VersionOne, recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools, today announced the launch of its annual State of Agile Development Survey.

The State of Agile Development Survey provides respondents and industry professionals with insight into best practices for the effective adoption and scaling of agile development initiatives. Launching during the Agile2013 conference in Nashville, the survey will remain open for participation through September 2013.

Now in its eighth year, the State of Agile Development survey is sponsored by VersionOne and conducted by independent research firm, Analysis.Net. The preeminent report for the agilesoftware industry, VersionOne’s State of Agile Development survey has received more than 24,000 responses in its first seven years, with more than 4,000 software professionals participating in2012.

“Agile is constantly evolving, making it increasingly important that software organizations understand current trends and best practices,” said Robert Holler, president and CEO of VersionOne.  “Feedback from peers on common challenges and successes helps organizations learn from one another and get the most out of their agile initiatives. The Annual State of Agile Development survey is a key component of our commitment to make agile easier for the software development community.”

The State of Agile Development survey is now open to industry professionals attending the Agile2013 conference and to online respondents. Those who complete the survey will be given early access to the results, which provide valuable insight into the latest agile development trends and practices. In addition, respondents will be entered into a raffle to win one of several prizes including a Cubify Cube 3D Printer, two 16GB Apple iPad Minis, and several $100 Amazon gift cards.

For those interested in participating, the survey can be found online at http://agiledevsurvey.com, or get information from VersionOne’s Booth #102 at Agile2013. Conference attendees who stop by can also see a demo of VersionOne’s new product release and sign up to receive a complementary trial of the VersionOne product.

About VersionOne

VersionOne is a recognized leader and visionary in agile application lifecycle management. 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

SOURCE VersionOne

Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced that their resident cloud computing experts will be sponsoring and providing demonstrations at upcoming industry events in August and September, including Agile 2013, VMworld, and STARWEST.

In addition, Brian White, vice president of products at Skytap, will be giving a feature presentation at CAMP IT in the Chicago area on September 25, providing insight into how an organization can choose between a public, private, or hybrid cloud computing solution.

Agile 2013 When: Mon. August 5 to Fri. August 9 Where: The Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center, Nashville, TN Description: Agile 2013, the leading Agile development and testing conference, gives attendees unrivaled insight into the latest innovations and trends, including updates on Agile approaches, methods, technologies, tools, leadership principles, management philosophies, and processes. Conference attendees will also be kept up to date with the most recent in policies, theories and research.  Stop by the Skytap booth or the Skytap sponsored beer garden for a look at how organizations can use cloud computing solutions to further accelerate their agile development and testing cycles through scalable, flexible infrastructure.

VMworld When: Sun., August 25 to Thurs., August 29 Where: Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA, Booth # 431 Description: VMworld, the global conference for virtualization and cloud computing, presents attending IT executives an opportunity to gain the tools needed to transform conventional remedies into agile solutions that allow organizations to simplify operations and provide unmatched business advantages.  Attendees will receive in-depth training and hands-on experience, as well as review the latest product research and analysis from the world of cloud computing today.  For an in-person demonstration of Skytap’s hybrid cloud capabilities, visit Skytap at booth # 431.

CAMP IT: Cloud Computing Strategies What: Choosing Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid Cloud Computing When:Wed., September 25 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. CT Where: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center Rosemont, Rosemont, IL Who: Brian White, VP of Products Description: At the CAMP IT: Cloud Computing Strategies event, industry experts will come together to discuss the various benefits that enterprises can see from cloud computing, such as financial savings and flexibility, contrasted with today’s top concerns regarding cloud, such as security and data availability. As part of the conference, Brian White from Skytap will give a presentation, “Choosing Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid Cloud Computing,” where he will provide attendees with best practices in choosing the type of cloud that is best suited for their organization’s workloads, including the pros and cons of each option and how well they can integrate with existing infrastructure architectures.

STARWEST When: Sun., September 29 to Fri., October 4 Where: Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA Description:The STARWEST event showcases software testers and quality assurance professionals.  All conference attendees are encouraged to stop by the Skytap booth to chat with a representative for a product demonstration and overview of how their unique cloud solution can dramatically accelerate software testing cycles, enabling organizations to ship better software faster with global collaboration.

About Skytap, Inc.

Skytap is the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions for dynamic workloads. Skytap Cloud gives businesses a fast, easy, and secure way to create complex computing environments in the cloud. Customers can run enterprise applications unchanged in the cloud, collaborate securely with global teams, and gain unparalleled business productivity. Additionally, IT organizations maintain full visibility and control over cloud projects, align capacity with demand, and reduce costs. Enterprises can securely connect Skytap Cloud to their data centers and create hybrid clouds. Skytap is ideal for any dynamic workload including development and testing, software demos and evaluations, and virtual training. To try Skytap Cloud and learn more, visit www.skytap.com.

Balihoo (www.balihoo.com), the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs, today was named to Outside Magazine’s sixth annual “Best Places to Work” list. Balihoo was ranked No. 50 out of 100 selected companies. The full list of the top-ten-performing small, medium, and large companies will be published online on August 1 at OutsideOnline.com/bestplacestowork.

Outside’s “Best Places to Work” project celebrates the innovative companies setting a new standard for a healthy work-life balance. The list was compiled with the help of the Outdoor Industry Association and Best Companies Group. The yearlong selection process began with an outreach effort that identified a wide range of non-profit and for-profit organizations with at least 15 employees working in an office in the United States. Participating companies were sent confidential employee-satisfaction surveys and employer-questionnaires to collect information about benefits, compensation, policies, job satisfaction, environmental initiatives, and community outreach programs. The experts at the Best Companies Group then analyzed the results and selected the companies that best enable employees to pursue active lifestyles while also supporting their social and environmental contributions.

This year’s “Best Places To Work” list will highlight not only the Top 100 companies, but will also spotlight those on the list that offer the best perks, including “Fitness-Friendly” companies, those with the most  liberal “Flex Time” policies, the “Best Travel Perks”, and those with the “Best Office Culture.”

“It’s an honor to be recognized by Outside Magazine,” said Balihoo CEO Pete Gombert.  “We passionately believe in giving our employees access and encouragement to lead an active lifestyle, which results in a happier, healthier and more productive team.”

“We’re proud to publicize the efforts of these 100 companies,” said Outside editor Christopher Keyes. “They each show a real commitment to creating active, healthy work environments and put a premium on innovative benefits. Year after year, Outside’s Best Places to Work program demonstrates that America’s most successful companies are the ones that consistently promote true work-life balance for their employees.”

Beyond the health of the individual, Balihoo also highly values the health of the community as a whole.  Balihoo’s Pawsitive Project grants each employee 48 hours per year to participate in volunteer activities of their choice. In addition, Balihoo offers a total of $5,000 in grant money each year to be used for employees to engage in volunteer activities – whether they are local or abroad.

Learn more about Balihoo’s unique culture here:  http://balihoo.com/about/careers/culture

About Balihoo

Balihoo is the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs. By automating local marketing, Balihoo gives national brands unprecedented control over local marketing execution and the ability to control the customer experience closer to the point of purchase. Additional information about Balihoo is available at www.balihoo.com.

About Outside

Outside is America¹s leading active lifestyle brand. For more than 30 years, Outside has covered travel, sports, adventure, health, and fitness, as well as the personalities, the environment, and the style and culture of the worldOutside. The Outside family includes Outside magazine, the only magazine to win three consecutive NationalMagazine Awards for General Excellence, The Outside Buyer’s Guides, Outside Online, Outside Television, OutsideEvents, Outside+ tablet edition, and Outside Books. Visit us online and on Facebook.

ABOUT THE BEST COMPANIES GROUP

Best Companies Group works with national and local partners around the country to establish and manage “Best Places to Work,” “Best Companies,” and “Best Employers” programs on a national, statewide, and regional basis. Through its thorough workplace assessment, utilizing employer questionnaires and employee-satisfaction surveys, BCG identifies and recognizes companies who have been successful in creating and maintaining workplace excellence.

ABOUT THE OUTDOOR INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION

Founded in 1989, Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) is the premier trade association for companies in the activeoutdoor recreation business. OIA provides trade services for over 4000 manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, sales representatives and retailers in the outdoor industry. Outdoor Industry Association seeks to ensure a healthy and diverse specialty retail and supply chain based on quality, innovation and service. To this end, OIA works diligently to raise the standards of the industry; increase participation in outdoor recreation to strengthen business markets; provide support services to improve member profitability; represent member interests in the legislative/regulatory process; promote professional training and education; support innovation; and offer cost-saving member benefits. Search for outdoor-industry jobs is at OIA’s career center:www.outdoorindustry.org.

CONTACTS:

BALIHOO: Susan Tormollen/[email protected]/208-763-3296

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE:  Jada Williams/ [email protected] / 646.649.4933

Work is rarely completed by a single team, department or person – it requires cross-group collaboration with a number of individuals outside the boundaries of traditional teams, such as executives, requestors, reviewers, and third party vendors.

AtTask is the leader in work collaboration between team members, and with this release, AtTask brings together the required collaboration between the day-to-day contributors and the important, but infrequent reviewers. It also brings an end to the chaos of external collaboration and gives teams ultimate visibility into their work, while ensuring that everyone is working on the most important things at the appropriate time.

“Today’s enterprise teams, unfortunately, experience inefficiency, work chaos and misalignment due to disconnected interactions with each other and their tools,” said Eric Morgan, CEO of AtTask. “The new release of the AtTask Enterprise Work Cloud solves these problems by engaging all contributors, and extending visibility into work to both internal and external team members.”

Unlike traditional project management and task management point solutions that offer a “one-size-fits-none” tool, the AtTask Enterprise Work Cloud provides role-based user experiences designed for every team member to engage as needed in order to get work done. With this new release, AtTask enables external contributors can engage and collaborate as needed in order to get the right work done:

• Share reports, calendars, dashboards and documents–External contributors, on any project can now see reports, calendars, dashboards and documents that are shared with them.
• Review and provide feedback on digital assets–External contributors can easily review, comment, and collaborate on digital assets, ensuring that everyone is working on the most current version.
• Approve projects, tasks and issues–External contributors can approve and check status on projects, tasks, and issues.
• Collaborate and receive updates–External contributors can collaborate in the context of the work and receive real-time updates on all projects, tasks, and documents.

This new release also expands the AtTask Enterprise Work Management offering to provide better visibility at every stage of the work lifecycle, and enable teams to work in the methodology that works best for them.

AtTask Calendar View – A Calendar for Every Need–Calendars are customizable for the unique needs of every person based on the work already in AtTask. The AtTask Calendar View gives unlimited insight into the work you need to complete, or the work being done on specific projects and campaigns by other team members or departments. Calendars can also be shared internally or externally.

AtTask Agile – Work the way that works best for your team-Product development and marketing teams can do all of their work with optimum visibility in one place with one tool. Whether teams work in a Waterfall, Agile, or a hybrid model, AtTask provides a single place for all contributors to manage and collaborate together on their work.

To learn more about how the AtTask Enterprise Work Cloud can help your team kill the chaos of work, visit attask.com/newest-version-attask-eliminates-work-chaos.

Additional Resources:

•  Watch the AtTask Agile management solution in action, www.attask.com/product-videos/agile
• Learn more about how the AtTask integration with Outlook improves productivity and visibility, http://www.attask.com/wp-content/attask/data-sheet-outlook.pdf
• See how the AtTask Calendar helps keeps internal and external teams on track, www.attask.com/product-videos/calendar-view

About AtTask

AtTask is the only provider of cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solutions for enterprise teams. This provides a single, central place to better manage and control the chaos of enterprise work, which improves visibility and productivity by eliminating wasted time dealing with fragmented, siloed tools and processes. With AtTask, teams, managers and executives receive visibility into work planning, prioritization, resourcing and sequencing to help everyone work more efficiently toward achieving the organization’s goals. AtTask has a broad range of Global 500 and other enterprise customers, such as Nike, Cisco, ABC, ESPN, 3M, and Trek. To learn more, visit www.AtTask.com or follow us on Twitter @AtTask.

Contact: Shelbi [email protected]

SOURCE AtTask

Spredfast, the leading independent social marketing software provider, today announced the next installment of speakers for the company’s second annual customer conference.  The Spredfast Social Summit will feature social business-focused sessions from Facebook, LinkedIn, Brooks Brothers, General Mills and Campbell’s, among other leading enterprise brands. The event will be held October 16-18, 2013 in Austin, TX.

“Our customer Summit is the only one of its kind in this industry,” said Rod Favaron, Spredfast CEO. “Leading social brands come to collaborate, interact, and learn how to elevate their social success from industry professionals.  Attendees will learn social strategies from fellow customers who are best-in-class organizations achieving business results through the use of social media.”

Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief, Huffington Post Media Group will deliver the opening keynote on Day 1 of the event, with Blake Chandlee, VP of Global Partnerships at Facebook delivering the Day 2 keynote.  Additional confirmed brands speaking at the Spredfast Social Summit include: IBM, Whole Foods Market, AT&T, SlideShare, REI, LexisNexis, Clorox, HomeAway, ARAMARK, Discover and Caterpillar.

The Spredfast Social Summit will bring together social media thought leaders and practitioners to take their social strategy, tactics and programs to the next level of customer engagement. The event will also provide an opportunity for Spredfast users and partners to interact, share best practices, and gain insight into how others are using the Spredfast platform to accelerate their social business initiatives.

An early bird registration discount, offering a special $200 savings for early registrations, expires Thursday, August 15th, 2013.  Additional information about the conference can be found at:http://summit.spredfast.com. Customers should also follow the Twitter hashtag #SFSummit to stay up to date on the latest Summit agenda and activities.

About Spredfast: 

Based in Austin, Texas, Spredfast provides social media management software that allows organizations to manage, monitor, and measure their social media programs at scale.  Spredfast enables more people, in more places, to engage in more conversations from a single platform on supported social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, and popular blogging platforms. Some of the enterprise and agency adopters on board with Spredfast include AT&T, Jason’s Deli, Warner Brothers, Whole Foods Market, AARP, AGAIN Interactive, Coty Beauty, HomeAway and Ogilvy. For more information, visit www.spredfast.com

Media Contact: Brittany Edwards [email protected] (512) 359-6055

SOURCE Spredfast

Kareo, Inc., the cloud-based medical office software and services provider for small medical practices, announced today its acquisition of privately held ECCO Health, a full-service provider of medical billing and associated solutions. Kareo has extended employment offers to all ECCO managers and employees and all are expected to join the new combined company. The acquisition of ECCO follows Kareo’s January 2013 launch of Kareo Billing Services, and the combined business now provides medical billing services to over 500 medical practices nationwide.

“Having worked with hundreds of billing companies since Kareo’s founding in 2004, we’ve developed a deep understanding of the range of capabilities from billing company to billing company,” said Dan Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Kareo. “ECCO is noteworthy due to the strength of its team, the quality of its customer relationships, the efficiency of its operational model, and the company’s track record of innovation. The combination of ECCO’s considerable strengths with Kareo will enable us to deliver an even stronger solution to the market. We welcome ECCO’s customers and team to the Kareo family.”

ECCO Health has provided medical billing services for the last decade, building a national capability from the company’s base in Las Vegas. Through insights created by ECCO’s deep customer relationships, the company has extended its billing services to include physician credentialing, front office services, and best practice consulting. ECCO has built considerable expertise across a wide range of specialties, including Primary Care, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Pain Management, Endocrinology, Internal Medicine, Podiatry, Infectious Diseases, Hospitalist and Hospitalists Groups, Surgery Centers, Urgent Care, Anesthesia, Neurology, Cardiology, Dermatology and Durable Medical Equipment organizations. ECCO has succeeded by helping its medical practice customers operate more efficiently and effectively while ensuring they get paid for their important work of providing patient care.

“The strengths of Kareo’s practice management and EHR applications have been a key element of our success with our customers over time,” said Jim Sholeff, founder and partner of ECCO Health. “We also appreciate Kareo’s commitment to working in an open and collaborative way with its partners, including billing companies. Now we have a remarkable opportunity to join forces and deliver to our customers an even stronger set of solutions.”

According to a new report by Frost & Sullivan, U.S. Physician Revenue Cycle Management (RCM), the market for physician RCM solutions in 2012 was $11.1 billion and is expected to grow to $14.6 billion by 2016. “Medical Practices realize they must take every measure to maximize revenue and address inefficiencies and shortfalls in getting paid fully and on a timely basis,” wroteNancy Fabozzi, Principal Analyst, Connected Health, Frost & Sullivan. “Medical practices will need to significantly re-engineer their entire RCM function, and most will seek solutions that offer robust integration between clinical and financial systems.”

The acquisition of ECCO positions Kareo well for the expected growth in integrated physician RCM solutions. The company now serves over 20,000 providers across the U.S. representing all medical specialties. Kareo delivers an integrated cloud-based platform comprised of EHR, practice management, and technology-enabled medical billing services. Kareo also provides a broad selection of specialty EHRs and value-added applications delivered through integrated partner solutions and maintains a network of over 600 medical billing companies that deliver their unique services utilizing Kareo’s practice management application. In 2013, over $25 billion in medical billing will be managed through the Kareo platform with software and services enabling providers to achieve the highest possible collection rates.

About ECCO Health

ECCO Health is a trusted nationwide professional medical billing service and practice management company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, with BPO operations in Chennai, India and San Jose, Costa Rica.  The Company focuses on relieving administrative duties of small and medium sized medical practices, allowing doctors to focus on patient care. ECCO provides full-service medical billing and coding, practice management, bilingual scheduling and operator service, referral and recall management, patient eligibility verification, prior authorizations and credentialing & contracting services.

About Kareo

Kareo is the only cloud-based medical office software and services platform dedicated to small practices. At Kareo, we believe that, with the right tools and support, small practices can do big things. We offer an integrated suite of products and services designed to help small practice physicians get paid faster, run their business smarter, and provide better care. Our Practice Management software, Billing Services, and free, full-featured EHR help more than 20,000 medical providers more efficiently manage the business and clinical sides of their practice. Headquartered in Irvine, California, Kareo’s mission is to help providers spend their time focused on patients, not paperwork.

Xtium, Inc., a leading enterprise software and solutions company providing managed cloud hosting, online backup and virtual disaster recovery services, is proud to announce it is among the list of Lead411’s Hottest Companies in Pennsylvania, released this week.

The list highlights the fastest growing technology companies headquartered in Pennsylvania, taking into consideration revenue growth and investor funding. Xtium increased its recurring revenue 74 percent from 2011 to 2012 and secured an additional $2 million from OpenView Venture Partners, bringing its total investment to $13.5 million.

“We are thrilled to be part of Lead411’s list and recognized alongside our technology peers in Pennsylvania,” said Tim Buckley, CEO, Xtium. “Xtium has grown from a small technology consulting firm in 2004 into a fully managed services provider focused on virtual cloud hosting and disaster recovery in 2007. Since then, our company has helped numerous small- to mid-sized businesses benefit from information technology by removing the daily hassles of IT management.”

Xtium was selected for the award by the Lead411 research team, which searches press releases and business articles citing venture capital financing, company launches, office openings and new customers to determine the fastest growing technology companies. Lead411 started out looking at over 1,045 companies in Pennsylvania and narrowed it down to 18, including Xtium.

For more information about the award please see Lead411’s news release here.

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.

Expanding its executive team, Intronis, Inc., provider of world-class cloud backup solutions for the IT channel, today announced it has appointed Aaron Dun as the company’s first chief marketing officer (CMO). Dun’s extensive experience in creating high performing marketing organizations will further enable Intronis’ growth and partner development plans.

With nearly 20 years of technology marketing experience, Dun has a proven reputation for developing and executing high-impact marketing programs geared specifically for fast growth, venture funded companies and larger publicly traded global organizations. An expert in content marketing, digital marketing and demand generation strategies for B2B technology companies, his career accomplishments demonstrate a keen ability to connect marketing performance to sales achievement.

Before joining Intronis, Dun served as the vice president of marketing and strategy for Percussion Software, where he led a complete transformation of the business around a new product innovation and market direction. Prior to Percussion, he played a leadership role in the marketing success behind Ness Technologies, Lionbridge Technologies and Softscape. Dun is a contributing writer to several industry publications, blogs and websites includingMarketingProfs’ MP Daily Fix Blog.

“Aaron is a strategic, results-driven marketing leader with the unique credentials we were looking for in a CMO,” says Rick Faulk, CEO, Intronis. “His ingenuity and success in enabling software companies to integrate their marketing and sales efforts to achieve maximum results, while disrupting the competitive landscape and delivering a great customer experience is well documented. We’re thrilled to be working with Aaron as we engage more closely with our partners to scale their businesses and generate more profitable growth.”

Reporting to Faulk, Dun is responsible for leading Intronis’ entire go-to-market strategy. Under his guidance, Intronis’ marketing department is working closely with the company’s sales organization and leadership team to scale its demand generation efforts, raise the company’s brand visibility, and build on the success of its award-winning cloud backup SaaS solution and five-star partner program.

“Intronis is a healthy, innovative and partner-centric company that is well positioned to become the clear market leader in cloud storage backup for the IT services channel,” says Dun. “I am excited to join Rick and the team, and work together to create high-impact marketing programs that will align with our sales efforts, clearly differentiate us from the competition, and deliver a unique and exceptional partner experience.”

About Intronis

Intronis Cloud Backup and Recovery is a world-class cloud backup solution for the IT channel. Intronis provides the industry’s easiest-to-use secure data solution for offsite and local backup, which generates a monthly recurring revenue stream for your business. Intronis offers the best Exchange and SQL backup on the market, supports virtualized environments with native VMware backup and is integrated with major solutions in the MSP ecosystem. Partners receive expert customer support from Intronis’ U.S.-based team. The solution has been field tested by thousands of MSPs, and the company has been named Best Revenue Generator seven times and Best Customer Support three times by members of ASCII.