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Microsoft Canada and the University of Toronto are pleased to announce that UofT is the latest higher education institution to deliver Microsoft’s Live@edu e-mail and document management service. This joint initiative enables UofT’s 77,000 students to join a rapidly growing community of 11 million peers in more than 10,000 schools worldwide who are benefiting from the power of Live@edu.

This cloud-based collaboration suite will help the University reduce costs, improve communication and collaboration between students, and equip them with the tools they need for their academic career.

“Live@EDU is an outstanding addition to UofT’s robust student support services,” says Cheryl Misak, Vice-President and Provost for the University of Toronto.  “Our students are very much looking forward to having this powerful tool to help them get the most out of their university experience.”

Outside of the classroom, Canadians are increasingly using collaboration software and services and now expect these same capabilities in their learning experience. Extensive consultation with students led by the University’s Chief Information Officer, Robert Cook, showed that students wanted more comprehensive tools to complement their academic involvement.

The platform provides the flexibility of Office Web Apps that include web-optimized versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint – essential tools now accessible to UofT students anywhere, anytime, via any popular web browser or mobile device. Live@edu also includes Outlook for e-mail plus a 10 GB inbox, and enables powerful document sharing and collaboration with 25GB of password-protected online storage.

“Now more than ever, universities such as the University of Toronto require security-enhanced cloud services to deliver the flexibility and functionality that students need to succeed in their studies and in their future careers,” says Mike Tremblay, Vice President, Public Sector, Microsoft Canada. “Live@edu is arming University of Toronto students with tools that drive success in the classroom, and eventually the boardroom.”

The University of Toronto joins more than 10,000 schools in more than 130 countries around the world that have chosen Live@edu as a platform for student communication and collaboration. Live@edu innovations include great tools such as:

• Communication Services: Free, hosted email and calendaring with a 10 GB inbox and instant messaging through Outlook Live
• Collaboration Services: Ability to access, share and collaborate through SkyDrive, with 25 GB of free online storage space
• Productivity Services: Create, view, edit, and share Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files online with SkyDrive

Ottawa-based AssetLabs Inc. and Dublin’s Openplain Ltd. have announced the integration of their web-based ‘SAM’ (Software Asset Management) solutions. This integration enables customers to share data between AssetLab’s AssetCheck and Openplain’s LicenseMetrics services, empowering corporations to optimize, reduce and forecast their software licensing requirements.

LicenseMetrics is a web-based managed service that offers software metering and inventory for PC, MAC, Unix and other network devices. There are no servers or databases to maintain. LicenseMetrics can track usage of desktop, web, virtual and portable applications. LicenseMetrics includes FeatureDetect™, which determines whether the ‘professional or ‘standard’ features of a product are being used, assisting customers in justifying the value of professional editions, or to save money by deploying standard editions.

AssetCheck is a web-based managed service that offers software licensing, budget and productivity risk analysis and true-up cost forecasting based upon software growth trends. AssetCheck also categorizes and normalizes inventory data, identifies vendor ‘end-of-support’, Windows 7 readiness and enables tagging of various license states (open source, trial, volume license, etc.)

“The combination of LicenseMetrics and AssetCheck enables corporations to quickly identify ‘wasted’ software licenses and to justify and also budget for essential increases in software deployments,” says Jon Mulligan, CEO of Openplain. “As a web-based managed service, the deployment and ROI of both AssetCheck and LicenseMetrics are immediate to both the corporation and their SAM advisors.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hosting Controller a developer of Hosting Automation Solutions headquartered in Richmond, announced that it has removed the cap of 1000 licenses till 31st May 2011 on a special discount promotion that offers up to a 90% percent discount on control panel software licenses after seeing an enormous surge in demand for HC8 software during the initial two weeks of promotion.

In this promotion web hosts can buy a Hosting Controller Automation Control Panel license for $99 only instead of $500 and may also purchase Click & Install Apps just for $19 instead of $199, Automated Backup & Recovery just for $19 instead of $199 and VPS Hosting Provisioning just for $19/Server (5 VPS) instead of $690.

“We have been overwhelmed by the response from our customers for HC8 during first two weeks of promotion and it is very encouraging. It would seem that people have been waiting for a lucrative promotion during this bad economic time,” said Babar Zaman, Vice President of Business Development at Hosting Controller Inc. “We are passionate about our products and our customers; therefore we are not surprised at the popularity of this promotion.”

According to the company it received requests from many new customers for additional time to evaluate the software before making the purchase therefore Hosting Controller decided to remove the initial cap of 1000 licenses till 31st May 2011. HC listened and took the necessary step to ensure that customers get sufficient time without worrying about any limit. This promotion is aimed for Web hosts to build or expand on Windows and Linux servers in a cluster environment.

Intertainment Media Inc. has announced that a Guinness World Record was established for the Most Nationalities In An Online Chat on May 20th when 92 countries were officially recorded as participating in KISS Live & Global hosted by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons on Ortsbo. The event also marked the official launch of Ortsbo’s plug-in email translation platform for Microsoft Outlook, the world’s largest email platform.

Broadcast around the world from the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA, participants were able to watch a live video stream on their computers, iPhone, iPad, Android devices as well as submitting questions in 53 languages for KISS co-founders to answer. Thousands of questions were in the queue throughout the broadcast, allowing participants from over 92 countries, representing every geographic region globally to ask questions of the legendary rock stars.

“In addition to establishing a world record, Ortsbo has become a name known around the world as the leader in real time translation,” said David Lucatch, President of Ortsbo and CEO Intertainment Media. “We have already received follow up business opportunities, media requests and advertising inquiries increasing the value opportunities for Ortsbo.”

The event was covered by media around the world, including CBS, FOX, AOL and a wrap-up live broadcast interview with CNBC. Copies of all media, as it’s available, will be posted on the Intertainment and Ortsbo web sites.

During the event, Ortsbo announced the launch of its much anticipated email platform plug-in, allowing users to instantly translate and send emails in 53 languages. The first plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, known as Ortsbo for Outlook, or “O4O”, is now available for registration. Ortsbo will initially make up to 10 Million copies of O4O available globally to consumers and businesses on an introductory basis from mid June through mid September 2011.

With the launch of O4O, Ortsbo Cruise Into Translation is a new promotion that gives users who register and install O4O through August 2011, the opportunity to win 1 of 5 trips on the KISS Kruise in October as well as other VIP prizes. Additional contest ballots will be available for people who refer friends that register and install O4O.

Ortsbo’s flagship product for social media continues to accelerate. When initially launched in July 2010, Ortsbo’s social media translation platform infrastructure was designed to handle the expected first 2 to 3 years of operations or 12 Million monthly users.

Ortsbo has exceeded all growth projections in its first 9 months and has maximized existing platform capabilities and consequently the Company is now accelerating its move to Microsoft’s Window Azure Cloud platform to accommodate the continued viral growth of Ortsbo.

The new Ortsbo Azure platform is expected to be active by mid June as the priority for Azure development has been the KISS Live and Global event technology. This transition will provide virtually unlimited access to Ortsbo from anywhere in the world on almost any computer, smartphone or tablet device.

PowerSearch Software, a developer of affordable and accessible search technologies based in Toronto, has launched its eponymous application that enables users to cull their data prior to collection and to quickly find all files while reducing collection time and costs by 80 percent or more.

With PowerSearch, users simply point the software to their local drive or network repository to quickly generate a snapshot of all available files. PowerSearch is the only product on the market today that allows users to extract, process, search and cull documents before collecting them at no cost. PowerSearch has:

• Built in pre-processing – PowerSearch identifies files that require pre-processing, including .pst and .nsf email formats, as well as zipped and image files.
• Ability to index and analyze files – PowerSearch indexes files for searching and generates exception reports.
• Fast and powerful search capabilities – PowerSearch gives almost instantaneous search results, even on massive amounts of data. Complex searches are easy to construct using drill down technology and the onboard dictionary that shows all the words that exist in the identified files.
• Informative dashboards – PowerSearch includes charts and graphs to show status of the data and project.

“PowerSearch is a great addition to my e-discovery tool set,” stated Marty Musters, director of forensics at Computer Forensics, Inc. and a PowerSearch beta-tester. “It has an easy-to-navigate user interface making it simple to get search results. In addition, the company’s many technical support options ensure there is someone available if I need help.”

“As a records manager, attorney or service provider, knowing what data you have is the foundation of delivering value to your organization or client,” stated Girts Jansons, founder and CEO of PowerSearch. “We wanted to give the legal and records management industries an easy way to access data without large costs involved. We are proud to bring the capabilities of PowerSearch to the market at-large and have received very positive responses from beta testers.”

PowerSearch uses proprietary technology to locate and search files on local drives and network repositories. PowerSearch extracts email repositories and zipped files, indexing the content of emails and electronic documents making them fully searchable. Search results can be saved in folders and if necessary, exported into current tools for further processing.

Unlike other collection and culling products, with PowerSearch there is no charge for deploying the software or for searching or culling. Users only pay for final results, files they ultimately deem relevant and decide to save, by using a system of tokens purchased via PayPal at a fraction of a cent per token. PowerSearch ships with 1,500 tokens.

ConceptWave Software Inc., provider of Customer, Product, and Order Lifecycle Management solutions for the global communications service provider market, announced today that it has contracted with TM Forum to undergo further assessment of its products through the TM Forum Frameworx Product Conformance Certification program.

ConceptWave is continuing its efforts to increase Frameworx conformance for its communications service provider products. The current multi-phase ConceptWave product conformance assessment covers Information Framework (SID) and Business Process Framework (eTOM) for ConceptWave Order Care® and Rapid CRM products. ConceptWave has already submitted the phase 1 self-assessment for TM Forum review.

“ConceptWave is fully committed to TM Forum Frameworx as a way for service providers to constantly reduce costs through operational efficiency, to accelerate delivery of new services, and to reduce risk, while having the agility to meet market and technology changes,” said Dr. Ivan Chochlekov, ConceptWave’s CTO. “Frameworx conformance has enabled ConceptWave to reduce its R&D costs, speed its development effort, and provide faster time-to-market while reducing ongoing support costs.”

ConceptWave led the industry by being one of the first companies to obtain TM Forum Frameworx Product Conformance Certification, granted in May 2010 for its Catalog Management version 5.0 product offering.

“Service providers are following standards-based processes themselves and also expecting their suppliers to provide standards-based products by default,” said George Greenlee, TM Forum Senior VP Product Management. “ConceptWave’s pioneering and continuing involvement in the Frameworx Conformance Certification program continuously raises the bar in the market.”

Frameworx, the communications industry’s only integrated business and IT architecture, provides end-to-end service management by integrating common business processes, enterprise information, and applications into one unified solution.

The automated business process discovery industry took a giant leap forward this week with the formal recognition of StereoLOGIC as a cool vendor in Business Process Management from Gartner Research. This is the third time in ten years that a company founded by business process luminary Sofia Passova has been awarded the coveted cool vendor status.

“Discovery Analyst™ is a genuine breakthrough in business process analysis,” said Dr Sofia Passova, president and CEO of StereoLOGIC. “In a nutshell, Discovery Analyst eliminates the need for lengthy and expensive stakeholder interviews and manual process documentation, and replaces it with a more accurate automated recognition of business processes in real time.”

Sofia Passova

As business transactions are executed by an employee, Discovery Analyst automatically recognizes and maps these processes using a proprietary semantic recognition engine that provides an accurate picture of what is going on. The current industry statistics for process documentation has an accuracy rating of approximately 30 per cent. Discovery Analyst increases the accuracy of process mapping to more than 90 per cent while dramatically reducing the cost. Process discovery results are available in a matter of days instead of months.

When executing or planning a major IT project, Discovery Analyst essentially creates a level playing field by capturing process information provided by employees at every point of interaction. This approach limits the risk associated with big budget IT projects getting off-track in the early stages and leads to a much higher project success rate and reduced costs. Shorter time spent on process discovery creates project efficiencies of 80 per cent or more in the development lifecycle. Read the rest of this entry »

Calgary’s Print Audit®, the print management company, has followed through on its promise to provide great products and support to its customers with the enhancements made in the recent releases of Print Audit Facilities Manager and ICE.

Facilities Manager is a powerful, easy to use tool designed to remotely collect meter reads, automate supplies fulfillment and report service information for managing fleets of copiers, printers, fax machines, and MFPs. The Facilities Manager release has enhanced many of the program’s core features including faster and more accurate reporting capabilities.

ICE gathers information for Facilities Manager by tracking and scanning print devices from all major manufacturers and when incorporated with Print Audit 6, it can accurately track local devices. With the newest release, ICE enhancements include better detection of Kyocera Mita devices and improved integration with Print Audit 6.

The Facilities Manager web portal is updated automatically so all changes are already implemented. Through ICE’s automatic update function, the program will periodically check for a new version and will automatically download and install the update.  Print Audit invites you to try a free demo today.

After months of consultative planning with customers, Toronto’s Monitor 24-7 Inc., creators of the award winning IncidentMonitor service desk software solution, are ready to announce the launch of IncidentMonitor version 9.2, featuring the same famous flexibility and functionality, but with new user interfaces and other user-identified features.

Monitor 24-7’s Marketing and Sales Director Riaz Mohammed says: “The new interfaces were designed directly from customer input. We received input from a wide cross-section of current and potential customers including general usability issues to “cool” features that will greatly simplify user interactions.”

IncidentMonitor has been chosen by customer-centric companies worldwide for its functionality, flexibility and price. The company also welcomes suggestions on how to make its product even better – which, in large part, guided the launch of the new release, notes Mohammed, “one of the biggest concerns was around request submission. The feedback we received showed that most vendors have not done a good job at simplifying the request submission interface. We listened to the feedback and provided a new request interface that provides a very simple yet powerful contact search, and built-in intelligence to automatically present possible resolutions from Knowledgebase (KB) articles and existing requests. Service Level Agreements and service policies are automatically linked and visible, and the customer has easy access to view all service policy details.”

In addition, IncidentMonitor’s technician view has been improved in the area of searches and sorting to quickly access requests. Request updates, assignment, resolution and approvals are all accessible by a single-click without losing advanced task-based updates. A configurable dashboard presents information required (such as team requests, category trends, project summary and My Open Requests) when the technician logs in. Performance improvements have also been implemented in the web interface, which now operates more like a Windows application. Multiple forms can be minimized and easily accessed within one browser window.

Features for End Users:

• Single-click functionality allows screen captures, files copied to the clipboard and attachments to be easily linked to a new or existing request
• Advanced web navigation features, which provide the flexibility of a Windows interface within the browser
• Integrated chat that is accessed via predefined service items

Features for Technicians: Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver’s Serebra Learning Corporation and St. John’s based Blue Drop Inc. are continuing their due diligence investigations into the proposed business combination announced March 24, 2011. In accordance with the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange trading of the shares continue to be halted. In compliance with the requirements set forth by the Exchange, trading in the company’s shares will remain halted until a sponsor has been engaged and satisfactory documents have been provided to the Exchange in accordance with Policy 5.2.

Serebra is also pleased to announce a reseller agreement with Bluedrop for a portion of Serebra’s sales team to sell Bluedrop’s Coursepark product. Coursepark is a leading online learning site that offers individuals access to skills that promote career development, and small businesses a training solution that allows them to build and/or buy courses, and implement, track and manage users’ completion of courses.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to expand our suite of products on offer to current and future clients,” said Taleeb Noormohamed, President and CEO of Serebra. “Coursepark is rapidly becoming a leading global learning site and we are thrilled at the opportunity to help expand its ever-growing user base. It is an excellent complement to Serebra Campus, allowing our sales team a different target market to pursue.”

In addition, Serebra and Bluedrop have negotiated a separate service agreement to have select members of Serebra’s development team provide specialized technical assistance to support Bluedrop’s roadmap for the Coursepark product.

“As we continue to negotiate the terms of a reverse takeover, these reseller and service agreements provide an opportunity to expand our mutual understanding of our products and business models,” added Taleeb.