Daily Archives: August 9, 2017

Jason VandeBoom Founder and CEO ActiveCampaign

When it comes to marketing technology, the argument for using best-of-breed tools is cleartheyre the best in their respective categories. But for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), using multiple marketing technologies can be cost-prohibitive, and the challenge of integrating them can be unmanageable. But Jason VandeBoom, founder and CEO of marketing automation provider ActiveCampaign, says sometimes its worth it. VandeBoom spoke with eMarketers Maria Minsker about why all-in-one marketing technology suites are not the right route for smaller organizations.

eMarketer: What are some of the biggest challenges SMBs face with regard to marketing technology?

Jason VandeBoom: Technology providers that target these markets focus on building all-in-one tools. The problem with that is, although they say they can do it all, theyre not advanced when it comes to specific capabilities. As a result, customers that use these platforms only tend to use a small percentage of it and dont really benefit from most of the technology theyre paying for.

eMarketer: Using best-of-breed tools means integration challenges. How can smaller companies deal with those challenges?

VandeBoom: Regardless of company size, if integration isnt carried out correctly, best-of-breed tools can cause more pain than good. Companies should seek out tools with built-in integrations, or look to third parties for connector technologies and applications that can group tools and data together to make insight more actionable. Smaller businesses need partners that can provide integration and do some of the work for them.

Smaller businesses need partners that can provide integration and do some of the work for them.

eMarketer: Are best-of-breed tools scalable? Should growing businesses switch to multisolution suites?

VandeBoom: As businesses grow, it actually becomes more obvious that all-in-one solution suites are not the way to go. There are very few medium-sized companies that are able to find all the tools they need in a single package and actually be satisfied with the breadth and capabilities that those tools provide.

eMarketer: How can companies that use best-of-breed tools make sure they dont fall into the trap of chasing the latest and greatest products?

VandeBoom: SMBs often look for tools that are accessible to users without a technical background, so industry buzz about certain types of technology doesnt really influence them. Regardless, businesses should be focused on the outcome of their marketing efforts, not the tool theyre using.

Industry buzz about certain types of technology doesnt really influence [SMBs].

eMarketer: Do you anticipate that more businesses will leave multisolution suites behind and shift to best-of-breed technologies?

VandeBoom: There is going to be a bigger push against all-in-one tools. But to attract SMBs, best-of-breed technology providers are going to have to make an effort to develop tools that are more integrated, suggestive and autonomous, so that marketers at SMBs can take advantage of opportunities that are hard to spot.

Excerpt from:

Why SMBs Should Opt for Best-of-Breed Marketing Technology - eMarketer

Elon Musks Boring Company, supposedly a small project with a few engineers and interns, is quickly working toward its goal, which is officially to solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic.

After several announcements of upcoming large scale projects, like a network of tunnels under Los Angeles and an underground hyperloop between New York and Washington DC, the company is now presenting its R&D tunnel project underneath Hawthorne.

They plan to test boring techniques in the tunnel as well as Teslas autonomous driving and powertrain technologies on electric platforms to move vehicles.

In April,Musks new startup took delivery of their first boring machineand started digging in the parking lot of SpaceXs headquarters.

They already obtained a permit for a 305-feet (100 meters) tunnel at the location, whichthey reportedly already completed.

Now they presented the second phase of the tunnel at a special meeting of theHawthorne city council last week.

The current tunnel links SpaceXs parking lot to 120th street and the second phase would follow the street over 2 miles (3.2 km) all the way to Hawthorne Boulevard.

At the presentation before theHawthorne city council, Brett Horton, Senior Director of Facilities and Construction for both SpaceX and Boring Company, said that the tunnel would only be for research and development and not to transport people or cargo.

They aim to test their boring machine and find ways to improve it:

It is a research and development tunnel meant for us to learn about our tunneling machine (Godot), understand the technology and where we can improve it, and also test and prove out the transportation system.

Horton also explains that the transportation system will use Teslas autonomous driving technology and electric powertrain technology:

To speak very quickly about how the transportation works and how we are going to be testing it in this tunnel, it is based on Tesla technology. We all know about autonomous driving and the capabilities weve seen demonstrated in various videos. We are going to use that technology, but instead of an enclosed Tesla, its going to be an electric skate.

He said to imagine a Tesla Model S drivetrain, but with a platform instead of a cabin on top.

The Boring Company has so far been mostly associated with Elon Musks SpaceX so its interesting to see that Tesla, Musk other main company, is also being involved.

They have also been using Tesla vehicles in their demonstation videos.

The rest of Hortons presentation revolved around safety requirements for building the tunnel. He went through several safety measures that the Boring Company is taking to ensure that it will be safe. It ranges from simple checks for gas lines, sewage, and optic cables, to more high-tech systems to monitor surface disruption from their tunneling efforts.

They aim to have no impact at the surface by digging just about 20 feet (6 meters) in the ground.

The meeting was to familiarize the members of the council with the project, which they now seek to expedite. City Manager Arnold Shadbehr was appointed to negotiate the terms for granting the permits for the project.

Theres a transcript of the full presentation via ticklestuff) and heres a video of the presentation:

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Elon Musk's Boring Company to use Tesla's technology for its tunnel project under LA - Electrek

A technician works on a double deployed cubesat in the Clyde Space clean room. Credit: Clyde Space

LOGAN, Utah Scotlands Clyde Space will build buses for three small satellites Silicon Valley startup Audacy plans to send into medium Earth orbit in 2019, according to an agreement announced Aug. 8 at the Small Satellite conference here.

Audacy is seeking to establish a commercial version of NASAs Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, which transmits communications from satellites to ground stations. With satellites in medium Earth orbit, Audacy plans to offer simultaneous access to its network for customers operating thousands of satellites, launch vehicles and human spaceflight missions.

Before establishing its operational constellation of satellites weighing hundreds of kilograms, Audacy wants to demonstrate its technology, including customer satellite terminals featuring K-band antennas and software defined radios, on the cubesats built by Clyde Space, James Spicer, Audacy chief engineer, said by email.

Craig Clark, Clyde Space chief executive, said he was delighted to win Audacys order because the firm has an awesome concept and because Audacy conducted an exhaustive review of the market before selecting Clyde Space for its demonstration mission. I really like this win. I wanted to work with them, Clark told SpaceNews.

In addition to building the satellite bus, Clyde Space will bring Audacy personnel into its Glasgow facility to help them design their technology demonstration mission and operate the cubesats, Clark said.

Through the demonstration mission, Audacy will support numerous customer satellites with a range of missions and applications in multiple sectors from agriculture to disaster management, according to the announcement.

Audacy, a company established in 2015 by co-founders who met at Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Business, established its first ground station in San Francisco in 2017 and its second, in Singapore in 2018. As demand grows, the firm plans to build a third ground station in Luxembourg.

Read more:

Clyde Space to build cubesats for Audacy technology demonstration - SpaceNews

Image: DXC Technology

DXC Technology has reported its first quarter earnings for fiscal 2018, posting earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of $245 million and $173 million in net income on revenue of $5.9 billion.

Global Business Services profit was $282 million on revenue of $2.267 billion, Global Infrastructure Services profit was $290 million on revenue of $2.969 billion, while the company's United States Public Sector segment brought in $77 million in profit off the back of $677 million in revenue.

Overall, income before tax was $185 million in the first quarter, after outlaying $190 million in restructuring costs, $124 million in transaction and integration-related costs, and $120 million from the amortisation of acquired intangibles, the company said in its report.

The results are the first since the formation of DXC Technology in April, which was the result of the merger of Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) and the Enterprise Services arm of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

At the closure of the deal, the new $26 billion IT services giant boasted nearly 6,000 clients in more than 70 countries, with the combined companies claiming only a 15 percent overlap in accounts.

"In the first quarter, DXC Technology delivered on the revenue, profit, and cash flow roadmap that we laid out at our Investor Day," DXC Technology chairman, president, and CEO Mike Lawrie said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We achieved several key merger integration milestones and are executing on our synergy plan. We have implemented the first phase of the plan and are on track to meet our targets of $1 billion of year-one cost savings in fiscal 2018 as well as $1.5 billion of run-rate cost savings exiting the year.

"We continue to lead our clients on their digital transformation journeys, leveraging efficiency gains in traditional IT to reinvest in digital solutions, including our own."

DXC Technology Australia and New Zealand managing director Seelan Nayagam said the market took the company's first quarter results positively, noting DXC's share price rose by $3 at the close of Tuesday.

"I'm guessing they were happy," he said. "The results globally and locally were good, but at the same time, the number of critical go-lives that happened with all of this stuff going on."

During the quarter, Nayagam said the local arm of the global IT giant completed the upgrade of the Australian government's Budget system, which he said despite taking quite a long time, showed him the local teams' resilience to the end-client amid an organisational restructure.

Speaking with ZDNet, Nayagam said the ANZ business grew roughly 3 percent in the first quarter over the same period last year, but noted there were different performances displayed across the many arms of the local business.

He touted the overall business as doing well, with the consulting business in the local market boasting over 1,100 individual consultants.

During the quarter, DXC Technology announced the acquisition of Microsoft Dynamics 365 integrator Tribridge and its affiliate company, Concerto Cloud Services.

Under the acquisition agreement Tribridge was rebranded as Tribridge, a DXC Technology Company, while Concerto Cloud Services, which provides advisory services and fully-managed cloud solutions, is now DXC Concerto.

"The combination of Tribridge with DXC Eclipse significantly strengthens DXC's role as a leading Microsoft Dynamics 365 systems integrator, greatly enhancing our ability to address client needs," Lawrie said last month.

For the 2018 fiscal year, DXC Technology is expecting to report $24-$24.5 billion in revenue.

Read more:

DXC Technology posts $245m EBIT in first quarter since merger - ZDNet

Scientists have invented a breakthrough technology they say willhelpheal wounds, blood vessels, nerves and damaged organs.

The technology, called Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT) uses nanotechnology to turn skin cells into a range of other types of cell that can be used to repair damaged tissues.

The cells are converted by a small microchip,similar in size to a penny,whichinjects genetic code into skin cells, transforming them into other types of cell.

The chip is simply placed onto the skin and can begin to create new specialised cells in less than a second, scientists said.

The researchers, from Ohio State University, turned skin cells from mice and pigs into blood vessel cells and nerve cells. After a week, the new cells formed new blood vessels and nerve tissue.

In one experiment, a badly damaged mouse leg was saved by the technology creating new blood vessels in tissue that had previously been lacking blood flow.

Another test involved injecting new nerve cells into a mouses brain to enable it to recover from a stroke.

This is difficult to imagine, but it is achievable, successfully working about 98 per cent of the time, said Dr. Chandan Sen, one of the joint leaders of the study. With this technology, we can convert skin cells into elements of any organ with just one touch. This process only takes less than a second and is non-invasive, and then you're off. The chip does not stay with you, and the reprogramming of the cell starts.

The technology could see cells grown on a human patients skin and then injected into their body to treat conditions such as Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers, nerve damage and strokes.

It is the bodys own cells that are being converted, sothe immune system does not attack them and thereforethere is no need for immunosuppressant drugs.

Some treatments already involve converting cells in laboratory conditions before injecting them back into the patient, but this is the first time cells have been reprogrammed within the body.

Scientists said the procedure is non-invasive and does not require a laboratory, meaning it could be used in hospitals and GP surgeries. It simply involves the chip being placed on the skin and a light electrical current applied, which patients barely feel.

The research was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

By using our novel nanochip technology, injured or compromised organs can be replaced, said Dr Sen. We have shown that skin is a fertile land where we can grow the elements of any organ that is declining,

Trials to test the technology in humans are being planned for next year.

Continue reading here:

'Breakthrough' microchip technology helps heal wounds, nerves and organ damage - The Independent