If youre looking to hire a developer, which is more important: her LinkedIn profile or samples of her code on GitHub?Many would argue the latter, which helps to explain why the online code repository is reportedly closing in on a valuation of $2 billion.“GitHub is an interesting company,” said analyst Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics. “It is partly a hosting service for developers and partly a social media site.”The San Francisco startup, which offers a popular code-sharing platform for software developers, is seeking a whopping $200 million in an upcoming private funding round that values the company as high as $2 billion, according to a report Monday from Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security remains a big concern for businesses considering cloud storage, but Dropbox hopes to further calm their fears by integrating its service with enterprise mobile management products.Dropbox for Business users will get the new EMM capability via upcoming applications from partners including AirWatch and MobileIron, resulting in safer mobile device access, Dropbox said Tuesday.EMM will be enabled through the Dropbox for Business API, launched late last year to help companies integrate the cloud storage service into their core IT processes. Dropbox has since expanded the API access with features such as tools for managing groups and shared folders.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security remains a big concern for businesses considering cloud storage, but Dropbox hopes to further calm their fears by integrating its service with enterprise mobile management products.Dropbox for Business users will get the new EMM capability via upcoming applications from partners including AirWatch and MobileIron, resulting in safer mobile device access, Dropbox said Tuesday.EMM will be enabled through the Dropbox for Business API, launched late last year to help companies integrate the cloud storage service into their core IT processes. Dropbox has since expanded the API access with features such as tools for managing groups and shared folders.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It would have been easy enough for Dunkin’ Donuts to dismiss the Internet phenomenon “Dressgate” as irrelevant to its brand. What, after all, could an online debate over optical illusions and the color of a dress possibly have to do with pastry and coffee?Turns out, plenty. In a shining example of real-time marketing done right, Dunkin’ Donuts quickly identified the viral trend and rapidly conceived and executed a relevant promotion to insert its brand into the conversation. On the morning of Feb. 27—just hours after the phenomenon erupted—the company tweeted an image of a black-and-blue frosted doughnut alongside a white-and-gold one. “Doesn’t matter if it’s blue/black or white/gold, they still taste delicious,” read the accompanying text.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Give a marketer a sale, and you’ll keep his company afloat for a day; teach him to predict future sales, and you may just ensure his longevity.That, in essence, is the premise behind predictive marketing, a concept that’s increasingly taking hold in enterprises today.Tapping into the analytics trend that’s being felt throughout the business world as a whole, predictive marketing applies algorithms and machine learning to big data to help marketers direct their efforts in the most profitable directions. Predictive-analytics tools can help marketers gauge ahead of time what a particular customer will buy, for example, as well as when and how much. Equipped with that information, companies can tailor their campaigns accordingly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The ongoing saga surrounding HP’s ill-fated Autonomy acquisition continued on Tuesday with the company’s announcement that it will pay $100 million in a settlement agreement with PGGM Vermogensbeheer B.V.Dutch PGGM Vermogensbeheer is the lead plaintiff in the securities class action arising from the impairment charge taken by HP following its acquisition of Autonomy.HP acquired the British software maker in 2011 for $11.7 billion. The following year, HP announced the $8.8 million impairment charge as a result of what it called “accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures” in Autonomy’s financial statements. HP shareholders filed suit that same year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Virtual reality has been anticipated with feverish excitement by gaming enthusiasts, but it could be just as transformative for businesses.So says Bob Berry, cofounder and CEO of Envelop VR, which is developing productivity software that will tap VR to offer business users new ways of working. The company was founded last year, and on Monday it said it had secured $2 million in seed funding.Virtual reality is a technology that has been “10 years away for 40 years,” Berry said. Today, it has finally reached a level of maturity whereby it can deliver “presence”—where your brain really thinks you’re somewhere else—without the motion sickness hampering earlier versions, according to Berry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The average company has about 70 different types of third-party code on its website but is aware of only about a third of them. The rest are hidden in services like ad networks, widgets and analytics tools, and they can bog down performance, threaten security and compromise search-engine optimization.That’s according to Ghostery, which on Tuesday announced a partnership with Oracle whereby its TrackerMap Live monitoring tool is now available to users of the Oracle Marketing Cloud. Offered on the Oracle Marketing AppCloud, TrackerMap Live is designed to help reveal the interconnected ecosystem of code and third-party tags on company websites.Using TrackerMap Live, companies can pinpoint where each tag on their site comes from and see what its effects are. Along the way, they can determine whether vendors are placing unwanted or non-secure piggyback tags on their website without permission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Xbox cofounder Otto Berkes may have spent the bulk of his recent years focusing on consumer technology, but his next career move will be set squarely in the enterprise arena, as CA Technologies on Monday announced that it recruited him to serve as its next CTO.Most recently, Berkes was CTO at HBO, where he was responsible for the development of HBO Go as well as all of the company’s technology efforts including media production, internal business systems and technology operations.Before that, Berkes—who has been awarded seven patents and is one of the four original founders of Xbox—spent 18 years at Microsoft, where he held a number of senior-level positions including senior software developer, partner-level architect and general manager.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Right around the time that the Stuxnet attack so famously sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010, the U.S. National Security Agency reportedly was trying something similar against North Korea.The NSA-led U.S. effort used a version of the Stuxnet virus designed to be activated by Korean-language computer settings, but it ultimately failed to sabotage North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to a Friday Reuters report, which attributed the information to people familiar with the campaign.The NSA did not respond to a request for comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When a startup’s $10 million in funding is followed two months later by a further $41 million, it’s safe to say they’re tapping into a trend. In the case of Rubrik, that trend is enterprise data management.Promising an all-in-one approach to enterprise backup and recovery, Rubrik announced its Converged Data Management platform in late March along with its initial funding. Introduced at the time via an early-access program, Rubrik’s technology aims to “eliminate backup software” by fusing enterprise data management with Web-scale IT.On Tuesday, Rubrik announced the $41 million Series B portion of its funding along with the general availability of its r300 Series hybrid cloud appliance. The Rubrik r300, a 2U unit containing up to four x86 nodes, comes pre-configured with the Rubrik Converged Data Management software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Criminals stole sensitive information about roughly 100,000 taxpayers through the Internal Revenue Service’s “Get Transcript” application, a major data breach at the U.S.’s national tax agency.
The thieves first stole information including Social Security details, dates of birth and street addresses from an outside, non-IRS source, the government agency said Tuesday. They then used that information to clear a multistep authentication process and access the IRS site, along with all the personal tax details stored there.
The matter is now under review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and the IRS’ Criminal Investigation unit. The Get Transcript application has also been temporarily shut down.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After launching its Community Cloud last August for companies trying to engage their customers online, Salesforce has now given the platform a major update.Community Cloud, designed to let companies create their own “LinkedIn-style” communities for customers, partners and employees, has a new Targeted Recommendations feature aimed at promoting user engagement in these sites.Powered by algorithms that analyze both structured and unstructured data, the new feature is designed to bring community members the most relevant content, including posts, resources, files and groups. Community managers can suggest content with specific information or post an announcement into the feed and direct it at a specific group, member type or individual. Within a fitness-related community, for example, one could offer a coupon for running shoes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Early this year, Dropbox released its cloud storage service on Windows phones and tablets, and on Tuesday the company followed up with a universal app that fleshes out the features for both types of devices.The update automatically adapts to the user’s screen size and delivers a number of new features, including the ability for Windows Phone users to upload videos directly from their devices.In the interests of multitasking, Windows Phone users can also now upload multiple files at once. And they can download files straight to their device or SD card, making it available for offline access; there’s a way to mark files as favorites for offline use as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Simplicity is an oft-cited goal in the world of enterprise software, but by most accounts, it’s rarely achieved. Percolate is hoping to change that, at least for marketing professionals.The startup says its namesake software platform offers an all-in-one alternative to the hodgepodge of smaller marketing tools used by many companies today.Percolate’s software is designed to act as a central hub for myriad aspects of the marketing function, including campaign planning and collaboration, storage of all files and brand-identity elements, production of marketing and advertising content, multichannel distribution, analytics and customer interaction.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s been a flurry of speculation that Salesforce.com could be up for sale, but an alternative line of thinking points to a deal with Sage Group as the explanation for the team of lawyers Salesforce recently hired.On Tuesday, Sage and Salesforce revealed the proof in the proverbial pudding. The two companies have announced a broad global partnership along with a new service from Sage that’s built on the Salesforce1 platform-as-a-service designed to help small businesses move to the cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Life today is vastly more complicated for IT managers than it used to be, thanks in large part to two key trends: bring-your-own-device computing and the growing prevalence of mixed-infrastructure IT environments.Aiming to ease some of the pressure on both ends, Citrix on Tuesday unveiled a new cloud offering designed to give enterprises maximum flexibility.The Citrix Workspace Cloud is built on the notion of a personal “work space” that includes all the desktop, Web and mobile apps a user needs, along with data, documents and collaboration tools. Essentially, the software lets IT administrators put all that together in a unified package and deliver it securely to users wherever they are, no matter what device or network they’re using.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Rumors of a potential Salesforce acquisition have been flying for over a week now, including the recent suggestion that Microsoft was a likely contender. According to a new report, however, it now looks like that’s not the case.Microsoft considers Salesforce’s almost $50 billion market valuation too high and has no plans to make a bid for the cloud-software company in the near term, Reuters reported late on Thursday, citing unnamed sources. It may, however, reconsider the possibility in the future, the sources reportedly said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s simple for consumers to get apps whenever the mood strikes them, but in enterprises it’s typically a different story. Borrowing a page from successful consumer app stores, SAP has launched SAP Store, hoping to make software purchases just as easy on the business side.Unveiled Tuesday at Sapphire Now in Orlando, the SAP Store is a key part of the digital-business push SAP has made at the conference. Its goal is to allow enterprise users to buy software from SAP without the need for a purchase order, invoice or lengthy request-for-proposal process.Built on SAP’s own Hybris Commerce Suite and available across devices, the store offers a one-click online agreement and transparent pricing. Individuals can configure their new applications—usually in a few hours or less, SAP says—without needing help from their IT department or outside consultants.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Take a quick tour through the C-suite of any major corporation today, and there’s a good chance you’ll see some titles that weren’t there a few years ago: chief data officer, chief data scientist, chief analytics officer, to name just a few.Data is the element they all share in common, and it’s affecting more than just the executive ranks.In the business world’s headlong rush to collect as much data about as many things as possible as quickly as it can, a question has been left for later: How do you turn those massive volumes into practical value? Turns out, “later” is now, and there’s a crushing shortage of specialized data scientists. Few companies, meanwhile, even have a plan for bolstering their data talent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Katherine Noyes