Documents Tell Your Customers

What you think of them — which isn’t much, it seems. Chris Stone, CEO of StreamServe Inc., laments that IT managers are missing an opportunity to help their companies improve customer relations every time invoices, lease documents and other papers are printed.

“It’s amazing how much business relationship mail is junk mail,” Stone says. Take a peek at most bills from big corporations, and you’ll see that the paperwork is designed for the business and not its customers, he contends. “We’re just a number on an invoice,” Stone says. But he claims that his company’s Persuasion software lets you design readable customer documents and customize them for people other than your CFO. You can even add marketing materials such as info about new cars for customers whose auto leases are expiring. A version of Persuasion that supports Web services and has a revised user interface will ship next month, Stone says. It will also support applications built on top of SQL Server, DB2, SAP NetWeaver and IBM’s FileNet technology.

Live video is becoming a vital ...

... business service. So says Andy Howard, director of marketing at VBrick Systems Inc. He claims that companies are ratcheting up their use of video for applications such as monitoring offshore oil platforms or enabling CEOs to explain Page One scandals to their employees. To help, VBrick in the first quarter plans to ship a video encoder appliance with integrated management software from Media Publisher Inc. After it’s been installed centrally and at remote locations, the appliance can digitize, compress and decompress video feeds for WAN transmissions. Media Publisher CEO Rod Bacon says massive video broadcasts of events to PCs will be possible. “We all see that having large-scale events is the golden chalice,” he says. The goal is 100,000-plus seats. “That’s pretty challenging,” admits Howard — especially over a WAN.

The history of USB ports on your ...

... network can now be revealed. Later this week, SecureWave SA will release a security utility called Device Scanner to partners who sell its endpoint security tools.