GSA Technology Council

Scientigo, Inc. has announced that Harry Pettit, will provide new leadership and vision as Chief Executive Officer. “Our primary focus is to provide a better way to FIND and deliver relevant information,” Pettit stated. “FIND.com, our local search destination portal, facilitates access to valuable Internet-based information for all telephone, mobile and Internet users.” Prior to the Board of Directors appointing Mr. Pettit as CEO, the position had been vacant.

The Board of Directors also announced that Cynthia White will be taking a temporary personal leave of absence and will step down as President and Chief Operating Officer during that period. Commenting on the appointment of Mr. Pettit as CEO, Ms. White stated: “I am delighted that Harry Pettit is coming on board at Scientigo and I am looking forward to a quick return to the Company and working with Harry.”

Under Pettit’s direction, the Company will continue to leverage proprietary and patented intellectual properties to establish FIND.com as a robust local search platform supporting both consumer internet local search and Enhanced Directory Assistance (EDA) services, and to deliver the Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) product for enterprise content management. “Harry brings proven leadership and strategic vision to this position, as well as a depth of expertise and knowledge of the telecommunications and directory assistance industries that will catapult FIND.com as a universal local search destination for consumers, businesses, and information service providers,” reports Stuart Yarbrough, Chairman of the Board for Scientigo. Yarborough continues, “We are pleased to have someone of Mr. Pettit’s caliber and experience lead the charge in delivering next generation search solutions.”

Mr. Pettit was a key contributor in the development of the existing 411 Directory Assistance platform. He has served as president, and or Director of several successful companies, including Global Directory Solutions, and InfoCall, an international company engaged in providing comprehensive Directory Assistance services for telephone, cellphone and Internet users. He was a founder of LSSi, the world’s leading provider of telephony-sourced national databases of telephone listings. He has also served as Vice President of Bell Atlantic International, where he started and led Bell Atlantic’s global business operations. Mr. Pettit, as CEO and Chairman of Bell Atlantic Asia Pacific, was responsible for the creation of over $120 million in new business in the Far East. Pettit also led Bell Atlantic’s effort to acquire New Zealand Telecom. Prior to his tenure at Bell Atlantic, he spent nearly 30 years serving in numerous executive positions at IBM. Mr. Pettit has extensive board experience, having served as a director of SKY TV (New Zealand), Pacific Star (Australia), Mobiltel (Indonesia), CSM (Indonesia), as well as various internal and external companies related to IBM and Bell Atlantic.

via Scientigo
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ComputerJobs.com, the second largest IT focused job site and winner of numerous WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Awards, has announced its acquisition by JobServe.com, the UK’s leading internet recruitment site.

JobServe Managing Director and founder, Robbie Cowling said, “I am never satisfied with the status quo, and our acquisition of ComputerJobs.com along with our previous purchase of ComputerWork.com and CareerBoard.com provides us with the ideal platform and user base for our expansion into the US”.

“JobServe dominates the UK market, is the second largest IT job site in Australia and has shown a sincere interest in expanding into the US,” explains Mike Gilfillan, founder and CEO of privately held ComputerJobs.com, “Robbie is a true visionary who also runs a very customer focused organization which we found to be a perfect compliment to our long term growth strategy. Combining our resources will create an even more powerful recruitment resource for both job seekers and employers in the US and abroad.”

ComputerJobs.com is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and was started in 1995 to focus solely on IT recruitment. It has since expanded nationwide to become the second largest IT job site in the US, helping more than 1.5 million IT professionals locate jobs. For more information visit – www.computerjobs.com.

JobServe, formed in 1993, quickly grew into one of the UK’s most successful businesses offering jobs across many sectors of the market. In 2002 JobServe opened an office in Australia where it recently acquired and absorbed JOBNET. In May 2006 JobServe purchased USA job boards CareerBoard.com and Computerwork.com.

via jobserve
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GREENVILLE, SC – Stratatomic has launched a new website, logo, identity and internet marketing campaign for Copper River Grill now available online at www.CopperRiverGrill.com. The new website features the restaurant menu, locations, and information about the company and career opportunities. Copper River Grill is a growing group of casual dining restaurants with 3 locations in South Carolina, including Seneca, Columbia, and Boiling Springs opening in early 2007. In addition to the new website, Stratatomic created the restaurant’s new logo and “Big Times. Bold Flavors.” tag-line and identity, as well as a new menu design that recently debuted. The new identity and marketing campaign portray an Alaskan mountain lodge atmosphere, evocative of the Copper River delta in Alaska which inspired the restaurant’s theme. Stratatomic has also been designated as the agency of record for Copper River Grill and will assist the restaurant group with advertising design and placement in all markets.

Stratatomic is a full-service creative firm specializing in web, multimedia, advertising, and graphic communications. Stratatomic also offers complete solutions for web site hosting, WebAdmin™ site management software and WebStats™ site analysis tools, providing clients with a singular resource for top-to-bottom implementation of their internet marketing strategies.

In less than 3 years, Stratatomic’s proprietary WebAdmin™ e-commerce and site-management technology surpassed $10 million in online sales transactions and order processing. Today, WebAdmin™ enables clients of all sizes to effectively manage their own site content or storefront and is the power behind websites that receive more than 2 million page requests per month and average hundreds of orders per day. Founded in September, 2000 by Ryan Owens, Stratatomic LLC is a privately held company based in Greenville, SC.

via Stratatomic
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ScanSource, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCSC), announced on Friday that it is requesting a hearing before the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel. This is in response to the receipt of a NASDAQ Staff Determination letter on November 14, 2006 indicating that the Company is not in compliance with the filing requirements for continued listing as set forth in Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(14). There can be no assurance that the Panel will grant the Company’s request for continued listing. As anticipated, the letter was issued in accordance with NASDAQ procedures due to the delayed filing of the Company’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006. Under NASDAQ rules, pending a decision by the Panel, the Company’s common stock will remain listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market.

As previously announced, the Company does not expect to be able to file its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006 until the review by the Special Committee, appointed by the Company’s Board of Directors to conduct a review of its historical stock option practices and related accounting issues, is complete.

via ScanSource
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In the first joint and open initiative to improve the Web crawl process for search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft today announced support for Sitemaps 0.90 (www.sitemaps.org), a free and easy way for webmasters to notify search engines about their websites and be indexed more comprehensively and efficiently, resulting in better representation in search indices. For users, Sitemaps enables higher quality, fresher search results. An initiative initially driven by Yahoo! and Google, Sitemaps builds upon the pioneering Sitemaps 0.84, released by Google in June of 2005, which is now being adopted by Yahoo! and Microsoft to offer a single protocol to enhance Web crawling efforts.

Together, the sponsoring companies will continue to collaborate on the Sitemaps protocol and publish enhancements on a jointly maintained website www.sitemaps.org, which provides all of the details about the Sitemaps protocol.

How Sitemaps Work

A Sitemap is an XML file that can be made available on a website and acts as a marker for search engines to crawl certain pages. It is an easy way for webmasters to make their sites more search engine friendly. It does this by conveniently allowing webmasters to list all of their URLs along with optional metadata, such as the last time the page changed, to improve how search engines crawl and index their websites.

Sitemaps enhance the current model of Web crawling by allowing webmasters to list all their Web pages to improve comprehensiveness, notify search engines of changes or new pages to help freshness, and identify unchanged pages to prevent unnecessary crawling and save bandwidth. Webmasters can now universally submit their content in a uniform manner. Any webmaster can submit their Sitemap to any search engine which has adopted the protocol.

The Sitemaps protocol used by Google has been widely adopted by many Web properties, including sites from the Wikimedia Foundation. Any company that manages dynamic content and a lot of web pages can benefit from Sitemaps. For example, if a company that utilizes a content management system (CMS) to deliver custom web content – (i.e., pricing, availability and promotional offers) – to thousands of URLs places a Sitemap file on its web servers, search engine crawlers will be able to discover what pages are present and which have recently changed and to crawl them accordingly. By using Sitemaps, new links can reach search engine users more rapidly by informing search engine “spiders” and helping them to crawl more pages and discover new content faster. This can also drive online traffic and make search engine marketing more effective by delivering better results to users.

For companies looking to improve user experience while keeping costs low, Sitemaps also helps make more efficient use of bandwidth. Sitemaps can help search engines find a company’s newest content more efficiently and avoid the need to revisit unchanged pages. Sitemaps can list what is new on a site and quickly guide crawlers to that new content.

“At industry conferences, webmasters have asked for open standards just like this,” said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch. “This is a great development for the whole community and addresses a real need of webmasters in a very convenient fashion. I believe it will lead to greater collaboration in the industry for common standards, including those based around robots.txt, a file that gives Web crawlers direction when they visit a website.”

“Announcing industry supported Sitemaps is an important milestone for all of us because it will help webmasters and search engines get the most relevant information to users faster. Sitemaps address the challenges of a growing and dynamic Web by letting webmasters and search engines talk to each other, enabling a better web crawl and better results,” said Narayanan Shivakumar, Distinguished Entrepreneur with Google. “Our initial efforts have provided webmasters with useful information about their sites, and the information we’ve received in turn has improved the quality of Google’s search.”

“The launch of Sitemaps is significant because it allows for a single, easy way for websites to provide content and metadata to search engines,” said Tim Mayer, senior director of product management, Yahoo! Search. “Sitemaps helps webmasters surface content that is typically difficult for crawlers to discover, leading to a more comprehensive search experience for users.”

“The quality of your index is predicated by the quality of your sources and Windows Live Search is happy to be working with Google and Yahoo! on Sitemaps to not only help webmasters, but also help consumers by delivering more relevant search results so they can find what they’re looking for faster,” said Ken Moss, General Manager of Windows Live Search at Microsoft.

The protocol will be available at sitemaps.org, and the companies plan to have Yahoo! Small Business host the site. Any site owner can create and upload an XML Sitemap and submit the URL of the file to participating search engines.

via Sitemaps
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GlucoTec, Inc., headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, was honored by Deloitte & Touche on November 15th as part of its annual InnoVision Awards Program. This program, founded in 1999 by Deloitte, is dedicated to the advancement of technology in the Upstate though communication, education and recognition of the spirit of innovation and technological progress. The awards were presented during a dinner at the Palmetto Expo Center with Physicist Richard L. Garwin as the keynote speaker. Dr. Garwin is credited with creating the actual design used in the first hydrogen bomb and received the National Medal of Science in 2003 for his physics research, scientific discoveries and contribution to national security.

The Small Enterprise Award, given to companies with less than 50 employees, went to GlucoTec, Inc. which makes the Glucommander, a software program to help hospitals regulate blood-sugar levels in intensive-care patients.

In accepting the award, Rick Grounsell, CEO of GlucoTec, Inc., first thanked the efforts of his employees, but added that the true honor lay in the company’s expectations that the Glucommander will save hundreds of thousands of lives across the country.

GlucoTec, Inc. strives to improve the lives of hospital-based patients by providing healthcare professionals with integrated metabolic management systems that result in improved glycemic control and corresponding clinical and financial outcomes.

via GlucoTec
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Sealevel Systems, Inc. announces the expansion of the SeaI/O family of data acquisition devices with the introduction of the SeaI/O-520 digital I/O module. Offering a powerful combination of high-current Form C outputs and optically isolated inputs, SeaI/O-520 modules are perfect for a wide variety of applications including process control, facility management, security, and broadcast automation.

The SeaI/O-520 provides eight SPDT high-current Form C relays that can directly switch up to 6A loads at 250VAC and 100VDC. Additionally, eight non-polarized inputs can monitor 5-30VDC and provide optical isolation to protect the host computer and other sensitive equipment from voltage transients and ground loops that are common in industrial environments.

Ordering options allow connection to a host computer via wireless Ethernet (802.11b/g), wired Ethernet, RS-485, USB, or RS-232. Status LEDs are included to indicate communication, power, and fault conditions. For connecting I/O, removable terminal blocks are standard, enabling fast, versatile field wiring. SeaI/O modules operate from 9-30VDC, and power can be input via terminal block or DC jack. Both table mount and DIN rail mounting options are available, and installation is made easy using Sealevel’s software configuration tools.

A variety of SeaI/O expansion modules are available offering Reed and Form C relays, optically isolated inputs, TTL interface to industry standard solid-state relay racks, A/D and D/A functionality. Multiple units of any I/O type can be easily daisy chained together using convenient pass-through connectors. This expansion capability enables a distributed network to be controlled with even a traditional point-to-point USB or RS-232 host connection. Multiple units can be combined in a local stack or separated up to 4000 feet using the RS-485 Modbus RTU expansion interface. For easy software integration, application programs or 3rd party software can use Sealevel’s SeaMAX library or industry standard Modbus protocol.

SeaI/O modules are housed in rugged metal enclosures suitable for extreme environments. Standard operating temperature range is 0°C to 70°C and extended temperature range (-40°C to +85°C) is optional. SeaI/O-520 prices start at $289 and product is available immediately from stock. All SeaI/O products include Sealevel’s lifetime warranty.

Sealevel Systems, founded in 1986, provides industrial computing solutions in addition to a variety of communications and I/O products including PCI Bus cards, Ethernet serial servers, USB serial adapters, PCMCIA cards, and PC/104 modules. Sealevel’s product line includes multi-port RS-232, RS-422/485, RS-232/422/485 multi-interface high-speed sync/async, and digital/relay I/O.

via Sealevel
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Internationally renowned physicist Dr. Richard L. Garwin will be the keynote speaker at the 2006 InnoVision Technology Awards Dinner November 15, 2006, at the Palmetto Expo Center.

Dr. Garwin is credited with creating the actual design used in the first hydrogen bomb and received the National Medal of Science in 2003 for his physics research, scientific discoveries and contribution to national security. He is an IBM Fellow Emeritus and has taught at Columbia, Harvard and Cornell Universities. He holds 44 U.S. patents and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, the Council on Foreign Relations and many other organizations.

Dr. Garwin was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award by President Clinton and the Department of Energy for his many contributions to national security and arms control and for his achievements in nuclear and particle physics.

The InnoVision Technology Awards program, founded in 1999 by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, recognizes and honors businesses, individuals and organizations that have demonstrated significant advancements in the areas of innovation and technological progress. It is considered the premier awards program focused exclusively on celebrating achievements in the South Carolina Upstate region and the counties of Abbeville, Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg, and Union.

Awards are presented annually in five categories: Technology Development, Technology Application, Small Enterprise, Innovation in Education, and Community Service. In addition, an individual is presented each year with the Charles Townes Individual Achievement Award. Townes was an Upstate native, inventor of the maser and laser, a Nobel Laureate in physics, and one of America’s most honored scientists.

The following are the finalists for the 2006 InnoVision Technology Awards. Announced in September, the winners will be named at the awards program November 15:

* Michelin North America, Duncan, SC
* GlucoTec, Inc., Greenville, SC
* eBridge Solutions, Greenville, SC
* ScanSource, Greenville, SC
* Techtronic Industries North America, Anderson, SC
* Furman University, Greenville, SC
* Society of Automotive Engineers
* TetraData Corporation, Greenville, SC
* Clemson University, Greenville, SC
* INNegRITY, Greenville, SC

To reserve a seat or a table at the event, call 864-283-2499.
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Greenville Area Development Corporation announced today that Caterpillar is finalizing plans to establish a Marine Center of Excellence at its Fountain Inn, South Carolina plant. The marine-focused facility will house the design, development, manufacture and test facilities for Caterpillar’s C7 through C32 marine engines. Currently assembling mid-range diesel engines for the trucking and other industries and employing nearly 400 people, Caterpillar will move final assembly of engines for seagoing-craft into what is currently warehouse space within its plant and will make a multi-million dollar investment in new equipment to support marine engine manufacturing. In addition, about 40 design and service engineers will be relocated to Greenville to support the Marine business unit.

Caterpillar holds the position of being the global leader in the marine power market offering not only propulsion engines, but also marine generator sets and vessel controls, having won numerous design excellence awards and holding many patents for its advancements in electronic engine technology.

“Creation of a Marine Center of Excellence in Greenville positions us well to enhance our leadership in the Marine business,” said Gary Stampanato, General Manager of Caterpillar’s Diversified Power Products. “This is a strategic move that supports our goal to be a market leader in all the businesses we serve.”

“Today’s announcement by Caterpillar is welcome news for the Fountain Inn community and the state as we work to create more job opportunities in South Carolina,” Gov. Mark Sanford said. “Our administration is committed to continue bettering the soil conditions for business that result in knowledge-based, higher paying jobs for our citizens.”

“South Carolina is well known for our outstanding quality of life and abundant array of outdoor recreational activities. Caterpillar’s decision to diversify its Fountain Inn facility to add marine engines speaks volumes about the business opportunities for growth in this area,” said Secretary of Commerce Joe Taylor. “Caterpillar has four existing plants in our state and employs more than 900 South Carolinians. We congratulate the Caterpillar team for their continued confidence in South Carolina as a prime location to grow their business.”

“Caterpillar has been a strong and respected corporate citizen in Greenville County for quite some time,” said Butch Kirven, Greenville County Council Chairman. ” We are especially pleased that Caterpillar continues to make significant investments in the Greenville community.”

“This business will have many benefits for our area,” said Ray Lattimore, GADC Chairman. “Owners of pleasure-going craft will visit Caterpillar to inspect their customized engines and bring new tourism dollars as well as gain a new awareness as to what Greenville has to offer.”

The Marine Center of Excellence will share the Greenville facility with C7 and C9 medium-duty engines used for on-highway trucks, Caterpillar machines, and other industrial applications. It is anticipated that the CAT marine engine operation will be fully operational in mid-to-late 2007/2008.

via GADC 

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Time Warner Telecom Inc. has announced that it has completed its acquisition of Xspedius Communications, LLC, which was announced on July 27. Pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement, the Company issued 18,249,428 shares of Class A Common Stock and paid $216 million in cash, including an adjustment for working capital. The Company assumed no debt in the transaction.

“We continue to believe in the value of the last mile connectivity to enterprise customers, and this acquisition further expands our network reach and market density, enhancing our ability to further fuel enterprise growth,” said Larissa Herda, Chairman, CEO and President of Time Warner Telecom. “We have been preparing for the integration of the two companies, and look forward to achieving the synergistic capabilities of the powerful combined fiber footprint and advanced network solutions created by the merger of both operations.”

Concurrent with the closing of the Xspedius acquisition, the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Time Warner Telecom Holdings Inc., drew down the balance of its secured Term Loan B credit facility. The draw down was used to fund the $250 million redemption, including the redemption fees and accrued interest, of its $240 million principal amount Second Priority Senior Secured Floating Rate Notes due 2011 to be paid on November 6, 2006, and $150 million was used to fund a portion of the acquisition

via Time Warner
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