Friday, March 26
POWAY, CA, and IRVINE, CA, — Computer maker Gateway, Inc.’s (www.gateway.com) board approved a new senior management team, following completion of its acquisition of eMachines Inc. Gateway founder Ted Waitt will serve as chairman and Wayne Inouye will serve as president and chief executive officer. Thirteen senior vice presidents will report to Inouye. They include Adam Andersen, Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer; Bob Davidson, Senior Vice President, U.S. Retail; Ed Fisher, Senior Vice President, Product Planning; John Goldsberry, Senior Vice President, Business Development; and Mike Zimmerman, Senior Vice President, Customer Care. Gateway executives leaving the company include Jocelyne Attal, executive vice president, Gateway professional; T. Scott Edwards, executive vice president, consumer; Joe Formichelli, executive vice president, operations; Nemo Azamian, senior vice president, customer service & support; and John Engel, senior vice president, PC products group.
Wednesday, March 24
Fujitsu Tools Migrate COBOL Programs to .NET Framework
SUNNYVALE, CA and WASHINGTON — At the FOSE trade show this week, Fujitsu Software Corp. www.fsw.fujitsu.com is demonstrating how its NetCOBOL for Windows www.netcobol.com, NetCOBOL for .NET, NetKicks, and zBatch products can help government customers cut mainframe hardware and software maintenance costs and maintain their investment in COBOL while migrating from host mainframe environments. NetCOBOL for Windows is a complete COBOL development environment that allows customers to create standalone COBOL applications and/or COBOL components for use with Microsoft Corp.’s Visual tools. NetCOBOL for Windows Version 7 runs on Windows(R) 98/Me/2000/NT/XP. Fujitsu NetCOBOL for .NET is a COBOL compiler and development environment created specifically for the Microsoft .NET Framework. It produces Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) that executes under the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and is fully integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003.
United Airlines Deploys Five Millionth HP iPAQ; Serves Up In-Flight Catering
PALO ALTO, CA — Hewlett-Packard Co. www.hp.com that United Airlines, through solution and software provider Abanco, www.abanco.com received the five millionth iPAQ Pocket PC. It will be used in a customized in-flight catering solution that allows customers to enjoy specialty cuisine at 35,000 feet. Abanco, Rosemont, Ill., created an in-flight catering solution for the airline industry that allows flight attendants to offer dining options from name brand restaurants to customers. Flight attendants use the iPAQs to process individual traveler selections by checking the inventory, placing the order and processing the transaction for the customer on the spot.
Cygcom, UXComm Announce SpeechWatch for Microsoft Speech Server
SAN FRANCISCO — Cygcom Integrated Technologies Inc., www.cygcom.com a distributor of speech integration products and services, and UXComm Inc., www.uxcomm.com a developer of autonomic Utility Resource Management (URM) software jointly will develop and market SpeechWatch Console, an integrated, management dashboard for the Microsoft Speech Server environment. Cygcom will distribute it to the VAR and OEM markets; UXComm will provide research, development, and integrated management solutions specialized for high-performance, highly-available modular compute systems.
Tech Data Expands POS/Data Capture Business Unit
CLEARWATER, FL — Tech Data Corp. www.techdata.com expanded its POS/Data Capture Specialized Business Unit (SBU) to include nearly a dozen manufacturers of point-of-sale (POS) products, including touch-screen monitors, barcode scanners, cash drawers, keyboards, pole displays and printers. Tech Data’s POS/Data Capture SBU offers product training, leasing programs, logistics management and other support services that allow resellers to meet the demands of vertical markets including retail, pharmaceuticals, foodservices, office automation and warehousing.
Monday, March 22
Global Crossing Enhances Channel Partner Program
LAS VEGAS — Bolstered by its strategic relationship with Covad Communications, the Global Crossing (www.globalcrossing.com) is enhancing partner program. The expanded program aims to leverage Global Crossing’s global network and IP solutions to allow greater flexibility in network and service offerings for business partners. Global Crossing also expanded its strategic agreement with DSL provider Covad Communications.
Novell Announces Roadmap for Next-Generation Identity Services
SALT LAKE CITY — At its annual BrainShare conference, Novell Inc. (www.novell.com) announced a strategy to help customers reduce the time and cost required to design and configure identity management systems. Development tools will be based on the open source Eclipse framework and will allow administrators to visually create an identity foundation. Novell will also combine its Nsure and exteNd technologies to provide identity management applications for user provisioning with workflow and corporate directories to simplify the deployment of identity-based services. Novell will also provide pre-built identity applications featuring user provisioning with workflow capabilities. Ready-to-use portals will enable dynamic generation of corporate directories and organizational charts that display multiple levels of hierarchy with multiple view criteria.
VoxSurf Launches Messaging Technologies At CTIA Wireless Show
ATLANTA and LONDON — VoxSurf Ltd. (www.voxsurf.com), a provider of voice and video messaging solutions, launched two new products, MMS Voicemail and VxOne Videomail at the 2004 CTIA Wireless expo. MMS Voicemail and Videomail allow wireless carriers to increase network traffic and revenue streams while providing new messaging services for customers. MMS Voicemail enables users to receive, store and filter voicemails on their wireless handsets. VxOne Videomail applies VxOne’s message-handling functions to video, enabling users to greet video callers with a video message of their choosing. VxOne has been licensed by Z-Tel Communications, Inc. (www.ztel.com) in the United States.
Convergys Completes Major Integration Project For China Unicom Guangdong
CINCINNATI and BEIJING — Convergys Corp. (www.convergys.com) a provider of integrated billing, employee care, and customer-care services, completed deployment of its Infinys software for China Unicom Guangdong (CUG). Convergys integrated Infinys with CUG’s billing platform to support subscriber activation of convergent service offerings across 17 different network element types in multiple cities throughout the province. The system will serve 80 million cellular, 13 million paging, and 7.6 million Internet subscribers. Bright Oceans Inter Telecommunications (BOCO), a leading Chinese telecommunications solutions systems integrator, provided the hardware support and environment configuration.
Mobile Diagnostix Joins Palm Powered Mobile Program
ATLANTA — Mobile Diagnostix Inc. (www.mobilediagnostix.com) joined the Palm Powered Mobile World program as a charter member. The company plans to adapt its Mobile Care Framework to automate the customer care process.
F5 Networks Boosts Channel Partner Program FirePass SSL VPN Products
SEATTLE — F5 Networks Inc., (www.f5.com) a provider of application traffic management products, rolled out enhanced channel programs to support its FirePass SSL-VPN solution. The programs include F5 University, an online training center; the StrongBox Evaluation Program, a way to place customized F5 evaluation units into customer accounts for assessment in their own working environments; the F5 Online Demo Center, allowing partners to demonstrate features of F5 products; and Dedicated Partner Engineering Team Leader, an experienced and knowledgeable point-of-contact within F5 Networks for partners to access field and sales engineering resources quickly. F5 also announced Market & Business Development Promotional Programs, market-building campaigns to drive business to F5’s partner channel. The programs are slated to launch during the second calendar quarter.
Zvetco Biometrics Signs Saflink to Resell Verifi Fingerprint Authentication Devices
ORLANDO — Biometric security software developer, marketer and integrator Saflink Corp. (www.saflink.com ) joined Zvetco Biometrics’ Integrated Reseller Partner Program (www.zvetcobiometrics.com). Zvetco is a provider of fingerprint-sensing identity authentication hardware.
Scantron Launches Web-Based Test Management, Delivery Platform for School Districts
IRVINE, Calif. — Scantron Corp., (www.scantron.com) a developer of education testing and assessment tools, launched Achievement Series, a platform for test management and delivery to school districts. The Web-based system is designed to increase the flexibility and efficiency of test development and deployment and is a collaborative tool that delivers results quickly to provide feedback to instruction in real time. To position its platform as a testing platform industry standard, Scantron is securing alliances with companies in the education market, including learning resource organizations and content providers.
Infitel, HP Deliver Joint Telecommunications Solution
NIEUWEGEIN, NETHERLANDS and ATLANTA — Hewlett-Packard will act as a worldwide prime contractor to deliver and support OSA/Parlay solutions that provide value-added services to the telecommunications and service-provider market. Based on Infitel (www.infitel.com) software and HP NonStop server platforms with HP OpenCall software, OSA/Parlay is an emerging standard recognized by network providers as a deployment platform that separates applications from underlying networks.