Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced participation at a number of cloud computing and software development and test events, including Camp IT, STARWEST, Better Software East, and Gartner’s Application Architecture Development and Integration Summit.

At these events, Skytap executives will provide live demonstrations of Skytap Cloud, present on hybrid and public clouds, and offer best practices for agile development and testing.

Camp IT: Cloud Computing Strategies

What: Hybrid Cloud: How to Build and Integrate the Best of Both Worlds

When: Mon., Sept. 24 at 10:30-11:30 a.m. CT

Where: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL

Who: Brett Goodwin, vice president of marketing & business development, Skytap

Description: After setting your cloud strategy, how do you go about building your cloud? What are the benefits of a hybrid cloud approach? This session will discuss how to plan, design, deliver, and optimize a responsible, reliable, and mission-critical enterprise cloud with the use of both public and private IT services. One of the most beneficial aspects of a hybrid cloud approach is that IT can easily extend their existing on-premise infrastructure with a secure, managed cloud computing service that is ideal for specific functional groups and IT workloads.

STARWEST

What: Cloud-Enabled Software Testing: Putting the Agile into the Infrastructure

When: Wed., Oct. 3 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. PT

Where: Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA, Booth #15

Who: Nate Odell, director of marketing, Skytap

Description: Cloud computing can radically change the way users build, test, and deploy software. In this session, attendees will gain knowledge on how to achieve results with the latest in agile methods, technologies, and tools — such as 75 percent faster development and testing cycles. Session attendees will also learn which application workloads are ideal for the cloud model and how to enable true Agile development and DevOps practices to deliver better software faster. They will be provided with a wealth of ideas to enhance development and testing productivity and boost software quality.

Better Software Conference East

What: Cloud Computing: Powering the Future of Development and Testing

When: Wed., Nov. 7 from 3:45-4:45 p.m. ET

Where: Rosen Shingle Creek, Orlando, FL, Booth #13

Who: Brian White, vice president of products, Skytap

Description: Developers and testers are under constant pressure to operate more efficiently, cut costs, and deliver on time. Without access to scalable, flexible, and cost-effective computing resources, these challenges are magnified. This session will discuss how to create scalable development and test environments in the cloud, and share best practices for reducing cycle time and decreasing project costs. Attendees will learn how scalable, cloud-based data centers can run software without complicated re-writes; enable rapid defect resolution with snapshots and clones; and provide global collaboration for multiple product and release teams. Brian will present a case study of Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately held real estate services firm, which struggled with an on-premises development and testing environment. By moving its dev/test infrastructure to the cloud, they reduced provisioning time from days to minutes, doubled the number of projects supported within four months, and improved collaboration among dispersed teams.

Gartner Application Architecture Development and Integration Summit

When: Nov. 27-29

Where: Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV, Booth #TBD

Description: The Gartner Application Architecture Development and Integration Summit will cover the latest issues facing application professionals today, including understanding the real business value of cloud computing. Solution leaders and IT professionals will come together to share their knowledge and experience on when, why, and how to adopt cloud and agile methodology to make their application development more productive. While at the show, be sure to stop by the Skytap booth for a demonstration of Skytap Cloud technology — designed for complex computing environments such as application development and testing.

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.

Intronis, Inc., provider of world-class cloud backup solutions for the IT channel, today announced Jay Bolgatz, vice president of engineering and development, as interim CEO. He succeeds Kent Plunkett, who has left the company to pursue new opportunities and remains an investor in the company.

Founded in 2003, Intronis has more than doubled its revenues during Plunkett’s tenure and is recognized as one of America’s fastest growing private companies. Kent Plunkett said, “I enjoyed leading Intronis and executing to drive significant growth and establish our leadership position in the channel. I want to thank our amazing partners and the Intronis team members for the opportunity to help build such a great company.”

The company’s executive management team remains in place and fully committed to enabling its channel partners’ success by delivering the IT industry’s most secure, reliable and complete backup and recovery solution. Intronis’ board of directors and founding investor OpenView Venture Partners have engaged an executive search firm and formed a company committee that will evaluate internal and external CEO candidates.

“I am proud to lead Intronis through this transition and next phase of growth,” Bolgatz said. “Our vision and strategy remains firm and focused. We will continue to invest in product development and provide our channel partners with the business support and technology solutions needed to accelerate their growth and revenue potential, while addressing the market’s need for reliable data protection services.”

George Roberts, an OpenView venture partner and Intronis board member, said, “With a great product, an experienced leadership team at the helm and a focused vision, Intronis has a strong foundation and a long runway to build a great company for us and our channel partners.”

Bolgatz brings more than 25 years of hands-on commercial software development and IT channel experience to Intronis, spanning pre-IPO start-ups to large development organizations. He has served as Intronis’ vice president of engineering and delivery since 2010. Previously, Bolgatz held executive leadership roles at SunGard BSR, Iron Mountain, Informix, Digital, Exit41, and Revenio. He has deep experience leading cross-functional teams, multi-site engineering efforts and off-shore development and testing.

To learn, see and hear more about Intronis online, follow the channel-friendly cloud backup and recovery innovator on Facebook and Twitter.

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 to add to your business. Intronis offers the best, deepest Exchange and SQL backup on the market, U.S.-based customer support, and is also integrated to major solutions in the MSP ecosystem. The solution has been field tested by thousands of MSPs and the industry spoke by awarding Intronis the 2011 Vendor of the Year from ASCII. http://www.intronis.com.

Exinda, a global provider of next-generation WAN optimization and application assurance solutions, has been chosen by Clarke Energy to both manage and control key applications across its global network (including the UK, Algeria, Australia, China, France, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria and Tunisia) and improve the performance of its Internet links, especially to its remote offices.

Clarke Energy required a cost-effective, best in class, WAN optimization solution that could provide it with visibility and control of its strategic applications as well as acceleration. The company needed to better manage the variable bandwidth connections that support its core business applications including ERP, financial tools and case management packages that depend on the network. Clarke Energy also relies on the internet for strategic activities and needed a solution that could reduce latency, especially to offices in locations like Australia where bandwidth was limited. To overcome these challenges, Clarke Energy embarked on a programme of deploying Exinda’s application assurance technology across its global offices, as Anthony Hayes, Group IT Director for Clarke Energy and Clarke Telecom, explains.

“We chose Exinda over competitors like Riverbed and Packeteer because we needed a solution that would enable us to see everything that is travelling over the network 24/7 and manage it based on business priority. Due to the global nature of our business, we depend on our network to reliably deliver the core applications we need, enabling us to provide the best service to our internal and external customers. What Exinda has given us is the ability to manage network traffic easily, quickly and efficiently, with the added benefit of improving our productivity rate across the business.”

Anthony continues, “We are additionally using Exinda’s WAN optimization product suite within sister company Clarke Telecom to manage, optimise and accelerate business critical applications. In order to provide turnkey wireless telecoms network infrastructure to our clients, we need to be able to demonstrate a high level of expertise, and ensure that our own network delivers the quality of experience necessary to ensure successful delivery.”

Adam Davison, VP of EMEA for Exinda, adds, “Today’s networks not only have to contend with a wider variety of applications than ever before, they have to do so with the absolute minimum of downtime and latency. Our policy based WAN optimization solutions deliver an effective mix of acceleration, caching and containment for the optimal user experience of cloud applications, web content and other bandwidth intensive applications. What we have delivered to Clarke Energy and Clarke Telecom is a mix that suits their business requirements.”

Stuart Ekins, of Clarke Energy’s IT partner EDN, concludes, “Having worked with Exinda’s solutions for over 10 years now, it was an easy recommendation to make given both Clarke Energy’s and Clarke Telecom’s list of requirements. Application and performance assurance is at the heart of Exinda’s solution set, as is the ability to scale up and down quickly. As new applications, such as voice and video, have come on to the network, so these are monitored and protected by the existing Exinda infrastructure.”

About Exinda®

Exinda is global provider of WAN optimization and application performance assurance solutions. The company has helped more than 2,500 organisations in over 80 countries worldwide improve the end-user experience, manage application performance, manage congestion over the WAN and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

About Clarke Energy

Clarke Energy is the authorised distributor and service partner, in ten countries worldwide, for GE Energy’s gas-powered reciprocating engines, packaged generator sets and cogeneration units for power generation. Clarke Energy provides added value to the customer by acting as single point of contact from initial sale, engineering, project management, installation through to commissioning and long-term maintenance of your generation asset. Clarke Energy is present in ten countries across the globe and has significant experience in a wide range of different gas applications including natural gas, biogas, landfill gas and coal gases.

About Clarke Telecom

Clarke Telecom is the UK’s largest wireless telecoms network infrastructure service provider. It provides products and a full range of services dedicated to this industry sector. It is able to provide full turnkey network rollout using entirely in-house resource to provide a level of control and quality that guarantees every project is delivered on time and within budget.

OpenView Venture Partners, an expansion-stage venture capital firm focused on providing technology companies with deep operational support, released a new report today entitled, “E-mail Marketing Tactics: Do Your Messages Measure Up?”

The report examines the evolution of e-mail marketing tactics, and shares three best practices for B2B marketing professionals to follow.

“Ensuring that your messages stand out in increasingly crowded inboxes is the most important part of any e-mail marketing campaign,” said Brian Zimmerman, Managing Director of OpenView Labs, the firm’s strategic consulting arm. “As our latest report shows, an e-mail’s content, design, and compatibility with mobile devices is what ultimately determines its success as a marketing medium.”

The report analyzes three e-mail marketing best practices, citing examples of them in action from companies such as Grovo, Delivery.com, Statusboard, and Eloqua. It also outlines how to optimize e-mail marketing campaigns by tracking and acting on key performance metrics.

“With nearly 3.4 billion e-mail active accounts worldwide, e-mail is not a dying medium,” continued Zimmerman. “The issue isn’t whether B2B marketers should be engaging their customers through e-mail, but rather if they’re doing enough to ensure that their messages are getting read.”

OpenView’s reports span a variety of topics, including technology, venture capital, marketing, and sales, and are created from the research OpenView Labs conducts in support of its portfolio companies. This report is the first of a four-part series that will analyze examples of B2B companies that are successfully implementing online marketing tactics across interactive content, crowd-sourcing, and location-based events. It comes on the heels of the firm’s June 2012 report, “Above and B2B-eyond: A Look at the Creative Marketing Tactics Leading B2B Technology Companies Are Using Online.”

About OpenView Venture Partners

OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion-stage venture capital fund based in Boston that is focused on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies quickly optimize their product, go-to-market, and organizational and operational functions. Founded in 2006, the firm invests globally and has approximately $440 million in total capital under management.

About OpenView Labs

OpenView Labs is the strategic and operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, a global venture capital fund that invests in expansion-stage technology companies. The Labs team consults to the management of OpenView’s portfolio companies across an array of functional areas, including recruiting, go-to-market support, and research and analytics. Together with its network of senior advisors, the team supports OpenView’s portfolio companies on a range of initiatives ranging from methodology incubation and market research, to providing strategic coaching.

Zmags, provider of commerce-enabled digital catalogs and publications, will participate on a mobile shopping panel at the Retail Systems Multi-Channel Conference.

The session — “Mobile – Joining up the Channels” — features executives who have experienced significant success by reaching today’s consumers through concise digital channels that provide a cohesive and engaging shopping experience.

This session will help retailers and brands understand how to best manage the changing mobile marketing environment to increase ROI. Panelists will discuss their successes on increasing brand loyalty through digital shopping and improving the reach of marketing campaigns. In addition, attendees will hear about projected future trends on various mobile devices, QR codes, mobile payments, apps and much more.

Who:		Martin Newman, CEO, Practicology (panel chairman)
		Alex Buckley, VP Sales & Marketing EMEA, Venda
		Hayley Meenan-Wilkin, Head of Web Operations, Tesco.com
		Sean McKee, Head of E-Commerce, Schuh
		Geoff Wright, Vice President, European Sales, Zmags
What:		Panel Discussion: “Mobile – Joining up the Channels”
When:		Thursday, September 20, 2012
		11:30am to 12:00pm
Where:		Hilton London Tower Bridge
		5 More London Place
		Tooley Street
		London
		SE1 2BY

About Zmags

Zmags unlocks new revenue opportunities for retailers and marketers by delivering fully-branded, commerce-enabled digital catalogs and publications that are consistent across all consumer touchpoints. The Zmags platform provides an immersive digital environment that invites discovery, deepens customer engagement and allows streamlined purchasing directly from the page.

Zmags is among the fastest growing technology companies in North America, having been named to the 2012 Red Herring Top 100 North America Tech Startups and the 2012 Inc 5000, and is ranked #70 on the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500. The company is headquartered in Boston, Mass. with offices in London and Copenhagen. For more information about Zmags, please visit www.zmags.com or follow us on Twitter: @zmags.

Contacts

Exinda, a global provider of next-generation WAN Optimization and application performance assurance solutions incorporating the Exinda 360 Dynamic Policy Engine, has been selected by the Picanol Group — a global player in the weaving machine industry — to provide solutions to prioritise critical applications and ensure that network traffic can be easily managed.

The Picanol Group specialises in the development, production and sales of weaving machines and other high technology products, systems and services based on air (airjet) or rapier technology. The Picanol Group needed a new supplier to support its WAN optimization programme following the acquisition of their incumbent vendor, the effect of the acquisition was that the installed products would no longer be supported.

Following extended testing, Exinda’s technology was selected over three other vendors after the initial Exinda implementation matched the Picanol Group’s expectations to such a degree that no other vendor testing was necessary.

“The initial deployment provided by Exinda was one of the best I have ever seen,” said Bart Lagast, Senior System Engineer at Picanol Group. “It really helped us to optimize our traffic so employees did not experience any delays. User experience was greatly improved.”

Initial results specifically showed all of the traffic between the Picanol Group data center and a remote site in Romania. As a result, the Picanol Group was able to decide what products they needed for future WAN optimization projects. In order to manage and control business critical applications over its global network and in its data center, Picanol Group will now be deploying Exinda products both centrally and at remote locations. The project is being rolled-out in cooperation with Exinda Partner Securelink, a leading security and networking integrator in the Benelux region.

Tim Hoefsloot, Sales Director Benelux and Nordics at Exinda commented, “We are very pleased that Picanol Group has selected Exinda following thorough research. Their decision underlines our commitment to delivering best-in-class products that offer customers the competitive edge they need today.”

The agreement between Exinda and Picanol Group includes a five-year maintenance contract and the complete global implementation will cover 8 sites.

ENDS

About the Picanol Group

The Picanol Group is an international, customer-oriented group specialized in the development, production and sale of weaving machines and other high-technology products, systems and services.

The Weaving Machines division (Picanol) develops, manufactures and sells high-tech weaving machines based on air (airjet) or rapier technology. Picanol supplies weaving machines to weaving mills worldwide, and also offers its customers such products and services as training, upgrade kits, spare parts and service contracts. For 75 years, Picanol has played a pioneering role in the industry worldwide, and is one of the current world leaders in weaving machine production.

The Industries division covers all activities not related to weaving machines: Proferro comprises the foundry and the group’s machining activities. It produces cast iron parts for e.g. compressors, pumps and agricultural machinery, and parts for Picanol weaving machines. Through PsiControl Mechatronics, the group specializes in the design, development, manufacturing and support of technological components, services and mechatronical system solutions for original equipment manufacturers in various industries. Melotte develops and produces innovative product solutions using Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) and Near-to-Net-Shape Manufacturing (NNSM) technologies.

In addition to the headquarters in Ypres (Belgium), the Picanol Group has production facilities in Asia and Europe, linked to its own worldwide sales and service network. In 2011, the Picanol Group realized a consolidated turnover of 466.95 million euros. The Picanol Group employs more than 1,900 employees worldwide.
http://www.picanolgroup.com

About Exinda

Exinda is a proven global supplier of next-generation WAN optimization and application performance assurance solutions. The company has helped more than 2,500 organizations in over 80 countries worldwide assure application performance, improve the end-user experience, contain recreational applications and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.