Friday, December 9, 2011

Jamba Juice on growth, JambaGo

from http://nrn.com:

>>Jamba Inc. chief executive James White said he is ready to grow the Jamba Juice smoothie chain into a global brand — starting with local elementary and secondary schools.

By next week, the 752-unit chain will have opened about 30 pilot locations of a new platform called JambaGo, designed as a licensed outlet that could go into self-service venues. White spoke with Nation’s Restaurant News on Wednesday at an investor conference in Santa Monica, Calif.


Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Ethernet Executive Council Q&A: Equinix

from www.lightreading.com:

>>Take, for example, our Ashburn campus. There are any number of SaaS providers there. Many use Amazon. Previously, you uploaded content to the Internet and had to pay an ISP even though you were physically in the same location as Amazon. A large number of Amazon customers were perfectly comfortable with the idea of having certain assets in the cloud, but they did not want to use the Internet for uploads and downloads. They were looking for a direct connection that bypasses the Internet.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Lithium Technologies Earns ISO Certification for Pure Software-as-a-Service Social Business Solution

P/R:

EMERYVILLE, Calif. & LONDON, Dec 05, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Lithium Technologies, the leader in Social Customer Solutions, today announced that it has earned International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification for information security, further affirming its rigorous adherence to security best practices in all phases of product development and customer deployment of its social business software for customers worldwide.

With its pure software-as-a-service delivery model, Lithium provides customers worldwide with new features and enhancements monthly without lengthy upgrade cycles or service disruption. ISO certification gives Lithium customers even more assurance that they are partnering with the leading social business software provider.

"It's clear that not all SaaS providers are created equal and some fail to live up to the stringent requirements for privacy, security and performance that today's global brands require," said Lithium Chief Information Officer Misha Logvinov.

"It is imperative for brands to engage their social customers whenever and wherever they are, and we empower them to do just that -- confidently and securely -- with the agility and flexibility that only a SaaS solution can provide. Clearly, not all social business providers can say this," Logvinov said.

European Datacenter Gives Customers Competitive Edge

Lithium also announced that its state-of-the-art European datacenter is delivering significant performance enhancements, achieving a more than 50% improvement in service delivery to customers in Europe.

Strategically located in Amsterdam for proximity to European customers, Lithium's European datacenter features fully redundant power systems, multiple levels of physical security and network connectivity to the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) and numerous other providers.

The datacenter, which is managed by Equinix, has been in operation since late 2010 and currently runs the Lithium Social Customer Suite for more than 25 regional enterprises -- including some of the largest global brands such as Symantec.

"We have seen our customer engagement metrics skyrocket since deploying Lithium's social community platform out of the Amsterdam datacenter," said Tony Weiss, Symantec Corp.'s Norton Forums Global Community Manager. "Our security and privacy protocols have been easily met and, more importantly, our customer support costs have come down."

Chris Sharp, General Manager, Content and Digital Media, for Equinix said: "Within the Equinix ecosystem of over 4,000 different digitally-driven businesses, Lithium is able to leverage the interconnection capabilities within to connect its customers to more than 475 content and digital media providers, including the top five social networks. This gives Lithium -- and their customers - a huge advantage over the competition."

Rigorous Data Security

Lithium's certification on the ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 27001:2005 for information security management is further evidence of its rigorous adherence to best practices for ensuring customer data security and privacy. Lithium institutes multiple layers of security at the application, network, host and physical levels. Its datacenters -- including the new Amsterdam facility -- are equipped with CCTV systems and digital recorders, manned by security guards on a 24x7 basis and require multiple forms of authentication including biometrics to access the facilities.

In addition to the new ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certification, Lithium is also SAS 70 (SSAE 16) certified. The datacenters are independently SAS 70 (SSAE 16) certified, ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certified and PCI DSS section 9 certified. Lithium is also US-EU Safe Harbor and US-Swiss Safe Harbor self-certified and has been awarded TRUSTe's Privacy Seal.

About Lithium Technologies

We help great companies build brand nations for their most engaged customers. With Lithium, clients such as Best Buy, AT&T, Research In Motion Limited (RIM), Univision, and PayPal turn their customers' passion into marketing, product development, sales, and customer service assets. For more information, visit http://www.lithium.com , or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and our own nation -- the Lithosphere. Lithium is privately held with headquarters in Emeryville, California.