http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php en tsgadmin@matrixpartners.com Copyright 2012 2012-05-22T17:36:54+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/manx_picks_empirix_for_network_performance http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/manx_picks_empirix_for_network_performance#When:18:36:54Z Manx Picks Empirix for Network PerformanceThe Isle of Man’s Manx Telecom has chosen Empirix to ensure the availability and performance of its Next Generation Network. Telecom has replaced its previously fragmented network monitoring approach with the Empirix E-XMS service assurance solution to gain end-to-end visibility and a unified view of customer experience and the underyling network performance. Now, Empirix says Manx can quickly troubleshoot issues across its complex network environment and proactively correct problems before they impact customers. Additionally, the company has a flexible framework capable of assuring new technologies as it continues to upgrade network capabilities and offer innovative new services. Manx Telecom offers a full range of telecommunications and IT services to corporate and small businesses, consumers as well as the Isle of Man government. The carrier recently launched its next-generation network program to combine mobile and fixed line services onto a secure, resilient IP-based network. The company was the first in Europe to launch a live 3G network and now provides 3G coverage to 98 percent of the island. In the last year, it trialed 4G (LTE) services, demonstrating download speeds of up to 55 Mbit/sec. Rollout of ultra-fast broadband services is also at an advanced stage, with two-thirds of the island able to receive download speeds of up to 40 Mbit/sec. “We began the NGN project to offer a better customer experience and soon realized that our fragmented approach to network monitoring was not consistent with that goal,” said Mike Loundes, technology and customer services director of Manx Telecom. “Empirix was uniquely able to provide us with a unified service assurance solution. From a technical perspective, their Empirix E-XMS product is optimized for isolating the myriad of factors that can affect performance in complex, multi-protocol environments. More importantly, they worked closely with our Network Operations team to design and implement a customized solution tailored to our environment as we worked through the upgrade process.” Empirix E-XMS Service Assurance Platform mitigates the network management challenges associated with mobile and fixed line convergence. It provides service providers with a customer-centric approach to service assurance monitoring, collecting data on voice, video and data services, as well as application and network performance, Empirix said. Empirix E-XMS is fully integrated with the Empirix architecture for technology management, which features pre-deployment testing to preempt issues and comprehensive monitoring to assure that solutions perform at peak levels and analytics. 2012-05-22T18:36:54+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/the_future_according_to_hubspot_why_they_win_even_when_you_delete_their_ema http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/the_future_according_to_hubspot_why_they_win_even_when_you_delete_their_ema#When:18:35:25Z The Future According to HubSpot: Why They Win Even When You Delete Their EmailsAt HubSpot‘s Analyst Day last week, CTO and co-founder Dharmesh Shah characterized the traditional email marketing approach as “I’m going to email you until you die.” In other words, he continued, “There’s a fine line between outright spamming and marketing automation.” But where is that line, and how do you find it? Shah was the day’s final speaker, immediately following a demo of HubSpot’s new email marketing offering which is the company’s latest step down the “sales funnel,” from content marketing and lead generation giant towards its goal of becoming a one stop shop for all things marketing. So how does HubSpot find the line between automation and spam? The short answer is data. Specifically, HubSpot uses itself as a case study for its product by putting that product in the hands of a world class sales and marketing team. When HubSpot makes a sale, it wins. When it doesn’t, it learns a little something about how to make HubSpot even better. A Brief History of HubSpot HubSpot is a company that needs no introduction, but here’s one anyway. If you’ve been reading about it for the past few years, feel free to skip this section. HubSpot is synonymous with “inbound marketing” which means, basically, blogging and related forms of “content marketing”, social media, and anything else where the customer finds you rather than vice versa. Founded in 2006 by Shah and CEO Brian Halligan while at MIT, the company has raised $65 million, including a $32 million round in March of 2011. Its core product has combined a content management system for blogging and website management with web analytics and lead capture and management. In other words, it offered a single tool to get people to your website and then sell to them. A slide from Shah’s Analyst Day presentation Last year, HubSpot’s revenue grew by 81% to $29 million and along the way it has snatched up talent in the form of individuals and companies, one of which deserves to be called out specifically. Last June, in what Halligan told me was “possibly the best decision we made” in the history of the company, HubSpot acquired Performable, a marketing automation and analytics company that has effectively become HubSpot’s R&D engine, led by Chief Product Officer and Performable and Compete.com co-founder David Cancel. “David Cancel has got a little Steve Jobs gene in him,” said Halligan, as do the people he hires. Led by Cancel, HubSpot is trying to apply an “Apple easy” philosophy to its software, while staying true to Shah’s data driven approach. In that sense, they’re trying to merge the core philosophies behind Apple and Google into one comprehensive product offering. The Secret is Sales When I get an email from HubSpot (as I often do) and I don’t open it (as I often don’t) HubSpot learns something about what works and what doesn’t. When I click, so much the better. For a lot of startups there’s a tension between investing in sales and investing in product. Sure, the sales process can be a key learning process for any startup. But the fact that HubSpot is trying to sell me something that will help me sell something means that conflict is less acute. And yes, that’s true of anyone selling marketing software, but what separates HubSpot from others is both its commitment to pressing this advantage and its reliance on data. HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan “We’ve been very very good at building something for ourselves,” said Halligan. HubSpot employees claim that when developers need feedback they go down the hall to talk to Sales and when Sales needs a feature they talk to development. And as the company has grown, the customers they build for and sell to have changed in parallel, moving from small to midsize companies and now into enterprise. Of course, the key to really unlocking this powerful positive feedback loop is data.  For HubSpot even more than most data driven companies, investing in sales means investing in data to make the product better. The Future According to HubSpot It has become hard to write about HubSpot without speculating about an IPO, so naturally I put the question to Halligan when we spoke. “We want to be around forever,” he responded. “We don’t want to build this company and flip it.” So when, then? Halligan said most likely the company will go public next year but added, “[our] hair’s not on fire. We’ll do it when we do it.” Even as the company winds its way to that IPO, there remains an urgency, embodied by Shah in particular, and seemingly driven by the mere fact that marketing as it exists today just isn’t good enough. It’s not personal enough, not easy enough, not rooted firmly enough in data on what actually works. “I’d like to try to turn Boston into the next generation Madison Ave.,” Halligan told me. If HubSpot is to become the anchor of a Boston marketing powerhouse, it will happen with sales in the lead. If you haven’t been contacted by HubSpot to try the product, that’s probably by design, because you’ve not been deemed a likely customer. But there may come a time when your activity trips the right wires and you get hit with an email from Sales. And even if you say no, HubSpot will get smarter. 2012-05-22T18:35:25+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/hubspot_amazon_strength_for_small_firms http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/hubspot_amazon_strength_for_small_firms#When:18:33:52Z HubSpot: Amazon Strength for Small FirmsYOU’RE A SMALL BUSINESS reaching out to customers online. How can you create loyalty the way Amazon.com does, tapping into people’s likes, favorites, and Web-browsing habits to deliver an experience customized for each online visitor? David Cancel, chief product officer at the marketing software maker HubSpot in Cambridge, believes he has the answer. “We are trying to give small businesses the same kind of marketing technologies that companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix have,’’ he said. Cancel, 40, built a software “personalization engine’’ that “makes each interaction personal, like when you walk into your local corner store and are recognized every time - except now this interaction is in real time and online.’’ Since it was launched less than a year ago, Cancel’s software platform, called Performable, has become one of the hottest online marketing automation gadgets on the market, used by customers ranging from Rolling Stone magazine to data storage giant EMC Corp. in Hopkinton. “I like making something out of nothing,’’ Cancel said. “Like many entrepreneurs, I have spent too much time worrying about the right idea. But it’s not about the idea, but about solving a critical problem.’’ 2012-05-22T18:33:52+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/hubspot_launches_app_version_of_marketing_grader_tool http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/hubspot_launches_app_version_of_marketing_grader_tool#When:18:31:50Z HubSpot Launches App Version of Marketing Grader ToolAll-in-one marketing software company HubSpot has launched a dashboard web app based on its popular Marketing Grader tool. The idea is to “quickly answers marketer’s burning questions at a glance,” said the company in a statement. Did growth of inbound links take a nosedive? Does the competition suddenly have a lot more indexed pages? Has the last three months of marketing effort improved effectiveness? Are competitors accruing more Facebook fans faster? The Marketing Grader App is designed to immediately identify and compares competitors’ marketing performance relative to your own. The dashboard gives specific analytics including changes in indexed pages, linking domains, Facebook fans, Twitter followers and overall grade. It also notifies users of important changes in these metrics - both their own and their competition’s. “We noticed people coming back and re-running their scores monthly, weekly, even daily. They clearly wanted to see performance over time and versus the competition, and they wanted to know which actions were improving their scores,” said Mike Volpe, CMO of HubSpot. “So we built a dashboard for marketing effectiveness.” The Marketing Grader tool was launched in December and has since graded over 580,000 websites and run 1.2 million reports. Marketing Grader analyzes 40+ measures of marketing effectiveness and grades the business on a 1-100 scale. It replaced Website Grader, which has graded over 4 million websites in the last four years. The app takes the tool a step further to allow users to make an account and track progress over time. Each time a user logs in, they will be able to see the changes to the report, monitor these changes, and share them with others in their company or on social media. This change allows marketers to pinpoint where they are improving and fix areas that are not as strong. “Marketing Grader and Website Grader before that has always been a useful tool to marketers to see where they can improve in their marketing,” said Dharmesh Shah, CTO and developer behind several of HubSpot’s Graders. “Now they will be able to visually analyze - and painlessly report on - their marketing in comparison to competitors, which is a huge advantage.” 2012-05-22T18:31:50+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/northwestern_washington_and_lee_sign_with_care.coms_workplace_solutions_to http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/northwestern_washington_and_lee_sign_with_care.coms_workplace_solutions_to#When:00:00:21Z Northwestern & Washington and Lee Sign With Care.com's Workplace Solutions to Enhance Benefits Programs And Santa Clara University Renews Workplace Solutions RelationshipCare.com, Inc. ( http://www.care.com ), a leader in providing families with access to care providers and solutions, announced today that Northwestern University and Washington and Lee University have selected its Workplace Solutions program to provide a new level of work-life support for their communities. Care.com also announced that Santa Clara University has extended its Workplace Solutions program, reflecting the positive response to the services received from its employees. All three universities are taking advantage of Workplace Solutions’ Senior Care Planning service, with Santa Clara University and Washington and Lee also utilizing the company’s full suite of services including an online forum to connect with child care, special needs care, pet care and housekeeping providers. Care.com’s Workplace Solutions enables employers to offer Care.com’s full range of care solutions to employees as part of their benefits programs. Services include options for child care, special needs care, and in-depth senior care, among others. The Senior Care Planning program, utilized by all three universities, provides employees with detailed care planning to create clear, customized action plans, resulting in informed decisions, significant time savings and reduced stress. “We’re delighted to work with these respected educational institutions as they strive to enhance the work-life support provided to their employees,” said Chris Duchesne, Vice President of Workplace Solutions at Care.com. “Members of university communities have often relocated away from family or personal support networks, which makes finding quality, trusted care options all the more challenging. Workplace Solutions bridges that gap for them, whether they are seeking child care, senior care, pet care or even household help.” Mr. Duchesne also noted, “Additionally, Workplace Solutions enhances employee productivity by reducing absenteeism and stress, and minimizing those factors which can distract people from their work. Both the employee and the employer benefit, which is truly a win-win.” Demand for senior care resources, like those being utilized by Northwestern, Washington and Lee, and Santa Clara Universities, reflects a growing trend throughout the nation. A recent Care.com study revealed that the baby boomer generation is increasingly taking responsibility for caring of aging loved ones, with 32% of the respondents carrying the full load of caregiving responsibilities for their aging parents. “We recognize the value and importance of providing employees with assistance in navigating the complicated world of elder care, and we feel that Care.com’s tailored Senior Care Planning solution will easily integrate into our array of existing work-life programs,” said Lori Anne Henderson, director of work/life resources at Northwestern University. “Washington and Lee is proud to work with Care.com to provide faculty and staff with a resource to find care for their families,” said Amy Barnes, executive director of human resources at Washington and Lee University. “The fact that Care.com could provide the W&L community with both online access to child care, senior care, pet care, tutoring, and housekeeping while also providing consultative Senior Care Planning support was a major draw for us. Faculty and staff immediately began using the service and have provided extremely positive feedback. We anticipate that positive impact for faculty and staff and our organization will only continue to grow over time.” “Santa Clara University is very excited to renew our relationship with Care.com to continue to support our faculty and staff,” said Ed Ryan, assistant vice provost for academic affairs at SCU. “We’ve received very positive feedback indicating that our employees value the Care.com benefit. In fact, one employee even shared with us that Care.com’s Senior Care Planning service saved her an estimated 45 hours of time, increased her productivity and enhanced her opinion of the SCU workplace. This validated our belief that Care.com’s services would benefit both our employees and the University, fostering greater engagement and loyalty in our faculty and staff.” About Care.com’s Workplace SolutionsCare.com’s Workplace Solutions provides broad-reaching, cost-effective, high-impact solutions for employers looking to reduce costs resulting from care-related absences and distractions, as well as improve employee wellness and loyalty. From providing an executive with access to back-up childcare solutions so she can lead a crucial meeting to helping a newly relocated employee reestablish his care network, Care.com enables employees to quickly and easily tackle care needs across the spectrum so they can focus on work. Care.com’s Workplace Solutions keeps top talent productive and engaged, and can be a primary resource for employees or an integral part of a comprehensive benefits program. About Care.com, Inc.Founded in 2006, Care.com ( www.care.com ) is the largest and fastest growing service used by families seeking high-quality care providers, providing a place to easily connect with hundreds of thousands of care providers, share care giving experiences and get advice. The company addresses the unique lifecycle of care needs that each family goes through - child care, senior care, special needs care, tutoring, pet care, housekeeping and more. To help ensure safety both online and at home, Care.com provides mom-reviewed profiles, monitored messaging, access to background checks, recorded references, and educational information on the interviewing process. Fortune 500 companies, educational institutions, technology companies, and professional services firms offer Care.com memberships as a benefit to employees through its Workplace Solutions program. 2012-05-18T00:00:21+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/hubspot_launches_a_marketing_effectiveness_dashboard http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/hubspot_launches_a_marketing_effectiveness_dashboard#When:23:56:53Z HubSpot Launches a Marketing Effectiveness DashboardJust in time for the Facebook IPO, there’s now an app for tracking Facebook fan growth (and much more!) vs. the competition. All-in-one marketing software company HubSpot, Inc. launched a dashboard web app based on its popular Marketing Grader tool. This new interactive dashboard quickly answers marketer’s burning questions at a glance. Are competitors accruing more Facebook fans faster? Did growth of inbound links take a nosedive? Does the competition suddenly have a lot more indexed pages? Has the last 3 months of marketing effort improved effectiveness? The Marketing Grader App immediately identifies and compares competitors’ marketing performance relative to your own. The dashboard gives specific analytics including changes in indexed pages, linking domains, Facebook fans, Twitter followers and overall grade. It also notifies users of important changes in these metrics - both their own and their competition’s. “We noticed people coming back and re-running their scores monthly, weekly, even daily. They clearly wanted to see performance over time and versus the competition, and they wanted to know which actions were improving their scores,” said Mike Volpe, CMO of the all-in-one marketing software provider. “So we built a dashboard for marketing effectiveness.” The Marketing Grader tool was launched in December and has since graded over 580,000 websites and run 1.2 million reports. Marketing Grader analyzes 40+ measures of marketing effectiveness and grades the business on a 1-100 scale. It replaced Website Grader, which has graded over 4 million websites in the last 4 years. The app takes the tool a step further to allow users to make an account and track progress over time. Each time a user logs in, they will be able to see the changes to the report, monitor these changes, and share them with others in their company or on social media. This change allows marketers to pinpoint where they are improving and fix areas that are not as strong. “Marketing Grader and Website Grader before that has always been a useful tool to marketers to see where they can improve in their marketing,” said Dharmesh Shah, CTO and developer behind several of HubSpot’s Graders. “Now they will be able to visually analyze - and painlessly report on - their marketing in comparison to competitors, which is a huge advantage.” About HubSpot HubSpot, Inc. offers an all-in-one marketing software platform that has helped more than 6,800 companies in 46 countries increase the number of visitors to their websites and convert more of those visitors to leads and customers. Applications in the software platform include website management, blogging, search engine optimization, lead management, marketing analytics, email marketing, landing pages, and social media monitoring. HubSpot is also the developer of the popular marketing analysis tool, MarketingGrader.com, which grades the marketing efforts of over 250,000 companies a month. In the last year, HubSpot has been named the second fastest growing software company by the Inc. 500, one of the 20 most promising companies in America by Forbes, and the eighth fastest growing technology company in the world by the Deloitte Fast 500. HubSpot, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Find them at http://www.HubSpot.com . Is HubSpot software right for your business? Apply for a free inbound marketing assessment. 2012-05-17T23:56:53+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/finally_a_21st_century_customer_service_solution_our_a_review_of_zendesk http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/finally_a_21st_century_customer_service_solution_our_a_review_of_zendesk#When:23:52:23Z Finally, a 21st Century Customer Service Solution: Our A+ Review of Zendesk20th century customer service consisted of packed call centers, phones ringing off the hook, and large, convoluted databases of information to manage a never-ending stream of support requests. Cloud computing, and the introduction of powerful, business-specific software solutions, has changed that. There are hundreds of systems out there for handling contact management (CRM), project management, and sales workflows: likewise, there are more than a couple systems built for customer service. The best of the bunch is Zendesk, and we are psyched to award it an A+ and our seal of approval. Read on for our full review… The Quick and Dirty Verdict In our opinion, the best part about Zendesk is its applicability for small, medium, and large customer service teams. It can be configured and customized to streamline both basic and complex support workflows. Whether your support requests come through email, website, phone, social media, or chat, Zendesk can make your helpdesk a lot easier to manage. We’re giving it a 93/100 for its robust handling of support channels, eloquent and intuitive triggers, automations, and macros, and its customizable and powerful reporting, views, and usability. It also has a HUGE list of integrations and an open API supported by a robust Zendesk and user forum with best practices and tips. What’s not to love? Read on for the full review… The Details Functionality = 28/30 Zendesk boasts all the features you would expect from a helpdesk solution, as well as some innovative and powerful ones that are less common. Ticket fields are (almost) 100% customizable and can be setup to be only visible to agents, visible to both agents and end-users, and/or required for either party. What’s even better is that standard and custom fields can be included in email notifications to anyone associated with the ticket (requester, agent, manager, etc). That helps CS correspondence feel less robot-like. Other cool features include triggers, automations and macros. Triggers are based on events (i.e. “If ticket is changed to Pending and Priority is High then send email to _____”).  Automations are based on time (i.e. “if ticket has been open for 4 days and has not been solved, then email _____”). Macros are canned actions/responses that work wonders on improving efficiency; if you get a lot of the same requests over and over (“where’s the ‘ON’ button?”), you can create a macro to standardize how the ticket is categorized (which tags, and fields to fill out), and even include a canned response to send to the user. Looking for better helpdesk efficiency? Zendesk has you covered. Additionally, the recent introduction of Zendesk Voice is truly innovative. No need to integrate with Google Voice or manually add phone call requests to the system; Zendesk brings it all in-house with its native voice system. Procure your own phone number, setup your rules, and join the helpdesk revolution where all support channels are included. Two areas that we hope will be improved in the coming months? You can’t add custom fields to end-user pages, so you’ll have to include additional information in the Details and Notes boxes.  And, dynamically populated ticket fields are not possible without some basic Javascript work (which, by the way, Zendesk makes very easy to figure out). There are other minor quibbles (users can’t belong to more than one organization, for example, and Googler Apps integration is limited), but overall, this is one robust piece of software. Zendesk has been amazing in listening to user feedback (check out their new Lotus agent view) too, so I’m sure its minor shortcomings will be addressed. 28/30 for features. Usability = 17/20 points Setting up and customizing your helpdesk is very intuitive, and Zendesk offers some great forum and training manuals. The features are so robust that it can seem a tad confusing at first, but once you know what each piece does (see above), you’ll be blown away by its usability. Once the system is setup for your needs, customer support seems gravy.The agent view is simple and easy to learn, but the new Lotus view is a huge improvement (see screenshot below). The most important thing for support agents is open and pending tickets, which is the focus of Lotus.  Zendesk’s customizable “Views” make it easy for different agents to setup different views that they need on a constant basis, and these views are cleanly displayed in Lotus. The usability for the end-user is a perk also; you can set it up so that end-users never have to login to the helpdesk and simply submit and communicate in tickets straight through email. Or, you can direct your end-users to the helpdesk so they can check the status of open tickets. Either way, it’s easy to use and straight to the point. 17/20 for usability, with 3 points docked for the inevitable learning curve that comes with robust software. Security = 20/20 points Zendesk is another example of how well-engineered cloud applications offer high-level security. As of September, 2011 Zendesk entered into several voluntary data privacy programs that cement the software as safe and reliable for business use. If you’re interested, you can read their full privacy policy. Overall, Zendesk is as secure as any other system out there, and it’s something they take great pride in. 20/20 for security. Integrations = 10/10 Zendesk features one of the most extensive integration lists we have seen, and it seems to constantly grow. The best part about their integrations is they cover basically every aspect of most business workflows (analytics, CRM, automations, authentication, e-commerce, CMS, frameworks, communication, and management). A few of our favorites are its integration with GoodData (for robust reporting), Formstack (for easily embedding a Zendesk-integrated webform into your website), and all of its social integrations (Twitter, Facebook) for social ticket channels. Check out the list yourself; we bet you will be blown away by how many integrations they offer. If you’re looking for custom development for an integration that’s not on the list (yet), the Zendesk API is well documented and robust. The user forum is also filled with sample code, best practices, and tips on using the API.  We give it a 10/10 for a truly impressive integration set. Price = 8/10 Zendesk’s pricing model is on par with its competition, but stands out in some of its included features; for example, Desk.com charges users more for full web portal customization and an additional $99/month for phone support (not cool). Zendesk offers full CSS rebranding and included CSS and Javascript widgets with every account, and phone support is included in the Plus and Enterprise accounts.  Our only knock is that we wish every level of membership could do full CSV exports (and not just the top two tiers) – it’s the customer’s data, after all. 8/10 for price. Support = 10/10 Zendesk has an active and helpful user forum community that answers many of the questions you will face while setting up your helpdesk. Zendesk employees frequent the boards to offer their insights, links to relevant forum topics, and updates on software improvements. Zendesk’s knowledge base is also filled with great information for new and experienced users. It is updated frequently and is another valuable resource (they’re smokin’ what they’re sellin’). If you still need some tips or guidance on setting up your Zendesk, we may know a team of professionals who could help you out . Conclusions We review a lot of business software but only pursue partnerships with some. Most software we see gets one or two things right and fails everything else – that’s not great for businesses who need reliable, functional tools. Thus it’s rare that we find systems that deliver on all of their promises, but Zendesk fits the bill. It’s a beautiful blend of robust features, usability, top notch security, unparalleled integrations, and a high level of support. Whether you need to manage the support requests of thousands of internal employees located across the country, hundreds of clients in one city, or just those few needy accounts, Zendesk is your solution. It truly is “the fastest way to great customer support,” and it is 100% worthy of our seal of approval. From our experiences with the software, our communications with their team, and our own observations, it’s a product that’s only going to get better, too. VM Associates is a New York City cloud computing consulting firm. We help companies transition into newer, better, smarter software. Contact us to talk about your business, the cloud, and how we might help. 2012-05-17T23:52:23+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/textplus_app_surpasses_facebook_in_monthly_usage_time_per_user http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/textplus_app_surpasses_facebook_in_monthly_usage_time_per_user#When:23:45:18Z TextPlus App Surpasses Facebook in Monthly Usage Time Per UserIn the war for third-party mobile messaging clients, textPlus is making a strong case for why it’s the market leader. Gogii, the maker of textPlus, shared with PandoDaily that its users spent an average of 8.5 hours per month on the app in April. That’s 21 percent more time than Facebook’s users spend on both its apps and the mobile Web combined, according to comScore. The power of any network of this type, beyond a simple feature war, is reach. TextPlus has grown to over 30 million registered users and now sends more than three billion messages each month. Even at 160 characters, that’s one helluva talkative bunch. The app offers users free, unlimited text messaging. It also offers group messaging, photo messaging, voice notes, a la voxer, and communities. The company is able to continue offering this free service, because it serves two billion ad impressions per month. Alongside the messaging app, Gogii has released TextPlus Free Calls, allowing users to call other textPlus users for free and make calls to cellphones and landlines via WiFi or mobile data connection. Users can either buy minutes or earn them by completing tasks, such as viewing advertising. The free calls app is currently localized in Canada (meaning users can get a local number), and the company has plans for further international expansion, starting with Germany and the UK. While Free Calls is currently a standalone app, it actually represents the new foundation onto which all services will soon be merged as a single app. This is not a market without competition. Each individual feature and the package as a whole have multiple competitors. At the high end, Skype, Google’s Talk and Voice apps, and Apple’s iMessenger and Facetime require mention (only Apple is platform-restricted). Additionally, there are Facebook Messenger, Voxie, and a multitude of instant messenger clients. Gogii is one of the oldest and most established companies competing in this space. It was co-founded by Scott Lahman, Zack Norman, and Austin Murray,who previously co-founded JAMDAT Mobile which had a successful IPO in 2004 and sold to Electronic Arts for $680 million in 2006. Gogii has raised a total of $28 million through its February 2011 Series C from investors including Matrix Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and GRP Partners. Recent reports of declines in traditional text messaging have validated the market and demonstrated the impact of solutions like textPlus and its competitors. Speaking to the issue, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson went on the record last week saying, “If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.” 2012-05-17T23:45:18+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/taulia_streamlines_early_payment_discounts_for_sap_biller_direct http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/taulia_streamlines_early_payment_discounts_for_sap_biller_direct#When:22:57:27Z Taulia Streamlines Early Payment Discounts For SAP® Biller DirectTaulia Inc., the provider of an SaaS platform for dynamic discounting, today announced its Invoicement Suite 1.3, a Dynamic Payment Platform, is integrated with the SAP® Biller Direct application. Customers who use SAP Biller Direct with Taulia’s Dynamic Payment Platform can take full advantage of Taulia’s dynamic discounting capabilities with no implementation challenges or changes to their current IT infrastructure. Taulia will demonstrate the effortless integration of its dynamic discounting platform into a company’s SAP solution-based landscape in booth 2516 at the SAPPHIRE® NOW conference being held in Orlando, Fla., May 14-16. Taulia’s Dynamic Payment Platform has been successfully deployed at many leading Global 2,000 companies and has helped turn the inefficiencies in today’s financial supply chain into a risk-free source of profits. Large buying organizations use Taulia’s platform to save millions of dollars annually using dynamic payment terms and offering on-demand early payments for their suppliers, in return for additional discounts. Taulia’s SaaS platform gives suppliers the ability to accelerate payment of approved invoices with a click of the mouse, eliminating the need for costly receivable financing or credit card borrowing. There is no fee charged to suppliers, allowing maximum adoption rate and strengthening key relationships between the buyer and supplier. “We are excited that customers can now use Taulia’s Dynamic Payment Platform together with SAP Biller Direct to access all of Taulia’s early-payment discount features through the same interface they’ve been using with their SAP solutions,” said Markus Ament, chief product officer, Taulia. “Our hybrid solution functions as an add-on to the SAP solution for buyers, and we allow suppliers to take advantage of powerful dynamic discounting terms management upfront, and on-demand financing capabilities directly embedded into the supplier-side functionality.” “Taulia is committed to addressing and overcoming every obstacle large organizations face when trying to implement an effective and successful dynamic discounting program,” said Bertram Meyer, CEO of Taulia. “With Taulia’s Dynamic Payment Platform now integrated with SAP Biller Direct, we have capitalized on our vital partnership with SAP and expanded the capabilities we provide to customers in support of SAP solutions. This allows us to provide our simple, straightforward interface to the buyer using SAP Biller Direct, while further enhancing the user experience through targeted early payment opportunities.” The Taulia Invoicement Suite 1.3, a Dynamic Payment Platform, which has achieved SAP-certified integration with the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform, is available immediately for use with SAP Biller Direct. About Taulia Taulia optimizes the invoicing process. With Taulia, large buying organizations can reduce their total spend and achieve double-digit returns on their cash positions, while their suppliers get paid earlier at a lower cost of capital than alternative options. Taulia’s Invoice Optimization Platform offers e-invoicing, instant vendor portals and a sophisticated dynamic enterprise payment management system. Taulia Invoicement Suite 1.3, a cloud-based solution that is certified for integration with SAP NetWeaver, extends financials capabilities beyond the enterprise. Customers include Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Pfizer, Pacific Gas & Electric, John Deere and other Fortune 500 companies from various industries. Taulia is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, London, England and Düsseldorf, Germany. For more information, visit http://www.taulia.com. SAP, SAPPHIRE, SAP NetWeaver and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. 2012-05-17T22:57:27+00:00 http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/cloudbees_pollinates_hp_cloud_services http://www.matrixpartners.com/index.php/site/cloudbees_pollinates_hp_cloud_services#When:22:55:17Z CloudBees Pollinates HP Cloud ServicesThe CloudBees Java PaaS is now available on HP Cloud Services. With this announcement, Agile development shops are encouraged to consider the CloudBees-hosted Jenkins continuous integration service to drive applications through a “continuous delivery” channel to the point at which they are staged/hosted on HP’s public cloud. CloudBees has promised end-to-end application development services — from build and test, to the deploy and manage stages of application delivery — plus options to utilize the integrated services available from the company’s own partner ecosystem. “CloudBees AnyCloud offers a very different approach for deployment, managing the PaaS software stack remotely across environments. This approach eliminates the burden faced by data center operators in installing, updating, and maintaining a complex stack of middleware,” said Sacha Labourey, CEO, CloudBees. AnyCloud is positioned as a flexible route to application deployment. In addition to the HP Cloud Services offering, additional AnyCloud deployment options include Amazon Web Services (AWS), third-party hosters such as OVH, and on-premise enterprise data centers. “If you are not consuming a service, you are not really simplifying your operations and reducing costs and, therefore, not taking advantage of the full benefit offered by the cloud. Our partnership with HP addresses just that — giving PaaS users the freedom of deployment choice, including on-premise, while still benefiting from a true service offering,” added Labourey. 2012-05-17T22:55:17+00:00