Articles - Page 162

The Top 10 AI Tools for Small Business: From Automation to a Coordinated Team of AI Agents

matt-garrepy

Upland Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: UPLD), a leader in cloud-based Enterprise Work Management software, today announced it has acquired Adestra Ltd., a leading provider of enterprise-grade email marketing, transaction and automation software. Adestra's cloud solution enables over 400 leading brands to understand and engage individual customers with relevant, timely, and effective communications. Adestra will be combined with Upland's mobile messaging, customer engagement, and knowledge management solutions to create a powerful product suite serving the $5.9 billion CXM market which is forecast to grow 23% per year to $16.9 billion by 2022.1 The acquisition adds approximately $18 million in annualized revenues and will be immediately accretive to Upland's Adjusted EBITDA per share.
The acquisition of Adestra adds a fundamental component to Upland's CXM Solution Suite, which now includes multi-channel messaging and email, automated mobile conversations via SMS, MMS, and RCS, mobile wallet functionality, Voice of Customer (VOC) and Voice of Employee (VOE) solutions, advanced knowledge management, and marketing automation and personalization. Upland will continue to buy, build, and integrate additional components to this CXM offering in order to enable more personalized customer experience, enhanced multi-channel engagement across the customer journey, deeper process automation, sophisticated analytics and reporting, and coordinated services delivery with CXM expertise.
“Adestra broadens Upland's product portfolio, strengthens our CXM solution suite, and builds our sales capacity and footprint,” said Jack McDonald, chairman and CEO of Upland Software. “Moreover, the transaction is immediately and meaningfully accretive to Adjusted EBITDA per share and takes Upland to an approximate $190 million annualized revenue run rate,” he added. “As this transaction demonstrates, our acquisition pipeline is robust, and we are actively pursuing additional opportunities.”
“Sophisticated enterprises need multiple intelligent, inter-connected communications channels that integrate with key platforms to meaningfully engage across the entire customer journey at scale,” said Jed Alpert, SVP of Customer Experience Management Solutions at Upland Software. “Adestra's established presence in restaurant and retail, travel, media and publishing, and nonprofits, enhances our existing strengths in these industries, and the addition of their technology to Upland's Customer Experience Management suite will enable our customers to deliver consistently personalized, multi-channel experiences across their entire customer lifecycle.”
The purchase price paid for Adestra was $56.0 million in cash at closing, net of cash acquired, and a $4.2 million cash holdback payable in 12 months (subject to indemnification claims). Upland expects the acquisition to generate annual revenue of approximately $18 million, of which approximately $16.7 million is recurring, subject to reductions for a deferred revenue discount as a result of GAAP purchase accounting, estimated at $0.1 million for the remaining half of December 2018. The acquisition is within Upland's target range of 5-8x pro forma Adjusted EBITDA and will generate at least $8.0 million in Adjusted EBITDA annually once fully integrated. The acquisition will be immediately accretive to Upland's Adjusted EBITDA per share.
In connection with the acquisition of Adestra, Upland amended and expanded its credit facility from $358.9 million to $400 million. Specifically, $61.1 million of new term debt was drawn, taking Upland's gross debt outstanding from $223.9 million to $285.0 million with debt, net of cash on hand, now at approximately $265 million at a maximum interest rate of LIBOR + 400 basis points (currently at approximately 6.3%). Further details regarding the transaction can be obtained in the Form 8-K filed on December 13, 2018.
Business Outlook
Upland today also announced that it has raised its full year 2018 guidance to reflect the Adestra acquisition, raising revenue, recurring revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges. The increase in 2018 revenue guidance below is net of an estimated $0.1 million reduction for a deferred revenue discount as a result of GAAP purchase accounting and all guidance adjustments are prorated for a closing date of December 12, 2018.
For the quarter ending December 31, 2018, Upland expects reported total revenue to be between $42.5 and $44.5 million, including subscription and support revenue between $39.4 and $40.6 million, for growth in recurring revenue of 62% at the mid-point over the quarter-ended December 31, 2017. Fourth quarter 2018 Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $15.6 and $16.4 million, for an Adjusted EBITDA margin of roughly 37% at the mid-point, representing growth of 64% at the mid-point over the quarter-ended December 31, 2017
For the full year ending December 31, 2018, Upland expects reported total revenue to be between $147.2 and $149.2 million, including subscription and support revenue between $134.2 and $135.4 million, for growth in recurring revenue of 58% at the mid-point over the year ended December 31, 2017. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $52.0 and $52.8 million, representing growth of 73% at the mid-point over the year ended December 31, 2017. The transaction will be immediately accretive to Upland's Adjusted EBITDA per share.
About Upland Software
Upland Software (Nasdaq: UPLD) is a leading provider of cloud-based Enterprise Work Management software. Our family of applications enables users to manage their projects, professional workforce and IT investments; automate document-intensive business processes; and effectively engage with their customers, prospects and community via the web and mobile technologies. With more than 4,000 customers and over 450,000 users around the world, Upland Software solutions help customers run their operations smoothly, adapt to change quickly, and achieve better results every day. To learn more, visit <a href="http://www.uplandsoftware.com/" target="_blank">www.uplandsoftware.com</a>.

Upland Software Acquires Adestra

mike-johnston

Finding the right CRM for your business can take a lot of time and effort, so it’s important to ensure that you get a return on your investment.
Thankfully, there are a range of CRM add-ons and integrations on the market which are designed to help you to get the most out of your CRM. And it’s definitely worth checking these out, rather than launching ‘straight out of the box’.
<img alt="Screen Shot 2016-01-02 at 03.39.22.png" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/HCSVNFV0_-jw7s5vc71lc9AD3u_yaUaiMbh2oaWilgEGechSQdVIJF5-57crPUCHay4w29mDanMEPeSf6KlrKWe2oXyQqPFS4eHY8QjfvXsWU6GFP6QAb2EK_uEBJtkKUitl_DZk" />
Whether you’re a small business owner or running a large scale enterprise, there’s a CRM integration out there that was made for you. To give you a headstart, I’ve put together 8 of the most popular CRM tools around at the moment.
<h2>1. Woopra (Analytics)</h2>
Woopra is a web analytics tool that is designed to help businesses to better understand their customers.
Using Woopra, your sales and support teams can monitor real-time user activity from directly within your CRM. Within seconds, you can find out how a user reached your site, where they went when they got there, what pages they viewed, what browser they used, what device they used, and what country/city they live in. Your team can even initiate a live chat with potential customers as they navigate your site.
Woopra creates unique profiles for each customer based on their behaviours and site activities, which are then used to produce a number of key reports such as funnel analytics, custom analytics, and more.
Find out more about Woopra <a href="https://www.woopra.com/">here.</a>
<h2>2. MailChimp (Email Marketing)</h2>
MailChimp is extremely easy to set-up and use and it’s one of the more well-known email marketing tools on the market.
MailChimp’s comprehensive free plan makes it perfect for small-medium businesses and newcomers to email marketing. The ‘free forever’ plan allows for up to 12,000 emails and 2,000 subscribers on a monthly basis, which is great for startups or businesses with a limited budget.
Premium and Pay-As-You-Go plans are also available for larger businesses who need more advanced features.
Find out more about MailChimp <a href="http://mailchimp.com/">here.</a>
<h2>3. Pardot (Email Marketing)</h2>
Whilst MailChimp is a great choice for SMEs, a larger business may need a more feature-rich marketing automation tool – and that’s where Pardot comes in. This email marketing tool is really best suited to businesses with a large email marketing list and it’s not ideal for smaller startups.
Pricing starts at $1000 per month for the standard package, and features include:
<ul>
<li>
Prospect tracking
</li>
<li>
Lead nurturing and email marketing
</li>
<li>
Lead Scoring
</li>
<li>
ROI Reports
</li>
<li>
Real-time Alerts
</li>
<li>
Standard CRM Integration
</li>
</ul>
Pardot is a subsidiary of Salesforce but also integrates with other CRMs such as Microsoft CRM, SugarCRM, and Netsuite.
Find out more about Pardot <a href="http://www.pardot.com/">here</a>.
<h2>4. Hootsuite (Social Media Management)</h2>
Hootsuite is a popular social media management tool that allows users to manage all of their social media accounts from one easy to use interface.
Hootsuite makes social media management much more efficient by allowing users to auto-schedule social media updates to share on multiple networks. It also offers some impressive reporting features but you may need to upgrade to a paid package to really get the most out of these. Hootsuite operates a freemium pricing structure, with paid plans starting at $10 per month.
Find out more about Hootsuite <a href="https://hootsuite.com/">here.</a>
<h2>5. Marketo (Engagement Marketing)</h2>
Marketo is a cloud based engagement marketing platform which offers tools such as email marketing, lead generation, and inbound marketing to help businesses to acquire new customers.
Marketo integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite, Oracle and SugarCrm and Salesforce. The Salesforce integration is its best partnership though – with a real-time sync that refreshes every 5 minutes, making it even easier for users to build and automate their campaigns.
Marketo is best suited to medium companies and it’s strictly for B2B businesses only. There are 3 marketing automation packages available and pricing starts at $895.
Find out more about Marketo <a href="http://www.marketo.com/">here</a>.
<h2>6. Stripe (Payment Processing)</h2>
Stripe is an online payment processing system that allows merchants to take payments via their ecommerce sites.
It’s free to set up an account and you won’t have to jump through hoops to do it either. The fees are also pretty straight-forward with a flat fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Find out more about Stripe <a href="https://stripe.com/">here.</a>
<h2>7. PandaDoc (Document Sharing/Management)</h2>
PandaDoc is a nifty document sharing and management tool that allows users to send, track, negotiate, and sign documents online.
Using your CRM data, your team can quickly create and send documents to seal the deal on their latest sales within minutes. This freemium model allows 3 initial free documents for each user, which is topped up by a further 3 every time they refer a friend to the app.
Find out more about PandaDoc <a href="https://www.pandadoc.com/">here.</a>
<h2>8. Slack (Online Messaging App)</h2>
Slack is a popular online collaboration tool that’s become especially popular with the rise of remote-based employees. This online messaging app allows teams to communicate in real-time and makes it simple to upload and share files in one central place.
Other key features include public and private channels, third party integrations, and an indexed search.
Slack is a freemium service and it has more advanced features which can be accessed if you upgrade to a paid package, but to be honest – the free version has everything you need.
Find out more about Slack <a href="https://slack.com/">here.</a>
<h2>What’s Your Go-To CRM Tool?</h2>
What tools do you use to get more out of your CRM system? Let us know what your go-to tools are in the comments below.

8 Tools to Supplement Your CRM

grainne-logue

In this article, I’m going to tell you how to improve your SEO without the usual gimmick, and in a way that actually works wonders for your business and its data security, too.
Let’s begin with a rhetorical question.
What’s the point in having technology to secure and optimize your business if you don’t have enough business to make it worthwhile?
It’s difficult to answer this question in a way that refutes it: On average, nobody will disagree with the statement that the question poses.
The term “SEO,” stands for search engine optimization, and its goal is to increase the amount of money businesses can make on the web through advertising their business, in either organic or paid means.
At one point, when SEO experts discussed technology that improved businesses’ SEO, they were talking strictly about things like hyperlinking, managing a CMS (content management system) or structuring analytics to measure their digital marketing efforts. Sometimes they would even use SEO plugins to optimize on page factors.
But this method of web optimization is dead. Little if any evidence exists to suggest that putative SEO strategies themselves are truly successful in demand generation.
The subject of this article will be entirely different as it’ll pertain to technology that doesn’t just help your SEO, but also your security, client satisfaction, and revenue, and in a very literal sense, regardless of what industry your business is in.
This cloud based technology is often referred to as a web portal, but <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/securedrawer/">eFileCabinet’s is called SecureDrawer</a>. Web portals are used to share sensitive information securely. Although SEO and security are the foremost benefits of these technologies, they concomitantly assist organizations in not only sharing a large number of files at once (and quickly), but also sharing files of any size.
Professionals in the financial services and accounting fields are learning to rely on web portals for assistance, as they’ve discovered sending email attachments with sensitive client data is no longer a safe practice, as this information can be breached.
This web portal improves a small business’s SEO (which is extremely important for small businesses, especially ones just getting started), by adding a custom branded URL to your business website’s domain.
For instance, if you were a SecureDrawer user, and your business was an online retailer for outdoors equipment (myoutdoorstore.com), the URL for the web portal page on your site would include SecureDrawer and some variant of your domain. There are two monetary benefits to this. One from an SEO perspective, and another from a client impression perspective.
The Benefit of the Web Portal from an SEO Perspective
For your clients to use the web portal service for sensitive file sharing, they’ll have to pay a visit to your website domain. The more people visit your domain (and the longer they stay on the domain), the greater your organic traffic will become from the search engines.
The Benefit of the Web Portal from a Client Impression Perspective
eFileCabinet customers who use SecureDrawer find that their clients are so impressed with the web portal concept (even prior to using it), that they’ll pay an additional fee to our customers to use it.
This has a more direct and tangible impact on revenue for our customers, but it’s only compounded by the SEO traffic they gain from a stronger organic presence on the web.
Credibility: An Indirect Way the Web Portal Benefits Users
Although less tangible than the previous two benefits, customers using a business’s web portal are likely to give credibility to the organization, and refer their friends to the same business. Using a web portal shows clients that you care about the safety of their information in an age of data breach, identify theft, and malicious cyber threats.
What’s more, the power in the web portal comes from the fact you can share information through it without even removing it or sending it anywhere, just like you would use a normal vault.
Rated best in the web portal business by <a href="http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/article/12165783/2016-readers-choice-awards">CPA Practice Advisor</a>, the SecureDrawer website is worth it, particularly if you work in healthcare, financial services, insurance, accounting, manufacturing, law, property management, or real estate.
However, it also is a great bet for any company working in a compliance-centric industry with strictures on how customer information is handled: the SSL and bank-grade encryption (256-bit) that SecureDrawer harnesses for information interchange makes it a paramount feature for client safety.

How Cloud-based File Sharing Technology Improves SEO for Small Businesses

Edentity Web Systems Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that provides the technology and expertise to build, host and manage your website or web-based business application, announced today that it will be rebranded as Agility CMS. The company will begin operating under its new brand immediately. With the launch of a new website, the company will unify its product and services under a single brand identity.
Agility CMS CEO Michael Assad says: “We are very excited to rebrand Edentity under our flagship product, Agility CMS. This rebrand will better reflect our focus on building content management software for digital marketing applications”.
The company has experienced phenomenal growth since its founding in 2002 and hopes to become a market force in the US as it is in Canada. The rebrand comes along with the launch of a new website <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/" target="_blank">www.agilitycms.com</a> during its sponsorship of South By South West.
The rebrand and new site are the culmination of months of effort to align the company’s identity with its purpose. Michael Assad stated, “The new Agility CMS website reflects our commitment to take the complexity out of content management for sophisticated digital marketing solutions”.
About Agility CMS
Agility is a cloud-based content management system.  It allows you to manage content across all digital channels including your website, mobile site, mobile apps, and social media pages from a single browser-based interface.  Agility integrates with best-of-breed solutions for video management, ad serving, search, analytics, email marketing and more.  Agility can be implemented with an internal development team, or by working with their implementation partners.  Agility is based in Toronto Canada and is running sites for Uncle Ben’s, Campbell’s, Subaru and Whiskas. <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/" target="_blank">www.agilitycms.com</a>

Edentity Web Systems rebrand under their product Agility CMS

<a href="https://umbraco.com/apps/">Umbraco Apps</a> launched today at Umbraco.com, offering web developers and content editors easy access to “best of breed” extended features and functionalities for the open source Umbraco content management system (CMS). The new online catalog of Umbraco-compatible extensions—both free and fee-based—provides third-party software that has been selected as the best among the 1000+ available from Umbraco’s vast and active community of independent developers and commercial technology partners.
Umbraco Apps demonstrates the versatility of the “Friendly CMS,” which gives developers the flexibility and freedom to build websites, apps and other solutions with the look and features they want, while enabling editors and content creators to easily and quickly get content in front of their customers.
<blockquote>
“We believe in a ‘best of breed’ strategy, so as a company, Umbraco focuses on making our CMS the easiest and friendliest available for developers, content editors and end-users alike,” said Niels Hartvig, founder and chief unicorn, Umbraco. “At the same time, we recognize that many end-users want additional capabilities such as e-commerce and personalization solutions built into their sites, so we embrace third-party software that adds these features to Umbraco. While Umbraco can do much on its own, adding functionality from one or more of our trusted partners gives users the ability to accomplish even more tasks so they can get exactly what they want from their websites.”
</blockquote>
Umbraco Apps starts with 20 extensions offering capabilities such as analytics, translations, e-commerce, personalization, Intranet, SEO, communications and social media. Several dozen more apps will be added to Umbraco Apps over the next few months.
“While other companies boast thousands of extensions, this makes it incredibly difficult for end users to pick the right one for them; and in any case, a good number of those may be outdated, redundant, and unsecure,” Hartvig added. “While more than 1000 solution providers have built Umbraco-compatible solutions, we are limiting Umbraco Apps to those that meet a certain quality standard, with documentation, so end-users can trust they’re getting real value.”
Umbraco Apps will be available as “Community Apps,” extensions created by the community and offered without cost or product support, and “Premium Apps,” which are created by the community or third-party technology companies, offer professional support and have a commercial purpose, with some requiring a fee.
<h3>Become an Umbraco App Partner</h3>
In addition to providing easy access to the Umbraco Apps, the catalog opens a new promotion channel for the featured apps and their providers. Companies interested in submitting their own solution to become an official Umbraco App Partner must have a solution that: * Completes a task or solves a problem for an Umbraco end-user. * Is not provided “out of the box” with the core CMS. * Is compatible with one of the latest versions (3 minor) of Umbraco CMS, ideally also Umbraco Cloud. * Offers user-friendly documentation.
More details on requirements can be found here: <a href="https://umbraco.com/become-an-umbraco-">https://umbraco.com/become-an-umbraco-</a> app-partner/
<h3>About Umbraco</h3>
Umbraco is an open source CMS built on the Microsoft .NET platform. Often referred to as the “Friendly CMS,” Umbraco gives developers the flexibility and freedom to build website, apps and other solutions with the look and features they want, while enabling editors and content creators to easily and quickly get content in front of their customers. Created in 2005 by Danish developer Niels Hartvig, Umbraco also offers the Umbraco Cloud, providing all-in-one Azure hosting and predictability in cost, performance and time. More Than 500,000 websites run live on Umbraco CMS and the Umbraco Cloud, supported by more than 220,000 very active Umbraco community members.  For more information, visit <a href="http://www.umbraco.com">http://www.umbraco.com</a>

Umbraco Apps Launches with ‘Best of Breed’ Extensions for Open Source Content Management System

We’ve written a lot about CMS, CRM, and Marketing Automation platforms here at CMS Critic, but are all of them essential?
For a big brand chasing global or even regional dominance, I think the answer is a resounding yes.
<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-20 at 22.01.07.png" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/B2fW-HQK5xiQzeif91KFPqfJswNMn0GI_hC-rKU1gw5rv9MpcBZfxCL6pZxmWGfDpmI3KPgY1ttnqoVC49Yl-R8Is1a_fi4H_bXyWO0_sN12b5kII8_i6G-eNhQPkg3NXzFEHDr1" />
<h2>Combining CMS, CRM &amp; Marketing Automation Software</h2>
Here are a few key benefits of combining these platforms:
<ul>
<li>
Improved forecasting and reporting
</li>
<li>
Combined customer information and insights
</li>
<li>
Increase in qualified leads
</li>
<li>
Real-time personalization
</li>
<li>
Increased efficiency
</li>
</ul>
Without the seamless integration of your CMS, CRM, and Marketing Automation platforms, you’ll end up wading through mounds of useless reports and inaccurate data – and no-one has time for that.
By thinking of your marketing system as a whole, rather than dividing these three components, you can ensure that you gain the best possible results from your sales and marketing.
Let’s break it down and talk about what each component in this integrated marketing system should look like.
<h2>1. CMS</h2>
Most businesses understand that your content management system should make it easier for you to edit and post content. But that’s not all it should be doing.
A good CMS should:
<ul>
<li>
provide useful audience insights
</li>
<li>
allow you to influence the prospects buying process with CTA’s and relevant content
</li>
<li>
assess what types of content are most popular with your audience
</li>
<li>
provide both macro and micro analytics – i.e. data on your website and your audience
</li>
</ul>
<h2>2. CRM</h2>
Your CRM is your business intelligence hub. At the moment, CRM systems are seriously misunderstood. There is no uniform process in place and many businesses are unsure of how to actually get the most out of their CRM system.
Because of this, CRM systems aren’t being utilized to their full potential and these advanced customer management tools are simply becoming ‘organizers’ for salespeople.
A good CRM should:
<ul>
<li>
assign your leads and opportunities into separate databases – e.g. cold/warm/qualified
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
document what stage of the buying process each prospect is in
</li>
<li>
show how each lead arrived on your site
</li>
<li>
provide relevant background info on each prospect – such as previous contact and their activities on your site
</li>
</ul>
You can view our Top 10 CRM Systems <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-10-crm-systems/">here.</a>
<h2>3. Marketing Automation/Email Marketing</h2>
Marketing Automation and Email Marketing are very closely aligned, so I’m going to combine them for the purpose of this post.
A good marketing automation or email marketing system should:
<ul>
<li>
track which users receive, open, read, and click on your marketing emails
</li>
<li>
allow you to create custom fields to search, segment, and organize your email lists
</li>
<li>
have the technology to bypass spam folders and ensure your marketing messages are received
</li>
<li>
analyze site visitor behavior and activity and use lead scoring to determine their value.
</li>
<li>
assist you with moving prospects along the sales funnel by delivering tailored marketing messages based on their stage in the buying process
</li>
</ul>
When these three components are combined, you’ll have a seamless process in place to manage all of your sales and marketing activities.
<h2>Content Publishing and Distribution</h2>
<ul>
<li>
With your CMS, optimize your content for SEO and post it to your site
</li>
<li>
Assign a custom CTA to invite users to signup to receive more content
</li>
<li>
Create a draft marketing email and share this content via your marketing automation/email marketing system
</li>
<li>
Share this draft with your sales team via your CRM (because it’s so awesomely integrated)
</li>
<li>
Share the content via social media
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Lead Capturing and Closing The Sale</h2>
Once your CMS captures a conversion – e.g. an email sign up, your marketing automation will identify them as a ‘hot’ lead.
This information will be delivered to your CRM for the attention of your sales team, who will then follow up with the lead, thank them for signing up to the newsletter, and have a chat with them about their specific business needs.
This should lead to a sale – if your sales team are up to scratch (hey, technology can’t do everything).
<h2>The Bigger Picture</h2>
By integrating these three marketing platforms, you can give yourself an even clearer overview of your customer journey from start to finish and put efficient actions in place to increase conversions.
The insights you’ll receive into the customer lifecycle will allow you to identify customers who would have previously flown under the radar, and enable you to present them with right offer at the right time. Having this level of business intelligence is crucial for today’s marketer and it’s something that you really can’t afford to ignore.
Is your brand benefitting from an integrated marketing system? Let us know how it’s working for you in the comment below.

CMS, CRM & Marketing Automation: Why Your Brand Needs All Three

Best Video Experience

Give your audience the best video experience

#000000

Hannon Hill Corporation has released the most recent version of the company's content management system for beta testing in a <a href="http://sandbox.cascadeserver.com/login.act" target="_blank">sandbox</a> as well as for <a href="http://www.hannonhill.com/downloads/cascade/index.html" target="_blank">download</a>. The Cascade Server 6.8 Beta introduces several new features a sample of which includes a Google Analytics Connector, Parallel Publishing, and a built-in Image Editor.
Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that provides marketers and website stakeholders with insights into their website traffic and marketing effectiveness. While Google Analytics is a powerful tool, there has not been an easy way for CMS contributors to access site-wide analytics data or view specific data within the context of a particular page on their site. The Cascade Server Google Analytics Connector further enhances the use of this industry-standard tool by syncing with an organization’s Google Analytics account and providing a snapshot of basic analytics data for each asset and overall Site in Cascade. Having this information readily available within the CMS empowers content contributors to make informed decisions on ways to improve their content and easily edit the content within the same interface.
Another major improvement in 6.8 is Parallel Publishing.  With this feature, content contributors across an organization are now able to publish simultaneously without encountering the publishing bottlenecks that might occur in very large organizations. Prior to this release, Cascade Server would allow only one job to publish at a time across the entire system. With the addition of this feature, each Site now has its own publish queue allowing publishers more focused control with prioritizing jobs.
Also included in Cascade Server 6.8 is a new image editor.  Contributors often need to make small image changes but must frequently consult a graphic artist to perform them. Cascade Server’s simple, built-in image editor addresses the need for quick image edits and is easier than ever to use. Contributors may also utilize the system’s powerful version control system if the image changes do not meet approval criteria. Version control allows content contributors to restore the image to its previous state, offering flexibility and peace of mind during image edits.
The Cascade Server 6.8 beta also includes support for HTML5 and several end-user enhancements. HTML5 is growing in popularity partly because it allows incorporation of rich media content like videos into website without requiring visitors to use browser plug-ins like Flash, many of which are not supported on mobile devices. The end-user enhancements include a new context-menu, which allows users to navigate around the system faster and with fewer mouse clicks. To find out more in-depth information on all of the features included in this beta release, read the <a href="http://www.hannonhill.com/kb/Release-Notes/6.8b/index.html" target="_blank">release notes</a>.
About the Company
Hannon Hill creates web marketing solutions that give people and organizations the freedom to manage their Internet, Intranet, Extranet and Portal content with ease. Our primary software solution, Cascade Server, is ideal for organizations in industries such education, healthcare, technology, government, and publishing. Designed for any network environment, Cascade Server is as easy as e-mail and gives IT departments much needed deployment flexibility, a zero-footprint client and fast implementation. Since 2001, Hannon Hill solutions have been utilized and trusted by organizations including Duke University, Carnegie Mellon University, MCG Health Systems, PGP Corporation, Reed College and SCOREGolf magazine. For more information about Hannon Hill and all of our products, please visit www.HannonHill.com or contact us directly at 800-407-3540.

Hannon Hill Releases Cascade Server 6.8 Beta

Dassault Systèmes  today announced that its subsidiary Exalead, the leading provider of search-based application platforms, has released CloudView 360, an extended package of CloudView modules developed specifically to integrate information from legacy CRM, ERP, HR enterprise applications, PLM systems and web content. Built around Exalead's award winning CloudView version 5 search technology, CloudView 360 adds semantic processing and information mash-up capabilities to enable, simplify and accelerate complete views of enterprise status and direction.
Today's business environment requires enterprises to compete globally. Exalead CloudView 360 offers a new approach, providing a comprehensive view of customers, products and processes and timely views of business activity. It can extract information from any and all relevant enterprise applications, collaboration applications and the web to give at-a-glance, detailed insight to the entire organisation from front-line workers to top executives. By adopting CloudView 360 and the search-based applications it enables enterprises to gain competitive advantage, operational efficiency improvements and can give better value to customers.
CloudView 360 extends its core capability by semantically relating key business activity relationships such as customer relationship records, past transactions and customer service dialogues. Results of user queries can be mashed-up into dashboards and real-time executive summaries that include traditional charts and graphs, descriptive extracts, key facts, relationship graphs and web-oriented representations such as word clouds. CloudView 360's unique combination of semantic data processing and mash-up information presentation enables users with at-a-glance understanding of key topics without having to work through tens or hundreds of documents. Search-based applications built with CloudView 360 address needs for information and insight across enterprise functions that include research and development, manufacturing and logistics, regulatory compliance, sales and marketing, human resources and finance. Deployments of search-based applications now serve the communities of tens of thousands of users.
“With Exalead CloudView 360, we were able to deploy the most comprehensive tourist portal on the market in only a few months,” said Pierre Matuchet, General Manager of Voyages-sncf.com, one of the most popular travel websites in France. “The portal intelligently and distinctively synthesises content from the Web, our partners' databases, and our own proprietary databases. Thanks to Exalead, we were able to bring one of our most ambitious Web projects to life.”
“Exalead CloudView 360 goes far beyond a simple search service. We now have the opportunity to build innovative business applications at the core of our IT,” said Bertrand Eteneau, CIO of Faurecia Group. “We already have a few projects under delivery and discussion. The benefits, in terms of usability for our organization and employees, are significant.”
“Search-based applications are the fastest growing segment of the search market today, and with good reason,” said Sue Feldman, Vice President for Search and Discovery Technologies at IDC. “These applications are built on a flexible, scalable search backbone like CloudView 360, then customised to incorporate knowledge of a business process. They are designed with specific users in mind, with a purposeful interface to enable easier interaction with information that is drawn seamlessly from multiple sources. The complexity of uniting disparate information and of finding the semantic relationships between documents and data is significant, but enterprises desperately need this ability. To do so, though, requires technology that goes beyond basic search, to include semantic processing and text analytics.”
CloudView 360 is available for license as on-premise or cloud-hosted software. Data sources supported include ERP applications (such as SAP), content management systems (such as Microsoft SharePoint and EMC Documentum), social media sources (such as Facebook and Twitter), e-mail servers (such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes), and relational databases from IBM, Oracle and Microsoft, among others. It also supports Microsoft Windows, Linux and Oracle/Sun Solaris operating systems.
To learn more, download CloudView 360 for Search-Based Applications in the Enterprise Product Brief.
About Dassault Systèmes
As a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 115,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systèmes develops and markets PLM application software and services that support industrial processes and provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of CATIA for virtual product design – SolidWorks 3D for Professionals – DELMIA for virtual production – SIMULIA for realistic simulation – ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences. Dassault Systèmes' shares are listed on Euronext Paris (#13065, DSY.PA) and Dassault Systèmes' ADRs may be traded on the US Over-The-Counter (OTC) market (DASTY). For more information, visit <a href="http://www.3ds.com">http://www.3ds.com</a>
CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, SIMULIA, SolidWorks and 3DVIA are registered trademarks of Dassault Systèmes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries.

Exalead Extends Search-based Application Leadership with Exalead CloudView® 360

dotCMS, a leading open-source Java CMS and Customer Experience Management software vendor, has launched their latest version, <a href="https://dotcms.com/docs/latest/changelogs#release-5.0">dotCMS 5.0</a>, adding UI / UX features to improve the author experience, a refreshed Edit Mode, new reporting, as well as enhancements to search and security.
“We have made a company-wide decision to make dotCMS the most user-friendly system in the marketplace, and dotCMS 5.0 is a giant step in that direction,” said Will Ezell, dotCMS CTO.
“Marketing and business users spend a majority of their time in our authoring environment, which is why we decided to do a complete refresh of our Edit Mode,”  Ezell continued. “With a cleaner UI, new drag and drop features, and an added reporting module, dotCMS 5.0 follows our <a href="http://go.dotcms.com/nocode-is-the-new-standard">‘NoCode’ philosophy</a>, offering editors the autonomy they need to create without heavy reliance on IT.
dotCMS 5.0 includes a slew of new drag-and-drop capabilities, including:
<ul>
<li>Page / Layout Editor: Layouts are now tied to the page itself, making it easy to make changes to the layout without having to leave the page editor.</li>
<li>Workflow Builder: Building on the ‘Four Eyes’ approval feature from dotCMS 4.3, the dotCMS 5.0 Workflow builder allows for multiple workflow schemes per content type.</li>
<li>Content Type Builder: Users can now drag and drop from a list of fields to build out content types. Adding rows, columns, and changing the order of fields makes it easier to build out new content types, especially forms.</li>
<li>Containers: A huge improvement to the usability of the platform, containers can be used multiple times on the same page, leading to the decrease in the number of templates and the overall ease of management of templates, layouts and containers.</li>
</ul>
Along with these new drag-and-drop features, <a href="http://go.dotcms.com/dotcms-5-0-product-brief">dotCMS 5.0</a> also includes a new reporting module that integrates with Google Analytics to allow businesses to gain insight into their website right from the dotCMS Dashboard. This visualization of your web properties can be customized to show what insights are most important to your business.
“While dotCMS 5.0 does focus primarily on the authoring environment, we’ve also made improvements to the backend, including upgrading to ElasticSearch v6.1, security fixes, and adding full <a href="https://dotcms.com/landing-pages/webinars/why-containerization-makes-sense-for-your-cms-webinar">containerization capabilities</a>,” said Ezell.
To learn more about dotCMS 5.0 and how you can upgrade, visit: <a href="https://dotcms.com/dotcms-5">www.dotcms.com/dotcms-5 </a>
About dotCMS
dotCMS is a leading, open source content and customer experience management Java platform for companies that want innovation and performance driving their websites and other content-driven applications. Extensible and massively scalable, both small and large organizations can rapidly deliver personalized and engaging content across browsers, mobile devices, channels, second screens, and endpoints — all from a single system.
Founded in 2003, dotCMS is a privately owned U.S. company with offices in Miami, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, and San Jose, Costa Rica. With a global network of certified development partners and an active open source community, dotCMS has generated more than a half million downloads and thousands of implementations and integration projects worldwide.

dotCMS Launches dotCMS 5.0 - Developed with ‘NoCode’ Philosophy, Giving Marketing and Business Teams More Autonomy to Create Digital Experiences

Alterian (LSE:ALN), the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, today announced the launch of a new version of its flagship Alterian Content Manager (ACM) web content management system.
With the launch of ACM v7, available in a Professional and Enterprise edition, Alterian brings a product to market that offers market leading innovations in web content management, uniquely combined with a centralised control and reuse of creative assets for email and social media campaigns. As a result ACM v7 acts as a central hub for customer engagement through a user interface that is supported by insightful social media analytics driven by Alterian SM2, and advanced web analytics capabilities utilising Alterian’s WebJourney solution.
David Eldridge, CEO, Alterian says of the latest improvements, “The web is a fundamental part of how customers view and engage with an organization and it is critical that this is successful in its own right, and as part of a broader digital engagement strategy. The latest version of Alterian’s Content Manager is an efficient way for our customers to focus on intelligent engagement with their clients, through an integrated and tailored approach that harnesses the combined power of web content management, email, social media monitoring and web analytics to drive traffic and brand awareness.” 
Some of the ACM v7 improvements and new features include:
<ul>
<li>A fully rebranded user interface that takes “ease of use” for content contributors to the next level;</li>
<li>A new extensible workflow engine that enables easy interaction with external systems and processes;</li>
<li>Sophisticated Microsoft Office integration allowing full interaction with the system through Word and Outlook, supporting both offline and online content authoring, signoffs and content previewing;</li>
<li>Migration of all administrative features into the ACM v7 Smart Client desktop application;</li>
<li>Extensibility of both the Web Client (browser based) and Smart Client (desktop application) user interfaces, allowing partners and clients to extend ACM to include bespoke-built or 3rd party functionality.</li>
<li>Built-in web analytics capabilities designed to optimize web page performance, based on Alterian’s WebJourney technology</li>
<li>A new Email Manager module designed to drive email campaigns directly out of ACM, reusing digital assets managed in ACM</li>
</ul>
<h3> ACM v7 at the hub of your Social Media initiatives </h3>
Alterian’s new Social Media Publisher, an add-on module to ACM v7, also enables organizations to re-use content that sits inside Alterian Content Manager across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, with the goal of driving social traffic back to the website. Organisations invest heavily in creative assets so being able to re-use these assets for social media channels represents a tremendous opportunity.
Through tight integration with SM2 – Alterian’s social media monitoring tool – ACM v7 allows organisations to track exactly what responses have been posted as a result of messages sent out through Social Media Publisher. Closing this loop in real-time allows organizations to track instant successes or failures of their social media initiatives.
Scott Liewehr of Outsell’s Gilbane Group, who is a senior consultant in the Web Content Management practice, comments, “The integrated reporting and analysis capabilities of ACM’s Social Media Publisher provide valuable and immediate insight into active online communities and how they react to brand communications. This is crucial in helping brands create more relevant messages and improve SEO strategies, to ensure they reach the right audience, with the right message.” 
For more information on Alterian Content Manager and Alterian’s vision for web content management, please visit <a href="http://www.alterian-content-management.com">www.alterian-content-management.com</a>.
<div style="position:absolute;left:-10000px;top:0px;width:1px;height:1px;overflow:hidden">
<h4>AContent 1.1 Released</h4>


</div>

Alterian Content Manager v7 launch puts Web Content Management at the hub of online customer engagement

Elcom, a leading Australian enterprise web content management vendor, announced at the 2010 Gartner IT Symposium that it will be expanding into the North American market by opening an office in New York City, in January 2011.
Elcom’s Chief Executive Officer, John Anstey said “We have had a lot of interest from the USA and it represents a substantial growth opportunity for Elcom. It is a logical next step in expanding our global reach and sales efforts”.
North America, currently dominates the global Web Content Management (WCM) market, and according to leading technology research body Gartner, it “accounts for 60% of worldwide revenue”. Further to this, Gartner predicts that “the market will see a compound annual growth rate of 14% from 2009 to 2014”, making Elcom’s entry into the US market a highly lucrative opportunity.
The New York office will provide Elcom with a North American presence that can manage Elcom’s partners and clients in the continent. “In the last eighteen months, there has been a significant increase in the number of enquiries from the USA and Canada. The opening of the New York office will now allow Elcom to offer the same level of dedicated local support and service as it does to its Australian partners and clients, to those based in North America”, said Anstey.
Elcom will continue to build its Partner Network and work closely with agencies, web developers, system integrators and consultants. The New York office will look to train and develop partners and customers, bringing Elcom’s WCMS, CommunityManager.NET to the North American market. “In Australia, our reputation is based on value, product innovation and local support, and we are excited at the opportunity to offer this to a completely different marketplace”, said the CEO.
The company’s CommunityManager.NET product is used by hundreds of local and international organisations to streamline processes and improve information architecture. According to CEO John Anstey, “this is achieved through simplifying the development, publishing and management of online content in the form of websites, intranets, extranets, membership systems, web applications, e-commerce processes and mobile platforms.”
Elcom recently released Version 7.2 of CommunityManager.NET which has a host of new features and upgrades from previous versions. One of the company’s most significant enhancements was based on the emerging trend of web accessibility via mobile platforms. Gartner reports, “By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide”.
Elcom’s version 7.2 has capitalised on this trend and been able to provide businesses with a synergised mobile functionality, which is built upon highly innovative user-agent detection technology. Mr Anstey states “this means that organisations no longer need to develop separate content and sites for an infinite number of platforms such as iphones, ipads and blackberrys. Our system has complete separation of content and presentation, so our customers do not need to repurpose content, as specified templates will be embedded into the system – ensuring a more automated process which saves time and money”.
Some of Version 7.2’s other enhancements also include a new analytics engine which enables marketers to collect, analyse and report on variety of campaign metrics, while owning all data – unlike other service providers that keep this information for industry analysis.
The new version also includes an office connector with the ability to publish content from within Microsoft Word or Outlook; this extends the existing functionality of the SharePoint connector allowing CommunityManager.NET to seamlessly co-exist with an existing SharePoint solution.
Elcom is an exciting Australian company which is continuing to drive product innovation within the enterprise Web Content Management sector. Through the pursuit of an aggressive release schedule which involves quarterly updates, it is confidently growing its customer base and market presence.
Elcom’s New York office will officially open its doors in January 2011, and will be working to strengthen its Partner Program. Elcom is sending Australian staff to assist in the setup, and will also be looking at bringing on board local expertise to complement the team.
About Elcom Founded by John Anstey in 1996, Elcom Technology Pty Ltd (Elcom) is the developer of CommunityManager.NET, an enterprise Web Content Management Systems (WCMS). This powerfully simple platform empowers organisations to deliver best of breed Web Content Management, Intranets, Social Networking, eCommerce, Learning Management &amp; Online Marketing solutions on one platform. An Australian company focused on driving innovation in the local and international market, Elcom boasts an extensive research and development program and comprehensive professional service delivery capability via its own practitioners and global partner network.
<a href="http://www.elcom.com.au">http://www.elcom.com.au</a>

Elcom announces New Mobile Technology and International Expansion

Alterian (LSE: ALN), the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, today announced the launch of Alterian Alchemy™, the framework that evolves Alterian’s existing Integrated Marketing Platform to the next-generation Customer Engagement Platform. Alterian Alchemy™ integrates the company’s market leading engagement management and analytics solutions across web, email, social media and traditional channels, enabling marketers to address the societal changes and demands of today’s consumer. Alterian is also announcing three new modules, operating within the Alterian Alchemy™ framework, to support marketers as they engage intelligently cross channel – Alterian Engagement Analytics, Alterian Engagement Manager and Alterian Predictive Analytics.
“Alterian is determined to change the face of marketing from mass communication to engagement with the individual, and Alterian Alchemy™ is a key part of the fulfillment of that vision,” said David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian. “We know that marketing must fundamentally change the way it functions so we developed Alterian Alchemy™ and the new modules from scratch, using the expertise we built up over the last 13 years. The result represents a real shift in how marketers can engage with – not just sell to – their customers.” 
Recent research published by Alterian, <a href="http://www.alterian.com/ourcompany/newsevents/news/alchemy/#">“Your Brand: At Risk or Ready for Growth” </a>, found that 62% of individuals felt that companies were only interested in selling products and services to them, not necessarily the product or service that was right for them. Only 8% of respondents trusted what companies said about themselves, yet 79% said it would have a positive impact on their experience as a customer if companies took the time to find out more about their needs.
Alterian Alchemy™ enables this fundamental shift in marketing from campaign management to engagement management, providing marketers with an integrated solution beyond multi-channel communications to true cross-channel, interactive engagement. All available customer data is now able to be accessed centrally, and marketers can easily take action based on a comprehensive customer profile and real time data. This provides marketers with a transparent record of the individual customer across multiple touch points in order to drive more effective integrated campaigns.
“This revolutionary framework, together with our new modules, provides marketers from all disciplines and channels with the tools to evolve into ‘Engagement Managers,’” added Eldridge. “Consumers have come to expect more tailored brand interaction today and seek extremely relevant, timely offers and information. Because of this shift, marketers must adapt to the way they listen to and engage with their audience. Alterian Alchemy™ is the first marketing engagement technology to address the broad range of interactive requirements, enabling brands to better coordinate one-on-one communication and engage based on customer preferences.” 
Alterian Alchemy™ delivers against the requirements of a broad community of business users, puts individual-level analytics at the heart of all communications, delivers real-time interaction, and ensures consistency for inbound as well as outbound communications across multiple channels. 
For instance, a customer might Tweet about a brand, receive a response in Twitter from that brand and click on a link in the Tweet, which then takes the customer to the brand’s website where they fill out a form, triggering the brand to send an email to the customer. Those three different points of customer interaction are typically difficult to connect; however, Alterian Alchemy™ allows marketers to manage how those customer interactions from separate channels come together for one-to-one engagement with individuals.
According to the April 2010 report by Forrester Research Inc., “Trends in Cross-Channel Campaign Management, 2010”, “Marketers struggle to incorporate new channels and the resulting data into their marketing programs, while CCCM applications struggle to match the pace of emerging channels and changing consumer behavior.” In the same study, Forrester reported that, “Almost half of respondents selected coordination of communications across channels (49%) and personalizing messages based on consumer behavior across channels (48%) as their top two challenges.” These are exactly the types of demands which Alterian Alchemy™ has been designed to meet.
“Our customers are clear in their requirement to move to a position where they have a holistic, analytically led view of each customer and the ability to interact appropriately across multiple communication channels based on this view” said Mark Zablan, Managing Director, Experian Marketing Services. “Alterian technology has always been recognized as leading the way in bringing analytics to outbound marketing channels. Alterian AlchemyTM is a major step forward to encompassing both inbound and outbound channels in the same, analytically driven environment. We are excited to be working with Alterian in taking Alterian AlchemyTM to market, along with Experian data and insight, to help brands engage with customers on a new level.” 
In addition to the integration with web, email and social media engagement solutions and the new modules within it, Alterian will also continue to develop its existing campaign management tools as integral components of the Alterian Customer Engagement Platform to address traditional channels.
The launch follows a successful beta test program with major marketing organizations worldwide.
For more information on Alterian Alchemy™, visit <a href="https://www.alterian.com/">www.alterian.com/alchemy </a>.

Alterian Launches Next Generation of Customer Engagement Solutions

Here's a bit of a shocker for the day, I just received notification that Adobe has entered into an agreement to purchase Magento Commerce for $1.68 billion! Adobe has a history of sucking companies into their Adobe Experience Cloud (or Dark Experience Cloud as I call it), effectively making the brand disappear which is no doubt the plan here according to the release.
Here's a quote from the press release that marks the death sentence for Magento as a brand:
<blockquote>“Adobe is the only company with leadership in content creation, marketing, advertising, analytics and now commerce – enabling real-time experiences across the entire customer journey,” said Brad Rencher, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience, Adobe. “Embedding commerce into the Adobe Experience Cloud with Magento enables Adobe to make every moment personal and every experience shoppable.”</blockquote>
The obvious drawback here are that companies currently using Magento in some form or another, whether through integrations or otherwise. are going to have to find another solution fast or risk being badgered to death by Adobe Sales for eternity (and nobody wants that to happen). Take heed customers! Now is the time to flee before the behemoth descends! I kid, I kid (or do I?).
Here are some alternatives to consider if you are in this predicament:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/">BigCommerce Enterprise</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.prestashop.com">PrestaShop Enterprise</a></li>
</ul>
What are your thoughts on the purchase?

Adobe Sucks Magento into their Dark Experience Cloud

Shopify - The global commerce platform

Build your business with Shopify to sell online, offline, and everywhere in between.

The global commerce platform

#ffffff

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 162

News

Give your audience the best video experience

The global commerce platform