Articles - Page 179

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

matt-garrepy

Ternio has announced their first product for the general public called <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2339221-1&amp;h=3648828587&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fgetblockcard.com%2F&amp;a=BlockCard%E2%84%A2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">BlockCard™</a>. BlockCard is a debit card that enables the card holder to spend the value of their cryptocurrency with the same ease as traditional credit cards. BlockCard can be used online or in physical store locations, anywhere in the world major credit cards are accepted.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zOJtdPT86QI?start=2&amp;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“Ternio's goal is to accelerate the use of blockchain and cryptocurrency into everyday life,” said Ian Kane, COO &amp; Founder of Ternio. “BlockCard enables the card holder to gain real utility from their cryptocurrency and removes the notion that crypto is only a speculative asset.”
BlockCard currently supports four cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Stellar Lumens (XLM) and Ternio (TERN). Consumers who hold any of those cryptocurrencies can deposit them to their <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2339221-1&amp;h=696672769&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fdashboard.getblockcard.com%2Fauth%2Fregister&amp;a=BlockCard+account+after+signing+up" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">BlockCard account after signing up</a>. Additional currencies will be added throughout the year. BlockCard™ users have the option to select between a virtual or physical card. Those who want a physical BlockCard™ can also select between a plastic or a metal version of the card.
Ternio's BlockCard is one of only three approved crypto debit cards in the United States and is the only card to support multiple cryptocurrencies – giving card holders the option on how they fund their BlockCard. It is also the only card that enables real time spending of cryptocurrency by processing transactions via a crypto exchange. Ternio registered over 1,000 people during their soft launch. Those interested in having a BlockCard account can signup now at: <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2339221-1&amp;h=1504439539&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fgetblockcard.com%2F&amp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fgetblockcard.com." target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://getblockcard.com.</a>
“We want to give consumers the option on which digital asset they use to fund their BlockCard account,” said Daniel Gouldman, CEO and Founder of Ternio. “Card holders decide if they want to buy a bagel with their Bitcoin or a <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2339221-1&amp;h=462056155&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzOJtdPT86QI&amp;a=latte+with+their+Stellar+Lumens" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">latte with their Stellar Lumens</a>. Most importantly, these transactions occur on digital asset exchanges, which helps to propel the crypto community.”
Ternio BlockCard™:
Ternio is a leading blockchain company driving the adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency into everyday life with its Lexicon framework and BlockCard™. The BlockCard™ is a physical debit card created by Ternio. With BlockCard™, card holders are empowered to spend their BTC, ETH, XLM, and TERN anywhere in the world major credit cards are accepted. Learn more at <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2339221-1&amp;h=1198581509&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fgetblockcard.com%2F&amp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fgetblockcard.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://getblockcard.com</a>

Ternio Introduces CryptoCurrency BlockCard™ Enabling Users to Spend Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stellar Lumens Anywhere Credit Cards Accepted.

mike-johnston

Content management system provider introduces its new cloud-based container CMS on the newly launched AWS Marketplace for Containers, accelerating website and application deployment for as little as $1 per hour per container
Solodev, an industry-leading website content management system (CMS) built for Amazon Web Services (AWS), recently launched a new Solodev CMS Enterprise for Docker and Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS). The availability of this product came on the heels of AWS’s introduction of the brand new AWS Marketplace for Containers, announced at AWS re:Invent 2018 in Las Vegas.
AWS customers can now use the Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) console and AWS Marketplace for Containers to discover, produce, and deploy container solutions – including Solodev CMS Enterprise for Docker. With today’s release, AWS Marketplace has extended its existing benefits and features to container products, with a rich discovery and search experience offering access to a curated catalog of trusted software from reputable vendors. From day one, AWS customers can quickly find and deploy Solodev CMS Enterprise for Docker through AWS Marketplace for Containers.
Solodev’s new container product changes the way CMS is purchased and provisioned, allowing individuals and organizations to deploy, manage and scale enterprise-grade websites and applications faster than ever. Solodev containers can be easily set up and launched through AWS Marketplace for Containers[MOU1] for as little as $1 per hour per container with no long-term contracts. Built from the ground up for AWS, Solodev is a trusted platform for creating advanced websites and digital experiences in the cloud with proven security, scalability, and redundancy. Now with containers, Solodev users can build custom applications and deploy continuously – leveraging a complete set of container-ready technologies including Apache, Mongo, PHP, Redis, SQL, and more.
“We are happy to welcome Solodev and their new CMS Enterprise for Docker to the new AWS Marketplace for Containers, which will help over 200,000 AWS customers find, buy, and deploy solutions specific to their container environment,” said Garth Fort, Director, AWS Marketplace, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
According to 451 Research, the application container market is expected to quadruple from $759 million in 2016 to more than $3.4 billion in 2021. With companies embracing this technology at an accelerated rate, the AWS Marketplace for Containers is meeting the demand of its customers and offering a trusted ecosystem for container services – where other AWS Partner Network (APN) Advanced Technology Partners like Solodev have been fully vetted.
“There’s no question; containers are the future, and CMS has been the missing piece,” said Shawn Moore, Chief Technology Officer, Solodev. “At a time when advanced web solutions can cost millions, Solodev’s pioneering use of container technology can significantly reduce costs and eliminate the friction in building websites, setting up servers and everything in between. Just like the cloud before it, containers are changing the way enterprise organizations create and build IT infrastructures, and we’re excited to be on the ground floor of container transformation with AWS,” he said.
For more information about Solodev, visit <a href="http://www.solodev.com/">www.solodev.com</a>.
Learn more about Solodev Enterprise for Docker on the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07K6TRSMP/ref=_ptnr_solodev_cmscritic-content_pressrelease">AWS Marketplace</a>.

Solodev Launches New Enterprise Container Content Management System for Docker on Amazon Web Services

Picture this: you’re online, wanting to order groceries from Amazon Fresh for convenience. You select a delivery time on the app with ease, scheduling the groceries to arrive at your door moments after you get home from work.
The experience is simple, streamlined and efficient.
But that<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40555815/what-its-like-to-be-a-blind-software-engineer-at-amazon"> exact experience</a> was frustrating for one blind Seattle user. For a period of time, the Amazon Fresh app had a bug for users with vision loss. They couldn’t select a deliver time if they were using a screen reader — technology on which nearly all visually-impaired users rely.
Amazon — prioritizing the customer experience — remedied the issue for its visually-impaired users.
Making sure anyone can access your website shouldn’t just be a priority of a Fortune 500 company. Having an accessible website is also so low-cost that no business has an excuse as to why it’s not a priority.
But what is ADA compliance? Is it really enforced for websites? And what are the steps to make sure a website is on the road to being ADA compliant?
We sat down with <a href="https://www.solodev.com/">Solodev’s</a> Director of Web Development and ADA liaison Scott Madara to get answers.
Q1: What are the rules about ADA compliance with business websites?
The general compliance for your website is directly proportional to your legal obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. These responsibilities and specific rules vary depending on the style of private businesses compared to government entities to nonprofits organizations – so it will differ depending on your organizational needs.
However, regardless of your website’s standings or target audiences, your website must be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 standards. At bare minimum, your website must be A-level compliant. It shouldn’t have any issues within that designated category. Business websites ultimately should strive to meet AA compliance. If you serve in a highly public nature (government contractor or do business with the government) you should strive to be AAA compliant. It all depends on the nature of your business.
Q2: What happens to websites if they fail to be ADA compliant?
There are the obvious legal penalties — fines, courtroom costs. Businesses like Five Guys’ and Target have already undergone the financial headache of paying for relatively simple fixes.
There’s also the negative publicity associated with not being ADA compliant. There’s a loss of brand trust due to that negative publicity as well for not being inclusive of all customers.
There’s also the penalty of lost business. By not prioritizing ADA compliance, your business is losing out on a certain percentage of a customer base. Roughly 19 million people in the US alone live with disabilities. Over 3.4 million Americans over the age of 40 qualify as either legally blind or visually impaired. And, as a population ages, those disabilities make using websites or online services more difficult if those websites don’t accommodate for those users.
Q3: How can complying with the ADA actually help businesses?
<a name="_GoBack"></a>You mean other than the knowledge of doing the right thing? There are several benefits to ADA compliance. It keeps your business out of legal trouble and the PR nightmare of being drawn into the courts system. Compliance also builds up trust among your website visitors because you’re making an intentional effort to be accessible to everyone.
Fundamentally, a website that is ADA compliant will be more accessible to a variety of technologies. Screen readers aren’t just for the disabled, and we anticipate a variety of applications based around these things as IoT grows. If your website is accessible to these types of devices, you’re one step ahead in the evolutionary growth if Internet of Things technologies.
Sites that are ADA compliant offer better UX experiences. From what we’ve seen anecdotally websites that prioritize compliance are standardized and simplified.
Q4: What are some common challenges businesses face when working toward ADA compliance?
There’s a ‘retraining’ of a company that happens to make everyone more aware of ADA and accessibility needs. Everyone involved needs to understand the importance of making a website accessible to all potential website visitors who could have a variety of disability struggles.
Challenges often pop up within your existing infrastructure (aka content management system) and automation/third party tools which many use to have a fully functional digital presence. Some of these platforms have inherent problems with compliance. At Solodev, we ensure that our websites are primed with ADA in mind. That’s how we built our <a href="https://www.solodev.com/">CMS</a>.
With plugin after plugin, your common content creator is at the mercy of the plugin author to make the ADA updates. Conversely, you’re forced to shell out more money for developers who can fix those issues for you.
There can also be challenges in understanding the fundamental roles of the legislation and rules. You have to read through them and work through them often in order to get an appreciation for each specific rule element and resolve potential issues.
Staying proactive is another issue. It’s not a one-and-done reactionary process. Small business owners often get a legal notice or see the issues and try to immediately resolve a small issue. They think ADA only applies to larger companies — especially those heavy in the digital space. They don’t see it as an ongoing evolution for their website or perpetual change to the workflow and production schedule. There must be a change in mindset company wide to making sure that ADA compliance is proactively sought rather than something done in the 11th hour.
Q5: What are the downsides to being ADA compliant?
There are moments when your might have an incredibly clever idea, cool design, or color scheme, but if it’s not ADA compliant, you can’t run it. But those moments stem from not having ADA in a place of priority in the first place.
There are also some associated costs in order to become compliant. Those costs aren’t prohibitive, but they need to be built into the underlying infrastructure costs. ADA compliance is a lot of work — and it can feel frustrating when you have a large website with pages. However, the work is worth the time.
Q6: What are the best ADA compliance tools?
We use so many resources to help entrepreneurs work toward ADA compliance. We recommend the <a href="https://fae.disability.illinois.edu/anonymous/?Anonymous%20Report=/">Functional Accessibility Evaluator</a> (FAE) that evaluates a website or a single webpage against the WCAG 2.0. <a href="https://siteimprove.com/en-us/core-platform/integrations/browser-extensions/">Siteimprove</a> has a chrome extension so you can check each page individually. The Chrome extension as a dev is a dream for this issue. <a href="https://monsido.com/features/web-accessibility">Monsido </a>is another excellent resource.
There are a lot of tools available, but one thing remains critical; you must use those tools before making a page or content live.
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Solodev is a leading enterprise website Content Management System (CMS) that empowers organizations to create amazing websites and engaging digital experiences in the cloud – all with total design freedom and control. Built from the ground up for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Solodev provides unparalleled security, scalability, and redundancy with 24/7/365 U.S. based support. Solodev has been listed as one of Inc. 5000’s fastest growing companies for the last three years and recognized as a High Performing leader on the user-driven G2 Crowd Grid. Winners of the 2017 AWS “City on a Cloud” Innovation Challenge, Solodev is an AWS Advanced Technology Partner with competencies in Education, Government, and Marketing &amp; Commerce. Solodev’s self-service CMS can be purchased on demand in the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=8e11c912-6253-41b8-b065-bf32bd27911b">AWS Marketplace</a> or through the GSA Contract. Learn more at <a href="http://www.solodev.com/">www.solodev.com</a>.

Why Your Website Has to Be Just as ADA Compliant as Your Office Building

<a href="https://www.sap.com/index.html">SAP SE</a>(NYSE: SAP) and Qualtrics International Inc. (Qualtrics) today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which SAP SE intends to acquire Qualtrics, the global pioneer of the experience management (XM) software category that enables organizations to thrive in today’s experience economy.
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<h2>Together, SAP and Qualtrics to accelerate the new XM category by combining experience data and operational data to power the experience economy</h2>
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<h2>Creates a highly differentiated offering for businesses to deliver superior customer, employee, product, and brand experiences</h2>
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<h2>Ryan Smith to continue to lead Qualtrics; Qualtrics to maintain dual headquarters in Provo, Utah, and Seattle, Wash.</h2>
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Under the terms of the agreement, SAP will acquire all outstanding shares of Qualtrics for US$8 billion in cash. SAP has secured financing in the amount of €7 billion to cover purchase price and acquisition-related costs. The purchase price includes unvested employee incentive compensation and cash on the balance sheet at close. Subject to customary closing conditions and attainment of regulatory clearances, the acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2019. The Boards of Directors of SAP and Qualtrics have approved the transaction. Qualtrics’ shareholders have also approved the transaction.
SAP CEO Bill McDermott said: “We continually seek out transformational opportunities – today’s announcement is exactly that. Together, SAP and Qualtrics represent a new paradigm, similar to market-making shifts in personal operating systems, smart devices and social networks. SAP already touches 77 percent of the world’s transactions. When you combine our operational data with Qualtrics’ experience data, we will accelerate the XM category with an end-to-end solution with immediate global scale. For Qualtrics, this introduces a dynamic new partner with the belief, passion and scale to bring experience management to millions of customers around the world.”
McDermott added: “The combination of Qualtrics and SAP reaffirms experience management as the groundbreaking new frontier for the technology industry. SAP and Qualtrics are seizing this opportunity as like-minded innovators, united in mission, strategy and culture. We share the belief that every human voice holds value, every experience matters and that the best-run businesses can make the world run better. We can’t wait to stand beside Ryan and his amazing colleagues for the next chapters in the experience management story. The best for Qualtrics and SAP is yet to come!”
Ryan Smith, CEO of Qualtrics, said: “Our mission is to help organizations deliver the experiences that turn their customers into fanatics, employees into ambassadors, products into obsessions and brands into religions. Supported by a global team of over 95,000, SAP will help us scale faster and achieve our mission on a broader stage. This will put the XM Platform everywhere overnight. We could not be more excited to join forces with Bill and the SAP team in this once-in-a-generation opportunity to power the experience economy.”
<h2>SAP and Qualtrics Will Together Deliver the Transformative Potential of Experience Data (X-Data) Combined with Operational Data (O-Data)</h2>
XM focuses on obtaining and tapping the value of outside-in customer, employee, product and brand feedback. Combining Qualtrics’ experience data and insights with SAP’s unparalleled operational data will enable customers to better manage supply chains, networks, employees and core processes. Together, SAP and Qualtrics will deliver a unique end-to-end experience and operational management system to power organizations.
<h2>SAP Will Accelerate Qualtrics’ Growth and Further Its Mission by Offering Global Scale, Reach and Resources</h2>
Leveraging SAP’s more than 413,000 customers and global salesforce of around 15,000, Qualtrics will be able to scale rapidly around the world. SAP has a strong track record of accelerating growth for the innovative companies it acquires, as exemplified by the rapid success of SAP’s recent acquisitions.
Qualtrics expects full-year 2018 revenue to exceed US$400 million and projects a forward growth rate of greater than 40 percent, not including potential synergies of being part of SAP.
Following the closing of the transaction, Qualtrics is expected to maintain its leadership, personnel, branding and culture, operating as an entity within SAP’s Cloud Business Group. Ryan Smith will continue to lead Qualtrics, and Qualtrics is expected to continue to maintain dual headquarters in Provo, Utah, and Seattle, Washington.

SAP drops $8 billion to buy Qualtrics

The winners for the 2018 CMS Critic Awards have been announced and are posted on the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/awards/">awards page</a>.
Congratulations to those who won. We'll be doing some heavy revamping of the awards next year. If you have input on how we can improve, suggestions for categories, etc, please drop us a line <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contact/">here</a>.
Thanks to all who participated in this years' awards. We had thousands of nominations and votes and it was a great success!

2018 Winners Announced

The latest beta for the upcoming WordPress 5.0 release is now available for testing. Note that this is a DEVELOPMENT release and not something to install on a production site unless you want to invoke the power of chaos.
“There are two ways to test the WordPress 5.0 Beta: try the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”), or you can <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-5.0-beta3.zip">download the beta here</a> (zip).”
The actual production release of WordPress 5.0 is expected around November 19th, pending of course any major issues.
Here are some of the changes in beta 3:
<ul>
<li>The block editor has been updated to include all of the features and bug fixes from the upcoming <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/10/31/whats-new-in-gutenberg-31st-october-2/">Gutenberg 4.2 release</a>.</li>
<li>The Twenty Nineteen theme has been updated from GitHub</li>
</ul>
For more info on the upcoming WordPress 5.0 release which brings the dreaded Gutenberg editor into the mix, check out https://wordpress.org/news/

WordPress 5.0 Beta 3 Available

Recently, the founder of the popular Solus distribution of Linux, decided to take some time away from the project for personal reasons. Sadly, it appears as though he has also stopped replying to the members of the development team he helped form and has basically disappeared.
As a result, the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/solus">Patreon account</a> which numerous people have contributed to and that was, at one point, over $2000 monthly in contributions, has been unusable and inaccessible to the development team. The issue in question here is where has the money been going then?
The team recently <a href="https://getsol.us/2018/10/27/in-full-sail/">posted a call</a> to have those who are donating on Patreon revoke their donations in order to prevent the funds from being locked into an account they have no access to.
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Which brings me to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/solus" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Patreon</a>, arguably the most difficult for me to talk about. After multiple support tickets, they have repeatedly refused to provide access to the Solus account. At this moment, we have no way of accessing the funds many of you have graciously donated, nor are we fully aware of what funds are available via Patreon. I absolutely understand if you are frustrated with having financially contributed to the Patreon, with no way for us to utilize these funds for hardware purchases and paying for services, it’s frustrating for us too. Unfortunately, with Patreon’s refusal to assist us, our only option is to kindly request that you immediately cease your donations to it. My personal advice would be to additionally contact Patreon for refunds and express your frustration to them for their unwillingness to assist us. We can only hope that they decide to grant us access to the funds or account.
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Following this, we have several questions:
What happened to Ikey? Why have funds been locked into an inaccessible account and where has the money been going if not to the project that it's intended for?
We strongly recommend reaching out and revoking your contributions for now until these answers become clear. You can learn more about the team's struggle here: <a href="https://getsol.us/2018/10/27/in-full-sail/">https://getsol.us/2018/10/27/in-full-sail/</a>

Solus Founder Disappears - Team Loses Access to Patreon Funds

IBM announced today that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion.
“The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “IBM will become the world’s #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.
“Most companies today are only 20 percent along their cloud journey, renting compute power to cut costs,” she said. “The next 80 percent is about unlocking real business value and driving growth. This is the next chapter of the cloud. It requires shifting business applications to hybrid cloud, extracting more data and optimizing every part of the business, from supply chains to sales.”
“Open source is the default choice for modern IT solutions, and I’m incredibly proud of the role Red Hat has played in making that a reality in the enterprise,” said Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO, Red Hat. “Joining forces with IBM will provide us with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of open source as the basis for digital transformation and bring Red Hat to an even wider audience – all while preserving our unique culture and unwavering commitment to open source innovation.”
This acquisition brings together the best-in-class hybrid cloud providers and will enable companies to securely move all business applications to the cloud. Companies today are already using multiple clouds. However, research shows that 80 percent of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud, held back by the proprietary nature of today’s cloud market. This prevents portability of data and applications across multiple clouds, data security in a multi-cloud environment and consistent cloud management.
IBM and Red Hat will be strongly positioned to address this issue and accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption. Together, they will help clients create cloud-native business applications faster, drive greater portability and security of data and applications across multiple public and private clouds, all with consistent cloud management. In doing so, they will draw on their shared leadership in key technologies, such as Linux, containers, Kubernetes, multi-cloud management, and cloud management and automation.
IBM’s and Red Hat’s partnership has spanned 20 years, with IBM serving as an early supporter of Linux, collaborating with Red Hat to help develop and grow enterprise-grade Linux and more recently to bring enterprise Kubernetes and hybrid cloud solutions to customers. These innovations have become core technologies within IBM’s $19 billion hybrid cloud business. Between them, IBM and Red Hat have contributed more to the open source community than any other organization.
“Today’s announcement is the evolution of our long-standing partnership,” said Rometty. “This includes our joint Hybrid Cloud collaboration announcement in May, a key precursor in our journey to this day.”
With this acquisition, IBM will remain committed to Red Hat’s open governance, open source contributions, participation in the open source community and development model, and fostering its widespread developer ecosystem. In addition, IBM and Red Hat will remain committed to the continued freedom of open source, via such efforts as Patent Promise, GPL Cooperation Commitment, the Open Invention Network and the LOT Network.
IBM and Red Hat also will continue to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud. At the same time, Red Hat will benefit from IBM’s hybrid cloud and enterprise IT scale in helping expand their open source technology portfolio to businesses globally.
“IBM is committed to being an authentic multi-cloud provider, and we will prioritize the use of Red Hat technology across multiple clouds” said Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President, IBM Hybrid Cloud. “In doing so, IBM will support open source technology wherever it runs, allowing it to scale significantly within commercial settings around the world.”
Upon closing of the acquisition, Red Hat will join IBM’s Hybrid Cloud team as a distinct unit, preserving the independence and neutrality of Red Hat’s open source development heritage and commitment, current product portfolio and go-to-market strategy, and unique development culture. Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and Red Hat’s current management team. Jim Whitehurst also will join IBM’s senior management team and report to Ginni Rometty. IBM intends to maintain Red Hat’s headquarters, facilities, brands and practices.
“IBM’s commitment to keeping the things that have made Red Hat successful – always thinking about the customer and the open source community first – make this a tremendous opportunity for not only Red Hat but also open source more broadly,” said Paul Cormier, President, Products and Technologies, Red Hat. “Since the day we decided to bring open source to the enterprise, our mission has remained unchanged. And now, one of the biggest enterprise technology companies on the planet has agreed to partner with us to scale and accelerate our efforts, bringing open source innovation to an even greater swath of the enterprise.”
Financial Details
The acquisition of Red Hat reinforces IBM’s high-value model. It will accelerate IBM’s revenue growth, gross margin and free cash flow within 12 months of closing. It also will support a solid and growing dividend.
The company will continue with a disciplined financial policy and is committed to maintaining strong investment grade credit ratings. The company will target a leverage profile consistent with a mid to high single A credit rating. The company intends to suspend its share repurchase program in 2020 and 2021.
At signing, the company has ample cash, credit and bridge lines to secure the transaction financing. The company intends to close the transaction through a combination of cash and debt.
The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both IBM and Red Hat. It is subject to Red Hat shareholder approval. It also is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in the latter half of 2019.

IBM Acquiring Red Hat

Shopify - The global commerce platform

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

The global commerce platform

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<div>Enterprise leaders need cutting edge digital products and experiences faster than ever. Contentful is supplementing its best-in-class technology offerings with a new program of complimentary agency and implementation partners. These partners can help customers navigate their digital transformation journey and deliver projects faster than ever.</div>
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<div>The new Solutions Partner Program focuses on agencies and consultancies that can enhance how modern organizations transform and deliver digital experiences. Contentful's content infrastructure is a core component of modular-based architectures, which not only help customers push products and experiences out faster, but also give them a leg up in an omni-channel world.</div>
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<div>The purpose of Contentful's partner program is to empower a network of agencies and consultancies to deliver tailored services to our growing customer ecosystem, recognize partners that are doing the best work with Contentful, champion them to our customers, and grow the content infrastructure market.</div>
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<div>The ultimate goal: Give all Contentful customers access to trusted experts to help them build and deliver projects on Contentful.</div>
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<div>Responding to demand</div>
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<div>We’re making this shift because it’s what the market demands. In recent years, our customer base has steadily expanded from smaller, innovative projects to large-scale, digital transformation initiatives in some of the largest enterprises in the world.</div>
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<div>Contentful is recognized as a core piece of infrastructure that supports every customer or employee product and experience. This evolution has been driven by the massive market shift in the way digital products and websites are created — away from legacy CMS solutions and toward infrastructure stacks.</div>
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<div>With our new partner program, enterprises will get all of the help they need to fulfill their digital objectives. Today, ten of the 11 leading agencies in Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Global Digital Marketing Agencies are Contentful partners or customers, including <a href="https://www.rga.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">R/GA</a>, <a href="http://www.akqa.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AKQA</a> and <a href="https://www.sapientrazorfish.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SapientRazorfish</a>.</div>
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<div>We solve our customers’ biggest concerns by combining partners who are industry experts with Contentful’s solutions. For example:</div>
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<div>Technology solution consulting: “How should I think about incorporating Contentful into the rest of my technology stack across my organization?”</div>
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<div>Content model consulting: “How should I set up and maintain my content model to take advantage of Contentful's ability to make content reusable?”</div>
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<div>Implementation: “How do I migrate from my old solution to Contentful in the least painful way, while avoiding the pitfalls of complex migrations and still focusing on our end customers?”</div>
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<div>Change management: “How do I enable my organization to adopt and utilize Contentful easily?”</div>
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<div>Ongoing or adhoc content and front-end services: “I just need more developers to get through this cycle, and they need to know Contentful: Do you have any partners that can help me staff up?”</div>
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</ul>
<div>Speeding up digital transformation</div>
<div></div>
<div>Enterprises are adopting Contentful for one of two primary reasons. Customers just getting started with Contentful want to build amazing digital products. Others have already built projects and are looking for organizational transformation where every experience is powered by Contentful.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Legacy CMS solutions are no longer optimal. Their one-size-fits-all approach leaves enterprises struggling with bloated solutions that, while they do everything, don’t do most things very well. Instead, enterprises that need to ship products fast and meet customers where they are want an all-star stack of technology providers and partners that deliver exactly what they need.</div>
<div></div>
<div>With our top-flight partners, enterprises can access trusted advisors to help them realize their digital potential with less risk and at greater speed.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Enterprises won’t have to acquire new and hard-to-find talent, because the best talent is within our partner ecosystem. Whether enterprises are looking for a partner to help with a single project, a complete transformation or even a partner by region, we’ll have one to recommend.</div>
<div></div>
<div>By relying on Contentful and partners, enterprises can concentrate on what they do best, and leave content management to the experts.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Partners also benefit</div>
<div>Our partners, meanwhile, get streamlined partner sandbox accounts with the ability to start developing immediately. This is a huge step beyond legacy CMSes, where there is no such thing as rapid prototyping.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Partners will also be eligible to co-market with Contentful, get assistance with business planning and internal navigation, and potential access to client introductions.</div>
<div>To help customers get the most out of Contentful as quickly as possible, we typically advise customers to get started with Contentful in one of three ways: via a customer driven implementation, a customer and partner-driven implementation, or a partner-driven implementation. In any of these scenarios, Contentful’s customer success organization will be part of the team. We’re already hard at work on a certification program, and partners will be divided into five classes:</div>
<ul>
<li>
<div>Power: The highest level of Contentful's partner program, Power Partners have the most experience building and launching large digital projects with Contentful. They can be trusted with any Contentful project, no matter how large and complex.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>Premier: Premier partners have done three or more full-feature implementations with Contentful and are on their way to becoming a Power Partner.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>Professional: Have executed at least one full-feature implementation of Contentful.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>Strategic Industry: Leaders in a specialized field, such as content modeling or custom web apps.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>Community: Partners that are just getting started with Contentful and may specialize in smaller Contentful-related projects.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div>Driving change</div>
<div>Contentful is modernizing the web by powering the transition from legacy CMS to content infrastructure. With our new partner program, this transition will occur faster than ever.</div>
<div>Our global network of partners is dedicated to making customers successful, accelerating speed to value and empowering customer teams through content services. We look forward to helping our customers find the right solutions and partners that enable them to unlock their organization’s full value—today and in the future.</div>

Contentful responds to market shift with new partner program

JotForm announced today a way for users to automatically generate designed, professional-looking PDFs whenever someone submits a response to an online form.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qLIXeKxWhag?start=3&amp;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The product, <a href="https://www.jotform.com/products/pdf-editor/">JotForm PDF Editor</a>, addresses a major pain point. Many JotForm users wanted the information they collected turned into a presentable, document format. But doing so typically required them to copy and paste the information into a new document manually.
JotForm PDF Editor, on the other hand, automates the process. It allows users to start by designing how they’d like the final PDF to look, with the ability to add sections, customize colors, drop in images and logos, and choose fonts.
Then, when the submissions roll in through their online form, the PDFs generated in JotForm PDF Editor are quickly sortable, with options to download, print, or share the new documents  instantly.
“Our users told us about wanting a better way to present and distribute their form data,” said Aytekin Tank, JotForm founder and CEO. “Our new PDF Editor makes the entire process significantly easier. The best part — anyone can use it, even without any technical skills.”
Another big benefit to using PDF Editor is the seamless integration into Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox. Newly-created PDFs send automatically to any of these storage services so teams can quickly view and sort through the files.
PDF Editor also simplifies e-signature collection. Any signature sent through an online JotForm form can be designed neatly on a new document automatically. And because JotForm forms are simple to fill out using any device, that means agreements, waivers, and contracts can be signed on the go.
Other features include:
<ul>
<li>Option to create fillable PDFs</li>
<li>PDF password protection</li>
<li>Over a hundred pre-made PDF templates</li>
</ul>
JotForm and its new PDF Editor are free to use. JotForm has provided a quick way for users to create and publish online forms since 2006, but PDF Editor takes a leap toward making the data collected by users more actionable and presentable.
The new product is expected to be used by a wide range of users, including medical professionals for intake, HR departments for employee evaluations, teachers for acquiring parental permission, and much more.
Learn more about JotForm PDF Editor at <a href="http://www.jotform.com/products/pdf-editor">www.jotform.com/products/pdf-editor</a>.

New JotForm PDF Editor Automates PDF Creation

From product managers and marketers to UX designers and researchers to CX professionals and executives, everyone has a business need to connect with their customers and end-users. The ability to do this face-to-face, whether it is virtually — through a webcam or smartphone — or in person, there is an added benefit to seeing the user and being able to read non-verbals and observe facial expressions for sentiment. The lack of gating features in face-to-face interviews provides critical insights that enable one to better decipher reaction, emotion and empathy from the customer. 
Enter UserTesting’s <a href="https://www.usertesting.com/platform/live-conversation">Live Conversation</a>, today’s solution for companies looking to connect in real-time with their customers to gather qualitative feedback and insights on projects, designs, campaigns and more. With Live Conversation, users simply choose the demographics of the participants they are seeking insights from, enter their calendar availability, and UserTesting does the rest to connect them with their target audience. 
What’s new?
UserTesting recently released enhancements to Live Conversation to give its users greater flexibility in coordinating and conducting moderated, live interviews — with 24/7 scheduling and same-day interviews to offer faster time to insights in the moment they need it, and support for multiple time zones to make it more accessible for international companies. 
As schedules frequently change, new enhancements to Live Conversation also make it easy to add, adjust and edit availability, even after a study is created. Expanded capabilities also include deleting times previously marked as available and adding more availability if sessions do not fill. 
Companies such as Alaska Airlines, Autotrader, Constant Contact, and CoverMyMeds all use Live Conversation to make smarter business decisions based on deeper customer empathy and real-time human insights — resulting in time, cost and resources savings over traditional moderated mechanisms. 
Bradley Miller, Senior User Experience Researcher at Autotrader, said he “turned to Live Conversation to connect with recent car buyers to better understand the customer journey, and to ultimately drive empathy and customer-centric design.” With Live Conversation, Autotrader saw cost savings and an 80 percent decrease in time investment. What would normally take weeks now just takes him a few days to schedule and conduct live customer interviews.
Frank Rosile, User Experience Designer at CoverMyMeds, said that “talking to patients [via Live Conversation] builds empathy for them, and helps CoverMyMeds understand the ‘why’ behind what to build.” Using Live Conversation, CoverMyMeds has seen significant time and cost savings as they gained important information about patients to inform future product development.
When to use it? Live (or moderated) vs. unmoderated customer research
One question that we often hear from customers is which is better: live (moderated) or unmoderated customer research? The answer, as you might’ve guessed, is that it depends. Like any research strategy, there are differing benefits for each approach making them more or less suitable depending on what you’re studying and your ultimate business goals.
With live moderated studies, a real person will be there to help facilitate the test. The moderator will work directly with the participants, guiding them through the study and will be there to help facilitate and answer questions if the participant encounters any challenges while completing their tasks.
Unmoderated studies are just as they sound. It’s not monitored or guided, so there’s no one else present during the study except the participant. The participant completes any tasks and answers questions at their own pace, on their own time, at a time and location of their choosing. 
Now that we’ve established the basic differences between the two, let’s dive in to how and when to best apply each strategy based on your research needs.
Live customer research: pros and cons
It helps to think of moderated testing as an interview or a real-time conversation that you’re having with a customer. Everything that you’d do to prepare for that type of interaction is what you’ll need to consider for a moderated study.
Pros
Live moderated testing works best when you need a high level of interaction between you and your customer. For example, if you want to study a prototype with limited functionality, or a complicated process or concept, moderated testing provides you with the interaction you’d need to guide a customer through the study. They’re also an excellent way to conduct interviews, understand the customer journey, and discover pain points.
Live moderated testing is also a great way to observe body language and pick up on subtle behaviors and responses and probe participants for more information if they seem stuck or confused.
They allow you to develop a rapport and have a natural conversation with your customers which helps establish trust, and can lead to candid feedback that might not be possible with other qualitative research methods.
Cons
Because of the additional time and resources, live moderated testing does cost more than unmoderated testing; however, you can reduce some of that cost by conducting remote moderated studies, rather than in-person with Live Conversation. This will give you the opportunity to connect with participants all around the world and reduce the need to block out a dedicated time and space for onsite interviews. Who doesn’t love getting some hours back in their day? 
Unmoderated customer research: Pros and cons
This type of testing is best for validating concepts and designs quickly with a diverse group of customers. Unmoderated testing works great if you have specific questions that you need answered, you need a large sample size, you need feedback quickly, or if you want to observe a customer interacting in their natural environment. 
Pros
The beauty of remote unmoderated testing is that it can be done anytime, anywhere, and you typically have actionable feedback within a day if not sooner. Because a moderator isn’t needed, the cost is typically much lower than moderated tests, which can enable you to run more tests with a wider variety of customers.
Cons
Since unmoderated tests are completely unsupervised, it requires a fixed set of questions and tasks for customers to complete, and doesn’t allow for follow-up questions or clarification. If customers run into issues, have technical difficulties, or don’t understand the tasks or questions, you won’t have the ability to step in and guide them.
At the end of the day, the choice is up to you, but now you can choose the best qualitative test for your customer research needs.
Paige Musto is VP, Corporate Marketing at <a href="http://www.usertesting.com/">UserTesting</a>, a human insights platform company that helps businesses create better customer experiences.

Meet Live Conversation — The Solution for Virtual, On-Demand 1:1 Live Customer Interviews

Cendyn, the leading provider of hotel CRM and hotel sales platforms in the hospitality industry, announced a new partnership with Hedgehog, a digital consultancy, to integrate Cendyn's eInsight customer relationship management (CRM) solution with the Sitecore® Experience Platform™ (CXP) to deliver powerful personalized digital experiences.
The agreement will enable Hedgehog to tap Cendyn's guest intelligence engine to fuel live personalization and dynamic pricing based on marketing segmentation and guest profiles in eInsight across Sitecore's digital platforms.
The CRM + CXP integration between Cendyn and Sitecore, facilitated by Hedgehog, will allow hotels to ensure their guests receive targeted messaging based on their personal preferences and behaviors stored in Cendyn's central data warehouse across all digital channels. Tackling this at scale, and delivering such personalized messaging in real-time, is huge for the hospitality industry.
The arrangement also includes a re-seller agreement with Hedgehog that promotes the sale of Cendyn eInsight as the preferred CRM of choice for hoteliers to Hedgehog customers.
“Our partnership with Hedgehog for Sitecore CXP integration is a big step forward in helping hotels deliver personalization at scale based on business impact,” says Charles Deyo, President &amp; CEO at Cendyn. “By adding this integration to our portfolio, we are continuing to expand our reach as the most connected CRM provider in the industry. This provides a cohesive, clear path to personalization.” 
“The partnership between Hedgehog and Cendyn really spotlights our focus on personalization in the travel and hospitality industry,” says Dan Galvez, Founder and CEO at Hedgehog. “By working with Cendyn on this connector, we are helping hotel properties present their guests with individualized experiences tailored to their unique needs.”   
About Hedgehog Hedgehog is a full-service digital consultancy transforming the way brands interact with their customers by designing and engineering high performance, multi-channel digital marketing solutions positioning clients for growth and success. A multidisciplinary web solutions firm partnering with Microsoft, Sitecore, Magento, Acquia, Drupal, and WordPress; Hedgehog offers strategy, design, consulting, technology, and managed services. Hedgehog is headquartered in Holbrook, NY with additional offices in Portland, OR, Charlotte, NC, Sofia, Bulgaria and Netherlands, Amsterdam. The company is consistently recognized for being one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States.
For more information, visit <a href="http://www.hhog.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">www.HHOG.com</a>.
About Cendyn <a href="http://www.cendyn.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Cendyn</a> is a cloud-based software and services provider that develops integrated technology platforms for driving marketing, sales and event performance in the travel and hospitality industry. The Cendyn Hospitality Cloud offers the most complete set of innovative software and services in the industry, covering hotel marketing, guest engagement, group sales and event management. With offices in Boca Raton, Atlanta, Boston, San Diego, Toronto, Whistler, London and Singapore, Cendyn proudly serves more than 30,000 hotel clients in 143 countries with enterprise spend levels in excess of $1 billion.

Cendyn integrates with Sitecore via Hedgehog to elevate real-time marketing personalization

BloomReach, Inc., the Digital Experience Platform company, has now begun arming enterprises with a superior weapon in their battle against the Amazons of the e-commerce world. Today at the DMEXCO trade show in Cologne, BloomReach launched their DXP for Commerce that gives retailers, brands, distributors and manufacturers the ability to quickly offer a highly relevant and personalized digital experience. They can enhance their commerce environment with AI-powered search, intelligent merchandising, and highly agile content management. The DXP for Commerce keeps customers engaged, increases revenue per visit, and drives customer loyalty. It also integrates with leading commerce platforms to form a complete e-commerce solution.
“These are scary times for both B2B and B2C enterprises,” said Raj De Datta, co founder and CEO of BloomReach. “Amazon, Alibaba and other disruptors pose an existential threat to their business. Historically, executives have looked to a commerce-led architecture to compete. These architectures, however, don’t provide the velocity needed to beat the Amazons of the world. The answer is a move from monolithic e-commerce platforms to microservices-based architectures that empower not just the web, but all digital touchpoints. This provides a twofold benefit: more control over the customer experience, now highly personalized, and the ability to innovate quickly. Our new DXP for Commerce is designed to offer all this and more as well as on top of existing platforms and integrating with legacy systems.”
“Traditional commerce platforms don’t handle content management well, nor do they meet 2018 expectations for site search and digital merchandising,” said Patrick Finn, Head of Global Channels at BloomReach. “Surmounting these challenges requires an experience-led platform with the trifecta of a super CMS, AI-driven search, and an open architecture to build quickly and get to business outcomes. At BloomReach, we’re delivering that with DXP for Commerce and bringing it to market with a world-class set of partners.”
“We are seeing major demand for a new approach to commerce-enabled digital experiences globally across industries,” said Dirk Hoerig, founder and CEO of commercetools, a leading cloud-based commerce platform provider. “Brands want to experiment with new channels and business models, but all-in-one content and commerce platforms stifle agility and innovation. Our headless, API-based approach makes it easy for brands to create powerful digital experiences that can also deliver optimum shopping experiences with platforms like BloomReach’s DXP for Commerce.”
Besides commercetools, who are exhibiting alongside BloomReach at the DMEXCO trade show in Cologne, the DXP for Commerce integrates with commerce platforms from Elastic Path, SAP Commerce Cloud, Skava, Symphony and others.
BloomReach has lined up a global ecosystem of first class digital agency and system integration partners to help businesses implement the integrated offering. These include Accenture Interactive, Authentic, Avionos, Dept, diva-e, Gorilla, Incentro, Object Edge, Osudio, SapientRazorfish, Shift7 Digital, Valtech, XumaK, and Zaelab.
“Delivering engaging digital experiences is essential”, said Brian Grady, CEO of Gorilla. “The Bloomreach DXP for Commerce enables us to create differentiated solutions for our clients that can be fully integrated with the leading digital commerce platforms.”
Victor Terpstra, CCO at Osudio: ”BloomReach DXP for Commerce adds true value to existing commerce solutions: by applying AI in on-site search and online merchandising tools, online retailers can create a significant revenue uplift whereas brands can add stories to their products by combining BloomReach CMS capabilities with existing commerce implementations.”
<h2>About BloomReach</h2>
BloomReach software enables highly personalized digital experiences for retailers, banks, distributors, manufacturers, public service agencies and other enterprises.  BloomReach has combined a super CMS, AI-powered digital merchandising, site search and SEO into the world's first open and intelligent Digital Experience Platform. The BloomReach DXP stimulates customer engagement and loyalty, even as it boosts conversion and increases revenue.
With a global network of certified partners, BloomReach serves hundreds of enterprise customers such as Neiman Marcus, Staples, REI, Mailchimp, FC Bayern München, and the UK’s NHS. Founded in 2009 and backed by NEA, Battery Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, BloomReach is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices worldwide.
Learn more: <a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.bloomreach.com</a>

BloomReach launches DXP for Commerce so enterprises can beat Amazon

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