CT Industry

:: PEOPLE

Chris Vento

Experience's Chris Vento

EXPERIENCE EXEC. Experience, a provider of career services for college students and alumni, has named Chris Vento executive VP of technology and product strategy. Vento previously served as executive VP of product development for Blackboard.

USDLA ADVISOR. The United States Distance Learning Association has appointed Pat Cassella, senior director of marketing/education at VBrick Systems, to the USDLA advisory board.

Kevin Brown

Kidaro's Kevin Brown

NEW KIDARO PREZ. Enterprise desktop virtualization solution provider Kidaro has appointed Kevin Brown as president, CEO, and a member of the board of directors. Brown previously served in executive roles at Network Appliance, Decru, and Inktomi (now part of Yahoo!).

:: NEWS

CONVERGENCE OF AV AND IT. New company Sight126 has created a solution that integrates existing conference room hardware with a complete managed video help desk. End users contact Sight126 support staff via an instant video messaging session; if the video help desk staff is unable to solve a problem remotely, Sight126 can dispatch on-site or outsourced AV or IT personnel to deal with the issue.

Sun Microsystems

EARLIER THIS SUMMER, Student Ambassadors from around the globe met with Sun executives at the company’s Executive Briefing Center.

STUDENT AMBASSADORS FOR OPEN SOURCE. Sun Microsystems has engaged more than 180 students from campuses around the world for its Campus Ambassador Program. The students facilitate adoption of open source on campus, foster community and innovation, and learn to work in open environments. Read more here.

SKYPE INCLUDED. Toshiba’s Digital Products Division is offering Skype IP communication software on several of its notebook computer lines, including select configurations of the new Satellite A215 series, featuring built-in 1.3 megapixel webcams and microphones.

CLASSROOM COLLABORATION. Interactive software provider Tidebreak has introduced ClassSpot, a classroom collaboration solution that turns presentation and display systems into interactive workspaces, enabling students to share information and control it from anywhere in the room. According to CEO Andrew Milne, the development of ClassSpot drew on feedback from advanced customer implementations of Tidebreak’s TeamSpot (collaboration software designed for informal learning spaces), such as San Jose State University’s Incubator Classroom. (SJSU is one of this year’s Campus Technology Innovators.)

FOCUSING ON DIGITAL DISPLAY. Panasonic has created a new business unit, the Panasonic Professional Display Company, focused exclusively on the professional digital display business. Andrew Nelkin will lead the new enterprise as president.

:: M & A, Etc.

AMX ACQUIRES DIGITAL SIGNAGE CO. AMX has acquired Inspiration Matters, a manufacturer of digital signage solutions that allow customers to schedule and deliver multimedia content to display screens across a network of sites locally, nationally, or globally.

EBAY EXPANDS WEB 2.0 FUNCTIONALITY. eBay has acquired StumbleUpon, a social bookmarking style website that enables users to discover and share content online, based on personal interests and community recommendations. By allowing its community to rate the content, the site develops collaborative opinions on website quality, and uses those recommendations to provide an increasing level of content relevance over time, for each user (users are directed to sites that like-minded community members have recommended).

For daily industry news, go to campus-technology.com/mcv/news/

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