The Armstrong County Board of Commissioners and the Armstrong County Industrial Development Authority recently announced that on November 20, 2009, a groundbreaking ceremony will be held for Technology Center II, a multi-tenant facility at Northpointe. U.S. Congressman John Murtha (12^th Congressional District) and PA Senator Donald White (41^st Senatorial District) were instrumental in obtaining the funds to complete the project.

 Technology Center II will be a 30,000 sq. ft. two story multi-tenant facility.  Construction will begin following the groundbreaking with available occupancy in late summer of 2010.  This flexible Class “B” building will permit tenants to lease space as small as a single office for start-ups, to larger and more conventional office or manufacturing space for established businesses.  Building amenities include sub-dividable office space, manufacturing space, a high bandwidth fiber network and the convenience of common areas throughout the facility.  This facility will also feature the use of environmentally sound building materials with low emittance glass, an energy efficient roof and a closed loop geothermal heat pump system. 

 For more information about Northpointe Technology Center II, please contact Mike Coonley with the Armstrong County Department of Economic Development by calling 724-548-1500 or via email at mpcoonley@co.armstrong.pa.us.

Vivisimo, a leader in enterprise search,  announced that Procter & Gamble has won the KMWorld Reality award for demonstrating knowledge management leadership with its successful deployment and use of the award-winning Velocity Enterprise Search platform.

Through its deployment of the Vivisimo Enterprise Search Platform, P&G users have reduced the time spent searching for documents and increased overall productivity. Additionally, P&G users have increased knowledge sharing by using search as a new means of collaborating. Through a single search interface, users now have the ability to locate experts within their organization to connect with and share knowledge.

“Today’s award is another validation of our decision to choose Velocity to power our search needs,” said Bud Miyahara, Section Manager, P&G. “With the aid of Velocity, we have improved the user satisfaction of our search offering and have been able to deliver key business search needs. Velocity has also given us the ability to deliver future search capability with little worry of technological limitations.”

The award, which recognizes an organization in which knowledge management is a positive reality, was given to P&G during the KMWorld Reality ceremony at the Enterprise Search Summit in San Jose earlier this week.

Read more right here.

Can’t make it to the Pittsburgh Technology Council / Innovation Works Public Policy Forum detailing President Obama’s “Innovation Strategy” on Thursday, November 19 fro 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.? No worries. You can watch it live, right here (http://vivolive.com/innovationworks/geography-of-innovation.)

The Pittsburgh Technology Council and Innovation Works are teaming up to convene a presentation and discussion about the nature and direction of President Obama’s recently announced Innovation Agenda. As special guest speakers, we will be hosting Ed Paisley and Jonathan Sallet, authors of Geography of Innovation: The Federal Government and the Growth of Regional Innovation Clusters.

These influential authors will discuss the role of the U.S. Economic Development Administration in coordinating innovation policies with the White House and the potential impact of those policies on Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and West Virginia.

Don’t miss what promises to be an informative and thought provoking discussion of America’s emerging innovation strategy. Watch it right here.

 For the third time in four years Future POS was honored with an award from the Retail Solutions Providers Association. Future POS was awarded the Bronze Award for Outstanding Applications Software Provider this year by the Retail Solutions Providers Association at its annual convention held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. The RSPA is an organization dedicated to bringing the best of point of sale technology to the retail, hospitality and grocery industries.

The staff at Cutting Edge Solutions, the company that develops Future POS, considers this award a reflection of all of their hard work and dedication throughout the past year in delivering the very best in point of sale software.

“Future POS is extremely honored to have received the Bronze Award for ‘Outstanding Applications Software Provider’ from the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA). We believe that it reinforces our commitment to providing quality solutions to our customers, as we’ve won such an award three times in the last four years. To win an award with this kind of consistency should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that we are a top notch product and company.” said John Giles, President of Cutting Edge Solutions.

The RSPA awards the top three companies in each category based on member feedback. Giles and the staff at Cutting Edge Solutions are looking forward to competing for an award from the RSPA next year due to the increased functionality of Future Fusion, the latest version of Future POS.

Future Fusion, the latest version of Future POS Software, was unveiled at the 2009 Future POS Dealer Conference and RSPA Convention that took place in July at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. RSPA, or the Retail Solutions Providers Association, is a group dedicated to the Retail Technology Industry. The RSPA is the premier organization for retailers, distributors, manufactures, developers, and service providers in the Hospitality Industry. Cutting Edge Solutions, the company that develops Future POS Software, choose to unveil Future Fusion due to the wide exposure products receive during the RSPA Convention.

When asked about the difference between Future Fusion and other versions of Future POS Software, John Giles, President of Cutting Edge Solutions stated that: “With the release of Future Fusion, our product has leapfrogged the competition, and now sits at the front of the pack. Prior to Fusion, you would have to decide if you wanted a full featured product running on a 1980’s database, or a product with very limited functionality that utilized the power and reliability that comes with Microsoft SQL. Now customers can have the best of both worlds. This also serves as our foundation for the future, and will allow us to deliver the types of cutting edge features that the market is hungry for, such as ordering via ‘smart phones’, and also speeds up the delivery of interfaces to other best-of-breed products that compliment Future POS.”

`Initial reaction by Future POS Dealers and retail industry insiders is very positive. Third party integrations can now be done with a minimum of involvement by Cutting Edge Solutions, which will open the flood gates for a variety of product integrations that do not have to necessarily come from Future POS developers anymore. It will also open the door to restaurant chains that have their own I.T. departments because they can write whatever custom reports they require.

Future Fusion is very different from previous versions of Future POS. Future POS has moved from a 1980’s legacy database to a cutting edge database backed by Microsoft. According to John Giles, “We have eliminated “fighting city hall”, because whatever new version of Windows comes out, we know that it has been thoroughly tested with Microsoft SQL. Previously we had to install our software on the new OS, kick the tires, and hope that it didn’t break anything. If it did break something, we were at the mercy of our vendor, and had to wait for them to get it fixed. That’s all changed now!”

Giles is very excited about the possibilities of Future Fusion based on the feedback received by Future POS Dealers and RSPA Members so far. Future Fusion is expected to open up a lot of possibilities to Future POS Users and Future POS Dealers.

Just last week, the Pittsburgh SEO Group, led by the guys at Eyeflow Internet Marketing, drew more than 40 people to the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s Training Room. Eyeflow’s Chris Hornak and Phil Laboon led a lively presentation on tips and techniques to increase your search engine optimization (SEO) and make those blessed conversions.

Best part, is that you didn’t have to be a technical person to walk away with ideas. Phil and Chris are super open with their knowledge and they invite other SEO geniuses particpate and/or present. They also encourage anyone with an interest in SEO to stop by future events.

Check out some notes on the presentation right here. It’s completely worth your time to give it a quick read and ponder your SEO efforts.

The Pittsburgh Technology Council released its State of the Industry Report for 2009 this fall, which found that several southwestern Pennsylvania technology industry clusters have made considerable strides in growth, particularly with respect to total annual payroll.

The report, which covers the 13-county southwestern Pennsylvania region, examines the role that the technology industry clusters and other key factors play in southwestern Pennsylvania’s economy. It documents the number of companies, total employment, total annual payroll and average wages for six main technology industry clusters, including information technology, advanced materials, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, environmental technology and energy technology, which represents a new industry category for this year’s report.

According to the report, the 13-county southwestern Pennsylvania region has 8,438 technology companies that employ more than 248,000 with a total annual payroll in excess of $14.5 billion. These companies represent 11.2 percent of all companies in the region, yet they employ 19.4 percent of the region’s workforce. In addition, regional technology industries’ total annual payroll represents 27.5 percent of the total payroll for the region, indicating that technology jobs do indeed pay higher than the average wage.

The report also notes that health services represents a significant portion of the life sciences industry cluster, with more than 2,900 establishments and employing more than 105,000. The health services subcluster has a total annual payroll of $5.5 billion. Check out the complete report right here.

Be sure to tune in to TechVibe Radio on Tuesday, Nov. 17,  from 2-5 p.m., on 1360 AM WMNY as the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s Jonathan Kersting and Audrey Russo interview the region’s coolest tech companies and the personalities behind them.

The show will include:

• Wellspring Worldwide
• Science Communications
• Eyeflow Internet Marketing
• Wombat Security Solutions

Keep your dial tuned to TechVibe radio on these Tuesdays:  Dec. 1 and 15 and Jan. 5 and 19  from 2 to 5 p.m. to stay on top of Pittsburgh’s tech scene.

Lacking an AM/FM radio? No worries, stream the show right here or listen on the phone at 724-898-WMNY (9669)