Intelligent, Extensible, High-Performance Architecture Provides Foundation for Data-Intensive Financial Services Environments

NEW YORK - Tervela, the leading provider of open, intelligent, hardware-accelerated messaging systems, and Arista Networks, the leading vendor of low-latency 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) and Cloud Networking Solutions, have partnered to offer an extensible, high-performance messaging architecture to address the unique challenges of the financial services sector and other contemporary computing environments.

The joint offering combines the capabilities of the Tervela Message Network(TM) with Arista Networks' 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches and Extensible Operating System (EOS). This integration delivers a unified communications platform not only capable of responding to the need for high-performance messaging in modern financial applications, but also facilitating a set of infrastructure-based services.

"The collaboration between Tervela and Arista Networks represents an architectural transformation of the messaging infrastructure that will be a significant business enabler for data-intensive organizations," said J. Barry Thompson, CEO of Tervela. "The pillars of that transformation are intelligence, extensibility and performance. This is what makes the partnership with Arista so natural."

Key features of the Tervela and Arista Networks solution are as follows -


Intelligent Communications

-Application-awareness, dynamic filtering, and adaptive quality of service are key capabilities.

Extensible Services

-In-network services for information state and data persistence reduce deployment complexity, accelerate application performance and increase computing utilization.

High-Performance Architecture

-A high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet core coupled with hardware-accelerated message switches ensures unparalleled, deterministic and consistent application performance along with ultra-low latency.


"Recent advances in server capacity, while significant, are outmatched by the explosion of financial information, the sophistication of financial applications, and the demand for rapid, predictable response times," said Kenneth Duda, founder and vice president of Arista Networks. "These demands are met by a new architecture, in which Arista's ultra-low-latency Ethernet switches work with Tervela's intelligent message switches to deliver a superior messaging infrastructure."

Andy Bechtolsheim, founder, chief development officer and chairman of Arista Networks will be the keynote speaker at the STAC Performance Summit in New York City on June 4th. The event will discuss high-performance innovations and standards used to measure messaging. STAC meetings bring together the industry leaders who are building and using the latest low-latency, high-performance solutions for trading. Tervela and Arista Networks are both STAC members.


About Tervela

Tervela designs and delivers next-generation, enterprise-class messaging platforms used by financial services firms and other data-intensive organizations for better competitive execution regardless of increasing volume, time sensitivity and global distribution requirements of business-critical information. Deployed and in production in some of world's most demanding data centers, Tervela's flagship TMX product line incorporates specialized hardware-acceleration, processing intelligence and an extensible, open architecture that allow customers to rapidly deliver new projects and invigorate existing applications while lowering the risk and cost compared with traditional messaging and middleware solutions. For more information, please visit www.tervela.com.



About Arista Networks

Arista Networks delivers cloud networking solutions for large datacenter and computing environments. Arista offers best-of-breed 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches that redefine scalability, robustness, and price-performance. At the core of Arista's platform is the Extensible Operating System (EOS), a pioneering new software architecture with self-healing and live in-service software upgrade capabilities. Arista Networks will give the opening keynote at ISC'09 in Hamburg, Germany and will host Data Center Innovations that Matter in San Francisco on June 30th. For more information, please visit www.aristanetworks.com.

More than 2 million students across the country receive refund money faster through Higher One's OneDisburse(R) Refund Management(R)

New Haven, CT - Higher One, a financial services and payment company focused exclusively on higher education, has welcomed a record 88 new college and university partners representing more than 375,000 students from January through April of this year. Each of these institutions has selected Higher One to help improve student services through electronic refund distribution.

"Higher One's value proposition is extremely appealing to institutions of higher education right now, given the funding hardships many colleges and universities currently face," said Dean Hatton, president and CEO at Higher One. "We can help institutions experience significant cost savings in as little as 8 weeks through the elimination of paper check refunds and we can offer all students an optional no minimum balance, no monthly fee, FDIC-Insured checking account designed by students."

Colleges and universities are required to return any residual money in a student account to the student. This money is commonly known as a refund or award. Traditionally institutions have distributed these funds by handing students paper checks at a central office on campus or by mailing paper checks to students.

More recently colleges and universities have experimented with building and managing their own electronic refund distribution programs on campus or implementing software to assist in the collection of student banking information.

Both the paper check and the ACH methods of refund distribution have proven cost and labor intensive on the part of the institutions. In many cases temporary laborers are brought in or staff from other departments are temporarily reassigned to assist in the distribution of refund money to students and to handle any subsequent customer service issues.

Internally managed direct deposit programs are often plagued by low enrollment numbers. What results are two refund distribution programs run simultaneously by the college or university.

Aside from significant labor considerations and low enrollment numbers, schools who've implemented internally managed electronic refund distribution programs have experienced difficulty in keeping student banking information secure.

With Higher One's patented refund distribution service, institutions send Higher One a file with student names and refund amounts and a wire for the total amount to be distributed. That's all it takes for the institution to experience 100% enrollment in Higher One's program.

Higher One educates the campus community about the new service, collects, updates, and protects student banking information and refund preferences, distributes refunds based on each student's refund preference, handles any ACH bounce backs or returned checks, fields any refund related customer service inquiries, maintains compliance with Department of Education guidelines and other regulations, and provides staff with access to real-time, online reports regarding refunds.

The institutions benefit from the cost avoidance Higher One's OneDisburse Refund Management service delivers. In addition, refund payments are delivered to students faster.

Since signing its first client in 2002, Higher One has accumulated more than 300 clients across the country distributing refunds to over 2 Million students. Higher One has eliminated 4 Million paper checks on the way to distributing more than $7.6 billion dollars.


About Higher One:

Founded in 2000, Higher One provides higher education institutions and their students with efficient, convenient and easy-to-use solutions to handle financial disbursements. These include: student refunds, on-campus and community purchases, payroll and employee expenses, as well as the collection of payments from students, parents, and sponsors.

Higher One offers a suite of online banking services including the OneAccount, an FDIC-Insured checking account, and OneCard, a Debit MasterCard(R). To date, Higher One has disbursed over $7.6 billion dollars in refunds for its clients to more than 2 Million students, faculty, and staff at over 300 distinguished public and private higher education institutions throughout the country.

Higher One recently ranked #79 on the 2008 Fast 500 list of the 500 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in the United States. Higher One is based in New Haven, CT.

Cardholders can now add cash to their payroll cards at any of the more than 54,000 Western Union Agent locations nationwide

Houston, TC - FSV Payment Systems Inc., a leader in the stored-value and prepaid debit card industry, today announced successful integration of PaychekPLUS! Payroll Card reloading capability with Western Union Agents. FSV's PaychekPLUS! Payroll Cards are a convenient, efficient way for consumers to receive their pay through direct deposit, instead of receiving a paper check from their employer. FSV's payroll cards enable consumers to use their pay electronically vs. cash based transactions. Traditionally, "reloading" or adding cash to payroll cards has been a challenge for consumers with limited options available for them to do so.

"Western Union is a trusted and widely recognized name in financial services and their massive footprint of more than 54,000 Agent locations throughout the United States will give our cardholders more opportunity than ever before to add cash to their cards quickly and conveniently," said Jon Palmer, FSV President and CEO.

Consumers who wish to add funds to their FSV PaychekPLUS! Payroll Card can simply visit any participating Western Union Agent location, complete some basic information and present their card to the agent with their cash plus a $3.95 service fee. Funds are then available for use by cardholders within a matter of minutes.

"We expect the convenience of reloading at Western Union Agent locations to be well received and widely used among cardholders - especially among those who might receive a salary plus cash tips," Palmer added.

The ability to reload through Western Union is currently available on several PaychekPLUS! Payroll Card programs and will soon be available to other non-payroll programs.


About FSV Payment Systems, Inc.:

FSV Payment Systems is a leader in delivery of prepaid program management and processing services. Founded in 1999, the company has extensive experience in providing prepaid card programs for payroll, rebates, loyalty and promotions, healthcare, gift and retail. FSV is headquartered in Houston, TX and operates a state-of-the-art Client and Cardholder Service Center in Jacksonville, FL. For more information, visit www.fsvps.com.

Berkshire, UK - OpenPages, the leading provider of integrated risk management solutions for global companies, today announced that it was named in the top three within the OpRisk & Compliance Operational Risk Software Survey 2009. OpenPages improved two positions over the 2008 survey in the closely fought annual survey in which over 15 vendors were evaluated.

OpRisk & Compliance's research results were compiled from over 10,000 readers of the magazine from around the world and were also promoted through the OpRisk & Compliance 'Linked In' group online. OpenPages climbed the rankings in four of the five categories assessed in the survey:

- In 'Scenario Analysis', OpenPages moved up four places to first spot - up from fifth in 2008

- In both 'Operational Risk Loss Data' and 'Key Risk Indicators', OpenPages moved up two spots to third place

- For 'Risk Control Self Assessments', OpenPages moved up one rank to fourth place

- In 'Regulatory and Economic Capital', OpenPages came fifth - retaining its ranking from 2008

"We are delighted that our customers are accruing significant value from our solutions and, once again, they have supported us in the OpRisk & Compliance Operational Risk Software Survey 2009," says Michael J. Duffy, president and CEO of OpenPages. "In this tough economic landscape, companies are looking to deliver integrated risk management systems by embracing a holistic, enterprise-wide strategy for risk and compliance initiatives. OpenPages is at the heart of the evolution of a new era of risk management and is helping empower companies to identify and manage key business risks across the enterprise - the survey results are evidence of our continuing efforts in this area and business growth in 2009."

Victoria Pennington, editor, OpRisk & Compliance said, "Regardless of politicians' and regulators' promises to strengthen risk management and compliance, times are tough for financial services firms right now.

Even with such a gloomy outlook, the response to this year's OpRisk & Compliance annual software survey has been the strongest yet. As usual, however, the margins between the players in the top tier were minimal, as the largest four companies tussled for control of the different categories."


About OpenPages

OpenPages is the leading provider of integrated risk management solutions for global companies. OpenPages' solutions empower a risk-based approach to identify and manage key business risks across the enterprise. This approach enables companies to focus on what's important and to avoid unexpected outcomes while improving performance. Founded in 1996, the company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with an international office in the United Kingdom, and reional offices throughout North America.

Improvements to Industry-Leading Intelligent Campaign Management System Meet Growing Needs of High Volume, Multi-Center Collection Operations

Austin, Texas - ALI Solutions (TM), the leading provider of event-based analytic solutions, announced a new release of OnQ (TM), which automates and centralizes campaign and policy management while ensuring call rule compliance. OnQ 3 provides an unprecedented level of scalability and stability for users with collections centers in multiple locations.

OnQ 3 can process more than 275,000 calls per hour. As the troubled economy drives collections volumes upward, banks and other credit card issuers need collections solutions that can handle larger volumes. OnQ 3 meets this need by effectively processing more accounts and more calls per account, on multiple campaigns that are schedulable throughout the day.

Thomas J. Miller, senior vice president for corporate development at ALI Solutions, said, "More than ever before, our collections clients are focused on two critical performance measures - agent productivity and compliance. OnQ 3 helps them do more with the same resources, while ensuring compliance with the complex governmental and organizational regulations. No other campaign management system is so well suited for today's high-pressure, high volume collections environment."

"According to the American Bankers Association, the percentage of consumer loans at least 30 days late rose to a seasonally-adjusted 3.22% in the October-to-December period from 2.9% in the prior quarter. The ABA said the fourth-quarter rate was the highest since it began tracking the data in 1974, with delinquencies rising in nearly every category. It said these credit trends are unlikely to improve before 2010." (CNN Money, April 2, 2009)

In addition to greater scalability, other new features of OnQ 3 include expanded operating system and database support, advanced phone strategy capabilities and enhanced record management.

OnQ is one of three components of ALI Solutions' Intelligent Contact Suite (TM). OnQ has long been the premier collections automation system among banks, used by most leading credit card issuers and deployed in seven countries. Users routinely report increases in agent productivity and reduces dialer administration overhead thanks to such OnQ features as centralized campaign management across multiple centers, real-time delivery of records, list-sharing across dialers, and intra-day management of campaigns and strategies. ALI Solutions estimates that just two minutes a day of agent down-time in a collections center with 50 seats costs about $1.5 million a year in lost opportunity.

Besides OnQ, the other two components of ALI's Intelligent Contact Suite are CallTech (TM), which maximizes dollars collected or sales-per-agent, optimizing daily outbound call schedules by using call targeting analytics to determine the probability of getting a Right Party Contact and the probability of a response to the call; and ActionSelect for Collections (TM) which drives optimal treatment decisions using Action Analytics (TM), optimization and simulation.



About ALI Solutions

ALI Solutions ("ALI") provides event-based analytic decisioning applications that empower consumer financial services organizations to preemptively manage risk and improve profitability. ALI's solutions automate the fusion of transaction data with third party data sources to dynamically execute credit, fraud and collections policies that solve immediate business problems while easily adapting to future industry challenges. For over 16 years many of the world's most successful companies throughout North America, the United Kingdom and the Asia Pacific region continue to choose ALI because its applications are proven to help businesses mitigate losses while delivering millions of dollars in bottom line benefit. For more information, visit www.ALIsolutions.com. (On April 6, 2009, ALI Solutions changed its name from Austin Logistics, Inc.)

Boston, MA. - Smart Destinations Inc., the fastest growing travel company on the Inc. 500, marked their 2,500,000 visitor to an attraction using their pre-paid all access attraction passes. The visit occurred at Shedd Aquarium on April 21st. Located in Chicago Illinois, the Shedd is the nation's top rated aquarium, and a popular attraction on Smart Destinations Go Chicago Card.

"It took us four years to get to one million visits," said Cecilia Dahl, founder and President of Smart Destinations. "To get to this level in less than half the time is pretty gratifying. I give credit to the team here for their focus on delivering customer value and to the over 425 museums, tours, and attractions who partner with us in our network."

"We've partnered with Smart Destinations since 2005," said Ron Nuce, of the Shedd Aquarium. "It has been great to see how their business has grown, and not just because of the visitors they bring us, but also because the product itself does a lot for the city of Chicago. Go Chicago Card is promoted around the US and the world as a way to draw attention to all that Chicago has to offer as a vacation destination. On top of that, the visitors love the value they get."

The benchmark visitor used the popular Go Chicago Card, one of Smart Destination's flagship "Go Cards". Go Cards allow a customer to pay a single price and then use the card as their entry ticket to as many as 80 different attractions in a given destination. Smart Destinations other product, the Explorer Pass, similarly allows customers to save time and money by paying once for the card and then using it for a set number of attractions in their destination of choice. The products area available across North America - from Oahu to Boston, San Diego to Toronto, and a dozen top destinations in between.


About Smart Destinations

Headquartered in Boston, MA with locations throughout North America, Smart Destinations is the premier provider of unlimited admission attraction passes in 15 major North American travel destinations from Oahu to New York City. Smart Destinations' Go Cards and Explorer Passes offer pre-paid access to over 425 museums, attractions, and tours for one fixed price. The combination of savings and convenience has resulted in 94% customer satisfaction as measured by 3rd party research and helped the company rank 78 on the Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies. Distributed through major travel services in 25 countries, corporate HR departments and their vendors, as well as on the Web, Smart Destinations' products are a "trusted companion" for the best a destination has to offer at an unbeatable price point.

Companies to Enter Formal Partnership Agreement and Build on Prior Successful Implementation of Metatomix Solutions in Gwinnett County, GA

Dedham, Mass. - Metatomix, Inc., a leading provider of semantic solutions to justice and public safety, financial services, manufacturing and life sciences organizations, today expanded its partner program with the addition of Agile Technologies. A global consulting firm and system integrator servicing the public sector, Agile will add Metatomix's semantic technology capabilities to its government project management application.

With offices throughout the East and Midwest, Agile Technologies, a trademark of Agile Technologies, LLC, joins Metatomix's program at the gold level, reflecting the company's plans to resell Metatomix solutions.

"Strategic partnerships are a critical element in our past and future success," said Metatomix CEO Jeff Dickerson. "The addition of exceptional partners like Agile Technologies underscores the importance of data-sharing solutions for both the public and private sectors. We look forward to continuing to build upon the already strong relationship between Agile and Metatomix, and to continue to deliver innovative technology to our mutual customers."

"Our government customers have a need for solutions that facilitate the sharing of information seamlessly across multiple agencies on local, state and federal levels," said Agile Technologies CEO and Managing Partner Bill Freitag. "Adding Metatomix's technology to our government portfolio is a natural addition to the innovative solutions we already provide to our justice customers. We are delighted to be taking the next steps in this already fruitful partnership."

In June of last year, Metatomix and Agile partnered to bring Metatomix's suite of integrated justice data-sharing solutions to Gwinnett County, Georgia, located thirty miles northeast of Atlanta. Agile worked directly with County officials to successfully integrate Metatomix's suite of justice solutions with Gwinnett's existing Criminal Justice Information System Community of Interest (CJIS COI) infrastructure to maximize data sharing.

"We are very excited to be working with Agile and Metatomix," said George Hutchinson, Chief Magistrate Judge of Gwinnett County and Chairman of the CJIS Program. "Both of our partners in this endeavor are working to help us realize the vision we all share for delivering high quality, timely justice information to the various agencies in Gwinnett County responsible for upholding the criminal justice system. Our expectation is that with the help of Agile and Metatomix, we will be able to greatly improve the overall efficiency of the system in terms of how information is communicated, as well as improve the accuracy of the information relied on to make decisions."

Metatomix's Partner Program comprises platinum level partners, OEMs that integrate Metatomix solutions with their own private-label offerings; gold level partners that resell its semantic solution; and silver level partners that provide lead referrals. To learn more about Metatomix's partner program, or to contact a company representative to become a partner, please visit www.metatomix.com/partners/become.php.



About Agile Technologies

Agile Technologies utilizes a take-action, results-driven approach in delivering innovative, highly successful business technology solutions to insurance, financial services, pharmaceutical and government organizations worldwide. Dedicated to helping organizations achieve greater performance and bottom-line results through technology-enabled business process innovation, we pride ourselves on understanding the challenges and coming up with measurable results. We have experience working with a variety of complex, high-touch projects blending with our clients to create success. For more information, visit the Agile Technologies website at www.agiletec.com.



About Metatomix, Inc.

Founded in 2000, Metatomix (www.metatomix.com) is the leading provider of Semantic Middleware solutions to financial services, justice, manufacturing and life sciences organizations. Metatomix solutions integrate data and processes to create a common, contextual understanding across multiple enterprise systems. Using this new understanding in context, Metatomix solutions enable real-time analysis and insights, orchestrating coordinated responses among existing systems to optimize enterprise processes. For more information, visit the Metatomix Web site at http://www.metatomix.com.

Austin, Texas - ALI Solutions ("ALI"), the leading provider of event-based analytic solutions, announced that Harry C. Gambill, former Chief Executive Officer of TransUnion, has joined the board of the Austin-based company, effective March 2009.

John Carreker, Chief Executive Officer of ALI, said, "We are pleased to have an executive of Mr. Gambill's stature joining our board. Along with strengthening our executive team we are committed to improved governance. Mr. Gambill's TransUnion achievements will translate directly into wisdom and industry perspective that my colleagues and I will value greatly."

Mr. Gambill said, "This is a great time to be in the predictive analytics business - to be helping companies manage risk - and ALI has the right strategy for making the most of it, and a great customer base. I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the company."

Mr. Gambill was TransUnion's president and chief executive officer from 1992 through 2007, and then served as the company's vice chairman until October, 2008. Mr. Gambill joined TransUnion in 1985, holding several positions, including senior vice president – Marketing and Analytics, regional vice president and vice president/general manager.

Mr. Gambill received his Bachelor of Science in business administration and economics from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Ark., in 1968. He served many years on the board of the Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA), including two terms as chairman, as well as several other public and private boards.

Last week ALI announced its name change from Austin Logistics. The week before the company announced the highlights of its client conference Impact 2009: ("Proactive Solutions for Uncertain Times: The New Generation of Collections and Risk Management Conference") to be held in Austin, TX this week - April 13-15.

About ALI Solutions
ALI Solutions ("ALI") provides event-based analytic decisioning applications that empower consumer financial services organizations to preemptively manage risk and improve profitability. ALI's solutions automate the fusion of transaction data with third party data sources to dynamically execute credit, fraud and collections policies that solve immediate business problems while easily adapting to future industry challenges. For over 16 years many of the world's most successful companies throughout North America, the United Kingdom and the Asia Pacific region continue to choose ALI because its applications are proven to help businesses mitigate losses while delivering millions of dollars in bottom line benefit. For more information, visit www.ALIsolutions.com.

STERLING, Va., - Managed IT Services delivered through the cloud promise business customers a flexible, cost-effective and, in some cases, technically superior alternative to conventional technology models. Are these services living up to this promise?

That's one of the questions raised in a new Current Analysis Advisory Report, "Playing in the Cloud: New IT Services Reality or More Vapor in an Already Foggy Economy?"

Current Analysis Principal Analyst for Managed IT Services Amy Larsen DeCarlo says while there is plenty of hype around the cloud concept, there is also some truth to the talk about it representing a real paradigm shift.

According to Larsen DeCarlo, the theory is that cloud service providers possess the technology infrastructure, economies of scale and expertise to deliver managed IT offerings to business clients at a fraction of what it would cost customers to build and operate them internally. The current cloud services era evolved from the days of application service providers (ASPs) and can even trace its roots back to the mainframe computing model. But while the cloud services concept mirrors its predecessors, the underlying technology has advanced to support more sophisticated, secure and cost-effective delivery models. The model benefits from advances including improvements in the underlying networks; virtualization technology that makes it possible to run secure, stable and economical shared infrastructure; software tools that developers use to create applications; and security that effectively balances control with accessibility. These and other improvements lay the groundwork for the kind of dynamic cloud-based services businesses want now.

Also in the report, Larsen DeCarlo examines the strengths and weaknesses of companies best positioned to make the most of the opportunities in the cloud. These providers represent a broad spectrum of services: from dedicated Web-based offerings that may be tailored to a particular client to true multi-tenant pay-per-use solutions. The report concludes with vendor and end-user recommendations.

Current Analysis covers Managed IT Services in its award-winning CurrentCOMPETE service that features Advisory Reports, event-driven Competitive Intelligence Reports, regularly updated Market Assessments, and Company Assessment reports on Managed IT Services providers.

For a complimentary copy of the full report "Playing in the Cloud: New IT Services Reality or More Vapor in an Already Foggy Economy?" go to:
http://www.currentanalysis.com/f/2009/mits/

For more information on Current Analysis Managed IT Services coverage, go to:
http://www.currentanalysis.com/markets/modules/mod220.asp

About Current Analysis

Current Analysis has been helping leading technology companies improve their competitive responsiveness since 1997. Sales teams, product managers, and marketing professionals rely on Current Analysis for the latest competitive analysis and tactical advice. For more information, visit Current Analysis at: http://www.currentanalysis.com

Integrated FAQs provide advisors with greater reach in communicating with clients

Forefield Inc. announces the integration of its consumer FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) into Forefield Advisor. With this latest release, financial advisors can now access more than 500 frequently asked questions and answers on popular financial planning topics. The FAQs complement Forefield's existing consumer content collection, and financial advisors can add FAQs to presentations along with related articles, tables, illustrations, and calculator output. All presentations are available in PDF format for high-quality print output and HTML format for use in e-mail campaigns and on advisor websites.

"With Forefield's exponential growth as a communication platform, it made perfect sense for us to integrate our FAQs into Forefield Advisor," said Brent Delehey, Chief Executive Officer at Forefield. "With over 3,000 content resources, and a constant stream of timely, compliant, fresh content on key planning issues, we provide an unrivalled depth of content to financial advisors. By combining content with our technology for advisor customization, multi-channel distribution, and engagement analytics, we provide financial advisors with the leading platform for client service and prospect marketing."

Advisors wishing to learn more about any of Forefield's products can sign up for a free trial at www.forefield.com.

About Forefield Inc.
Established in 1997, Forefield is the foremost provider of real-time sales, education, and client communication solutions for financial institutions and their advisors. Forefield's web-based solutions facilitate the communication of client-centric financial planning knowledge and advice that is current, concise, and compliant. For more information, visit www.forefield.com.