Eloqua Sets Sights on $100 Million in Revenue

Leads in Growth and Investment in Revenue Performance Management

January 31, 2011 (SaaS Newswire via Eloqua.com) Eloqua, the leading provider of Revenue Performance Management solutions, today announced another year of growth as the Company reported record-setting calendar 2010 GAAP revenue of $51 million. In a period of slower growth for many industries, Eloqua^® increased its annual recurring revenue growth rate from 20% in 2009 to more than 32% in 2010.

“Our growth rate is increasing on a larger base,” said Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua, “and that trend will continue in 2011. We expect to approach $70 million in GAAP revenue in 2011 and exceed $100 million in 2013 due to our best-in-class performance in the hot marketing automation category.”

The combination of Eloqua’s growth and its commitment to reinvesting profits back into its business means that Eloqua is not only the largest independent marketing automation provider, but also the world’s biggest investor in both marketing automation and Revenue Performance Management. The Company’s 60,000 plus worldwide users exceed all independent competitors, combined.

“2010 was a breakthrough year for Eloqua and our customers,” said Payne. “We posted record revenue across a wide spectrum of industries. Our customers continue to outgrow their competitors, and they are now tracking 1.8 billion prospects, in aggregate up 58% from the prior year.”

2010 capped successive years of significant growth. Eloqua has experienced a tenfold increase in GAAP revenue since 2005, leaping from $5 million to $51 million. “Outpacing the industry in revenue generation only matters if that growth benefits our customers,” Payne added. “We invest more in customer support, customer education and product innovation than all of our competitors. In 2011 we will accelerate the investment in driving revenue performance for our clients.”

Product Innovation

Eloqua continued to enhance its position as an innovation-leader with the unveiling of Eloqua10, the world’s first Revenue Performance Management solution, which is based on patent-pending technology. The result of intensive collaboration with marketers, sales professionals and user-experience designers, including the renowned firm IDEO, Eloqua provides the industry’s most powerful revenue reporting and analytics engine – packed in the look and feel of an easy-to-use desktop application. With the launch of Eloqua10, customers have an unparalleled view of the sales funnel, enabling them to better manage and predict revenue.

Customer Growth

Eloqua continued to command the market in 2010. The Company remains the preferred solution for both small businesses and large enterprises, alike. Nearly 1.8 billion prospect profiles reside within the database of Eloqua clients, and Eloqua processes more than 2 billion transactions per day. Some of the most respected enterprise companies chose to employ Eloqua’s solution this year including Lenovo, Red Hat and the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Company also saw tremendous growth in the European market with expansion into Germany and the Benelux countries. Eloqua’s European customer base topped 4,000 users in 2010.

Industry Recognition

Eloqua continued to rack up industry accolades throughout 2010.

Eloqua was ranked by Deloitte at #169 among the 500 fastest growing companies in North America, making it the third year in a row that Eloqua has made this prestigious list. Additionally, The Sales Lead Management Association named both CEO Joe Payne and CTO Steve Woods among the “50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management.” Payne was also recognized again in Who’s Who in B2B Marketing.

Eloqua was also honored for its groundbreaking marketing and content creation. Forrester Research, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the Society for New Communications Research recognized Eloqua’s social media and content marketing efforts. The Company’s “Best Practices” video series also took home a prestigious MarCom Award from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals.

About Eloqua

Eloqua helps clients dramatically accelerate revenue growth through Revenue Performance Management. Eloqua provides powerful business insight to inform marketing and sales decisions today that drive revenue growth tomorrow. The company’s mission is to make its customers the fastest growing companies on earth. Thousands of users rely on the power of Eloqua to execute, automate, and measure programs that accelerate revenue growth. Eloqua’s customers include Adobe, AON, Dow Jones, ADP, Fidelity, Polycom, and National Instruments. The company is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, with offices in Toronto, London, Singapore and throughout North America. For more information, visit www.eloqua.com, subscribe to the It’s All About Revenue blog, call 866-327-8764, or email demand@eloqua.com.

Tags: eloqua, eloqua 10, joe payne, revenue performance, revenue performance management software, steve woods

EMC Unveils Record-breaking Storage Innovations

Storage Leader Kicks off 2011 with Storage Industry’s Largest Ever Product Launch

NEW YORK– (SaaS Newswire via www.emc.com) – EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today further extended its lead in all major storage markets with the announcement of a record-breaking number of new systems and capabilities designed to make it simpler than ever for businesses and organizations of all sizes to harness and exploit the massive amounts of information they generate each day.

EMC today introduced multiple new storage systems and software features – more than 40 new technologies and products in all – including new arrays for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), new unified systems for the midrange, new software for its high-end systems and new disk-based backup and recovery and archiving systems. The technologies are part of a multi-billion-dollar investment in storage that positions EMC at the intersection of all the major trends that are driving massive information growth, including cloud computing and Big Data applications.

News Summary

• EMC executives, including Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci, today will kick off a three continent, multi-day series of press, analyst, customer and partner events that highlight record-breaking new innovations and technological achievements resulting from a multi-year investment in the build out of a next-generation storage family (view webcast here). As part of these events, attendees will witness daredevils and others attempt to break several Guinness World Records — all with a storage twist.
• More than 40 new storage technologies and products being introduced are part of the broadest set offered by any one company, reinforce EMC’s leadership in one of the hottest sectors of the technology industry and powerfully position EMC at the intersection the major trends driving information growth including cloud computing and Big Data applications .
• The new EMC® VNXe™ systems are the most simple, efficient and affordable unified storage systems available and are designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses.
• The new EMC VNX™ family of unified storage systems consolidates the numerous leading capabilities of EMC CLARiiON® and Celerra® systems into a single set of powerful arrays that are easy to manage and 3 times simpler, more efficient and faster than previous systems.
• Innovative new software for EMC Symmetrix® VMAX™ storage systems make them the most powerful, trusted and smartest systems available. The new features include a new version of FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) software that automatically optimizes where data is located as well as a new operating environment that doubles system performance with no hardware upgrade required.
• New high performing versions of Data Domain® deduplication storage systems that are 7 times faster than the competition and the new Data Domain Archiver system shatter performance records and redefine how enterprises backup, archive and restore information.

New Hardware and Software Highlights:

• The world’s most simple, efficient and affordable unified storage array is the new EMC VNXe storage system, which is designed specifically for SMBs and offered through EMC partners. With a starting price of under $10,000 (USD), the VNXe can be configured in minutes by IT generalists to support virtual servers and hundreds of email users. This simple, efficient and affordable system offers advanced storage technologies with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for set-up, management and serviceability.
• The new EMC VNX family of unified storage systems converge EMC’s market leading CLARiiON storage area network (SAN) systems and number one Celerra network attached storage (NAS) systems into a single, easily managed and powerful family of unified storage arrays that are 3 times simpler, more efficient and faster and have the full suite of functionality of its predecessors (see separate press release).
• Innovative new EMC Symmetrix VMAX software technologies that make it the most powerful, trusted and smartest storage array in the world and capable of supporting petabytes of information and up to 5 million virtual machines. Among the multiple new features are an advanced version of FAST (fully automated storage tiering) software that automatically optimizes the array based on data usage; new server virtualization, security and federation capabilities; and new operating software that doubles system performance with no hardware upgrade required (see separate press release).
• New Data Domain backup and archiving capabilities including new systems that are 7 times faster than the competition, providing the industry’s fastest backups and new Data Domain Archiver systems, the industry’s first deduplication system designed exclusively for long-term disk-based retention of backups (see separate press release).

Customer and Partner Quotes

“2010 was a record-breaking year for Audi and just as our business has grown, so has the amount of data we generate in the development of new products and technologies like electric and hybrid drive systems. We’ve worked closely with EMC for many years to deploy the latest storage technologies to improve efficiencies, performance and to automate IT processes so that our technical staff can focus more of their time on business initiatives. As a global company and brand, it is important for us to work with industry leaders like EMC to support our virtual infrastructure. These new EMC storage features and systems will play a key role in the IT environment as we introduce new models and expand in markets around the world.”
-Mr. Klaus Straub, Chief Information Officer, Audi

“Advancing the capabilities of storage systems is critical to meeting the challenges brought by the staggering growth of traffic across the internet and new complexities facing data centers today. The scalable architecture delivered by the Intel® Xeon®processor family with advanced storage technologies has enabled EMC to offer innovative solutions across their product line, top-to-bottom, from small businesses to the largest enterprises.”
-Kirk Skaugen, Vice President, General Manager, Data Center Group, Intel Corporation

“VMware and EMC share a vision of helping customers transform their IT infrastructures through cloud computing, and virtualization is at the foundation of this shift affecting customers of all sizes. Our technologies are tightly integrated and together provide a key enabler for the enterprise hybrid cloud, simplifying information management and increasing the efficiency and agility of the entire infrastructure.”
-Paul Maritz, President and CEO, VMware

Industry Analyst Quote

“EMC already had about the deepest product portfolio in the industry, and it just got even deeper. The company continues to innovate in some of the areas that matter most to customers across a spectrum of use cases and a spectrum of markets.”
- Steve Duplessie, Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group

Executive Quote

“What you’re seeing today is EMC ‘doubling down’ on its core franchise: storage. The technologies are changing, the use cases are changing and the consumption models are changing. These new products and capabilities put us in an excellent position to capitalize on the major trends in the IT industry and place us squarely at the intersection the biggest ones: cloud computing and Big Data.”
-Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman and CEO

“Our customers and partners see the future of IT coming and EMC is again preparing them for change. These new products are part of the largest launch ever and reflect the best-of-the-best in the storage industry spanning virtually the entire spectrum. For 13 years EMC has been number one in storage and we have been at the forefront of all the major trends and have helped our customers prepare for information growth that was first measured in gigabtyes, moved to terabytes and then petabytes and will soon be measured in zettabytes.”-Pat Gelsinger, EMC President, Information Infrastructure Products

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC’s products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.

EMC, CLARiiON, Celerra, Symmetrix, Data Domain, VMAX and VNX are trademarks or registered trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains “forward-looking statements” as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (iv) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (v) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.’s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vi) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (vii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (viii) component and product quality and availability; (ix) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) war or acts of terrorism; (xii) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (xiii) fluctuating currency exchange rates; and (xiv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

This is a press release from emc.com and is not an original statement of SaaS Newswire, rather, the staff at SaaSNW.com find this company impressive and wanted to share this release with it’s readers.

Tags: big data, celerra, cloud computing, emc, emc clariion, emc vnx, storage innovations, unified storage, VMware

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Pari Networks

SAN JOSE, Calif. – January 26, 2011 – Cisco today announced its intent to acquire privately-held Pari Networks, a leading provider of network configuration and change management (NCCM) and compliance management solutions that will complement Cisco’s smart service capabilities. Based in Milpitas, Calif., with part of its employee base in Hyderabad, India, Pari Networks’ technology will integrate into Cisco’s smart services and help accelerate the ability of Cisco and its partners to manage the health and stability of customer networks through proactive, personalized services.

“As business functions become more reliant on devices and applications that run over their networks, customers realize that maintaining the health and performance of the network is critical,” said Joe Pinto, senior vice president of Cisco’s Technical Services. ”Pari Networks will help Cisco and our partners to deliver smarter, more proactive services that help our customers to identify potential network problems before they occur and optimize the performance, management and efficiency of their networks.”

In addition to advanced technology, Pari Networks brings to Cisco an industry-leading team of engineers that will continue to build out and strengthen Cisco’s smart service capabilities. Cisco and its partners have been evolving service offerings from reactive to proactive by embedding smart service capabilities throughout professional and technical services.

Financial terms of the transaction are undisclosed. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in the third quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011. Upon the close of the acquisition, Pari Networks employees will be integrated into Cisco’s Technical Services.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com

# # #

Cisco, the Cisco logo, and Cisco Systems are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the expected completion of the acquisition and the time frame in which this will occur, the expected benefits to Cisco, its partners and its customers from completing the acquisition, and plans regarding Pari Networks personnel. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including, among other things, the potential impact on the business of Pari Networks due to the uncertainty about the acquisition, the retention of employees of Pari Networks and the ability of Cisco to successfully integrate Pari Networks and to achieve expected benefits, business and economic conditions and growth trends in the networking industry, customer markets and various geographic regions, global economic conditions and uncertainties in the geopolitical environment and other risk factors set forth in Cisco’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Any forward-looking statements in this release are based on limited information currently available to Cisco, which is subject to change, and Cisco will not necessarily update the information.

Press Contact: Kristin Carvell – Cisco Systems, Inc. – +1 408 424 0206 – kcarvell@cisco.com

Investor Relations Contact: Laura Graves – Cisco Systems, Inc. – 408 526-6521 – lagraves@cisco.com

Pulled from/sourced: newsroom.cisco.com

Tags: cisco, cisco systems, intent to acquire, newswire pr, pari networks, saas news

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ResponseTek Named to 2011 “Ready to Rocket” List

Record sales, profits and growth recognized in annual list of technology achievers

Vancouver, BC (SaaS Newswire via PRWEB) January 26, 2011

ResponseTek Networks Inc., a market leader in customer experience management software solutions, has been recognized as one of the top twenty-five private companies that are best positioned to capitalize on growth in the technology sector.

ResponseTek is among the top British Columbia based companies named in the ‘Ready to Rocket 25′ list. The annual list highlights the hottest BC companies with rapid revenue growth and accelerating market adoption.

“Each year when we choose the Ready to Rocket companies, we are looking for those companies that have best matched technical innovation with market opportunity. ResponseTek is an excellent example of the right technology for the right customers at the right time.” said Reg Nordman, Managing Partner, Rocket Builders.

ResponseTek provides industry leading customer experience management solutions to Fortune 1000 companies around the world. It has an on-demand real-time reporting suite that allows its clients to turn customer feedback into actionable insight for organizations. “We are honored to be included in the 2011 ‘Ready to Rocket’ list,” says Syed Hasan, CEO at ResponseTek, “we are currently experiencing the most rapid phase of growth ever seen. And with an established client base of global brands in North America and Europe, as well as the increased focus on customer experience, ResponseTek is well-positioned to further capitalize on this market.”

For more information on ResponseTek, call 1-866-484-2900 (toll-free in North America), or +1 (604) 484-2900 (toll worldwide).

About ResponseTek
ResponseTek is the global leader in on-demand Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions, transforming the voice of the customer into actionable business intelligence. ResponseTek provides its groundbreaking CEM solutions to Global 1000 corporations, including leading firms in the telecom, banking, insurance, retail, and online industries. ResponseTek is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with offices in Toronto, Canada and London, UK. Visit our website at http://www.responsetek.com

Media Contact:
Gord Elder
Product Group Director
+1 (604) 484-2900 x239
http://www.responsetek.com

About Ready to Rocket
Ready to Rocket is a unique business recognition list that profiles technology companies with the greatest potential for revenue growth. Each year, based on analysis of trends that will drive growth in the information technology sector, Rocket Builders identifies the top private companies that are best positioned to capitalize on the trends for growth. This selection methodology has been an accurate predictor of growth with “Ready to Rocket” companies exceeding the industry growth rate. Also, many of these companies raise investment capital and each year many of the profiled “Ready to Rocket’ companies are acquired.

For more information: http://www.readytorocket.com

“Ready to Rocket” is a trademark of Rocket Builders, a respected management consulting firm servicing the technology industry.

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Tags: customer experience management software solutions, experience management solutions, ready to rocket list, readytorocket, responsetek, saas news, software as a service

Clearpath Recognized as #8 on the Everything Channel Fast Growth 100 List

(SaaS Nerwswire via Clearpathsg.com) – Clearpath Solutions Group, a leading IT solutions provider, today announced that it has been recognized by Everything Channel as #8 on the CRN Fast Growth 100 list. The list recognizes solution providers with growth rates in excess of 26 percent with an average two-year revenue growth of 110 percent. Clearpath reached #8 with a two-year growth rate of 213.33%, based on net sales from calendar year 2007 to calendar year 2009.

“The Fast Growth 100 are channel innovators and mavericks who are growing in considerable size and influence. As business-oriented IT consultants, these organizations work closely with customers to identify multivendor IT solutions to solve their business problems. We congratulate Clearpath Solutions Group on their well-earned success despite current economic conditions,” said Kelley Damore, Vice President, Editorial Director for Everything Channel.

Clearpath’s strategy is to work with clients to optimize IT environments for their systems and applications, whether built at the client’s location or managed by Clearpath’s cloud services and solutions team at one of our secure data centers. Reaching #8 on the Fast Growth list demonstrates that Clearpath’s client focused model is working.

Clearpath President, Gary Vaughan, commented on the award: “We are honored to be included on Everything Channel’s Fast Growth 100 List. At Clearpath, we aim to differentiate ourselves within the IT industry through our strong client relationships. The revenue growth numbers speak for themselves, proving the value of our client-centric focus.”

Everything Channel

Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at http://www.everythingchannel.com.

Tags: clear path solutions group, clearpathsg.com, everything channel, fast growth 100 list

Report: U.S. investors can’t share in Facebook offering

SaaS Newswire via cnet
If you live in the U.S. you can put away that $2 million you fished out of the piggy bank to invest in Facebook.

Goldman Sachs, which created a frenzy recently when it acquired a $450 million position in privately held Facebook and offered equity to clients willing to invest at least $2 million, told The Wall Street Journal today that the offering will be limited to “offshore” investors.

“The level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a U.S. private placement under U.S. law,” the New York securities firm said in a statement provided to the Journal.

Executives at the firm were concerned the storm of interest created by the offering, of as much as $1.5 billion in shares of the social-networking juggernaut, might expose Goldman to regulatory vulnerability, the Journal speculated–though the firm said the move had not been required by the Securities and Exchange Commission or “any other party.”

Goldman “regrets the consequences of this decision, but we believe this is the most prudent path to take,” the firm told the Journal. Facebook had no comment.

Goldman started giving the news to clients in Asia on Sunday night and to clients in Europe and the U.S. today, the Journal reported. It said Chinese interest in shares has been especially high and that it’s “highly likely” Goldman can manage the offering at its original size without the involvement of U.S. clients.

Potential investors must hand over funds by the end of this week, the Journal reported.

Facebook has repeatedly said it will not go public until 2012 at the earliest. The recent $450 million in funding from Goldman, along with another $50 million from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, has reportedly given Facebook a valuation of $50 billion.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20028699-93.html#ixzz1BKrt5Ii2
Rob Moyer
Sourced: cnet, visit www.news.cnet.com

Let it be clear that this is not the views or opinion of SaaSNewswire.com. SaaS Newswire’s team are all big supporters and fans of facebook

Tags: cnet, facebook, goldman sachs, saas news, social media strategies, wall street journal, when will facebook go public

Govplace Listed as a Top Solutions Provider on the CRN Fast Growth 100 for a Second Consecutive Year

Govplace’s impressive growth is revealed on Everything Channel’s annual list of IT resellers and integrators.

Irvine, CA (SaaS Newswire via Govplace.com)

Govplace, provider of enterprise IT solutions for the public sector, is ranked #31 on Everything Channel’s 2010 CRN Fast Growth 100. From 2007 to 2009, Govplace has grown 80%.

Since 2006, the Fast Growth 100 list has ranked the technology integrators and solution providers with the largest sales growth by using the company’s average percent of revenue growth during a specific time period.

A major reason for Govplace’s growth during an economic downturn is their exclusive focus on the public sector. Knowing that efficiency is a key priority for the public sector, Govplace adopted a performance-based contracting model, which ensures that their needs align with their customer’s, providing accountability through the creation, implementation and management of the solution. Focusing on transparency, accountability and results is a benefit when working with the public sector.

Source: Govplace.com

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Media Contact:

Cassaundra Cobos
Govplace
888-308-8802 ext. 1154

ccobos@govplace.com

Tags: govplace, reseller, top solutions provider

Oracle Delivers New Releases of Oracle Transportation Management and Oracle Global Trade Management

SaaS Newswire via Oracle.com

Enhancements Help Shippers and Logistics Services Providers Further Streamline Processes, Reduce Costs and Mitigate Risks

Redwood Shores, Calif.

News Facts

Demonstrating its commitment to innovation and market leadership in logistics management, Oracle today announced the availability of new releases of Oracle Transportation Management and Oracle Global Trade Management.

By introducing a broad set of market driven enhancements, Oracle Transportation Management 6.2 and Oracle Global Trade Management 6.2 further support global transportation and trade compliance processes.

The new releases provide additional transportation and global trade management support through enhanced fleet management, transportation sourcing, transportation business intelligence, transportation planning, small parcel transportation, rail transportation, dock scheduling, product classification and trade control determination.

By delivering an unmatched breadth and depth of transportation and global trade management functionality on a single, unified platform, the new releases help reduce transportation costs, increase operational efficiency, improve customer service, decrease supply chain lead times and mitigate supply chain and trade compliance risk by further standardizing and automating processes.

To further streamline processes, the new release also delivers process integration between Oracle Global Trade Management and Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1

Industry Leading Transportation Management Capabilities

Oracle Transportation Management 6.2 and Oracle Global Trade Management 6.2 enable companies to manage their comprehensive trade compliance and transportation requirements, including fleet, on a global basis within one central platform.

New capabilities within Oracle Transportation Management 6.2 include:

Fleet Management enhancements for shipment and asset optimization, dispatch workflow automation, geographic visualization and mobile communications.

Transportation sourcing enhancements to support the requirements of procuring and optimizing less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation services.

Transportation planning enhancements to optimize order consolidation and three-dimensional equipment load configuration (e.g. accounting for equipment with multiple compartments, equipment with curved roofs).

Transportation business intelligence enhancements, with embedded support for Oracle Data Integrator, increase the ease with which customers can extend and configure the analytical data model.

Small parcel transportation enhancements for carton level rating, tracking and freight payment and audit.

Rail transportation enhancements for shipment rating, shipment execution and rail equipment tracking.

New capabilities within Oracle Global Trade Management 6.2 include:

Packaged integration with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 for sales order and delivery trade compliance screening automates trade compliance as part of an integrated order-to-cash process for international sales.

Usability enhancements streamline the resolution of orders on trade compliance hold, improving process efficiency and customer service.

Product classification of items based on “rollup” of an item’s sub-component classifications (e.g., classification of configure-to-order items).

Supporting Quotes

“Shippers and logistics service providers are faced with increasingly complex and volatile global supply chains,” said Dwight Klappich, Research Vice President, Gartner. “To manage that complexity and optimize logistics operations, they need a comprehensive and unified platform that can deliver the extensive capabilities required to support all orders, shipments and inventory. With that kind of breadth and depth of functionality, it is possible to improve customer service while also reducing costs, improving efficiencies and mitigating risk.”

“Managing the different regulatory requirements of importing and exporting countries is an extremely expensive and time consuming process that can ultimately impact the efficiency of the overall supply chain,” said William McNeill, Senior Research Analyst, Gartner. “To streamline that process and ensure compliance with ever changing rules and regulations, shippers and logistics service providers need to be able to automate compliance processes and easily integrate them with both their supply chain and broader enterprise application suites.”

“To align business processes, optimize execution and expand global reach, shippers and logistics services providers need to be able to effectively manage global transportation and trade compliance processes,” said Derek Gittoes, Oracle Vice President, Logistics Product Strategy. “With the new releases of Oracle Transportation Management and Oracle Global Trade Management, we are able to optimize those processes by offering an unmatched breadth and depth of transportation and global trade management functionality on a single system.”

General Availability

Oracle Transportation Management 6.2 and Oracle Global Trade Management 6.2 are currently available.

Supporting Resources

Oracle Transportation Management

Oracle Global Trade Management

Video: Derek Gittoes Introduces Oracle Transportation Management 6.2

Oracle Transportation Management 6.2 Screenshots

Gartner Magic Quadrant: Oracle a Leader in Transportation Management Systems

Gartner Report From the Oracle Transportation Management Special Interest Group Meeting

AMR Research Routing and Scheduling Systems Landscape

About Oracle Applications

Over 65,000 customers worldwide rely on Oracle’s complete, open and integrated enterprise applications to achieve superior results. Oracle provides a secure path for customers to benefit from the latest technology advances that improve the customer software experience and drive better business performance. Oracle Applications Unlimited is Oracle’s commitment to customer choice through continuous investment and innovation in current applications offerings. Oracle’s next-generation Fusion Applications build upon that commitment, and are designed to work with and evolve Oracle’s Applications Unlimited offerings. Oracle’s lifetime support policy helps ensure customers will continue to have a choice in upgrade paths, based on their enterprise needs. For more information on the latest Oracle Applications releases go to www.oracle.com/applications

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Contact Info

Karen Hartquist Oracle +1. 650.506.3552 karen.hartquist@oracle.com

Simon Jones Blanc & Otus +1.415.856.5155 sjones@blancandotus.com

Tags: oracle, oracle ebusiness suite, oracle global trade management, oracle transportation management, saas news

Tech Firm Spending on Paid Search Exceeds Expectations for 2010

Covario’s Global Analysis Notes 27 Percent Growth for Year, 8 Percent in Fourth Quarter

SaaS Newswire via covario.com – SAN DIEGO, Jan. 6, 2011 – Covario, Inc., one of the nation’s largest independent providers of search marketing software solutions and agency services, today issued its latest Global Search Spending Analysis, reporting that spending for paid search advertising among its high-tech and consumer electronics clients increased nearly 27 percent in 2010 versus the previous year. This surpassed the company’s original expectations by 9 to 13 percent.

Spending in the fourth quarter increased nearly 8 percent over the previous three-month period (with December being slower than November and October). This quarterly growth was lower than the 25-plus percent growth rates in the second and third quarters of 2010, but was up nearly 30 percent compared to the recession-plagued fourth quarter of 2009.

Although its overall market share was down slightly, Google continued to dominate the paid search scene in 2010 with global market share of 78 percent and spending growth of 18 percent over 2009. Among the other major search engines, paid search spend on Yahoo was up 34 percent, while global spending on Bing increased 84 percent over the prior year. Baidu of China stood out throughout the year with growth of 211 percent over 2009.

According Craig Macdonald, author of the quarterly report and Covario’s chief marketing officer, there were several growth drivers for global paid search spending in 2010. One was the launch of Google Instant, which continues to benefit Google as a larger proportion of all clicks are moving from natural to paid search. Another driver was the dramatic growth of Baidu in China, following Google’s repositioning of its system in that country during the first quarter of 2010. (Baidu now has more than 80 percent of all paid search spending by Covario clients in China.) A third was the integration of Bing and Yahoo in the U.S., which has led to increased paid search spending on the combined platform.

With respect to the decline in Google’s overall market share, Macdonald cited several key factors, including how Baidu has taken control of the market in China, which up until last year had been the best global growth opportunity for Google. He also pointed to Google’s 96 percent market share in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), which is so high that there is no significant global growth opportunity in the region.

“These two factors combined make the Americas the only area where significant search spending growth can still take place for Google,” Macdonald said. “In the Americas, growth is coming from social media advertising, which is being dominated by Facebook.”

Looking ahead in 2011, Covario is recommending that global high-tech marketers increase their paid search spending by 15 to 20 percent overall to maintain market share – 10 to 14 percent in the Americas, 25 to 30 percent in EMEA, and 30 to 35 percent in the Asia Pacific region.

“We are also predicting that 2011 will be the year of Facebook,” Macdonald said. “Advertisers should plan on investing 10 to 20 percent of their global paid search budget in this massive social media platform as part of their digital marketing mix this year.”

The Covario Global Search Spending Analysis encompasses all of the major search engines and is based on paid search spending by the company’s high-tech and consumer electronics clients. This is the third year of the analysis, which spans the first quarter of 2007 through the fourth quarter of 2010. Covario clients represent about $350 million in annual paid search programs conducted on various search engine platforms in more than 45 countries. All of the data was compiled using the Covario Paid Search Insight™ software solution.

About Covario ™
Covario, Inc. is among the nation’s largest independent SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimization) solutions providers, offering both software and agency services for paid and organic search management. Covario provides large global organizations with robust solutions for paid search advertising, organic search (SEO), social media and display advertising. Covario enables complex and distributed organizations to control their brand integrity; ensure budget transparency; and deliver quantifiable results across business units, distribution channels and languages. Headquartered in San Diego, the company’s growing customer base includes some of the world’s best known brands in technology, retail, ecommerce, financial services, consumer electronics, media, entertainment, publishing and consumer packaged goods. More information about Covario is available by calling 858.397.1500 or online at http://www.covario.com.

Tags: covario, global search spending analysis, organic search SEO, paid search spending analysis, saas news, social media, software and agency services

Why the Microsoft Dynamics Products Are Struggling to Enter the Cloud

This is a guest post by Hunter Richards of Software Advice, which reviews the best online accounting software.

Aggressively pursuing their cloud marketing strategy, Microsoft’s motto has become “We’re all in!” The recent Office 365 announcement also demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment, even at the risk of cannibalizing the company’s on-premise alternatives. But what does this mean for the Microsoft Dynamics product line?

Here are the main challenges we see in migrating these four ERP systems:

• Architecture. The current Microsoft Dynamics ERP products are built on a single-tenant, hybrid client/server and web-enabled architecture. This architecture works just fine, but it lacks the pure web, multi-tenant architecture required to take full advantage of the cloud’s economies of scale. The Dynamics products will need to be rewritten to accomplish this.

• Multiple products. While they’re all built on Microsoft platform technologies, the data models and application logic of Dynamics AX, SL, GP and NAV are each unique. So Microsoft will need to converge all four products onto a single cloud architecture – that’s quite a challenge. The company has already abandoned Project Green, the plan to converge the Dynamics products.

• Partner channel. Microsoft’s channel partners have made their money from reselling Dynamics, implementation services, hardware sales and product upgrade cycles for years. They’ll need to change their business strategies for the cloud as major resale opportunities fade. Moving to the cloud will be a rough transition for the tried and true VAR channel.

• Market readiness. Is Microsoft’s market even ready for Dynamics in the cloud? Sure, there’s plenty of hype over the cloud – and the benefits are valuable. But the Dynamics user base isn’t yet demanding a true cloud solution. So Microsoft will probably wait to time the major product cycle with its customer base’s appetite. This will surely happen, but it remains to be seen when.

Microsoft has several different choices for their future cloud strategy:

• Build a new solution similar to Dynamics CRM, which offers a hybrid of cloud and on-premise. Their best bet is probably to leverage the Dynamics CRM platform.
• Acquire an ERP cloud computing player like Intacct or NetSuite. We see this as less likely since there’s no single player with meaningful market share and .Net technology.
• Move all four Dynamics products to a cloud computing architecture, essentially replicating four products’ functionality on four evolving platforms.
• Market around the issue, offering hosted options through partners, but never fully embracing true cloud-based ERP. Risk missing the transition to cloud computing.

Want to share your own thoughts? Vote on the poll with your prediction of Microsoft’s cloud strategy.

____________________________

Hunter Richards

Accounting Market Analyst

Software Advice

(512) 364-0118 (office)

(800) 918-2764 (toll free)
hunter@softwareadvice.com

*These are not the views of SaaS Newswire but is an objective opinion and post that we thought was great to distribute*

Tags: best online accounting software, cloud marketing strategy, microsoft dynamics, saas strategies, softwareadvice.com

5 Cloud Computing Predictions for 2011

SaaS Newswire via Datamation – This past year has been a good one for cloud computing. According to Gartner, the cloud services market grew to $68.3 billion in 2010, a 16.6 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion. Gartner predicts that by 2014, cloud services revenue will balloon to $148.8 billion worldwide.

Gartner also reported that SaaS vendors raked in $9.2 billion in 2010, up 15.7 percent from 2009 revenue of $7.9 billion. The research firm believes the SaaS market will get even stronger in 2011, growing to $10.7 billion worldwide, a 16.2 percent increase from 2010 revenue.

Taking a look at a few major cloud/SaaS players, Salesforce.com saw its revenue nearly double in 2010 to $2 billion. UBS estimates that Amazon Web Services will earn $500 million by the end of the year, while one-time cloud skeptic, Oracle, gave in and embraced the cloud this year.

Both Microsoft and Google continue to invest heavily in cloud computing, although earnings estimates for their cloud efforts aren’t currently available.

All in all, not bad during the worst recession since the Thirties.

I’m not going out on a limb by predicting that 2011 will be even better than 2010, which itself has been a year referred to as “the year of the cloud.” Of course predicting that the cloud sector will expand is easy. Here, though, are five more granular cloud computing predictions for 2011.

1) The rise of cloud computing and smartphones threatens the PC.

This is purely anecdotal, but watching a full slate of football games this past Sunday, I’d estimate that for every PC ad I saw a dozen ads for smartphones and four or five for tablets. No one is excited about new PCs anymore.

According to Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker, dubbed the “Queen of the Net” by Barron’s, mobile Internet traffic will overtake fixed Internet traffic in the next couple of years.

Much of what will drive mobile Internet traffic is the single-purpose app. You won’t first go to a browser to look for nearby restaurants on Yelp, to check sports scores or stocks or to navigate via Google Maps. You’ll use an app that will leverage the cloud to deliver a computing experience previously unavailable on constrained devices. The cloud and post-PC devices will begin to change enterprise computing too.

“Today, 90 percent of individuals are accessing their computing infrastructure via PCs and 10 percent are accessing via a widely dispersed combination of virtual desktops, cloud PCs, zero clients and more. In less than 10 years, I expect that ratio to be reversed,” said Jeff McNaught, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer for Wyse, a provider of cloud client computing solutions.

McNaught points out that the last few years have seen several shifts in what is the hot, must-have consumer device of the moment, but there is one constant: none of them have been PCs. A few years ago the GPS was all the rage, followed by the iPhone and Android. Everyone was buzzing about the importance of netbooks in 2009 and tablets, particularly the iPad, in 2010.

“Businesses and consumers have more choice than ever regarding how they access and manage their computing infrastructure. This choice is a direct result of a new generation of end point devices, and infrastructure advances in virtualization, cloud computing, and networking,” McNaught said.

The PC isn’t going to disappear, but its status as the go-to computing device for consumers and businesses is under siege.

2) Connected devices stress networks and network management.

The age of the PC might be in its final days, but our network infrastructure isn’t ready for an era where everything from TVs to game consoles to thermostats to coffee makers is Internet-enabled.“As we look out to 2011 and beyond, an even larger cloud is starting to appear on the horizon, and that is the cloud made up of the explosive growth of mobile phones, devices, and sensors all connected to the Internet,” said Lew Tucker, VP and CTO, Cloud Computing, Cisco. “Often called the ‘Internet of things,’ this growth in the number of connected devices will certainly push the adoption of IPV6 but also the need for us each to better manage and interact with a growing number of connected devices in a secure manner.”

Better protocols, such as IPV6 and HTML5 WebSockets, will help, but organizations will also have to rethink how users access, store and manipulate data in a connected age.

“Looking at the various reports coming out of IBM and Ericsson, we could be looking at potentially one trillion Internet connected devices by 2015. To put that in perspective, we passed the five billion milestone in late August/early September,” said David Link, CEO and co-founder of ScienceLogic, a provider of provider of IT Operations and Cloud Monitoring solutions.

In an age where pacemakers, industrial sensors and parking meters are Internet connected, managing devices will be of paramount importance.

“It’s not so much about managing just systems or services – it’s about managing SYSTEMS of systems and services,” Link said. “This is an unprecedented scale that I don’t think many companies are ready for – the stress testing alone on existing management tools would almost require the full-time attention of an IT department.”

2011 isn’t going to be the year any of this gets sorted out. Instead, it will be the year when organizations start waking up to the kudzu-like growth of connected devices. It will also, hopefully, be a year during in which funding will start flowing to forward-thinking startups that promise to solve the trillion-device trap.

3) Apps become even more important.

One way we can start to tame this looming trillion-device craziness is the single-function app. Many connected devices won’t be connecting to the Internet at large. They will use the Internet for single purposes. The devices themselves will be containers for very specific apps that leverage the cloud for their smarts.The app model should start to seep into the enterprise in 2011, with enterprise app marketplaces emerging.

“Just as consumer demands forced Apple to give birth to the iTunes Store, many companies desire a consumer electronics-style experience for their business needs. Enter cloud-based application stores, where an enterprise can purchase, download and deploy business applications in their cloud environment,” said Pat O’Day, CTO and co-founder of cloud hosting provider BlueLock.

O’Day sees strong parallels between music and cloud computing in terms of format (mp3 vs. OVF), enabler (mp3 player vs. virtualization) and the delivery system (network vs. cloud). App stores for the enterprise are already available from Google through Google Apps Marketplace, and the U.S. Government recently launched Apps.gov, a GSA-operated Web site that government agencies can use to buy and deploy cloud computing applications.

In other words, expect enterprise app markets to evolve beyond the close-knit ecosystems of today, where apps are built to support and optimize the original software, such as with Salesforce.com, to general cloud app stores that look more like the app stores available to smartphone users.

4) Traditional apps get retrofitted to the cloud.

One of the things slowing down cloud adoption in the enterprise is legacy investments into traditional, shrink-wrap applications. However, as cloud APIs mature, traditional apps could more easily be moved to private and hybrid clouds.“As enterprises move towards private, public, and hybrid clouds, independent software vendors (ISVs) will find a fast growing market for cloud-ready applications,” O’Day said. “This emerging market will prompt ISVs to turn to cloud computing providers to deliver their solutions via cloud APIs, ultimately giving ISVs cloud capability.” O’Day believes that ISVs will develop APIs that will provide a foundation to automate and manage workloads between private and public cloud architectures.

One problem with this vision, though, is scale. “A big cloud computing misconception is that applications automatically scale when you put them into the cloud,” Cisco’s Tucker said. “The reality is that while some ‘platform-as-a-service’ offerings and frameworks do provide some degree of auto-scaling, in general, applications need to be architected to scale. In cloud computing, applications can provision their own resources, so properly architected applications can in fact be made to readily scale either up or down, but this needs to be designed in.”

The cloud is fundamentally changing how applications are designed and consumed. Finding ways to factor in legacy applications as the cloud matures will accelerate its adoption. Expect to see vendors who lose out on other cloud opportunities, such as, say, with hosting, refocusing their efforts on bringing legacy applications to the cloud and making sure they are able to scale.

5) Applications begin to gain mobility too.

One of the most troubling obstacles to the cloud is security. In a world where data can be accessed from any device anywhere, traditional security falls apart. However, this argument was also made against WiFi. How could IT control a network that could leak beyond its walls?The answer wasn’t all that difficult. With proper access control and identity enforcement in place, WiFi spread like wildfire. More interestingly, some of the early business-class WiFi startups, such as BlueSocket and Newbury Networks (now part of Juniper), offered even stronger security, limiting access by role or even physical location.

With cloud access and identity enforcement being solved by the likes of SecureAuth and Symplified, could the cloud be ready for the kind of advanced security that helped WiFi mature into an enterprise-class technology?

Duncan Johnston-Watt, CEO of cloud software company CloudSoft believes so. According to Johnston-Watt, “intelligent application mobility” is the key to broader cloud acceptance.

“Intelligent application mobility hinges on the ability to logically decompose a transactional application into fine-grained segments that, once deployed, can then be dynamically migrated under the guidance of policies designed to automatically optimize and govern the use of the cloud infrastructure available — while doing so without any interruption or degradation of the service,” Johnston-Watt said.

That’s all well and good, but this doesn’t remove security worries that most CIOs have – until you add location to the mix.

“When calculations contain sensitive data, a company may have requirements as to where the application runs (i.e. within a certain country). It’s imperative developers work with a system that can ensure geographical security so internal and external regulations are met automatically as more precedence is being put on privacy laws,” he said.

Location with the cloud is an order of magnitude more difficult than with WiFi. Ten years ago, IT managers were worried about WiFi signals beaming next door, where they could be intercepted. With a cloud-based architecture, CIOs now must worry not only about the typical risky locations, say an unsecured public WiFi network in an airport, but also risks involved with where in the world end users are.

As with a few other items on this list, this problem won’t be solved in 2011. It will, though, be one of the issues that enterprises tackle as the cloud becomes ever more mainstream.

Pulled from/Sourced: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article.php/11075_3919196_3/5-Cloud-Computing-Predictions-for-2011.htm / Author: Jeff Vance

Tags: apps, cloud computing, cloud news, datamation, enterprise IT, list of 5 for 2011, networks, saas 2011, smartphone apps

Forcing Everyone to Live with Their Heads in ‘The Cloud’

‘The Cloud’ – A New Buzz Word

You’ve probably begun to hear a brand new buzz word being thrown around. Maybe you caught wind of it circulating around the office or maybe that annoying cousin that you only talk to in case of technologic emergency dropped it into conversation a couple times. In all likelihood, you feigned comprehension but one thing should be completely clear by now — ‘cloud computing’ is coming.

What is ‘Cloud Computing’?

Cloud computing is an internet-based computing model. This is in stark contrast to the traditional model for computing where almost all processes take place on the user’s system. The cloud, a euphemism for the internet, will provide all the software used by your computer. Users will no longer be the owners of software but rather tenants paying a subscription to use them. In addition, all processing and related data will take place in ‘the cloud’ and not on the users personal computer.

Accolades have been building into a unanimous chorus and the general perception is that this new model for computing will save money on capital expenditures for hardware, software and services because users will only pay for what they use.

But when has any technological innovation ever been about saving the consumer money?

The answer must be a resounding never!

So what is cloud computing really?

Just like global warming, cloud computing is an attempt to create an entirely new market and subsequently a brand new revenue stream for multinational tech giants while allowing them to maintain complete control of their products. In the spirit of full spectrum domination ‘The Cloud’ also has many other lucrative uses in a ‘new world order’.

In an article, How Secure is The Cloud?, an argument is made in an attempt to counter fears that ‘The Cloud’ is insecure. Having all your personal data floating around in a cloud on some unknown server(s) raises obvious concerns over security and this article attempts to ease those fear shared by IT professionals.

Security of Cloud Computing Users: A Study of U.S. and Europe IT Practitioners
Published: 6 May 2010

CA and the Ponemon Institute conducted a cloud security survey of U.S. and Europe IT and IT security professionals. The findings show that about half of the respondents don’t believe the organization has thoroughly vetted cloud services for security risks prior to deployment. It also showed that 55 percent of respondents are not confident they know all the cloud services in use in their organization today.

The overall study calls for a need for IT and Security professionals to embrace the cloud and help their organizations more securely adopt cloud services.

Of course, the ‘security’ they mention in this study is not to be confused with a question of privacy but simply denotes the security of ‘the cloud’ in terms of system exploits. While this allows protection from hackers, data is ultimately left wide open for the new war on terror spearheaded by events like wikileaks cable leaks. In other words, your information will be even more easily available to those agencies policing the web in the name of security.

Recently, examples of abuse have been uncovered where the FBI is under suspicion of planting backdoors in OpenBSD IPSEC stack. As if it weren’t completely obvious that our government is tightening the reigns, these moves show the real motives behind our government’s involvement in technology development.

The Final Unveiling of the Control Grid

We are moving in a dangerous direction. The current incarnation of the internet is far too open for our controller’s comfort. So a new internet is being rolled out; one that will control its users absolutely. All computing will be done offsite and instead of policing individual users, which often sounds illegal, government agencies can just surveil the ‘anonymous’ cloud. Of course, they already know exactly who you are and will soon be able to remotely kill your computer at will.

I don’t know about you but I feel much more ‘secure’.

Source:

Jason Douglass
Infowars.com
December 29, 2010

Tags: cloud computing, control grid, how secure is the cloud?, infowars.com, saas news, security of cloud computing, The Cloud, wikileaks