GSA Technology Council

In preparation to the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing this summer (they will start August 8th and run through August 24th) Yahoo! has announced the launch of a new website focused specifically on the games.  The website, which is a part of Yahoo! Sports, will provide up-to-minute coverage with write ups from Yahoo! Sports’ editorial team, videos, and photographs.  In addition Yahoo! has made updates to its mobile and search products to allow users to access greater information regarding the Olympic Games. 

In Yahoo!’s official press release today, general manager of yahoo! Sports, James Pitaro said that “Yahoo! has been in training for months to ensure we’re ready to deliver the Summer Games to our users.”

For more information visit Yahoo!’s Olympic site at http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics

via Yahoo! 

Today Microsoft officially stops selling its Windows XP operating system as a stand alone product as well as providing it to major computer manufacturers such as Dell and HP.  The decision to wait to discontinue sales of XP until June 30th came after a large customer demand last year to keep the product on the shelf.  Microsoft has said that retailers may still have XP available for some time past June 30th depending on specific back stock.  Further support for the operating system will continue to be available until 2014.

For more information regarding the end of sales of Windows XP visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/future.mspx

via Microsoft

Greenville, SC — AssetPoint, a provider of Maintenance Management software and industry best practices consulting, announced today that that it has promoted one employees and added a new employees to its growing staff.
 
Jane Black was promoted to Director of Technical Services at AssetPoint.  She has over 23 years of product development and project management experience in the Information Technology industry.  Her most recent experience includes working with AssetPoint clients on their integration solutions with multiple ERP systems.  Her product development experience focused on supply chain management and accounting areas.   Additional work experience includes managing IT systems used to support field project construction sites for a major engineering and construction firm.  Jane graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a Bachelor of Science degree.
 
Dave Kotrady joined AssetPoint as Director of Solutions Architecture.  He has over nine years experience in IT consulting and he specialized in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) applications for one of the world’s largest providers of management and technology consulting services.  He frequently served as the lead technical role in software implementations incorporating web-based applications, mobile and wireless technologies, disparate application integration, and business intelligence requirements.  His clients spanned both commercial and public service enterprises and crossed a variety of industries, including pharmaceutical, manufacturing, facilities maintenance, and both military organizations and their contractors. 
 
In addition to his nine years as a technology consultant, Dave’s background includes four years overseeing operations in manufacturing and six years as a Naval Officer.  He completed his Bachelors degree at the University of South Carolina in 1988, and later returned to earn an MBA from the Moore School of Business in 2003.
 
“We are continuing to experience significant growth due to increased demand for our TabWare EFX  product coupled with our aggressive growth strategy and we are delighted to have these highly talented professionals on our staff.”  said Eric Miles, President and CEO of AssetPoint.

via AssetPoint

SYNNEX Corporation, a business process services company, today announced financial results for the fiscal second quarter ended May 31, 2008.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2008, revenues were $1.878 billion, compared to $1.685 billion for the quarter ended May 31, 2007, representing an 11% increase over the prior year quarter. These results were within the Company’s guidance of $1.845 billion to $1.915 billion.

Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 was $18.5 million, or $0.56 per diluted share, compared with $14.7 million, or $0.45 per diluted share in the prior year quarter, representing a 26% increase in net income over the prior year quarter. These results exceeded analysts’ consensus and the Company’s guidance for net income of $16.9 million to $17.6 million with diluted earnings per share of $0.51 to $0.53. The second quarter for fiscal 2008 marks the 84th consecutive profitable quarter for SYNNEX.

Synnex Corporation’s East Coast office of Sales and Product Marketing is located on Pelham Rd in Greenville.

via Synnex

Google is offering a free webinar for developers (and anybody else who may be interested) on how to use a few of Google’s products for website owners.  The three Google Products that will be focused on are Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer.

Here is the overview of each product (provided via Google’s Official Blog):

• Google Webmaster Tools: A resource to gauge the visibility of your pages on Google. It shows you which Google search queries drive traffic to your site and lets you see where your site is included in the top search results. You’ll even be able to identify your top content and view the words that other sites use to link to it.
• Google Analytics: Provides further insight on how people land and navigate on your site, regardless of whether they arrive through Google search, pay-per-click ads, or other means. You can see which geographical regions people come from, view your top landing pages, and compare the effectiveness of all your ads, e-mail newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, and keywords on Google and other search engines.
• Google Website Optimizer: Enables you to act on the information you’ve gathered about your site and make concrete improvements. After identifying your high-traffic but low-converting pages, you can test different combinations of content to determine which one most yields the outcome you’re looking for.

If you are interested in any or all of these products check out the free webinar.  It will be Tuesday, July 8th at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (that would be 12 noon for us on the East Coast).  Register to attend here!

via Google

Yahoo! Inc. has announced changes to its organization aimed at improving its products, technologies and execution. The moves support its strategy to be the starting point for the most users, the must-buy for the most advertisers and the platform of choice for developers.

Key elements Yahoo! announced are the centralization of consumer product development to enhance the company’s ability to release products worldwide; the creation of a U.S. region focused on bringing products to market for users, advertisers and publishers; formation of an insights strategy team; and enhancements to the technology infrastructure to optimize the use of data and improve coordination between product and engineering teams.

“These moves accelerate the ability of our deep and talented team to build great products, grow our audiences and improve monetization globally,” said Jerry Yang, CEO. “They are designed to put us in an even better position to leverage our leading global audience and capture the opportunity we see in the convergence of search and display advertising.”

Business and Product Changes

The company is creating three new teams that will report to President Sue Decker. An Audience Products Division will assume responsibility for companywide product strategy and product management. It will be led by Ash Patel who previously managed the company’s Platforms & Infrastructure group. A U.S. region with accountability for all go-to-market activity in the U.S. will be led by Hilary Schneider, who previously headed the company’s Global Partner Solutions group. Finally, an Insights Strategy team will assume responsibility for centralizing and executing a common strategy for the use of data and analysis across Yahoo!. The company plans to name this group’s leader within the next few weeks.

“The changes we’re making today will help deliver superior global products for users and enable faster and better decision-making,” said President Sue Decker. “This is a logical next step in light of our success last year in moving to a more centralized approach to developing world-class marketing products. We have planned these changes deliberately over the past several months to clarify responsibilities and to capitalize on the scale advantages while allowing for fine tuning to meet local market needs.”

Technology and Infrastructure Changes

Yahoo! is making changes to its technology organization, led by Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh, to better position the company to execute on its strategic priorities. Principal changes are developing a world-class cloud computing and storage infrastructure; rewiring Yahoo! onto common platforms; and creating a stronger partnership between product and engineering teams.

“Since my arrival at Yahoo! earlier this year, we’ve carefully evaluated the best possible configuration of our technology group to support our business strategies,” said Balogh. “I’m excited by the depth of our team which–combined with the talent we continue to recruit–will execute even better under this new structure.”

In order to expand its cloud computing capabilities, the Company will form a Cloud Computing & Data Infrastructure Group, charged with developing a computing infrastructure that balances scalability with cost effectiveness. It will move all consumer-facing platform teams to the Audience Technology Group, led by Venkat Panchapakesan. In addition, it is putting new leadership in place behind Yahoo!’s search group, naming Prabhakar Raghavan to direct search strategy and Tuoc Luong as the interim leader of the search product team. Both Prabhakar and Tuoc will also continue in their roles as the leaders of Yahoo! Research and Search Engineering respectively. In addition, David Ku will lead the Advertising Technology Group within Search.

Yahoo!’s Marketing Products Division, Connected Life and Corporate Marketing groups will continue to operate as they do today.

via Yahoo!

Greenville, SC — Customer Effective, an implementer of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, announced the release of its User First Design Formula, the company’s CRM implementation approach for delivering project objectives on time and on budget. The User First Design Formula focuses on user adoption as the single most critical aspect of CRM software implementation from smaller, single-site businesses to larger, sophisticated enterprises.

The “User First Design” approach involves the deployment of CRM software in four phases. First is the Defining phase, which involves getting needs defined directly from the users themselves, as opposed to IT or Sales Management alone. Second is the Design phase, where Customer Effective’s CRM team designs simple workflows and management dashboards to boost productivity and organize information, as well as drive user recognition. Next is the developmental stage in which a system is developed to provide a 360-degree view of all customer interactions. The final phase is the actual system deployment, where Customer Effective’s implementation team sets up a pilot, tests and trains employees to make sure they understand and embrace the CRM system as part of their daily business processes.

“The success of any CRM implementation depends on it being embraced by the people it is designed to support — the employees,” said Scott Millwood, CEO of Customer Effective. “That is the very reason our company has developed this unique approach to our CRM implementations by making the users our primary focus during the process.”

A typical implementation of Microsoft CRM software ranges from three to six months for small-to-medium sized organizations, although the timeline is dependent on the number of users in the organization. Each CRM implementation includes all the phases identified in the User First Design Formula, including employee pilots, training and existing data migration.

“Our extreme focus on end users applies to all CRM software implementation projects regardless of size or scope,” continued Millwood. “The User First Design approach is a proven method for increasing user adoption derived from hundreds of implementation projects that we’ve conducted over the years.”

via Customer Effective

Yahoo! today sent a letter to all of its stockholders focusing specifically on the companies recent advertising agreement with Google and the outcome of discussions with Microsoft.  The letter begins:

Dear Fellow Stockholders:

We are writing to update you on the latest developments here at
Yahoo!, including our recently announced commercial agreement with
Google and the outcome of our discussions with Microsoft regarding a
potential transaction.

On June 12, we announced a non-exclusive agreement with Google that we
expect will generate approximately $250 to $450 million in
incremental operating cash flow for Yahoo! in the first twelve months
following implementation. This cash flow will enhance our
profitability as well as help support achievement of our key
strategic objectives. Combined with continuing advances in our own
search capability, the agreement is an important step in our efforts
to capitalize on the high-growth online advertising opportunities
where we are best positioned to compete successfully and create more
value . . .

Read the rest of the letter here

Charlotte, NC — Duke Energy today announced that they have acquired Catamount Energy Corporation from Diamond Castle Holdings, LLC.  The goal of this new acquisition is to significantly expand Duke’s wind energy operations.

Catamount Energy, which was formed in 1992, has been focusing heavily on developing wind power projects in the U.S. and U.K. since 2001.  Currently Catamount has approximately 300 megawatts of renewable wind energy in operation.  The company further has intentions of developing approximately 1,750 megawatts through projects in several states and in the United Kingdom.

The acquisition of Catamount Energy, valued at about $240 million and assumed debt, coincides closely with Duke Energy’s goals of greater renewable energy development.  This past May Duke acquired another wind power development company, Tierra Energy, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas.  The combined entity will have more than 5,000 megawatts of wind energy under development in 12 states and approximately 500 megawatts of operating assets by the end of 2008.

via Duke Energy 

Google Inc. today announced that Patrick Pichette will be named Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Most recently, Mr. Pichette served as President of Operations at Bell Canada, a leading global communications company. 

Mr. Pichette brings nearly 20 years of experience in financial operations and management in the telecommunications sector, including 7 years at Bell Canada, which he joined in 2001 as Executive Vice President of Planning and Performance Management. During his time at Bell Canada, he held various executive positions, including CFO from 2002 until the end of 2003, and was instrumental in the management of the most extensive communications network in Canada and its ongoing migration to a new national IP-based infrastructure. Prior to joining Bell Canada, Mr. Pichette was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was a lead member of McKinsey’s North American Telecom Practice. He also served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Call-Net Enterprises, a Canadian telecommunications company, from 1994 to 1996. Mr. Pichette earned a BA in Business Administration from Université du Québec à Montréal and an MA in Philosophy Politics and Economics from Oxford University, where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He is also chairman of the board of Engineers Without Borders (Canada).

Reporting to Google Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, Mr. Pichette will start on August 1, and he will assume responsibility for the company’s financial operations and become CFO on August 12.

“Patrick brings the expertise and track record of a successful CFO, along with the hands-on business experience of a seasoned operations executive,” said Dr. Schmidt. “This strong combination of skills and experience will be an important addition to Google’s executive management team and will support our ongoing efforts to increase value for our users, advertisers and partners.”  Schmidt added, “On behalf of all my colleagues at Google, we welcome Patrick and, once again, thank George Reyes for all that he’s done for Google.”

“Google is a great company with a phenomenal brand and an outstanding management team,” said Pichette. “As an avid user of Google products, I’ve admired the company for many years and am excited about working with my new colleagues in Mountain View and around the world.”

via Google