The combined companies have the use of over 30 patents, some dating to when VocalTec invented VOIP. In the current legal world we live in, this protection is crucial. The company believes that its patents, technology, and inventions are prior art to other existing patents and may also expose patent invalidity. The combination of patents and softphone/softswitch technology were the primary drivers of the merger. The combined company is much stronger now.

YMAX brings the success of the magicJack in the form of brand equity, distribution and advertising across many outlets and over 6,500,000 magicJacks sold since 2008. The largest reaching CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) in the United States in terms of area codes available and certification in number of states, it has its own chip development and application server/softswitch company. VocalTec also adds softswitch, application servers and the softphone to the mix. The combined company will have cost reductions through different synergies.

VocalTec’s advantages over its competitors, including Skype, include:

1. A softphone, sharing a user’s favorite numbers, available across many platforms:
   1. A computer
   2. A computer with a magicJack connected enabling the use of a regular telephone (corded or portable) with the ability to be the second line in a house or the primary number
   3. A computer with a femtocell-enabled magicJack allowing calls from a user’s cell phone to go through a home computer and achieving superior call quality in your house while saving valuable cellular plan minutes (to be available later this year)
   4. Via mobile applications on iPhone® and iPad™ mobile digital devices and mobile devices running the Android™ and Blackberry® mobile technology platforms (beta versions today, formal release in Q4 of 2010)
2. Free phone numbers given out to all our customers and easily dialed from any telephone
3. Free telephone services for magicJack to magicJack calls
4. Free telephone calls from our softphone users to anybody in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
5. Underlying network carrying these calls is a dedicated telephone network with over 130 very powerful servers, session border controllers and application servers. This network has proven to have 99.99% uptime in the last year
6. Free voicemail, directory assistance, and local and long distance calling in the U.S. and Canada
7. User contacts stored on our network so where ever they might use the softphone, the contact list will be downloaded to the app
8. We believe we have the best VOIP call quality using in the U.S.
9. magicJack received the 2009 Most Innovative Product of the Year award from RadioShack®
10. The ease of use of the magicJack and softphones particularly when traveling

Ido Gur, who will remain in charge of VocalTec’s Israeli operations, states, “I am excited about the potential to become the worldwide, leading provider of VOIP and softphone applications using SIP. I strongly believe that the synergies enabled by this business combination will allow us to achieve this target. I trust the leadership and of Dan Borislow to make this a reality.”

Following the merger, a total of 11,736,189 shares are outstanding. The company has included a discussion of future operating results in the press release in connection with its announcement of the merger. The company does not intend to update these statements or provide additional future guidance. The company encourages potential investors to read the Form 6-K filed in connection with the merger and available at www.sec.gov.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-13 satellite captures visible and infrared images of the weather over the U.S. East coast. These images are overlaid on a true-color background map, and fed into small and medium-sized videos of the Gulf of Mexico and the nearby Atlantic Ocean for the last 3 days. The GOES-11 satellite provides similar coverage of the U.S. west coast and Eastern Pacific.

The GOES satellites scan further into the oceans twice per hour, offering the opportunity to watch storm development in the swath called “Hurricane Alley,” from Atlantic to Pacific. The bigger scans are used to make large-scale Hurricane Alley movies for the last three to five days, illustrating the life-cycle of subtropical storms, as some of them spin up to become hurricanes.

The GOES satellites also scan the entire disk of the Earth every three hours. These are used to produce “full disk movies” from the last five days of satellite imagery data from GOES-13 in the Atlantic and GOES-11 in the eastern Pacific. With just eight frames per day, time flies by quickly as weather circulates across the Western Hemisphere.

“We have recently changed the code for the up-to-date GOES movies, including the “Hurricane Alley” movies, that have links on the page goes.gsfc.nasa.gov,” said Dr. Dennis Chesters of the NASA GOES Project at Goddard. “They are now all encoded with H264, the digital compression standard used by the cable TV industry.”

Because of the modern video standard, these play on all personal computers (Windows and Macs) that are up-to-date.

Dr. Chesters said that the NASA GOES Project also slightly resized the GOES movies, so that all of the movies have at least one dimension that is a sub-multiple of a standard HDTV dimension (720/1080). “This makes it easy for software that automatically fits movies to a screen to resize them without complicated interpolation,” Dennis said. “So, the movies appear sharp and have snappy playback on small-screen devices. For instance, they work nicely on the popular iPads.”

As a hidden bonus, each of the four frames at the top of the page (WEST+EAST for USA+GLOBE) is linked to a “reference movie” that downloads a movie that is the right size for your device. This is a Quicktime-only feature that will work on all Apple computers and Windows PCs that have Quicktime installed. The “reference movie” will accommodate iPhones and iPads as well as Macs and PCs. It sends a highly compressed version if the device is using a slow G3 phone link, but sends a larger, less compressed version to bigger screens with faster connections.

For the 2010 hurricane season, the NASA GOES Project is considering creating a gallery of up-to-date movies in many sizes/formats, with a separate web page with explanations and links.

To access to today’s GOES Hurricane Alley movies, visit:

http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov

To see the latest large-scale GOES Hurricane Alley Movie of the Atlantic Ocean basin, visit:

http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goescolor/goeseast/hurricane2/movie/alley_east_conus.mp4

Missouri’s alpha sea trials included a range of submarine and propulsion-plant operations, submerging for the first time, and high-speed runs on and below the surface to demonstrate that the ship’s propulsion plant is fully mission-capable.

The sea trials were directed by U.S. Navy Adm. Kirkland Donald, director – Naval Nuclear Propulsion. Also participating in the sea trials were Rear Adm. William Hilarides, program executive officer – Submarines; Rear Adm. Michael McLaughlin, commander – Submarine Group Two; Capt. Leslie Elkin, supervisor of shipbuilding in Groton; and John P. Casey, president of Electric Boat. Missouri is commanded by Cmdr. Timothy A. Rexrode.

“The crew and shipbuilders worked together seamlessly to take this submarine to sea and put it through its paces,” said Electric Boat President John P. Casey. “It was a superb effort by everyone involved, and reflects the commitment of the Navy/industry team to sustain the success of the Virginia-class submarine program. I deeply appreciate the contributions made by the Navy personnel, shipbuilders and suppliers who made it happen.”

Electric Boat and its major subcontractor, Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, have received contracts to build the first 18 submarines of a planned 30-ship Virginia Class under a teaming agreement that splits the construction workload between the two shipyards.

SprinxCRM

Now, SprinxCRM Mobile for the iPhone®  and Android OS phones expands the company’s mobile solutions lineup which already includes access for BlackBerry® and Windows Mobile® handsets.

“SprinxCRM gives mobile users of CRM more choices when it comes to running their business on-the-go with the latest mobile devices,” said Radko Jelinek, Sprinx’ Director of Sales. “We also see this release as a key step towards providing CRM and business solutions for users of the iPad® and other electronic tablets.”

This update to SprinxCRM also includes improvements to SprinxCRM OutlookSync, a data synchronization application for Microsoft Outlook®.

Highlights of SprinxCRM OutlookSync:

Sprinx Systems LLC is a worldwide provider of CRM solutions and related business marketing applications. SprinxCRM is a powerful, web-based CRM tool with important sales management and reporting elements that allows its users to analyze, as well as gather, critical customer data. Sprinx Systems is also a Microsoft Gold® Certified Partner.

For more information and free trials, please visit SprinxCRM at www.sprinxcrm.com.

Apple, iPhone, and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. MOTOROLA and the Stylized “M” Logo are registered in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.  Microsoft, Microsoft Gold, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Financial systems are tremendously data-intensive and rely on speed in trading transactions that can result in huge profits and help exchanges compete and meet client demands.  As market volatility continues to increase so does the risk of system failures that can lead to transaction delays, with a direct impact on the global financial system and the businesses and individuals that rely on it.

Recognizing these demands, IBM is introducing the new Financial Markets Framework, an open standards based technology platform that combines IBM’s industry assets and ultra-low latency features with advanced information management, analytics and process integration software.

According to analyst firm Celent, the global securities and investment software market currently exceeds $14 billion annually,[1] and financial services firms are increasingly relying on technology to drive new innovation, streamline operations, improve reliability and meet a growing list of regulatory requirements for transparency, compliance and risk management.

Interactive Data Corporation (NYSE: IDC) a global provider of managed ultra-low latency services for electronic trading and a broad spectrum of market data and related areas, is using the IBM framework to provide a variety of electronic trading infrastructure services to clients.

“Interactive Data’s technical infrastructure supports collecting, editing, maintaining and delivering data on millions of trading instruments throughout the day to a wide range of financial institutions and active traders globally,” said Jeff Banker, executive vice president, Real-Time Market Data and Trading Solutions for Interactive Data.  ”Through our partnership with IBM, we will continue to pursue new opportunities to deliver additional managed services that can meet the evolving front, middle and back office needs of our clients.”

Interconnected systems deployed on fit for purpose technologies that are tuned for specific workloads enable the most efficient deployment of enterprise solutions – reducing cost and increasing efficiencies by supporting a holistic view into essential operations as they occur across their entire enterprise. The IBM Financial Markets Framework leverages both industry and open standards to simplify integration, improve interoperability and enable the delivery of innovative customer-centric services.

IBM client, Bolsa de Comercio de Santiago, Chile’s central stock exchange, has undertaken a multi-year effort to position their exchange for the market environment of the future. The company is utilizing the IBM framework to advance their trading platform to meet regulatory requirements and improve performance.

“In addition to basing our new securities trading platform on IBM offerings, we are using the IBM Financial Markets Framework to guide our entry into trade surveillance and monitoring,” said Jose Antonio Martinez, General Manager, Bolsa de Comercio de Santiago. “We are performing specific correlation analysis on trades to watch for regulatory violations.”

The IBM Financial Markets Framework provides the key capabilities required by almost every financial markets firm, including:

• A market data solution that can accept feeds from virtually any provider and deliver market data at high speeds and low latency
• An algorithmic trading program that can increase automated trading while reducing risks
• Securities processing capabilities that consolidate similar processes to lower operating costs
• A next generation trading infrastructure capable of low microsecond response times and millions of orders per second throughput
• Market surveillance and trade monitoring capabilities that can track and analyze market activity in real time to identify and investigate possible violations of market regulations
• A settlement risk management capability that can measure and monitor the risk associated with unsettled trades

IBM has teamed up with Fixnetix to combine IBM’s Financial Markets Framework with Fixnetix comprehensive co-location and market connectivity capabilities. This offers clients dedicated or shared hosted managed services that provide cost-effective, ultra low latency services for multi-asset market data and trade/order execution.

“The Fixnetix and IBM strategic partnership will enable our firms to provide tiered global services to leading investment banks, hedge funds and proprietary trading groups,” said Paul Ellis, COO and Founder, Fixnetix. “This is ideal for clients seeking ultra-performance, service stability, and reduced cost.”

IBM has engaged with the world’s leading financial services firms on mission-critical projects for almost 100 years. In working with financial markets clients, IBM has developed an unparalleled portfolio of skills, technology assets, trading-specific computing platforms, and business consulting and information technology services, supported by the world’s largest industrial research organization. As a result, IBM is uniquely positioned to facilitate a collaborative approach for innovation in the financial services industry.

Chi-Tech, one of the world’s leading providers of trading services to exchanges, is utilizing the framework as part of its new trading platform.

“Chi-Tech is continuously monitoring best-in-class trading technologies to meet the needs of our clients. To that end, we’ve incorporated IBM middleware into our platform, to meet their requirements and our high standards for speed and mission-critical reliability,” said Gregory E. Smith, Vice Chairman of Chi-X Global Inc. and CEO of Chi-X Global Technology Inc. “We are continuing the worldwide rollout in our Chi-X Asia and North America exchanges, and we fully support the IBM Financial Markets Framework for the broader industry foundation that it provides to the Chi-Tech customer base around the world.”

Today’s announcement represents another addition to IBM’s leading portfolio of industry solutions and frameworks. Industry frameworks provide a configurable platform to accelerate deployment of business solutions. They extend IBM’s service oriented architecture (SOA) middleware with industry-specific capabilities and specially designed process templates. IBM industry solutions and industry business partner solutions build on the value provided by these industry frameworks to deliver a unique, end-to-end solution for each client.

The IBM Financial Markets Framework helps clients build an integrated platform for all of their operations based on industry standards.  It combines IBM’s entire software portfolio including WebSphere, Lotus and Information Management products and full range of IBM server and storage products, industry-specific offerings and consulting expertise of IBM Global Business Services.

The IBM Financial Markets Framework helps to enable the creation of highly-available and scalable infrastructures that help reduce costs and complexity while achieving breakthrough productivity gains.  IBM’s latest advances in engineering and software development have produced a Securities Exchange Reference Architecture (SXRA) lab benchmark that achieved over five million orders per second and latency as low as 12 microseconds for the round trip from gateway to matching engine and back using a combination of InfiniBand and 10GbE. The IBM lab performance results show a 70 percent increase in orders per second and 40 percent reduction in latency over IBM results published one year ago. The environment featuring Low Latency Messaging will be recreated and on display at booth 2213 at the show.[2]

For more information on the IBM Financial Markets Framework or for details on how IBM is helping financial services clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster decisions, visit: www.ibm.com/financialmarkets.

[1] Celent: “IT Spending in Financial Services: A Global Perspective,” January 2010

[2] The environment includes: IBM® WebSphere® MQ Low Latency Messaging, IBM solidDB™ , IBM Power® 750 Express™ , IBM BladeCenter® HS22, IBM Enterprise X-Architecture® System x3850 X5, and IBM XIV® Storage System

Note: All statements regarding IBM’s plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, Lotus, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

“We believe that having a common database platform to address these two challenging topics — loss share reporting and distressed debt accounting — creates efficiency and helps to reduce risk through data consistency and reduced system-to-system interfaces,” said Hillel Caplan, partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP and leader of the LDC Suite practice.

“We have been providing a variety of software solutions to financial institutions around the world for more than two decades. Our deep experience with technology-based solutions, coupled with the specialized technical knowledge of our loss share reporting advisory team and accounting practitioners, allowed us to develop a unique product with significant value for the market,” Caplan added.

Dennis Kiefer, director, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP and leader of the loss share reporting advisory practice, added, “Clients using manual or ad-hoc processes for tracking and reporting information on acquired loans have found the administrative and compliance burdens to be significant.  LDC Suite allows companies to keep their attention focused on the assets rather than the process.”

LDC Suite is a SQL database application and is already licensed to companies throughout the United States.

More information about LDC Suite, as well as information about whether the software and/or related services are appropriate for an organization, may be obtained via a Deloitte representative.

“LDC Suite” is a trademark of Deloitte Development LLC, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP, and is licensed to clients by Deloitte & Touche Products Company LLC, a subsidiary of Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Texas Instruments is organizing a competition at its Destination ImagiNation exhibit, pitting some of the country’s brightest students against each other – and their teachers and parents – with Tom Reardon, a leading math educator and Texas Instruments Teachers Teaching with Technology™ (T3) instructor from Youngstown, Ohio, as moderator. Participants will test their knowledge of education-related trivia in a game show-like contest using the latest TI-Nspire™ with Touchpad handheld learning device.

“These are some of the most talented and creative students from across the country, so it will be fun and more than challenging to see how well they do in these challenges,” said Reardon. “More importantly, these students, their parents and teachers will see the latest trend in education, key technology tools that foster greater teacher/student interactivity in the math classroom.”

The interactive and dynamic math classroom technology shown at this conference demonstrates how students’ graphing calculator handhelds are networked in a classroom, using the TI-Nspire™ Navigator™ wireless classroom network system, to create a shared, real-time learning experience. Teachers, for example, can send an exercise to each student’s device while the entire class works on solutions together via projected screen images. Teachers can track student’s individual progress, and replace pencil-and-paper quizzes with quizzes graded in real-time to make sure concepts are understood by the entire class, before moving onto the next part of the lesson. Students can also work in groups, via this in-class network, to foster shared learning.

The new TI-Nspire graphing calculator handheld is available through instructional dealers now and will be available at retail in time for back to school. For more information on the TI-Nspire™ with Touchpad, visit www.ti-nspire.com.

About Texas Instruments

Education Technology, a business of Texas Instruments, provides a wide range of tools connecting the classroom experience with real-world applications, helping students and teachers to explore math and science interactively. TI’s products and services are tested vigorously against recognized third-party research, which shows that the use of graphing calculators helps improve the mathematical skills of students and their attitudes toward mathematics. For more information, visit www.education.ti.com.

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through manufacturing, design and sales operations in more than 30 countries. For more information, visit www.ti.com.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at www.ti.com.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050310/SFTH009LOGO-a)

Reinventing the Real-Time Enterprise

“We believe that enterprises are looking to unleash the power of the existing landscapes,” began Sikka, speaking live from Frankfurt and via satellite to Orlando. “And we believe in doing that without breaking continuity, without bringing disruption to your existing systems.” Sikka spoke of the “IT landscapes of choice” that have kept long-time customers with SAP throughout 30 years of technology and business changes. He underlined that, like cities, these “living landscapes” are in continuous renovation, operation and evolution, but without disruption. He then spoke of SAP’s fundamental areas of innovation: “real” real time, and reach.

“Every once in a while, a set of technologies converge that change everything; entirely new sorts of innovations and products become possible,” proclaimed Sikka. “We believe that we are upon that moment in time.” After hinting upon the real real-time applications for planning, forecasting and simulation that Plattner would later expand upon, Sikka announced SAP’s plans for a high-performance analytic appliance to enable real-time analytics on live transactional data (in SAP® Business Suite and SAP R/3® software) and to “supercharge” the SAP NetWeaver® Business Warehouse component and SAP BusinessObjects solutions. Sikka emphasized, “Today SAP is reinventing the real-time enterprise.” He then invited 20 customers to sign up to be the first to use the appliance, being built by SAP and partner strategic hardware partners such as HP.

In addition to speeding up existing SAP systems with real-time computing, Sikka spoke of SAP’s aims to extend the reach of these systems by liberating the information within them. Using the analogy of the growth and efficiency of the harbors and airports that enabled manufacturers in China to quickly expand globally, he conveyed the need for companies to have “gates” that enable their systems to reach out and touch the world outside – to evolve with new lines of trade and new forms of connectivity. Sikka announced a project code-named “Gateway” to create a product that would attach to any existing SAP system so that all types of developers from customers, partner companies and SAP could build and deliver simple applications that liberate the SAP application functionality and content for diverse mobile devices and presentation technologies. “The fantastic middleware that Sybase has around mobility gives us an unbelievable opportunity to unbind – to “unwire” – the existing systems that are sitting in your landscape,” Sikka added.

As a further example of expanding reach, Sikka noted that on-premise systems will be around for a long time. He cited on-demand solution SAP Carbon Impact as one of many examples of simple cloud extensions that customers will be able to add on without sacrificing the continuity and integrity of these systems. He also underlined that SAP NetWeaver remains SAP’s platform to enable business without boundaries, and that it was being extended into cloud and mobile environments and would include real-time computing components.

Sikka closed by underlining that this type of fundamental innovation without disruption, by unbinding customers and adding value to existing systems, is central to the concept of “timeless software” that he has outlined. “We believe that it can be achieved not by a vendor of one, but an ecosystem of the best,” said Sikka. Noting that customers need not compromise to enable the innovations that he had referred to, Sikka concluded, “When we bring innovation without boundaries, we get businesses without boundaries. And that is what we at SAP stand for.”

The “Real Enterprise 2.0″ – Powered by In-Memory Computing

While Sikka talked about how the new innovations will improve businesses, SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner talked in great detail from Orlando about the development work that went into these innovations, enabling what he calls “the real ‘enterprise 2.0.’” Plattner started by talking about how these are being realized by an innovation approach called “Design Thinking” and then launched into an explanation of how the new solutions bring the value of in-memory computing – fundamentally risk-free – to existing customers with ERP and business intelligence (BI)/analytics) systems. Throughout his talk, Plattner reiterated the theme of “thinking backwards to move forward” – i.e., bringing new capabilities to currently installed software in customer landscapes as opposed to only offering these for new releases.

As proof of success, he claimed that SAP had set up a parallel in-memory database in 48 hours at one of its larger customer’s sites. “For the average customer, the implementation time will be even quicker: about two hours,” according to Plattner. “Best of all, the implementation will occur without changing any of the customer’s software or losing any data quality. The customer will receive the speed of in-memory computing without any risk to their investments or information base.”

Plattner presented the in-memory end result: that all users, including executives, can directly access SAP software to pull the information they need to take appropriate decisions and actions – answering any question they desire in less than a second. The speed and flexibility of business insight not only arms the CEO but can also be pushed across the entire organization to empower front-line business consumers. “This new type of enterprise interaction will change the behavior of boardroom interactions and place a greater emphasis on executives asking the right questions, not waiting for the right answers,” said Plattner. “As a result, executives no longer use energy and time to speculate or debate about what the question is, and instead get to the problem quickly.”

Plattner concluded with demos of production, sales and accounting scenarios illustrating the potential for real-time decisions and actions. “This will change how we do business,” Plattner said. “This will finally – now after all these years – include the managers and [enable] all levels of managers to work together and interact. And therefore we dare to say that this is enterprise 2.0.”

To view replays of the executive keynote speeches, please visit http://sapphirenow.blogs-sap.com/communications-center/.

SAPPHIRE® NOW

With SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP marks the next evolution of its SAPPHIRE customer conference and networking events, offering SAP customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe. Held simultaneously in Orlando, Florida, and Frankfurt, Germany, May 17-19, 2010, this enhanced, real-time event connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and a newly designed online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether onsite or online, participants can gain insight on how innovative business solutions from SAP are enabling long-term, profitable business growth. For more information about the Orlando show, visit www.sapandasug.com; for the Frankfurt event, visit www.sap.com/sapphire/emea. Join the conversation via Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW and visit the SAPPHIRE NOW Social Newsroom at sapphirenow.blogs-sap.com.

About SAP

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 97,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright © 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

The goal of Cloud Commons will be to provide an information-rich environment where IT professionals can expand their knowledge and obtain pertinent information about enterprise cloud computing from across the industry. Cloud Commons will enable IT professionals to contribute to and take advantage of rigorously quantified assessments of available cloud services.  By sharing experiences and expertise, participants will be able to make well-informed tactical and strategic IT sourcing and management decisions based on a broad spectrum of timely cloud-related content and best practices from like-minded peers, advice from industry experts, and an extensive directory of cloud providers and services.

In addition to CA Technologies, which is sponsoring the site, foundational members of the Cloud Commons initiative include TM Forum, Red Hat, Carnegie Mellon University and Insight Investments, which is hosting the site.

“Demand for cloud services holds significant potential for the technology and communications industries, but many barriers still exist to widespread adoption at an enterprise level,” said Martin Creaner, president, TM Forum. “We are fully supportive of this type of initiative to improve the uptake and development of a vibrant and open cloud services market.”

“As a foundation partner for CA’s Cloud Commons, we look forward to providing continued leadership in driving the next wave of technology evolution through cloud computing,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and GM, Cloud business unit at Red Hat. “With the rich cloud content and resources available through Cloud Commons, enterprises will be further enabled to unlock the value of the cloud.”

Among the key components of the site will be:

• Service Measurement Index (SMI), being developed by Carnegie Mellon University, a standard for quantifying and evaluating services, addressing the need for industry-wide, globally accepted measures for calculating the benefits and risks of cloud computing services.

• A marketplace of cloud computing service offerings.  This marketplace is expected to include vendor service ratings to enable participants to compare alternate service options.

• An area that will allow participants to provide qualitative feedback on their experience with third-party cloud services.

• Features that will encourage peer collaboration and networking, permitting community commentary on content posted on the site and enable the sharing of cloud best practices.

• Articles from industry analysts and subject matter experts, blog feeds from industry thought leaders, white papers and stories on real experiences from IT professionals.

CA Technologies invested in initial independent research to provide starting-point information about the many cloud services.  On-going community participation will be able to build on and expand this information, while also adding commentary and entirely new content.  The more than 5,000 customers at CA World 2010 can be among the first to contribute their expertise and experiences to the site.  Future planned additions are planned to include hosted web casts and webinars delivered by subject matter experts on cloud topics, and content in podcast and video formats.

“Today, there is no comprehensive, unbiased source that solicits and aggregates the most current and relevant knowledge about cloud computing and the accumulated, actual experiences that organizations are having with the cloud,” said David Hodgson, senior vice president of the Cloud Products & Solutions business line at CA Technologies. “Cloud Commons will address this need — providing IT professionals with situational awareness and visibility into what is possible with the cloud.”

For more information on CA World 2010 including a full agenda and registration details, visit http://www.ca.com/caworld.

• To join the CA World community on the Web or your mobile device, visit: http://caworld.ca.com/
• Follow @CAInc and @CAWorld2010 on Twitter
• Follow us on LinkedIn
• Join CAInc and CAWorld on Facebook

ROCKtropia’s landscape is a fully interactive 3D destination that allows artists and their fans to connect in an immersive and entertaining environment. ROCKtropia represents a viable, new revenue stream for the music industry. In addition to introducing groundbreaking communication and revenue capabilities to the music world, the planet offers artists unprecedented creative input into the design and development of their online presence in a highly stylized, customized virtual land.

Without depending on album sales, artists can generate real-world revenue from their fans’ participation in their land through Entropia’s virtual reality economic system, including the introduction of limited edition virtual merchandise tied to album launches. The symbiotic relationship also lets fans earn real-world income through activity in the virtual goods economy of their favorite artist’s destination, creating additional incentive for fans to get involved in the community.

“The launch of ROCKtropia is a personal triumph,” said NEVERDIE. “It has been a long time in the making and we’re thrilled to be the first new virtual world on the amazing Entropia Universe platform.  With the help of Lemmy and Kevin, we have created an exciting new experience for both music fans and gamers.  We look forward to exploring new ideas and working with many more artists in the future.”

The first continent to be inhabited on the planet will be the home to destinations created for rock icon Lemmy, lead singer of Motorhead, and hit singer/songwriter/producer Kevin Rudolf.  The continent will also feature the City of Dreams, where up-and-coming artists can pursue their aspirations and gain exposure, and the Vampire Freaks Cathedral, a gathering place for VampireFreaks.com members. ROCKtropia’s lands currently include:

• Lemmy’s Castle – Located high in the rugged terrain and mountains, Lemmy’s Castle sits on the north side of ROCKtropia and is guarded by demon spawn, dragons and other creatures created by Lemmy himself.
• Motorhead Stadium – A massive arena inside a crater, Motorhead Stadium features three large stages that will be the location for live performances and battle events.
• ZOMhattan – Inspired by Manhattan and created in conjunction with Kevin Rudolph, ZOMhattan was originally intended to be the capital of ROCKtropia until beta testers’ avatars were turned into zombies by a virus. A safe haven in the city, Rudolph’s B.A.M.F Headquarters will also exist as a location for his fans to gather and check out new music and content from the singer. Fans of Rudolph will also be able to buy the singer’s virtual merchandise, earn exclusive prizes and receive advance access to new material.
• City of Dreams – The center of pop culture in ROCKtropia, the City of Dreams is the location for aspiring artists to promote their music and pursue fame and fortune. Through quests, musicians can earn tokens to get their music played on Club NEVERDIE Live, ROCKtropia’s main radio station, or score airplay on Jango internet radio. Artists that prove popular can earn the opportunity to get their own studio and potentially their own income-generating venue. The city will also be the home to a palace run by Audio-Freaks.com, one of the UK’s biggest, most popular Dance Music Production companies, and NEVERDIE Studios’ own machinima Film Studio, the location for new artists to create their own music videos.
• VampireFreaks Cathedral – Situated in ROCKtropia’s deep forest and surrounded by vampire chicks, wolves and werewolves, the Cathedral is home to VampireFreaks.com members, the largest industrial Goth Vampire social network with more than 3 million members.

NEVERDIE Studios has also created exclusive, limited edition virtual goods that can be earned by early members of ROCKtropia. This includes the opportunity to win guitar axes by defeating the guardians of Lemmy’s castle and diamond encrusted shotguns launched by B.A.M.F. HQ by conquering Zomhattan’s zombies.

“It’s a wonderful idea really,” said Lemmy of ROCKtropia. “It’s the best idea that has ever been visited upon in my suffering years. I get to invent monsters that go on to slaughter thousands of people and I get paid for it! What could possibly be better than that?”

ROCKtropia was developed by virtual entrepreneur and pop star Jon “NEVERDIE” Jacobs, who first became a virtual success with “Gamer Chick,” his hit record on the Entropia Universe platform. With the success of “Gamer Chick,” NEVERDIE realized the potential for music on the platform and created Club NEVERDIE. It was the financial success of Club NEVERDIE that laid the foundation for ROCKtropia.

Conceived by NEVERDIE in 2007 when Entropia Universe opened its platform to third party developers, ROCKtropia began production in early 2009 after Lemmy and Kevin Rudolph became involved with the new planet. The planet was created using the CRYengine2, one of the world’s most advanced graphics engines. Activities include quests, adventures, first person shooter action, events, competitions, fashion, social networking, romance, live music performances and e-commerce. Additional artists will be involved and new lands will be created as ROCKtropia further develops.