Intel and United Nations Population Fund Committed To Boost Health Workers' Skills Around the World

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

• Intel and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), are working together to advance the quality of care provided to women and newborns by strengthening the skills of midwives and other frontline healthcare workers using technology.
• The program will use software and technical assistance provided by Intel and training content provided by UNFPA.
• Initial collaboration will focus on 3-5 high-burden maternal death countries in 2012.

UNITED NATIONS, New York and SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 30, 2012 – The high number of unnecessary deaths during pregnancy and childbirth is unacceptable for Intel Corporation and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

In an effort to combat that statistic, Intel and the United Nations agency, also known as UNFPA, today announced a joint commitment to strengthen the skills of midwives and community health workers through technology and training materials from the two organizations. The new initiative will increase the capacity of health workers around the world through software and technical assistance provided by Intel and wider availability of higher-quality education through training and materials furnished by UNFPA. Boosting the skills and quality of services provided by frontline health workers isthe goal of this effort.

Intel will build on its commitment to the United Nations "Every Woman, Every Child" initiative to help train 1 million frontline healthcare workers by 2015 under the Intel 1Mx15 Health initiative. According to the United Nations, every year, about 360,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth and up to 2 million babies die within the first 24 hours of life, largely because they don't have access to properly trained health workers.

As part of the initiative, the Intel skoool™ Healthcare Education Platform will provide open access multi-media content delivery in an anytime, anywhere capacity. The content delivery and assessment platform will further educate and train midwives and other frontline healthcare workers. Additionally, Intel will work with various governments to help increase the availability, affordability and usage of technology in order to enable healthy lives.

UNFPA, a UN agency dedicated to improving maternal health, will develop the content and training for health workers, together with relevant partners and professional organizations at country and international levels. UNFPA will also engage national stakeholders to ensure the sustainability and multiplier effect of the program.

"We are looking forward to working with UNFPA to improve training for healthcare workers through technology and education," said Mike Gann, director of global healthcare for the World Ahead Program at Intel. "By increasing the accessibility and affordability of ICT solutions, we would be able to equip the workforce with the correct tools to improve women and children's health."

Countries with high rates of maternal and newborn death will pilot the program. The collaboration will bring new forms of technology and training to the hardest hit areas of India, Bangladesh and Ghana.

"With this innovative collaboration, we are putting game-changing technology into the hands of the people who are saving the lives of women and newborns around the world," said Werner Haug the UNFPA technical division director. "UNFPA is inspired by Intel's commitment and we look forward to strengthening the work for safe motherhood."

About Intel
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com andblogs.intel.com.

About UNFPA
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
More information about UNFPA is available at www.unfpa.org.

Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Amazon Web Services Announces AWS Storage Gateway to Connect Enterprise Data with the Cloud

New service provides seamless cloud backup and disaster recovery for on-premises data—plus easy access to AWS’s on-demand, cost-effective Amazon EC2 compute capacity

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2012-- Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced the AWS Storage Gateway, a service that provides enterprises with a new option to securely upload data to the AWS cloud for scalable, reliable, cost-effective storage. The AWS Storage Gateway connects an on-premises software appliance with cloud-based storage for seamless integration between on-premises IT environments and AWS storage infrastructure. The service provides low-latency performance by maintaining data in on-premises storage hardware while asynchronously uploading data to AWS, where it is encrypted and securely stored in the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). The AWS Storage Gateway supports industry standard storage protocols, enabling customers to take advantage of cloud based storage without re-architecting existing applications. To learn more and get started using the AWS Storage Gateway, visit: http://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway.

“With the AWS Storage Gateway, we’re providing businesses yet another way to easily take advantage of AWS’s secure, scalable and cost-effective cloud storage for use with their on-premises applications,” said Alyssa Henry, General Manager of AWS Storage Services. “The AWS Storage Gateway works with your existing applications using a standard iSCSI interface, securely transfers your data to AWS over SSL, and stores data encrypted at rest in Amazon S3.”

The AWS Storage Gateway also makes it easy to leverage the on-demand compute capacity of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for additional capacity during peak periods, for new projects, or as a more cost-effective way to run normal enterprise workloads. To take advantage of this compute capacity, enterprises can mirror on-premises data to Amazon EC2 instances by using the AWS Storage Gateway to upload the data to Amazon S3 in the form of Amazon EBS snapshots. Amazon EBS volumes can easily be created from these snapshots (using either the AWS Management Console or Amazon EC2’s APIs) and attached to Amazon EC2 compute instances. Once attached, enterprises’ Amazon EC2 instances will have access to this data to do any processing or computation desired.

IT-Lifeline provides data vaulting and disaster recovery services to regulated industries such as banking and healthcare organizations. “We look forward to using the AWS Storage Gateway ourselves, as well as integrating it into our BLACKCLOUD service for our customers,” said Matthew Gerber, CEO at IT-Lifeline. “With this capability, our customers and our company can take advantage of simplified data vaulting and practically infinite elasticity for disaster recovery needs.”

“Growth in our enterprise applications continues to drive growth in storage costs. The AWS Storage Gateway will enable Coeur d'Alene Mines to take advantage of the elasticity of the AWS Cloud, driving down our costs for data storage and computing infrastructure required for disaster recovery,” said Donald J. Moss, Vice President of Information Systems, Coeur d'Alene Mines.

Datapipe offers solutions for managing and securing mission-critical IT services. "We develop and implement solutions for our clients to reliably store and backup their critical application data. Many of our clients store user-generated content locally. Traditional off-site backup products are often costly to maintain and not geared toward automation for recovery. A cost-effective and reliable alternative, AWS's Storage Gateway addresses these issues by plugging seamlessly into the environments we manage for our customers, providing low-latency data access, while encrypting and snapshotting data to AWS’s cloud storage infrastructure," said Ed Laczynski, VP Cloud Strategy at Datapipe.

Pricing for the AWS Storage Gateway is $125/month per installed gateway and comes with a 60 day free trial. Snapshot storage pricing starts at only $0.14 per gigabyte per month. For complete details, visit http://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway.

About Amazon Web Services

Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) began exposing key infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now widely known as cloud computing. The ultimate benefit of cloud computing, and AWS, is the ability to leverage a new business model and turn capital infrastructure expenses into variable costs. Businesses no longer need to plan and procure servers and other IT resources weeks or months in advance. Using AWS, businesses can take advantage of Amazon's expertise and economies of scale to access resources when their business needs them, delivering results faster and at a lower cost. Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of enterprise, government and startup customers businesses in 190 countries around the world. AWS offers over 21 different services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). AWS services are available to customers from data center locations in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, Japan and Singapore.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de,www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Oracle Desktop Virtualization Solution Wins 2011 GOOD DESIGN Award

Oracle Sun Ray 3 Series Clients Honored by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center of Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

Redwood Shores, Calif. – January 26, 2012

News Facts

Oracle today announced that it has won a 2011 GOOD DESIGN Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center of Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The world’s largest and most distinguished design competition, GOOD DESIGN annually bestows international recognition upon the world's most prominent designers and manufacturers for advancing new, visionary, and innovative product concepts, invention and originality.

For 2011, the Museum received submissions from several thousand of the world’s largest manufacturers and industrial and graphic design firms from more than 48 countries.

Winners were selected for stretching the envelope beyond what is considered ordinary product and consumer design and Oracle was recognized in the electronics category for itsSun Ray 3 Series Clients which are simple, eco-friendly, low-cost devices ideal for displaying server-hosted virtual desktops and applications.

With no moving parts and no local operating system to manage, Oracle Sun Ray 3 Series Clients reduce many of the problems associated with desktop deployments by providing a cost-effective, highly functional thin client alternative to desktop and laptop computers.

The Oracle Sun Ray 3 Series Clients are part of Oracle's comprehensive desktop virtualization portfolio, from secure thin client devices to highly optimized virtual desktop infrastructure software, offering ease of administration, higher security, and better access than traditional desktop architectures.

Supporting Quote

"Oracle is focused on developing products that combine innovative design with exceptional performance,” said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president, Linux and Virtualization Engineering, Oracle. “Winning a GOOD DESIGN award for the Oracle Sun Ray 3 Series Clients is further validation that we are achieving our goals.”

Supporting Resources

Oracle Virtualization home page, blog, Twitter, Facebook

Oracle Sun Ray Clients

Oracle Sun Ray 3 Client Data Sheet

Relevant Blogs: Wim Coekaerts

Oracle Virtualization wins Reader’s Choice Award

GOOD DESIGN Awards

About Oracle

Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

TI introduces industry's first 100-V synchronous buck regulator with integrated MOSFETs

New family of highly integrated, pin-compatible ICs reduces PCB area and improves reliability in high-voltage applications

DALLAS, Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) expands its high-voltage point-of-load product line by introducing today the industry's first 100-V synchronous buck regulator with integrated MOSFETs. The 600-mA LM5017 is the first in a new family of step-down switching regulators that reduce PCB area and system cost while improving high-voltage reliability in telecommunication, industrial, smart grid and automotive systems. Used in conjunction with the award-winning WEBENCH® online design tool, the LM5017 simplifies high-voltage DC/DC conversion and speeds the design process. For more information, samples and evaluation boards, visit www.ti.com/lm5017-pr.

TI is showcasing the LM5017 in booth #401 at the Applied Power Electronics Conference and Expo (APEC) in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 6-8. APEC is one of the industry's leading conferences for practicing power electronics professionals.

The 600-mA LM5017, together with the 300-mA LM5018 and 100-mA LM5019 available in April, enables direct point-of-load voltage regulation from input voltages as high as 100-V. This eliminates external transient voltage suppressors or clamps required to achieve reliable operation in high-voltage applications. Integrated MOSFETs eliminate freewheeling Schottky diodes and improve efficiency. Pin-compatible 4-mm by 4-mm LLP packaging offers a scalable solution that covers a wide range of power requirements. Constant on-time (COT) control architecture provides excellent load transient response with no loop compensation required, further reducing the PCB area and simplifying the power supply design process. Watch a video at www.ti.com/lm5017-prv.

The new switching regulators can also be used as isolated bias supplies for systems requiring small, efficient isolated power supplies. Unlike alternative flyback solutions, the LM5017 operates at switching frequencies up to 1-MHz, dramatically reducing the size and cost of the transformer. Watch a lab demonstration at www.ti.com/lm5017-prvdemo.

For applications that require fixed frequency operation, TI's 100-V UCC25230 isolated bias supply switching converter supports up to 200-mA output current and uses a voltage mode control topology with input feed forward.

Key features and benefits of the synchronous buck regulators

• Wide 9-V to 100-V input voltage range improves system reliability in a variety of designs.
• 600-mA LM5017, 300-mA LM5018 and 100-mA LM5019 are pin compatible and support both non-isolated step-down and isolated power supply applications.
• COT control architecture provides fast transient response and eliminates the need for loop compensation, lowering cost and simplifying design.
• Integrated high-side and low-side N-Channel MOSFETs improve efficiency and eliminate external Schottky diode.
• Integrated high-voltage startup regulator provides bias power for internal operation of the IC and for integrated gate drivers.
• Peak current limit and over temperature detection protect the device from overload. Under voltage threshold and hysteresis can be independently programmed.

Availability, packaging and pricing

The LM5017 is available in volume now from TI and its authorized distributors. The LM5018 and LM5019 will be available in April. Offered in a thermally-enhanced 8-pin LLP package measuring 4-mm by 4-mm, the suggested retail price of the LM5017 is $1.65, the LM5018 is $1.40 and the LM5019 is $1.25 in 1,000-unit quantities. The LM5017 in an 8-pin PSOPpackage will be available in March.

Find out more about TI's power portfolio:

• Order samples and an evaluation module of the new buck regulator: www.ti.com/lm5017-pr  
• Get information on all of TI's high-voltage point-of-load power solutions: www.ti.com/hvpol-pr  
• Design a power supply in minutes with WEBENCH: http://www.ti.com/webench  
• Ask questions and share knowledge in the Power forum in the TI E2E™ Community: www.ti.com/powerforum-pr  

About WEBENCH tools from Texas Instruments

The WEBENCH Designer and Architect component libraries include more than 24,000 components from 120 manufacturers. Price and availability is updated hourly by TI's distribution partners for design optimization and production planning. Offered in eight languages, the user can compare complete system designs and make supply chain decisions in minutes. To start a cost-free design, visit TI's WEBENCH design environment at www.ti.com/webench.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments semiconductor innovations help 80,000 customers unlock the possibilities of the world as it could be – smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more fun. Our commitment to building a better future is ingrained in everything we do – from the responsible manufacturing of our semiconductors, to caring for our employees, to giving back inside our communities. This is just the beginning of our story. Learn more at www.ti.com.

Trademarks

WEBENCH and TI E2E are TI trademarks. All registered trademarks and other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated

Novation Selects Oracle® Exadata Database Machine to Improve Performance and Scale of Health Care Supply Chain Analytics Platform

Oracle Exadata Helps the Hospitals Novation Serves Achieve Cost Savings Faster By Speeding Access to Analytic Services

News Facts

Novation, the leading health care supply contracting company for the members of VHA Inc., UHC, and Provista, LLC, has selected Oracle® Exadata Database Machine to support the growth of its Supply Chain Data Management platform following an extensive vendor evaluation process.

With its migration to Oracle Exadata Database Machine from a third-party database, Novation expects to:

Dramatically increase data load throughput;

Improve customer report times from hours to minutes with Proof of Concept tests showing up to 41x gains compared to its current system;

Achieve storage savings with Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression, which delivered 10x compression rates in tests; and,

Reduce customer on-ramp to analytic services from an average of 20 days down to hours enabling customers to gain insight into spending habits and identify cost saving opportunities in minutes.

Business Intelligence and Analytics Help Novation Drive Down Costs on Behalf of VHA and UHC Member Hospitals

Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Novation acts as the supply contracting company for the more than 65,000 members and affiliates of VHA Inc., UHC and Provista to help them manage and reduce supply costs.

The health care markets served by Novation include not-for-profit acute hospitals and systems, academic medical centers, ambulatory care and physician clinics, home health and long-term care facilities.

By applying data-driven contracting decisions in daily operations, Novation can negotiate, monitor and protect pricing on members’ behalf throughout all phases of a contract’s life cycle using price management strategies that focus on contract and supplier performance.

Unlike consumer markets where pricing is transparent, opaque supplier pricing in the health care industry leads to potentially wide variances in pricing for supplies, capital or IT equipment, pharmaceuticals, and more.

Over 1,000 hospitals rely on Novation’s Supply Chain Data Management platform to help manage their monthly spend, analyze purchases, and gain visibility into pricing. Novation offers analytics, price benchmarking tools and more to help hospitals identify and maximize contract savings.

To address the growing volume of member hospital transaction data for analysis, Novation purchased two Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 systems in May 2011. Oracle Exadata Database Machine powers Novation’s enterprise data warehouse.

With the help of Gold level member in Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) and system integrator with experience in Oracle Exadata, Viscosity Technology, Novation implemented a half-rack Oracle Exadata system for production and a quarter-rack Oracle Exadata system for development and testing environments on behalf of VHA and UHC member hospitals.

By owning its own storage capability through Oracle Exadata, as opposed to renting space in the cloud, Novation has greater control over security in a more stable environment.

Supporting Quote

“The applications developed by Novation are helping the VHA and UHC member hospitals we serve identify significant cost savings opportunities,” said Alex Latham, Vice President, E-Business & Systems Development at Novation. “The interest in our solutions has meant a greater influx of data than we’ve traditionally seen. Oracle Exadata Database Machine will help Novation to scale linearly as our data volumes grow without any impact to performance. We anticipate that Oracle Exadata Database Machine will help reduce member hospital data processing time from as much as 20 days to mere hours, enabling members to act on cost savings faster.”

Supporting Resources

About Oracle Exadata Database Machine

About Oracle Database 11g

Learn more about Oracle Exadata Customers

Connect with Oracle Database via Blog, Facebook and Twitter

About Oracle Exadata

The Oracle Exadata Database Machine is the only database machine that provides extreme performance for both data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, making it the ideal platform for consolidating onto grids or private clouds. It is a complete package of servers, storage, networking, and software that is massively scalable, secure, and redundant. With Oracle Exadata Database Machine, customers can reduce IT costs through consolidation, manage more data on multiple compression tiers, improve performance of all applications, and make better business decisions in real time.

About Novation, Winner of the Ethics Inside® Certification

Founded in 1998, Novation is the leading health care supply contracting company for the more than 65,000 members of VHA Inc. and UHC, two national health care alliances, and Provista, LLC. Novation provides alliance members with sourcing services, as well as information and data services. Based in Irving, Tex, Novation develops and manages competitive contracts with more than 600 suppliers. VHA, UHC, and Provista members used Novation contracts to purchase more $40 billion in 2011. Novation recently earned the coveted Ethics Inside® Certification from Ethisphere Institute, a leading international think tank dedicated to the research and promotion of best practices in corporate ethics and compliance, and is the only health care group purchasing organization to earn this distinction.

About Oracle

Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), visit http://www.oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.