Roundup: Wildfire, Monetate, LinkedIn releases to push global engagement

by OpenView

First up, Monetate is opening a London office and expanding their services into the Eastern Hemisphere. The company reports they’ll enter African, Middle Eastern and European markets.

Harris comes to Monetate from leadership roles with Omniture (Adobe) and Touch Clarity.

And from LinkedIn a new targeting product which should help brands using the social network better target content within the LinkedIn structure. Called LinkedIn Targeted Status Updates, the product helps users create more targeted and relevant content updates to their follower lists. Philips, an early adopter of the platform, saw a 106% engagement increase using the product.

In a recent study LinkedIn found consumers are following companies/brands in the social space to look for company news (61%); giving these consumers more targeted and relevant information is another way to push that engagement level higher.

Finally, Wildfire is releasing YouTube channel management tools, enabling brands who use YouTube to distribute or share video content more control over that content.

“Now you can bring your brand’s ‘owned’ content to the world’s second largest social network, capitalizing on the communities that are unique to YouTube,” said Victoria Ransom, CEO of Wildfire. “Videos are the most shared content type across all social networks, which makes sense because people love to watch, browse, share, and vote on videos.”

The Wildfire YouTube Brand Channel Management enables brands to push branded promotions, content and social sharing features to their subscribers and integrate with other socnets including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Industry Survey Reveals Nearly 40 Percent of Creative Agencies Are Losing Business Due to Lack of Proper Collaboration Tools

by OpenView

The siloed days of the “Mad Men” agency model are a thing of the past as proven in an industry study titled “The State of Agency-Client Collaboration in 2012.”

More than 570 marketers, agency executives and staff responded to the survey, which was released today by Central Desktop, a leading cloud-based collaboration platform company. The goal of the survey is three-fold: examine the biggest challenges facing agencies and clients in working together, discover the level of importance agencies and brands place on collaboration tools, and gain insight into the perceived benefits of collaboration technologies in internal operations and as part of the agency-client relationship.

“As the agency grew, it became important for us to proactively improve productivity and collaboration in our delivery workflows – from internal creative development to working with clients on approvals to keeping projects on track and everything in between,” said Raj Choudhury, managing director and EVP operations at full-service marketing agency Engauge. “Implementing SocialBridge for Agencies moved us from almost seven different tools with seven different logins to a single platform with one login. Improving the way we communicate and work together is crucial to the success of an agency-brand relationship and to our ability to streamline internal project management. Agencies that will survive in the new competitive market already know this.”

Agencies are Getting the Collaboration Picture Loud and Clear from Clients

Engauge’s testimonial speaks volumes for many, with the main agency takeaways from the survey revealing the following:

  • An astounding 41 percent of agencies have had a client or prospect require them to have a collaboration system to keep or win a major account.
  • More than half (54 percent) consider it very or extremely beneficial if the various collaboration tools they use are housed in one platform with one login.
  • The top three benefits experienced since implementing existing collaboration tools include improved project management processes (50 percent), faster project completion (42 percent) and improved client service and satisfaction (40 percent).

Increased Collaboration is What Brands Want in an Agency

Those on the internal marketing side seemed to reinforce the agency responses in the survey, revealing the following:

  • Almost 40 percent of brands have not awarded business to an agency for lack of adequate tools for managing work and communications on the account.
  • Seventy-one percent consider it a competitive differentiator over other agencies if an agency has a single collaboration system to manage project work online.
  • More than half of brands surveyed consider it “very or extremely important” that an agency have an online collaboration system to work on projects and campaigns with them, with almost 25 percent having required an agency to have a collaboration system for keeping or winning an account and another 23 percent asking but not requiring an agency to have a system.
  • The top three benefits on the brand side experienced since implementing existing collaboration tools are: improved project management processes (60 percent), faster project completion (53 percent) and decreased time spent reporting and providing progress reports (44 percent).

“The results of this study are not surprising,” said Martin Schneider, research manager with industry analysis firm 451 Research. “The impact of social media, cloud-based platforms and the demographics of the modern worker have significantly altered today’s workplace. Employees, but more importantly customers, are demanding simple yet effective collaborative environments to better share data and be more productive in their roles. The added bonus: engaged workers and customers are more loyal and more profitable to businesses offering these modern, collaborative platforms on which to conduct business.”

“These survey numbers really back what we see every day in dealing with both agency and brand clients,” said Isaac Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Central Desktop. “It never fails to shock me when I walk into an agency and see people still passing back proofs for approval on paper like Peggy does on Mad Men. Agencies know they need a better solution – the brands are telling them and, in some cases, demanding it – but often times they don’t know what’s available, cobble together a solution or use a number of single-purpose tools. Our goal in creating SocialBridge is to address these very real business challenges.”

Relevant Links:

About Central Desktop

Central Desktop helps people work together in ways they never imagined possible. Our SocialBridge online collaboration platform connects people and information in the cloud, making it possible to share files, combine knowledge, inspire ideas, manage projects and more. Central Desktop serves more than half a million users worldwide. Key Central Desktop customers include CBS, Harvard University, the Humane Society of the United States, Netflix, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, SK+G Advertising, Rhea + Kaiser, Upshot, WD-40 and Workday. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company with headquarters in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit http://www.centraldesktop.com.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50318834&lang=en

Contacts

Intersect Communications for Central Desktop
Michelle Van Jura, 646-781-9323
[email protected]

Acronis to Speak and Exhibit at the 2012 Red Hat Summit

by OpenView

Acronis today announced that its Vice President of Product Management Dmitri Joukovski is speaking at the 2012 Red Hat Summit on the panel KVM on IBM System x – Leverage the Ecosystem!, being held on June 27, 2012 from 10:40-11:40am ET in room 306 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.

Together with Jean Staten Healy and Wes Ganeko of IBM, Carl Trieloff of Red Hat, and Travis Volk of Radware, Dimitri will address how KVM virtualization technology is rapidly gaining traction in the market as a cost-effective, enterprise-class virtualization alternative.

At the event, Acronis will also be showcasing Acronis Backup and Recovery and how, through a single console, it offers multi-environment support and the ability to centrally manage an organization’s business continuity and disaster recovery needs for Linux and Red Hat® Enterprise Virtualization® 3 (RHEV). Acronis is one the very few vendors to provide certified P2V, V2V, and V2P software to migrate physical systems and virtual machines (VMs) to RHEV, and was the first vendor to provide certified backup, disaster recovery, and data protection software to protect RHEV VMs at the time of launch.

Launched as the market’s first affordable solution for integrated disaster recovery and data protection in one, IT managers have counted on Acronis Backup and Recovery® for easy-to-use, reliable support for Linux since its inception. It effectively simplifies and automates backup and disaster recovery processes of Linux servers while minimizing downtime and increasing IT productivity.

As part of this year’s Red Hat Summit, Acronis is also conducting a survey to evaluate how backup and disaster recovery technologies are addressing the needs of the Linux market. To participate in this survey, please visit: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XPJQVTZ.

The Red Hat Summit is one of the premier open source technology events to showcase the latest and greatest in cloud computing, platform, virtualization, middleware, storage, and systems management technologies. For more information on the Red Hat Summit, please visitwww.redhat.com/summit.

If you are a member of the press or analyst community and are interested in setting up a meeting with Acronis at the Red Hat Summit, please contact Meredith L. Eaton via email at [email protected], or by phone at +1 617-960-9877.

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.

Acronis® and Acronis Backup & Recovery® a registered trademark of Acronis International GmbH in the United States and/or other countries.

Contact Information

Acronis
Lucy Millington
Tel: +1 781 782 9181
Email: [email protected]

March Communications
Meredith L. Eaton
Tel: +1 617 960 9877
Email: [email protected]

Project Management Software Company AtTask, Announces Launch of UK Website at AtTask.co.uk

by OpenView

As a leading provider of project management software, AtTask has announced the launching of its website in the United Kingdom. After great success in the United States, AtTask has branched into European markets and continues to expand into the global market as an innovator of project management.

AtTask software is designed to empower each individual member of a project. It creates a forum in which each person plays an important role in controlling his or her tasks. Through AtTask’s Team Home page, individuals are encouraged to manage their own tasks and workload within a community environment. This gives the team an opportunity to share completed and future task status, rather than relying on passing, undocumented conversation. Managers now, literally, have everyone on the same page.

AtTask’s Team home page provides visibility for managers to see the progresses made by each area and each person. The information provided by the empowered employees is gathered on a centralized page, presenting an accurate collection of completion progress. The information is translated into an interactive Gantt chart, which enables all to see the efforts of individuals reflected on the overall timeline of completion. This provides visual specifics of which issues need to be addressed in order to proceed with efficiency. The documented time, cost, comments and completion percentage is neatly laid out in a production chart built almost entirely from the workers on the “ground floor.”While similar products also contain features for success, AtTask offers the interaction that allows the entire team a picture of their role in the desired end result and an ownership in reaching that goal.

Team members can use AtTask’s “Stream” as a way to post and comment on each task at hand. This gives managers a sense of what is really going on. It becomes a way for the team to communicate openly to give the full story of the progress made or obstacles encountered by providing feedback to the group or a manager. Tasks can then be delegated and/or reprioritized accordingly. Time and work flow management are not only emphasized, but made interactive amongst the team members. Each person has ownership of their task management as well as a full spectrum of the efforts of other areas.AtTask software strives to prove that empowering individuals leads to solutions.

About AtTask

As an innovator in project monitoring software, AtTask is focused on the strengthening of the individuals that make a team and the team that completes the assignment. AtTask software is designed to work the way people work, with emphasis on the level of commitment and involvement of each individual driven to a common goal. AtTask continues to distribute a product dedicated to those working to understand, organize and take pride in the work that they do.

Monetate Opens London Office to Meet Demand From EMEA Companies

by OpenView

Monetate, a leader in online marketing technologies, today announced the opening of a London office to service the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) markets. The operation will be under the leadership of Mike Harris, Monetate’s Vice President, EMEA.

Monetate’s London office will service the entire EMEA region in an effort to keep pace with strong demand for the company’s services in those areas. The expansion is yet another milestone for the rapidly expanding online marketing agility firm, which has achieved exceptional growthsince its inception in 2008, including a 2011 yearly revenue increase of 278%.

“The decision to open an office in London is a direct result of the interest we are seeing from brands in EMEA that want to deliver a more relevant online customer experience,” said Monetate CEO David Brussin. “We anticipate that under Mike Harris’ leadership, we will rapidly grow our overseas presence.”

Harris joined Monetate last month to lead the EMEA expansion. He has over 10 years experience in the web optimization market, which includes leadership roles at Touch Clarity and Omniture (Adobe®) in EMEA.

“Today’s top brands know that in order to stay relevant, they need to tailor the online experience for the individual customer,” said Harris. “Brands across EMEA have awareness of and the need for Monetate’s online marketing services. I’m excited to have the opportunity to drive revenues and lead Monetate as we continue to help global brands create strong, recurring online customer relationships.”

“Since implementing the solution in 2011, Monetate has been instrumental in helping us hone Kiddicare’s online marketing strategy to meet the needs of individual customers,” said Simon Harrow at Kiddicare.com. “The Monetate solutions have not only improved the shopping experience for the online consumer, but have markedly increased in-store traffic and sales due to geo-targeted website promotions. We are thrilled to see the commitment Monetate is making to the U.K. with this expansion.”

About Monetate

Monetate drives billions of dollars of incremental revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, QVC, Urban Outfitters, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser technology to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. The Monetate Agility Suite includes advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting, and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands. Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams. For more information visit http://monetate.com/ or follow us on Twitter @Monetate.

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, FrameMaker, PageMaker, Photoshop and PostScript are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

Contact Information

Media Contacts:

Marifran Manzo-Ritchie
Director of Corporate Communications
Monetate
[email protected]
215-987-4441

LaunchSquad for Monetate
Matt Calderone
[email protected]
212-564-3665

Acronis Included in Enterprise Backup & Recovery Magic Quadrant 2012

by OpenView

Acronis, a leading provider of backup and disaster recovery solutions today announced that it has been included in the Gartner Enterprise Backup & Recovery Magic Quadrant for 20121.

Acronis has been positioned in the Niche Players quadrant with its unified platform that supports backup and recovery tasks for physical Windows or Linux machines, all major hypervisors (VMware®, Microsoft®, Citrix®, and Red Hat®) and data within Cloud environments from one management console and one solution. Acronis is the only vendor to provide a solution that can restore a virtual machine to any hypervisor. Initially targeted at businesses with limited or no IT function, Acronis is expanding application and Cloud support to broaden the scope of this highly scalable product for data protection and disaster recovery for organizations of all sizes.

The report highlights that the industry is about to undergo a period of change citing:

  • By 2016, one-third of organizations will change backup vendors due to frustration over cost, complexity and/or capability; and
  • By 2015, at least 25% of large enterprises will have given up on conventional backup/recovery software, and will employ snapshot and replication techniques instead.

“There are three major challenges facing data management strategies today,” commented Alex Pinchev, president & CEO of Acronis. “The explosion of data creation, the widespread adoption of virtual environments and the introduction of unstructured cloud storage options are driving new and very real complexity into the traditional backup and recovery market. With the maturity of disk imaging, snapshot and replication technology, the challenge is not within the backup, but the speed at which data can be found or machines restored with near-zero downtime. The next generation of backup and recovery technology must recognize and respond to these challenges.”

This latest report highlights the challenges facing enterprise buyers by only including vendors with a broad-based and heterogenous backup application, although in reference to the expectation that by the “end of 2016, 45% of large enterprises will have eliminated tape for operational recovery,” tape capabilities were no longer a necessity for inclusion.

1 Gartner “Enterprise Backup and Recovery Magic Quadrant” by Dave Russell, Alan Dayley, Sheila Childs, Pushan Rinnen, June 11, 2012.

Notes to the editor:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Acronis

Acronis is a leading provider of next generation data protection and disaster recovery solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments. With Acronis’ easy to use unified platform approach to backup, disaster recovery, data protection and migration software, IT professionals can very efficiently protect and maintain the availability of critical servers, applications and data to achieve desired recovery point (RPO) and time objectives (RTO), while substantially reducing total cost of ownership. With over a decade of research and development investment to deliver innovative products to organizations of all sizes, 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.

Acronis® is a registered trademark of Acronis International GmbH in the United States and/or other countries.

Contact Information

Press Inquiries 

U.S.
Meredith L. Eaton
March Communications
Tel: +1 617-960-9877
Email: [email protected]

ExactTarget to Host Exclusive Mobile Marketing Webcast featuring Independent Research Firm

by OpenView

Forrester Research Inc. Vice President and Principal Analyst Julie Ask will join global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget (NYSE: ET) for a live webcast at 2 p.m. June 21 to provide marketers an exclusive look at how mobile is transforming marketing.

Featuring the latest research and real-world examples from ExactTarget client Siemens, the exclusive webcast will explore how organizations can get started with mobile and offer best practices for integrating mobile into the interactive mix across email, social media and the Web.

“Mobile is generating both substantial web traffic and revenue for consumer-facing companies,” wrote Julie Ask, vice president and principal analyst, Forrester Research, Inc. in the May 2012 report entitled “2012 Mobile Trends For eBusiness Professionals”. “While mobile is maturing as a technology, touchpoint, and medium, it is far from mature. The speed of change is challenging companies to rethink resource allocation, organizational structures, and internal processes ranging from development methodologies to key performance metrics.”

In addition to sharing findings from Forrester’s latest research, Ask will offer exclusive advice to help marketers view mobile more holistically across the entire customer experience from acquisition to relationship marketing. Key areas of discussion will include:

  • Understanding the role of mobile across email and social media
  • Discovering how to easily get started with mobile marketing
  • Exploring the future of mobile marketing and customer experience

Marketers can register for the webcast here. All registered attendees will receive a complimentary copy of ExactTarget’s Field Guide to Mobile Messaging.

“As consumers’ messaging habits evolve, so must marketers’ ability to deliver relevant, timely information in real time,” said Tim Kopp, ExactTarget’s chief marketing officer. “Our exclusive webcast with Forrester’s Julie Ask and Siemens will help marketers demystify mobile marketing and provide real-world examples and advice on how to unlock the power of mobile to connect with customers around the world.”

The announcement of the exclusive webcast follows the launch of ExactTarget MobileConnect. Available as a standalone application or fully integrated into the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, MobileConnect provides a powerful and intuitive cloud-based application to power SMS alerts and mobile marketing messaging worldwide. To learn more, visit www.ExactTarget.com/Mobile.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of email marketing and cross-channel interactive marketing software-as-a-service solutions that empower organizations of all sizes to communicate with their customers through email, mobile, social media and websites. ExactTarget’s powerful suite of integrated applications enable marketers to plan, automate, deliver and optimize data-driven interactive marketing and real-time communications to drive customer engagement, increase sales and improve return on marketing investment. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana with offices across North America and in Europe, South America and Australia, ExactTarget trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ET.” For more information, visit www.ExactTarget.com.

Contacts

Media Contact:
Finn Partners
Kari Brownsberger, 312-329-3980
[email protected]

COMPUTERLINKS and Exinda Launch Multi-Region Distribution Relationship

by OpenView

COMPUTERLINKS, the next-generation distributor of IT security and Internet technology solutions, today announced it has entered into an agreement with Exinda, a global provider of next-generation WAN Optimization and application performance assurance solutions incorporating the Exinda 360 Dynamic Policy Engine.

This partnership will enable Exinda to better satisfy growing market demand for its suite of solutions and further reinforces its commitment for global growth.

As the leading value-added distributor, COMPUTERLINKS will help Exinda increase its channel footprint in North America and significantly extend the reach of Exinda’s sales, service and support capabilities as it seeks to enter new markets and increase market share.

Exinda enables organizations to assure the performance of their strategic business applications through policy-based WAN optimization that intelligently applies acceleration and containment based on the priorities of the business. Exinda is the first vendor to bring to market an integrated suite that delivers application assurance as part of its core WAN optimization offering.

“The partnership with Exinda is an outstanding opportunity for both our companies,” said Russell Zientek, CEO of COMPUTERLINKS North America. “We are excited to finally bring a truly outstanding and competitive WAN Optimization and Application Assurance solution to our reseller partners. No other solution provides visibility, QoS, and acceleration within a single suite, which sets Exinda apart from the legacy WAN optimization providers. Our resellers will appreciate being able to address multiple customer needs with a single solution.”

COMPUTERLINKS will be offering evaluations, pre-sales technical resources, and a fully certified sales team to assist North American resellers in their development.

“Exinda is setting the standard for WAN Optimization 2.0 solutions with the addition of user, application, and contextual profiling and containment in addition to traditional WAN optimization services,” said Kevin Kirksey, Global VP of Sales for Exinda. “COMPUTERLINKS has a proven track record in bringing next-generation solutions to market and building momentum in the channel. We’re excited about the future of this relationship.”

About COMPUTERLINKS

COMPUTERLINKS is one of the leading value added distributors for international top manufacturers in information technology. As the link between the manufacturers and resellers, COMPUTERLINKS smooth the path for the successful distribution of intelligent IT solutions from the areas of e-security and e-business. The COMPUTERLINKS product portfolio is geared to the growing needs of customers for security in the field of ever more complex, global IT structures. With branches in 18 countries COMPUTERLINKS reach is constantly expanding to cover new territories and strive to retain its position as a leading VAD for international IT manufacturers, who are all market leaders in their fields. For more information, please visithttp://www.computerlinks.com.

About Exinda

Exinda is a proven global supplier of next-generation WAN Optimization and application performance assurance products. The company has helped more than 2,500 organizations 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.