GLITR Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Your report for Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Holland's Rutherford gets new customers, products, employees
Holland-based software developers Rutherford & Associates this week announced new hires, new customers and new product upgrades. Rutherford is the developer of eoStar, the industry’s leading route accounting and distribution management software for food and beverage distributors. The company said it had increased its staff by 20 percent, added six new companies to its growing client roster and released the newest version of eoStar 2009 – including four new upgrades being released this week. More.

NSF International, Trucost help firms cut costs with sustainability
Newsweek magazine Monday released their Green Rankings featuring the top American companies ranked by their impact on the environment. Trucost, a partner of Ann Arbor-based NSF International in sustainability and global provider of environmental data and analysis, provided Newsweek magazine with the performance data to develop the rankings. Aside from the cost savings that going green offers, companies can also obtain competitive advantages by implementing sustainable business practices. McKinsey & Co. projected that U.S. investments of $520 billion in building efficiency through 2020 would yield $1.2 trillion in energy savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 gigatons annually -- the amount emitted by the entire current fleet of U.S. vehicles. More.

New software, hardware from Ensure Technologies
Ypsilanti-based Ensure Technologies Monday reported the release of new software and new control keys for its XyLoc computer security system. Ensure said the new software, XyLoc Client 9.0 and XyLoc Security Server 5.0, includes more than half a dozen major enhancements. Also new and available now are the XC-3 and XC-4 Keys. Available now, these models are the latest generation of XyLoc Keys used in conjunction with the XyLoc Lock to authenticate the user and secure a workstation when the user leaves the area, protecting confidential information from unauthorized access. The XC-3 and XC-4 provide extended battery life over previous models and the XC-4 Series is the industry’s first single badge solution combining active RF active proximity detection, integrated HID passive proximity tag, and a PersonalizID photo ID. More.

Molecular 'GPS' helps UM scientists probe aging, disease
With all the hype about beneficial antioxidants in everything from face cream to cereal bars, you'd think their targets -- oxygen radicals -- must be up to no good. It's true, the buildup of oxygen radicals and other reactive oxygen species in cells contributes to aging and possibly to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's. But in moderate amounts, ROS also help keep cells healthy by controlling cell division, movement and other normal biological processes. To better understand the role of ROS in disease, scientists first need to explore how ROS function in healthy cells, and research by a University of Michigan team led by chemical biologist Kate Carroll provides an important new tool for doing that. The research is in a paper published Sept. 18 in the journal ACS Chemical Biology. More.

Lathrup Village firm adds two new iPhone apps for doctors
Lathrup Village-based Webahn Inc. Monday launched two new iPhone apps for physicians. They are Capzule, an online electronic medical records service at www.capzule.com, and Accent, a voice recording application, for its online transcription service www.OvernightScribe.com. Capzule enables physicians to access patient information instantly, while away from the clinic. It also has the capability to send messages, add notes, prescribe medications and write orders. Iqbal Boxwala, M.D., of Hematology and Oncology Consultants, P.C., a group practice of seven physicians in Royal Oak, said that "Capzule has greatly improved our physicians' quality of life because they can now access charts at anytime from anywhere." Accent allows physicians to dictate patient notes and letters on iPhone and send them to OvernightScribe.com for transcription. More.

Macomb CC offers new partnerships through fiber-optic link
Nearly 20 years ago, Macomb Community College pioneered a new partnership concept, establishing the Macomb University Center to bring bachelor's degree completion and master's degrees home to Macomb County residents through relationships with senior educational institutions. With the recent completion of a new fiber-optic network, Macomb Community College intends to use partnerships of a different kind to lower costs and improve network connectivity in Macomb County. More.

CareTech launches organic SEO program for hospitals
Troy-based CareTech Solutions, an IT and Web products and services provider for hospitals and health systems, announced Monday it has launched a turn-key organic search engine optimization program to improve hospitals' search engine rankings. The offering was launched in partnership with Peak Positions of Traverse City, ranked in August 2009 as one of the top 30 SEO firms in the world by TopSEOs.com. More.

Ford Focus EV gets star treatment
Television comic Jay Leno launched the “Green Car Challenge” on his new prime time television show Friday, according to AutoTech Daily. In what’s due to be a recurring segment, celebrity drivers pilot a prototype all-electric Ford Focus hatchback around a makeshift parking lot racetrack at NBC studios. More.

Attendance On Demand To Cut Ribbon On New HQ Friday

Attendance On Demand Inc., the Livonia time and attendance software developer, will formally cut the ribbon on its new and expanded headquarters Friday morning.

The new space at 20000 Victor Parkway is twice the size of the former offices for the company, which has been averaging 30 percent year over year growth in recent years.

Through an extensive North American channel network, health care, banking, hospitality and other industries have implemented Attendance on Demand, tracking time and wage data for over 125,000 employees each month.

Despite the economic slowdown, the software has seen fast adoption, because it helps cut human resources and labor costs across many industries.

More from the Great Lakes IT Report Web site.

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THE WORLD IN TECH

Dell eyes tech services in $3.9 billion bid for Perot
Dell Inc. will spend $3.9 billion for the technology services company Perot Systems Corp. in an attempt to expand beyond the PC business and compete more aggressively with Hewlett-Packard Co. -- which recently bought another tech-services company founded by H. Ross Perot. Dell said Monday it will offer $30 per share in cash for Perot Systems - a 68 percent premium over its closing price Friday. Perot Systems' shares rose $11.65, or 65 percent, to close at $29.56. Dell shares fell 68 cents, or 4.1 percent, to $16.01. Former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot Sr., 79, serves as chairman emeritus of Perot Systems, which he founded in 1988 and still owned 25 percent of as of April. Perot had already made a fortune from founding Electronic Data Systems Corp. in 1962 and selling it to General Motors Corp. in a 1984 deal worth $2.5 billion. Hewlett-Packard bought EDS last year for $13.9 billion as it, too, tried to augment its services offerings and diversify beyond hardware. More.

FCC chairman says 'open Internet' rules are vital
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Monday proposed the most wide-ranging and specific rules so far for regulating how Internet service providers and wireless carriers handle subscriber traffic. While the FCC has intervened a few times to discipline home broadband providers for blocking or hampering certain types of traffic, the proposal by Chairman Julius Genachowski could result in the first solid rules. It is also aimed at regulating, for the first time, how wireless companies carry Internet traffic to cell phones. Telecommunications executives warned that the proposal looks like a solution in search of a problem. They said that unless the regulations are carefully implemented, the rules could stifle investment in Internet access. More.

EU gives details of Intel's sales tactics
The European Union on Monday published e-mail excerpts from computer makers and Intel Corp. to show that Intel pressured chip buyers into choosing Intel over rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Intel was hit by a record EU antitrust fine of euro1.06 billion ($1.45 billion) last May for what the EU said were strong-arm sales tactics -- payments, rebates and threats to withhold supplies -- to squeeze out AMD. Intel rejects the charges and is appealing to the EU courts. EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said the publication of the EU's decision "gives full details of the hard facts on which the Commission's decision was based. You can see for yourselves the way in which Intel broke the law and deprived millions of European consumers of choice of the type of computer chip they wanted to have in their computers." More.

Netflix awards $1 million prize to improve service
And the winner is ... Netflix. Netflix Inc. awarded a $1 million prize Monday to a seven-member international research group as part of a three-year, intensely waged contest to help the online movie rental company predict more accurately what movies its customers will like. What Netflix gained from the experience is likely worth more than $1 million, and the company's launch of a second $1 million contest shows it is well aware of that. In fact, when the contest launched in 2006, the first entrants took just three weeks to improve on what Netflix's internal team had been able to do on its own. More.

Stocks: Shares end off lows as techs, health care stocks recover
Most stocks lost ground Monday as a stronger dollar pushed down commodity prices and investors grew jittery about the market's six-month rally. The stronger dollar set off a slide in commodities like oil and gold, which weighed on energy and material shares. The Dow Jones industrial average ended with a loss of 41 points after being down 94 in morning trading. For weeks, investors looking to take part in the market's rally have been pouncing on any dips. Gains in health stocks helped support the market, and Dell Inc.'s plans to buy IT services company Perot Systems Corp. for $3.9 billion drove some buying in tech stocks. Analysts have been calling for a retreat in the market after stocks surged powerfully off of 12-year lows in early March, lifting the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index 57.4 percent. More. The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) rose 5.18 points or 0.2 percent to 2,138.04. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) fell 41.34 points or 0.4 percent to 9,778.86. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) fell 0.08 or less than 0.1 percent to 326.4. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 0.63 points or 0.1 percent to 538.73. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index (DRG) rose 1.48 points or 0.5 percent to 286.77. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index (BTK) rose 7.92 points or 0.8 percent to 964.97. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) fell 3.64 points or 0.3 percent to 1,064.66.

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