ASCDI in the news
Cisco
iSeries
Leasing
Market news
Retail news
RFID
Sun

ASCDI in the news

Compu-Call wins award from Inc. 5000 & Forbes Magazine
Compu-Call, Inc. has again been named one of America’s fastest growing private companies by Inc. 5000 and was recognized in the December issue of Forbes Magazine.  Compu-Call, Inc. is the nation’s largest Ricoh|IBM Printer Distributor, specializing in print management solutions.  The company was founded in 1987 by Philip and Susan Quinn.  Compu-Call, Inc. is a certified IBM Business Partner offering IBM hardware and software business solutions and services to customers in the Northeast.  They specialize in providing comprehensive consulting and network integration solutions for the iSeries and xSeries SMB marketplace.  Since 1987 they have built a loyal customer account base.  Compu-Call has quietly become the largest Ricoh|IBM Printer Distributor and IBM Reseller in North America providing printer hardware products for both retail and wholesale distribution.  They have also established a “value-added” solution practice focusing on enhanced printer technologies such as creating form overlays and other customer demand applications.
Visit www.compucallinc.com.
^Back To Top

Cisco

Cisco evolves senior technology leadership team
Cisco has announced the resignation of Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Charles Giancarlo, 50, who has decided to pursue new professional opportunities. Earlier this month, under Giancarlo's leadership, Cisco reorganized its Development Organization and established the Development Council, chartered with driving Cisco's effectiveness and ability to deliver more focused and integrated products and solutions to its customers. The Development Council, comprised of seven key technology leaders, will collectively drive Cisco's development efforts and initiatives in technology development that are key to Cisco's growth strategy. The Development Council will report directly to Chairman and CEO John Chambers and will be responsible for the overall engineering, product and technology strategy for the company and executing against Cisco's technology goals and priorities.
Visit www.cisco.com.
^Back To Top

iSeries

NetManage launches new solution package for the iSeries market
NetManage, Inc. announced the launch of a new solution package which reinforces its commitment to the iSeries market. The package's attractive offering and its ease-of use solutions will allow NetManage customers to align more closely to their real business needs and provide technical answers in less time while, as always, gaining the maximum return on their previous investments. The new NetManage solution package is the result of strong market demands from a majority of IBM users who face limitations when trying to move their traditional systems towards new strategies and IT architecture. The newly launched solution package will also bring benefits to the company's partners and collaborators. This solution allows them to rely on a technological expert in the IBM world - an expert with practical experience and capability - for their integration projects that combine different systems, environments and knowledge transfer. This iSeries solution package is the only one of its kind that combines the speed of tactical solution delivery with the flexibility and strength of bigger, more strategic directions.
Visit www.netmanage.com.
^Back To Top

Leasing

Credit Manager's Index finishes 2007 with another slight drop
The seasonally adjusted Credit Manager's Index (CMI) fell for the fourth consecutive month in December. The index lost 0.7%, and dropped to a record low of 52.4%. Six of the 10 components fell, including a 4% drop in dollar collections.  Daniel North, chief economist with credit insurer Euler Hermes ACI, said, "While the manufacturing index actually gained 0.8%, it was overshadowed by a loss of 2.3% in the service index. The deterioration in the combined index matches that of other major indicators in the macroeconomy, including disappointing holiday sales, a weakening employment market, accelerating declines in housing prices, downgrades of banks and insurers, plummeting consumer confidence, and a rapid increase in delinquencies and defaults on many types of credit. It would appear that trade credit managers are now encountering the same difficulty found in other credit markets, that is, the inability of debtors to pay bills due to insufficient cash flow."  The combined Credit Manager's Index fell 2.4% over the past 12 months as eight of the ten components fell. "The filings for bankruptcies component fared the worst, falling 7.4%," North said.
Visit www.nacm.org.
^Back To Top

Market news

Fibre Channel switch shipments up over 30% year-over-year
According to a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, shipments of Fibre Channel switch ports continued to rise in the third quarter of this year and were up over 30 percent compared to the same period a year ago. The report indicates that HBA shipments remained flat for the third consecutive quarter. “We see some interesting dynamics now that Brocade has its 8 Gbps platforms in qualification at its major resellers,” said Tam Dell’Oro, President and Founder of Dell’Oro Group. “For the first time since Brocade announced its intention to acquire McDATA, Brocade gained share, particularly at the high-end. We surmise that Brocade has gained credibility by being first-to-market with a next-generation platform and delivering a product that customers can touch, feel, and see the future migration path,” added Dell’Oro.  The Dell’Oro Group SAN Quarterly Report provides complete, in-depth coverage of the market with tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and port shipments (by speed 2 Gbps, and greater than or equal to 4 Gbps) for Fibre Channel switches and Fibre Channel host bus adapters.
Visit www.DellOro.com.
^Back To Top

Retail news

Holiday online retail: shopper satisfaction down in 2007
Customer satisfaction with online retail during the 2007 holiday season is down slightly from last year, according to the Holiday 2007 edition of the ForeSee Results Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index. Aggregate satisfaction with the leading online retailers scored 74 on a 100-point scale, losing 1.3 percent from a year ago, as online holiday sales rose at their slowest pace ever. Last year’s top-rated websites continue to dominate the Index. Netflix (86), Amazon (82), L.L. Bean (80) and QVC (80) lead the Top 40. The most improved websites from last year include Costco (up 4.3% to 72), Zappos (up 4% to 78), and Avon (up 3.9% to 79). Internet Pure Plays still hold the edge over multi-channel retailers when it comes to online customer satisfaction.

Using the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), ForeSee Results identifies the improvements to websites and other online initiatives with the greatest ROI. With over 25 million survey responses collected to date and benchmarks across dozens of industries, ForeSee Results offers its clients unparalleled expertise in customer satisfaction measurement and management.
Visit www.ForeSeeResults.com.
^Back To Top

RFID

RFID takes off – big time
Zebra Technologies has recently bought several impressive RFID companies, putting over $200 million on the table and, with $500 million in the bank, it is clearly poised to do more. In different RFID sectors, Assa Abloy buys at least one RFID company every year. Inside Contactless has just raised $38 million to boost its effort on RFID-enabled mobile phones with the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia leading the group of investors. Clearly RFID is taking off – big time. Consider High Frequency (HF) RFID. This is the main focus of spending on the technology, with ISO 14443 tags and systems responsible for about ten times the order value of any other contestant. It is not strongly promoted and it is widely believed to be a mature technology with little improvement ahead of it. Yet HF RFID is taking a huge leap forward thanks to a string of technical breakthroughs in 2007 and 2008 that sharply increase range, multi-tag reading and tag cost and size. Active RFID is a particularly hot sector of RFID, with tenfold increase in sales in prospect over the next ten years powered first by Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) on people and assets then Ubiquitous Sensor Systems (USS), with some merging of the two in state of the art, ultra low cost radio mesh networks. The world’s leading conference on RFID smart labels and their systems is called “RFID Smart Labels USA” and it takes place in Boston 20-21 February 2008.
Visit www.idtechex.com.
^Back To Top

Sun

Sun brings global governments online with open architectures
Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced that Japan has chosen Sun to create an open, Web 2.0 architecture that will better leverage IT to deliver better government services to citizens. Japan, Singapore and Norway each join the growing list of governments that have already turned to Sun for efficient, scalable architectures that accurately manage global information flow and help maximize productivity. The government of Japan has been keenly exploring ways to provide electronic government services for many years, which led to the formulation of the "New IT Reform Strategy" in January 2006. The strategy has a goal of making 50 percent of all applications and filings for government agencies to be submitted online by 2010, which can only be attained if the service infrastructures are up to speed with taxpayers' expectations. Sun was chosen to create an integrated and inherently secure network, called Trusted Network, which will help enable a true one-stop service infrastructure. The complete Sun solution is comprised of OpenSolaris OS, Sun Java System Identity Manager software, Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite and Sun Ray thin clients.
Visit www.sun.com.


Alain Andreoli appointed to senior vice president of EMEA region
Sun Microsystems Inc. announced the appointment of Alain Andreoli as senior vice president of its EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. He will be responsible for directing Sun's EMEA sales and services which today represents close to 40% of the company's business. Andreoli joins Sun with more than 25 years of technology, sales and leadership experience having most recently served as CEO of cc-hubwoo, the leading global provider in “source-to-pay” electronic solutions and supplier network management. His experience spans a variety of markets including consumer electronics, semiconductors, data storage, networking, IP communications, IT/data center services, software as a service and IP community networks. Prior to joining cc-hubwoo he was president and CEO at Xiotech. His career includes 14 years at Texas Instruments where he most recently served as corporate vice president and general manager of EMEA and nearly five years at StorageTek where he served as corporate vice president and general manager of International Operations.
Visit www.sun.com.
^Back To Top