Blue Ash-based Ascendum Solutions, a global technology services company, has just acquired TinyBrick, an eCommerce platform provider.

Ascendum is moving TinyBrick to Blue Ash from its former headquarters in Rexburg, Idaho. TinyBrick is a fast-growing provider of customized add-on software to Magento, a leading open source eCommerce provider.

“What TinyBrick does is provide modules and extensions to the Magento software that anyone can use,” says Richard Schramm, Ascendum’s Emerging Technologies Group AVP. “For example, the LightSpeed module adds a technical capability called ‘Full Page Caching’ that is not available in the Community or Professional versions of Magento. This module brings that capability to those versions, allowing them to gain a significant performance boost on their sites,.”

Headquartered in Blue Ash, Ascendum employs 1,500 high-tech professionals worldwide, with offices in Dayton, Columbus, Lexington, New Jersey, Bangalore and Ahmadabad, India. Backed by Vora Ventures technology holding firm, Ascendum was named as one of the Top IT Firms in the Cincinnati region in 2008 and was a finalist for the Fast 55 in 2011.

The acquisition was a natural one for Ascendum, Schramm says. The company is a Magento Gold Solution Partner that offers consultancy and hosting services to companies that use Magento in the U.S. and abroad. TinyBrick offers a way for Ascendum to expand its offerings to its clients.

“The natural next step was in leveraging our capabilities to offer valuable modules and extensions to our customers as part of those consulting engagements, as well as making them available commercially,” Schramm says. “To kick start this initiative, we looked for an organization that provided a wide base of exceptional products in this space for us to build upon.”

TinyBrick will be located in Blue Ash. The company will be staffed by some TinyBrick employees, as well Ascendum employees and some new hires, Schramm says. He declined to give specifics on job creation numbers.

“I can tell you that we have aggressive growth plans in this area and will continue to add resources as we grow,” he says.

Source:http://www.soapboxmedia.com/innovationnews/072611tinybrick.aspx

Garmin has been named the official supplier of marine navigation systems for the 34th America’s Cup.

The Olathe-based manufacturer of GPS devices will provide technology for the yacht racing series that culminates with the America’s Cup finals in 2013.

No equipment or money was donated in exchange for sponsorship. But Garmin worked with the America’s Cup Event Authority to develop software specifically for the competition.

This is the first time Garmin has been a part of the races.

The agreement includes the America’s Cup World Series, the Louis Vuitton Cup, the America’s Cup Challenger Series and the America’s Cup Finals. The first series of races begins next month in Portugal.

The final match is scheduled for September 2013 in San Francisco.

Source:http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/25/3036480/garmin-develops-gps-software-for.html

The long-delayed database software program of the Retirement Fund was identified as one of the two unresolved issues at the agency, according to an audit report that was tackled Friday in an exit conference with the independent auditor and representatives of the Office of the Public Auditor.

According to Perlie Santos, representative of J. Scott Magliari & Co., the software project was marked unresolved because the new database has yet to be implemented despite the Fund exploring ways on how to recover the money that’s already been paid the vendor.

OPA audit manager Ross Zapanta and public auditor Mike Pai also agreed that the finding is classified unresolved because conditions have not changed and no recovery has been made yet.

The pension software cost $449,000 and the contract was signed in 2008 with Express Electronics Ltd., which is owned by Gary Sword. Based on Fund records, it had already paid Sword’s company over $402,000 for the still non-functioning software.

Because there is still $47,400 remaining on the project cost, the board opted to give the contractor more time to fix the program’s deficiency.

The software project was supposed to have been completed in 2009. This was not realized, resulting in a delay of more than two years now.

In the single audit performed for the Fund in 2009, the pension software system was among the serious findings noted by auditors. The audit noted violations of the contract in both parties.

During Friday’s exit conference with auditors, Fund board chair Sixto Igisomar said the pension software will be tackled at their next meeting, slated for Aug. 4.

The board has deferred action on the overdue pension software project on many occasions. It recently gave Sword’s company 10 days to respond on how it plans to fix the program. The ten-day period was set to expire on July 17.

Besides the pension software program, auditors also indicated overpayment of refunds as one of the unresolved findings. The report says that “there were no documentations in fiscal year 2010 showing subsequent collection or communication with the former member who was overpaid.”

For fiscal year 2010, J. Scott Magliari indicated that it found no material weaknesses and significant deficiencies in the financial statements of the Fund. It cited only two findings in the latest audit: the untimely posting and reconciliation of member contributions, which was caused by the staff turnover, and untimely remittances from autonomous agencies.

The other finding is the non-distribution of Form 1099 to recipients before the Jan. 31 deadline. This was due to staff turnover in the records section. The auditors said these findings are noncompliant with the Fund’s own regulations and policies.

Source:http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=111295