This week's news on cloud computing.
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SuccessFactors Announces Preliminary Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2011 Results
3 FebResponseSource Press Release Wire
LONDON, UK. – Feb. 3, 2012 – SuccessFactors, Inc. (NYSE:SFSF) today announced that based on currently available, unaudited information, the Company expects fiscal 2011 fourth quarter GAAP revenue of approximately $97 million and non-GAAP revenue of approximately $100 million. The difference between GAAP and non-GAAP revenue is approximately $3 million associated with the net impact of acquisition related deferred revenue before fair value adjustment. Billings, defined as GAAP revenue plus change in deferred revenue, are expected to be approximately $144 million for the fourth quarter. Billings profit, defined as billings less non-GAAP cost of revenue and operating expenses, is expected to be approximately $44.5 million, which translates into a fourth quarter billings margin of 31 percent. Deferred revenue as of Dec. 31, 2011 is expected to be approximately $295 million. Cash flow from operations for the fourth quarter is expected to be approximately $24.0 million.
GAAP operating loss for the quarter is expected to be $8.3 million, and GAAP net loss per share for the quarter is expected to be $0.02. Non-GAAP operating income for the quarter is expected to be $0.1 million and non-GAAP net loss per share for the quarter is expected to be $0.02. The non-GAAP measures used by SuccessFactors in this press release include the net impact of acquisition related deferred revenue before fair value adjustment, and exclude the impact of stock-based compensation expense, the amortization of intangible assets, integration costs, future cash consideration of acquisitions and deal related costs, revaluation of contingent consideration or write-downs for fair value accounting related to business combination, any unrealized foreign exchange gain/loss on an intercompany loan related to the acquisition of Inform, and a tax benefit related to the acquisition of Jobs2web.
Use of Non-GAAP Financial Information:
SuccessFactors provides quarterly and annual financial statements that are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). To help understand SuccessFactors’ past financial performance and future results, SuccessFactors has supplemented its financial results that it provides in accordance with GAAP, with non-GAAP financial measures. The method SuccessFactors uses to produce non-GAAP financial results is not computed according to GAAP and may differ from the methods used by other companies. The non-GAAP measures used by SuccessFactors in this press release include non-GAAP revenue, billings, billings profit, billings margin, non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP net loss per share. Non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP loss per share exclude the impact of stock-based compensation expense, the amortization of intangible assets, integration costs, future cash consideration of acquisitions and deal related costs, revaluation of contingent consideration or write-downs for fair value accounting related to business combination, any unrealized foreign exchange gain/loss on an intercompany loan related to the acquisition of Inform, and a tax benefit related to the acquisitions of Jobs2web.
The Company defines billings as revenue plus change in total deferred revenue. Non-GAAP revenue includes the net impact of acquisition related deferred revenue that is required to be adjusted to fair value for GAAP purposes under purchase accounting rules. SuccessFactors’ reference to these non-GAAP financial results should be considered in addition to results that are prepared under current accounting standards but should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial results that are presented as consistent with GAAP. SuccessFactors’ management believes each of these supplemental non-GAAP financial measures is useful to investors because these supplemental non-GAAP financial measures are used internally by management to understand, manage and evaluate SuccessFactors’ business and make operating decisions. These non-GAAP financial measures are among the factors SuccessFactors’ management uses in planning for and forecasting future periods. Reconciliation to the nearest GAAP financial measures of the non-GAAP financial measures is included in this press release.
About SuccessFactors
SuccessFactors is the leading provider of cloud-based Business Execution Software, and delivers business alignment, team execution, people performance, and learning management solutions to organizations of all sizes across more than 60 industries. With approximately 15 million subscription seats globally, we strive to delight our customers by delivering innovative solutions, content and analytics, process expertise and best practices insights from serving our broad and diverse customer base. Today, we have more than 3,500 customers in more than 168 countries using our application suite in 35 languages.
It's Time to Love Work Again.
Follow us: http://twitter.com/SuccessFactors
Like us: http://facebook.com/SuccessFactors
"Safe harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are SuccessFactors' current expectations and beliefs.
These forward-looking statements include statements about the benefits of the proposed acquisition. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements include: our ability to retain customers and to experience high customer renewal rates; integration risks, including risks related to integration of Jobs2web products, technologies and personnel and managing geographically-dispersed operations; assumption of liabilities; whether customers of Jobs2web will desire to continue as customers pricing pressures; the uncertain impact of the overall global economic conditions, including on customers, prospective customers and partners, renewal rates and length of sales cycles; the fact that the business execution market is at an early stage of development, and may not develop as rapidly as we anticipate; competitive factors; outages or security breaches; our ability to develop, and market acceptance of, new services; the impact of any discovered product defects or outages; our ability to continue to sell our services outside the HR area; our ability to manage our growth; our ability to successfully expand our sales force and its effectiveness; whether our resellers and other partners will be successful in marketing our products; our ability to continue to manage expenses; the impact of unforeseen expenses, including as a result of integrating acquisitions; and general economic conditions worldwide. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make.
Further information on these and other factors that could affect these forward-looking statements is included in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our most recent report on Form 10-Q and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.
Contact:
Vanessa Land
Devonshire Marketing
Tel: 01276 675 571
Email: vanessa@devonshiremarketing.com -
iomart calls on UK Government to make Kitemark for Child Online Safety compulsory for public sector
2 FebResponseSource Press Release Wire
iomart Group, one of the UK’s leading web hosting companies, is today calling on the UK Government to insist that all public sector organisations with a duty of care to children should only purchase software products that have been awarded the BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety.
iomart Group’s stance follows the announcement today (2nd February 2012) by the Science and Technology Select Committee, that the UK government should consider imposing safety standards on software sold if self-regulation isn’t adopted by the IT industry.
iomart’s web security software Netintelligence, which provides internet protection for 100,000s of school children and families in the UK, is the first and only such software to carry the BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety. Netintelligence was awarded the Kitemark by Children and Families Minister Tim Loughton in January 2011. So far, no other UK software company has taken up the accreditation and the government has not supported the Kitemark publicly.
The BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety is a certification scheme for internet website filtering software produced by software manufacturers. These products can be bought as stand-alone products from computer retailers or come as part of an operating system or ISP package. The software’s ease of use, reliability, and performance must meet the scheme’s strict criteria.
Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “Back in 2007, iomart along with the British Standards Institute, OFCOM, the Home Office, several major UK child safety organisations and other private sector companies spent a considerable amount of time working on the specifications required for PAS 74 (Access control systems for the protection of children online), which ultimately became the BSI Kitemark for Online Child Safety.
Rather than yet another clarion call for more action, the UK Government could make a bold stance now. It should insist that all public sector organisations with a duty of care towards protecting children online, for example schools and local authorities, should only purchase products that have been awarded the Kitemark. That way other commercial companies will have to follow the lead of Netintelligence and iomart to provide software that the public can trust.”
iomart Group plc is ranked as one of the top web hosting companies in the world by HostReview and is Scottish Digital IT Company of the Year 2011. Bill Strain was recently named IT Leader of the Year 2011 by IT Pro.
For more information about iomart Group plc visit www.iomart.com
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News release issued by Jane Robertson, Head of PR for iomart Group plc. For more information please email jane.robertson@iomart.com or call 0141 931 6474 (dir), 0141 931 6400 or 07827948993 (mob).
Notes for editors:
About iomart Group plc:
iomart Group plc (AIM:IOM) is one of the UK’s leading providers of managed hosting and cloud computing services. From a single server through to private cloud networks, iomart specialises in the delivery and management of mission-critical hosting services, enabling customers to reduce the costs, complexity and risks associated with maintaining their own web and online applications.
By physically owning and managing its own global network infrastructure, iomart offers world-beating levels of service to its customers. The Group offers a unique 100% uptime guarantee with all hosting services being engineered to ensure no single point of failure.
iomart Group operates in its chosen markets through a number of subsidiaries: iomart Hosting, RapidSwitch, Easyspace, EQSN and Westcoastcloud. The group has been listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) since April 2000. For more information about iomart Group plc visit www.iomart.com
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Alfresco’s New Cloud Connected Content Platform Enables Enterprise Tablet Productivity
2 FebResponseSource Press Release Wire
Alfresco Enterprise 4 Delivers Mobile Content & Social Publishing for Users and Forms the Foundation for Alfresco’s New Cloud Service
London, February 2, 2012 — Alfresco, the open platform for social content management, today announced the general availability of Alfresco Enterprise 4, delivering an intuitive, HTML5-enabled interface for social content collaboration, enhanced mobile access to enable enterprise tablet adoption and seamless integrations with business productivity tools, like GoogleDocs, Microsoft Office & Quickoffice HD. In addition, Alfresco Enterprise 4 is the foundation for Alfresco in the cloud – a new, truly multi-tenant cloud collaboration service by Alfresco (currently in beta).
The enterprise workforce is changing rapidly. More than ever before, users are driving the change by forcing the corporate adoption of new social communication tools, new cloud services and new mobile devices. In just the last year, tablets have gone from being a consumer novelty to being the fastest growing corporate computing device in history. With Alfresco Enterprise 4, Alfresco is launching the first step in a new approach to content management that equips organizations to address the needs of today’s mobile, social and global workforce. Alfresco calls this approach cloud connected content.
Cloud connected content is content that is accessible from any device, able to be integrated and even synced with other cloud services, able to be published to cloud-based social sites, able to be shared inside or outside the firewall - and yet still able to be managed and controlled by the enterprise. Legacy proprietary ECM vendors can’t deliver cloud connected content because they are trapped in last-generation architectures and business models. Cloud-only upstarts can’t deliver cloud connected content because their one-size-fits-all, cloud-only approach and lack of rich metadata and workflow can’t meet the needs of complex organisations.
“We’re proud to release Alfresco Enterprise 4 today across the globe”, said John Powell, CEO and co-founder of Alfresco. “Never before has the focus of enterprise software been so squarely on empowering users to not just get work done, but to do great work by collaborating anywhere, on any device, with the tools of their choice. Alfresco is the company best positioned to bring enterprise requirements and the power of the cloud together to create real value for both companies and their employees.”
On top of the new features and usability enhancements, Alfresco Enterprise 4 includes dramatic improvements in overall performance, indexing, administration and extensibility – featuring 3x faster content uploads, among many other performance improvements.
New Features in Alfresco Enterprise 4 Include:
•New Mobile Device Support — Access and edit content from any device; smartphone, tablet, browser or through open standards like CMIS & WebDAV, enabling users to start processes, annotate documents, edit and save with just a few clicks or swipes
•New Social Interactions — Document management gets social and more adopted as users can “like” content, “follow” other users and see content activity streams
•New Productivity Apps — Use the productivity app of your choice, integrated with Alfresco; Microsoft Office, GoogleDocs, Apple iWork on iPad, Quickoffice HD, PDFExpert, Adobe Creative Suite and many more
•New User Interface Functionality — Tap into the refined, modern browser UI with key HTML5 interactions like file drag & drop and move and previews of virtually any common file type (docs, videos, audio, Adobe files, iWork files, etc.)
•New Publishing Channels — Connect and publish content to social media channels, such as YouTube, SlideShare, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr
•New Cloud Use Cases — Collaborate with users outside the firewall with Alfresco in the cloud (in beta), while still maintaining control of your corporate content assets
•New Scalability Options — Choose horizontal clusters, or run the Alfresco content server, Alfresco Share collaboration application and Alfresco Indexing server each on separate servers (physical or virtual) for high-performance applications
•New Customization & Extensibility Options — Easily customize and extend the Alfresco Share application, with new configuration options and drop-in custom extensions; build your own mobile app with the open source Alfresco Mobile code
•Significant Performance Improvements — 3x faster content uploads, 10x faster user dashboard queries, 25-50% faster loading document libraries and document metadata
Next Steps in Alfresco’s Cloud Connected Content Strategy
Alfresco Enterprise 4 is the foundational platform for Alfresco’s cloud connected content vision, and will be followed by new services and integrations throughout 2012, including:
•Launch of Alfresco in the cloud – Coming Spring 2012, Alfresco in the cloud will be a full, multi-tenant Alfresco content & collaboration experience. In private beta now, all existing and new Alfresco Enterprise customers who purchase Alfresco Enterprise 4 by February 29, 2012 will get 1 terabyte of free cloud storage for the duration of their subscription (subject to promotion rules at http://alfresco.com/alfresco4)
•Launch of Dropbox integration – Also in Spring 2012, Alfresco will launch Dropbox integration for both Alfresco Enterprise 4 & Alfresco in the cloud, allowing users to promote Dropbox content to Alfresco. Dropbox is a free service that lets people bring their documents, photos and videos everywhere and share them easily
•Launch of Alfresco cloud connector – In Spring 2012, Alfresco will roll out the first phase of its cloud & on-premise sync technology, fully supported and delivered by Alfresco. This will allow a seamless connection between Alfresco Enterprise & Alfresco in the cloud, to allow enterprises to intelligently mesh on-premise document management with cloud collaboration and file sharing for B2B collaboration
To learn more about Alfresco Enterprise 4 and to download a free trial, please go to http://alfresco.com/alfresco4. To download the Alfresco mobile app for iPad or iPhone, please click here.
About Alfresco:
Alfresco is how great businesses share, organize and protect their content. Alfresco’s community includes thousands of customers, partners and developers in 55 countries across the globe.
Founded in 2005, Alfresco is headquartered in London, with US headquarters in Atlanta.
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UK Media Contact
Lucy Jones
Noiseworks
lucyj@noiseworks.com
01628 421 557 -
HOW TO MOVE PAINLESSLY TO IPV6
1 FebResponseSource Press Release Wire
How ready are you for World IPv6 Day on 6th June, 2012?
Woking, Surrey: 1st February 2012 - Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill Group, today said that, with World IPv6 Day (1) fast approaching on 6th June this year, it is time for organisations to deal with the impact of IPv6 on their networks.
“The address pool for IPv4 was exhausted last year,” said Kilpatrick. “Major Internet service providers, (ISPs), manufacturers and web companies around the world are coming together to enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6th June. With these moves, and to take advantage of the increased scalability of IPV6, organisations have to plan now to deal with the impact of IPv6 on their business infrastructure.”
Kilpatrick stressed that most organisations weren’t looking for a ‘Big Bang’ approach to IPV6, not least because of the cost and disruption.
“While infrastructure tenders going forward will need to specify IPv6 capability,” he said, “users aren’t going to abandon their working IPv4 environment, so, the short-to-medium term likely route will be integration, not migration.”
Kilpatrick was speaking as Wick Hill announced that it had been appointed UK and Ireland distributor for US vendor A10 Networks. A10 Networks, a technology leader in application networking makes high performance products that help organisations of all sizes accelerate, optimise and secure their applications.
A10 provides the AX Series, an advanced traffic manager with exceptional price/performance, which delivers a cost-effective and fast alternative to the expensive core routers that many companies believe are necessary to deal with IPv4 exhaustion.
The AX Series provides advanced technologies for IPv4 preservation, IPv4/IPv6 co-existence and full IPv6 migration. It offers a high performance IPv4/IPv6 gateway for load balancing IPv6 traffic and for high speed IPv4/IPv6 translation.
Features include dual stack support for IPv4 and IPv6 server load balancer (SLB), SLB-PT/SLB64, carrier grade NAT (CGN), large scale NAT (LSN), 6rd, DS-Lite and NAT64/DNS64. Functionality includes the ability to allow legacy IPv4 devices to keep talking to the IPv4 Internet, and enable needed communications for new IPv6 devices to the IPv4 Internet or vice versa.
Mark Edge, director sales EMEA, A10 Networks, said: “A10 Networks is at the forefront of innovation for IPv6 migration, offering the most comprehensive solutions for IPv4 preservation, IPv4-IPv6 translation and full IPv6 migration in a single platform today. Our flagship AX Series Application Delivery Controller family offers flexible possibilities for deployment. We are pleased to be the vendor of choice to support service providers, content providers and enterprises in evaluating and enabling IPv6 on their networks.”
About Wick Hill
Established in 1976, value added distributor Wick Hill specialises in secure IP infrastructure solutions and convergence. The company sources and delivers best-of-breed, easy-to-use solutions through its channel partners, with a portfolio that covers security, performance, access, networking, convergence and hosted solutions.
Wick Hill is part of the Wick Hill Group, based in Woking, Surrey with sister offices in Hamburg. Wick Hill is particularly focused on providing a wide range of value added support for its channel partners. This includes a strong lead generation and conversion programme, technical and consultancy support for reseller partners in every stage of the sales process, and extensive training facilities.
About A10 Networks
A10 Networks was founded in 2004 with a mission to provide innovative networking and security solutions. As the technology leader in Application Networking, A10 makes award-winning, high-performance products that help organisations accelerate, optimize and secure their applications. The AX Series platforms offer solutions for Application Delivery, IPv6 Migration and Cloud Computing & Virtualisation.
A10 Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
ENDS
1. World IPv6 Day - http://internetsociety.org/news/world-ipv6-launch-solidifies...
For further press information, please contact Annabelle Brown on 01326 318212, email pr@wickhill.com. For pic of Ian Kilpatrick and Mark Edge, contact Annabelle Brown or download from www.wickhill.com/company/press/pictures. For reader queries, contact Wick Hill on 01483 227600. Web www.wickhill.com. For more information, on A10 Networks, visit http://www.a10networks.com
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New band of the day – No 1,197: Seasfire
31 Janwww.guardian.co.uk
Inspired by Buckley and Burial, these Bristol boys tread a fine line between chilling and chill-out
Hometown: Bristol.
The lineup: Josh Thorn (vocals), James Sinclair (drums, electronics), Joe Labanowski (piano, electronics, synths, vocals) and David Callaby (guitars, vocals).
The background: Seasfire – Your New Favourite Band according to Amazing Radio – could have come to us in a dream. We mean their music is perfect for late nights, dreamy not in the sense of lulling and soft but in the way it evokes the disturbed reveries of those early hours between waking and sleep. But we also mean they are, in many ways, our dream (new) group: a rock band who approximate the sound made by Abel Tesfaye, alias R&B wunderkind the Weekend. Whatever equipment Tesfaye uses, and whatever techniques he employs, the four members of Seasfire, with guitars, drums and electronics, achieve a similar effect.
Their name suggests the aftermath of a period of conflagration, and indeed they talk of their music as concerning "the dead-end relationships they've been in" – they put the "quiet" into "disquiet". Their songs are also about "the general feeling of hopelessness in unemployment, with too much time on their hands and dreaming of escape". Dreaming. That word again. And another that rattles our subconscious: "aftermath." Wasn't that the title of a Tricky song? Makes sense, because Seasfire come from Bristol, birthplace of music that navigates a path between the gentle and sinister, equal parts mellow vibes and massive attack. The players, all in their late teens or early twenties, met at school and college, where they swapped mixtapes and DJd at each others' parties. They bought a bunch of second-hand studio equipment and broken computers, and decided to form a band, laidback but fired up by a shared love of the "B" boys: Buckley (Jeff), the Bunnymen, Burial. For once, here is band who actually sound like the sum of their influences, although we'd add another "B" to the list – James Blake – even if they might recoil from the reference because Blake could be seen as ephemeral/trendy whereas the others, even Burial, have a ring of the long-lasting about them, the "classic".
Anyway, Seasfire will be bringing an atmosphere of sepulchral sorrow to bear on the Notting Hill Arts Club this Sunday as part of a Communion night, where they will undoubtedly be performing the three tracks we have by them on our SoundCloud (now with new, improved widget!). Falling – hailed by Mary Anne Hobbs as a Game Changer – features lots of dead space (silence is the new noise, and all that) and Josh Thorn's soaring, clear, pure tones. If anything, his voice is too upfront, a little Chris Martin, a bit "good", when we'd rather he melted into the mix. The production showcases the spaciousness, the beats, the FX, and the piano pounds like a series of depth-charges. The lyrics read like portents ("Your body is starting to bruise" … "warning" … "control" …) while the video is as black and white and baleful as you'd like. Human Sacrifice teeters on that fine line between chilling and chill-out, sounding like a dubstep Coldplay. Finally, on First and Last Time the choral vocals make explicit the hymnal ambience of this music, with the idea proposed by Seasfire that life and love are solemn affairs best approached with religious awe. This weekend: meet the UK Weeknd.
The buzz: "A four-piece from Bristol who write moving, naked prayers to despair and resignation" – Music Broke My Bones.
The truth: They're willing and Abel.
Most likely to: Enthral.
Least likely to: Fall.
What to buy: First single Falling is released on iTunes on 27 February.
File next to: James Blake, Burial, Coldplay, the Weeknd.
Links: seasfire.tumblr.com.
Wednesday's new band: Ram's Pocket Radio.
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds -
ReadSoft Online – the back office simplified for all business
31 JanResponseSource Press Release Wire
Milton Keynes, UK, January 31st, 2012 - ReadSoft, a global provider of software for back office process automation, announces the launch of ReadSoft Online, a cloud based service that automatically captures data from documents including supplier invoices. ReadSoft Online represents a simple, flexible choice for document and invoice automation, with a low cost of ownership.
ReadSoft Online is a user-friendly web application which incorporates the company’s globally proven advanced back office automation technology. ReadSoft Online delivers flexibility for small to medium businesses, even if a company lacks a dedicated IT resource. With the provision of an easy to operate on-network one-touch scanner, businesses can immediately bring their back office processes and automation online, transforming the collection, storage and management of paper and electronic documents.
Users can scan, upload or send via e-mail documents and invoices to ReadSoft Online. The software automatically extracts the relevant data from the fields. It is then verified, and sent to the receiving applications along with related images. The images can be automatically stored within the Cloud providing very low cost, short term storage and back up, with immediate access to the business user or finance department.
Simon Shorthose, Managing Director, ReadSoft UK: “One of the frustrations facing business growth is the repeated delays when delivering new back office projects. With the need to juggle internal resources, capital expenditure for new on premise solutions, even in the best of business cases, can be prohibitive. ReadSoft Online gives companies a new choice with a quick to implement service that delivers leading back office automation. With just the operating costs to meet, ReadSoft Online makes it easier to manage the back office and plan for future growth.”
While the adoption of cloud computing is accelerating across all organisations, it is particularly important for those which are planning to expand operations, and software as a service (SaaS) such as ReadSoft Online represents a way to quickly ‘get out of the gate’.
Over the past 5 years - according to the Aberdeen Group’s 2011 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) survey - there has been an increased willingness to consider SaaS ERP, and 2011 saw the largest increase yet. 41% of businesses considering SaaS ERP are looking for the best fit solution. For those companies considering offloading all finance ERP to the Cloud, ReadSoft Online provides a self contained low risk, low cost way to make a first move into using Cloud. Scalable by volume and supported by an internationality of product, ReadSoft Online has the power of a leading innovator in the global accounts payable market behind it, helping any company, no matter the size to use the Cloud to help them grow on a global business stage.
ReadSoft is working with key ERP vendors in the UK to integrate ReadSoft Online into their applications, delivering new ways for organisations to manage their invoices, expenses, human resources and other general documentation.
For more on ReadSoft Online visit www.readsoft.co.uk
Ends
As follows of this press release, ReadSoft’s counterparty in the transaction or co-operation is not mentioned by name. This is due to that ReadSoft’s counterparty has required to be anonymous. This information is such that ReadSoft AB (publ) is to publish in accordance with the Swedish Securities Markets Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication on January 31, 2012 at 11:30 CET.
For additional information, please contact:
Gary Marshall
XL Communications
Tel. +44 (0)77 3322 4654
Email: Gary@xl-comms.com
About ReadSoft
ReadSoft is the largest global provider of software and services to businesses that want to better control and improve back office and administrative processes. ReadSoft’s products enable companies to automate data entry, classification, ERP matching, workflows, and e-invoicing. Results achieved by using Readsoft’s automation are improved productivity and compliance, and reduced cost and time. Founded in 1991 Readsoft has operations on five continents. The company is headquartered in Helsingborg, Sweden and trades on the NASDAQ OMX – Stockholm’s Small Cap List. For more information about ReadSoft, please visit www.readsoft.co.uk -
World’s first server with total liquid submersion cooling technology is now available from Boston Ltd. in the UK
31 JanResponseSource Press Release Wire
The LSS 200 can reduce data centre cooling costs by 80% or more and deliver a 40% or more decrease in overall electricity costs
London, UK – 31st January, 2012 – Boston Limited announced today the UK availability of the world’s first patented server with total liquid submersion technology - the LSS 200. By regulating server temperature more effectively than any existing server, the LSS 200 reduces power consumption and costs, maximises floor space and decreases a data centres’ carbon footprint. Boston is the exclusive UK reseller of LSS 200 systems, manufactured by Hardcore Computer, Inc.
Unlike other servers that use costly and power-hungry air cooling, the LSS 200 is submerged in a dielectric liquid, Core Coolant™, that has 1350 times greater heat removal capacity than air. This negates the need for expensive air conditioning and air moving equipment to keep the whole data centre at an optimum temperature. When compared to traditional data centres, LSS can reduce energy costs of cooling by 80% or more, resulting in an overall cost savings potential of 40% or more.
As a result of the improved temperature regulation, LSS 200 systems deliver server performance enhancements that fit perfectly in demanding, high speed and performance-critical environments such as high frequency trading (HFT). The system is extremely durable, with the highest levels of reliability and performance, creating an ideal solution for running all quantitative applications, such as pre-trade analytics and trading model creation.
Chad Attlesey, President, Chief Technology Officer, and Founder of Hardcore Computer commented, “Regulating server temperatures has been an on-going challenge in data centres for many years, as it has a direct correlation with server power and performance. Traditional cooling solutions have proven very costly and their efficiency is limited, thus data centres are continually battling with escalating power consumption and associated costs. The total liquid submersion cooling technology in the LSS 200 is the most effective solution on the market.”
Manoj Nayee, Managing Director, Boston Ltd. added, “The LSS 200 is one of the most innovative data centre products available today and addresses the server performance demands of data centres – especially financial institutions. As one of the leading financial hubs in the world, the UK market will benefit immensely from the introduction of the LSS 200.”
Hardcore’s liquid submersion technology was recently evaluated by two major providers of technology to the financial services industry; Citihub and TIBCO. The independent test found that using a total liquid submersion-cooled Hardcore Computer system, in conjunction with TIBCO FTL, delivered a 34% improvement over previously published benchmarks for inter-process communications, with a latency of 237 nanoseconds at 4.2 million messages per second.
Donovan Ransome, head of e-trading and market data of Citihub said, “This record once again demonstrates Citihub and Hardcore’s low latency engineering capability. We have been improving and tuning milliseconds and microseconds from electronic trading applications for over a decade by combining the knowledge and experience of our consultants and engineers with close industry relationships with key innovators such as SuperMicro, Intel, Hardcore Computer and TIBCO.”
For further information please visit: www.boston.co.uk
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Notes for editors
About Boston Ltd.
Founded in 1992 Boston Limited is uniquely placed with nearly 20 years of experience in the design, build, and test of high performance solutions to meet clients’ exact needs possessing the unique ability to ascertain the detailed requirements and then create a fully bespoke platform based on Supermicro hardware with customer branding, documentation and packaging. In addition to the technical expertise, Boston is able to offer global on-site warranty and a range of financial solutions including leasing. Boston has key offices in the UK, Germany and India. For further details visit www.boston.co.uk or e-mail sales@boston.co.uk
About Hardcore Computer, Inc.
Hardcore Computer custom designs and manufactures top-tier, high-performance computer systems. These systems use patented liquid submersion cooling technology to remove the main barrier of electronics performance — heat. In addition to its high-performance gaming systems, workstations and servers, Hardcore’s liquid submersion technology is suitable for cooling a number of other technologies, such as electric power inverters, telecom and other electronics. For more information visit: www.hardcorecomputer.com
About Citihub
Citihub is a leading specialist IT consultancy focused on the financial services industry with offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. For more information visit: www.citihub.com
About TIBCO
TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) is a provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments. Whether its efficient claims or trade processing, cross-selling products based on real-time customer behavior, or averting a crisis before it happens, TIBCO provides companies the two-second advantageTM – the ability to capture the right information, at the right time, and act on it pre-emptively for a competitive advantage. More than 4,000 customers worldwide rely on TIBCO to manage information, deci2ions, processes, and applications in real time. For more information visit: www.tibco.com.
PR contacts:
Sarah-Anne Bray / Ellie Dobson
EML Wildfire
020 8408 8000
supermicro@emlwildfire.com -
Audiences flock to 'difficult' contemporary classical music
30 Janwww.guardian.co.uk
The Southbank, Barbican, ENO and BBC4 are catering for the new-found appetite for sonic adventure
When Swiss conductor Baldur Brönnimann was a student 25 years ago, "if you had more than 30 people at a concert it was a failure because it was populist crap". Today, there are growing signs that contemporary classical music is shrugging off its elitist reputation, with audiences flocking to work previously regarded as austere and impenetrable.
"It's the weirdest pieces which get the strongest reaction," says Brönnimann. "Prometeo by Nono is an extremely difficult piece to listen to – two hours long with no break, either extremely soft or extremely loud, and with the audience in darkness surrounded by the performers – but it gets an amazing response. People are looking for something to get their teeth into."
Programmers are working hard to meet this appetite for sonic adventure. Last week, the Southbank Centre in London announced a year-long festival which will bring to life The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross's 250,000-selling history of 20th-century classical music, accompanied by a series on BBC4.
Before that starts in 2013, a plethora of "difficult" works will be performed in UK concert halls. From next month, the English National Opera (ENO) is staging four operas written in the past 30 years, including John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, about the 1985 hijacking of an ocean liner by the Palestine Liberation Front, conducted by Brönnimann and staged by War Horse director Tom Morris.
In March, there are festivals of minimalist music in Glasgow and north-east England, and a John Cage-inspired "happening" called Musicircus will be staged at the ENO, involving audience members, with musicians including John Paul Jones, formerly of Led Zeppelin.
In April, a festival devoted to Conlon Nancarrow hits the Southbank. Nancarrow, whose fans include Stephen Fry, composed music which is impossible to play except by a mechanical piano. "It makes you laugh out loud," says the centre's head of contemporary culture, Gillian Moore. "You've got two or three completely different time signatures going on. You think there must be a third hand, they must have three brains, and then you realise it's a machine – but it's music of amazing accessibility."
In May, Philip Glass's opera Einstein on the Beach – five hours long, with no plot or interval – will make its UK debut at the Barbican in London. Last weekend, the venue offered "total immersion" in the work of British composer Jonathan Harvey, who melds orchestras and electronics.
Moore says the increased audience for these works is the result of a campaign to reach people interested in the cutting edge of other contemporary art forms, rather than those who prefer to hear Beethoven. In 2003, when artistic director of the London Sinfonietta, Moore inaugurated a series of concerts which programmed avant garde classical works alongside music by artists on Warp records. "We were hugely nervous but we wanted to make the connections between Aphex Twin and John Cage, Squarepusher and Stockhausen."
The concerts were a success, and Moore found the people who attended had "an almost unlimited appetite for music of richness and complexity". Better still, they kept coming back. "Immediately afterwards we did a weekend of Xenakis and it sold out. A lot of the people had been at the Warp project, including a lot of the artists themselves. I remember picking the Aphex Twin out of the returns queue for tickets because it was so mobbed, and that was wall to wall Xenakis – no frills."
Brönnimann confirms that many people arrive at the avant garde of contemporary music via the wilder shores of pop. "I did a tour with Joanna Newsom, 15-minute songs arranged by Van Dyke Parks, and the audience who came are the ones who look at contemporary music. They look for something that goes deeper, to undiscovered worlds – the bottom of the sea."
Such audiences have a hunger for the new, says Esa-Pekka Salonen, principal conductor of the Philharmonia. "There's a trend in our culture to be constantly up to date because we're connected through the internet, and an art form that would be entirely backward-looking and museum-like would make no sense. People are interested in what's happening right now."
Some also clearly enjoy the challenge of pitting themselves against some of the most forbidding art works in the world – an attitude encouraged by soprano Barbara Hannigan, whose performance of Boulez's Pli Selon Pli at the Southbank last year had, she says, even musician colleagues in the audience "saying 'I was scared.' But afterwards, they said 'My God, I was touched.' "
Hannigan cites a 2010 Guardian piece by Alex Ross bemoaning that modern classical music is not widely enjoyed in the same way as modern art or architecture. "He said that audiences expect classical music to be 'a spa treatment for tired souls'. I was thinking, maybe the public needs to think of it as a deep tissue massage. It's almost violent – but you know you're going to come out of it feeling a sense of release. If they go in knowing it's going to be intense and heavy, they come out with a feeling of being changed, of accomplishment, of going through something which was quite good for them."
The composer George Benjamin, whose opera Written on the Skin will debut in July, points out that modern classical music relies on individuals to champion it, like Salonen and Vladimir Jurowski, principal conductor of the London Philharmonic. "I came out of Pli Selon Pli very deeply fired up and inspired by it, but it only gets played once or twice a decade in the UK. Even more so than film or visual arts, we have to have not only promoters but performers who are willing to pay the extra expense of rehearsing new pieces and of taking a risk and knowing how to conduct these very difficult works – it's not only the public that are part of this equation."
Cellist and music curator Oliver Coates says that while contemporary classical music has lost the academic air which made it so off-putting, it still requires effort. "I don't think classical music should be put on in bars and clubs – people shouldn't drink or talk over it, they need to be immersed in it. It remains quite serious music."
Moore recommends listening first on Spotify (see her picks below), adding that some awareness of context is required. "That's why The Rest is Noise festival is going to be great, because it shows why certain music was made at certain times, like Stockhausen after the war saying he couldn't write four beats in a bar because it reminded him of jackboots.
"So he exploded everything and created rhythms which were like stars and harmonies – constellations of sounds from the scientific world."
Brönnimann and Salonen agree that the shock of the new has worn off some works, making them more accessible to modern audiences. "So many of these sounds have become more daily for us," says Brönnimann. "Just as contemporary art has filitered into fashion or design, if you listen to film music or video game music, people are getting used to expecting sounds not to be straightforward but to have a life of their own."
Nevertheless, works like Role Player by Christian Lindberg, in which Brönnimann was "shot" by the soloist, then carried offstage while the piece finished without him, are clearly not for everyone. "The great thing about contemporary music is that no one walks out and can't remember what they heard," says Brönnimann. "Some people hate it, some love it, but they all talk about it. That's the response you want from art."
Curious?
Gillian Moore picks five modern classical piece to get you started
Shimmering clouds of orchestral sound, the soundtrack to Kubrick's 2001
Conlon Nancarrow, Player Piano Studies
Superhuman piano music, hilariously impossible, crazy rhythms
Jonathan Harvey Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco
The sounds of a boy's voice and a bell morph into each other through computer magic
Gorgeous, exquisite Japanese modernism tinged with impressionistic harmonies
Louis Andriessen, De Staat
Hardcore Dutch minimalism: brass, voices, electric guitars
Listen on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/Ao9Fbm
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Maytag Oven Self-Cleans in 1 Hour
29 JanGeek News Central
If you think CES is all geeky gadgets and gear, think again: many household names take the opportunity to show off their latest technology-driven product developments. Home appliance manufacturer Maytag talks to Courtney about their latest innovations.Self-cleaning ovens are associated with high temperatures, long waits, clouds of smoke and bad smells as the deposits burn off. Maytag’s new self-cleaning range uses “Aqualift” technology to reduce the temperature to 200 F and the time to 1 hour. It’s a coating on the bottom and sides of the oven that works with water to lift the deposits so that they can be simply wiped away.
The Maytag’s induction hob is controlled by a touch panel which keeps the top surface smooth and easy to clean. Induction heating is efficient, highly controllable and much safer as the hob itself doesn’t heat up (though there are other disadvantages). It’s a technology that’s been around for awhile but hasn’t yet gained widespread acceptance – perhaps its time has come.
Interview by Courtney Wallin of SDR News.
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Polkast: Making Your Computer the Cloud
29 JanGeek News Central
Cloud base solutions for accessing the data on your computer off site are great, but they have their limitations. First they are slow, because everything has to upload to the cloud first before you can access it off site. Second most cloud solutions have a limit on how much you can store on their sites. Third they can get expensive if you have to store a lot and finally you have to depend on them to be up.What if you made your computer the cloud, that is the solution that Polkast came up with. You install the Polkast server on the computer you want to access the files from and then the Polkast app on your mobile devices including your smart phone, tablets or lap top. You can then access the files on that computer from anywhere in the world as long as the server is running. To access files using Polkast you have to sign in with a user name and password. Everything is encrypted while going from PC to PC or mobile device. Unlike a cloud base solution there is no storage limitation and it is as fast as your local ISP. You can share specific files with other people by email or through their Polkast account. The service is free for one computer for multiple devices it is $49.95 a year. If you are looking for a way to access your home files on the road, but are wary of a cloud solution, this might be a solution for you.
Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Don Baine The Gadget Professor of Geek News Central
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