Upcoming Meeting Notice

The Association of Service and Computer Dealers International (ASCDI) is a 30 year old, worldwide non-profit organization made up of companies who provide technology solutions, technical support or value added services to the business community.

Members and non-members are invited to learn how to grow your business, find new business opportunities, hear from industry representatives and enjoy some fabulous networking events at our conferences:

2010 EUROPEAN HOLIDAY PARTY
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Aalborg, Denmark

2011 USA WINTER RECEPTION
January 13, 2011
Atlanta, GA

2011 ASIA CONFERENCE
February 16 - 18, 2011
Singapore

2011 USA WINTER CONFERENCE
March 23 – 25, 2011
New Orleans, LA

2011 EUROPEAN SPRING RECEPTION
Thursday, 12 May 2011
London, England

Click here for more information on ALL ASCDI MEETINGS, to view the agendas, lodging details, attendee lists and to REGISTER AT THE EARLY BIRD RATE.

Acquisitions
Cloud
Data center
Green
HP
IBM
Storage

Acquisitions

IBM to acquire BLADE Network Technologies
IBM announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), a privately held company based in Santa Clara, CA. BLADE specializes in software and devices that route data and transactions to and from servers. The acquisition is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory reviews. Financial terms were not disclosed. BLADE provides blade server and top-of-rack switches as well as software to virtualize and manage cloud computing and other workloads. Customers include more than half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list across 26 industry verticals, including automotive, telecom services, education, government, healthcare, defense and finance. IBM and BLADE have worked together since 2002, resulting in thousands of joint clients. In fact, over 50 percent of IBM System x BladeCenters currently attach to or use BLADE products.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Cloud

Cloud computing momentum builds despite uncertainties
Investments in cloud computing solutions and services are poised to increase in the next 12 months as opportunities for IT channel companies and their customers come into clearer focus, new research from CompTIA reveals. The CompTIA study “Cloud Computing: Pulling Back the Curtain” finds that 72 percent of end-user organizations surveyed plan to expand the number and types of cloud computing services they use over the next 12 months. Nearly two-thirds of end users (64 percent) plan to increase their investment in cloud solutions by more than 5 percent in the coming year. Similarly, more than half of IT channel organizations surveyed plan to boost their investment in cloud computing by 10 percent or more in the next 12 months. From the customer perspective, the transition to cloud computing is accelerating because of a desire to reduce capital expenditures (cited by 85 percent of end user respondents) and to drive down costs (84 percent). Customers also expressed a desire to add new capabilities not available in current IT models as a reason to move to cloud computing. It was cited by 81 percent of end users surveyed and offers up a compelling reason for channel providers to sell cloud services as a value-added solution, not simply a way to cut customer IT costs.
Visit www.comptia.org.
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Data center

Westcon Group unveils inaugural LEAP Center
Westcon Group, Inc. announced it has unveiled the first of its global LEAP (Learn, Experience, Architect and Plan) Centers, dedicated "centers of excellence" for resellers to capitalize on data center opportunities related to next-generation technologies -- including the Cisco Unified Computing System. The Brussels-based facility is the first of several world-class facilities Westcon Group will be launching around the world. Next month, a LEAP Center will open in Denver, U.S.A. and other LEAP Centers will follow in Sydney, Australia and Singapore in the coming months.  LEAP Centers offer resellers a major competitive differentiator in their pursuit of data center opportunities and are engineered to replicate real-world scenarios faced in deploying virtualized servers with their customers. Resellers can test and experience a wide array of complementary solutions, such the Cisco Unified Computing System, storage offerings from NetApp, EMC, and virtualized applications from VMware, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and other manufacturers. Resellers are able to access these capabilities both on-site and via remote access.
Visit www.westcongroup.com/leapcenter. 



PureChoice introduces its new Nose Monitor for data centers
PureChoice, Inc. introduced the 1UTR Nose Monitor, a new version of the environmental device and software alerting system designed to continuously monitor the temperature and relative humidity conditions in a data center or rack cabinet; logging and reporting data through the company’s easy-to-use PureTrac technology. The rackmount model of the Nose is a 1U 19” unit that loads directly into a rack cabinet, connecting to the network via Ethernet.  Four rack screws and built-in digital sensors allow for easy installation and set-up.  Once registered with the web-based PureTrac software, users can immediately log-in to view real-time values of their environmental data.  PureTrac allows for unlimited alerting at multiple thresholds for rising and/or falling temperatures.  Furthermore, PureTrac offers reports that are simple to view and easily interpreted. The Web-based reporting formats give you real-time and historical analysis of conditions for all data collection points.
Visit www.purechoice.com.



Universal Network Services joins Allied Fiber's Dark Fiber Community
Universal Networking Services, LLC, a leading provider of mission-critical power and cooling infrastructure products and services, announced it has joined Allied Fiber’s Dark Fiber Community to provide network buyers, education and information on its Datapod Containerized on-demand data center‚ System. Allied Fiber, the company constructing a nationwide integrated dark fiber and carrier-neutral colocation system for network operators to gain access to wireless towers and distributed data centers, recently launched the Dark Fiber Community. Hosted on TMCNet.com, the Dark Fiber Community is a single resource for those seeking to build new transport systems or extend existing fiber and wireless networks. The Datapod Containerized System offers more flexible and customizable solutions than the traditional data center model. Datapod introduces a unique, modular data center system that combines innovative design with cutting edge mechanical and electrical engineering. It has enhanced the concept of traditional containerized data centers to include critical site infrastructure such as modular generators, chillers and deployment services, thereby providing a complete infrastructure solution for data centers.
Visit www.alliedfiber.com.
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Green

IBM announces new energy-management, sustainability solutions for smarter enterprises
IBM added new software and services to its expanding portfolio of solutions aimed at creating sustainable enterprises and smarter urban infrastructures. The new offerings, piloted in-house by IBM, help owners and managers of commercial buildings leverage the latest efficiency technologies and compliance systems to deliver economic, operational and environmental benefits. IBM also announced that Autodesk has joined its industry alliance, Green Sigma Coalition, a move that can help the group improve buildings’ sustainability from blueprints to daily operations. Additionally, IBM announced an expanded relationship with Schneider Electric, global specialist in energy management, to deliver new combined offerings that monitor and reduce energy use to make buildings smarter. 
Visit www.ibm.com.
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HP

Léo Apotheker named CEO and President of HP
The Board of Directors of HP announced the election of Léo Apotheker as Chief Executive Officer and President. Apotheker, who previously served as CEO of SAP, will also join HP’s Board of Directors. The Board also elected Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as a new member of the Board and designated him as non-executive Chairman. Both elections are effective November 1. During Apotheker’s more than 20 years at SAP, he was a driving force in making it the largest business software applications company in the world. Apotheker helped develop and implement the most significant changes in SAP history. During his tenure, he transformed R&D and technology platforms and expanded business models and customer segments. Apotheker also helped lead SAP to 18 consecutive quarters of double-digit software revenue growth between 2004 and 2009. Lane has served on the Board of Directors of more than 20 public and private companies and joined Kleiner Perkins in 2000. Previously, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer at Oracle Corporation. Earlier in his career, Lane also worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, EDS and IBM.
Visit www.hp.com.



HP announces new mission-critical solutions to simplify, consolidate technology environments
HP announced integrated solutions that simplify operations and accelerate IT resource consolidation, enabling clients to streamline their delivery of mission-critical application services. Chief information officers must ensure high availability of their most critical applications while simplifying management of the technology infrastructure and reducing costs. The new HP StorageWorks P9500 Disk Array and enhancements to the HP-UX portfolio for Integrity systems improve application service delivery by providing an open, integrated architecture for the most demanding workloads, virtually anywhere and at any time.The new P9500 builds on five generations of HP StorageWorks XP Disk Array technology. With a new user-centric design and standards-based architecture, the P9500 increases the amount of data managed per administrator and doubles power efficiency while cutting data center floor space requirements in half. Application-level quality of service controls enable clients to efficiently use and share storage resources while enabling the delivery of mission-critical service-level agreements.
Visit www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM FileNet P8 customers with WebSphere Portal can now leverage KwikWork BPF
enChoice, Inc. announced that its award-winning KwikWork Business Process Framework (BPF) solution for IBM FileNet P8 is now available for the Java software platform. This enables P8 customers running IBM WebSphere Portal to increase productivity and reduce operational costs by allowing them to deploy KwikWork within WebSphere Portal. KwikWork BPF is an out-of-the-box, Web-based Agile Application Framework (AAF) and work processing solution for FileNet P8. It delivers a fast return on investment (ROI) by integrating people, processes and content via a configurable user interface that is so easy to use. It enhances productivity, reduces operational costs, and enforces guidelines for corporate best-practice execution and regulatory compliance by providing P8 customers with workflow automation, process reporting and user-based security capabilities.
Visit www.enchoice.com.
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Storage

Micron is Platinum Sponsor of the 2011 Storage Visions Conference
The tenth annual Storage Visions Conference will be held at the Riviera Hotel Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 4 - 5, 2011. The conference is pleased to announce that Micron Technology, Inc. has joined as a Platinum sponsor of the 2011 conference. Join CEOs, industry leaders, manufacturers, and end users at Storage Visions 2011 in a relaxed and informative environment where you can network with world changers and industry titans and discover the trends that will drive economic recovery and new profitability.  The Micron keynote speaker on Wednesday, January 5 at 2 PM will be Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development. In his keynote, Klein will talk about the role of flash memory in storing digital data and boosting computing performance. The distinguished Storage Visions Awards are now open to submissions until November 19, 2010. Awards will be presented at the conference reception the evening of January 4, 2011. 
Visit www.storagevisions.com.
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