UC4, the world’s largest independent IT Process Automation software company, today announced its enhanced Application Release Automation (ARA) solution. UC4 Application Release Automation provides visibility into the end-to-end release processes through cross functional planning, tracking and reporting. It’s designed to fully automate the deployment of complex applications from development through production and scales to support large, diverse enterprise IT environments.

“Application Release Automation bridges development, application and operations engineers — and is a key enabler to DevOps,” said Ronni Colville, VP Distinguished Analyst for Gartner, Inc. “Application Release Automation tools provide two primary benefits, which are better communications and visibility between teams, and faster time to market with new services and features. Application Release Automation tools will also add a higher degree of reliability to the application deployment process.”

Application release is a complex, time-consuming process. Typically, it involves numerous manual steps, which require significant staff time, with an increased risk of errors. Complex dependencies — both between and/or across applications and operating systems — further complicate the process. The overall process can be highly disruptive to everyday operations, resulting in delayed releases, delayed revenue opportunities and missed SLAs.

Application Release Automation has become a top priority for CIOs due to several trends:

UC4’s Application Release Automation combines the only ARA solution to address application release planning challenges natively within the solution with the most advanced centralized environmental configuration and control abilities.

TASC, an early adopter of the new solution, is recognized as one of the top 5 benefits administration services providers nationwide. TASC has growing base of over 60,000 clients and 600,000 online users.

“Our strategy is to differentiate through our product capabilities and quality of services provided, and our online platform is at the core of that strategy,” said Karl Richards, CIO of TASC. “It’s critical that we roll out continuous innovation with new products and features for our customers. With UC4’s ARA solution, we’re able to drive that innovation in hours and days instead of weeks and months — without adding additional IT staff capacity. This would not be possible without UC4.”

UC4’s ARA solution is one of several enterprise automation solutions that comprise its ONE Automation platform. ONE Automation means that companies only need to buy one integrated product to automate multiple areas of data center processes that traditionally require intensive manual operations. According to Richards, “ARA is a strategic initiative for our company, and we are also using UC4 to automate other areas of the data center, saving a tremendous amount of time and money. UC4 supports many off-the-shelf systems and is able to break down the silos of our diverse IT environment, establish a single pane of glass and accomplish all automation requirements with one tool.”

“DevOps has become mission critical and our solution extends the benefits of IT Process Automation to the market, bridges the gaps within the organization and brings into focus new opportunities for data center efficiency,” said Randy Clark, CMO of UC4.

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uc4-software-introduces-enhanced-application-release-automation-solution-2011-10-19

Business application software provider – A German business application software provider for industries and market segments, SAP AG, has launched its new product for small and medium businesses in Tanzania. According to the chief executive officer (CEO) of Double Click Consulting Ltd, Mr Ali Shariff, the product called Sap Business One 8.8.1, integrates all core business functions across an entire company including all key departments within the particular organisation.

With sap application in a particular company, different departments get connected to one system and they get email notifications of what is going on in another section in terms of transactions.

“Unlike other small business solutions on the market today, Sap business one is a single application eliminating the need for separate installations and complex integration of multiple modules…Sap brings all systems together and the manager can view the whole company simply,” said Mr Shariff.

Mr Shariff was speaking during a press briefing before the official launch of the software in yesterday in Dar es Salaam.Sap delivers its software solutions in Tanzania through its business partners who are Advance One, Bluekey, Double Click Consulting Ltd, iO.sys and ITSL.

The Sap Business One Channel Manager for Africa Region, Mr Nazir Jadavji said the product was meant for all companies and small and medium entrepreneurs for efficient management of their respective organisations.

“We have packages of different levels of organisations from SMEs to government institutions like ministries and its departments,” said Mr Jadavji.

However, it was noted that only few organisations about 20 companies are using the software in the country and according to Mr Shariff, the low turnout is due to lack of merits of using such systems in their operations.

Source:http://www.afriquejet.com/business-application-software-2011101324897.html

Luminosity Lightshow is the new HTML5 tool for creating interactive simulations, for training users to perform particular tasks and activities within software applications. It is aimed at all organisations and software companies which need to teach users or customers how to use a software application and who want to enable users to try your application in a completely safe, controlled environment.

Screen-capture-based simulations are a proven technique for reducing the amount of time that users take to become productive with a new software package or application. The interactive features of Lightshow make it a powerful, yet easy-to-use authoring environment for all software training requirements.

Unlike most software simulation solution tools, Lightshow doesn’t use Flash and as a result requires no browser plug-ins. Instead, it uses HTML5 (the rapidly evolving new Internet standard) that can be viewed in any modern Web browser, and most significantly on multiple device types, including desktops, mobile phones, and tablets – including Apple iPads!

Source:http://www.einnews.com/247pr/237468