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There are some businesses and organizations that seem to be not only surviving the economic downturn, but even thriving: Liquor stores, movie theaters, libraries, and now online video games.

According to an announcement Tuesday, Marvel Comics is teaming up with a small and relatively unknown multiplayer online (MMO) game developer called Gazillion Entertainment to create a virtual universe featuring Marvel characters.

The joint venture will first produce a low-level online game aimed at children using Marvel’s Super Hero Squad. The more sophisticated online game Marvel Universe does not have a specific release date, but will probably appear in late 2010 or early 2011.

Enormous Fan Base

Although an earlier Marvel-based online game never took flight, both Marvel and Gazillion think the comic publisher’s enormous fan base will help make Marvel Universe a hit.

“Despite the tough economy, the video-game industry continues to grow, and MMO games for mass audiences represent the next big opportunity for the upcoming decade,” said Rob Hutter, president and CEO of Gazillion. “This is particularly the case for established global-entertainment brands like Marvel, which possess hundreds of millions of touch points with fans worldwide. The next step is exceptionally high-quality MMO entertainment, and that’s our mission at Gazillion.”

The comic-book company currently has more than 5,000 characters, including such iconic figures as Wolverine, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and Captain America. A number of those characters have been the basis of successful films, making the prospect of cross-marketing even more alluring.

Despite its relatively short track record, Gazillion will be partnering with a number of major creative companies to assist in the creation of Marvel Universe, including Apple, Pixar Animation, Blizzard Entertainment, and Microsoft Game Studios. Four separate studios will be involved in the product development and launch.

Strong Growth in Games

Marvel and Gazillion hope to tap into what is already a…

COLUMBIA Md., March 17th 2009 – Prism Microsystems, developers of comprehensive Security Information and Event Log Management (SIEM) technology that enables logging in depth, announced today that user registrations on its knowledgebase crossed the 50,000 mark, making the website the premier source of free, in-depth information on event log data on the Internet.

Available at http://kb.prismmicrosys.com, the Prism knowledgebase is a searchable database of detailed descriptions and vendor neutral cause-resolution information on over 20,000 events generated by hundreds of sources including Windows systems, syslog devices, applications and more. Events can be searched for by any combination of ID, event source or fragments of the description field. Although available freely on the Internet, the solution is also fully integrated into both EventTracker, Prism’s SIEM solution and EventTracker PULSE, a free log search utility launched in February 2009.

“Unlike other websites that provide free information on log data, our knowledgebase is extremely detailed and updated daily by a dedicated team of specialists. Not only can users contribute new event definitions, but also request our specialists to research data not already catalogued. This is a valuable service that’s provided with no strings attached, you don’t have to be a customer or pay a fee to take advantage of it,” said Steve Lafferty, VP of Marketing at Prism Microsystems.

There is little doubt that managing logs is critical for compliance, security monitoring or IT optimization; however given the inherent obscurity of event log data and the lack of a standard logging format, the task of making sense of this data to extract any meaningful intelligence is tedious and requires system-specific expertise. “The aim of the knowledgebase is to deliver this expertise free of charge to the IT community and make log data readily understandable by all,” added Lafferty.

The knowledgebase is also a useful complement to EventTracker…

Its name comes from the Latin word for “falling in love.” And that’s the swooning response that Dell hopes customers will have for its new Adamo laptop, which, as befits most storybook lovers, is as thin as you can get and still be beautiful.

In fact, the first in the new Adamo brand is “the world’s thinnest laptop,” according to its proud parent. The Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker set a lofty goal for this new line of products, saying it’s intended to do nothing less than “disrupt the personal-computing space with the combination of new design aesthetics, personalization choices, and sought-after technologies.”

The Lifestyle Factor

To get the thin profile that Adamo boasts — 0.65 of an inch compared to the MacBook Air’s 0.76 — Dell milled the chassis from a single piece of aluminum.

The lifestyle factor is a major angle for this first Adamo, available in the colors formerly known as black and white and now known as Onyx and Pearl. Rumors of the new laptop first emerged on a lifestyle blog, and the Web site features a Flash video that slides between fashion-style photos. “Prepare to fall in love,” it warns.

At January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Dell had fashion model Wakeema show a black Adamo model — but only the body, as the power was not turned on.

But many industry observers have noted that the release of a fashion-emphasized laptop could be a risky strategy for Dell. The vast majority of Dell’s sales are to businesses, and the current recession is making both business and consumer buyers cautious. There has also been speculation that businesses, in particular, will be updating hardware less often because of the economies offered by network-based “cloud computing.”

‘Makes Sense’

Laura DiDio, an analyst with Information Technology Intelligence Corps, disagreed with those who think…

EMERYVILLE, Calif., March 17, 2009 –- Sendmail, Inc., the leading provider of reliable and secure email and messaging infrastructures, today announced the availability of its new managed email infrastructure services with the introduction of Sendmail Sentrion® Cloud Services™. Sentrion Cloud Services provides enterprise customers with more choice, agility, control and protection by offering a cost-effective SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution to filter inbound emails for spam and viruses before they are managed and regulated by the on-premises messaging infrastructure solutions. Sendmail’s on-premises Sentrion Message Processors provide the more critical email-backbone functions such as data loss prevention, directory-driven message routing and content policy enforcement with proven high return-on-investment for large enterprises.

Enterprise customers are moving to a hybrid message processing architecture with a hosted approach to email filtering because of the significant cost savings realized by pushing commodity functions to the cloud. Just as important is the continued need to manage higher value complex message routing, delivery and content policy requirements on-premises. Messages caught by outbound or internal content controls typically should not leave the private network. The addition of Sentrion Cloud Services to Sendmail’s portfolio of messaging infrastructure solutions provides enterprise customers the choice to use Sentrion Message Processor appliances for inbound spam protection and their internal policy management layer, or the ability to architect a hybrid-hosted solution that meets their specific requirements.

Sentrion Cloud Services provides businesses an immediate return on investment by reducing the infrastructure required for managing spam on-premises. The savings are realized by requiring fewer servers at the gateway to accept inbound mail and by reducing data center footprint, network traffic, storage costs and energy consumption.

“The current economic realities and industry shifts are causing enterprise customers to re-think their approach to managing their email infrastructure,” said Stephanie Nevin, vice president of marketing, Sendmail. “By pushing the commodity filtering function to…

Fulton, Md., March 17, 2009 -– Quality Associates, Inc. (QAI), www.qualityassociatesinc.com), an established provider of services and solutions for document management, imaging, and archiving, announced that it received a new achievement award from long-time partner Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. Quality Associates won the “Premier Partner of the Year 2008, Eastern Region” honor for being Fujitsu’s top selling value-added reseller (VAR) within the eastern half of the United States in 2008. The award was presented to QAI during an awards ceremony at Fujitsu’s annual partner conference, which was held in February in Las Vegas.

Out of more than 5,000 authorized Fujitsu resellers across North America, only a select group secures the distinction of “Premier Partner.” Fujitsu awards the top regional reseller for the East and West the “Premier Partner of the Year” award. Fujitsu started its Premier Partner program in the mid-1990s, and this year was the seventh time the company handed out awards to leading partners and resellers.

Nina Lutjens, Vice President, Imaging Products Group, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., said, “Each year during our annual partner conference, Fujitsu presents awards to a limited number of companies. One premier partner receives the ‘Premier Partner of the Year 2008, Eastern Region’ award. To select the winner, we consider many factors, including the level of sales, and the strength and commitment of the business relationship. After careful consideration, Quality Associates emerged as this year’s winner of the ‘Premier Partner of the Year 2008, Eastern Region’ and we look forward to continuing our successful affiliation.”

Scott Swidersky, Director, Information Systems Division, Quality Associates, said, “On behalf of everyone at Quality Associates, we are extremely pleased to receive this prestigious award from Fujitsu. While we have received numerous awards and honors from Fujitsu throughout our 10-year partnership, this year marks the first time that…

Lancope®, Inc., the provider of the StealthWatch® System, the Best in NetFlow™ Analysis (http://www.lancope.com/news/08052008.aspx) and the most widely used network behavior analysis (NBA) and response system, today announced that Lancope will discuss at TRISC 2009 how to utilize flow data to gain end-to-end enterprise network visibility for behavior-based anomaly detection and network performance monitoring.

WHO:

Chris Smithee, Senior Systems Engineer, Lancope

WHAT:

“Anatomy of an Attack: From Incident to Expedient Resolution”

Smithee will demonstrate how hackers easily take advantage of new and widely known exploits to bypass traditional security defenses and penetrate the network core. He will explore the advantages of using flow-based NBA to quickly detect and mitigate nefarious activity, while providing critical network intelligence for insightful forensics analysis.

Attendees will learn to minimize the window of vulnerability, detect nefarious activity and zero-day attacks and improve the security posture of the network.

WHEN:

8:30a.m. – 9:15a.m. CT, Wednesday, March 25

WHERE:

TRISC 2009

March 23-25, 2009

Austin, Texas

http://www.trisc.org/

About Lancope

Lancope®, Inc. is the provider of the StealthWatch® System, the most widely used network behavior analysis (NBA) and response solution that unifies flow-based anomaly detection and network performance monitoring to protect critical information assets and optimize network operations by preventing costly downtime, repair and loss of reputation. StealthWatch streamlines security and network operations into one process, reduces time and resources, and eliminates the costs and complexity associated with non-integrated point products. Both OPSEC and Common Criteria-certified, StealthWatch received the 2008 Best in NetFlow Analysis Award and the 2007- 2008 Global Excellence Awards in NBA. Defending the networks of Global 2000 organizations, academic institutions and government entities, StealthWatch protects hundreds of enterprise customers worldwide, more than all direct competitors combined. Lancope also partners with fellow best-of-breed solution providers through its Technology Alliance Program, which includes Cisco Systems, Brocade, IBM Tivoli, VMware, Blue Coat, Check Point, TippingPoint, ArcSight and A10 Networks. Lancope is a…