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:

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

2011 EUROPEAN SPRING RECEPTION
Thursday, 19 May 2011
London, England

2011 USA SUMMER RECEPTION
June 15, 2011
Chicago, IL

2011 USA FALL RECEPTION
September 14, 2011
Boston, MA

2011 EUROPEAN FALL CONFERENCE
October 26 - 28, 2011
Hamburg, Germany

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.

Meet the new members
Apple
Cloud
Financing
HP
IBM
Printers
Samsung and IBM
Security
Storage

Meet the new members

Outsource International
Outsource International is a global technical services provider, operating locally in 185 countries via a network of 750 service companies. The company is vendor independent and covers all aspects of networking and IT, including WAN, LAN, desktop, voice, cabling, video conferencing, security and full or part time resourcing. A centrally located 24 hour helpdesk in the UK co-ordinates all global activity. Our main support focus includes Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, Bluecoat, Juniper, HP, Dell, IBM and Tandberg to name a few. Outsource International supplies services to carriers, SI’s, resellers and distributors. What makes us unique is our vendor independence on a global basis, and that we never compete with our customers as we are not bidding to the end user market. We provide solutions for single units in hard to reach locations or multi country support via a single point of contact.
Visit www.intoutsource.com.


Hardware.com
Hardware.com is a global leader supplying new, unused and refurbished Cisco equipment. Our other core offerings include a wide array of compatible optics, alternative networking platforms, and independent maintenance and repair services under the Smartpac® brand. Hardware.com, founded in 2005 as a sister company to Zycko LTD, is a wholly owned subsidiary of its parent company, the Simian Group. From its inception in 1999, the Simian Group has grown into an international company with over 300 staff in 15 offices across 4 continents, and more than $200 Million in revenue per year.
Visit us.hardware.com.
^Back To Top

Apple

Apple builds on A4 microprocessor success with A5 announcement
Building on the success of its A4 microprocessor, Apple Inc. announced its second-generation iPad line will be based on a new microprocessor, the A5, which the company said doubles the performance of the A4.  Apple announced the A5 will include dual microprocessor cores—as opposed to a single core for the A4. Along with the rise in computing power, Apple said the A5 will offer nine times faster graphics performance than the A4. Driven by the soaring sales of products including the iPad and the iPhone 4, Apple Inc.’s shipments of products based on its A4 microprocessor reached nearly 50 million units in 2010 from virtually zero sales in 2009.  Apple in 2010 shipped nearly four times as many units of A4-based products as it did of X86-based PCs. The low-cost, highly-integrated A4 and A5 designs represent an important element in Apple’s philosophy of offering products that are focused on delivering a compelling user interface (UI) and a highly optimized computing platform for Apple’s iOS operating system.
Visit www.apple.com.
^Back To Top

Cloud

SaaS public cloud spending will increase 112% between 2010 and 2014, says In-Stat
The Cloud, with a variety of computing service options to select from, has become a preferred approach to managing IT issues across all sizes and types of businesses in the US.  A new In-Stat report forecasts public cloud SaaS (software-as-a-service) spending by US businesses will increase by 112% between 2010 and 2014. "Spending is expected to grow significantly across all service options of cloud computing, including IaaS and PaaS," says Greg Potter, Research Analyst.  "But since SaaS is the largest segment, volume wise, its growth will be the most dramatic. Within SaaS, the professional services and healthcare verticals will see the largest growth in spending, each growing over 30% during the forecast period." SOHO (small office/home office) businesses are leading in the adoption of cloud computing services.
Visit http://www.instat.com/catalog/mmcatalogue.asp?id=299.
^Back To Top

Financing

Dell announces competitive financing promotions
Dell Financial Services (DFS), the lending and financing division of Dell, announced aggressive financing offers for U.S. based small, medium and large businesses and public organizations, to help customers preserve capital, maximize IT investments and drive innovation. Responding to customer needs, Dell offers outstanding financing options including zero percent financing to small and medium business customers and deferred payments, rotation leasing and low rate financing for large enterprises and public entities on all EqualLogic and KACE solutions. The full circle lease is providing U.S. small & medium sized businesses with easy-to-understand terms, no hidden fees or surprise final purchase amounts, coupled with competitive pricing and servicing to acquire Dell Laptops and Desktops. Dell Business Credit (revolving credit) offers U.S. small & medium sized businesses with special financing promotions featuring low fixed rates, no minimum purchase size requirements, and no annual fees.
Visit www.dellfinancialservices.com.
^Back To Top

HP

HP helps improve quality and efficiency of care with telehealth programs
HP announced new product solutions and applications that help advance telehealth adoption and accessibility for healthcare organizations and patients nationwide, promoting improved quality and efficiency of healthcare. LifeBot is designed to provide a secure, mobile emergency medical services (EMS) telemedicine solution. Canvys delivers advanced display systems for patient monitoring, bio-medical displays, ultrasound, cardiac imaging and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS).
Medweb’s cloud-hosted imaging and data repository improves the speed and security of image and records storage for physicians, radiologists and specialists. Parental Health facilitates daily health monitoring by allowing seniors to connect face-to-face with doctors, book medical appointments or dispatch a physician in emergency situations.

HP also announced that seven of the top 10 healthcare companies have chosen its imaging and printing solutions to drive both clinical and financial value. According to a Forrester Research report, one healthcare company saw a 35 percent reduction in document costs while improving production quality and boosting satisfaction metrics after implementing a document management solution. Progressive healthcare companies such as Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Centra Health, Children’s Hospital Boston, Cigna and Health Net have turned to HP for their solutions.
Visit www.hp.com/go/healthcare.
^Back To Top

IBM

IBM to collaborate with Nuance to apply IBM's 'Watson' analytics technology to healthcare
IBM and Nuance Communications, Inc. announced a research agreement to explore, develop and commercialize the Watson computing system's advanced analytics capabilities in the healthcare industry. The research and technology initiative will combine IBM's Deep Question Answering (QA), Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning capabilities with Nuance's speech recognition and Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of patients that provide hospitals, physicians and payers access to critical and timely information. Watson's ability to analyze the meaning and context of human language, and quickly process information to find precise answers can assist decision makers, such as physicians and nurses, unlock important knowledge and facts buried within huge volumes of information, and offer answers they may not have considered to help validate their own ideas or hypotheses. The two companies expect the first commercial offerings from the collaboration to be available in 18-24 months. Additionally, Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine are contributing their medical expertise and research to the collaborative effort.
Visit  http://www.ibm.com/press/watson and http://www.nuance.com/for-healthcare/index.htm.


IBM business analytics software helps improve healthcare through better research
IBM announced that BJC Healthcare (BJC) and Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) are using IBM business analytics software to quickly extract key data from more than 50 million documents in medical records, speeding up research to ultimately provide better care for patients worldwide. BJC Healthcare, one of the largest nonprofit healthcare organizations in the U.S., and the WUSM Center for Biomedical Informatics are collaborating to ensure researchers get answers to critical research questions from large sets of unstructured genomic and clinical data such as clinical notes, admission/discharge summaries and diagnostic reports. Using IBM Content Analytics, BJC and WUSM researchers are now able to find answers to critical research questions. Previously, hundreds of researchers had to manually look through thousands of patient records and charts to abstract data on smoking use, for instance. Using IBM Content Analytics, it now takes seconds to scan hundreds of documents.
Visit www.ibm.com/software/data/content-management.
^Back To Top

Printers

HP introduces world’s first 42-inch high-speed digital color press
HP introduced the graphic arts industry’s largest, most productive commercial digital color press, bringing the concept of mass customization to printing by combining the personalization features of digital printing with the efficiencies of high-volume production. With its unmatched width and its 600-foot/minute (183-meter/minute) speed, the HP T400 Color Inkjet Web Press prints up to 5,200 full-color, letter-size pages per minute – 44 percent more than the closest solution from competing vendors. The HP T400 offers high-quality imaging by reproducing sharp text and images, as well as uniform area fills. New HP A50 process-color inks work with new HP A10 printheads, which use HP Scalable Printing Technology in a compact, 1,200-nozzles-per-inch printhead design. New, advanced web tension controls and dryer systems provide reliable, fast and consistent productivity. HP also introduced several additional solutions, including an HP magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) system and third-party coated media, as well as workflow and finishing solutions from members of the HP Graphic Solutions Partner program. The company additionally is offering customers an option to upgrade HP T300 presses to the faster T350 platform.
Visit www.hp.com.
^Back To Top

Samsung and IBM

Samsung Electronics and IBM announce patent cross-license agreement
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of South Korea and IBM have announced a patent cross-license agreement under which the companies will license their respective patent portfolios to each other. IBM and Samsung topped the list of the world's most inventive companies in 2010 as the first and second recipients of U.S. patents, respectively. IBM has been the leading recipient of U.S. patents for 18 consecutive years. Over the past several decades, IBM and Samsung have built strong patent portfolios covering a wide range of technologies including semiconductors, telecommunications, visual and mobile communications, software and technology-based services. This cross-licensing agreement enables the two companies to innovate and operate freely while using each other's patented inventions to help keep pace with sophisticated technology and business demands. The companies said the cooperation fostered by cross-licensing reinforces their ability to provide better products and services, while maintaining their competitiveness.
Visit www.samsung.com and www.ibm.com.
^Back To Top

Security

Study identifies visual privacy as weak link in data security practices
A recent study conducted by People Security and commissioned by 3M, the maker of privacy filters for computers and mobile devices, reveals two-thirds of employees expose sensitive data outside the workplace – some even exposing highly regulated and confidential information such as customer credit card and social security numbers. The study included a survey of 800 working professionals and an experiment at a large IT conference where attendee computer usage habits and data security choices were observed. The Visual Data Breach Risk Assessment Study also found the majority of companies do not have policies or measures in place to protect sensitive information from computer screen snooping when employees are working in public places.  “Companies know they need to protect confidential information, but the threat of a visual data breach has historically been low on the priority list,” said John Stoxen, 3M Director of Business Conduct and Compliance. “This study should convince companies to reassess their data security policies and tools to determine how to better protect against visual data breaches when employees are working outside the office. At 3M, we address the risk of visual privacy in our Electronic Resources policy by requiring employees to take appropriate measures to protect 3M confidential information in public places by using privacy filters.”
Visit http://www.3MPrivacyFilters.com/whitepapers.
^Back To Top

Storage

Iron Mountain delivers cloud-based, vendor neutral storage for patient data
Iron Mountain Incorporated announced it has added vendor neutral functionality to its enterprise-level archive – the Digital Record Center for Medical Images – for storing, sharing and protecting diagnostic images and other patient data. This cloud-based archive gives healthcare organizations a central repository for consolidating and liberating medical imaging and patient data from departmental-level (radiology, cardiology, other modalities) storage silos. Additionally, hospitals can improve their disaster recovery and business continuity readiness by leveraging the cloud-based offering for offsite, secure storage. The net impact is lower costs, enhanced image sharing ability, better reliability and security, and ultimately improved patient care.
Visit www.ironmountain.com.
^Back To Top