It’s fair to say that the “ambient location” craze has passed. Several of the mobile apps intent on connecting people with friends and other recommended users nearby are still struggling to find mainstream adoption. Some, like Glancee and Glassmap have sold. Others, like Kismet, have moved into new product categories. And today, the business-focused networking app Intro, is pivoting. Gone are the “ambient location” features which once alerted you to nearby users based on things like geotagged tweets or check-ins. With the new version, the company has shifted the focus solely to making one-to-one introductions between members of LinkedIn or Meetup groups. Explains co-founder Anthony Erwin, the decision to make this switch came from observations of user behavior. The best and most powerful introductions the app enabled were those where the members were each in the same group already. 90 percent of the time when an intro was created and members would connect, they cited being in the same group as the reason, he says. “I think what’s happened in this space, is because it’s dealing with connecting strangers – people are kind of wary of that,” says Erwin. “If you’re going to create connections that work, they’re going to have to be very familiar; almost not like strangers, in a way.” Users told him that when they were shown other group members, those people didn’t feel like random strangers. Intro has always been more sensitive to the potentially creepy nature of ambient location apps, having previously introduced features that would allow users to switch of networking with those not outside of a set of preferred groups, for instance. The revamped version of the app is something of an extension of that earlier concept more than it is a hard pivot to an entirely new vertical. In the updated application, available now on iOS and for Android in a few weeks time (currently the Android app is the older version of Intro), you’ll still be shown other group members who are nearby, but now the app take a wider view of your location. It begins by offering you connections across your city, as opposed to at your exact location. You can then quickly swipe through the suggestions to connect or reject the proposed connections. However, when there is an event or other congregation of members in the same location, the app’s algorithm will immediately adjust to sort its recommendations by degrees
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Tag Archives: management
“Ambient Location” Didn’t Work, So Business Networking App Intro Pivots To Mobile Group Management
Dell Moves Deeper Into The Software Business, Acquires Enstratius, One Of The Most Recognized Cloud Management Startups
Dell has acquired Enstratius, a provider of cloud management software considered one of the most innovative startups in the market by Gartner Research. The acquisition gives Dell another way to provide end-to-end-cloud solutions. Offering enterprise solutions is part of Dell’s larger plans to transition from its dependence on personal computer sales and move deeper into the myriad opportunities that are coming as companies recalibrate their data centers to more automated, elastic infrastructures. Enstratius, based out of Minneapolis and founded in 2008, provides single and multi-cloud management capabilities. The company manages applications across private, public, and hybrid clouds. Enstratius has a deep knowledge of the emerging DevOps space. DevOps is the integration of developer and operations capabilities. Enstratius in particular offers automated application provisioning and scaling, application configuration management, usage governance, and cloud utilization monitoring. Enstratius is available as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) or as on-premises software. The company supports more than 20 public and private cloud platforms, including OpenStack, VMware, Rackspace, Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure, with the added flexibility to easily add new clouds. It’s that last aspect that makes Enstratius unique. The company’s technology helps customers orchestrate and manage their deployments. The Enstratius team knows the subtleties and the best-practices that come with managing a cloud infrastructure. Dell has been making some interesting moves with its cloud approach. Late last year, Dell launched Project Fast PaaS, part of the new Dell Cloud Labs, which also includes Project Sputnik, the Linux laptop for developers and Crowbar, the open-source cloud deployment framework. Crowbar was originally created to support its “OpenStack- and Hadoop-powered offerings.” While Fast PaaS represents the innovation happening at Dell, as with any big enterprise company, it is dependent on making big deals with high margins that serve the basic demands of large enterprises. That’s where Enstratius could help in providing differentiated services. But perhaps most of all is the group of innovators that Dell is attracting. Michael Cote, a former analyst with RedMonk, is one of the key forces behind Dell’s cloud efforts. Barton George helps lead Project Sputnik, the company’s effort to build a dedicated laptop for developers. With the Enstratius acquisition, Dell is getting a group of people with deep influence in the community. Founder George Reese is an O’Reilly author and a cloud pioneer. He is supported by James Urquhart, Bernard Golden and John Willis, all recognized as influencers in the cloud community.
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Ask Slashdot: How To Teach IT To Senior Management?
New submitter gagol writes “I recently took a position at a small industrial equipment manufacturer. We are looking to buy a new ERM software package and my boss, who is looking forward to buy the thing, knows nothing about computers or software. I will be providing basic IT training to the senior management and I am looking for your input on the scope and content of said training. I am thinking: basic components and architecture -> networking -> software -> proprietary vs open source. What do you think?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Task management app / service Astrid is Yahoo’s latest acquisition
Under new CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has been working on expanding the services it offers across multiple platforms and its latest move on that front is the acquisition of Astrid. The Astrid Tasks and To-do list app is a popular productivity manager on Android and iOS, particularly notable for its tie-ins with Google Calendar and the ability to assign tasks to others. In a blog post, CEO and co-founder Jon Paris announced the company will be joining Yahoo’s mobile team with a goal of “making the world’s daily habits more inspiring and entertaining.” As for existing users, the service will continue to work as-is for 90 days, and those who have paid for annual subscriptions to add on file storage, backup and more can expect refunds from Yahoo. There will also be a way for users to download all their data, although there aren’t any details on that yet. Astrid had received funding from Google Ventures, among others, but as shown by the launch of Google Keep it seems the usual giants in tech will be focusing on in-house ways to offer productivity features.
Source: Astrid Blog
Asana adds enterprise features to its task management app
Asana has beefed up its workplace task management software to make it viable for enterprises with thousands of users.
Computerworld News
Soluto Brings Web-Based PC Management To Small Business, Ranks The Best Windows Laptops For SMBs (It’s A Mac)
Over the last few years, Israeli IT startup Soluto has morphed from simply being PC software that helps users run diagnostics on their hard drives, to a web-based platform that aims to turn you into a one-person Help Desk. In other words, Soluto now allows anyone to offer remote tech support and run diagnostics, whether that be for your mom’s computer or dozens of customers.
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Simplee Combines Mint.com And Paypal To Bring Medical Bill Payment, Management To Your Smartphone
The mobile health market is growing like a weed these days. According to mHealthWatch and eHealth Initiative, there are 31,000 health and medical-related apps on the market today. In fact, over the last year, the number of health apps jumped 120 percent, and hundreds of apps now hit stores every month. Yet, in spite of this exponential growth, the mobile health space is still in its “Wild West” phase. In other words, it’s a work in progress.
SMB Inventory Management Startup TradeGecko Partners With Xero Accounting
Cloud-based inventory and sales management developer TradeGecko has announced that it is now integrated with online accounting system Xero. The Singapore-based company says that the partnership will allow its clientele of small- and medium-sized businesses to monitor financial transactions in real time.
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Chrome for Business adds legacy browser support, cloud management
Not one to leave its business customers out of the loop, Google updated its Chrome for Business browser today with a couple of new features: legacy browser support and cloud-based management for Google Apps. With the former, those who are obliged to use older apps at work (poor you) will be automatically switched to an alternate browser when needed, while the cloud-based management allows employees to log in to their Google Apps for Business or Education accounts from any device. Of course, both features require the approval of your friendly neighborhood IT administrator, so do remember to offer him or her a token of appreciation the next time their special day rolls around.
Source: Google Enterprise blog
Draft IETF Standard for SSH Key Management Released
A few months ago, Tatu Ylonen (creator of SSH 1.x) declared that lax key management was hazardous. Now there’s work being done on a standard for automated key management. hypnosec sent in the news; quoting Parity News on the content of the draft: “It presents a process that would allow for moving of already issued keys to protected location, removal of unused keys, key rotation, providing rights of what can be done with the keys and establishing an approval process for issue of new keys.” There’s a non-WG mailing list; the final version of the standard is expected in October.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ask Slashdot: Open Source For Bill and Document Management?
Rinisari writes “Since striking out on my own nearly a decade ago, I’ve been collecting bills and important documents in a briefcase and small filing box. Since buying a house more than a year ago, the amount of paper that I receive and need to keep has increased to deluge amounts and is overflowing what space I want to dedicate. I would like to scan everything, and only retain the papers for things that don’t require the original copies. I’d archive the scans in my heavily backed up NAS. What free and/or open source software is out there that can handle this task of document management? Being able to scan to PDF and associate a date and series of labels to a document would be great, as well as some other metadata such as bill amount. My target OS is OS X, but Linux and Windows would be OK.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
From pretexting to Autonomy: A timeline of HP management changes
It's been a turbulent decade at Hewlett-Packard, with board members and CEOs resigning or being ousted for all manner of colorful reasons, including strategic missteps, accusations of spying on journalists and alleged sexual harassment.
Computerworld News
A Big Deal For The Middle East, Daily Deals Site Cobone Acquired By Tiger Global Management
![cobone2[702]](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cobone2702.png?w=100&h=70&crop=1)
After months of speculation that its backer Jabbar Internet Group were shopping around for a sale, the leading Middle Eastern daily deals site Cobone has been acquired by investment firm Tiger Global Management.
The size of the deal remains undisclosed, though my understanding is that the figure of $ 40 million that’s been touted building up to this sale isn’t far off the mark.
Furthermore, the acquisition — which sees Jabber Internet Group exit entirely — is said to leave Dubai-based Cobone with additional capital to further its ambitions in the region, while its Irish founder and CEO Paul Kenny, along with other key members of the management team, will remain with the company.
Samsung bolsters BYOD management with a Fort Knox approach
Samsung Monday announced an improved version of its SAFE management and security system for popular Samsung-branded smartphones and tablets.
Computerworld News
McAfee updates business security management tools
McAfee is enhancing its business security platform by adding near real-time querying capabilities to its ePolicy Orchestrator software and by integrating it with its security information and event management product to automatically initiate endpoint security policy changes.
Computerworld News
After 8 Years On The Web, Project Management Platform Basecamp Finally Launches An “Official” iOS App
Basecamp, the project management platform developed by 37 Signals that launched in 2004, is still alive and kicking, which is something of a feat considering how many companies have come and gone in this space over the years. Plus, more recently, a slew of promising new players have entered the market, including Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein’s Asana, Joel Spolsky’s Trello, Siasto and Podio (now part of Citrix) — to name a few.
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Netflix Promises To Make Its Open Source Cloud Management Tools More Portable
Over the last few years, Netflix has been making its cloud management tools open source and available to other developers. Now it’s hoping to make it easier for others to implement not just one or two of those tools, but all of them.
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RSA brings big data analytics to security threat management
RSA has unveiled a new tool designed to let enterprises detect security threats more quickly than current technologies permit by combining big data management and analytics approaches with traditional network monitoring and threat detection.
Computerworld News
AppSense adds mobile app, device management tool set
AppSense has released MobileNow, a cloud-based service that combines device and application administration features, as it hopes to take a bite out of the growing mobile management market.
Computerworld News
U.S. Online Reputation Management Firm Reputation.com Acquires U.K.’s Reputation 24/7 To Expand Internationally — Will Invest “Millions” In U.K. Operation
Redwood City-based online reputation management company Reputation.com has announced it’s acquired Liverpool, U.K.-based Reputation 24/7 to bolster its international business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Reputation 24/7 has been rebranded Reputation.com (U.K.) and will sell Reputation.com’s suite of consumer and business online reputation management offerings to European customers.
IBM to beef up content management, analytics in Connections enterprise social product
IBM will launch before mid-year several new and improved collaboration and communication products, including a new suite for human resources tasks and a major upgrade of its Connections enterprise social networking product.
Computerworld News
Singapore-based Inventory Management Startup TradeGecko Rescues SMBs From Spreadsheet Hell
Former designer Carl Thompson left the industry after years of wrangling with business administration spreadsheets, but hopes his startup TradeGecko will spare other small business owners from the same fate. Its cloud-based inventory and sales management application was developed to emphasize user experience with clean and intuitive data displays.
TechCrunch
Ask Slashdot: Management Software For Small Independent ISP?
First time accepted submitter Vorknkx writes “I work in a small ISP. Most of our customers have cable modems but some of them are using Canopy or Ubiquity products. To manage all that, we’re using a number of programs and solutions not necessarily made for such a task that are kept up to date simply using copy and paste. We have an Access database for all our internet customers, an Excel document for our wireless users, The Dude to monitor every user and a custom-made web application to monitor traffic. Needless to say, we’re starting to hit the limit and juggling between all these programs is a complete pain. Is there some kind of all-in-one solution that would allow us to eliminate all the copy and paste while keeping the same functionality?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Could Testing Block Psychopaths From Senior Management?
Freshly Exhumed writes “Dr. Clive Boddy believes that increasingly fluid corporate career paths have helped psychopaths conceal their disruptive workplace behavior and ascend to previously unattainable levels of authority. Boddy points out psychopaths are primarily attracted to money, status and power, currently found in unparalleled abundance in the global banking sector. As if to prove the point, many of the world’s money traders self identify as the “masters of the universe.” Solution? Screening with psychological tests. Who would pay for it? The insurance industry.” The tech world has plenty of company heads who’ve been called psychopaths, too — but would you want to actually change that?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mobile device management vendors unveil a slate of new tools
IBM, Good Technology and several other mobile device and app management software vendors today separately announced a variety of new or enhanced products.
Computerworld News
5 Rules For API Management
APIs are the glue that connect apps. It’s as true for consumer apps as it is for the enterprise. API management platforms have come into vogue as apps proliferate across the enterprise.
As APIs rise in importance, so has the need for better practices in their creation, development and management. All the major API management services have built strategies that they use as guiding principles when working with customers.
TechCrunch
Ask Slashdot: Extreme Cable Management?
An anonymous reader writes “I am not a fan of wireless except for Wi-Fi to a notebook, but have gotten frustrated by the vast amounts of tangled cables around my computers: I have two machines, four monitors, multiple external hard drives, cable modem, network switch, router, USB hubs — everything requires power and connection to the other devices. The tangles and tangles make it almost impossible to move anything without spending twenty or thirty minutes under the desk. I’d rather untie balled-up fishing line than try to snake a monitor cable out from some thirty or so other wires. Anyone have good ways to prevent this?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Jive Software Acquires Meetings.io and Producteev To Enhance Social Platform With Real-Time Messaging And Task Management
Jive Software is acquiring meetings.io, a real-time communications platform and Producteev, a cloud-based task management provider in a combined deal worth $ 7.6 million and 460,000 in Jive stock.
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Shareist Is A Content Management System For Your Content Management System (That’s A Good Thing)
As a major media figure on the Internet, I often find it difficult to manage all of my content outlets. I have a Twitter feed connected to my Facebook connected to my Tumblr. I also have a personal blog that I ignore and a few other things I shouldn’t ignore. The problem, then, is how to curate and post content I’d like to share almost everywhere at once or, barring that, focus in on one content outlet for my eager, content-hungry fan (Hi, Mom!)?
Whispercast for Kindle makes mass ebook/app management easy
Amazon has launched Whispercast for Kindle, a new mass-deployment and management system for ebooks – and soon apps – on Kindles and Kindle apps for schools and businesses. Intended to allow Kindle titles to be bought and shared out among students and employees, as well as remotely control device passwords, wireless settings, and what titles
Playing with Project Management
A startup called RedCritter turns software development into a game.
Software development projects are notorious for blowing past deadlines and through budgets, however managers try to track progress and motivate workers to hit milestones. A startup called RedCritter is taking a new approach, with software that turns the task of measuring performance and sticking to a schedule into something more like a game. And managing software projects is just the beginning. The company’s founder, veteran entrepreneur Mike Beaty, wants to apply these techniques to other business problems, like increasing sales leads and improving customer service.
PlayBook OS 2.1 update boosts security, management
Research in Motion Wednesday released a BlackBerry PlayBook OS update that adds full device encryption to secure personal data stored on the device to go along with the already-available encryption for corporate data.
Computerworld News
Sharp unveils Cocorobo @ Home virtual management system
Anyone remember the Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House? We’re thinking that some of the executives at Sharp watched that movie and then decided we needed something like that in real life, as Sharp unveiled a new virtual management system called Cocorobo @ Home at Ceatec 2012 in Japan. The best way to describe Cocorobo
Nuance’s “Nina” Brings Voice-Activated Search To OfficeDrop’s Document Management Service
Document management provider OfficeDrop has a new capability for voice-activated search that represents just the start in how mobile apps are changing with the advent of natural-language, speech-recognition technology. The service is built on Nuance, the Boston-based company that has developed a speech-recognition service called Nina, which debuted in August.
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Mimecast Raises $62M For Microsoft Exchange And Office 365 Cloud-Based Email Management System
Mimecast, a startup that offers a email archiving, continuity, and security software for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365, has raised $ 62.15 million in Series C funding led by private equity firm, Insight Venture Partners, with existing investor Dawn Capital also participating. This brings Mimecast’s total funding to over $ 80 million.
Founded in the UK in 2003 by Peter Bauer and Neil Murray, Mimecast’s cloud based platform extends the capabilities of Microsoft’s email systems by integrating additional storage, archiving, and spam/virus protection. Mimecast’s integrated security settings that the user can configure on a ‘per-email’ basis before pressing send, and real time archive search.
Canonical Ubuntu management tool gets hefty upgrade
Anticipating greater usage of Ubuntu within the enterprise, Canonical has released a significant update to its Landscape Ubuntu system management tool.
Computerworld News
Alcatel-Lucent apiGrove — A New, Open-Sourced API Management Service
Alcatel-Lucent is open-sourcing a new API software engine and management platform called apiGrove that is meant to serve as a services layer for enterprises and large service providers.
Alcatel-Lucent’s goal is to make apiGrove a core layer in a cloud infrastructure so customers may either use it to connect to apps or infrastructure environments. The apiGrove installation package, source code, and documentation are available on GitHub under an Apache 2.0 license. ApiGrove is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s API platform.
TechCrunch
AtTask Raises $13 Million For Software as a Service That Combines Social Tech With Traditional Project Management
Utah-based AtTask has raised $ 13 million for its collaborative work management software as a service (SaaS) according to documents filed with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Names of the investors were not disclosed.
AtTask has previously raised $ 7 million from OpenView Partners. It’s unclear at this point if this new $ 13 million investment is a Series B or Series C round. Company executives did not respond to requests for information about the funding before the posting of this story.
TechCrunch
NetApp touts Fusion-io partnership, server flash management
NetApp announced a new management layer for arrays using its Data ONTAP OS, which allows admins to control flash storage in servers as well as on arrays. The company will be using Fusion-io’s PCIe flash cards in its arrays.
Computerworld News
OnLive under new management, will continue service
Rumors over the fate of cloud gaming service OnLive swirled on Friday afternoon after reports the company had fired most of its staff. OnLive is being coy about its business situation, but on Friday afternoon several employees were seen leaving the Palo Alto-based company carrying packing boxes.
Computerworld News
Convergys Boosts its Fleet Management
One look at Ipininder Singh, director-technology, Convergys, and you know little fazes the man. His lithe frame and steely gaze leave little doubt.
Computerworld News
Facebook VP Of Engineering Mike Schroepfer On Moving From Coding To Management [TCTV]
As they get older, lots of software engineers dread the seemingly inevitable move from being a programmer to being a manager. After all, if your true passion is writing code, taking on the responsibilities of managing other people may be a bit more lucrative, but it will obviously take away the time you can spend doing what you love the most. That’s ultimately why Steve Wozniak decided to make the move from Hewlett-Packard to Apple full-time, back in the company’s earliest days, according to Walter Isaacson’s autobiography of Steve Jobs, which read:
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VMWare Buys Log Insight From Pattern Insight, Moves Further Into Cloud Infrastructure Management
In the space of a little over a month, VMWare is making yet another acquisition to strengthen its position in cloud management: it is buying cloud log analytics platform Log Insight from its current owner Pattern Insight, the data management and search platform company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, the team working on Log Insight will transfer to VMWare, as will the technology underlying the product, Pattern Insight said in a statement.
Do.com Adds Contacts and Deal Tracking For Facebook Style Task Management
Salesforce.com has added contacts, deal tracking and public APIs to its do.com platform for task management.
Initially, Salesforce.com is adding the capability to integrate Facebook and Google contacts. It will soon after add Twitter and Salesforce.com. The deal management capability adds to the do.com lightweight CRM environment. Do.com is also opening its APIs for integration into third-party apps or into a customer’s own environment.
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GoDaddy Acquires Cloud-Based, Financial Management Application Company Outright
GoDaddy purchased cloud-based financial management application company Outright today for an undisclosed amount. Outright co-founders Steven Aldrich and Ben Curren and their entire team will be joining GoDaddy, the world’s largest web hosting provider. Outright customers, over 200,000 strong, will soon “have the benefit of Go Daddy’s rich suite of cloud-based services” as Outright joins the larger company.
TechCrunch
Tag Management Company Tealium Raises $10.5M From Battery
Tealium, a startup that allows marketers to manage their website tags without going through IT, just raised $ 10.5 million in a Series B round of funding from Battery Ventures.
Battery partner Neeraj Agrawal, who’s joining the Tealium board, tells me the firm has been making big bets on marketing tech. That’s because marketers are playing a more critical role in their companies, rather than just taking a backseat to the sales team. And they’re making decisions that are increasingly driven by data — as Agrawal put it, marketers have evolved from being traditional Madison Avenue types and are becoming more like “the guys on Wall Street.”
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RIM’s dual challenge: Build quality smartphones while boosting management software
BlackBerry 10 smartphones, delayed until early 2013, will have the “best browsers in the industry” and will come in touchscreen-only models as well as those with traditional physical keyboards, a Research in Motion executive said Thursday.
Computerworld News
From boring to personal: Challenges of Data Management
The world of data management has become much more challenging in the past two decades, but in terms of NetApp's business, that's a good thing because it gives plenty of room to innovate, says Dave Hitz, executive vice president and founder.
Computerworld News
Project management software smackdown
Like the global economy, the world of project management and collaboration software seems to be divided into two significant groups: the "haves" and the "have-nots".
Computerworld News
Nutmeg Raises $5.3M From Pentech, Tim Draper To Make Financial Management Less Stuffy
Nutmeg, the U.K. ‘online investment manager’ that aims to take the complexity out of financial products, has raised a £3.4m ($ 5.3m) VC round led by Pentech and Daniel Aegerter, the Swiss chairman of Armada Investment Group.
But perhaps more headline-grabbing is that legendary Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper also participated. Draper is probably best known for investing in Hotmail, as well as being an early investor in Skype in Europe, along with many, many other startups.
European Investor Klaus Hommels (who notably sits on Spotify’s board) also joined the round.
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