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:

2012 ASIA CONFERENCE
February 1 - 3, 2012
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2012 USA CONFERENCE
March 7 - 9, 2012
Clearwater Beach, Florida   USA

2012 USA CONFERENCE
September 13, 2012
San Diego, California   USA

2012 EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
October 3 - 5, 2012
Madrid, Spain

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.

ASCDI Inside
Aastra
Cisco
Cloud
Conferences
HP
IBM
Intel
Mitel
UC

ASCDI Inside

AscdiNatd Directory Space Goes On Sale 
Space inside the AscdiNatd Guide is now available at a special rate for orders placed before December 15. To date, Midland Information Systems, Macquarie Equipment Finance, Williams Telecom, CXtec, CESS-DK, Solid Systems, UNIX Surplus, Meridian Leasing, Basis Bay have placed space. Excellent positions remain available: $995.00 for a 1/2 page advert, prime location, in the 2012 Directory. “Seriously, this is a NO BRAINER!” said Joe Marion. “Think of all those you will reach over the entire year!” Contact Ruth at [email protected] or 201-567-6338 for more details!

AscdiNatd Reseller World 
Beginning in January, the Natd World will become AscdiNatd Reseller World. The World will be the official voice of the AscdiNatd. The eBulletin will also be your bulletin, as a member or as a vendor member, to reach out to the community and tell your story. If you have news, please make us your first choice for press releases and other statements. If you are a vendor member, please contact us to explore opportunities to market products and services inside the bulletin. Contact Doug at [email protected] or 360-260-9708 for more details!

Promotional Opportunity Event Packages  
NOW available at the AscdiNatd Conference in Clearwater on March 7 – 9, 2012. Click here for details: 
Visit http://www.ascdimeetings.com/clearwatersponsorships20127.pdf .

^Back To Top

Aastra

Aastra BluStar launch marks a new era in enterprise communications
The Aastra BluStar video conference and collaboration solution, which was announced at Enterprise Connect earlier this year, is now available. The award-winning Aastra BluStar marks a new era in enterprise communications, reinforcing Aastra’s position as a key global player in the unified communications market. The Aastra BluStar 8000i media phone provides businesses with a powerful and simple to use collaboration device, combining true HD video conferencing with unified communications and business applications. With its 13 inch color touch screen, four voice tracking microphones, and three high fidelity speakers, the Aastra BluStar 8000i provides broadcast quality video and audio, resulting in a totally “natural collaboration” experience. The BluStar desktop media phone enhances productivity by helping teams to work better together with multi-way video conferencing. At the touch of a button, and without the need to book meeting rooms, teams can conference to share documents from their computers, review and discuss project developments, and collaborate quickly and seamlessly, significantly enhancing productivity and reactivity.
Visit www.aastra.com/blustar.
^Back To Top

Cisco

Cisco introduces CloudVerse, an end-to-end framework to build, manage and connect clouds
Cisco introduces Cisco CloudVerse, a framework that combines the foundational elements needed to enable organizations to build, manage and connect public, private and hybrid clouds. Cisco CloudVerse combines these key cloud elements — Unified Data Center, Cloud Intelligent Network, and Cloud Applications and Services — enabling businesses to realize all of the benefits of clouds: improved agility, better economics, enhanced security and a dynamic, assured experience. The Cisco Cloud Index, issued recently, forecasts how dramatically clouds are transforming business IT and consumer services. The study predicts that over 50 percent of computing workloads in data centers will be cloud-based by 2014, and that global cloud traffic will grow over 12 times by 2015, to 1.6 zettabytes per year — the equivalent of over four days of business-class video for every person on earth. The study suggests that the explosive growth in clouds requires advanced capabilities that allow the data center and network to work together to support end-to-end cloud application delivery. A large number of enterprises, service providers, and governments are announcing that they are adopting Cisco CloudVerse as the foundation of their cloud strategies, including Fujitsu, LinkedIn, Qualcomm, Telecom Italia, Telefónica S.A. and Telstra, among others.
Visit www.cisco.com.
^Back To Top

Cloud

Cloud infrastructure equipment to exceed $33B in 2011
Synergy Research Group announces the publication of its Cloud Market Share Report, which provides quarterly market shares, sizing, and forecasts for the Public and Private Cloud equipment markets. The foundation of Synergy’s segmentation includes the networking, computing, and storage platforms deployed for Private Cloud, Public Cloud (VPN), and Public Cloud (non-VPN).Synergy’s report shows the Cloud Equipment market for the first half of 2011 exceeded $17B in sales. The fastest growing segment includes Private Cloud platforms, which is growing at over 30% annual growth. Synergy defines a Private Cloud platform as a virtualized data center, which resides behind an organization’s firewall. Synergy believes this growth will continue as larger Enterprises realize the economies of scale and other cost benefits associated with the virtualization of their data centers. Today, Public Cloud platforms represent the biggest share of Cloud Equipment spending, representing 56% in the first half of 2011. Synergy believes Public Cloud deployments could potentially experience exponential growth in the coming years as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS gain wider usage by both consumers and businesses.
Visit www.srgresearch.com.
^Back To Top

Conferences

Computerworld announces 2012 Premier 100 Honorees
IDG’s Computerworld, the IT media brand dedicated to providing peer perspective, IT leadership and business results, announces the 2012 Premier 100 IT Leaders honorees as well as highlights for the Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference. The awards program spotlights 100 leaders, from both the technology and business sides of companies, for their exceptional technology leadership, innovative solutions to business challenges and effective management of IT strategies. The Premier 100 honorees and their achievements will be highlighted in the February 27, 2012 issue of Computerworld, on Computerworld.com and recognized during the Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference, being held March 11-13, 2012, at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to honoring the 2012 Premier 100 recipients and learning from their success stories, the Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference agenda is packed with leading IT executives sharing strategies and best practices designed to help IT decision-makers find innovative solutions to their IT challenges.
Visit www.Premier100.com.
^Back To Top

HP

HP acquires Hiflex
HP announced it has acquired Hiflex Software GmbH, a privately held global software solutions provider specializing in web-to-print and management information systems solutions for printing services. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 1991, Hiflex is headquartered in Aachen, Germany. Following the acquisition, Hiflex will continue to evolve its offerings and service its current customers. “HP wants to break the traditional barriers of how and where business customers print, making it easy for them to produce custom or personalized materials anywhere, anytime,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “Hiflex's technology provides a powerful platform to deliver on this goal as part of our overall cloud printing strategy.” Technologies from Hiflex will enable continued innovation across HP's imaging and printing offerings and will extend the company's portfolio of cloud-based technologies and solutions. HP also remains committed to supporting a broad range of partner solutions, giving customers maximum choice and flexibility.
Visit www.hp.com.
^Back To Top

IBM

IBM extends Smarter Cities initiative through acquisition of Cúram Software
IBM has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cúram Software Ltd. to help governments improve the efficiency, effectiveness and accessibility of social programs for smarter cities.   Financial terms were not disclosed. Cúram Software is used in more than 80 government agency projects around the world to provide the most appropriate social programs to citizens and their families in a timely manner, deliver services more effectively and continuously monitor progress toward achieving people’s social and economic potential.  The software is used by health and human services, workforce services, and social security organizations around the world to deliver welfare, social insurance and both individual and employer based social programs. Cúram Software allows cities and governments to provide a single view of benefits and services available across agencies, levels of government and private and not-for-profit organizations. The Social Industry Platform includes processes to deliver all types of programs and offers the flexibility needed to quickly update them as policy makers react to different economic times. Cúram Software’s Platform also allows government and providers to focus on lowering overall program costs by ensuring that the benefits and services provided address core issues and that people become more self-sufficient.  Through its Smarter Cities initiative, IBM helps cities and governments serve citizens better by adopting more intelligent and efficient ways to analyze data, anticipate problems and coordinate resources.   IBM has led more than 2,000 projects to achieve these goals and through its acquisition of Cúram Software, IBM expects to extend its leadership in this area. 
Visit www.ibm.com/smartercities and www.cúramsoftware.com.

^Back To Top

Intel

Intel reasserts semiconductor market leadership in 2011
After three years of seeing its dominant position in the global semiconductor market whittled away by aggressive competition from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Intel Corp. is set to reverse the trend in 2011, with a combination of strong sales and an acquisition allowing the company to rebuild its margin of market leadership. U.S.-based Intel in 2011 is set to sell $49.7 billion worth of semiconductors, up an impressive 23 percent from $40.4 billion in 2010, according to the IHS iSuppli Semiconductor Value Chain Service at information and analysis provider IHS. This will allow Intel to outgrow the overall semiconductor market and boost its share of the market to 15.9 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2010. With this strong performance, Intel increased its lead over second-ranked Samsung to 6.5 percentage points. The increase ended a three-year period that saw Samsung of South Korea close the gap with Intel from a 6.5 percentage point margin in 2008 to a 3.9 point difference in 2010. Intel derives most of its semiconductor revenue from selling microprocessors (MPU) and NAND flash memory—two of the hottest segments of the chip industry in 2011. These areas are set to generate double-digit revenue growth of between 15 and 20 percent this year.
Visit www.intel.com.
^Back To Top

Mitel

Mitel announces strategic initiatives: strengthens channel program
Mitel announces a series of strategic initiatives that significantly strengthen its North American channel program. The announcement includes the addition of several new U.S.-based channel management executives and the creation of the Authorized Partner Service Program (APSP), which selectively shifts local service support for some of the Mitel product portfolio to its channel partners. Renato Mariani, newly appointed Vice President of Field Marketing for North America, explained that the Authorized Partner Service Program will have a direct impact on the way the company does business, and will result in greater integration with its channel.  “Enterprise class direct sales and support, going forward, will be primarily through channel partners where possible. Support for existing enterprise customers will shift to qualified channel partners when and where possible, contingent on the consent of the customers, of course. This strategic realignment will minimize, if not thoroughly resolve, long-standing channel conflicts between Mitel’s direct sales organization and channel partners, to the benefit of both. That clearly is important to us and our partners, who will grow stronger as a result. Much more importantly, end users of Mitel systems will benefit from localized support through improved response times when hands-on support is required for physical moves, adds and changes or maintenance.” To implement this strategy, Mitel has brought on seasoned channel professionals from Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, NEC, Polycom and other companies that have experience managing billions of dollars in profitable sales in the business communications market.
Visit www.mitel.com.
^Back To Top

Unified communications

AGT strategy to change mobility, UC and Tele-presence
Applied Global Technologies (AGT) is announcing the release of its new website that includes mobile video conferencing and Unified Communications research vital to Video & UC Managers, IT Directors, and Department Heads. The explosion of growth in UC driven by the convergence of Tele-presence and mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads, and PC’s is forever changing the way that organizations use video conferencing. AGT has developed a variety of innovative UC technologies and Managed and Cloud based video conferencing services that will enable business, government and educational enterprises to prepare for tomorrow’s video communications. AGT delivers true video mobility across high definition video conference rooms, smart phones, tablets, and PC’s without a hassle to IT, and without the complexity and cost of special firewall devices and hardware.
Visit www.appliedglobal.com.
^Back To Top