Gotham Technology Group, LLC, a consulting firm with practices in access management, virtualization and information security, has joined Xceedium's Xcelerate(TM) Partner Program. The alliance enhances Gotham's security portfolio and enables Xceedium to expand its reach.
"Until now our customers have been performing a juggling act to meet necessary security and regulatory compliance requirements while ensuring that IT department workflow is not sacrificed in the process," said Ken Phelan, CTO of Gotham Technology Group. "Xceedium's GateKeeper(TM) has changed all that. Our customers appreciate the complete visibility into user activity from any location without latency issues or the need to make costly updates to legacy systems. Because the solution leaves no footprint, our customers' IT operations flow as efficiently, if not more efficiently, than they ever have."
Though compliance with regulations such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act has increased, many organizations find that their critical network infrastructures remain vulnerable to purposeful or accidental compromise by high-risk users. According to a recent report, the percentage of identity breaches attributable to insider crime or error far exceeds those caused by external hackers, with insider threats increasing by more than 100 percent in 2008 over 2007 levels.
The Xceedium Gatekeeper is a hardened appliance that enables remote, centralized management of high-risk user activities anywhere in the heterogeneous IT infrastructure. The solution allows users from both inside and outside the organization to securely access critical IT resources by first compartmentalizing and containing them, and then monitoring, logging, alerting, recording and reporting on all of their activities. Xceedium GateKeeper reduces the complexity and cost of controlling these users, enabling organizations to balance audit and compliance requirements with the need for operational efficiency, and auditors to view centralized reports for accountability and testing of controls.
"There is a growing demand for comprehensive entitlement management solutions across a variety of industries, from healthcare and retail, to government and financial services," said Cheryl Traverse, CEO at Xceedium. "Gotham's considerable experience and focus on leading-edge security offerings make the Xceedium GateKeeper a natural addition to its portfolio. Together, we will help our mutual customers to greatly reduce the time, cost and complexity of ensuring regulatory compliance and secure access to the critical IT infrastructure."
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Friday, 22 August 2008
OpenPages Selected By interpublic
OpenPages®, ttoday announced that Interpublic Group (IPG), an organization of advertising agencies and marketing services companies, has selected OPENPAGES® FCM(SM) for its Sarbanes-Oxley compliance programs. IPG chose OpenPages FCM given the flexibility and configurability of the solution which provides a streamlined and sustainable approach to IPG's continued compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. OpenPages FCM allows IPG to automate the ongoing test and review of its controls documentation to reduce the time, cost and complexity associated with Sarbanes-Oxley Sections 404 and 302.
"Given our set of compliance needs, the ability to configure a technology solution to fit our specific requirements was a critical factor in our decision to deploy OpenPages FCM," said Chris Young, vice president, internal control compliance, IPG. "OpenPages FCM gives us the flexibility to leverage the technology across each of our business units to make our compliance processes more efficient, resulting in a dramatic improvement on the time committed to our SOX compliance initiatives."
A web-based, flexible and configurable solution for financial controls management, automates an organization's entire compliance lifecycle -- from design and documentation, through test, review, approval and certification. Rich, interactive dashboards and reports provide executive management with assurance into the state of compliance, with quick and easy navigation to potential problem areas. As part of the OpenPages Platform, OpenPages FCM is a key building block in implementing an enterprise-wide, integrated approach to governance, risk and compliance management.
"IPG's selection of OpenPages FCM further validates our technological excellence in helping companies meet crucial Sarbanes-Oxley requirements," said Gordon Burnes, vice president, sales and marketing, OpenPages. "OpenPages FCM will be an essential tool as IPG looks to both simplify and improve the efficiency of SOX reporting procedures, ultimately making such activities sustainable and repeatable across the enterprise."
"Given our set of compliance needs, the ability to configure a technology solution to fit our specific requirements was a critical factor in our decision to deploy OpenPages FCM," said Chris Young, vice president, internal control compliance, IPG. "OpenPages FCM gives us the flexibility to leverage the technology across each of our business units to make our compliance processes more efficient, resulting in a dramatic improvement on the time committed to our SOX compliance initiatives."
A web-based, flexible and configurable solution for financial controls management, automates an organization's entire compliance lifecycle -- from design and documentation, through test, review, approval and certification. Rich, interactive dashboards and reports provide executive management with assurance into the state of compliance, with quick and easy navigation to potential problem areas. As part of the OpenPages Platform, OpenPages FCM is a key building block in implementing an enterprise-wide, integrated approach to governance, risk and compliance management.
"IPG's selection of OpenPages FCM further validates our technological excellence in helping companies meet crucial Sarbanes-Oxley requirements," said Gordon Burnes, vice president, sales and marketing, OpenPages. "OpenPages FCM will be an essential tool as IPG looks to both simplify and improve the efficiency of SOX reporting procedures, ultimately making such activities sustainable and repeatable across the enterprise."
WellPoint CAO and CIO
WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE:WLP) today announced the appointments of Lori Beer as executive vice president and chief information officer and Martin Miller as senior vice president, chief accounting officer and controller.
Beer, who had been acting chief information officer since May, will continue to report to Angela Braly, president and chief executive officer. Beer has more than 20 years of information technology experience, including more than 10 years at WellPoint.
"Lori's strong leadership combined with her focus on delivering a technology strategy aligned to meet the needs of providers, customers and members make her the right choice to lead this critically important division," said Braly. "She and our IT team are focused on finding ways to deploy technology to make it faster and simpler to do business with us while reducing costs."
Miller is joining WellPoint from Molson Coors Brewing Company and will report to Wayne DeVeydt, executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Miller's responsibilities will include integrity of the company's financial records, SEC and regulatory reporting, finance and accounting policies, corporate financial planning and analysis, corporate cost and budget, tax planning and compliance, financial data and systems management, and compliance with Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Miller is a Certified Public Accountant with over 20 years of experience. Prior to Molson Coors Brewing Company, Miller spent 11 years with the Coca-Cola Company, where he had increasingly responsible roles including those of regional and divisional chief financial officer.
Beer, who had been acting chief information officer since May, will continue to report to Angela Braly, president and chief executive officer. Beer has more than 20 years of information technology experience, including more than 10 years at WellPoint.
"Lori's strong leadership combined with her focus on delivering a technology strategy aligned to meet the needs of providers, customers and members make her the right choice to lead this critically important division," said Braly. "She and our IT team are focused on finding ways to deploy technology to make it faster and simpler to do business with us while reducing costs."
Miller is joining WellPoint from Molson Coors Brewing Company and will report to Wayne DeVeydt, executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Miller's responsibilities will include integrity of the company's financial records, SEC and regulatory reporting, finance and accounting policies, corporate financial planning and analysis, corporate cost and budget, tax planning and compliance, financial data and systems management, and compliance with Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Miller is a Certified Public Accountant with over 20 years of experience. Prior to Molson Coors Brewing Company, Miller spent 11 years with the Coca-Cola Company, where he had increasingly responsible roles including those of regional and divisional chief financial officer.
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
SOX Makes Accounting Less Transparent
The goal of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act was to make corporate accounting more transparent. In practice, a new Cato Institute study finds, the law's requirements have had the opposite effect.
Sarbanes-Oxley sought to achieve its aims by having the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) mandate that corporations use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in reporting their balance sheets to shareholders. In the Cato Institute Briefing Paper "FASB: Making Financial Statements Mysterious," T.J. Rodgers explains why the GAAP rules complicate financial statements to the point where even CEOs have trouble reading them. Rodgers, a founder, president, CEO and director of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation who sits on the board of several high-technology companies, uses his personal experience to illustrate how these rules obfuscate financial reports.
Rodgers writes: "The first step in the wrong direction came when FASB mandated that companies list 'intangibles' such as 'goodwill' as corporate assets, artificially inflating balance sheets. After that, FASB meddled with the revenue recognition rules, in some cases not allowing companies to report revenue from cash payments received from a customer for a delivered product. Finally, and worst by far, FASB mandated punitive and nonsensical rules for so-called expensing of stock options."
These rules, which are enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission with the threat of criminal prosecution, have begun to take a serious toll on American businesses and markets. "The increased regulation burden makes it less attractive for venture capitalists to fund small startup companies - an economic disaster for Silicon Valley, the most prolific producer of America's technology successes," explains Rodgers.
Rodgers concludes: "FASB is a group of seven theoretical accountants based in Norwalk, Connecticut. Its website shows that no FASB member ever started or ran a successful business and that only one member has even held a senior position in a prominent public company other than an accounting firm. ... It deeply angers me that government lawyers and naive theoretical accountants have been allowed to impair the economic miracle that democratized the silicon chip, the personal computer, and the Internet."
Sarbanes-Oxley sought to achieve its aims by having the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) mandate that corporations use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in reporting their balance sheets to shareholders. In the Cato Institute Briefing Paper "FASB: Making Financial Statements Mysterious," T.J. Rodgers explains why the GAAP rules complicate financial statements to the point where even CEOs have trouble reading them. Rodgers, a founder, president, CEO and director of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation who sits on the board of several high-technology companies, uses his personal experience to illustrate how these rules obfuscate financial reports.
Rodgers writes: "The first step in the wrong direction came when FASB mandated that companies list 'intangibles' such as 'goodwill' as corporate assets, artificially inflating balance sheets. After that, FASB meddled with the revenue recognition rules, in some cases not allowing companies to report revenue from cash payments received from a customer for a delivered product. Finally, and worst by far, FASB mandated punitive and nonsensical rules for so-called expensing of stock options."
These rules, which are enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission with the threat of criminal prosecution, have begun to take a serious toll on American businesses and markets. "The increased regulation burden makes it less attractive for venture capitalists to fund small startup companies - an economic disaster for Silicon Valley, the most prolific producer of America's technology successes," explains Rodgers.
Rodgers concludes: "FASB is a group of seven theoretical accountants based in Norwalk, Connecticut. Its website shows that no FASB member ever started or ran a successful business and that only one member has even held a senior position in a prominent public company other than an accounting firm. ... It deeply angers me that government lawyers and naive theoretical accountants have been allowed to impair the economic miracle that democratized the silicon chip, the personal computer, and the Internet."
Friday, 15 August 2008
CIC Alliance with CSC
Communication Intelligence, a vendor of electronic signature solutions and biometric signature verification, today announced that it has formed an alliance with CSC (NYSE:CSC) , a leading information technology services company. Under the agreement, CSC will incorporate CIC's SignatureOne(R) Ceremony(R) Server software into selected CSC banking systems sold as licensed software and hosted as software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.
Under the terms of this agreement, CIC will provide CSC with its SignatureOne Ceremony Server solution. CSC will incorporate and package CIC's secure signatures into several enterprise applications and offer this service directly to its clients, expanding CSC's broad portfolio of financial services solutions. This solution will enable the rapid deployment of fully paperless transactions and provide CSC's clients significant return on their investments based on further compression of current business cycles, increased customer satisfaction, as well as major reductions in shipping, data entry and rework due to errors/omissions associated with paper-based transactions.
Increases in default and foreclosure rates, especially in the subprime sector, have prompted a new urgency to control risk and default management and opened up opportunities for new technological solutions. CSC has several offerings, including its EarlyResolution default management application, that provide lenders the tools to address potentially problematic mortgage loans. CSC's first eSignature implementation, which is for a top ten U.S. bank, is part of an end-to-end solution enabling the approval of documents required to complete one of a wide range of reinstatement and workout options for troubled loans. With eSignature, the servicer will be able to process loan modifications more efficiently and effectively. Workout processing and closing will be substantially expedited with this paperless process.
"Our banking industry clients are increasingly seeking electronic signature solutions," said Jeffery Schwalk, Vice President and Managing Director of the Banking Division within CSC's Financial Services Sector. "With this alliance, we've combined the experience of two market leaders to offer a more cost-effective, secure and efficient process for signing new loan applications, dopening new accounts and fulfilling service requests."
"Teaming with CSC represents the next step in our continuous efforts to truly deliver end-to-end solutions and services to meet the complex and broad needs of financial services organizations," stated Guido DiGregorio, CIC's Chairman & CEO. "We are now able to offer the industry a complete hosted or licensed solution and an automated process that results in greatly expedited response times. We look forward to working with CSC and to extending our electronic signature technology to enhance CSC's other financial services platforms."
The SignatureOne Ceremony Server is a J2EE server product that provides the capability to define and manage an electronic signature process within a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to be implemented in an On-Premise Deployed Model or through a SaaS environment. This product enables the use of web services to pass documents and/or packages of documents and related XML metadata to a server that facilitates end-to-end management of multi-party approvals of PDF documents.
Under the terms of this agreement, CIC will provide CSC with its SignatureOne Ceremony Server solution. CSC will incorporate and package CIC's secure signatures into several enterprise applications and offer this service directly to its clients, expanding CSC's broad portfolio of financial services solutions. This solution will enable the rapid deployment of fully paperless transactions and provide CSC's clients significant return on their investments based on further compression of current business cycles, increased customer satisfaction, as well as major reductions in shipping, data entry and rework due to errors/omissions associated with paper-based transactions.
Increases in default and foreclosure rates, especially in the subprime sector, have prompted a new urgency to control risk and default management and opened up opportunities for new technological solutions. CSC has several offerings, including its EarlyResolution default management application, that provide lenders the tools to address potentially problematic mortgage loans. CSC's first eSignature implementation, which is for a top ten U.S. bank, is part of an end-to-end solution enabling the approval of documents required to complete one of a wide range of reinstatement and workout options for troubled loans. With eSignature, the servicer will be able to process loan modifications more efficiently and effectively. Workout processing and closing will be substantially expedited with this paperless process.
"Our banking industry clients are increasingly seeking electronic signature solutions," said Jeffery Schwalk, Vice President and Managing Director of the Banking Division within CSC's Financial Services Sector. "With this alliance, we've combined the experience of two market leaders to offer a more cost-effective, secure and efficient process for signing new loan applications, dopening new accounts and fulfilling service requests."
"Teaming with CSC represents the next step in our continuous efforts to truly deliver end-to-end solutions and services to meet the complex and broad needs of financial services organizations," stated Guido DiGregorio, CIC's Chairman & CEO. "We are now able to offer the industry a complete hosted or licensed solution and an automated process that results in greatly expedited response times. We look forward to working with CSC and to extending our electronic signature technology to enhance CSC's other financial services platforms."
The SignatureOne Ceremony Server is a J2EE server product that provides the capability to define and manage an electronic signature process within a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to be implemented in an On-Premise Deployed Model or through a SaaS environment. This product enables the use of web services to pass documents and/or packages of documents and related XML metadata to a server that facilitates end-to-end management of multi-party approvals of PDF documents.
CSC
CSC is a provides technology-enabled solutions and services through three primary lines of business. These include Business Solutions & Services, Global Outsourcing Services and the North American Public Sector. CSC's advanced capabilities include systems design and integration, information technology and business process outsourcing, applications software development, Web and application hosting, mission support and management consulting. Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., CSC has approximately 90,000 employees and reported revenue of $17.1 billion for the 12 months ended July 4, 2008. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.csc.com/.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
AXS-One Results
AXS-One Inc. (BULLETIN BOARD: AXSO) , a provider of Records Compliance Management (RCM) software, today announced its financial results for the second quarter and six month period ended June 30, 2008.
Total revenues for the second quarter of 2008 were $3.4 million, an increase of $0.9 million or 35% from the second quarter 2007 revenues of $2.5 million. License revenue for the second quarter was $1.1 million, an increase of 109% compared to $0.5 million in the second quarter of 2007. Service revenue for the second quarter was $2.3 million, an increase of $0.3 million or 16% from the second quarter of 2007. Total operating expenses for the second quarter were $5.5 million, a decrease of 10% percent compared to $6.1 million in the second quarter of 2007. The operating loss for the second quarter of 2008 was $2.1 million, a $1.4 million or 41% improvement from the second quarter 2007 operating loss of $3.6 million. The Company reported a net loss of $2.5 million for the second quarter of 2008, or $(0.07) per diluted share compared to a net loss of $3.7 million in the second quarter of last year, or $(0.10) per diluted share.
Total revenues for the second quarter of 2008 were $3.4 million, an increase of $0.9 million or 35% from the second quarter 2007 revenues of $2.5 million. License revenue for the second quarter was $1.1 million, an increase of 109% compared to $0.5 million in the second quarter of 2007. Service revenue for the second quarter was $2.3 million, an increase of $0.3 million or 16% from the second quarter of 2007. Total operating expenses for the second quarter were $5.5 million, a decrease of 10% percent compared to $6.1 million in the second quarter of 2007. The operating loss for the second quarter of 2008 was $2.1 million, a $1.4 million or 41% improvement from the second quarter 2007 operating loss of $3.6 million. The Company reported a net loss of $2.5 million for the second quarter of 2008, or $(0.07) per diluted share compared to a net loss of $3.7 million in the second quarter of last year, or $(0.10) per diluted share.
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