ABL TECHNOLOGY ONLINE  
JUNE 29, 2010
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Sprint's Carter Wins Stevie Award for Turnaround Exec
Congratulations to Matt Carter, President of Sprint 4G, on receiving a Stevie Award for “Turnaround Executive of the Year” at the 2010 American Business Awards. Matt led the turnaround for Sprint’s Boost Mobile prepaid group from 2008-09 before being appointed President of 4G in early 2010.  Also, Sprint was recently named Innovator of the Year, by Billing & OSS World, for its "Any Mobile, Anytime" feature, which gives customers unlimited calling while on the Sprint network with any of the 250+ million mobile users in America.  Meanwhile, according to results from the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index, Sprint is the most improved company in customer satisfaction, across all industries, over the last two years.

Cornerstone OnDemand Chosen by Bright Horizons
The integrated learning and talent management software suite from Cornerstone OnDemand, where Adam Miller is CEO, is being utilized by Bright Horizons Family Solutions to manage and develop its 20,000 employees.

Microsemi Partners with Cisco
Microsemi Corporation, where Jim Peterson is CEO and Russ Garcia is EVP, has entered into a patent transfer and licensing agreement with Cisco Systems, covering Power-over-Ethernet patents, including patents that are essential to the IEEE 802.11af and 802.11at PoE standards.  Meanwhile, Microsemi has expanded its CoolMOS product line with eight new high voltage superjunction MOSFETs designed for highest efficiency and power density.   And, Microsemi is releasing 20 new radiation-hardened hermetic power MOSFET devices, primarily used in power supplies, power converters, motor controls, and other power switching applications, and the Defense Supply Center Columbus has granted the products space-level qualification.

Delphi Display Implemented by Subway
Delphi Display Systems, where Ken Neeld is CEO, announced that it installed a drive-thru Order Confirmation System (OCS) at a Subway restaurant in Rochester, Minnesota. Subsequently, the franchisee operator estimates that drive-thru sales have increased by as much as 15%.

OEwaves Gets DARPA Award
OEwaves, Inc., where Lute Maleki is CEO, received an award from DARPA to perform a study based on its unique microwave photonics technologies, when combined with conventional RF technologies, to investigate the feasibility of deploying a miniature GMTI radar system on the WASP UAV. The study's findings will support development of a future DARPA program addressing this need.

Apriso's FlexNet Selected by Boston-Power
FlexNet from Apriso Corporation, where Chris Brecher is COO, has been selected by cleantech firm Boston-Power, a provider of next-generation lithium-ion batteries, as its enterprise Manufacturing Execution System. FlexNet will provide Boston-Power with machine performance monitoring and inventory and material flow management, and will integrate with its ERP and PLM applications.

INSIGHTS FOR ADAPTIVE BUSINESS LEADERS

Berkus Blogs on: Importance of Short-Term Leases
Member Dave Berkus has published two related blogs: Sign Short-Term Leases Early On; Move More Often as You Grow and Pay for Frequent Moves Over Risky Long-Term Leases, in which he emphasizes that flexibility in your company-space lease is important in both rapid-growth and retrenchment modes.

UPCOMING EVENTS & ROUND TABLES

7/1 - Orange County Round Table
7/2 - San Gabriel Valley Round Table
7/9 - West Los Angeles Round Table

Mobile Social Networking Drives Rising App Usage
The total number of mobile app users in the U.S. increased by 28% from April 2009 to April 2010, according to comScore. Social networking apps grew their user base by 240% during the period, to more than 14.5 million mobile users. Other categories boasted even more users, including weather apps at over 18M and maps at about 16.8M. Social networking was the fastest-growing mobile content category when it came to browser access, with nearly 30M mobile users visiting the sites through mobile browsers. Facebook is the most widely used app by owners of BlackBerrys, iPhones and other smartphones, while users of Google’s Android operating system are more likely to use Google Maps than Facebook. (eMarketer.com, 6/17/10)

Nation Seeks "Cyberexperts" to Defend Internet
The federal government, education officials and large military contractors are utilizing competitions that pit tech-savvy youths in mock warfare against professional hackers in an effort to recruit a new class of tech professional specifically trained to battle data thieves, online scammers and cyberspies. This year, the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition drew teams from 83 colleges and universities, up from five schools in 2005. Boeing then hired seven contestants to help defend its internal networks. The currently underway US Cyber Challenge, a similar contest that accepts high schoolers, has a goal of finding 10,000 "cybersecurity top guns." Meanwhile, enrollment in two-year programs participating in CyberWatch, a consortium of Mid-Atlantic colleges focused on cybersecurity training, has jumped about 66% in each of the past two years. And two K-12 Maryland school districts have launched a pilot program offering "information assurance" as a career track. (USA Today, 6/21/10)

White House Drafts Plan for Personal Online ID’s
The White House released a draft of the potential new National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) last week, aiming to set up a system that would let people voluntarily create trusted identities to use in online transactions. The goal, said White House cybersecurity chief Howard Schmidt, is to secure and protect online transactions through use of a special ID - a smart card or digital certificate - that would prove that people are who they say they are. Such an identity card would reduce or eliminate the need to juggle a multitude of usernames and passwords for each online service, and would let individuals choose and control how much private information they wished to reveal to authenticate themselves online.
     Looking for suggestions from the public, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has launched a Web site to elicit ideas and feedback on the NSTIC through July 19, before promising to finalize its strategy later this fall. The initial draft was created with input from government agencies, business leaders, and privacy advocates. (cnet.com, 6/28/10)