Research In Motion this morning introduced a new enterprise mobility solution dubbed BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, aiming to help its business and government clients manage employees’ smartphones and tablets running the BlackBerry operating system, but also Android and iOS devices like the iPhone and the iPad.

Currently in early beta testing with a limited number of enterprise customers, RIM expects to kick off a closed beta program in January 2012, with general availability scheduled for late March 2012 (pricing unknown).

Mobile Fusion will encompass the company’s Enterprise Server technology for BlackBerry devices but combine it with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices, and will basically enable IT departments within organizations manage a multitude of decices from a single, Web-based ‘control room’.

RIM realizes that, increasingly, employees are bringing their own devices to the office, and is trying to cash in on the fact that those devices are increasingly not BlackBerry phones or tablets.

In an interview with Reuters, RIM’s VP for Enterprise Product Management, said:

“What our enterprise customers are looking for, and the opportunity for us, is to become the de facto platform. We will take full advantage of whatever security capabilities are provided by the core operating system. We’re not going to hold that back in any way, shape or form.”

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion will also introduce self-service functionality for employees to secure lost or stolen BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets.

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Geo-based marketing is just getting started, and local businesses are feeling their way around how best to use service like Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, and even Twitter. It’s hard enough if you have only one store. For chains and national retailers, managing Foursquare Specials across 400 stores is a nightmare. MomentFeed is trying to bring some order and analytics to this chaos with a location-based marketing dashboard aimed at businesses with more than one location.

The LA-based startup just raised a $1.2 million seed round from DFJ Frontier, DFJ JAIC, Factual founder Gil Elbaz,and Rapleaf founder Auren Hoffman, and Walter Kortschak.

MomentFeed pulls in merchant location data from Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, and Gowalla, and gives retailers a unified view of all the check-ins, deals, and specials across their locations nationwide. (It is also built on Factual’s location data, which helps to harmonize locations between services). With one dashboard, a retailer like 7-Eleven or a fast-food chain can see that maybe more people are checking in with Foursquare in New York, but with Facebook Places in the midwest and adjust their targeting accordingly. “We are built on the place signal, instead of the keyword as the primary signal,” says CEO Rob Reed.

The startup offers tiered services, from analytics to campaign management to CRM, which range in cost between $29 and $99 per year per location. It is still not clear what merchants will be charged to run specials on Foursquare and other services, but Reed expects to share revenue with each location service. “We are happy to share revenues with Foursquare and others for the data,” he says, “similar to Twitter with DataSift.” (DatSift also raised money today in a $6 million series A).

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The round was led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Aeris Capital, Emerald Technology Ventures, GE Energy Financial Services, Nth Power and Robert Bosch VC.

SynapSense offers wireless instrumentation solutions that offer energy efficiency and carbon footprint reduction for data centers operated by companies in the technology, finance, healthcare and defense industries, among others.

The additional capital will be used for boost international operations and enhance its data center optimization platform, which is comprised of a hardware and software set.

SynapSense was founded in March 2006 by former Intel exec Peter Van Deventer and Dr. Raju Pandey, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis.

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Incubated within big data company Greenplum (acquired by EMC in 2010) and following 15 months of product development, Silicon Valley-based Alpine Data Labs launches its solution for “Big Data Predictive Insight” in the United States today.

The company is also announcing that it has landed $7.5 million in Series A funding from Sierra Ventures, Mission Ventures and Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia. The company is also backed by Stanford University.

The funding will be used to help Alpine Data Labs increase staff in China and the US and accelerate product development and sales.

Here’s how Alpine Data Labs CEO Anderson Wong pitches his company:

“Companies cannot wring all the possible value from their data because the potential in their data is growing faster than they can analyze it, they don’t have enough resources with analytics expertise, and the tools they’re using are too complex to get to the answers they need quickly and effectively. But Alpine Data Labs takes these walls down, making it possible to use the power of Big Data to more accurately predict the future.”

Wong co-founded the company in 2010 after serving as general manager at Greenplum, where he responsible for that company’s entry into China. He also served in a variety of management positions at IBM and Sun Microsystems.

CTO and co-founder Yi-Ling Chen has over 20 years’ experience in IT and consulting, including serving as technical director of support and service for Greenplum in China.

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Over the past two years, the startup has managed to gain an impressive client list, including Groupon, Twitter, Yammer, Sony Music, TriptIt, Lonely Planet, Foursquare and MSNBC. And Zendesk is adding around 20 new customers per day, says CEO Mikkel Svane. In total, Zendesk’s customers have dealt with over 10 million end users.

Zendesk is also rolling out new and improved community support and knowledge base features that will make it easier for users to create online communities where their customers can chime in with feedback, suggestions, and helpful information about the company or product. Zendesk’s price ranges from $9 to $59 per support agent per month, after a one-month free trial.

The company just raised $6 million in series B funding from Benchmark Capital and Charles River Ventures.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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Fujitsu in a statement said it will be making significant investments in bolstering its consulting and sales capability.

So far, the company adds, more than 200 customers around the world in the financial services, retail, healthcare and manufacturing sectors have already relied on Fujitsu’s experience for the integration of Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform with existing applications.

Has your company moved to cloud computing for applications yet? Why (not)?

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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Cloud Sherpas not only helps companies migrate and transition over to Google Apps but also provides additional tools to make the productivity suite more useful. Currently, over 1,800 organizations use Cloud Sherpas’ products and services.

Hallett is stepping in to help accelerate Google Apps enterprise adoption and to help Cloud Sherpas’ achieve its growth targets. Prior to Cloud Sherpas, Hallett was Executive Chairman at Northridge Systems, a provider of collaboration technology to businesses.

Cloud Sherpas recently launched Sherpa Tools, which adds more IT management functionality to Google Apps. The Directory Manager provides administrators with an interface for creating, retrieving, updating and deleting in-depth profile information for end users, shared contacts and groups. It also provides the ability to import and export contact information in bulk and includes instant messaging features.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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CSC will
provide judges and support staff for teams competing in the 5th Mid-Atlantic
Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), March 11-13, 2010. Pitting college
students against hackers trying to disrupt and compromise their networks, the
competition is unique in its focus on the operational aspects of managing and
protecting an existing network infrastructure. Student teams are scored on
their ability to detect and respond to outside threats, maintain availability
of existing services (e.g., e-mail servers), respond to business requests
(e.g., add user accounts), and balance security needs against business needs.

CSC will
provide cyber subject matter experts as judges for the event to ensure team
compliance with the rules and handle tasks such as scoring scripted business
events during the competition. In addition, CSC employees will champion each of
the five regional finalist teams during the pre-competition phase and observe
and support their chosen team during the three-day event.

“CSC is
dedicated to developing cutting-edge, long-term solutions to the evolving cyber
threat environment, and an important component of these efforts is the
development of next generation cybersecurity curricula and workforce,” said
James Menendez, vice president of CSC’s Global Security Solutions. “We know
that supporting the CCDC and all of the CyberWatch activities is one important
way we can help pursue these goals for ourselves and our nation.”

CSC’s active
participation as an industry member of our Advisory Board is a real help to the
mission of CyberWatch. As a leading provider of cybersecurity services to
government and industry, CSC’s commitment to the long-term development of a
viable work force and their support of academic institutions are essential to
the government’s ongoing ability to protect our national security,” said Dr.
Robert J. Spear, director of the CyberWatch Center, which hosts the
Mid-Atlantic event. “We’re thankful for all of the efforts of our Advisory
Board members from industry, and especially for CSC’s contributions and
leadership in this year’s CCDC. We wish all participants the best of luck for
the upcoming competition.

Five winning
teams from the preliminary regional competition, conducted remotely during
January and February of this year, will participate in the Mid-Atlantic CCDC:
Towson University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Asheville-Buncombe
Technical College, Community College of Baltimore County and Millersville
University.

The winner
of the Mid-Atlantic CCDC will move on to represent the region in the national
CCDC, April 16-18, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas. For more information about the
competition, visit www.midatlanticccdc.org.

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