Category: News

The goal of application performance management (APM) products is to monitor how applications work and alert IT if things start to go awry. AppDynamics says its new release will automatically fix many of those problems without human intervention — a tall order.

Appdynamics CEO Jyoti Bansal ”We need to

“We need to handle apps more dynamically and expand more into operational management. We started with monitoring and now we’re expanding into automating the fixing of problems as well. We have to move more work into the machine itself instead of doing it all manually,” said Jyoti Bansal, CEO and founder of the San Francisco-based company.

“I use the analogy ot flying Boeing 757.  You have to be trained and need instrumentation and dashboards to fly it but you also have autopilot,” he added. And the product, which previously handled Java and .NET applications — arguably comprising 90 percent of corporate workloads — is adding PHP apps to the mix with this release as well.

AppDynamics, which raised $50 million in Series D funding in January,  competes with New Relic in APM, although Bansal would argue that New Relic targets startups and smaller companies while AppDynamics takes on big, enterprise clients and claims noteworthy customers including Netflix, Time Warner Cable, Orbitz, Stubhub, and Fox News as customers. New Relic also manages .NET, Java, Ruby PHP and Python applications.

The new capabilities run both  as Software as a Service but can also  be run on premises if the company desires.

When companies trust more of their workloads to outside  cloud providers, the importance of dashboards, the Boeing instrumentation Bansal mentioned. The metrics provided must be reliable and  factual. If users cannot believe what they are seeing, as happened in the recent Rap Genius-Heroku case, the consequences could be huge.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• A near-term outlook for big data
• Infrastructure Q2: Big data and PaaS gain more momentum
• NewNet Q2: Google closes the quarter with a bang

The Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger. Three legendary names that have been back in the automotive fold for quite some time now. They’re all classified as muscle / pony cars, but at days end they couldn’t be more different from each other. The real question though is, which one is right for you. Before we answer this you need to put aside your bias for your favorite brand and ask yourself one simple question – What am I going to use it for? At first the answer may seem simple, but I assure you, the more you think about the question, the more difficult your final decision will be.

PRO’s: The best performer from a handling/track perspective, great looks and bulletproof drive-train.

CON’s: Awful visibility, cramped for taller drivers, rear seats are all but useless.

FINAL THOUGHT: If you’re looking for a vehicle that’s more sports car, than muscle car, then this is the one. When equipped properly it’s a weapon on the track, but only ranks a 6 out 10 for overall street duty.

Let’s start with the Chevrolet Camaro. With the most dramatic styling of the bunch, the Camaro has looks that you either love or hate. Personally, I think it’s a great looking car that unfortunately suffers at the hands of its styling. For instance, outward visibility is terrible, a chopped roof line, small side-view mirrors and high rear fender arches make it difficult to see out of. Rear seating room is all but non-existent, unless of course you have no legs, and if you’re over 6’2″, you’re going to have a real tough time getting comfortable due to a lack of headroom. The Camaro’s styling also caters to a younger audience. If you’re between the ages of 22-35 for example, then the Camaro is fine, however I don’t see it as being a very professional looking automobile with its boy-racer undertones.

From a driving perspective the Camaro is definitely the sportiest of the bunch. It sits low with a wide stance, has independent rear suspension for more sure footed handling, and is the most performance oriented depending on the model. If you track cars like I do, then the Camaro SS with the 1LE track package is the best of the bunch. You get the best suspension, the widest rubber and gearing that is simply better suited to the racetrack than that of the Mustang or Challenger.

PRO’s: Best looking of the bunch, wonderful open road GT car, plenty of power and cargo space and a 100% usable rear seat.

CON’s: Weight and size hampers performance, high price tag, SRT8 is leaps and bounds above other models.

FINAL THOUGHT: A great looking open road car that provides all day comfort and styling. However if you encounter a Mustang or Camaro in the turns, let them go.

The Dodge Challenger is up next and honestly, it’s my favorite of the bunch (even though I own a Mustang). The Challenger, especially in SRT8 form is one of the best open road GT cars period. Is that a big statement? Yes it is. The Challenger is a big heavy car that rides on a much longer wheelbase than the Mustang or Camaro. It’s got the best outward visibility, the most comfortable and usable interior, and even though it may not be the quickest of the bunch, it’s got more than enough power for any situation. On long road trips it simply dominates the other two in ride quality, interior refinement and cargo room.

However, even though fast, that big wheelbase, chub-chub weight and relatively skinny tire size make the Chally fall short in the handling department. Are the brakes good – absolutely, and as a daily driver, this is the one I’d have in my garage. However as mentioned, I own a Mustang, but then again I don’t drive it daily.

PRO’s: A lot of car for not a lot of money, great engine, looks and a decent performer out of the box.

CON’s: Solid axle hinders performance potential, cheapish interior

FINAL THOUGHT: This is a bang-for-the-buck, Jack-of-all-trades pony car. It does everything well, but doesn’t shine in any one area. However if you don’t want to spend big money and don’t mind modifying, then this is the one for you.

The Mustang is the last of the real muscle cars as it still retains a solid-live-axle. It’s cheap, does everything well and is highly modifiable. Remember in the beginning when I said you’ve got to ask yourself the question, what are you going to use it for? Well, here’s my reasoning.

As someone who does a fair amount of track days per year, I needed an inexpensive car with big power, decent out of the box handling, and a usable interior. The cars got great outward visibility, big power, adult looks, a decent interior and the best aftermarket support in the industry. Now granted the mileage on the Mustang is terrible and the quality of interior materials could be better, HOWEVER for my purposes, this car fit the bill.

Truth be told, there isn’t a bad car in the bunch and regardless of what the forums and manufacturers say, these are all very good automobiles. However before you purchase, take a look at your lifestyle. Be realistic and honest with yourself and then and only then, will you be in the right mindset to make a purchase.

YouTube, the leader in online video, is not without its fair share of serious competition coming from the likes of Vimeo, Hulu, and more. Now, it appears that its latest rival may come from someone who was once very close to the service.

In fact, the challenge may come from one of its co-founders. Speaking over the weekend at a Q&A session with Digg’s Kevin Rose, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley tipped that he was working on a new sort of video site – one more focused on creators and collaboration.

“I wish [SXSW] was a month later because I could unveil the new product,” said Hurley in a recent interview. He said that the new service will be “primarily video-based…and gives flexibility for people to work together and create content.”

Hurley made sure to say that he wasn’t looking to kill YouTube and that “there’s always going to be a place for YouTube.” His new site will simply focus on being a “platform better suited for collaboration.”

Hurley is the co-founder and former CEO of YouTube. IN 2006, he and Steve Chen sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion. He stepped down as CEO in 2010.

[AdWeek]

It’s no secret that keeping your installed software up-to-date is a very good idea, for a lot of reasons (improving security, fixing bugs, boosting performance and more), but if you don’t have the time to regularly visit developer’s websites then individual updates are easy to miss.

Install Soft4Boost Update Checker, though, and the program can check your PC on demand, alerting you to any new updates in just a few seconds: much easier.

Update Checker is free, though with the usual adware offered during installation. But they’re not trying to hide anything, it’s all up-front, so as long as you’re paying attention you can clear the appropriate checkboxes and install only what you need.

Launch Soft4Boost Update Checker and it’ll quickly scan your PC, checking your installed applications with a server list of the current versions, and displaying a list of any available updates. If you see something of interest, select it, click the globe icon and you’ll be taken to the program’s home page.

And that’s about it. There’s no automatic installation, no new system tray icons, no component running all the time to give you immediate update alerts — just basic on-demand checks only.

How effective is this? The Soft4Boost site doesn’t provide a list of the programs it supports, or even give an idea of how many there are, which made us a little suspicious. So we decided to compare its performance with FileHippo.com Update Checker on a Windows 7 test PC, and our worries turned out to be groundless. FileHippo reported 10 available updates for our system, but Soft4Boost Update Checker uncovered 19, an easy victory.

The program does still have some small issues, mostly related to its interface. When you’re viewing a list of items on a grid you’d expect to be able to use the cursor keys to scroll, right? Not here: they do nothing at all (you can spin the mouse wheel instead, but that won’t help if you don’t have one).

And we thought double-clicking should open a browser window at the application site, but no — that doesn’t work, either.

Still, it only takes a moment to figure out what you need to do instead, and once you’ve done that Soft4Boost Update Checker works very well: it’s lightweight and simple, a hassle-free tool which quickly alerts you to plenty of application upgrades.

Photo Credit: alexmillos/Shutterstock

3D printers are becoming increasingly cheaper, but these cheap printers have a limited build volume There’s no inexpensive option for large-format 3D printers just yet. Well, there might just be one option if a recent Kickstarter project becomes successful.

Meet Gigabot, a large-format 3D printer from re:3D that went live on Kickstarter over the weekend. The Gigabot has a build volume of 600mm x 600mm x 600mm which is unheard of among desktop 3D printers. It’s no Objet1000, but a 600mm build volume is more than enough for most projects.

It’s cheap for its size, but the Gigabot will still cost you a pretty penny if you decide to buy the full thing. For $2,500, you can get everything you need to build the Gigabot, including the frame, motors and extruder. If you already have the electronic components lying around, you can get just the frame for $2,000. If you don’t want to deal with building the machine, you can have it pre-assembled for $4,000.

Like most other 3D printer projects on Kickstarter, it looks like the Gigabot will secure the funding necessary to launch. The team is only asking for $40,000 and has raised $33,876 of it in less than a day. It still has 59 days to go as well so there’s no imminent danger of it failing.

[h/t: 3ders]

New York-based specialty finance company Abacus Finance Group provided $16 million in senior secured credit facilities to support the acquisition of Dexmet Corporation by Sverica International Management, the firm announced. Based in Wallingford, Conn., Dexmet makes highly engineered expanded foils and polymers used in various applications.

PRESS RELEASE
Abacus Finance Group, LLC (Abacus), a New York-based specialty finance company, announced today that it served as Administrative Agent and Sole Lead Arranger for $16 million in senior secured credit facilities to support the acquisition of Dexmet Corporation (Dexmet) by Sverica International Management LLC (Sverica) in partnership with Dexmet management. In addition to providing the financing, Abacus, which focuses exclusively on providing cash flow financing for private equity-sponsored, lower-middle market companies, made an equity co-investment in Dexmet.

Based in Wallingford, CT, Dexmet is a manufacturer of highly engineered expanded foils and polymers used in various applications. Sverica, with offices in Boston and San Francisco, is a leading private equity firm that has raised over $425 million of investment capital.

“From our perspective, Abacus was an ideal partner for this transaction,” said Sverica Managing Director David Finley. “They know the aerospace industry, have experience in niche manufacturing, and were able to offer us certainty of close at an early stage in our negotiations. The team at Abacus was very easy to work with, which allowed us to close the transaction quickly.”

“We have known Sverica for a long time and have explored several transactions with them over the years,” said Tim Clifford, President and CEO of Abacus. “When we were finally able to partner with them, they were terrific to work with. Once again, the factors critical to success were our flexibility with respect to transaction structure, our rapid execution, and our ability to provide certainty of close – important aspects of what we call our Total Partnership ApproachTM.”

Other Abacus team members involved in the transaction included Mindy Naylor and Robby Abraham. Goulston & Storrs, LLP acted as legal counsel to Abacus, and mezzanine financing was provided by Avante Mezzanine.

About Dexmet Corporation
Based in Wallingford, CT, Dexmet Corporation is a developer and manufacturer of highly engineered expanded foils and polymeric materials serving the aerospace, battery, and filtration/industrial markets. The Company designs and assembles its own manufacturing equipment and tooling which enables the Company to expand extremely thin (1 mil to 9 mils) foils and polymers as well as the industry’s largest widths of up to 60 inches. Ongoing innovations include a unique, strand annealing furnace, as well as a host of other, highly specialized, proprietary equipment. Visit dexmet.com for more information.

About Sverica International
With offices in Boston and San Francisco, Sverica, founded in 1993, has raised over $425 million of investment capital. Sverica acquires, invests in, and actively builds companies with management teams that are, or could become, leaders in their industries. Since its founding, Sverica has maintained a “high touch” operating philosophy, taking an active role in portfolio companies and devoting significant internal resources to help management teams develop and execute growth strategies. Visit sverica.com for more information.

About Abacus Finance Group, LLC
Abacus Finance, headquartered in New York, is a lower-middle market specialty finance company, focused on providing senior cash flow financing to private equity-sponsored companies nationwide. Formed in June 2011, Abacus targets debt financing opportunities of up to $50 million with a typical hold size ranging from $10 million to $25 million, and the companies it finances generally have EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million. Abacus is an affiliate of New York Private Bank & Trust, the holding company for Emigrant Bank, which was founded in 1850 and is the largest family-owned bank in America.

The post Abacus Backs Acquisition of Dexmet By Sverica appeared first on peHUB.

The Associated Press is reporting that six Ohio teens, five boys and one girl, died when the SUV they were riding in careened over a guardrail just south of Warren, Ohio.

The report states that eight teens had taken the vehicle without permission. Though all eight of the teens were from Warren, the vehicle is registered to a person who lives in the nearby city of Youngstown, Ohio.

At around 7 am the SUV hit a guardrail and flipped over into a pond. Five of the teens were inside and one was thrown from the vehicle during the crash and later found underneath the SUV. Two of the teens were able to escape the wreck and run to a nearby residence to call 911. The age of the teens ranged from 14 to 19 years old.

Police told the AP that “speed was a factor,” but that speculation about alcohol or drug use would wait until toxicology reports are complete.

The AP report states that counseling was provided by city officials Sunday night at a school that some of the teens had attended. Many of the teens’ family members and friends expressed shock and disbelief while also questioning what the teens were doing out at the time of the accident.

Griffin Capital has added Dustin Zachmeyer as Vice President, Due Diligence. He will focus on coordinating due diligence for various investment products. Previously he served as Director of Product Sales & Services at Berthel Fisher & Company.

PRESS RELEASE
Griffin Capital
Corporation announced today that Dustin Zachmeyer has joined the firm
as Vice President, Due Diligence. Dustin will focus on coordinating due
diligence for various investment products Griffin Capital makes
available to individual investors through the independent broker dealer
channel. He will also spearhead the company’s research efforts.

Prior to joining Griffin, Mr. Zachmeyer’s experience was primarily
focused on the broker dealer side of the investment business,
previously serving as Director of Product Sales & Services at Berthel
Fisher & Company.

“I have known, and Griffin has worked with Dustin for many years. When
he was at Berthel Fisher, he was one of the toughest and most thorough
due diligence analysts, and we couldn’t be happier he has agreed to
join us to head our diligence efforts,” said Kevin Shields, chief
executive officer of Griffin Capital Corporation.

Dustin will be based in Griffin Capital’s El Segundo headquarters.

About Griffin Capital

Griffin Capital Corporation (“Griffin Capital”), a privately-owned real
estate company headquartered in Los Angeles is led by senior executives
each with more than two decades of real estate experience collectively
encompassing over $16 billion of transaction value and more than 650
transactions, Griffin Capital and its affiliates have acquired or
constructed over 17 million square feet of space since 1996. Griffin
Capital and its affiliates currently own and manage a portfolio
consisting of over 13.4 million square feet of space, located in 28
states and representing approximately $2.2 billion in asset value.

The post Griffin Capital Adds Dustin Zachmeyer appeared first on peHUB.

Veronis Suhler Stevenson has put an undisclosed amount into Thomsons Online Benefits Ltd., a SaaS-based benefit and pension administration, workflow and reporting company. The investment was made in conjunction with ABRY Partners‘ acquisition of Thomsons.

PRESS RELEASE
Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a global private investment firm focused on the information, education, media, marketing and business services industries, today announced that it has made an investment in Thomsons Online Benefits Ltd. (“Thomsons”), a SaaS-based benefit and pension administration, workflow and reporting solutions, and ancillary consulting services company based in the UK. VSS’s investment was made through its second structured capital fund, VSS Structured Capital II, and was made in conjunction with ABRY Partners’ acquisition of Thomsons.

Founded in 2000, Thomsons is headquartered in London with additional offices in Singapore and Romania. Thomsons provides a complete outsourced benefits administration through their benefits management SaaS product (“Darwin”). Darwin software provides a one-stop platform that allows customers, employees and benefit providers to make real-time changes and analysis to their benefit schemes. The company’s client base is a mixture of UK mid-market and multi-national corporations.

“Thomsons’ SaaS implementation of its employee benefit managements system offers a good mix of current technology and a complex business requirement coming together to solve a real customer problem. The underlying technology employed to solve the business problem is straight forward but the business problem itself is both complex and critical, a good combination to deliver value,” said Hal Greenberg, Co-Manager, VSS Structured Capital Funds.

“For 23 years VSS has been successfully investing in Europe and we are pleased to add Thomsons to our portfolio. We are excited by the company’s future prospects and growth potential. VSS’s investment will allow Thomsons to expand in the UK and globally,” said Morgan Callagy, Partner, VSS Europe. The VSS investments in Europe span 12 countries and 9 industry segments.

About Thomsons Online Benefits Ltd.

Thomsons Online Benefits is a benefits management software-as-a-service (SaaS) company with deployments at 260+ clients worldwide. The Company offers a complete benefits and pension administration, workflow and reporting cloud-based product together with high value benefits consulting services.

About Veronis Suhler Stevenson

Veronis Suhler Stevenson is a private equity and debt capital fund management company dedicated to investing in the information, education, media, marketing and business services industries in North America and Europe. VSS provides capital for buyouts, recapitalizations, growth financings and strategic acquisitions to lower middle-market companies and management teams with a goal to build companies both organically and through a focused add-on acquisition program. Since the closing of the first VSS Buyout Fund in 1987, VSS has managed four Buyout Funds and two Structured Capital Funds with aggregate committed capital in excess of $3.1 billion. The six funds have to date invested approximately $2.8 billion in 72 portfolio companies which have in turn completed over 320 add-on acquisitions.

The post Veronis Suhler Stevenson Invests in Thomsons Online Benefits appeared first on peHUB.

Today, Google is honoring English author Douglas Adams with a fun little interactive Doodle.

Adams began his writing career in the mid 1970s and soon got a break writing for Monty Python. Soon after this small job, Adams was forced to take on odd jobs as his writing career stalled. In the late 70s, Adams worked in radio and even became a producer for the BBC. He also worked writing for the TV series Doctor Who.

But of course, Adams is best-known for his breakthrough 1979 novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which actually started out as a radio comedy series. Hitchhiker’s Guide served as the first book in a “trilogy” that consisted of five novels, the last being published in 1992.

The Hitchhiker’s “trilogy” has sold over 15 million copies.

Adams is also know for the novels Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective AgencyThe Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

Adams died of a heart attack on May 11, 2001 at the age of 49. Today’s Google Doodle honors what would have been Adams’ 61st birthday.

Fans of Adams’ work will be able to spot plenty of references inside today’s interactive Doodle.

Check out the video below for a look at the different animations in today’s Doodle.

Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to interview several hundred business-to-business salespeople about how they win over prospective clients and the circumstances when they lose. These interviews were conducted with salespeople across a wide variety of industries including high technology, telecommunications, financial services, consulting, industrial equipment, healthcare, and electronics, to name a few. Their companies ranged from start-ups to billions of dollars in sales with the majority being between $50 million and $500 million in annual revenue.

During the interviews I always ask the salespeople to describe the top challenges they were facing. Specifically, I try to find the obstacles that prevent them from closing more business (as opposed to a general list of items that made their job more difficult). Since I didn’t want to influence their answers, I asked open-ended questions instead of providing them with a list of topics to be ranked. Below, you will find the most frequently mentioned responses prioritized from most to least important.

No Decision. The real enemy of salespeople today isn’t their archrivals; it’s no decision. Customers will go to great lengths to reduce the stress of buying. They list their needs in RFP documents that are hundreds of pages in length. They hire consultants to verify that they are making the right decisions. They’ll conduct lengthy product evaluations and talk to existing users of the products to ensure they work as advertised. All these steps are taken in an effort to eliminate their fears, reduce their uncertainties, and satisfy their doubts. However, customers are never 100 percent sure they are purchasing the right product and there are always naysayers in the organization who are against moving forward. As a result, customers frequently won’t make a purchase even after an exhaustive evaluation.

Stalled Sales Cycles. Customers are more cautious than ever and moving the client to the point where they will make a purchase is a formidable undertaking. In some cases, the excitement generated by the salesperson’s initial 30,000 foot sales pitch to senior executives didn’t motivate meaningful follow-up from the lower level personnel of the customer’s organization. At other accounts, prospective buyers weren’t experienced with purchasing products. They didn’t understand how to sell their project internally and were unable to garner senior executive sponsorship. During lengthy sales cycles, evaluators frequently become reoriented toward other emergencies and the decision makers disappeared. Increasingly, purchasing has more say over decisions that were previously made solely by business areas. Procurement can be introduced very late during a sales cycle and reopen the process long after the salesperson thinks he has already won the deal.

Inability to Penetrate New Accounts. One of the most difficult tasks in all of sales is to penetrate new accounts. Salespeople continually cited how hard it was to generate initial customer interest and secure an introductory meeting. In almost every interview, salespeople also lamented the lack of leads being generated by their marketing department as well.

Product Commoditization. Nearly every market today has matured to the point where there is very little difference between the features, functions, and specifications of the competitive products.

Price versus Value. From the customer’s standpoint, the cost of the salesperson’s solution was prohibitive because the perceived value of the operational benefits did not justify the price. In other cases, a competitor’s price was significantly less thereby blocking the salesperson’s future involvement in the sales cycle.

800 Pound Gorilla. Many underdog sales organizations have to compete against the mindshare of 800 pound gorillas in their marketplace. Companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM are so dominant in their particular industry that they win business by default.

“Nice-to-Have” Product. During these tough economic times, companies have drastically cut back on any type of purchase that may be considered non-essential or a luxury. In other situations, the salespeople indicated they lacked the financial arguments and real-world proof points to move their product into the “must-have” category.

Internal Sale. At many companies the difficult task of winning over new customers is equally matched by the effort required to sell the deal internally. Salespeople not only have to rally internal support to pursue an account, they must aggressively justify the approval of legitimate business terms and pricing concessions. They also have to contend with long-drawn-out internal processes to generate proposals, quotes, and contracts that can impact deal momentum.

Administrivia. Salespeople complained that excessive updating of CRM systems, time consuming forms/reports required by management, and post-sales administration activities sapped valuable selling time in the field.

Pre-sales Resources. Many sales organizations are not adequately staffed with enough pre-sales engineer resources and product specialists to fully support all sales efforts. In addition, these technical resources also serve as an important escalation focal point should problems arise during the initial product implementation. When the customer has a negative experience it hinders future purchases and the lack of referenceable customers impacts sales efforts overall.

It’s important to be aware of what salespeople see as their chief obstacles–especially during a tough economic environment that is making their jobs especially challenges. The percentage of salespeople making quota at some organizations was as low as 35 percent in 2012, and this is no doubt in due to the challenges listed above. Finally, I believe these challenges have also directly influenced the top business-to-business sales trends for 2013.

Several years ago, I was considering buying Toast, a DVD authoring tool. But I decided I was not prepared to pay the full price of $99 for a tool that may prove to be less and less useful over time as Apple was removing optical drives from their Macs.  But when I saw that it was included in a bundle of software for $49, I decided to pull the trigger. App or software bundles are a great way to get good deals on high-quality software.

The following will explain the methods I’ve used over the past few years for finding some great deals on Mac software past few years, through app bundles, price tracking, and clipping the right digital coupons.

Independent app bundles

Bundled software — when five, 10 or even more apps — are sold together for one low price is a great opportunity to try out a new piece of software that you may not have thought to buy in the first place.  There is typically one (or more) big ticket or well known item in each bundle along with several smaller and lesser known items. And sometimes you get something really good you didn’t even know you’d use: a few months after I bought that Toast bundle, I found an opportunity to use Live Interior 3D, one of the apps included.  I ended up using it to model a couple of rooms in my house before purchasing new furniture. So think of app bundles as a way to buy the one app you want, while getting fully licensed versions of several additional software titles you may like — you just don’t know it yet.

MacUpdate Promo (macupdate.com). More of a full-featured app store on its own, MacUpdate has been offering some very compelling software bundles in recent years. One such title that I am always keeping up to date is Parallels.  At least one each year I will find a $49 bundle with Parallels included, and get access to some other great titles that I would not otherwise have purchased. The great thing about MacUpdate is that it will also manage all of your license keys online, and alert you via email when any of the software you have purchased has been updated.  There is even a MacUpdate desktop app that you can install that will keep your purchased software titles in check and notify you instantly when updates are available.  It works very much like Apple’s Mac App Store on OS X, only MacUpdate has been doing this long before the App Store ever existed.

MacHeist Loot (macheist.com). When it first launched, you were not exactly sure if you were participating in an actual heist or not.  MacHeist has made purchasing software fun by introducing a secret agent gaming element which provides even deeper discounts and access to additional software titles referred to as “loot.”  With the first round of online hijinks, you had to hack your way into websites in order to unlock secret codes. This of course was all staged and now there are iOS games like The Heist that you can download and play instead.  These games will link to your MacHeist account to unlock the same discount codes.  At the end of a series of missions, you are exposed to a great bundle of software for a very low price.

The rest of the pack. It’s not that any one of these other bundle sites do not offer equally as good of deals as either MacUpdate or MacHeist, they just are not nearly as well known and offer more of a no-frills shopping experience.  MacLegion, BundleHunt, StackSocial and ProductiveMacs have each proven to be a valuable source of great software for a great value. Another such example is Micromat’s TechTool Pro.  I can usually pick this up for $49.99 along with some other great apps in teh bundle.

Mac App Store price trackers

Nothing is more frustrating than buying anything, including an app from the Mac App Store only to see the price drop the next day.  While none of these services can actually predict the exact day when a developer will decide to drop their prices, some will at least alert you when they do.  Once alerted, you can take advantage of the sale before its too late and you miss yet another great opportunity.

AppShopper (appshopper.com). While you may be familiar with this site for iOS apps, it also covers OS X apps in the Mac App Store as well. With AppShopper, you can look at the pricing history of each app you are interested in and see if the developer has ever offered a discount.  You can also set up an account and be alerted via email when one of the apps on your wish list provides an update or changes its price.

Two Dollar Tuesday (twodollartues.com). The name says it all.  While not exclusively limited to Tuesdays, this site will list current deals for apps that are on sale in the Mac App Store.  They have a Twitter feed that you can follow, or if you like you can subscribe to their mailing list and get weekly email updates on deals.

Appy Fridays (appyfridays.com). Very similar to Two Dollar Tuesday, Appy Fridays will track different software deals.  They also have a Twitter feed you can follow and an email distribution list you can join.

Shopping cart coupon codes

There are still third-party software developers that sell their software directly from their own online stores.  Some of the larger ones rarely, if ever, participate in software bundle opportunities.  That does not mean that they do not offer discounts from time to time on their software in the form of coupon codes.

RetailMeNot (retailmenot.com). Taking coupon and promo codes from both merchants and customers alike, RetailMeNot is one of the top coupon code sites online.  It is easy to find the company you are interested in, just search for the company name or the domain name that the shopping cart is hosted on.  One of my favorites is TheLittelAppFactory, seems like there is always an active coupon code for their great assortment of software.  These codes are legitimate and most time are actually listed on the site directly by the online merchant that sets them up in the first place.

Even more coupon code sites. It never hurts to look everywhere before you give in and pay full retail price. There are many other coupon sites out there, such as CurrentCodes,  CouponCabin and CouponChief to name a select few.

While there are other promotions, app trackers and social coupon code sites out there, I have used each of the sites referenced above at one time or another.  Some sites that I haven’t listed here may offer great deals, but they don’t have the big ticket software titles that I am looking for. Each of the sites listed here have proven to be a valuable source for both great software titles and even better deals.

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Altius Associates Ltd. has appointed Dr. William Charlton as a partner and head of U.S. investments. He will be based in the Richmond, Va. Office of Altius. Charlton joins from his current position as Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also Associate Director of The Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Center for Private Equity Finance.

PRESS RELEASE
Altius Associates Ltd. has appointed Dr. William (Billy) Charlton as a Partner and Head of US Investments. Billy will be based in the Richmond, VA office, reporting to Brad Young, Head of Investment.

Mr. Young said: “We are delighted to have secured Billy, an experienced and knowledgeable investment professional, to lead our US Investment business. His background and experience in the American private equity sector, and his knowledge of buyout, venture and growth capital, along with his intellectual grasp of the broader investment dynamics in private equity portfolios, make him an ideal candidate for this important role. We looked long and hard for a leader to fit our needs, and I am very gratified that we have been able to attract someone of Billy’s caliber.”

Dr. Charlton joins Altius from his current position as Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also Associate Director of The Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Center for Private Equity Finance. He teaches courses in Investments, Quantitative Investments, Entrepreneurial Finance, and the capstone case course in the MBA program: Financial Strategies in Private Equity.

Prior to this appointment Dr. Charlton was Managing Partner at specialist consultants BH Equity Research in San Jose, CA. Subsequently he was Managing Director & Founder of Context Private Equity Alpha, a fund–of-funds manager.

About Altius Associates
Altius Associates currently advises and manages approximately $21 billion in private equity and real assets funds for clients based across Europe, North America and Australia. It has offices in London, Richmond, VA and Singapore.

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Intervale Capital has formed Certus Energy Solutions, partnering with the company’s management team on the deal. Certus, based in Houston, Texas, is provides oil country tubular goods and other downhole products. Terms of the deal were not released.

PRESS RELEASE
Intervale Capital (“Intervale”), an energy-focused private equity firm, has partnered with a management team to form Certus Energy Solutions, LLC (“Certus”). Certus is focused on providing premium oil country tubular goods (“OCTG”) and other downhole products, and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Certus currently services customers in the Rocky Mountain and Mid-Continent regions of the United States, and has plans to expand to other regions.

Patrick Williamson, previously a senior vice president at Key Energy Services, serves as Certus’ President and Chief Executive Officer. He brings over 30 years of oilfield service experience to the company, and has recruited a team of veteran operational and sales professionals. Mr. Williamson commented, “Given increasing customer focus on safety and reliability, my team identified a demand in the marketplace for a premium rental tool company with a fleet of next generation tools and industry-leading service quality. The response from our customers since launch has been tremendous.”

Charles Cherington, Managing Partner at Intervale, added, “We are fortunate to back an excellent management team with deep industry experience. We believe there is a significant opportunity for Certus to capture market share and broaden its product offering.”

Current Intervale portfolio companies include Proserv Group (offshore and subsea equipment and services), TEAM Oil Tools (completions equipment and services), Allied Oil & Gas Services (cementing and acidizing services) and Aegis Chemical Solutions (production chemicals and water treatment).

About Certus Energy Solutions:Certus provides a range of downhole tools, premium OCTG and related services. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas, with operations in the Rocky Mountain and Mid-Continent regions.

About Intervale Capital:Intervale Capital is an energy-focused private equity firm, with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an office in Houston, Texas. Intervale invests exclusively in middle-market oilfield services and manufacturing companies and related technologies. The firm has more than $650 million under management and is currently investing from its second fund.

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Cambridge-based sqrll is a big data company that makes an enterprise grade edition of the Apache Accumulo software. Accumulo is a massively scalable, secure data store with real-time analytical capabilities. It handles large amounts of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data and can be integrated with any Hadoop deployment. sqrrl announced that its software product, sqrrl enterprise, has been added to NASA’s Scientific Engineering Workstation Procurement IV (SEWP IV) Government-wide Acquisition Contract through a reseller agreement with Technica Corporation.

Scalable, secure big data with real-time analysis

Apache Accumulo is a NoSQL database originally developed by the National Security Agency and now available to others as an open source software project via the Apache Foundation. sqrrl’s distribution of the software features additional data ingest, data management, data security, and analytic features not available in the open source version. Last month sqqrl also added its big data analytics solutions to Triad’s GSA schedule, GS-35F-0298W.

“For government customers trying to figure out Big Data, sqrrl can provide a unique solution,” said Ely Kahn, Vice President of Business Development at sqrrl. “We are the only real-time data store that combines fine-grained security controls, scalability to the 10s of petabytes, flexible schemas for unstructured and semi-structured information, and diverse analytical capabilities. Our team has worked with some of the world’s largest, most complex, and most sensitive data sets, and now we are ready to bring those capabilities and lessons learned to customers throughout the government.”

A key advantage of sqrrl is that its solutions enable users to move beyond Hadoop batch processing and conduct a wide variety of real-time analyses, including information retrieval, statistical, graph, and visualizations across diverse data environments. It can scale to tens of petabytes with low administration overhead and has fine-grained security controls.

Privately held sqrrl was found in June 2012 by the creators of Apache Accumulo. sqrrl CTO and co-founder Adam Fuchs was previously at the National Security Agency, and Chief Operating Officer and co-founder Ely Kahn was previously Director of Cybersecurity Strategy at the National Security Staff in the White House.

The momentum behind Accumulo increased last week when Amazon Web Services announced that users could spin up Accumulo clusters utilizing Amaon’s Elastic MapReduce (EMR) Framework.  sqrrl’s enterprise product runs on top of Apache Accumulo and Hadoop, so the Amazon ERM instance will provide customers with another use pattern for sqrrl.

Icahn Enterprises said it had entered into a confidentiality agreement with Dell Inc., and looked forward to commencing a review of the company, Reuters reported Monday. Carl Icahn, who has a reputation for demanding changes after amassing stakes in companies, argued in a letter to Dell’s board last week that the proposed $24.4 billion buyout of Dell by co-founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners short-changed shareholders, undervalued the company and benefited mainly the company’s co-founder.

(Reuters) – Icahn Enterprises LP said it had entered into a confidentiality agreement with Dell Inc , and looked forward to commencing a review of the company.

Carl Icahn, who has a reputation for demanding changes after amassing stakes in companies, argued in a letter to Dell’s board last week that the proposed $24.4 billion buyout of Dell by co-founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners short-changed shareholders, undervalued the company and benefited mainly the company’s co-founder.

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YJ Capital, a Yahoo Japan venture capital fund, has put $5.4 million into FreakOut, a digital marketing company based in Japan. FreakOut invested the funds into real-time mobile demand-side platform provider Dobleas, the company said in a press release. Dobleas was started and spun-off last year by FreakOut President Yuzuru Honda, and is based in New York.

PRESS RELEASE
The advertising industry’s first real-time mobile demand-side platform (DSP) provider with real-time data, Dobleas (www.dobleas.com), emerged from a year of stealth operations by announcing the closing of a $5.4 million Series B funding round from Tokyo-based FreakOut, Inc.

The funding follows last week’s investment of a similar amount in FreakOut by YJ Capital, a Yahoo Japan venture capital fund. FreakOut is a digital marketing company that pioneered the first DSP in Japan and has grown rapidly. The investment will be used to bolster Dobleas’ engineering recruitment in support of its real-time bidding (RTB) infrastructure for mobile while building out the company’s U.S. organization.

Headquartered in New York City, Dobleas was started up and spun-off last year by FreakOut President Yuzuru Honda , a serial entrepreneur and former Yahoo development manager. Dobleas is led in the U.S. by Yugo Asato , chief executive officer and president, together with a seasoned management team with extensive digital advertising and marketing experience.

Dobleas is setting out to fill a void in the mobile advertising market – trying to make it easier for buyers and sellers to do business in real-time and in a fully transparent manner. Since its founding in April 2012 and start up of operations in June, Dobleas has tapped into its engineering resources in Japan to build a robust mobile DSP while partnering with eight RTB supply sources.

“FreakOut has already established itself as the best DSP in the Japanese market. Its entry into the mobile ad market, leveraging its advanced and proprietary technologies, is a highly strategic move,” said Takao Ozawa , chief operating officer, YJ Capital, Co. “The company has the potential to revolutionize mobile ad technology, not only domestically but globally.”

“YJ Capital’s investment in FreakOut, in turn allowing our further investment in Dobleas, is validation of the company’s mobile technology and business model,” said Mr. Honda. “I have the utmost confidence in Dobleas’ executive team to bring value to the mobile advertising market and real-time mobile DSP solution.”

Dobleas enables marketers to buy real-time impressions in a transparent automated way across leading mobile supply sources. Through the company’s mobile data management platform (DMP), advertisers can create targetable segments based on audience behaviors and run audience targeting campaigns on the same platform. Its mobile DMP integrates first or third-party data directly to empower scalable audience targeting. As a result, Dobleas is simplifying the buying process and giving marketers an innovative new way to discover, target and reach new audiences.

The company’s management team includes:

Yugo Asato , chief executive officer and president: Mr. Asato was a founding member of AudienceScience Japan, a targeting technology company for digital marketers. Previously, he was part of the team which launched Japan’s first ad exchange, Right Media Exchange (part of Yahoo!, Inc.) in 2007;
“Eda” Hirofumi Sakaeda , chief strategy officer. Mr. Sakaeda served as chief financial officer and executive vice president of ADK America, a full-service, WPP Group agency, for seven years starting in 2005. Previously, he was director of client services for ADK Hong Kong; and
Francisco Quiroga , vice president of business development and client services: Mr. Quiroga helped launch international mobile DSP StrikeAd in New York. He was a strategic accounts director at AppNexus and previously managed the entire South American market for Right Media.

In addition, Dobleas has appointed emerging media specialist Phil Miano to the new position of chief revenue officer where he will lead Dobleas’ growth strategy. Previously, Mr. Miano served as director of mobile for Videology Group and was senior vice president of development and demand sales for Collider Media (later acquired by Videology). Prior to those positions, Mr. Miano was national sales director, mobile advertising sales, for AOL and helped to launch Microsoft’s search advertising unit in the U.S. market.

“With ad spending budgets shifting to mobile and programmatic buying on the rise, Dobleas is uniquely positioned to capture the confluence of these emerging trends,” said Mr. Asato, chief executive officer, Dobleas. “Building on our deep technology roots in web advertising through the success of FreakOut, Dobleas offers ad agencies and brands the industry’s only true mobile DSP with innovative display ad technology DNA.”

Given the growing complexity of media buying in the digital and mobile supply landscape, Dobleas also offers customized programmatic buying with a full access API that enables full interoperability to enable partners to execute any functionality on its platform, build customized front-ends and integrate with existing technology.

For more information about Dobleas, visit www.dobleas.com or write to [email protected].

About Dobleas
Headquartered in New York City, Dobleas (www.dobleas.com) is a mobile advertising technology company. Its true mobile demand-side platform (DSP) with real-time bidding (RTB), leverages first- and third-party live data to enable the purchase of real-time impressions across leading mobile ad exchanges and supply side platforms. Dobleas’ mobile Data Management Platform (DMP), machine-learning bidding/optimization algorithms, full-access API and private exchange solutions allow marketers, advertisers and agency professionals to achieve better results for direct response, branding and full-funnel marketing. Founded in 2012, Dobleas is a subsidiary of FreakOut, Inc., a digital marketing company that pioneered the first DSP in Japan.

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Nipendo, a developer of cloud-based, supplier trading software, has raised an $8 million Series B round. Horizons Ventures led the round. Previous investor Tel Aviv-based Magma Venture Partners also participated in the round. Nipendo will use the capital to expand into the U.S. with a new headquarters in Boston, Mass.

PRESS RELEASE
Nipendo, a pioneer of the first cloud-based, supplier trading solution, announced today that it has closed its Series B round of funding in the amount of $8 million. The funding round was led by Horizons Ventures, which manages the private venture investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing in the technology sector globally. Its other notable investments include Facebook, Spotify, and Siri. Previous investor Tel Aviv-based Magma Venture Partners also participated in the round. Nipendo will use the capital infusion to scale its business operations and expand to the U.S., a strategic move initiated by the opening of its new headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

In addition to securing this latest round of funding, Nipendo announced that Gilad Novik, Chief Technology Officer of Horizons Ventures, has joined the company’s board of directors. This appointment brings the board to five members, including Modi Rosen of Magma Venture Partners, Avner Schneur, founder and former CEO of Emptoris (acquired by IBM), and Nipendo’s two co-founders Eyal Rosenberg and Alon Rosenberg. The new funding and extended board positions the company for its next stage of growth focused on the enterprise business market in North America.

Gilad Novik of Horizons Ventures noted, “Nipendo has brought to market a truly disruptive solution with its social business network. Its rapid adoption by many world-class, industry-leading companies, endorses the value it is delivering. Nipendo has tremendous potential, and I look forward to being part of the board and working with Eyal and his team.”

“We are honored to have Gilad join our board and look forward to collaborating with him. His technology expertise, track record working with fast-growing tech companies, and strategic connections will help Nipendo continue its rapid pace of growth,” said Eyal Rosenberg, co-founder and CEO of Nipendo. “We are pleased to receive this investment and validation from Horizons Ventures. Along with our existing investor, Horizons Ventures clearly recognizes the tremendous market opportunity and value we deliver through Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud.”

Nipendo is pioneering a high-capacity, trading partner network that aims to remove supply chain bottlenecks caused by manual or aging processes as well as longstanding legacy systems that have traditionally relied on EDI protocols, value added networks or extranets; each of these approaches are time-consuming, costly and burdensome. Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud enables enterprises to effortlessly collaborate with trading partners and rapidly automate the entire PO-to-payment lifecycle – from order receipt to shipping/receiving, tracking through electronic invoices, ensuring 100% reconciliation and accuracy, all the way to payment. Once connected to Nipendo’s network, suppliers and trading partners can automatically communicate with all other members, eliminating the need for lengthy custom programming for every new supplier connection. Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud reduces costly errors and discrepancies in the PO-to-payment process, accelerating time to market, enhancing data quality, and helping enterprises achieve dramatically greater efficiency and profitability.

Nipendo has struck a chord with big business. Top market-leading companies and organizations have adopted Nipendo across key industries, including high tech, defense, healthcare, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, banking, and food and beverage. Nipendo’s platform is also used by numerous multinationals, including Pfizer, HP, Lilly, IBM, Office Depot and Teva.

Manual, paper-based processes cost businesses around the world millions of dollars each year in direct procurement costs. With the cost of doing business for both customers (buyers) and suppliers approximately 2% of the total purchasing volume, a business spending $1.5 billion in purchasing volume, for example, will incur approximately $30 million in overhead resulting from existing process and transaction inefficiencies. Nipendo’s groundbreaking trading partner network automates the entire lifecycle of the transaction from order to payment, eliminating manual, paper-centric processes, and saving companies up to 50% of these process costs.

“In addition to its unprecedented offering, Nipendo has a great team that brings tremendous dedication, execution and technical expertise to solve a longstanding, costly and major inefficiency in the business world,” said Modi Rosen of Magma Venture Partners. “We are continuously searching for high-caliber teams with the ability to take advantage of huge market opportunities. We are convinced that Nipendo has the right mix of qualities that we look for to become a dominant market leader and achieve tremendous success.”

About Horizons Ventures

Based in Hong Kong, Horizons Ventures manages the Internet and technology investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing globally, including investments in companies such as Skype, Facebook, Spotify, Siri, Waze, UMPay and SecondMarket.

About Magma Venture Partners

Magma Venture Partners is Israel’s leading venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments in communication, semiconductors, Internet and media. The firm helps to build these companies to target global markets and create industry leading success stories. For more information, interested parties can visit www.magmavc.com.

About Nipendo

Nipendo provides enterprise-level organizations with a highly scalable, cloud-based, trading partner network that removes the barriers to widespread deployment of electronic procurement and invoicing. Unlike existing dated solutions that require heavy investment and lengthy custom programming for every new supplier connection, Nipendo offers a breakthrough, plug-and-play solution that enables rapid on-boarding of thousands of suppliers — at a low entry cost. As a result, Nipendo enables businesses to significantly expand the reach of electronic procurement and payment processing across their supplier ecosystem, lowering the cost of doing business while dramatically increasing efficiency and profitability.

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