with a comprehensive and competitive channel program, Acronis is well-positioned to make key inroads in the global market and to make its channel partners successful with it,” said Robert Amatruda, Research Director, Data Protection and Recovery at IDC.

For more information about the Acronis Partner Program, please visit www.acronis.com/partners.

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. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis.

Exinda, a global provider of WAN optimization solutions featuring Unified Performance Management (UPM), invites visitors to the HP Discover 2011 event taking place in Las Vegas from June 6 to 10, to participate in live, real-time demonstrations of its latest WAN Optimization solutions. Exinda will also be featuring the Exinda Edge Cache™, which improves the performance of video and other rich media on the Wide Area Network (WAN), and will share its strategies for preparing the WAN for the growth of cloud applications.

“As one of the world’s fastest growing WAN Optimization providers, Exinda has helped thousands of companies around the world to improve the performance of applications on their networks and deliver a superior user experience,” said Kevin Suitor, Exinda’s VP of marketing. “At HP Discover, Exinda will preview features and strategies that will enable organizations to leverage the new opportunities offered by new innovations in video, cloud and virtualization.”

Exinda Edge Cache

The Exinda Edge Cache enables single-sided caching of Internet-based content, including web objects, videos and software updates with a single Exinda WAN Optimization appliance at the branch office or data center, enabling a superior user experience and reducing WAN utilization costs.

“By eliminating the repetitive download of content over the WAN, the Exinda Edge Cache dramatically improves the speed and performance of internet applications,” said Suitor. “Our customers have seen as much as 80% reduction in http traffic over the WAN, and more than 35% reduction in video and other content. By reducing the consumption of valuable WAN resources, organizations can maximize their existing network spend and use the savings to fund innovative projects that further reduce cost.”

About Exinda

Exinda is a proven global supplier of WAN Optimization and Application Acceleration products. The Exinda Unified Performance Management (UPM) solution encompasses application visibility, control, optimization and intelligent acceleration – all within a single network appliance that is affordable and easy to manage. Founded in 2002, Exinda is headquartered in Andover, MA and has established regional offices in Canada and the United Kingdom to support the growing global demand for its products and services. Exinda is a 100% channel business with products being distributed by a worldwide network of solution partners who offer local support and services. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

Global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget launched a new guide that offers practical advice on how to transform consumer research into effective marketing campaigns across email, Facebook and Twitter.

Consumers Want from Marketers, the guide pairs findings from ExactTarget’s consumer research with clear step-by-step advice on how to create engaging interactive marketing campaigns that deliver on consumers’ expectations and drive new business.

“Consumers’ expectations of brands have never been higher,” said Tim Kopp, ExactTarget chief marketing officer. “Our new guide brings together the best of our research with real-world ‘how-to’ recommendations designed to help marketers create powerful interactive marketing campaigns that build brand loyalty and increase customer lifetime value.”

Featuring insights from ExactTarget’s consumer research, including its acclaimed Subscribers, Fans and Followers series, the new guide includes practical advice on how to:

– Expand an email marketing program to include Twitter and Facebook;
– Coordinate interactions across all online channels to create a seamless customer experience;
– Allow customers to select the best channel and frequency for brand interaction; and
– Optimize campaigns to increase engagement and overall performance.

“As consumers continue to evolve into digital media multitaskers, the rules of marketing will be irreversibly changed,” states the Nov. 2010 report by Forrester Research Inc. entitled “CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish”. “In this new world, there is greater demand to consume media across multiple platforms, causing exponential growth of content — both branded and user-generated — but unfortunately consumers will become more difficult to engage.”

The Top 5 Things Consumers Want from Marketers briefing is available for free download at www.ExactTarget.com/ConsumersWant.

The launch of the new guide follows news that ExactTarget’s next generation of interactive marketing technology – the Interactive Marketing HubTM – has been named the “Innovation of the Year.” Awarded by technology trade association TechPoint, the honor recognized the Interactive Marketing Hub’s unique strength and ability to enable marketers to plan, monitor and track real-time interactive marketing programs from a single dashboard. By aggregating all customer interaction data as it happens, the Interactive Marketing Hub allows marketers to instantly take action on data across all online channels in real time.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions. The company’s Interactive Marketing Hub technology provides organizations a single solution to connect with customers via email, integrated text messaging, landing pages and social media. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget powers permission-based multichannel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Best Buy, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com.

As an expansion-stage venture capitalist for 11 years, I still find it strange when I explain to people how a VC firm is different from a typical business.  Here are some of the stranger differences:

1. Our target customer segment is very small

2. We want to meet all the potential customers in our target segment, but we need to turn away most of the potential customers

3. We only want a few new customers each year

4. We pay our customers a lot of money to start the relationship

5. We want our customers to grow their business much, much more than we want to grow ours

6. If our customers don’t grow their businesses, then we will go out of business

7. If we are lucky, our customers end the relationship and pay us a lot of money to end it

8. We need to constantly rebuild our customer base, since 100% of our customers leave us

9. We want our customers to be taken away by a large company

10. Even better, we want our customers to be taken away by a really large, swarming mob!

I am sure that there are a lot of other strange things about being a VC.  What did I miss?