SAPPHIRE NOW Named Most Innovative Meeting of 2012 With Reach of More Than 500,000 Attendees

Press release:

SAPPHIRE NOW Named Most Innovative Meeting of 2012 With Reach of More Than 500,000 Attendees

September 17, 2012 | SAP - Corporate

SAP NEWSBYTE - SAPPHIRE NOW, the premiere customer event from SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), has been named "The Most Innovative Meeting of 2012" by BizBash Magazine. The magazine highlighted SAP's "always on" approach as the next step in hybrid event design. SAPPHIRE NOW beat out the well-regarded TED event to take the title.

SAP's "always on" approach will reach over 500,000 physical and online participants globally from November 2011 through the upcoming SAPPHIRE NOW from Madrid in November 2012. This time span includes SAPPHIRE NOW from Madrid in 2011, China SAPPHIRE in November 2011 and July 2012 and SAPPHIRE NOW from Orlando in 2012. Global participants continue to access content and contribute to conversations via www.sapphirenow.com, YouTube and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Weibo and Youku. Social media impressions globally have reached approximately 1.2 billion and continue to grow daily.

"While some vendors engage in a battle of words over the number of people who attend their events, SAP's focus has been on attendee experience and highly-engaging content," said R. "Ray" Wang, principal analyst and CEO, Constellation Research. "The award shows the approach is working."

"SAP brings the same focus on innovation to our event strategy as we do to our customers, products, and solutions," explained Jonathan D. Becher, chief marketing officer, SAP. "We design our events around what our attendees want to hear and recruit presenters from our customers and partners. The attendee feedback, the business results and the award validate our approach."

To learn more about SAPPHIRE NOW, view the "always on" content or to register for future events, visitwww.sapphirenow.com. For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at@sapnews and @sapphirenow.

Press release:

PRESS RELEASE

Cisco Announces Upcoming Event with the Financial Community

Deutsche Bank 2012 Technology Conference

SAN JOSE, Calif, --- September 5, 2012 --- Cisco today announced that it will participate in the following event with the financial community during the month of September. The event will be webcast.  Interested parties can view this event on Cisco's Investor Relations website at investor.cisco.com.

Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank 2012 Technology Conference
September 11, 2012
Las Vegas, Nevada
2:30 pm PT / 5:30 pm ET
David Ward, Service Provider Chief Architect, Chief Technology Officer

About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go tohttp://newsroom.cisco.com.

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Oracle Press Release

Oracle Executive Keynote Lineup for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Announced

Redwood Shores, Calif. – August 28, 2012

News Facts

In the lead-up to Oracle OpenWorld 2012, Oracle today announced the Oracle executive keynote lineup. This is the first of a series of keynote announcements Oracle will make in the next several weeks.

This year, Oracle executives will feature insights into industry trends, the latest technology developments and innovations as well as key strategies for achieving business efficiency and innovation. They will be joined by special guests to discuss important business drivers such as engineered systems, cloud computing, business analytics and big data, and customer experience.

Oracle OpenWorld 2012 takes place September 30 – October 4, 2012 at Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Oracle Executive Keynote Lineup

Sunday, September 30 | 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. | Moscone North, Hall D

Welcome Keynote – “Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together: Why It’s A Different Approach”: Larry Ellison, Oracle Chief Executive Officer, will discuss how Oracle’s approach to delivering hardware and software that is engineered to work together is changing the face of IT.

Monday, October 1 | 8:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | Moscone North, Hall D

“Shift Complexity”: Mark Hurd, Oracle President, will kick off the first full day of Oracle OpenWorld by hosting a discussion on removing complexity from a business that requires thinking differently about how IT delivers value to companies. Topics discussed will include: what’s next for the database, how simplifying and consolidating IT systems can benefit everyone from the DBA to the CEO, and how the data center and information systems are fundamentally changing the ways that IT services are delivered and managed. Oracle Senior Vice President of Oracle Database Development, Andrew Mendelsohn, will also join the stage.

Tuesday, October 2 | 8:45 a.m. - 9:45 a.m. | Moscone North, Hall D

“The Oracle Cloud: Oracle’s Cloud Platform and Applications Strategy”: Thomas Kurian, Oracle Executive Vice President of Product Development, along with leading Oracle customers will discuss how Oracle's complete suite of cloud platform technology and cloud applications are transforming how organizations manage their business, excite and retain their employees, and deliver great customer experiences.

Tuesday, October 2 | 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | Moscone North, Hall D

“The Oracle Cloud: Where Social Is Built In”: Larry Ellison, Oracle Chief Executive Officer, will provide insight into Oracle’s Oracle Cloud Social Services strategy, the broadest and most complete enterprise social platform in the cloud today, and how those services are integrated with Oracle Cloud Application Services to improve customer and employee experience.

Wednesday, October 3 | 8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. | Moscone North, Hall D

“Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Engineered Systems: Fast, Reliable, Virtualized”:
John Fowler, Oracle Executive Vice President of Systems, Edward Screven, Oracle Chief Corporate Architect, and Juan Loaiza, Oracle Senior Vice President of Systems Technology, will explain what hardware and software engineered together can do for the cloud, and how Oracle itself applies these products to its own problems with great scale and efficiency. 

Thursday, October 4 | 9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. | Moscone North, Hall D

“See More, Act Faster: Oracle Business Analytics”: Oracle President Mark Hurd will highlight how customers can use Oracle’s data management and in-memory business intelligence solutions to see more, act faster, and make critical business decisions. He will be joined by Oracle customers who will share best practices of the use of big data and Oracle’s analytics solutions to drive better business outcomes.

Supporting Quote

“This year the Oracle keynotes at OpenWorld will feature discussions on some of the most innovative enterprise technologies driving business today,” said Tania Weidick, Vice President, Oracle Marketing. “Stay tuned for more - Over the next several weeks we’ll be announcing additional keynotes from luminaries across IT, business and top industries around the world that will help our customers navigate the changing IT and business landscape.”

Supporting Resources

Oracle OpenWorld 2012

Join us for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 San Francisco.  Register to attend.

Like Oracle OpenWorld on Facebook

Follow Oracle OpenWorld on Twitter

Oracle OpenWorld Blog

Oracle OpenWorld on LinkedIn

About Oracle OpenWorld

Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco, is the most important educational and networking event of the year for Oracle technologists, customers, and partners. This information technology event is dedicated to helping businesses optimize existing systems and understand upcoming technology breakthroughs. The conference, which draws more than 50,000 attendees from over 110 countries, offer more than 2,100 educational sessions, 400 product demos, exhibitions from 450 partners showcasing applications, middleware, database, server and storage systems, industries, management and infrastructure – all engineered for innovation. Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is being held September 30-October 4 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information or to register, please visit www.oracle.com/openworld. Watch Oracle OpenWorld keynotes, sessions and more live on YouTube. Join the Oracle OpenWorld discussion on Twitter, Facebook and the Oracle OpenWorld Blog.

About Oracle

Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center.  For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com

Microsoft Announces Upcoming Event for the Financial Community

Press release from Microsoft:

Microsoft Announces Upcoming Event for the Financial Community

Aug 28, 2012

Event with Microsoft leadership slated for September.

inShare

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 28, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today announced participation in the following upcoming event with the financial community. Interested parties can listen to a webcast of this event on Microsoft’s Investor Relations website at http://www.microsoft.com/investor.

Citi Technology Conference

Wednesday, September 5, 2012
8:15 a.m. ET/5:15 am PT
Satya Nadella, President, Server & Tools Business

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

For more information, financial analysts and investors only: 

Bill Koefoed, general manager, Investor Relations, Microsoft, (425) 706-4400

Ingram Micro Executive to Present at Upcoming Investor Event

Press Releases

Ingram Micro Executive to Present at Upcoming Investor Event

Aug 24, 2012 (Marketwire via COMTEX) --Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM), the world's largest technology distributor and supply-chain services provider, announced today that Bill Humes, chief operating and financial officer, is scheduled to present at the following investor conference. Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012 Citi Technology Conference Hilton New York Hotel - New York, NY 11:15 a.m. ET Presenter: Bill Humes, chief operating and financial officer To access the live audio webcasts of the presentations, visit the Investor Relations page ofwww.ingrammicro.com. The archived versions will be available for approximately one week following the event. About Ingram Micro Inc.As a vital link in the technology value chain, Ingram Micro creates sales and profitability opportunities for vendors and resellers through unique marketing programs, outsourced logistics, technical and financial support, managed and cloud-based services, and product aggregation and distribution. The company is the only global broad-based IT distributor, serving more than 150 countries on six continents with the world's most comprehensive portfolio of IT products and services. Visit www.ingrammicro.com.

PRESS RELEASE

Cisco Live! What You Make Possible in Mexico

• One of the most important global technology events is once again taking place in Mexico, on the Mayan Riviera.
• More than 2,500 attendees will gain insight and the inspiration to create exciting new possibilities in the way they live, work, learn and play.

Mexico City, 16 August,  2012 - Cisco today announced that its industry-leading IT and communications event, Cisco Live!™, is taking place on the Mexican Mayan Riviera from 6 to 8 November 2012 at the Moon Palace Hotel.

Cisco Live! is the most important meeting point for customers, IT experts, partners and technology specialists to access premier education and training in the latest products, trends, and market transitions as well as certification in Cisco technologies.

"We are so proud to have the chance to host Cisco Live! again," said Rogelio Velasco, general manager of Cisco Systems de Mexico. "During three days, we will be able to present Cisco's industry-leading technologies to our customers and partners in an environment that encourages the exchange of ideas. This will help them face IT-related challenges and discover what they can make possible in their careers and for their organizations."

Cisco Live! Mexico will offer the following tracks:

• Networkers program sessions, including training sessions in technology, business and products for network engineers.
• Technical seminars on data center and virtualization; routing and switching; "bring your own device"; the new protocol for the Internet IPv6; and unified communications and collaboration.

•  IT management program sessions, with business and vertical market sessions as well as case studies that offer attendees strategies and tools for driving the business of IT.   

• Executive symposium, an exclusive CxO-level event to discuss relevant IT- and business-related topics focused on how technology can drive business transformation.

This year, attendees will have again the chance to access the Hands-on Labs designed to help them learn about a technology and to apply that knowledge through solving problems in a controlled environment. The equipment in the Hands-on Labs to be deployed at Cisco Live! will be connected with labs in San Jose, California, giving participants access to the latest technology developed by Cisco and expert guidance.

The Hands-on Labs are in the following areas:

• CCIE: A four-hour session for attendees studying for the CCIE® certification both in Routing and in Data Center. Participants will receive direct counseling from the team in charge of the practical exam of the certification.

• Two Collaboration labs: One lab focuses on medianet (video applications, network design, physical security, videoconferencing and Cisco WebEx®). Another focuses on monitoring and solving network-performance problems related to voice, data and video.

• Data Center: This lab explores the configuration and deployment of Cisco Nexus® switches.

In addition, participants will get access to the World of Solutions, an attractive trade show area designed to welcome Cisco's ecosystem partners and enhance the solutions offered to the attendees, where more than 50 partners and technology providers will present their latest products. Cisco solutions will also be showcased.

Besides, attendees interested in presenting their certification exams during Cisco Live! will have access to a special discount of up to 75 percent.

Cisco Live! is held annually in just four locations worldwide: U.S., U.K., Australia and Mexico. Last year Cisco Live! Mexico gathered 2,500 professionals from Mexico and the rest of Latin America who attended 112 sessions; 250 engineers participated in certification exams, and 50 partners took part in the World of Solutions.

For further information about Cisco Live! Mexico, the industry's premier education and training event for IT professionals, please visit www.ciscolive.com.

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go tohttp://newsroom.cisco.com.

# # #

Why People Remember Negative Events More Than Positive Ones

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Why People Remember Negative Events More Than Positive Ones

By ALINA TUGEND

MY sisters and I have often marveled that the stories we tell over and over about our childhood tend to focus on what went wrong. We talk about the time my older sister got her finger crushed by a train door on a trip in Scandinavia. We recount the time we almost missed the plane to Israel because my younger sister lost her stuffed animal in the airport terminal.

Since, fortunately, we’ve had many more pleasant experiences than unhappy ones, I assumed that we were unusual in zeroing in on our negative experiences. But it turns out we’re typical.

“This is a general tendency for everyone,” said Clifford Nass, a professor of communication at Stanford University. “Some people do have a more positive outlook, but almost everyone remembers negative things more strongly and in more detail.”

There are physiological as well as psychological reasons for this.

“The brain handles positive and negative information in different hemispheres,” said Professor Nass, who co-authored “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships” (Penguin 2010). Negative emotions generally involve more thinking, and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones, he said. Thus, we tend to ruminate more about unpleasant events — and use stronger words to describe them — than happy ones.

Roy F. Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, captured the idea in the title of a journal article he co-authored in 2001, “Bad Is Stronger Than Good,” which appeared in The Review of General Psychology. “Research over and over again shows this is a basic and wide-ranging principle of psychology,” he said. “It’s in human nature, and there are even signs of it in animals,” in experiments with rats.

As the article, which is a summary of much of the research on the subject, succinctly puts it: “Bad emotions, bad parents and bad feedback have more impact than good ones.

ISDA Announces Greece 'Credit Event'

CNBC’s Steve Liesman, Kelly Evans, Bob Pisani & Maria Bartiromo discuss the ISDA announcement that Friday’s Greek bond swap constitutes a “credit event.”

To see the discussion, click the link below:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000077788

Greek Default

It’s official!  The Greek government has defaulted!

Probably not many folks are surprised, but it is now official.

For a video, click the link below:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000077770

Report Finds Spammers Abusing Holidays and Major Events

News release from Symantec:

Symantec Report Finds Spammers are Taking Advantage of New Year Holidays and Major Events

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – January 26, 2012 – January 26, 2012– Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the findings of its January Symantec Intelligence Report, which shows that spammers are using holidays and major events to make their mail more appealing.

Symantec Intelligence has seen more than 10,000 unique domain names compromised with a redirect script written in PHP that contains a reference to the New Year in the file name. These redirect scripts were hosted on compromised Web sites and links to these were included in spam emails, which were subsequently blocked by Symantec.cloud.

Click-to-Tweet: Symantec report finds spammers are taking advantage of New Year, holidays and major events: http://bit.ly/xzxecU

To further entice recipients to open their messages, spammers used additional social engineering techniques by including parameters in the URL to suggest that the destination is a social networking site.

Symantec Intelligence expects to see spammers taking advantage of other upcoming “calendar events” with one of the most important traditional Chinese New Year celebrations starting this week and continuing for several days, as well as the fast-approaching Valentine's Day.

“We also expect to see plenty of spam and malware taking advantage of some of the major upcoming sporting events this year. We are already seeing references to the Summer Olympics in London as part of 419 or advance fee fraud messages,” said Paul Wood, senior intelligence analyst, Symantec.

“By relating their mails to widely-celebrated holidays and current events with global interest, spammers and malware authors can (at first glance at least) make their messages more interesting, and increase the chance of recipients visiting spam Web sites or becoming infected,” Wood said.

During December, global spam levels dropped, but in January gradually returned to similar levels as in November 2011, which is still lower than the 2011 average.

Other Report Highlights:
Spam: In January 2012, the global ratio of spam in email traffic rose by 1.3 percentage points since December 2011, to 69.0 percent (1 in 1.45 emails). This follows a more noticeable drop in December when spam fell by 2.8 percentage points to 67.7 percent. The recent increase means that spam has almost returned to the same level as in November 2011.

Phishing: In January, the global phishing rate increased by 0.06 percentage points, taking the average to one in 370.0 emails (0.27 percent) that comprised some form of phishing attack.

Email-borne Threats: The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic was one in 295.0 emails (0.33 percent) in January, a decrease of 0.02 percentage points since December 2011. In January, 29.0 percent of email-borne malware contained links to malicious Web sites, unchanged since December 2011.

Web-based Malware Threats: January saw an average of 2,102 Web sites each day harboring malware and other potentially unwanted programs including spyware and adware; a decrease of 77.4 percent since December 2011.

Endpoint Threats: The most frequently blocked malware for the last month was WS.Trojan.H. WS.Trojan.H is generic cloud-based heuristic detection for files that posses characteristics of an as yet unclassified threat. Files detected by this heuristic are deemed by Symantec to pose a risk to users and are therefore blocked from accessing the computer.

Geographical Trends:
Spam

• Saudi Arabia became the most spammed geography in January; with a spam rate of 75.5 percent.
• China was the second most-spammed with 75.0 percent of email traffic blocked as spam.
• In the US, 69.0 percent of email was spam and 68.7 percent in Canada.
• The spam level in the UK was 69.3 percent.
• In The Netherlands, spam accounted for 70.7 percent of email traffic, 68.2 percent in Germany, 69.1 percent in Denmark and 68.6 percent in Australia.
• In Hong Kong, 67.5 percent of email was blocked as spam and 66.7 percent in Singapore, compared with 65.6 percent in Japan.
• Spam accounted for 69.5 percent of email traffic in South Africa and 73.1 percent in Brazil.

Phishing

• The Netherlands became the country most targeted for phishing attacks in January, with one in 62.6 emails identified as phishing.
• The UK was the second most targeted country, with one in 179.4 emails identified as phishing attacks.
• Phishing levels for the US were one in 1,145 and one in 379.9 for Canada.
• In Germany phishing levels were one in 797.6, one in 330.9 in Denmark.
• In Australia, phishing activity accounted for one in 542.2 emails and one in 942.9 in Hong Kong; for Japan it was one in 5,692 and one in 1,156 for Singapore.
• In Brazil one in 1,007 emails was blocked as phishing.

E-mail-borne Threats

• The Netherlands had the highest ratio of malicious emails in January, with one in 61.4 emails identified as malicious.
• The UK had the second highest rate, with one in 169.1 emails identified as malicious.
• In South Africa, one in 305.9 emails was blocked as malicious.
• The virus rate for email-borne malware in the US was one in 592.5 and one in 285.4 in Canada.
• In Germany virus activity reached one in 471.7 and one in 318.1 in Denmark.
• In Australia, one in 327.9 emails was malicious.
• For Japan the rate was one in 1,573, compared with one in 482.9 in Singapore.
• In Brazil, one in 681.7 emails in contained malicious content.

Vertical Trends:

• The Education sector became the most spammed industry sector in January, with a spam rate of 71.0 percent.
• The spam rate for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector was 69.0 percent, compared with 68.7 percent for IT Services, 68.4 percent for Retail, 68.9 percent for Public Sector and 68.2 percent for Finance.
• The Public Sector remained the most targeted by phishing activity in January, with one in 99.1 emails comprising a phishing attack.
• Phishing levels for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector reached one in 838.0 and one in 647.8 for the IT Services sector, one in 529.4 for Retail, one in 169.4 for Education and one in 253.7 for Finance.
• With one in 90.2 emails being blocked as malicious, the Public Sector remained the most targeted industry in January.
• The virus rate for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector reached one in 381.3 and one in 399.4 for the IT Services sector; one in 407.1 for Retail, one in 138.3for Education and one in 236.7 for Finance.

Market Trends:

• The spam rate for small to medium-sized businesses (1-250) was 68.9%, compared with 69.1% for large enterprises (2500+).
• Phishing attacks targeting small to medium-sized businesses (1-250) accounted for one in 225.2 emails, compared with one in 410.9 for large enterprises (2500+).
• Malicious email-borne attacks destined for small to medium-sized businesses (1-250) accounted for one in 277.3 emails, compared with one in 281.5 for large enterprises (2500+).

The January Symantec Intelligence Report provides greater detail on all of the trends and figures noted above, as well as more detailed geographical and vertical trends.

Related

• SlideShare Presentation: January 2012 Symantec Intelligence Report
• Symantec.cloud Global Threats
• Symantec.cloud Intelligence Reports
• Symantec.cloud In the News
• Symantec.cloud Podcasts

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About Symantec Intelligence Report
The Symantec Intelligence report combines the best research and analysis from the Symantec.cloud MessageLabs Intelligence Report and the Symantec State of Spam & Phishing Report. The new integrated report, the Symantec Intelligence Report, provides the latest analysis of cyber security threats, trends and insights from the Symantec Intelligence team concerning malware, spam, and other potentially harmful business risks. The data used to compile the analysis for this combined report includes data from December 2011 and January 2012.

About Symantec
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Note to Editors: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.