Helping to build social collaboration and mobile connectivity through the cloud has helped Kitchener, ON-based IGLOO Software raise $5 million in funding and financing.

The investment will be used to accelerate product development and expand IGLOO’s cloud collaboration services, as it continues to build its offerings in group collaboration, content moderation, security and gamification.

The Series B financing comes from RBC Venture Partners, which led the second round investment, with the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund (OETF) also participating.

It comes at the end of a successful 2011 for the company, during which it was named one of the fastest-growing software companies in Canada.

“It’s been a breakout year for IGLOO, fuelled by the tremendous growth from three converging forces in the marketplace – social, mobile and cloud computing,” said Dan Latendre, CEO of IGLOO Software. “Businesses are seeking to accelerate their investment across each of these areas, and IGLOO has become an on-ramp of sorts, as one of the first steps in adopting this new modern IT infrastructure.”

During the year, IGLOO Software reported an 80 per cent increase in license revenue, with over 4,000 global collaboration sites and a 60 per cent growth in new enterprise customers, including companies like Cisco, Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, Deloitte and the ATP World Tour.

IGLOO also achieved success in developing and delivering Social Software in the Workplace (SSW) and Externally Facing Social Software (EFSS).

“Social networking for business has reached a watershed moment, with most companies either actively using or evaluating social technologies,” said David Unsworth, board member and partner with RBC Venture Partners. “As a pure cloud solution that supports both internal and external collaboration, IGLOO is uniquely positioned to not only enable companies to get up and running quickly, but also scale their efforts as their social strategy matures.”

RBC Venture Partners is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada.

The Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund (OETF) is a direct investment fund established by the Province of Ontario in 2009. The OETF assists in raising capital by innovative, private, Ontario-based companies in the clean technology, life sciences and advanced health technologies, and digital media and information and communications technology sectors. The Fund is managed by the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation (OCGC), an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. OCGC has retained the services of Covington Capital Corporation and Northwater Capital Management Inc. to evaluate applications in relation to OETF.

Source:http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/news/mobile-and-social-business-software-provider-raises-5-million/1000857787/

Shares of Software AG plummeted more than 25% in early trade Tuesday after the German business software maker said it missed its full-year forecasts as a result of weak sales in the final quarter.

The Darmstadt-based company said 2011 sales were almost EUR1.1 billion, unchanged from a year earlier at constant currencies. Profit after tax is also anticipated to have stayed flat at about EUR175.6 million, it said.

Those numbers are well below the latest company guidance, which called for a sales increase of 2% to 5% at constant currencies and a rise in after-tax profit of 10% to 15%.

Software AG DE:SOW -1.11% said that the usual fourth-quarter “budget flush” in its database management software unit did not materialize, surmising that the predicted economic slowdown in the year ahead probably discouraged customers from investing cash left over in annual budgets in database expansion.

At the same time, business in Software AG’s integration software and business process management division, was hurt by significant sales declines in the U.S, it said.

The development mirrors other announcements from the industry. Oracle Corp. (ORCL) said last month sales of new software licenses only increased 2% in the quarter ended Nov. 30 from a year earlier, also missing expectations.

Software AG was by far the biggest faller on Germany’s TecDAX index. At 1049 GMT, its shares were down 20% at EUR24.35. The company plans to release the full set of 2011 figures on Jan. 24.

Analysts said such a wide miss raises some serious questions for the management.

Shares of German business software giant SAP AG DE:SAP -0.82% also declined 2.3% as investors feared it may affected in the same way. SAP plans to release full-year earnings Jan. 25, but it has pre-released those numbers in the past.

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/software-ag-falls-after-missing-target-2012-01-10

Ad Agency Project Management Software Release Changes Agency Business

Charlotte, NC, January 11, 2012 –(PR.com)– The Advantage Software Company announced today that project management for agencies will dramatically change with the release of Advantage blue and its robust project and resource management capabilities.

“One of the more dramatic changes in how agencies will collaborate and manage projects and resources is with the release of Advantage blue,” said Ellen Coulter, president of The Advantage Software Company. “Advantage blue uses new technologies and methods that add unique features that solve real problems and provide important management information while greatly enhancing the user experience.”

Advantage blue is the result of continued feedback and input by Advantage customers. Along with a new interface allowing for user customization, unlimited workspaces, and multiple window access, blue project management includes new options for quickly and easily creating timelines and assigning and “finding” available staff by role. The results are rendered in the user’s choice of various graphical formats and interactive views such as Calendars, Timelines and Gantt Charts. Interactivity means that schedules and assignments may be changed from any graphical view providing many different ways for users to interact with the information. The new Report Writer gives users the ultimate power in information management through pre-defined data sets that make it easy to write meaningful simple or complex reports.

“The all new Calendar is a great example of the expanded interactivity found inside Advantage blue,” said Coulter. “Our clients are reporting that the speed and ease of editing schedules and assignments from different perspectives is accented by the powerful project Timeline and Gantt views.”

The Calendar gives team members an instant snapshot for managing projects by viewing status completions, percent complete, and seeing who is working on what. Team leaders can easily edit assignments on the calendar and then drill down to a full workload view by day, week or month. The ability to see who is over or under-booked is a powerful project management tool.

“We are very excited about these new capabilities that are helping our clients truly automate the project management process and reap the benefits of that automation,” says Coulter. “In addition to the enhanced scheduling tools, the ability to balance the workload and to analyze risks through our new Risk Analysis Dashboard really gives our agencies powerful tools to make real-time management decisions armed with real-time statistics.”

Risk Analysis and other dashboards such as Project Statistics and Client Time Analysis are examples of how Advantage blue transforms daily project information into key metrics that can change and improve how projects are executed. The end result is the on-time delivery of higher quality and more profitable work.

Risk Analysis Burn Rate charts and graphs show team leaders where potential problem areas exist as the project is being executed, before budget milestones are hit. This tool greatly enhances the ability for agencies to forecast, monitor and achieve greater project management efficiencies while increasing agency profitability.

To arrange a custom tour of Advantage blue and learn more about how this amazing suite of agency software products can literally change your agency business.

Source:http://www.pr.com/press-release/382283