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Vol 2, #40, Oct. 5, 2010 |
Fully Interoperable Solutions from Bridgewater Bridgewater Systems, the mobile personalization company, and Sandvine, a leading provider of network policy control solutions for fixed and mobile operators, have successfully completed interoperability of Sandvine's Policy Traffic Switch (PTS), which detects network conditions, counts usage and enforces network and subscriber policy decisions defined by the Bridgewater Policy Controller (PCRF) to manage mobile data growth and deliver new services. The testing included the PCRF Gx and Gy usage metering interfaces for 3GPP-compliant Policy Control Enforcement Points. "With the emergence of more powerful mobile devices, service providers are looking to advance network policy control solutions to manage network congestion and ensure the highest possible quality of experience for the widest range of applications,” says Tom Donnelly, Executive Vice President, Sandvine. “The Sandvine and Bridgewater integrated solution enables quick and easy deployments of key service creation programs, such as usage management and personalized data plans." The interoperability testing showcases the two companies' commitment to delivering 3G and 4G policy control solutions that are standards compliant and address next generation services requirements for mobile operators. The joint policy solutions enable mobile operators to:
" Bridgewater and Sandvine have successfully worked together in a major 4G operator deployment and we are now expanding this relationship to include integrated policy solutions,” says David Sharpley, Senior Vice President, Bridgewater Systems. “By combining Sandvine's Policy Traffic Switch with the Bridgewater Policy Controller, operators can deliver innovative, personalized services that increase profitability while meeting the increasingly sophisticated requirements of mobile users." The joint Sandvine and Bridgewater solution is now live in a major North American 4G operator network and the two companies are working together on joint opportunities globally. Top of Page LifeSpeak Inc., a company bringing health and well-being experts into workplaces, has launched LifeSpeak On Demand 2.0 – Ask the Expert, a monthly web chat that enables busy employees to get their own questions answered by subject-matter leaders. The first expert to be featured online will be Dr. David Goldbloom, Senior Medical Advisor, Education and Public Affairs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Vice Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. "There is a growing awareness that mental illness has a profound impact on the workforce. It is the leading cause of short-term disability and yet there remains a reluctance to talk openly about the issues. Providing answers to important questions via LifeSpeak's web chats for those who need it but are too busy to seek it out in other ways is in keeping with my mandate to enlighten people, bring down barriers and reduce the stigma of this all-too-common set of human problems." Supported by their employers, hundreds of thousands of employees working in diverse organizations ranging in size and operation (both public and private sector) already access LifeSpeak On Demand, a library of streaming video clips featuring expert speakers from a roster that LifeSpeak has grown and nurtured since 2004. With LifeSpeak On Demand 2.0, they can continue their learning by engaging in question and answer exchanges directly with the experts. "In recent years we have seen how our clients are adopting e-learning strategies to deliver information to their increasingly mobile and tech-savvy workforces," says Aimée Israel, CEO of LifeSpeak. "LifeSpeak On Demand 2.0 leverages technology to give employees access to world-renowned experts at the touch of a button." The LifeSpeak On Demand library features over 250 video clips. Each segment is led by a subject matter expert, the likes of which include: Vice Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Dr. Goldbloom; Hospital for Sick Children Chief of Paediatric Medicine, Dr. Friedman; parenting expert and television host, Alyson Schafer; and personal finance expert, author and television personality Patricia Lovett-Reid. Topics include: physical/mental health, personal growth/relationships, professional development/communication skills, children's health/wellness, parenting and eldercare.Top of Page Google Android Phone coming to Mobilicity Mobilicity has announced it is carrying the Nexus One TM by Google TM smartphone, a state-of-the art Android TM 2.2 device known for its sleek form factor, fast performance and Google enhancements for seamless integration with Gmail, Google Earth and live desktop wallpapers. The Nexus One features a spectacular, 3.7-inch brilliant touch-screen display and a 1GHz Qualcom Snapdragon core processor - the fastest on the market. Considered a multi-tasker's dream come true, the device is designed to simultaneously run 3D graphics, online applications and multiple programs running in the background without slowing down. The Android device also features Google's voice-activated keypad - voice recognition software that automatically converts speech to text messages, email, social networking updates and built-in GPS and mapping applications. Top of Page Points.com and Continental expand Partnership Continental Airlines OnePass members can now move and redeem miles on the new Points.com. Points International Ltd., owner and operator of Points.com, has expanded its relationship with Continental Airlines’ OnePass frequent flyer program to let members exchange miles into other loyalty accounts and redeem points for leading retailers, flights and services. Previously, Points.com only gave OnePass members the ability to trade miles with other users via Points.com's miles and points management platform. The new experience not only allows Continental OnePass members to exchange points and miles from one program for another, but also to redeem their OnePass miles for gift cards to hundreds of major retailers includingBest Buy and Target. "Continental OnePass® is one of the largest and most respected frequent flyer programs in the airline industry with more than 35 million members," said Rob MacLean, CEO of Points.com. "The benefits of the expansion of our relationship into exchange and redeem is two-fold: it allows Continental's members to get even more OnePass® miles by leveraging their participation in other programs as well as enhancing the value proposition for Continental." "Giving our OnePass® members the best experience is of utmost importance to Continental, so expanding with Points.com to include exchange and redeem was a natural next step for us," said Mark Bergsrud, Senior Vice President of Marketing Programs and Distribution for Continental Airlines. "With members exchanging miles and redeeming them for flights, products and services, our members have greater opportunity to use their miles in ways that are most beneficial to them." In addition, OnePass® members have the ability to track mileage balances along with more than two dozen other programs, including American Airlines AAdvantage®, Delta SkyMiles®, US Airways Dividend Miles and Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. Points International works in partnership with all loyalty and reward programs active on Points.com. All transactions are fully sanctioned by the program operators. Top of Page Sympatico.ca's first ever Consumer Campaign Sympatico.ca has launched their first-ever integrated on and offline consumer campaign promoting its family of web channels and banners. Deploying a series of teaser URLs and/or pop-culture idioms, consumers are presented with varied ad placements featuring the Sympatico.ca favicon and colours alongside catchy, engaging messages. Each unique campaign features and highlights the original content found on the many web portals operated by Sympatico.ca. “We want to increase public awareness of Sympatico.ca’ top channels” said Patrick Larouche, Director Marketing & Communications at Sympatico.ca. “This campaign was developed to further enhance the unique value proposition of our leading brands online and drive their awareness, reputation and engagement among internet users.” Launched on September 6 th, the campaign stretches over a period of 16 weeks with a strategy to engage consumers through immersing them in the Sympatico.ca brand experience. "We wanted the campaign to be flexible enough to encompass the incredible range of content Sympatico.ca offers” says Ian Grais, National Creative Director of Rethink (agency behind the creative.) “At the same time, we desired such persuasion amongst consumers we envisioned highly-unexpected and surprising ways to deploy the messages. Ultimately we sought to ensure the emphasis on Sympatico.ca’s Canadian focus and locally experienced, on-the-ground content sourcing teams, was integrated throughout.” Leveraging a series of communication tactics including web exposure, subway posters, billboards, magazines and a handful of guerrilla initiatives, the campaign is sure to generate a ‘buzz’ as word-of-mouth on the street drives viral traffic across the web. “Our team worked very hard to coordinate the wide-range of partners we’ve engaged. Our creative, media placement and PR groups are ensuring these ads are viewed in context, that they create the desired impact and ultimately are talked about.” added Larouche. With execution in both French and English, the campaign highlights seven of Sympatico.ca’s primary sub-brands such as InMovies.ca, inMusic.ca and YourMoney.ca. “Using a mix of planned deployments, supported by a creative platform flexible enough to capture momentum; we know exactly where we are going, and at the same time the creative platform is flexible enough to seize new opportunities as they arise” Larouche concludes. Top of Page New Self-Provisioning Feature for Encrypted MailEchoworx Corporation, a leading provider of managed encryption services for complete enterprise email and data protection, has launched self-provisioning for their Encrypted Mail Gateway product. "Our partners can now take a hands-free approach to policy-based encryption allowing their resellers and customers to self-manage, self-brand and even create their own policy-based rules without our partners having to do any of the set up work," says Michael Ginsberg, President and CEO of Echoworx. "With more stringent regulatory requirements, more organizations are looking to implement encryption fast and what better way than for them to set up and manage their own accounts with little involvement from their suppliers." With the current model, an Echoworx partner would license the product, sell it to their reseller or customer and then they would have to work with Echoworx directly to set up the customer account, manage the account and even develop the branding. With the new model the reseller has the option of doing all the work or handing it off to their customer. Either way, the Echoworx partner's involvement in the set up is minimal. "The response to this new feature from our partners has been very positive as they believe that with self-provisioning in their tool belt they can now easily work with hundreds if not thousands of resellers who will in turn sell encryption to their customers," said Ginsberg. With self-provisioning, resellers and/or customers will self-brand their interface by browsing their desktop for company logos and graphics, and easily add themes and corporate colours using the drop down color wheel. Managing customer accounts for the resellers can now all be done from one screen. The reseller has their customer list in one drop down menu and can easily access these accounts to manage or brand the account. The administrator will set the policies by creating matching conditions that will trigger policy actions. They will also manage their own account by:
Counterpath unveils Bria Android Edition CounterPath Corporation, an award-winning provider of desktop and mobile VoIP software solutions, has announced that Bria Android Edition will be commercially available at the end of October. An enterprise-grade VoIP application, Bria Android Edition is a highly secure and standards-based softphone that works over both 3G and Wi-Fi networks. Providing enterprises and other commercial users with a reliable, easy-to-implement solution, CounterPath's latest mobile application helps improve employee productivity while reducing communications costs. Compatible with any smartphone running Android V2.1 or later, Bria Android Edition's features include:
Bria Android Edition integrates seamlessly with other CounterPath desktop and convergence solutions, as well as with enterprise and carrier infrastructure equipment from major vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, BroadSoft, Metaswitch, Avaya, Cisco and NEC. Bria Android Edition also supports Asterisk-based telephony systems. "For both CounterPath and its customers, Bria Android Edition is in the right place at the right time by providing an opportunity to capitalize on the skyrocketing Android smartphone ecosystem," said Todd Carothers, Vice President of Product Management at CounterPath. "With 17 percent of the global smartphone market at the end of second quarter 2010, up from two percent one year earlier, Android has quickly established itself as a major force in both the consumer and enterprise markets. With Bria Android Edition, enterprises, government agencies and other commercial users now can extend their VoIP savings and productivity to the mobile environment - quickly and cost-effectively." Top of Page Open Text receives "Strong Positive" Rating Open Text Corporation’s Open Text Records Management, a fully integrated component of the Open Text ECM Suite, has received the highest possible rating of "Strong Positive" in Gartner's new report entitled "MarketScope for Enterprise Records Management." Gartner's MarketScope provides specific guidance for users who are deploying, or have deployed, products or services. A vendor with a "Strong Positive" rating is viewed by Gartner as a provider of strategic products, services or solutions, meaning that current customers should continue with investments while potential customers should consider the vendor a strong choice for strategic investments. Open Text Records Management helps organizations safeguard against the liability, risk and cost of content and provides a way to verify the integrity of business practices. By ensuring that business policies and legal requirements govern the retention and disposition of content, Open Text Records Management helps organizations comply with worldwide regulations, standards, and certifications, such as U.S. DoD 5015.2, U.S. FDA 21 CFR Part 11, U.S. SEC Rule 17a, Europe 's MoReq, and Australia's VERS. Open Text Records Management is a service provided to all applications of the Open Text ECM Suite and uses the core enterprise archiving capabilities of the suite. A key component of the Open Text ECM Suite, Open Text Records Management provides the ability to manage content classification and taxonomies, retention and disposition, and legal holds. Open Text Records Management features are embedded in the interface of common corporate applications such as SAP and Microsoft Office, Outlook and SharePoint. By providing a common records management service for all forms of content across the enterprise, Open Text Records Management provides an automated system that removes the complexities of records management and makes the process transparent to end users. The system also provides extensive support for control of physical items. "While the business case for records management has become more urgent with more stringent regulations globally and changing e-discovery rules, the challenge of capturing and preserving content is becoming more difficult as the diversity of content expands," said Lubor Ptacek, Vice President of Product Marketing at Open Text. "We believe Gartner's rating confirms our strategy of making records management an integral part of the enterprise fabric, allowing users to adopt records management practices without changing the way they work." Top of Page Tween Virtual World Game exceeds 1M Profiles Woozworld, a virtual world powered by tweens, has more than 1 million avatars created in over 80 different countries, and 2 million user-generated virtual spaces in just over eight months since its late December 2009 launch. "We are extremely proud of what Woozworld has accomplished in just eight short months," said Eric Brassard, CEO of Woozworld. "Through our highly engaging worlds that offer relevant user experiences to our tween and teen audiences, a safe online environment where parents can let their kids have fun and learn at the same time, and a smart business model, we've made Woozworld a success in less than a year." Targeted for kids ages nine to 14, Woozworld provides an engaging and interactive experience by letting them create their own world where they can fashion their own characters, make new Woozworld friends, do virtual business, set-up activities and essentially drive the show. All personal information is protected and Woozworld strictly conforms to the Children's Online Privacy Protection act. In addition to hitting more than 1 million profiles in eight months, Woozworld has also partnered with some of the leading companies today, including Facebook; Wallie Card, a payment method card for Internet payments; and Zong, the leading mobile payments platform for digital goods and services sellers. "We've worked with many different companies and we truly believe in our partnerships given what they represent and have to offer," says Mathieu Lampron, VP of Operations for Woozworld. "In fact, we've seen our sales rapidly climb in the last few months; we're excited to see our business relationships grow." Top of Page |
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