Arelion continues to build local ecosystem of cloud, content and security services in Mexico

Arelion today announced a new Point-of-Presence (PoP) in Guadalajara, further expanding the Tier-1 global Internet carrier's presence in Mexico. Arelion's new PoP at global edge data center provider HostDime's GDL site will provide wholesale and enterprise customers in Guadalajara's booming electronics and technology sectors with direct access to Arelion's reliable, high-performance global network and local ecosystem of cloud, content and security services, supporting further nearshoring investment in Guadalajara.

Arelion's fully diverse, resilient PoP in Guadalajara avoids backhauling from the United States, enabling improved customer experiences through direct, low-latency access to its Tier-1 network. Through this PoP, Arelion can provide local and national Internet service providers with diverse connectivity to its existing PoPs in Mexico City, Querétaro and Monterrey, including local access to cloud content in Querétaro and Monterrey.

Jalisco leads Mexico in nearshoring demand, comprising 47 percent of the country's total demand, with electronics and cybernetics accounting for 75 percent of Jalisco's production of goods. With this new PoP, Arelion positions itself as a reliable connectivity partner for multinational enterprises in Guadalajara's thriving electronics, manufacturing and information technology sectors.

"Arelion continues its mission of organic expansion in Mexico to provide resilient, low-latency connectivity to wholesale and enterprise customers," said Luis Velasquez, Mexico Business Manager, Arelion. "This new PoP in Guadalajara will serve as an aggregation point for Internet service providers seeking access to Mexico's largest connectivity markets, strengthening the region's ecosystem through Tier-1 connectivity services."

"Arelion's new PoP at our carrier-neutral GDL data center will bolster the local Guadalajara network connectivity, providing high-capacity access to cloud, content and connectivity services for companies that rely on our Guadalajara data center to localize content & traffic," said Manny Vivar, HostDime CEO. "Our data center is one of the only carrier-neutral sites in the region. With Arelion, our facility strengthens its position as a primary Guadalajara network hub through fully resilient, diverse connectivity to Arelion's global Tier-1 network being on-net."

HostDime's GDL facility provides colocation, bare metal compute & interconnection data center infrastructure services to Mexico and is an ideal facility for global businesses needing to reach Mexican markets. The GDL facility is also home to the only peering exchange in the region Guadalajara Internet Exchange Point (GDL-IXP). The partnership with Arelion, HostDime and GDL-IXP will accelerate improvement of Guadalajara's network ecosystem that will benefit the entire community of users and providers. The PoP is Arelion's ninth PoP in Mexico and will be operational in late Q4 2023. Arelion's additional PoPs in Mexico include:

• One PoP in San Luis Potosi at Neutral Network's site
• Two PoPs in Querétaro that serve Equinix's MX1 and KIO Networks' QRO sites
• Two PoPs in Mexico City operating in KIO's MEX2 and MEX5 data centers
• One PoP in Mérida, located at AiTelecom's data center
• Two PoPs in Monterrey, serving Equinix's MO1 site and Neutral Networks Pabellón M

With the addition of this PoP in Guadalajara, Arelion provides customers in Mexico with enhanced access to Arelion's #1 ranked Internet backbone, AS1299, as well as Arelion's portfolio of leading connectivity services, including high-speed IP Transit, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Cloud Connect, Global 40G Ethernet Virtual Circuit (VC) and DDoS Mitigation services for service providers, content providers and enterprises.

SmartCow announced today that Mars has received a 2023 IoT Edge Computing Excellence Award from IoT Evolution World, the leading web site covering the Internet of Things (IoT) marketplace.

This award recognizes the companies emerging as leaders in the growing edge computing space. Companies selected for this award have proven that their products are enabling advanced IoT deployments by offering edge solutions that bring real-time computing, data availability, analytics, AI and machine learning to edge devices.

Mars, a rugged IP65 gateway meticulously designed around the NVIDIA® Jetson AGX Orin™ module for harsh environments. The device has M12 connectors for I/O for extra robustness, capable of applying the applications in washdown and corrosive environments. Mars is available with 10G, 2.5G, and an optional 5G for connectivity, allowing advanced communication of smart city projects. Meanwhile, Mars features the OOB (Out Of Band) function to enable operators to maintain and monitor the device through a secure protocol.

"We admire Mars and have officially certified it for its dedication to intelligent traffic and agricultural scenarios.", said Anita Wu, Senior Product Manager at SmartCow. "Our US-based client used Mars to upgrade conventional pesticide sprayers, resulting in a revolutionary transformation of precision farming and a remarkable cost reduction of up to 40% for the solution integrator." This success story highlights the transformative impact Mars can have on various industrial applications.

"The solutions selected for the IoT Evolution Edge Computing Excellence Award reflect innovation driving the fast-growing Internet of Things marketplace. It is my honor to congratulate SmartCow for their innovative work and contribution to this rapidly evolving industry," said Carl Ford, Community Developer, IoT Evolution World.

"It is my pleasure to recognize Mars, an innovative solution that earned SmartCow the 2023 IoT Evolution Edge Computing Excellence Award," said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. "I look forward to seeing more innovation from SmartCow in the future."

2023 IoT Edge Computing Excellence Award from IoT Evolution World highlights SmartCow's contributions in edge AI and the smart city landscape and Mars is a testimony to their commitment in driving innovations to the market. This award underscores SmartCow's position as a key player in the rapidly evolving AIoT industry, with further innovations eagerly anticipated.

Enterprise Content Management platform once again voted "Best Information Governance" solution by the magazine's audience of IT and business professionals

KnowledgeLake, a leading modern cloud-native Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform, announced today that it has been honored with the 2023 KMWorld Readers' Choice Award for "Best Information Governance." This is the third time KnowledgeLake has won the annual award spotlighting innovative products and services that business and IT professionals depend on for continued success.

"We've been honored with many awards by publications and analyst firms, but the Readers' Choice award is particularly meaningful because winners are selected by the people who matter most –– our end users," said Ron Cameron, CEO and Founder of KnowledgeLake. "We are continuously updating our platform to take advantage of emerging technologies, such as AI, to help solve complex content management challenges. We couldn't be more proud knowing that our dedication to serving customers is making an impact."

Earlier this year, KnowledgeLake introduced its next-generation Intuitive AI™, a cutting-edge technology that enterprises can leverage to solve crucial document processing pain points faster and easier than ever. The tool can automatically summarize, interpret, and extract information from documents within seconds and includes natural language processing technologies to respond to users' questions and commands.

KnowledgeLake's Intuitive AI helps organizations further enhance their Information Governance processes by enabling them to manage large volumes of information from documents even more efficiently and effectively. Intuitive AI powers KnowledgeLake's entire ECM platform, making storing, managing, and retrieving information much faster and easier. It can also help identify data irregularities and detect unauthorized access to data, which is vital for ensuring compliance and security.

The KMWorld Readers' Choice Award adds to an ever-growing list of previous accolades for KnowledgeLake. Just last month, KnowledgeLake was named to KMWorld's prestigious "Trend-Setting Products of 2023" list, highlighting its dedication to driving innovation within the ECM industry. Earlier this year, the company was recognized as a Star Performer and Major Contender in Everest Group's Intelligent Document Processing and Unstructured Document Processing Products PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2023, cementing its leadership in document processing. The company was also positioned as an Innovator in the Aragon Research Globe for Content Platform 2023.

Integration speeds remediation by 99% while preserving optimized developer workflows

Checkmarx, the industry leader in cloud-native application security for the enterprise, announced today an integration with Mobb, the trusted automated vulnerability fixer, to streamline application security testing and remediation within familiar developer workflows. Checkmarx customers can now deploy Mobb's auto-remediation solution for vulnerabilities identified during scans with Checkmarx SAST. This new capability represents an expansion of Checkmarx' auto-remediation offerings for SCA (software composition analysis) and IaC (infrastructure-as-code) Security.

The Mobb integration with Checkmarx significantly reduces time-to-remediation from nearly five hours to five minutes, on average, simplifying the process in two primary ways:

• Checkmarx' industry-leading SAST solution is highly tuned for accuracy and prioritizes findings to minimize the noise that enters the development workflow. Developers can trust that alerts are genuinely exploitable problems and be guided to fix the most critical vulnerabilities first.
• Mobb's AI engine leverages heuristics to perform auto-remediation of vulnerabilities identified by Checkmarx in just a few clicks. Developers are freed from reviewing scan reports to search for fixes and fix locations, allowing them to focus on innovation.

"Mobb and Checkmarx share a vision of the vital nature of application security at a time when code drives every aspect of the enterprise and AI is disrupting everything," said Ori Bendet, VP of Product Management at Checkmarx. "This first integration from our partnership with Mobb not only speeds time-to-delivery of new applications, but helps build trust between AppSec leaders and developers, resulting in reduced risk and maximizing return on investment."

"This new partnership empowers companies to take their DevSecOps program to the next level of automation and speed," said Eitan Worcel, CEO at Mobb. "Running Checkmarx and Mobb in the pipeline completely changes the narrative of security tools from being the delaying factor to one that provides a productivity and efficiency boost, allowing companies to do more with less."

Mobb reduces time-to-remediation by 99% on average. With this new integration, workflows are simplified and, when integrated within the SDLC, typically resemble the following:

• A developer commits code changes to the organization's code hosting platform.
• A Checkmarx SAST scan is automatically initiated in the appropriate phase of the SDLC.
• Mobb analyzes the reported vulnerabilities and the developer's source code for essential contextual information on how the error was created.
• Mobb then incorporates the additional context and proposes a fix, presenting it side-by-side with the vulnerable code.
• The developer approves and commits the fix.
• Checkmarx then scans to verify that the fix is effective.

Key features of the integration include the ability to scan with Checkmarx through Mobb CLI and the ability of users to retrieve their applications managed in Checkmarx One directly into Mobb without having to import or configure each of them individually.

New study from LG Ad Solutions highlights opportunities for marketers to connect with their audiences on the biggest screen in the home

LG Ad Solutions, a global leader in connected TV (CTV) and cross-screen advertising, has today released the findings of its latest streaming report “The Big Shift: United Kingdom Wave II,” which found that UK consumers are increasingly shifting away from linear TV, with 25% of those surveyed saying they are watching less linear television than a year ago. In its place, ad-supported streaming services are growing in popularity, with 68% of UK consumers preferring to stream free content rather than pay for a subscription. This is 8% more than US consumers.

“Nearly all UK households are now reachable via CTV, and with a consumer preference for ad-supported content, marketers need to ensure that advertising on free ad-supported content is part of their media mix,” said Ed Wale, VP Europe at LG Ad Solutions. "Our data shows that after seeing a CTV ad, UK TV viewers are more likely to search online, visit a website and talk about the ad or product than US viewers. It’s clear that CTV is a performance channel and gives marketers the chance to reach and interact with an engaged audience.”

The study, which follows LG Ad Solutions’ first “The Big Shift: United Kingdom” report in 2022, surveyed more than 800 UK consumers in August 2023 to determine consumer perceptions and behaviours related to CTV. The study also found:

• CTV is now the top choice for watching live TV: Among UK viewers, Smart TV applications are the leading choice for watching live TV, with 42 percent preferring this method. Availability of live sports is a driving force with 53% of UK TV viewers watching sports content via streaming.
• Consumers are cutting down on costs: More than 1 in 3 UK TV viewers are concerned about TV costs, with 36% reporting that they have cancelled a streaming service because of economic concerns. Although 86% of UK consumers pay for one or more subscription services, 55% are willing to cancel a subscription after watching the desired content.
• Consumers are choosing ads over subscriptions: 20% of UK TV viewers expect to remove a subscription streaming service in the next 12 months, and further, 13% will add a free ad-supported streaming service.
• TV homepages are important for content discovery: In the UK, the top ranked recommendation source for content is the homepage of the TV screen (53%), above recommendations from friends and family (43%).
• UK TV viewers are multitasking: 91% multitask with a mobile device or laptop while watching TV, with 64% doing so “always” or “often.” Their second-screen activities include: messaging (54%), shopping (35%) and gaming (30%).

DanAds proudly announces the launch of Nine Ad Manager, a self-serve advertising platform that leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to empower Australian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with the capability to purchase video advertising on 9Now, allowing precise targeting down to postcode levels and the creation of video creative through AI.

Australia is home to 2.5 million SMBs, collectively spending $1.5 billion annually on social video advertising. With the introduction of Nine Ad Manager, these businesses gain the ability to run campaigns on Australia's leading television shows via 9Now, the nation's premier Broadcast Video On Demand platform, with all the benefits of precise audience targeting.

Key Features of Nine Ad Manager:

• Precise Targeting: Businesses can now reach their target audience based on demographics such as age and gender, geographical location by postcode, and Nine's proprietary 9Tribes audience segments.
• AI-Powered Ad Creation: SMBs can effortlessly generate advertisements using AI by simply inputting their website URL into the platform. The system automatically collects images, text, branding, and color palettes from the website, resulting in a professionally scripted video complete with AI-generated voice-over – all created in less than a minute.
• Expansive Future Potential: While the focus of the platform is initially on 9Now, it has the potential to be integrated with Nine's digital audio and digital display inventory in the future, offering even more advertising opportunities for businesses.

"We are excited to introduce this innovative solution, which will undoubtedly revolutionize how businesses approach video advertising. This collaboration with Nine reinforces our commitment to providing advanced advertising tools to advertisers of all sizes, further facilitating their growth and success," remarked Peo Persson, Co-Founder at DanAds, regarding the partnership's significance. "With this unique AI self-serve automated solution developed in conjunction with Nine, advertisers now have the power to reach their target audiences nationwide, utilizing Artificial Intelligence to purchase video advertising, target to postcode level, and build video creative using AI."

Michael Stephenson, Chief Sales Officer at Nine, said a focus on making transactions as simple as possible led Nine to secure a licensing agreement with the DanAds platform – a trusted partner also used by many publishers across the globe. They then seamlessly integrated an AI engine into the platform, enabling the creation of video creative in real time. Stephenson remarked, "Nine Ad Manager is an Australian first to offer SMBs a premium alternative to social video advertising. With 9Now streaming Australia's most watched programs, we offer a safe, premium environment for local businesses wanting to tailor their targeting to customers relevant to their business. The potential for growth in this space is immense and I couldn't be more excited to be launching Nine Ad Manager."

Nine Ad Manager promises to be a game-changer for businesses of all sizes, providing an accessible and efficient way to engage with audiences through television advertising. Its integration of AI technology, along with its competitive pricing, positions it as an attractive alternative to traditional social video advertising.

PubMatic, an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, today announced a groundbreaking data collaboration with Experian, the world’s leading global information services company. The collaboration marks a major milestone in the advertising industry, as PubMatic becomes the first sell-side technology provider of Experian marketing data in both the US and UK, providing its clients with unique household-level commerce media targeting capabilities.

Experian's syndicated audiences encompass a wealth of information including consumer demographics, spending models, property data, and automotive audiences, complemented by the extensive, cross-channel insights offered by Experian’s Mosaic® segments. These unique and privacy-centric insights will revolutionise how media buyers harness data-driven marketing strategies across commerce media to engage their target audiences.

Furthermore, this collaboration will allow advertisers to take advantage of Experian’s consumer data and audience insights across all of PubMatic’s premium omnichannel inventory including mobile, web, in-app, and connected TV (CTV). This collaboration marks the first time this data is available in the programmatic ecosystem at the household level in the UK, rather than at the postcode level.

“By integrating Experian's robust commerce data into our platform, we give our customers an unprecedented competitive edge by empowering them with a deeper understanding of their target audiences as well as market-leading targeting capabilities, while remaining privacy-centric,” said Peter Barry, VP, Addressability & Commerce Media at PubMatic. “We are looking forward to working with brands and agencies and helping them to make the most of this exciting new collaboration and a first for the industry.”

PubMatic's sell-side targeting capabilities combined with Experian's comprehensive consumer insights will enable media buyers to optimise their campaigns, drive higher engagement rates, and maximise ROI. With access to detailed consumer behaviour insights, such as shopping preferences and transaction details, advertisers will be able to refine their marketing strategies and implement more precise targeting, and more personalised messaging to specific audiences, via PubMatic’s Connect platform.

“We believe that by integrating with PubMatic we can unlock tremendous value for media buyers, empowering them to leverage our consumer insights to accurately and effectively plan and deliver campaigns that advertisers have long wished for, but seldom found possible,” said Colin Grieves, Managing Director of Marketing Services UK&I at Experian. “This collaboration will pave the way for innovative marketing campaigns that connect with audiences at a deeper level, driving increased ad relevancy for consumers and stronger engagement for brands.”

PubMatic and Experian are committed to driving digital transformation and delivering unparalleled targeting capabilities to media buyers. This collaboration sets both companies on a path to shape the future of data-driven advertising and revolutionises the commerce media landscape.

Skyrocketing costs and dips in attendance have made in-person events harder to justify, while 73% of marketers classify virtual events as ‘important’ or ‘must have’, find surveys by Kaltura

Kaltura, the Video Experience Cloud, today released two new reports “The State of Events”, and “The State of Webinars”. The reports, based on global surveys of hundreds of marketers, provide a comprehensive overview of how webinars and virtual events are being utilized, as well as what improvements are still needed.  

2023 has seen an additional tipping point in the use of virtual events, as for the first time in the three years of Kaltura’s survey, purely virtual events surpassed both hybrid and in-person events. With the advantages of virtual events becoming clear, it is getting harder to justify the cost of in-person, with 89% of marketers experiencing a drop in attendance,  and 70% seeing a rise in costs.

Across all virtual events, from webinars to annual conferences, the impact of automation and AI is growing. While only 6% of respondents are early adopters of AI as part of their event strategies, eagerness to implement AI, for all types of virtual events is nearly unanimous (98% for webinars, 100% for virtual event organizers) as companies look to reap the benefits, from increased personalization and engagement to freeing up time for other tasks.

“From a marketing perspective, there are few activities that generate as much engagement and content as a virtual event,” said Lisa Bennett, EVP Marketing at Kaltura. “The long-term impact that virtual events provide for a company has made them mainstays of every marketing department, and as more companies begin using AI to strengthen them even more, this trajectory will only continue to grow.”

As the use of webinars and virtual events as a key demand generation channel increases, organizations find themselves in a race to keep up with the ever-advancing pace of content production, all while ensuring that this material effectively reaches its intended audience.

When it comes to measuring the return, companies are still struggling to effectively calculate ROI for their events, with only 28% of respondents always doing so. Of the 72% that do not consistently calculate ROI, 54% felt that it was hard or even impossible, demonstrating that many still do not have the right tools to do so. Even with these shortcomings, however, virtual events are achieving excellent outcomes for marketers across the board, including lead gen, attendance, and brand awareness.

Other key findings:

• For most marketers, webinars play an important strategic role: 24% of marketers say that webinars are their most important tool for demand generation, while 49% say webinars are on par with other tools. C-suite executives are the biggest fans of webinars (36%) while managers are more reticent (23%).
• Not only is it easier to book keynote speakers are easier to book for virtual events, but virtual event organizers meet DEI goals. 66% of marketers find booking a speaker for an in-person event harder than booking one for a virtual event, and 96% feel that due to lower barriers for participation, DEI goals become more readily achievable.
• The use of AI and automation in webinars is quickly becoming universal, with 98% of respondents indicating that they plan to enhance webinars with these technologies in the coming year.