· Almost half of companies fail to track social media

· Over half of companies have no way to respond to customers on social media

· B2B desperately lagging behind B2C in social media adoption with 75% not measuring social media

London – New worldwide research published today by Satmetrix®, the Net Promoter® software company, highlights that the majority of organisations of all sizes across B2C and B2B are blind to the opportunities and threats of social media.

Highlights of the Satmetrix worldwide social media study include:

• Businesses are blind to the threats and opportunities of social media
• o 39% have no social media tracking in place at all
• o 51% of B2B have no tracking compared to 22% of B2C companies surveyed
• 55% of companies ignore customers who provide feedback via social media – by having no process in place to respond
• o This increases to 69% for B2B companies compared to 42% for B2C
• 67% of companies do not measure or quantify social media – increasing to 75% for B2B companies
• o For those that do have some form of quantification, 56% just count the comments and followers
• o Only 4% have any form of sentiment analysis
• 60% of businesses do not have an integrated social media strategy (either do nothing, track or follow up only)
• North America leads the way with 43% of North American companies having a follow up process compared to about 25% in other regions

“Businesses recognise the need for a social media strategy, however many are challenged in putting an effective strategy in place,” said Richard Owen, chief executive officer, Satmetrix. “Whilst 77% of consumers post about products, 67% of businesses have no means of measuring what is being said and less than one in 20 have any insight into the sentiment of what is being said. This is both a huge threat and a massive lost opportunity. Not only are companies running the risk of losing customers by not addressing their issues shared online but they are also walking past the opportunity to capitalise on positive comments made on the social web.”

“SparkScore™, our breakthrough social media Net Promoter Score and subsequent software solutions will change the game,” continued Owens. “It enables companies to understand and act on the sentiment of content shared online. It will empower companies to harness the power of social media.”

Earlier this year, Satmetrix announced it will change the way businesses measure and use social media with the first-ever Net Promoter social media measurement solution, Satmetrix® SparkScore™. The solution applies the same NPS® methodology of recommendation behaviour, which identifies detractors, passives and promoters of a brand, to social media sentiment. With SparkScore, businesses will be able to measure the fluid and unstructured comments and opinions made about their brands online using Net Promoter, the widely-embraced customer loyalty metric and business practice that drives profitable growth.

In the upcoming weeks and months, Satmetrix will be releasing a series of SparkScore solutions. The first, free edition, is currently live in beta version and a limited number of invited customers have been given access. It is scheduled to launch at the Net Promoter Conference in London in June and will measure SparkScores of major brands across select industries. Using Metavana’s rigorous and reliable sentiment engine, SparkScore will analyse the fluid and unstructured comments made about brands across social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, and more), as well as reviews discussion sites and applicable private customer forums, and assign a SparkScore to each brand. Companies will be able to access their overall SparkScore and compare it to their industry’s benchmark and best and worst scores on a weekly basis.

Following this first release, Satmetrix will be embedding its SparkScore solutions into its Net Promoter in the Cloud software applications to enable companies to generate more powerful social media insights and drive action across their organisations to increase business results.

For media wishing to arrange an early look at the free SparkScore site before global launch in June, please contact Matt Manners. Details below.

The research was carried out in January 2012 with community members of http://www.netpromoter.com/. The results are based on 1180 responses from businesses around the globe.

About Satmetrix

Satmetrix is the leading provider of cloud-based customer experience software for companies worldwide. As co-developer of the industry-leading Net Promoter® methodology, its applications deliver full process support to help companies reduce customer churn, mobilise loyal promoters, generate more powerful insights and drive customer obsession through accountability. With experience on more than 700 deployments in 47 languages and serving clients in more than 50 countries, Satmetrix has the knowledge to accelerate the success of customer experience efforts using Net Promoter. Satmetrix is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif. with offices in London, New York, Paris and India.

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

RALEIGH, N.C. — SplendidCRM Software, Inc., a pioneering provider of Microsoft-centric Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, has added software libraries to interact with social media sites, including LinkedIn(R), Twitter(R) and Facebook(R). With these new libraries, users are able to import LinkedIn connections, Twitter followers and Facebook friends into the CRM.

Social media is becoming increasingly important to businesses. With these new libraries, SplendidCRM customers get the direct ability to import data, but also have the source code libraries to take integration with social media to a new level.

Also new to SplendidCRM is the ability to import data using the Salesforce.com(R) web services API. This will make it much easier for users to move from a SaaS-only product to an On-premise product.

As part of a new push to attract customers of Salesforce.com, SplendidCRM has released Splendid Backup for Salesforce. This new open-source application allows any Salesforce.com customer to make a complete backup of their data to a local SQL Server database.

Videos that demonstrate the new features are available on the training page at http://www.splendidcrm.com 

About SplendidCRM Software, Inc.

Founded in 2005, SplendidCRM Software provides a Microsoft-centric open-source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application that enables users to leverage their existing Microsoft infrastructure. SplendidCRM was acknowledged as a leader by CRM magazine in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 CRM Market Awards. The company is located in the Research Triangle, North Carolina, and is privately held. To learn more about SplendidCRM, email sales@splendidcrm.com or visit http://www.splendidcrm.com

New NetSuite SuiteCommerce Combines Core Operational Commerce Platform with Externally Facing, Touchpoint-Agnostic Experience Management System

Delivers Unified Platform for B2B, B2C and Machine2Machine Commerce Models

Completely Flexible Front-End Technology Enables Support for Any Touchpoint, Embraced by Leading Commerce Design Firms

SAN FRANCISCO — NetSuite SuiteWorld 2012 — NetSuite Inc., the industry’s leading vendor of cloud-based business management software suites, today announced NetSuite "Commerce as a Service" (CaaS), enabling businesses to manage their interactions with other businesses and directly with consumers via a cloud platform that delivers the customer experience, via any current or future device, directly on the core NetSuite cloud ERP/CRM business management application.  At the heart of the CaaS initiative is NetSuite SuiteCommerce, a new commerce-aware platform that provides a central system to manage all transactions and associated customer interactions with consumers and other businesses regardless of touchpoint (website, smart phone, social media site, in-store, etc.). 

"Over the past decade, NetSuite has transformed how our customers operate their businesses internally. Over the next decade, NetSuite will transform how businesses operate with other businesses and with their customers through NetSuite Commerce as a Service. Our new NetSuite SuiteCommerce offering is at the heart of this transformation," said Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. "By transforming the NetSuite business application into a commerce-aware platform, we enable our customers to extend the richest set of cloud operational capabilities available anywhere directly to their customers, regardless of the device those customers are using – be it a smart phone, a tablet, a personal computer, a point-of-sale system, or touchpoints not yet developed."

At the turn of the century, driven by widespread adoption of the Internet by businesses and consumers, commerce evolved from a process that was conducted on the phone or in a retail setting to the ability to sell online via websites. This drove the introduction of stand-alone "eCommerce" applications designed to support the emerging requirement to sell online.

Consumers quickly adopted eCommerce for its global accessibility, 24×7 availability and diversity of products. Because the industry evolved rapidly and companies were typically running their back end operations on legacy systems such as Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains, Sage or SAP systems locked behind firewalls with no Web capabilities, companies were forced to implement disconnected solutions for selling online, resulting in fragmented customer information built with a distribution channel focus – one set of applications dedicated to retail channel, a separate set of applications for eCommerce channels, and yet another  for telesales operations. Increasingly, companies recognize that implementations of first-generation eCommerce systems such as Demandware, and Magento have resulted in frustrated customers and ever-increasing integration costs as eCommerce becomes a core business competence.

In addition, the proliferation of new end-user preferred "touchpoints" such as smart phones and social media has increased customers’ expectations of a tailored, individualized experience. Consumers assume businesses have full visibility to their transactions across touchpoints and will use that knowledge to provide an optimized experience. Likewise, businesses expect their suppliers to have insight into their business relationships, and assume that they will deliver a B2B experience as compelling as a B2C website.  Finally, physical products increasingly include commerce-embedded capabilities, which enable machine-to-machine (M2M) commerce without the involvement of humans, based upon defined business rules for predictable needs. Enterprises of all sizes have been challenged to respond to this avalanche of requirements because of the speed of change and the daunting burden of integrating inter-related systems to efficiently transact business across these various interaction points.

Rather than take the bolt-on approach of first generation eCommerce systems that attempted to cobble together multiple systems to address emerging customers and business requirements, NetSuite SuiteCommerce enables companies to manage their interaction with customers regardless of channel directly from the most widely used cloud-native business management system. By doing so, NetSuite’s integrated ERP/CRM system is transformed into a commerce engine that is exposed to customers in a device-independent way – supporting traditional browser-based commerce as well as any emerging touchpoint such as smart phones, tablets and POS systems.  Because of both the presentation layer and business logic flexibility, the architecture supports any business model, be it B2C, B2B, M2M, or any combination thereof.

"Every company wants to deliver the commerce experience that Apple delivers to customers – an experience that recognizes the customer regardless of channel or device, and efficiently delivers goods and services in world-class fashion, projecting a powerful brand message. NetSuite SuiteCommerce is architected to enable companies of all sizes to deliver this type of rich, touchpoint-agnostic experience to their customers," added Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. "The secret sauce behind the Apple and NetSuite approach is an integrated back-end system that combines core business processing capabilities with rich customer profiles, to deliver the brand promise of a personalized experience, anytime from anywhere."

NetSuite SuiteCommerce is the result of several years of development. SuiteCommerce exposes native NetSuite commerce capabilities – including merchandising, pricing, promotions, payment processing, support management, and customer management – as services that can be leveraged by any presentation layer, while providing an integrated back-end business management system.

The NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform includes several new important technologies:

• SuiteCommerce Experience – The SuiteCommerce Experience is the page serving and development framework that enables companies to deliver rich user experiences, regardless of touchpoint. The SuiteCommerce Experience is so flexible that it enables designers to create any type of customer experience – from page layout to interaction design. Leading eCommerce design agencies including Fluid, Sweden Interactive, Live Area Labs and Pod1, among others, joined as initial customer experience partners supporting the SuiteCommerce Platform. In addition to supporting any experience design, SuiteCommerce Experience is extremely scalable and high performance. Whereas the industry standard is sub 2-second page load time, SuiteCommerce Experience offers sub-second page times by avoiding the redundant rendering and downloading associated with traditional presentation frameworks.
• SuiteCommerce Services –The SuiteCommerce Platform includes a new group of services called SuiteCommerce Services that expose NetSuite’s back-end commerce functionality and data as services to the SuiteCommerce Experience and any other commerce front-end application. These services, combined with associated SuiteCloud development tools, enable customers to develop new business logic and leverage that business logic across multiple touchpoints. For example, promotions can be implemented once and enabled across online, telephone and in-store transactions to augment the core transactional capabilities, and customize the system to their exact requirements. Leading B2C and B2B commerce providers such as Square, Stripe, SPS Commerce and Retail Anywhere have announced new product offerings to support omni-channel commerce on top of the SuiteCommerce Services platform.
• NetSuite Commerce Platform –The NetSuite Commerce Platform provides the core native business processing capabilities to run modern commerce operations.  Including order management, inventory management and payment processing with personalized promotions, merchandising, account management and support management technologies, NetSuite SuiteCommerce delivers the industry’s most robust cloud-based commerce management technologies. 

The power of providing an integrated experience and cross-channel business logic with SuiteCommerce is apparent in an infinite number of modern use cases:

• Retail:  When customers appear in a retail setting, not only will they be recognized, but store clerks will also be able to see on their point-of-sale system what is in their eCommerce shopping cart or wish list as they serve them. 
• Multi-Channel Business Logic:  Since SuiteCommerce offers a single back-end system for processing orders, managing inventory and generating offers, a business rule such as a maximum number of purchases on a sale item, can be implemented once and enforced across the website, in-store and via telesales.
• Rich Customer Profile driving promotions:  SuiteCommerce provides a single system for customer history, product/item details, and promotions management.  For example, a promotion could be created in seconds targeting customers who have purchased more than $1,000 across any channel and offer a limited time 30 percent off promotion on any item with a gross margin greater than 50 percent.

Product Configurations:

There are two versions of NetSuite SuiteCommerce, one designed to meet the needs of small and mid-sized enterprises and one designed for large and very large enterprises. 

NetSuite SuiteCommerce Mid-market is available immediately and includes the core functionality of SuiteCommerce Services, as well as access to a number of add-on modules including product feeds, ratings and reviews, and loyalty programs.  It is designed to support companies with smaller order volumes and product catalogs.

NetSuite SuiteCommerce Enterprise includes the entire SuiteCommerce offering (SuiteCommerce Experience and SuiteCommerce Services Platform).  It provides support for enterprise scale order volumes and product/item catalogs.

NOTE: NetSuite, the NetSuite logo and SuiteCommerce are registered service marks of NetSuite Inc.

Source: PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1bTkW)

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

Cloud-based Veeva CRM Now Deployed in Over 20 European Countries

With its 4th Annual Global Customer Summit kicking off this morning in Philadelphia, Veeva Systems announced dramatic growth of cloud-based Veeva CRM throughout the continent. Since Veeva’s official expansion into Europe in April 2010, the company has delivered the advantages of cloud computing to more than 35 life sciences companies across 20+ different European markets. When all current deployments are complete, there will be over 30,000 European pharmaceutical representatives using Veeva CRM to better manage their relationships with customers. To support its large user base, Veeva has opened major offices in Barcelona, Budapest and Paris and, along with a network of strategic partners, currently has more than 200 certified Veeva Administrators to implement and support the cloud-based CRM solution in Europe.

Veeva’s European customers include dozens of emerging biotechs and specialty companies as well as ten of the Top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. Key global customers include Astellas Pharma, Boehringer Ingelheim, Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly, and Novartis; key specialty leaders include Actelion, Grünenthal, LEO Pharma, and Stallergenes; and small and medium-sized customers include Human Genome Sciences, Iroko Cardio, Mundipharma, and Pharco Pharma.

"Winning in today’s challenging European pharmaceutical environment requires a fundamentally different commercial approach. To support our new commercial model, we wanted a CRM solution that was truly pan-European, future-proof and agile enough to grow with our organisational needs. Veeva CRM was the only solution to meet all these business requirements," said Wim Kockelkoren, senior vice president EMEA Commercial Effectiveness and CEE Region, Astellas Pharma Europe.

Actelion’s Head of Global Commercial Excellence, Christoph Schmidt, PhD added, "Our search for a single, global CRM solution was driven by today’s increasingly challenging business environment. In order to compete, we need the tools that will enable us to gain a better understanding of our customer’s needs and be more responsive. Veeva offered industry-specific functionality for all different user groups – from key opinion leader managers to key account execs and field reps – around the world, all integrated within a single solution."

Product Enhancements for Region-to-Region Support

Veeva’s success in Europe and elsewhere around the world is due in part to an industry-specific product that is designed to easily meet regional and local needs. Most notably in Europe, Veeva has integrated unique order management and data connector tools into the product. Veeva CRM now includes online and offline order management capabilities such as pricing optimisation engines and other point-of-sale tools to enable European sales reps to place orders directly from pharmacists during the call even without an internet connection. Also, Veeva CRM’s pre-built HCP data connector tool accelerates customers’ ability to integrate with any of the top physician data providers. Thanks to multitenant cloud technology, Veeva CRM’s data connector makes it easy to add new or switch data sources using just straightforward point-and-click design.

Veeva iRep Bolsters Global iPad Growth

Available in 20+ languages, Veeva iRep is the first system to combine CRM with comprehensive Closed Loop Marketing (CLM) on the iPad. Veeva iRep has become the industry’s choice on the iPad with the largest installed base both in Europe and worldwide, according to recent numbers.

"We recognised iRep’s closed-loop marketing functions and the iPad device’s beautiful presentation of multi-media content would support more interactive customer engagements. With iRep, we expect that our account specialists will be more connected, responsive and effective," said Dr. Simon Clough, managing director for Daiichi Sankyo UK. "We’re all about innovation that leads to enhanced quality and value for our customers. We’ve adopted an aggressive agenda for advancing everything from our science to our interactions with stakeholders, and Veeva CRM supports it perfectly," he added.

According to Kevin Crowe, associate director of marketing and sales operations at Human Genome Sciences Europe, "There is no other solution like iRep for Pharma. Having our CRM and CLM capabilities integrated on the iPad is extremely powerful. It will remodel how our commercial teams operate by providing them with accurate, rich, timely customer information on the go, and on a display that appeals to physicians."

Veeva’s dramatic growth in Europe accompanies a record-breaking year for the company on a global scale – Veeva grew customers, deployed users, and employees each by over 100% in 2011. Eric Newmark, program director with IDC Health Insights, which recently published its "Vendor Assessment: 2011 Top 10 Life Science Software Vendors" report concludes, "Veeva is currently the fastest-growing vendor in the sales and marketing space."

About Veeva Systems

Veeva Systems is the leader in cloud-based business solutions for the global life sciences industry. Committed to innovation, product excellence and customer success, Veeva has over 150 customers, ranging from the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs. Founded in 2007, Veeva is a privately held company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Philadelphia, Barcelona, Budapest, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo. For more information, visit http://www.veevasystems.com .

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

Dell Integration Packs are designed to make integration fast and affordable with a user-friendly wizard interface to aid in implementation of popular cloud application integrations, helping to reduce costs and speeding time to value

ROUND ROCK, Texas — First Integration Pack offerings synchronizes data between popular financial and CRM software, streamlining manual entry of critical data to ensure accuracy of customer data, speed quote-to-cash cycles and improve data visibility between sales and accounting teams

Dell is expanding its Dell Cloud Business Applications portfolio by introducing Dell Integration Packs–a cost-effective point-to-point integration solution for growing businesses that enables automatic synchronization of critical data between popular software applications. The first offering integrates data between popular accounting and CRM systems to help improve order accuracy, eliminate manual data re-entry between systems, and accelerate quote-to-cash cycles.

Developed using Dell Boomi integration technology, Dell Integration Packs synchronize critical data between leading financial applications such as Intuit QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics GP with Salesforce CRM. The pre-configured Integration Packs are quick to install with a user-friendly wizard that allows customers to easily deploy them by simply checking a few selection boxes, completely eliminating the need for costly professional services.

"Our customers tell us integration is a core requirement to successful adoption of cloud applications," said Paulette Altmaier, vice president and general manager, Dell Cloud Business Software. "With Dell Integration Packs, we make integration easy and cost-effective for small and medium businesses to seamlessly share data between applications and drive faster time-to-value."

Automate invoice and receipt creation

Dell Integration Packs for Intuit QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics GP streamline a number of manual processes such as order and invoice creation. Newly closed opportunities in Salesforce CRM automatically trigger the creation of sales orders and invoices in QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics GP, helping to eliminate time spent on manual data entry of orders and invoices to increase the speed of billing.

Improve finance and sales productivity

Dell Integration Packs help improve finance and sales productivity with increased visibility and collaboration across teams. For example, sales and account executives are able to see outstanding accounts receivable balances directly in Salesforce CRM and work proactively to help with collections.

"Ninety-four percent of small and medium businesses integrate their cloud applications with other on-premise and cloud systems. As a matter of fact, integration is the key to maximizing the business value of cloud applications," said Anurag Agrawal, CEO, Techaisle. "Dell Integration Packs minimizes the time and effort required to connect mission-critical systems so businesses can speed their time-to-value from new cloud applications."

Pricing and Availability

Dell Integration Packs for both Intuit QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics GP are priced at $65 per month for unlimited users with an annual subscription. Dell Integration Pack for Salesforce CRM and QuickBooks (desktop editions) is available immediately. Dell Integration Pack for Salesforce CRM and QuickBooks Online and the Dell Integration Pack for Salesforce CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP will be available in June. Free 30-day Integration Pack trials are available on the Dell Cloud Business Applications website.

About Dell Cloud Business Applications

Dell Cloud Business Applications offers a family of integrated cloud applications and services that enable new business processes while leveraging existing software and technology investments. Dell Integrated CRM is a cloud service uniquely packaged to meet the needs of growing companies, delivering Salesforce CRM integrated to existing infrastructure along with reporting, analytics, turnkey Dell services, and support. For more information, visit www.dellcloudapplications.com .

About Dell

Dell Inc. listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

Social Media Integration Enables Real-Time Customer Support, Engagement

• Monitor, route and respond to social media support requests
• Automatically escalate spikes in social media requests with certain keywords
• Social interactions handled completely within the Zoho Support UI

PLEASANTON, Calif.– Zoho continues its effort to lead small and medium businesses successfully into the social sphere, announcing today that Zoho Support, the company’s online customer support software, now offers tight integration with Facebook and Twitter. Companies can now easily employ Zoho Support to engage with and support their customers in real time via the popular social networks — without ever leaving Zoho Support’s intuitive user interface.

“Today’s connected customers expect a higher level of customer support. When they Tweet a question to a company, they expect a genuine answer, and they expect it quickly,” said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. “Social media is growing as a support channel and with the right approach can be an effective and powerful tool for companies to strengthen their customer service. By integrating these features into their existing support software, we are giving companies the power and tools to listen to, learn from and lead their customers to solutions in the spaces customers already interact in, strengthening their reputation and relationships along the way.”

The Facebook and Twitter integrations for Zoho Support are the latest result of Zoho’s continued focus on outfitting their customers with powerful and effective social integrations. Zoho has already rolled out Facebook and LinkedIn integration into Zoho CRM, and LinkedIn integration for Zoho Recruit.

“We are excited to continue providing companies with the tools they need to effectively embrace social media,” added Vegesna. “These integrations are strengthening Zoho users’ ability to leverage social media into their organizations’ desired results. We are committed to giving Zoho users across our suite of applications expanded social support.”

Socializing Zoho Support

Within Zoho Support, the user interface gains a new social tab with options for Facebook and Twitter that let users:

• Listen to customers, wherever they are – Whether customers direct a Tweet at a specific profile or discuss a service with friends, companies can now monitor their profiles, pages, hashtags and defined keywords and then engage those customers, all from within Zoho Support.
• Route and respond – Set faster SLA and escalation paths for tickets from Twitter and Facebook to meet the real-time expectations of social media users. Companies can also organize and expedite ticket routing, directing different keywords automatically to specific support agents or teams. Agents can also reply to public Tweets and Facebook comments directly within the Zoho Support interface, simplifying an already complicated job.
• Escalate – Zoho Support can set a trouble-sensing filter that automatically sends customized alerts to assigned company officials when a certain Tweets-per-minute threshold is met. With immediate notifications that the conditions are ripe for a social media storm, companies can make proactive effort to fix a problem early and avoid having the costly damage of a social media backlash.

Pricing and Availability

Facebook and Twitter integration for Zoho Support is available immediately, free of charge, in the Zoho Support Enterprise Edition and Zoho Support Professional Edition.

For more information on Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com and watch “What is Zoho?” To get breaking Zoho news, visit and subscribe to the RSS feed at http://blogs.zoho.com, and follow the company on Twitter at @zoho and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/zoho.

About Zoho

Zoho is a comprehensive suite of award-winning online productivity, collaboration and business applications for businesses of all sizes. Over five million users rely on Zoho for their Business, Productivity & Collaboration needs and actively connect via Forums, Blogs, Facebook and Twitter. To date, Zoho has launched 27 different applications which include several online office applications such as Writer, Sheet, Show and Mail along with a host of business applications ranging from CRM to Projects, Invoice and Meeting. These applications are offered directly via Zoho.com or through hundreds of partners in the Zoho Alliance Partner Program. For more information about Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com.

Zoho is a division of Zoho Corp., a privately-held and profitable company, which also provides IT Management Software (ManageEngine with more than 60,000 customers) and a Network Management Suite (WebNMS with 25,000 Tier 1 carrier deployments). With headquarters in Pleasanton, CA and offices in Austin, New Jersey, Chennai, London, Tokyo and Beijing, Zoho Corp. serves the technology needs of millions of customers worldwide.

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

Survey of Nearly 200 IT Professionals Finds Proliferation of Mobile Devices in the Workplace Continues to Create Management and Security Problems

The role of IT managers has changed drastically in a short period of time – revolutionized by smart mobile devices and increased remote connection tools. While end users in the workforce are rapidly making use of these advances, IT managers are trying to find the best way to maintain control of their IT environments. In order to determine how IT managers are keeping pace, LANDesk Software, a leading provider of systems lifecycle management, endpoint security and IT service management, recently surveyed 193 IT professionals regarding how they are adapting to the rapidly evolving new mobile workforce.

LANDesk surveyed 193 IT managers and administrators in medium-to-large size enterprise organizations. Of those surveyed, 96 percent reported that end users in their organizations are now using two or more computing devices in the workplace; however, only 75 percent reported that they are actually managing two or more devices per user. This disconnect shows that end users are adopting more devices quicker than IT managers can keep pace.

Additional survey findings include:

• 44 percent of those surveyed said at least part of their workforce works remotely.
• 77 percent of those surveyed said end users use their personal mobile devices in the workplace.
• 54 percent of those surveyed reported that they do not currently have a security strategy for mobile devices in place.
• 37 percent of those surveyed reported that they deal with more than 10 malware incidents a month

In order to further illustrate its survey findings, LANDesk commissioned an infographic summary of the results, which can be found at http://www.landesk.com/newmobileworkforce/.

“Virtually everything we read in the press and hear firsthand from our customers, points to the fact that IT is on the cusp of a radical change, and end user computing will never be the same,” said Steve Workman, vice president, LANDesk. “The days of provisioning and maintaining a single computing platform, locking down work environments and mandating productivity systems are dead. This survey of mobile device management drives these points home. We surveyed a cross section of IT managers and administrators, and their feedback shows the dramatic nature of this shift and emphasizes the immediacy of the change.”

About LANDesk Software

LANDesk Software is a leading provider of systems lifecycle management, endpoint security, and IT service management solutions for desktops, servers and mobile devices across the enterprise. LANDesk enables IT to deliver business value by gaining control of end-user computing with a single console, light infrastructure, and ITIL solutions that deliver significant ROI for thousands of customers worldwide. LANDesk is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with offices located in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, and can be found at www.landesk.com.

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

Data privacy should be paramount in the minds of today’s consumer. According to the Cloud Industry Forum 55 per cent of businesses cite privacy as a major concern when it comes to Cloud deployments. One would therefore think that this would be uppermost in the minds of solution providers.

But according to Simon Bain, CTO of Simplexo, Google like most of its competitors within the ‘cloud storage’ market, seems to believe that it has a right to, at the very least, use its customers’ files for its own benefit.

"Google has followed its competitors in using a clause which shows total disregard for its customers. It is about time that service companies such as Google and Dropbox started to respect their users and not treat them with such a cavalier attitude,” he stated.

Google terms state: "When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content."

Simon continued: “These words are not very different to those of Dropbox, Box.Net, Microsoft and Apple. So why do we use these services?”

“Well as an individual there is not too much to worry about. In most cases there is no problem with one of these companies creating a derivative work from your own. However, as corporate life becomes much more complicated and people access and share documents in a more distributed and mobile manner, this is simply not an option.”

“If you pass files across to a service which has terms similar to this from Google then you may well be breaking national or state laws covering data privacy and data protection. At the very least you are opening up your company to information theft and copying of corporate data. Worst still you are potentially passing your customers’ data and information across to an insecure third party.”

"Cloud storage services have a real part to play in today’s working environment. However users need to be aware of all of the terms and conditions and also the security aspect of where they are housing their files. This clause is used, not because Google or Dropbox want to copy the files – although they can – but because they cannot be sued if they have a data breach and your files are stolen,” he added.

“And let’s not forget that Dropbox changed its terms of use soon after a major security breach late in 2011 so perhaps other suppliers should follow that route!” he concluded.

About Simplexo Ltd

Simplexo Ltd is focused on delivering a new experience in federated search, and is founded on a solid history in electronic document management and retrieval. Today, Simplexo technology is delivering value to individuals and organisations in many industry sectors, including financial services, healthcare and local government.

49 companies from 17 countries represented

London - The finalists for the European IT Excellence Awards 2012 – the leading pan-European awards event for Solution Provider and Systems Integrator channels – were announced today by IT Europa. A total of 49 companies from 17 European countries have made the finals. The winners will be announced at the European IT Excellence 2012 Awards Dinner at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, London on 30th May 2012.

The European IT Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards which recognise the crucial role that Solution Providers and Systems Integrators play in the delivery of real world solutions, and attracted entries from 23 countries. Entries were submitted by the Solution Providers and Systems Integrators describing the solution provided. Each entry had to be supported by an endorsement by the client.

“The quality of entries was extremely high and demonstrated the depth of talent in the European IT channel,” stated Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa. “Finalists have come from right across Europe with Central and Eastern European countries well represented.”

“The judges were impressed with the quality of all the entries and the obvious work that had gone into preparing them,” stated John Chapman, Editorial Director at IT Europa. “Each year we are encouraged by the tremendous enthusiasm from the channel for such an awards event. We were inundated with enquiries, ranging from requests for advice on how to make a good entry to emails of support for what we were doing with the event. What is so exciting and uplifting is the real skill and ingenuity shown by the companies in many of the solutions. Our judges have a lot of experience in the IT industry and sitting on such judging panels, so to have such comments as ‘superb’ and ‘incredible’ from them was great to hear.”

There were 12 categories for Solution Provider solutions from SMB to major enterprise and Government to Managed Service provision. As well as the Solution Provider categories, there are four supplier categories for which Solution Providers nominate their distributor, service provider or hardware and software supplier for the support they provide through their partner programs.

“The entries in the categories for suppliers showed that these companies have been putting a tremendous amount of effort into their channel development activities, particularly in helping partners accelerate their businesses through the recovering economic climate experienced in 2011,” commented John Chapman. “The entries detailed the sales and marketing activities undertaken in partnership with the supplier and showed the results as far as new business development and market penetration.”

Solution Provider Categories – Finalists

SMB

Transformation Solution of the Year

• Green Fields Technology
• Lease-Desk
• Northdoor plc

Technology Solution of the Year

• Avangate
• Blue Rock Systems
• Greenwall Systems
• KoçSistem Bilgi ve Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S.
• PureNet

Enterprise

Transformation Solution of the Year

• Azzurri Communications
• Cisilion Limited
• Combis
• Datapolis
• HCL AXON

Technology Innovation of the Year

• Atlas Products International
• Azzurri Communications
• Critical Software, SA
• Isotrak Ltd
• Unicorn Systems a.s.

Datacentre Solution of the Year

• ACP IT Solutions GmbH
• Backup Technology
• EACS Limited

Vertical Solution of the Year

• ACE enterprise Slovakia
• Comtact Ltd
• m-hance
• Sigma Consultancy
• Unicorn Systems a.s.

Mobility

Mobility Solution of the Year

• ACE enterprise Slovakia
• Cisilion Limited
• EACS Limited

Government

Citizen Engagement Solution of the Year

• Berkley, part of The Livvy’s Group
• COMP-2000 d.o.o.
• SIVECO Romania

Information Management Solution of the Year

• COMP-2000 d.o.o.
• INSOFT Development & Consulting
• SIVECO Romania

IT Innovation Solution of the Year

• ACP IT Solutions GmbH
• Cisilion Limited
• SIVECO Romania

Managed Service

Managed Support Service

• 360 Solutions
• Azzurri Communications
• Berkley (part of The Livvy’s Group)
• Custard Technical Services

Hosted / Cloud Solution of the Year Atlanta Technology

• Azzurri Communications
• Backup Technology
• Green Fields Technology

Supplier Categories – Finalists

Distributor of the Year

• Avnet
• Hammer
• Info Quest Technologies S.A.
• Marvel Distribution
• VIP Computers Ltd
• Wick Hill

Service Provider of the Year

• intY
• Rise
• Unicorn Universe a.s.

Hardware Vendor of the Year

• Dell
• EMC
• Quantum

Software Vendor of the Year

• AvePoint
• Ipswitch Network Management Division
• Microsoft
• nlyte Software
• Red Hat

The European IT Excellence 2012 Awards Dinner, at which the winners will be announced, will be held on 30th May 2012 at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, London. For further information visit: www.iteawards-it.com

About IT Europa

IT Europa is the leading provider of strategic business intelligence, news and analysis on the European IT marketplace and the primary channels that serve it. It publishes European channel publications such as the IT Europa Newsletter, markets a range of database reports and organises European conferences and events for the IT and Telecoms sectors. For further details visit: www.iteuropa.com

For further information contact:

Alan Norman

Tel: +44 (0) 1895 454 604

Email: alan.norman@iteuropa.com

Copyright ® 2011 by CRM HELP DESK Software .com. All Rights Reserved.

NetFort warns organisations: Don’t let Content Delivery Networks impair network insight

NetFort, the software company that shows what users are doing on the network, is today warning organisations to beware of the network visibility problems which Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can pose. Although CDNs can be a valuable asset – in particular, ensuring the fast delivery of web content during global events such as Barack Obama’s presidential campaign – they can also create visibility problems for network managers. With CDNs delivering global content cached locally, network managers may struggle to understand the source of the traffic and consequently how to handle it when it hits their network.

"We no longer have a ‘one-speed’ web, where emails and website traffic is tolerant to delays and there is no real need for speed," says Darragh Delaney, technical director, NetFort. "Certain types of traffic can be very sensitive to lag and vital to the day-to-day functioning of an organisation. Although CDNs can speed up web requests by caching bandwidth-heavy content locally, this also means that when network managers are inspecting traffic, they may simply see ‘17775g.akamai.net’ or the name of the CDN provider, rather than the actual source itself, for example Netflix or Salesforce.com, which should influence how this traffic is handled."

NetFort recommends that organisations use tools and techniques to overcome this challenge, matching the time and date of the download to proxy server log details. Alternatively, the use of deep packet analysis tools can check the type of traffic as it travels around the network. NetFort advises companies to use port mirroring to ensure that network traffic is not interrupted and the day-to-day operations of the company are not disrupted.

"Network blindness can cost the IT team many hours of valuable time and may eventually result in the slowdown of business critical applications such as CRM and ERP," continues Delaney. "Once organisations have visibility of their network traffic, they can even correlate this to authentication logs and find out the heaviest users of bandwidth within the organisation. It is only by having clear visibility of what users are doing on the network that network teams can prioritise traffic, and making sure that business proceeds as usual, rather than non-essential traffic clogging up valuable bandwidth."

This content is based on a blog from Darragh’s column on Computerworld. For more information please see blogs.computerworld.com, http://www.netfort.com/ or contact NetFort on support@netfort.com or via the support forum: http://forum.netfort.com/netfort

About NetFort

NetFort provides software to monitor activity on virtual and physical networks. Using NetFort’s LANGuardian network managers gain complete visibility of user and network activity from an overall insight to high-definition detail.

Headquartered in Galway, Ireland, NetFort Technologies was established in 2002 and has built up a global customer base in the enterprise, education, and government sectors