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Akamai Completes Acquisition Of Customer Identity Access Management Company Janrain Inc.

Akamai Technologies, the intelligent edge platform for securing and delivering digital experiences, announces the company has completed its acquisition of Janrain, the company that pioneered the customer identity access management (CIAM) category. On January 7, Akamai announced an agreement between the two parties for Akamai to acquire Janrain in an all-cash transaction.

The combined companies’ technologies and teams are expected to offer critical complementary capability to provide immediate security benefits to CIAM customers. Akamai customers will be able to establish and maintain digital trust with their users by providing a highly-secure and resilient environment for collecting and storing sensitive user information, managing privacy controls, and defending against identity fraud.

Integrating Janrain’s Identity Cloud into the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform will also enable accurate, scalable, and secure risk-based adaptive authentication solutions to safeguard against malicious account activities including fraudulent account creation and credential compromise.

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“Adding identity management to the Akamai Edge will provide an added layer of security for our customers,” said Dr. Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai. “With our acquisition now complete, we can work towards providing them with a sophisticated identity management solution, enabling trusted digital experiences for their end users.”

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The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai’s management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about expected benefits to Akamai from the acquisition. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, inability to successfully integrate the technology and personnel of Janrain, failure to provide expected benefits of combined technologies, and other factors that are discussed in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.

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Rakuten Selects VIAVI To Validate World’s First End-to-End Cloud-Native Mobile Network

TM500 is the de facto standard for lab validation of mobile network performance as experienced by end users

Viavi Solutions Inc. announced that Rakuten, Inc., one of the world’s leading internet services companies and soon to be the newest mobile network operator in Japan, has selected the VIAVI TM500 system to support the rapid deployment of a nationwide, end-to-end cloud-native mobile network.

Rakuten offers e-commerce, fintech, digital content and communications services to over one billion members worldwide. The company received approval for its 4th generation mobile communications system (4G) special base station deployment plan, and is targeting October 2019 to launch the new service. The network deployment plan is driven by a cloud-based architecture, from the RAN to the core, an industry-leading level of automation, and collaboration with the top vendors in the mobile ecosystem.

Rakuten will use the TM500 for user equipment (UE) simulation as part of a state-of-the-art operator lab, designed to simulate and stress the network from end to end. As consumers and regulators increasingly demand highly resilient and high-quality network performance, the lab’s mission is to provide all stakeholders with a high degree of confidence in the quality of service and reliability of the live network for both existing and future services.

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The TM500 is a scalable test system for validating network performance as experienced by end users, across multiple cells and different radio access technologies. It is the de facto standard in its class, and is in use with almost every base station manufacturer across the world. Recently released industry-first features include: uplink MIMO on two layers; downlink 8×8 MIMO; 4×4 MIMO support; two downlink carrier aggregation at 120 kHz and 240 kHz; millimeter wave support; and support for multiple UEs on 5G.

“Consumers across Japan trust Rakuten for services throughout their daily lives, from e-commerce to fintech to digital content, and we are immensely excited to prepare to deliver a new mobile network service to them this year, with the support of world-class technology partners such as VIAVI,” said Tareq Amin, Chief Technology Officer, Rakuten Mobile Network. “As we aim to realize our vision for the world’s first end-to-end cloud-native, nationwide mobile network, VIAVI’s knowhow and expertise in network testing will be key to building a high-quality, highly resilient network for our customers.”

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“VIAVI is honored to be selected by Rakuten, a global innovator in internet services,” said Rajesh Rao, Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, VIAVI. “In order to meet the timeline of service being commercially available in 2019, extensive testing of base station software releases and load testing with user profiles, including application traffic, is essential to enable faster time to market and time to quality. Our solutions enable wraparound testing to create test scenarios emulating many thousands of UEs that accurately emulate field conditions to stress test in the lab with an end-to-end approach. We are ready to support the Rakuten ecosystem of partners to deliver interoperable network infrastructure.”

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Jeff Rumburg of MetricNet Named to HDI’s Top 25 Thought Leaders List for 2018

For the third consecutive year, Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner of MetricNet, LLC, was named one of HDI‘s Top 25 Thought Leaders for 2018. Mr. Rumburg is among an elite group of individuals chosen for this award that have deep knowledge of the industry’s greatest challenges and triumphs. Each thought leader was nominated by their peers in the industry.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to have once again been nominated by the IT Service and Support community.” said Jeff Rumburg. “To the other 24 thought leaders who were chosen for this title, as well as to all of those who were nominated, I offer my sincere congratulations. Your contributions to the industry consistently benefit service and support professionals worldwide and I am particularly humbled to share this very distinguished award with such a remarkable group.”

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The 25 individuals chosen for this award are well known in the technical service and support community as consultants, bloggers, speakers, mentors and practitioners. They lead by example, contribute valuable insight on a daily basis, produce groundbreaking research that shapes the future of the industry, and share knowledge that helps address the challenges commonly faced by industry professionals.

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Mr. Rumburg is the winner of the Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award, was named to HDI’s Top 25 Thought Leaders list for three consecutive years, and has served on HDI’s Strategic Advisory Board. He is co-founder and Managing Partner of MetricNet, LLC, where he is responsible for global strategy, product development, and client engagement delivery. As a leading expert in benchmarking and re-engineering, Mr. Rumburg authored a best- selling book on benchmarking, and has been retained as a benchmarking expert by such iconic companies as American Express, USAA, Coca Cola, and Emory Healthcare.

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CSO Insights by Miller Heiman Group Releases 2018-2019 Sales Performance Study: “Selling in the Age of Ceaseless Change”

Annual report finds revenue attainment is up for the third year in a row, but sales performance is down to the lowest it’s been in half a decade

CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group, the world leader in improving sales performance through research, training, and technology, announced the official release of its 2018-2019 Sales Performance Report: “Selling in the Age of Ceaseless Change.”

The study, based on a global survey of nearly 900 global sales leaders, looks at the four primary objectives driving performance improvement efforts over the next 12 months: improving lead generation, securing new accounts, expanding penetration into existing customers, and increasing win rates. The purpose of the annual report is to assess how sales organizations are performing against these core objectives. The study includes a year-over-year comparison of sales performance along with an overview of what companies are doing in each of these four areas to drive success.

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“Even though the objectives of sales leaders haven’t changed – most continue to be focused on making their number while being effective with resources – it’s a mistake to assume their sales organizations have a permanent set of customers or a permanent suite of sales technology and resources. These types of changes can either advance their organizations forward or leave them behind,” said Seleste Lunsford, chief research officer, CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group. “In an age of ceaseless change, sales performance improvements are a continual quest that should remain a constant priority for sales leaders. This is why it’s so critical to assess performance year-over-year to gauge opportunity for improvement.”

According to this year’s report, more companies are meeting revenue commitments, with the average revenue attainment rising to 93.9 percent to make this the third straight year of growth. However, the leading indicators of conversion rates – win rates and quota attainment – haven’t changed.

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Rather, 15 of 16 seller abilities included in the report show lower performance than they did five years ago. Sales leaders managed to find a way to reach their goals, but it wasn’t necessarily through improving the performance of their salespeople. This presents a massive opportunity for global sales leaders, who can earn substantial gains by getting sales systems running more effectively.

“Every year, we ask sales leaders for lessons learned. We want to understand what they would do differently to improve sales performance,” adds Lunsford. “To no one’s surprise, sales leaders aspire to transform the foundation of their sales systems. And yet, given the risks associated with making large-scale changes, many report a tendency towards incremental change. This can be effective if such changes are implemented systemically. But often, we find this approach is too slow and limited in scope to help sales organization change fast enough to keep up with the markets.”

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The report provides actionable insight on how sales leaders can accelerate “sales transformation” through continuous improvements. The overarching message is that sales transformation isn’t a project that will eventually reach completion — It’s a ceaseless evolution that feeds off data and uses technology as a driver, not an enabler. And, above all, it ensures every action an organization takes is in full alignment with the customer’s journey.

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CognitiveScale Reports Record Annual Software Subscription Growth

Delivers third sequential year of triple-digit year-on-year growth

CognitiveScale, the emerging leader in Augmented Intelligence software, announced record growth in annual software subscription sales driven by high market demand for its Cortex5 Augmented Intelligence software.

The company reported a 128 percent year-over-year growth in annual software and subscription revenues in 2018. This represents the third year of triple-digit sequential growth in the company’s five-year history. Gross margins, average selling price per client, churn, and customer satisfaction scores improved markedly as well.

Some other notable accomplishments for 2018 include:

Client Growth
During the year, CognitiveScale added and expanded many marquee clients, including leading global brands such as Morgan Stanley, MD Anderson Cancer Center, NBCUniversal, Dell, Anthem, Under Armour, and Keller Williams.

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IP and Patents
CognitiveScale continues to build a deep portfolio of patents and IP in the enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) space with over 126 patents filed. Earlier in the year, Parola Analytics, a patent analytics firm, reported that CognitiveScale held the highest number of AI patents filed and accepted for a private company, and just fourth on the list behind Microsoft, IBM, and Google. The company’s patent portfolio now includes core AI technologies around cognitive learning systems, cognitive system architecture, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and industry AI applications, among others.

Awards
During the year, CognitiveScale was acknowledged for innovation in AI on multiple lists. Most recently, it was named an IDC Innovator in the report, IDC Innovators: AI Software Platforms, 2018. The company was also named a 2018 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum for developing new technologies that are poised to have a significant impact on business and society. In addition, CognitiveScale was listed as one of the 10 Hottest AI and Machine Learning Startups Of 2018 by Computer Reseller News (CRN) and a Hot Vendor by HfS Research for operationalizing enterprise AI.

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Product Enhancements
Earlier in the year, CognitiveScale announced Cortex5, the next generation of its Augmented Intelligence cloud software powered by AI and blockchain technology. The success of the platform, which has been adopted by enterprises looking to speed up implementations and return-on-investment of enterprise grade AI systems that pair humans and machines, has led to the increase in new business across financial services, healthcare, and digital commerce markets. In fact, within a year of its launch itself, 100 percent of new clients have adopted Cortex5 software and 80 percent of pre-2018 customers have now upgraded to Cortex5. Cortex5 was recently named a Trend-Setting Product in Data and Information Management for 2019 by Database Trends and Applications Magazine (DBTA). Recently, 451 Research, a leading technology analyst and advisory firm, stated that Cortex5 has hit the market at the right time and addresses a genuine pain point that enterprises are now facing, as they move into the next phase of AI and machine learning involving production at scale and governance.

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New Executive Hire
Seasoned enterprise software executive ML Maco recently joined CognitiveScale as its Chief Revenue Officer. With more than 25 years of sales, marketing, and channel leadership experience, ML is known for building billion-dollar businesses and cultivating strong customer relationships, and was recently SVP at HPE. Prior to HPE, she was SVP at Oracle, where she led the cloud transformation of enterprise customers and partners.

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“2018 was a banner year of growth, innovation, and client success for us,” said Akshay Sabhikhi, CEO at CognitiveScale. “There is a tremendous pent-up demand for enterprise software that helps clients solve complex business problems through practical, scalable, and responsible application of AI. We look forward to another great year in 2019 backed by continued pace of product innovation, deepening of our channel partnerships, and continued improvement in our global delivery capability.”

“CognitiveScale is leading in a new and exciting AI software category that pairs humans and machines to solve complex business problems,” said Robert LeBlanc, Board Member at CognitiveScale and Former Senior Vice President at IBM. “Clients are excited about the early results from Cortex5 in terms of accelerating time to value with AI while future-proofing AI and data investments.”

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AutoAlert Names Hal Dewsnap Senior Director of Sales

AutoAlert, the creator of automotive’s only Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform, has promoted Hal Dewsnap to Senior Director of Sales, CEO Mike Dullea announced.

“As we move forward with our global initiatives, Hal’s sales acumen and leadership of teams both nationally and internationally will remain instrumental to our success,” Dullea said.

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In his prior role as Sales Director, Dewsnap played an integral part in AutoAlert’s partnership and national product launch with Ford last year, spearheading the West Coast Region.

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Global Vice President of Sales and Marketing Don Favero said, “Hal brings senior automotive knowledge and high-level professionalism to the doorstep of our clients in conveying how AutoAlert is a solution that every dealer needs.”

Before joining AutoAlert, Dewsnap helped grow LoJack Corporation as Senior Vice President and General Manager. He also worked for Ford Motor Company for 30 years, during which time he held several leadership roles including General Manager of the California Market and Regional Manager of Los Angeles; Regional Sales, Service, and Parts Manager for Boston; and Puerto Rico District Manager.

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Introducing ClosePlan Relationship Maps: The Replacement for Whatever Janky Solution You’re Using for Org Maps

ClosePlan, the sales execution platform, is announcing the release of ClosePlan Relationship Maps – a visual, drag-and-drop org mapping tool that links directly to your CRM contact data

ClosePlan Relationship Maps enable sales teams to quickly build powerful account and opportunity maps without leaving their CRM Account or Opportunity pages. Because relationship maps are centrally managed inside their CRM, teams can keep essential customer information within the company for use during selling, onboarding and account planning.

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“Relationships are the most critical part of enterprise selling – to sell effectively you need to focus on the right people, which are not always the most obvious people. Sometimes there’s a complex political structure to navigate, or perhaps a true decision influencer may be a Business Analyst well down the chain of command. A ClosePlan Relationship Map provides the visibility required to focus on the right people and relationships, so you can close deals more effectively,” said Scott Johnson, CEO of ClosePlan.

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Johnson added, “From the very beginning we set out to build an app that’s easy to use, saves time, and provides immediate value right out of the box – and we feel that we’ve achieved that with ClosePlan Relationship Maps.”

ClosePlan Relationship Maps benefits the entire sales organization, helping to:

  • Create a relationship map with your CRM contact data for a better understanding of your customers and prospects
  • Provide sales leadership immediate visibility into deal alignment
  • Assign business role and decision-making status for each stakeholder
  • Understand stakeholder coverage by quantifying the relationship status
  • Add influence line, conflict lines and informal reporting lines to better understand the organization power structure

ClosePlan™ Relationship Maps provides visibility and collaboration across opportunities, contacts, and accounts.

Get the ClosePlan™ Relationship Maps demo right now and start optimizing your opportunity-to-close process.

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SignNow Releases Private Cloud E-Signature Solution 2.0 for Government Organizations, Heavily Regulated Industries, and the Public Sector

Now organizations and enterprises can easily deploy SignNow’s private cloud e-signature solution and sign documents using digital certificates that are stored on their Common Access Card (CAC) or PIV smart card from the security of their own digital environment

Responding to client requests from Government, Life Science, Engineering and Public sector industries for complete security and extra flexibility in operations, SignNow, the highly ranked e-signature service according to Gartner Peer Insights, released version 2.0 of its private cloud e-signature solution, available as a virtual machine deployment. Now organizations and enterprises can easily deploy SignNow’s private cloud e-signature solution and sign documents using digital certificates that are stored on their Common Access Card (CAC) or PIV smart card from the security of their own digital environment.

The SignNow e-signature appliance solution provides a secure workspace within the platform of a client’s preference – Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, or VMware.

“Complete SignNow infrastructure now can be delivered as a standalone e-signing solution, fully adjusted per the specific needs and requests of your internal business operations”, says Eugene Gorelik, VP of Engineering at SignNow. “Once customers have deployed the SignNow private e-signature solution, they can onboard employees, e-sign NDAs, contracts and invoices using certificates on CAC and PIV cards. Critical business documents can be sent for signature through their own email servers along with detailed audit trails that are directly added to every document, ensuring absolute protection from third-party penetrations.”

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The SignNow private cloud e-signature solution can be integrated with ServiceNow and Salesforce CRM, allowing organizations to generate pre-filled documents and get them signed without leaving their ServiceNow or Salesforce environments.

“Security-conscious ServiceNow users can just click one single button to generate a pre-filled contract, send it to suppliers, employers, and/or vendors and receive their signed contract in minutes – all within the integrity of their private on-premise instance that never has to touch the cloud”, says Ken Grohe, President at SignNow. “All digital signatures are certificate-based and you can easily validate the identity of a signer, the time of signing and detailed information about the signature certificate”.

SignNow guarantees full support during e-signature appliance deployment and follow-up consultations for troubleshooting whenever necessary.

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SignNow’s private e-signature solution is the right choice for government and public sector organizations that deal with complex workflows and manage their business cycle internally using customized systems that operate on local servers with limited access to the cloud. The e-signature appliance deployment process usually takes no more than twenty minutes and consists of simple steps for starting the solution as a virtual machine and setting up a private SignNow organization.

The world’s leading companies and agencies of the U.S. Federal Government rely on the SignNow private e-signature solution: Account Control Technology, Bell County, BioReference Laboratories, The Fifth District Court of Appeal, Northside Center for Child Development, TA Realty, Tech Data Corporation.

Tech Data uses SignNow to improve our internal and external customer service while increasing our speed to revenue”, Bob Dutkowsky, CEO at Tech Data Corporation.

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Domo Named a Winner in Dresner Advisory Services’ 2018 Wisdom of Crowds Technology Innovation Awards for the Second Consecutive Year

Domo, provider of the leading cloud-based operating system for business, announced it has been named a winner in the Dresner Advisory Services’ 2018 Technology Innovation Awards, which recognizes the top-ranked vendors in Dresner’s Wisdom of Crowds® series of thematic market studies. Dresner’s market studies are based on data collected from end users and provide a real-world perspective on various technical capabilities of vendors.

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Domo is receiving this award for leadership in the 2018 Collective Insights Market Study,  Cloud Computing and Business Intelligence (BI) Market Study, and IoT Intelligence Market Study.

“The Technology Innovation Awards recognize the most comprehensive solutions in key technology areas as covered in our annual research,” said Howard Dresner, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services. “We congratulate Domo for being named a Technology Innovation winner in our 2018 Wisdom of Crowds series of research.”

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Dresner Advisory Services was formed by Howard Dresner, an independent analyst, author, lecturer, and business adviser. Dresner Advisory Services, LLC focuses on creating and sharing thought leadership for Business Intelligence (BI) and related areas.

Wisdom of Crowds® research is based on data collected on usage and deployment trends, products, and vendors. Users in all roles and throughout all industries contributed to provide a complete view of realities, plans, and perceptions of the market.

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Study Reveals Innovation and Cost Control Are Key Drivers of Cloud Communications Adoption in Europe

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Mitel Survey of 1,000+ Decision Makers Across Eight European Countries Reveals Business Attitudes to Public, Private and Hybrid Adoption of Cloud Communications

Mitel, a global leader in business communications, announced the results of its new Europe-wide survey, “Cloud adoption as viewed by European Companies.” The study analyzes the attitudes and priorities of executives in eight European countries, examining their perceptions and motives for migrating to a cloud-based model for their business communications.

The survey comes against the backdrop of rapid growth in the cloud communications sector, whether public, private or hybrid. The latest MZA forecasts estimate the compound annual growth rate of the cloud-based unified communications sector to be 14% up to 2023 in Western Europe.

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Innovation at the heart of cloud migration
In an increasingly connected world, companies need to transform and adopt the latest communications and collaboration technology innovations to remain attractive and competitive. Reflecting this, 81% of European companies rated access to innovative features not available with traditional telephony solutions as their main motivation for migrating to a cloud model.

As cloud technology delivers faster and easier access to key productivity tools, companies now view certain functionality as indispensable in effective cloud communications solutions. Unified communication features, including presence, secure instant messaging, voice and video calls, are top of their “must-have” list with nearly nine in 10 (89%) European companies surveyed considering them essential. Advanced collaboration functions, such as audio and video conferencing and seamless content sharing follow with 41% of companies citing them as essential.

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Migration costs are critical for measuring ROI
The costs of migrating existing telephony architecture to the cloud are front-of-mind for businesses, compared with other costs such as change management expenses, and equipment and maintenance. A resounding 84% of European companies reported migration costs as the primary factor to consider when it comes to ROI. The performance improvements businesses can expect from the cloud are deemed heavily dependent on the quality of underlying IT systems (such as the VPN).

European businesses also consider the costs involved in data reversibility. Nearly half (49%) of companies in Europe ranked this as a key component, making it the second most important factor.

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Businesses are looking for cloud expertise
Companies are choosing different paths to the cloud, whether their business model aligns to a public, private or hybrid approach. According to the research, 62% of European businesses report a need for experienced advisors to help them migrate to the cloud in a manner that makes the most sense for their organization. These figures demonstrate that cloud deployments are considered a critical part of business’ long-term communications strategies, and companies are investing in expertise to guarantee future success.

“We were looking for a simpler and more advanced way for employees, partners and customers to engage and communicate. Our business is built on empowering customers to make more intelligent buying decisions and a cloud-based communications and collaboration solution was the relevant and future-proof alternative,” said Matt West, CEO at Feefo, a Mitel customer.

“Cloud communications accelerate digital transformation, enabling companies to improve their productivity and deliver a better level of customer experience,” said Jeremy Butt, Senior Vice President, International for Mitel. “European countries are at different stages of maturity but the common point is that businesses already have a clear idea of which cloud model – UCaaS, hybrid or private cloud – will work for them based on their business needs. The important thing is to give them a cost-effective and low-risk migration roadmap as well as the opportunity to choose between public or private cloud. Mitel is uniquely positioned to offer customers that choice.”

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