July, 2010

Recent Speaking Engagements: Deloitte Canada – Technology Media and Communications

Associated with Fast 50

April 2010

Toronto

Rob Chaplinsky

Digital Chocolate is an exciting investment for Bridgescale because it allows us to work with Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins on his exciting new strategy for the next generation of mobile and web-based gaming.

Many companies have tried to create marketing momentum by licensing other brands at enormous expense. Not Digital Chocolate. Like other great  media companies, Digital Chocolate will own a catalog of original gaming titles that can be leveraged across multiple platforms and media venues.

With more than 2 billion mobile phones shipped annually – compared to 306 million in 2009, according to market research firm Gartner Group – Digital Chocolate understand that the mobile phone represents the largest gaming platform ever.  Phones are also becoming much more powerful:  the average smartphone exceeds the computing power of the average desktop computer of five years ago.

Smartphone market growth will only accelerate the gaming trend globally, particularly within places like China and India where the phone will be the only computing device people use to connect with friends and family.

For years, the best games were defined by highest-quality graphics and an immersive experience. Digital Chocolate knows that today’s ideal game should employ modest graphics – but more importantly enable real-time social interactions with others on the Web and on mobile phones.

Profitably porting a title to more than 1,000 SKUs in a market of diverse devices and carrier networks is a tall order for any game creator. Digital Chocolate is up to the challenge, addressing it in two ways: by creating a platform that at the creation stage supports a multitude of devices and by leveraging low-cost labor in Finland and India.

We look forward to working with Digital Chocolate to roll out the next-generation of social gaming platforms.

Proofpoint, Inc. (http://www.proofpoint.com), a leading provider of SaaS email security, email archiving and data loss prevention solutions, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leaders quadrant of the 2010 “Magic Quadrant for Secure E-mail Gateways.”(1)

“We believe Proofpoint’s positioning in the leaders quadrant by Gartner is a great confirmation of our continued success in helping global enterprises take control of email risks,” said Gary Steele, CEO of Proofpoint. “Our continued innovation and unique focus on email security, encryption, data loss prevention and email archiving—combined with the ability to deliver those solutions in all of the popular form factors including SaaS, appliance or hybrid deployments—makes Proofpoint the ideal choice for organizations that want to reduce costs while making email more secure, compliant and easier to manage.”

To view a complimentary copy of Gartner’s complete “Magic Quadrant for Secure E-mail Gateways” 2010 report, please visit:

http://www.proofpoint.com/email-security-magic-quadrant

Writing in the “Magic Quadrant for Secure E-mail Gateways,” (previously known as the “Magic Quadrant for Email Security Boundaries”) Gartner analysts Peter Firstbrook and Eric Ouellet note that the email security market is “defined by solutions that provide enterprise message transfer agent (MTA) capabilities, offer protection against inbound and outbound e-mail threats (such as spam, phishing attacks and malware), and satisfy outbound corporate and regulatory policy requirements. SEG solutions can be offered in the form of appliances or software that goes on customer premises, hosted solutions that reside in solution providers’ data centers, or multitenancy SecaaS that exists in multiple data centers around the globe.”

Gartner also says that, “The e-mail security market is very mature. Targeted phishing detection, outbound e-mail inspection, encryption and delivery form factor are the major differentiators.”

Of vendors positioned as Leaders, Gartner says, “Leaders are performing well, have a clear vision of market direction and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership positions in the market. Companies in this quadrant offer a comprehensive and proficient range of e-mail security functionality, and show evidence of superior vision and execution for current and anticipated customer requirements. Leaders typically have a relatively high market share and/or strong revenue growth, own a good portion of their threat or content-filtering capabilities, and demonstrate positive customer feedback for anti-spam efficacy, and related service and support.”

Proofpoint SaaS and On-premises Email Security Solutions

Proofpoint ENTERPRISE™, Proofpoint’s flagship email security solution, simplifies today’s complex email environments by combining inbound anti-spam and anti-virus, outbound data loss prevention, email encryption and policy enforcement features into one affordable, easy-to-use and easy-to-manage platform for taking control of email. Proofpoint ENTERPRISE is available for SaaS or on-premises (appliance, virtual appliance of software) deployment with two solution suites that support the most common inbound threat protection and outbound data loss prevention requirements:

• Proofpoint ENTERPRISE Protection Suite: Proofpoint ENTERPRISE Protection delivers all of Proofpoint’s best-in-class inbound email security and email management components. Features include: advanced connection management; Proofpoint MLX™-powered spam detection; signature-based and zero-hour virus protection; email firewall, deep content inspection and outbound filtering capabilities to enforce acceptable use policies for message content and attachments; advanced message tracing; and TLS encryption.
• Proofpoint ENTERPRISE Privacy Suite: For enterprises with advanced regulatory compliance and data privacy requirements, Proofpoint ENTERPRISE Privacy provides “defense in depth” for private information of all types. It protects private information in email, defends against leaks of confidential information and ensures compliance with common data protection regulations including HIPAA, GLBA and PCI standards. For maximum data loss prevention flexibility and control, Proofpoint ENTERPRISE Privacy now includes the powerful encryption features of Proofpoint Encryption, which helps mitigate the risks associated with regulatory violations, data loss and corporate policy violations by automatically applying encryption based on your organization’s unique policies.

Proofpoint also offers email compliance and management solutions including a SaaS email archiving solution, Proofpoint ARCHIVE™—which makes it easy for organizations to securely archive email and solve the storage management, legal discovery and regulatory compliance challenges associated with email retention—and Proofpoint Secure File Transfer™ which lets email users send large files quickly, easily and securely, while minimizing the impact of large file attachments on email servers and other parts of the email infrastructure.

(1) Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Secure E-Mail Gateways,” by Peter Firstbrook and Eric Ouellet, 27 April 2010

IronKey, the leader in secure and managed portable computing solutions, today announced it has been recognized by Everything Channel as a top information technology (IT) vendor for its Elite Partner Program. Additionally, the IronKey Elite Partner Program was recognized with a Five-Star rating representative of an exceptional program and commitment to the partner community.

IronKey is the first in the Secure Portable Storage solution category partner program awarded a Five-Star recognition in the Emerging Technology category in Everything Channel’s 16th annual 2010 Partner Program Guide (PPG). This award acknowledges IronKey’s commitment to the channel and strength of its programs for reseller partners, which include IT integrators, technology solution providers and consultants.

IronKey’s award-winning Secure Portable Storage solutions are designed for partners (Strategic Alliances, Technology Partners and Channel Partners) to provide value-add solutions and services around data protection, strong authentication, encryption and privacy to large enterprises and government agencies.

IronKey’s Elite Partner Program is designed to attract partners who have security, storage, and virtualization practices supported with sales, technical and marketing resources to reach enterprise and mid-market customers. The partner ecosystem encompasses Distributors, Elite Solution Providers, National, Federal and Authorized Partners offering value to:

• Increase and expand existing security, storage and virtualization practices
• Gain high margins and build a recurring revenue business models
• Increase customer loyalty through award-winning and innovative solutions, excellence in technical support and investment protection

Research for the 2010 Everything Channel Partner Program Guide and the Five-Star Partner Program rating was conducted by Everything Channel’s research department. Everything Channel analyzed 130 vendor programs rating vendors’ responses to in-depth questions about their partner programs in the five elements of sales support, partner profitability, partner ecosystem development/management, partner communication/marketing and demand generation.

To ensure fair comparisons, companies were placed in one of four categories based on company size (Enterprise, Midsize, Small and Emerging). Questions from each section were scored individually and weighted appropriately. The Five-Star Partner Program rating recognizes the elite subset of Partner Program Guide vendors who give solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs. The Five-Star rating is bestowed on programs whose overall rating is among the elite based on company size.

“We are pleased to deliver to the Channel an exclusive list of the leading vendor channel programs with details about key technologies, program opportunities, and information on the hottest new program offerings,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “The quality of a technology vendor’s partner program determines how profitable its partners will be. For their commitment to their business partners and their efforts to build quality programs, we congratulate those recognized as this year’s Five-Star Partner Program winners for helping to drive greater revenue in the channel.”

“IronKey is honored to receive our first Five-Star Partner program award. Partners are an integral part of the IronKey family and are instrumental to our success as the world’s leader in Secure Portable Storage solutions”, said David Jevans, CEO, IronKey. “Our investment in 2010 for partners will continue to increase with more resources, enablement tools and training, more demand generation programs, enhanced margin structure and increased operational efficiencies to simplify doing business with IronKey.”

Dayforce, the workforce management company widely recognized as an innovation and usability leader, was named one of the Top 25 Up and Coming ICT Companies of 2010.  Companies are selected for the list based on creativity and innovation.

The Top 25 Up and Coming ICT Companies ranking is released annually as part of the Branham300.  Entering its 17th year, the Branham300 highlights the top Canadian and Multinational ICT companies operating in Canada.  It includes four major categories, one of which is the Top 25 Up and Coming ICT Companies.  The Branham300 is published annually in the April/May issue of Backbone Magazine, as well as on the Branham300 website, www.branham300.com.

“Dayforce has been remarkably successful by any measure,” said David Ossip, Dayforce’s CEO.  “We are excited to receive this recognition, and look forward to further achievements as we continue to change the workforce management industry.”

About Dayforce

Dayforce offers a complete workforce management solution with functionality that includes time and attendance, labor scheduling, labor forecasting, labor budgeting, task management and employee self-service. The company has made waves in workforce management with a vastly superior user experience, a much faster application, and significantly greater business value.

In addition to being named one of the Top 25 Up and Coming ICT Companies, Dayforce has been named a Top HR Product of the Year by Human Resource Executive® magazine, the winner of the Microsoft® BlueSky Award for Innovation Excellence, and one of the CIX Top 20 Innovative Companies. For more information, please visit www.dayforce.com.

About Branham Group Inc.

Branham Group is a leading industry analyst and strategic consulting firm servicing the global information technology marketplace. Branham Group assists information technology companies and related institutions in achieving market success through its custom consulting services (Planning, Marketing and Partnering), and through its multi-client research subscription programs (eHealth, Outsourcing, Green IT and Wireless). Branham also produces an annual listing of the top information technology companies in Canada (www.branham300.com), tracks the Canadian Outsourcing industry (www.branhamoutsourcing.com) and monitors over 450 eHealth vendors. For more information regarding Branham Group, please visit www.branhamgroup.com