Los Angeles, October 21, 2014 – uSamp, the technology leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer and business insights, today announced the promotion of marketing veteran Andy Jolls to the post of chief marketing officer. Jolls will oversee the marketing efforts for the Company’s brands, including uSamp, Instant.ly and iPoll, and functions including corporate marketing, demand generation and communications.

“Andy is constantly pushing to create breakthrough marketing and engage with our clients in new ways,” Alan Gould, CEO, uSamp said. “Andy led our team in repositioning our core business around guaranteed quality and technology leadership. He has also been instrumental in the launch and continuing expansion of the Instant.ly platform, which currently includes Instant.ly Concept Test™ and Instant.ly Survey Tool™,” Gould said.

Jolls, 48, was appointed senior vice president of global marketing communications upon joining the Company in 2013. He held the same role at Cooking.com in 2011. Jolls, who has spent 25 years in marketing, business, and general management roles, previously served as general manager, vice president at FICO. Earlier in his career, he worked at Move.com, Hewlett Packard and Apple Computer, Inc. Jolls earned an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan.

About Instant.ly

Instant.ly™ is the world’s first on-demand consumer insights platform, providing brands with instant on-demand access to targetable consumers. The Instant.ly portfolio is comprised of Instant.ly Survey Tool™ for survey authoring and fielding, and Instant.ly Concept Test™ for early-stage concept screening. With Instant.ly, brand managers can collect quantifiable customer feedback from the web, mobile devices and social networks. Powerful enough to be used by Fortune 500 companies, and intuitive enough to be used by tens of thousands of small businesses, Instant.ly gives companies of all sizes a single platform — to build, promote and analyze the voice of the customer — when, where and how they need it. For more information visit www.instant.ly/.

About uSamp

uSamp is the technology leader in market research providing automation, mobile and global sample and insight solutions for marketers. Based in Los Angeles, with five offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, uSamp has been recognized in Inc.’s 500|5000 exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. For more information visit www.usamp.com.

LOS ANGELES, September, 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – uSamp announced today the appointment of Dean Burnettas senior director, global panel and sampling operations. Burnett will lead the company’s panel performance and quality efforts as it invests further in technology and resources to bolster its position as the industry’s leading and most trusted sample provider.

Most recently a senior program and vendor manager at Amazon Publishing, Burnett has a long history in project management in market research and strategic partner relations. Prior to Amazon, Burnett served as vice president, project management, at Ipsos, the global independent market research company, and director of project management at Hall & Partners, the brand and communications research agency.

“Dean will undoubtedly make a tremendous impact in our ongoing efforts toward delivering the industry’s highest-quality sample,” said Joe Jordan, vice president of panel operations at uSamp. “His extensive background in both the research and technology spaces makes him an obvious choice for this role, as we know the key to our panel quality lies at the intersection of our highly engaged consumer audience and industry-leading technology.”

Burnett will report to Jordan, who joined uSamp in May and has played a pivotal role in the implementation of Adaptive Profiling, uSamp’s unique panel profiling system that promises to revolutionize the traditional profiling model through data science, predictive analytics and real-time question capabilities.

“Dean’s long history of global research project knowledge and vendor relationships aligns with our newest technology-driven products that leverage our vast panel capabilities,” said Jordan. “His addition reinforces our commitment towards the quality of our growing panel.”

In addition to overseeing panel performance and quality, Burnett will manage vendor relations, panel expansion, and global project management, leading cross-functional teams toward growth and successful project execution.

About uSamp

uSamp is the technology leader in sample and insights solutions providing automation, mobile and global solutions for marketers. Based in Los Angeles, with five offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, uSamp has been recognized in Inc.’s 500|5000 exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. For more information visit www.usamp.com.

ATLANTA — October 16, 2014 — PGi (NYSE: PGI), a global leader in collaboration software and services for over 20 years, today announced the acquisition of Central Desktop, Inc., a leading cloud-based team collaboration and project management platform for businesses. PGi funded the purchase through its recently increased credit facility and cash and equivalents on hand.

“Joining forces with Central Desktop and its talented team is an important strategic move for PGi,” said Boland T. Jones, PGi founder, chairman and CEO. “Today’s workplace is evolving—teams are more flexible, mobile and dispersed than ever before. As leaders in collaboration for over 20 years, we recognize the need for those teams to work together whenever and however they choose. The acquisition of Central Desktop extends PGi’s collaboration expertise beyond real-time meetings, creating a truly unified collaboration platform for how business works today.”

“The acquisition of Central Desktop enables PGi to offer a more comprehensive collaboration suite across the growing market for collaborative applications,” said Vanessa Thompson, Research Director, Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies at IDC. “IDC estimates the Collaborative Applications market to grow to $5.7 billion by 2018. This acquisition also highlights the notion that organizations will increasingly look to a single consolidated offering that can filter and deliver content in real time and in context across multiple collaboration modalities.”

Central Desktop’s platform connects people and information in the cloud, enabling teams to collaborate around files, combine knowledge, inspire ideas and manage projects—at any time, from anywhere in the world. More than half a million users worldwide trust Central Desktop’s team workspace and project management software to launch marketing campaigns, manage global projects, collaborate with contractors and agencies, connect cross-departmental teams and more. Pasadena-based Central Desktop has a current projected annual revenue run rate of approximately $9 million.

“We are thrilled to join PGi, a company that shares our passion for helping business people work together,” said Isaac Garcia, Central Desktop co-founder and CEO. “Collaboration is an increasingly important investment for companies of all sizes. With PGi’s support and industry expertise, we can empower our customers to work how they want with unified collaboration solutions that drive success and business growth.”

PGi anticipates the acquisition of Central Desktop will be neutral to non-GAAP diluted earnings per share in 2014. PGi plans to provide a revised financial outlook for 2014 when it releases its third-quarter results.

About Premiere Global Services, Inc. | PGi

PGi has been a leading global provider of collaboration software and services for over 20 years. PGi’s cloud-based software applications empower business users to connect, collaborate and share ideas and information from their desktop, tablet or smartphone, enabling greater productivity in the office or on the go. PGi has a global presence in 25 countries, and its award-winning solutions provide a collaborative advantage to over 45,000 enterprise customers, including 75% of the Fortune 100™. In the last five years, PGi has hosted more than 1.1 billion people from 137 countries in over 250 million virtual meetings. For more information, visit PGi at pgi.com.

Online backup technology provider Intronis has released a file sync and share offering called ECHOshare for channel partners to resell to small and medium-sized business (SMBs) customers, the company announced Wednesday.

Intronis ECHOshare integrates with the Intronis ECHOplatform data protection solution to centralize account management and billing for MSPs. It includes features such as team-based sharing, visibility and control, remote access to files, version control and mobile support.

“Intronis is all about data protection, and introducing a secure file, sync and share solution makes sense for the business and our partners,” said Neal Bradbury, vice president of channel development at Intronis, in an interview with MSPmentor. “It’s a natural fit for what we do and what our partners deliver.”

Intronis believes the file sync and share service extension creates new revenue opportunities for its channel partners by providing SMBs with an answer to sharing files and collaborating in a secure manner.

“First and foremost — it’s built for the channel partners to resell,” Bradbury said. “Second, it solves for the business challenge many SMBs face of using unsecured, inefficient workarounds for file sharing by enabling channel partners to offer an integrated collaboration solution that is easily added to the existing Intronis service or sold separately.”

He added: “It’s also a service that channel partners can make money on versus just supporting other apps and solutions for free as most have resigned to doing when a client downloads another brand directly.”

Intronis isn’t trying to compete with other file sync and share solutions such as Dropbox, Box and Huddle. Instead the company is hoping channel partners will swap out existing solutions with its ECHOshare, which complies with HIPAA, SSAE-16 and PCI DSS.

“It’s enabling our channel partners to replace them with a file, sync and share solution they can sell, profit from and support, and that makes sense for the customer’s business — that’s a big takeaway,” he said. “Other solutions aren’t truly business-grade, are not easily managed and don’t offer the security and user experience you get with Intronis ECHOshare.”

This new market opportunity for Intronis aligns with its CEO’s vision of moving from a storage provider to a software company. “Our vision going forward is to be a software company, not a storage company,” Intronis CEO Rick Faulk told MSPmentor in July.

“We have a great roadmap for 2015,” Bradbury said. “More immediately we will be introducing more marketing and sales resources for our partners throughout Q4 — including new co-branded content, as well as awareness and demand generation campaigns featuring our data loss gremlins.”

NEW YORK & ATLANTA – (BUSINESS WIRE) – CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) and VersionOne today unveiled a PPM (Project & Portfolio Management) and Agile project management solution integration that gives technology leaders the insight to strategically plan, manage and track both Agile and waterfall project portfolios from concept to completion in a single console – making it easier to scale enterprise agility in lock step with traditional development and align with business objectives.

“In the Application Economy, it’s more critical than ever for IT organizations to have a consistent handle on their entire IT investment portfolio.”

Available today, native integration between the latest release of CA PPM (formerly CA Clarity™ PPM) and the VersionOne® Agile project management solution helps software organizations extend upstream visibility of Agile projects, presenting them as prioritized strategic investments into their overall portfolio planning, funding and resource management process.

“In the Application Economy, it’s more critical than ever for IT organizations to have a consistent handle on their entire IT investment portfolio,” said Yash Shah, senior vice president, Product Management, IT Business Management, CA Technologies. “We’re pleased to be working together with VersionOne to deliver on that key requirement – giving customers a truly comprehensive view on their portfolio stance, as well as the management capabilities and insight required to ensure IT initiatives stay true to business goals.”

Portfolio leaders can now leverage CA PPM’s top-down portfolio scenario planning, financial management and resource management capabilities with VersionOne’s high-level feature planning, project definition and work item management capabilities. Project plans in CA PPM automatically cascade to VersionOne, and project details, including tracking of effort, flow from VersionOne to CA PPM.

The solution plugs Agile PMOs directly into the enterprise strategies, objectives and financial side of the business – effectively synchronizing planning with funding and execution. By having a complete picture of PPM, businesses can make better investment priority and resource management decisions while accelerating project time-to-market, regardless of development methodologies being used.

Unlike competing third-party integrations that attempt to address the gap between traditional PPM and Agile project management solutions, this is an integrated solution natively built into a PPM application suite to take advantage of and enable visibility into areas within an organization leveraging agile methods and practices.

“CA’s tight partnership with VersionOne aligns the best of both worlds in project and portfolio management – a Fortune 500 leader in PPM with a leader and recognized visionary in the rapidly emerging Agile ALM market,” said VersionOne CEO Robert Holler. “We look forward to working with CA to continue to extend our capabilities and ensure a seamless customer journey towards business agility at scale.”

CA PPM is the market-leading PPM solution, enabling organizations to optimally align strategic technology investments with business goals. In addition to integration with VersionOne, the new CA PPM 14.1 release – also unveiled today – includes improvements to CA PPM’s Microsoft Project integration and content deployment.

VersionOne integration is also available for CA PPM SaaS, a key component of the CA Management Cloud portfolio of modern, easy-to-use IT management solutions delivered from the cloud.

CA PPM and VersionOne will be featured at CA World ’14, Nov. 9-12 in Las Vegas. In addition, CA and VersionOne will present via CA’s BrightTalk PPM Insights educational webcasts and VersionOne’s AgileLIVE webinar series.

Visit http://www.versionone.com/ca to learn more.

About VersionOne

VersionOne is a recognized leader and visionary in Agile ALM solutions. Our mission is to help companies envision and deliver great software. Our promise is to promote and serve the best interests of the agile software development community with genuine respect and humility. Every single day we work hard to make a difference both in our community and with our customers.

Today more than 50,000 teams, including over 35 of the Fortune 100, use our products to help them scale their agile initiatives faster, easier, and smarter. Whether a small team just starting out with agile or a global enterprise, VersionOne customers get the best software tools in the industry backed by the pioneers of agile project and lifecycle management. Follow us on Google+,Twitter, Facebook and our blogs.

Agile Made Easier @ VersionOne.com

About CA Technologies

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) creates software that fuels transformation for companies and enables them to seize the opportunities of the application economy. Software is at the heart of every business in every industry. From planning, to development, to management and security, CA is working with companies worldwide to change the way we live, transact, and communicate – across mobile, private and public cloud, distributed and mainframe environments. Learn more at www.ca.com.

King of Prussia, PA (PRWEB) October 06, 2014

Xtium, Inc., a leading enterprise software and solutions company providing managed cloud hosting, online backup and virtual disaster recovery services, today announced its new partnership with SHI, a global provider of information technology products and services. SHI will offer Xtium’s cloud services to existing and future customers.

“Companies are eager to take advantage of new technologies to improve productivity, mobility and collaboration,” said Jim Kirby, Executive Vice President of Sales, Xtium. “To do this, more and more are turning to IT service providers. Through our partnership with SHI we hope to help more businesses obtain access to top-notch cloud and IT solutions.”

According to Xtium’s recent survey with Spiceworks of U.S. IT pros, 16% of the 474 surveyed indicated they plan to use a managed cloud hosting provider to support their IT infrastructure in the next year, and 37% are thinking about this type of solution. This number is expected to increase as companies look to balance IT workloads and see managed services as a viable option.

“Xtium’s managed cloud services certainly benefit customers that want to focus on their core business, not managing IT infrastructure,” said Ed McNamara, Director of Marketing and Communications, SHI. “We are excited to see a partnership come to fruition and to work on joint opportunities.”

The partnership with SHI is just one example of Xtium’s growing channel partner program. If you are interested in becoming a partner please visit http://www.xtium.com/partners.

About Xtium

Xtium is a leading enterprise software and solutions company innovating managed cloud hosting, online backup and virtual disaster recovery services. We offer companies the most secure virtual private cloud experience with guaranteed application performance across the network. Our architecture is flexible, allowing customers to remain in control. We are the only enterprise service company certified to deliver, SAP®, VMware® and Riverbed® technologies. To learn more, please visit http://www.xtium.com.

About SHI

Founded in 1989, SHI International Corp. is a $5 billion+ global provider of technology products and services. Driven by the industry’s most experienced and stable sales force and backed by software volume licensing experts, hardware procurement specialists, and certified IT services professionals, SHI delivers custom IT solutions to Corporate, Enterprise, Public Sector, and Academic customers. With over 2,600 employees worldwide, SHI is the largest Minority and Woman Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) in the U.S. and is ranked 17th among CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list of North American IT solution providers. For more information, visit http://www.SHI.com.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – October 7, 2014 – Instructure announced today that Stanford Graduate School of Business plans to use Canvas as a learning management system (LMS) for several of its management education programs, including the MBA.

Canvas offers a user-friendly experience for faculty, students and staff, a cloud hosting solution and open API and the flexibility to include future software add-ons.

Starting in September 2014, students in the school’s full-time two-year MBA Program, one-year Masters of Science in Management for Experienced Leaders (MSx), and its Ph.D. program began using the platform to receive and submit course assignments, work on shared projects in student teams and keep track of class schedules.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with an organization as forward thinking as the Stanford Graduate School of Business,” said Jared Stein, vice president of research and education at Instructure. “Stanford GSB and Instructure share a commitment to making education more effective and impactful of students’ lives both onsite and online. That’s why we’ve built Canvas in such a way that it enables innovation and encourages educators to develop new approaches to teaching and learning.”

Instructure launched Canvas in February 2011 and has since attracted nearly 1,000 educational institutions. Today it services more than 16 million teachers and students from around the world, ranging from community colleges to Ivy League institutions.

 

ABOUT INSTRUCTURE

Instructure, Inc. developed the Canvas learning management system to make teaching and learning easier for everyone, everywhere. Canvas empowers learning in every context with open, usable SaaS technologies. And through Canvas Network, Instructure provides a cloud platform where teachers, learners, and institutions worldwide can connect and chart their own course for personal growth, professional development, and academic inquiry. Learn more at www.canvaslms.com.

 

Philadelphia, PA October 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Monetate, the leading provider of testing and targeting, email optimization and personalization solutions, announced today that its testing and targeting solution — Monetate for Testing & Targeting — was named a leader in TrustRadius’ first-ever Buyer’s Guide to A/B Testing Software. Monetate received the highest average likelihood to recommend rating among enterprises’ (companies with >500 employees) based on customer feedback. Additionally, Monetate was rated a strong performer for both Mid-Size Companies and Small Businesses. Monetate was ranked among A/B Testing software providers AB Tasty, Adobe, Google, Maxymiser, Optimizely, Qubit, SiteSpect and Visual Website Optimizer.

“We are proud to be recognized by TrustRadius for the work we’re doing with Monetate for Testing & Targeting by the users of A/B Testing software on TrustRadius,” said Bruce Ernst, Vice President of Product Management at Monetate. “With Monetate for Testing & Targeting, we’re bringing enterprise-grade testing to the masses with unmatched scale, efficient workflow and rigorous security. Whether a marketer is running two or 200 tests, it doesn’t matter — execution is easy, campaigns remain within marketing and no additional resources or IT involvement are required.”

“Marketers are increasingly using A/B testing software to optimize their websites,” stated Megan Headley, Research Manager, TrustRadius. “Our aim through the buyer’s guides is to gather peer intelligence into how well products are working which allows purchasers to make better choices about products while also providing valuable feedback to the companies developing these products.”

The Buyer’s Guide to A/B Testing Software is based upon 200 in-depth user reviews of A/B Testing Software products on TrustRadius. These insights were augmented by interviews with highly regarded industry experts and executives from software vendors.

For more details on Monetate for Testing & Targeting and valuable A/B testing best practices, visit www.betterwebsitetesting.com.

The TrustMap™ is a visual depiction of the best software products as rated by users on TrustRadius within each market segment — small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises. TrustRadius does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its TrustMaps and does not advise software users to select only those vendors with the highest Ratings.

About Monetate

Monetate is the global leader in cloud-based testing, email optimization and in-the-moment personalization software that empowers marketers to create, deliver and measure personalized marketing campaigns across all touchpoints — at scale.

Customers use Monetate’s solutions to identify important customer segments, target them with dynamic digital marketing campaigns, and measure the results of those campaigns — in real time within a single easy-to-use interface.

Monetate is used by the world’s leading brands to grow revenue faster by delivering better digital experiences for their customers around the globe. Founded in 2008, Monetate influences billions of dollars in revenue every year for world-class companies like Patagonia, Best Buy, National Geographic, QVC, Celebrity Cruises and hundreds of other market leaders.

About TrustRadius

TrustRadius is the leading site for business software users to share real-world insights through in-depth reviews and networking. We help users make better product selection, implementation, and usage decisions. Every reviewer is authenticated and every review vetted before publishing. Unlike simple rating sites, TrustRadius reviews are structured and substantive, averaging more than 500 words. Reviewers can also update their reviews to keep them current. Reviews are curated into product comparisons and buyer’s guides. Founded by successful entrepreneurs and backed by the Mayfield Fund, TrustRadius is bringing transparency and efficiency to the $3.7 trillion business technology market. TrustRadius was recently ranked the #1 fastest growing Series A backed Austin start-up by Mattermark, a Big Data research firm serving the venture capital community.

To learn more, visit www.trustradius.com and/or watch the video.