Hugo. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk © 2011 GK Films. All Rights Reserved.

Digital artists devoted days and years behind the scenes to help create the movie magic seen in many of this year’s Academy Award-nominated films. In the categories for Best Visual Effects and Best Animated Film (Feature and Short) in particular, many artists relied on the same set of tools — Digital Entertainment Creation (DEC) software from Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK).

“Great films depend on great storytelling and our technology is designed to enable artistic vision,” said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “We congratulate the multi-talented teams of artists from North America, New Zealand, Europe and Asia, and we are proud of Autodesk software’s role in helping them create these extraordinary movies.”

Best Visual Effects

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”— UK-based visual effects (VFX) studios Double Negative, MPC and Framestore each used Autodesk Maya 3D animation and rendering software to help create the visually extravagant effects for this final installment in the Harry Potter franchise. Double Negative VFX Supervisor David Vickery said, “Maya has been the lynch pin of our pipeline since ‘Goblet of Fire.’ For this film, Maya helped us build a fully computer-generated (CG) Hogwarts in a massive 3D environment, including a spectacular mountain range and an animated fire-breathing dragon digitally modeled with Autodesk Mudbox software.”MPC VFX Supervisor Greg Butler added, “From the first film in the ‘Potter’ series through to this film’s final shot, MPC has relied on Maya for modeling, rigging and lighting.”Andy Kind, Framestore VFX supervisor said, “Autodesk’s Maya once again was our go-to tool, enabling us to bring to life the magic of the Chamber of Secrets for Ron and Hermione’s first kiss, as well as Harry’s vision of Heaven. We couldn’t have done any of the eight films without it!”

“Hugo” — VFX studio Pixomondo managed a global production team across 10 of its 11 facilities in North America, Europe and Asia for this richly detailed reimagining of 1930s Paris. The worldwide team worked for over a year using a production pipeline comprised of Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max for animation, rendering, character rigging and modeling; as well as Autodesk MotionBuilder for motion capture and animation. VFX Supervisor Ben Grossmann said, “The interoperability of Autodesk tools helped us meet tight deadlines andbring Martin Scorsese’s magical vision to the big screen.”

“Real Steel” —Visual effects powerhouse Digital Domain, motion-capture specialists Giant Studios and virtual production innovators Technoprops delivered “Real Steel” within an impressively efficient 71-day production schedule. The close collaboration between the threecompanies and anAutodesk toolset helped createthis realistic and thrilling action movie with a believable and captivating robot and human relationship. VFX Supervisor Erik Nash said, “The on-set real-time interoperability of Maya and MotionBuilder enabled tremendous creative freedom for the entire production team.”

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” — Caesar, the CG chimpanzee performed by Andy Serkis is a creative milestone for Weta Digital in New Zealand. Weta used Maya and MotionBuilder as the core of its creative production pipelines for its groundbreaking visual effectsand performance capture. Sebastian Sylwan, chief technology officer at Weta said, “Creating a believable and realistic CG character like Caesar required providing our artists with the right tools and innovative technology that allowed them to iterate and express their creativity. We developed our own software to perfect performance capture, hair, eyes and muscles amongst others, using Maya and MotionBuilder as a backbone.” Canada-based Image Engine contributed previsualization for the film and also took advantage of a Maya-based pipeline.

“Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon”—The extraordinarily detailed Transformer robotscontain up to50,000 million polygons renderedin stereoscopic 3D by lead visual effects houses Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) with studios in San Francisco and Singapore and Digital Domain. ILM used the following Autodesk DEC software tools in its pipeline: 3ds Max for digital environment work; Autodesk Flame as part of its proprietary SABRE high-speed compositing system; and Maya as the core tool for animation, rigging and layout. Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor on ‘Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon’ said, “As effects work continues to grow in complexity, it is more important than ever that our artists have access to best of breed tools and by using Autodesk’s Digital Entertainment Creation software, ILM is able to continue to create groundbreaking visual effects.”

Best Animated Feature Film

“Kung Fu Panda 2”and “Puss in Boots”—Both movies earned not only Academy Award nominations for Animated Feature Film for Dreamworks Animation (DWA), but also were two of the top three grossing animated films of 2011.*DWA continues to creatively push technology to imbue animated characters with huge personalities, and both films used Maya. Phil McNally, stereoscopic supervisor on both movies said, “Either on our own or in concert with Autodesk, we can develop tools in Maya to specifically address the challenges of stereoscopic 3D. Maya gives us that intuitive flexibility, or the ability to see what we’re doing—while we’re doing it—in 3D.”

“Rango”

“Rango,” the story of a weird lizard’s quest for identity, was ILM’s first animated feature. The film presented some daunting creative and technical challenges: Rango’s face alone required over 300 controllers to achieve the range of performance needed for the 1,100 shots he appears in.On top of which, Rango was just one of well over 100 characters that populated the film. “All of these characters had some combination of scales, feathers, or fur and all had clothing. We strove to create a very tactile world for Rango,” said ILM’s Hal Hickel, animator director on the film. “We wanted to create the illusion that if you could reach out and touch objects in the frame you’d know exactly what they would feel like, so it was very important that our software enable us to show as much detail as possible ateach phase of the process. This allowed us to make certain the performances would translate to the big screen. Maya was great at letting us do that.”

Other Categories

• “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” — nominated for Short Film (animated) — Moonbot Studios in Louisiana used Maya to help create this poignant and humorous allegorical film.
• “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” —nominated for five awards — Digital Domain createddigital doubles, matte paintings, animation and set extensions using both Maya and 3ds Max. Method Studios contributed to 101 VFX shots, including a fully CG train sequence through a snow-covered landscape using Maya, Flame and Autodesk Flare software.Blur Studios created the amazing title sequence using a combination of 3ds Max for animation and Autodesk Softimage for keyframing.
• “La Luna” — nominated for Short Film (animated) — Pixar used Maya and Pixar’s own Renderman to create this mystical coming-of-age story.
• “The Muppets” — nominated for Original Song— LOOK Effects used a combination of Flame, Flare and Maya to help bring these beloved characters to life in this box-office hit.
• “The Tree of Life” — nominated for three awards including Best Picture — Method Studios used Maya to help create the fully CG 4K(4096 × 3112 pixels per frame) sequence for the film’s “Microbial” section,which plays effectively alongside practical and mixed-technique approaches. Method’s EVP Dan Glass was also the film’s overall senior visual effects supervisor. Prime Focus used Maya, 3ds Max and Mudbox to create the wonderfully realistic dinosaur sequences, dedicating a team of 50 artists to achieving Terrence Malick’s vision for these scenes.
• “War Horse” — nominated for six awards including Best Picture — UK-based Framestore used Maya to help create the equine digital double, barbwire VFX integration, digital environments and clean-up on 200 shots for Steven Spielberg’s epic drama. Hollywood and London-based The Third Floor also pre-visualized key sequences using a toolset that includes Maya.

NComputing Inc., one of the fastest growing end-to-end virtualization company in the world, enables the education sector to take advantage of its solutions to help modernize the public school learning environment.

According to analyst firm IDC, NComputing is the number one desktop virtualization provider in Asia Pacific. A leading provider of virtual desktops in education, the company worldwide has an install base of over three million units in less than three and a half years. They are involved in many educational projects across multiple countries such as India, Pakistan and most recently the Philippines.

With the help of NComputing’s leading desktop virtualization technology, both teacher and grade school students of the public school, Nueve De Febrero Elementary School in Mandaluyong City, now enjoy an e-classroom that changed the teaching and learning experience along with another 3000 plus schools in Philippines.

The e-classroom was made possible after a bidding process was initiated for the Department of Education’s Computerization Project.

“We are proud that NComputing’s technology is helping in the modernization of the IT educational infrastructure of thousands of schools in Philippines. We at NComputing are highly confident that the technology will enable more Filipino children to take advantage of computer education and have a much better environment than before. We are also confident that our track record with other educational institutions around Asia Pacific would prove that we are the solution of choice for education,” said Manish Sharma, NComputing’s Vice President for Asia Pacific.

The solution

Using NComputing’s virtualization technology, the school reduced the required number of central processing units (CPU) for a school’s computer laboratory and therefore helped in cutting down hardware costs significantly. This proves advantageous as well since with the lowered number of CPUs translate to lowering the maintenance and electric power consumption costs to a fraction.

In the lab infrastructure in most of these schools, these devices enable one host system (CPU) to power six user-peripherals (monitor, keyboard and mouse) simultaneously. Instead of having five additional CPUs, only one is being used for every six users.

The NComputing solution takes advantage of the fact that today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of users only need a small fraction of the computing capacity. NComputing taps this unused capacity so that it can be simultaneously shared by many users. Each user’s monitor, keyboard and mouse are connected to a small and highly reliable NComputing thin-client device, which is then connected to the shared PC.  NComputing’s award-winning vSpace^TMdesktop virtualization software provides each user with a rich multimedia computing experience and individual computing sessions. Organizations typically save at least 50% on hardware costs, 75% on support costs, and 90% of electricity costs by installing NComputing.

NComputing’s low capital expenditure and total maintenance cost opens new avenues to implement better computer education as it paves the way for educational institutions to take double the advantage of this type of computing infrastructure.

The solution was provided by NComputing’s authorized national distributor, Mustard Seed and its channel partners.

About NComputing

NComputing, Inc. is the fastest growing end-to-end desktop virtualization company in the world with over 20 million users in 140 countries.  The company’s award-winning, patented technology lowers desktop computing costs, improves manageability, and reduces both energy consumption and e-waste.  NComputing provides the perfect solution for leveraging the power and potential of PCs and cloud computing.  To learn more about NComputing, visitwww.ncomputing.com .

Philippine-based Internet and E-Commerce community DigitalFilipino Club has announced that it will be holding the 3^rd instalment of its annual E-Commerce Summit entitled eCommerce Summit 2012: Doing e-Commerce for Real! at the Manila Peninsula Hotel on 24 February 2012.

The event will focus on the emerging trends, tools and platforms that local E-commerce players can utilize in order to successfully achieve their respective business goals. “With top sites in the Philippines today engaged in fostering e-commerce, it is important to learn how established industry players have leverage on these to become successful,” says DigitalFilipino Club founder Janette Toral.

The event will feature notable experts in the industry such as SEOMoz Founding President and search engine industry authority Gillian Muessig, E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association of the Philippines Founding President Jack Madrid, MRM Worldwide Managing Director Donald Lim, , Chikka.com Co-Founder Chiito Bustamante, among others who are driven to boost the knowledge base and expertise of e-Commerce players in the Philippines.

Lastly, DigitalFilipino Club will formally recognize the DigitalFilipino – Search Profile Index Web Awards Winners during the summit. Each winner is also expected to share their e-Commerce journey story.

For more information about the event, please visit http://bit.ly/ecom2012 or call Abby Magat-Ventura at 897-7088 ext. 114

Local Supply Management organization PISM, the Philippine Institute for Supply Management takes its annual conference and exhibit a notch higher as they go regional with SUPPLYLINK2012 Conference and Exhibit. The event, which will be held at SMX Convention Center, SM Mall of Asia Complex on April 19-20, pulls together the leading purchasing, logistics, demand and replenishment and customer service executives and practitioners locally and within Asia-Pacific, as well as other supply management professionals from Sweden, London and Australia among others.

With the theme, “Tomorrow’s Supply Chain in a Value-Driven Global Economy,” SUPPLYLINK2012 will feature participants and resource speakers from the Asia Pacific Region to share industry relevant information, tips and trends to help local supply management professionals not only enhance their practice, but also to become internationally competitive practitioners.

According to PISM National President Ricky Sison, “This year, we are making our annual SupplyLink Conference and Exhibit bigger to ensure that the participants will get something more out of it this year compared to the previous ones. As such, we are optimistic that this will be a huge help in pushing the professionalization of supply management in the country.”

Aside from the conference and exhibit, SOFSM, the Foundation of the Society of Fellows in Supply Management will acknowledge the commendable contributions of top Filipino practitioners in the field with Gawad Sinop Awards 2012.

Sponsors are also welcome to participate in the event, given its bigger scale and scope this year. “Over the years that we’ve been doing SupplyLink, we have always provided sponsors with opportunities to effectively market their products and services. And this year, we can only promise that the opportunity for sponsors will be bigger,” said Sison.

For more information about SUPPLYLINK2012, please visit www.pism.org or you may also contact us at +632 634-6632; 638-4024 and 634-5955 or thru via e-mail at secretariat@pism.org.

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About PISM

PISM was founded in 13 November 1968 as a non-stock, non-profit organization. Its main purpose is to provide a forum where Supply Management executives can meet to network professionally, discuss, find and share business solutions to common operational challenges and strategic issues confronting their businesses and/or those of the national economy.

IP E-Game Ventures Inc. (E-Games) and Level Up! Inc. (LUI) have reached an agreement to merge their Philippine online game publishing businesses.

In accordance with the agreement, most of E-Game’s titles and assetsrelating to its game publishing business will be transferred to LUI and the publishing operations of said titles will be merged into LUI’s associated online game publishing company,Playweb Games Inc.  In exchange, E-Games will receive equity in LUI, a commercial interest in Playweb Games Inc. (game publisher and operator of all LUI game titles and services), and a cash consideration. The completion of the deal is subject to closing conditions.

E-Games is the first listed online gaming company in the Philippines (PSE: EG) and is the only such listed company to date.  It spearheaded the free-to-play game model and has over 15.9 million registered gamers and an average of 3.5 million active users per month. It is aggressively expanding its Internet café network through acquisitions (Netopia and CyBr cafes) and franchising and will incorporate other services such as food & beverage and remittance services. Recently, E-Games has also acquired the rights to operate and sell advertisements for the NBA.com Philippine portal. It is currently developing game enhancement technologies between its Internet cafes and online games titles and is eager to extend these synergies with LUI online games.

LUI pioneered the online game business in the Philippines.Its parent company, Level Up! International Holdings (LUIH), has a subsidiary in Brazil which likewise pioneered and leads the online game publishing business there.  Aside from its presence in the Philippines and Brazil, LUIH also has a joint venture in the United States with an established Korean developer.

E-Games and LUI, as a merged entity, are expected to account for the majority of the Philippine online games market. The merged entity and its associated company, Playweb Games, Inc., will have the widest gaming pre-paid cards and PINs distribution network and offer a portfolio of hugely popular and successful games between them. These include top Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as Cabal, Audition, Pointblank, Ragnarok, Grand Chase, Rohan and newly launched (by LUI) Bounty Hounds.

The merger is expected to strategically benefitboth companies as a result of future operational synergies and savings.

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About Level Up! Inc.

Level Up! established the first and leading online game portal in the country (www.levelupgames.ph) which introduced the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) genre to the Filipino psyche.

About Playweb Games Inc.

Playweb Games is the publisher and operator of all game titles and services under the Level Up! brand in the Philippines.

About IP e-Game Ventures Inc.

IP E-Game Ventures Inc. (E-Games or the Company) is a publicly listed company in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE: EG) that operates the online gaming and Internet cafe business of private technology firm, IP Ventures Inc. E-Games is ranked as the leading online games publisher in the Philippines and holds top MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) titles such as RAN Online and CABAL Online. E-Games’ casual gaming unit is run by X-Play Online Games Inc., a joint venture with GMA New Media, the digital arm of the GMA Network. The Company is the largest Internet cafe operator in the country, owning a 75% stake in Digital Paradise, Inc. (Netopia), and over 100 Internet cafe outlets. E-Games’ strategic minority investors include the Philippine Star Group and E-Store Exchange (an affiliate of GMA7). For more information, visit www.e-games.com.ph

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today announced the opening of a local office  and the appointment of Oscar Visaya as its new country manager in the Philippines.

“The proliferation of smart devices, web applications and social media platforms has created an environment where users expect hassle-free, straight-forward access to Internet-based resources and services anytime, anywhere, and in any way. These demands have led to an increased pressure to align IT with changing customer conditions in business”, said Erik Giesa, Senior Vice President, Global Products, F5 Networks.

F5’s technology enables application delivery and managed mobile access to data and services while keeping applications and network secure from attacks, whether the applications are deployed in physical, virtual or cloud environments.

F5’s Asia Pacific headquarters is in Singapore. To date, F5 has regional offices in 14 countries spread across 22 cities. We are also represented in these markets by more than 100 directly managed channel partners in the region. The latest addition to the region’s operations is located in the Makati business district.

New country head

F5’s Philippine team will be lead by newly appointed country manager Oscar Visaya who brings in-depth experience to the role and will oversee the next phase of the company’s growth in the Philippines, driving acceleration of the penetration of the advanced ADN market locally.

“We are delighted to welcome Oscar to his new role with F5’s Philippine team,” said Teong Eng Guan, Managing Director for ASEAN and Korea, F5 Networks. “His business and technical expertise, local market knowledge, track record in the industry and excellent leadership qualities will help us build on our strong position in the market and further demonstrate the value F5’s solutions can provide to customers.”

Visaya brings with him more than 20 years of sales and technical experience from global technology companies such as Fujitsu and Cisco Systems, Inc. In his previous sales leadership role, Visaya worked in close collaboration with all key fixed, mobile, cable and broadcast operators in the country.

Commenting on his new role, Visaya said, “Through the F5 global sales strategy, the company has a fantastic opportunity to expand our customer base here. We live in an application-centric era where innovation and speed to market are critical. F5’s strong value proposition offers fast, secure and available application delivery that can help companies improve time-to-market, productivity and user experience, therefore positively impacting revenue and operation profits. I look forward to helping the team strengthen their focus and drive this next phase of growth.”

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks, Inc., the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), helps the world’s largest enterprises and service providers realize the full value of virtualization, cloud computing, and on-demand IT. F5^® solutions help integrate disparate technologies to provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application delivery and data management, and give users seamless, secure, and accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and smart devices. An open architectural framework enables F5 customers to apply business policies at “strategic points of control” across the IT infrastructure and into the public cloud. F5 products give customers the agility they need to align IT with changing business conditions, deploy scalable solutions on demand, and manage mobile access to data and services. Enterprises, service and cloud providers, and leading online companies worldwide rely on F5 to optimize their IT investments and drive business forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter or visit us on Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technology. For a complete listing of F5 community sites, please visit www.f5.com/news-press-events/web-media/community.html.

F5, the F5 logo, and F5 Networks are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

PISM, the Philippine Institute for Supply Management, and event management partner Events@Work once again join forces to stage the first ever Asia-Pacific wide SUPPLYLINK2012 Regional Conference and Exhibit on 19-20 April 2012 at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex.

With the theme, “Tomorrow’s Supply Chain in a Value-Driven Global Economy,” SUPPLYLINK2012 will feature participants and resource speakers from the Asia-Pacific Region to share industry-relevant information, tips and trends to help local supply management professionals not only enhance their practice, but also to become internationally competitive practitioners.

In photo (from left): PISM Trustee for Events and Conferences Edwin P. Constantino, C.P.M., PISM Vice-President for Events and Conferences Mariel B. Zamora, CPSM, Events@Work Managing Director Mel Dominguez and Events@Work Senior Project Manager Mary Rose Martinez.

For more information about SUPPLYLINK2012, please visit www.pism.org or you may also contact us at (632) 634-6632; 638-4024 and 634-5955 or via e-mail at secretariat@pism.org.

About PISM

PISM was founded in 13 November 1968 as a non-stock, non-profit organization. It provides a forum where purchasing, logistics, demand & replenishment and customer service executives and practitioners can meet to network professionally; discuss, find and share business solutions to common operational challenges and strategic issues confronting their respective businesses and/or those of the national economy.

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today unveiled the findings of the largest-ever global survey of the data science community. Spanning the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India and China, the EMC Data Science Study reveals and quantifies a rampant scarcity across the globe for the prerequisite skills necessary for a company to capitalize on the opportunities found at the intersection of Big Data and data analytics.  Only one-third of companies are able to effectively use new data to assist their business decision-making, gain competitive advantage, drive productivity growth, yield innovation and reveal customer insights.

The survey revealed that the explosion of digital data created by mobile sensors, social media, surveillance, medical imaging, smart grids and the like — combined with new tools for analyzing it all – has created a corresponding explosion in the opportunity to generate value and insights from the data. As such, the business demand for data scientists has quickly outpaced the supply of talent.

The EMC Data Science Study respondents included nearly 500 members of the data science community globally including: data scientists and professionals from related disciplines such as data analysts, data specialists, business intelligence analysts, information analysts and data engineers globally, all of whom have IT decision-making authority.

Key Findings

·    Informed Decision-making – Only 1/3 of respondents are very confident in their company’s ability to make business decisions based on new data.
·    Looming Talent Shortage – 64% of data science professionals believe demand for data science talent will outpace the supply over the next 5 years – with most feeling that this supply will be most effectively sourced from new college graduates.
·    Barriers to Data Science Adoption – Most commonly cited barriers to data science adoption include: Lack of skills or training (32%) budget/resources (32%), the wrong organizational structure (14%) and lack of tools/technology (10%).
·    Customer Insights – Only 38% of business intelligence analysts and data scientists strongly agree that their company uses data to learn more about customers.
·    New Technology Fueling Growth – 83% of respondents believe that new tools and emerging technology will increase the need for data scientists.
·    Lack of Data Accessibility – Only 12% of business intelligence professionals and 22% of data scientists strongly believe employees have the access to run experiments on data – undermining a company’s ability to rapidly test and validate ideas and thus its approach to innovation.
·    Advanced Degrees – Data scientists are 3 times as likely as business intelligence professionals to have a Master’s or Doctoral degree.
·    Augmenting Business Intelligence – Although respondents found an increasing need for data scientists in their firm, only 12% saw today’s business intelligence professionals as the most likely source to meet that demand.
·    Higher-Level Skills – Data scientists require significantly greater business and technical skills than today’s business intelligence professional.  According to the Data Science Study, they are twice as likely to apply advanced algorithms to data, but also 37% more likely to make business decisions based on that data.
·    Love the Work – The study discovered highly favorable attitudes toward the companies where they work. In fact, data scientists believe their IT functions are better aligned and better able to attract talent, are ahead in key technology areas like cloud computing and not surprisingly rate their company’s data analysis and visualization abilities very favorably compared to the views of business intelligence professionals.
·    Involved Across the Data Lifecycle – Data scientists are more likely than business intelligence professionals to be involved across the data lifecycle–from acquiring new data sets to making business decisions based on the data. This includes filtering and organizing data as well as representing data visually and telling a story with data.
·    Tools of the Trade – Data scientists are more likely than business intelligence professionals to use scripting languages, including Python, Perl, BASH and AWK.  Yet, Excel remains the tool of choice for both data scientists and business intelligence executives, followed closely by SQL.

Data Scientists Quotes

Andreas Weigend, Ph.D Stanford, Head of the Social Data Lab at Stanford, former Chief Scientist Amazon.com

“Neither tools nor people alone can solve the challenges of Big Data.  They must work together and that is the promise of data science.  Despite advances in software tools, the number of people with experience using these tools, and with real-life exposure to large-scale data sets, is small.  Data science is a young field, and its growth will be fueled as much by technology as through the mentorship of new acolytes by leading practitioners.”

EMC Executive Quote

Jeremy Burton, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, EMC Corporation
“The Big Data era has arrived in full force, bringing with it an unprecedented opportunity to transform business and the way we work and live. Through the convergence of massive scale-out storage, next-generation analytics and visualization capability, the technology is in place. What’s needed to fully realize its value is a vibrant, interconnected, highly-skilled and empowered data science community to reveal relevant trend patterns and uncover new insights hidden within.”
Additional Resources:

·    Read the EMC Data Science Study in full
·    Read Chuck Hollis’ blog: “Understanding The New Rock Star: The EMC Data Science Survey”
·    Read the EMC Education Services release announcing new training and certification program focused entirely on Data Science & Big Data Analytics
·    Connect with EMC via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and ECN

About the EMC Data Science Study

EMC conducted an independent research study to measure attitudinal and behavioral profiles of data scientists and business intelligence professionals globally and across industries.  462 IT decision makers who self-identified as either a data scientist or business intelligence professional participated in this market research study through participation with research partner Toluna.  An additional 35 participated by invitation through their previous attendance at the EMC Data Scientist Summit and the online data scientist community Kaggle. The survey was designed to provide a first ever look into the behavioral patterns, thoughts, and needs of the data science community.

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing.  Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

# # #

EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their owners.

Leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, Autodesk Philippines in collaboration with channel partner Challenge Systems Inc and the Philippine Green Building Council, recently conducted Green Thought Leadership event in the Philippines, highlighting the need to implement Building Information Modeling (BIM) to further push sustainable building in the Philippines.

In the recently concluded Green Thought Leadership event, Autodesk Inc. Principal Consultant Chow Jin Ho reiterates that BIM is not just about a software or a process, but more importantly a platform to initialize sustainable building. “Adopting BIM to green (building) is an initiative to build a better ecosystem,” he explains.

ProdigyAE Chief BIM Consultant and Principal Architect Gio Carino explains the benefits of sustainable building and how vital BIM is in the initiative. “Green design is about compliance to the philosophy of economical, social and ecological sustainability. BIM is an enabler of sustainable design,” Carino explains.

Photo shows (from left) Philippine Green Building Council President Christopher dela Cruz and Autodesk Philippines Country Manager Teddy D. Tiu.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries ¾ including the last 16 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects ¾ use Autodesk software to design, visualize and simulate their ideas. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software for global markets. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson during the recently held press event

Replaces Three Instances of Microsoft Dynamics GP and Hundreds of Excel Sheets

Eleven Subsidiaries Go Live On NetSuite OneWorld PH in Just Six Months

NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry’s leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software suites, today announced that Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC) has adopted NetSuite OneWorld PH to manage 11 of its subsidiaries, including five companies held by its House of Investments subsidiary. NetSuite OneWorld PH replaced three instances of Microsoft Dynamics GP, hundreds of spreadsheets and numerous cumbersome manual processes at these subsidiaries, and is a key component of YGC’s two-tier ERP strategic overhaul. YGC is implementing Oracle at its corporate headquarters for the second tier of this two-tier ERP approach, while NetSuite OneWorld PH provides faster implementation and greater agility needed for YGC’s many subsidiaries. Its 11 subs are now relying on NetSuite OneWorld PH for ERP, multi-subsidiary consolidation, rollup reporting to corporate parent, regulatory compliance and analytics.

With many of YGC’s subsidiaries facing new regulatory requirements for large taxpayers from the Philippines’ Bureau of Internal Revenue, the company needed to act fast to maintain full compliance. YGC wanted to move past the limitations of its outdated on-premise software and implement a consistent solution across many of its subsidiaries. The new solution also needed to integrate smoothly with the Oracle system being rolled out at corporate headquarters. Because YGC determined that it would be too time-consuming and constraining to implement Oracle in its many subsidiaries, the company decided that a two-tier ERP strategy was necessary. Even though an in-house/customized financial system is installed at one of its many subs, the stone-age on-premise solution couldn’t scale to meet the business needs of YGC. YGC also replaced hundreds of excel sheets with NetSuite.

NetSuite OneWorld PH proved to be the perfect solution for all of YGC’s needs: rapid deployment, integration with Oracle ERP at the corporate headquarters, agility and scalability. NetSuite OneWorld PH has been localized for the accounting rules, usage conventions, statutory and regulatory requirements of the Philippine market, including tax reporting requirements mandated by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). NetSuite OneWorld PH is the perfect solution for Philippine businesses to manage their domestic and global businesses in the cloud, whether they are locally headquartered or a division of a larger, multi-national enterprise.

NetSuite OneWorld PH delivers a unified chart of accounts to YGC’s 11 subsidiaries and ensures complete transparency to the corporate ERP system. With businesses ranging from investments to advertising to security, NetSuite OneWorld PH is easily adapted to YGC’s diverse business needs while providing a consistent, easy-to-use interface. YGC is not only a customer but also a partner.   Pan Pacific Computer Center, Inc., a company under the House of Investments, is managing the implementations of NetSuite for YGC.

“Since House of Investments operations are growing, NetSuite OneWorld PH has tremendous benefits in terms of scalability and flexibility,” said Prudence Joy Laman, YGC – PPCC Project Manager. “We currently expect to be fully compliant with all financial reporting requirements by January 2012 thanks to NetSuite OneWorld PH.”

Today, more than 10,000 companies and subsidiaries depend on NetSuite to run complex, mission-critical business processes globally in the cloud. Since its inception in 1998, NetSuite has established itself as the leading provider of enterprise-class cloud ERP suites for divisions of large enterprises and mid-sized organizations seeking to upgrade their antiquated client/server ERP systems. NetSuite excels at streamlining business operations, as demonstrated by the 2011 CODiE Award for Best Financial Management Solution, as well as a recent Gartner study naming NetSuite as the fastest growing financial management systems vendor in the world. NetSuite has continued its success in delivering the best cloud business suites to businesses around the world, enabling them to lower IT costs significantly while increasing productivity, as the global adoption of the cloud is accelerating.