San Francisco, CA – April 5, 2012 – Freeborders Inc., a global provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions, today introduced PMO Hub2Insight solution accelerator. This accelerator is specifically designed for Program Management Office (PMO) stakeholders and executive management to provide insight for making decisions that support the business objectives of the PMO.

“Many companies have made significant investment in implementing a PMO, and yet their focus tends to be on governance and organizational change – with reporting merely an afterthought,” said Graham Bolton, executive vice president at Freeborders Consulting.  “Poorly defined metrics, too much data, siloed information and lack of timely reporting and analysis results in executives not utilizing PMO reports for decisions and action. As a company with experienced program management practitioners, our proven PMO services and customizable accelerator uniquely qualify Freeborders to provide rapid deployment of a PMO reporting solution.”

PMO Hub2Insight is a set of services and reporting accelerators that provide quick and comprehensive consolidation of PMO reporting information for integration, interrogation and insight of Program Management efforts.

PMO Hub2Insight produces a roadmap to optimize a company’s unique situation and customized sample reports based on current data.

“Finally, executives can get the transparency they need, when they need it, based on meaningful metrics,” said Jean Cholka, CEO at Freeborders.  “PMO Hub2Insight reinforces your standards and governance while providing accelerators that integrate disparate information, interrogate and analyze your data, generate enhanced reports, and provide insight so you can manage your business and make better fact based decisions.”

“We continue to execute on our mission by expanding our portfolio of world class consulting and IT services for customers,” said Jean Cholka, CEO of Freeborders. “Last year we enhanced our offering for mobile Web development, infrastructure support and SAP solutions. Based on customer feedback and market demand we packaged Freeborders’ experience and tools specifically for companies exporting to China.”

The 2012 Global Outsourcing 100 and the World’s Best Outsourcing Advisors recognizes the world’s best outsourcing service providers and advisors. These rankings are based on applications received and evaluated by an independent judging panel organized by IAOP. The Rising Star category represents up and coming companies and outsourcing destinations to watch for.

“We have seen tremendous growth, maturity and expansion of services among outsourcing service providers as we publish this 7th annual list of “best of the best” globally,” said IAOP Managing Director of Thought Leadership, Jag Dalal, COP. “Judges were impressed with the depth of provider and advisor’s relationships with their clients as shown through the references provided. Clearly, their clients appreciate the value they receive from their engagements. Intense competitiveness of the outsourcing world is also evident and shows continuing maturity and growth of the industry.”

To learn more about Freeborders’ portfolio of consulting and IT services, please watch the Freeborders introductory video.

About IAOP
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®) is the global, standard-setting organization and advocate for the outsourcing profession. With more than 120,000 members and affiliates worldwide, IAOP helps companies increase their outsourcing success rate, improve their outsourcing ROI, and expand the opportunities for outsourcing across their businesses. To learn more, visit http://www.IAOP.org.

About The Global Outsourcing 100
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®) is in its seventh year of compiling its annual ranking of the world’s best outsourcing service providers and advisors – The Global Outsourcing 100. As part of The Global Outsourcing 100, IAOP also introduced a new list in 2009, The World’s Best Outsourcing Advisors.
The Global Outsourcing 100 and its sub-lists are essential references for companies seeking new and expanded relationships with the best companies in the industry. The lists include companies from around the world that provide the full spectrum of outsourcing services — not just information technology and business process outsourcing, but also facility services, real estate and capital asset management, manufacturing and logistics. They include not only today’s leaders, but tomorrow’s rising stars.

The World’s Best Outsourcing Advisors is geared specifically to companies that are outstanding global outsourcing advisors and consultants. In addition to being part of The Global Outsourcing 100, the new list of advisors ranks the top consultant, legal and related advisory firms globally, and is a valuable reference tool for companies needing expert advice and guidance with their outsourcing projects.

About Freeborders
Founded in 1999, Freeborders provides global IT consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The company pioneered a unique service model that offers the perfect blend of Eastern and Western business practices and access to broad knowledge of the US, European and Chinese markets. Freeborders’ solution accelerators help companies exploit the full potential of their IT investments. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has offices in Denver, New York, London, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wu Xi. To learn more, visit http://www.freeborders.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @freebordersinc.

San Francisco, CA – March 8, 2012 – Freeborders Inc., a global provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions, today introduced Web2China℠ and Mobile2China℠ solution accelerators. These accelerators are specifically designed for hotel chains marketing to the China consumer for hotels in China and the Chinese consumer traveling internationally.

“Rapid urbanization, rising income, increased personal and professional travel and a fragmented hotel industry make China a lucrative market for international hotel chains,” said Jean Cholka, CEO of Freeborders. “As a western company with a large presence in China, experience in the travel industry and a strong track record of developing robust booking engines as well as web and mobile interfaces, Freeborders is uniquely qualified to help these hotels access the China market successfully.  It is much more complicated than simply translating language from an English website.”

The company has conducted an analysis of the top hotel chains marketing to the Chinese consumer and found that over 80% have deficiencies with their website and their mobile sites are not adequately built for the mature mobile market in China.  The survey findings indicate that:

• Chinese consumer spending on hotels is increasing 21% annually and is projected to continue at this rate or higher through 2015.
• 80% of existing Hotel websites have serious problems that negatively affect perception of their brand and “turn off” the Chinese consumer.
• Although China is the number one market for smartphones and 80% of Chinese companies have a mobile website – only 20% of multinational companies marketing to China have a mobile website or app.
• 66% of Chinese consumers access the web from their mobile phones.
• According to Google, the number of mobile users researching travel via their mobile devices is expected to grow 51% in 2012.

“Multinational companies have burned millions of dollars to access the China web and mobile consumer and they often just don’t get it,” said Mike Keating, SVP of Internet Strategies at Freeborders.  “Most don’t realize how different the online consumer behavior is in China.  They try to bring their western processes and marketing strategies into China and they are just not effective.  We listened to the market and packaged our experience and tools specifically for companies exporting to China.”

These solution accelerators support business growth opportunities for the international hospitality industry currently flocking to China. Both solutions offer a quick jump-start with tangible deliverables.

• Freeborders® Web2China – This solution provides a functional prototype website along with an architectural model, roadmap and business case for moving forward within approximately 60 days.  An enterprise implementation with booking engine integration and GDS interfaces, are typically the next steps for each client.
• Freeborders® Mobile2China – Within three weeks, Freeborders delivers a working prototype for a mobile site in China.  It includes an onsite assessment, architecture, navigation prototype, test plan and optimal China mobile device configurations.  Following this phase the company provides a production-ready China web mobile solution within approximately three months.

These solutions address the top three concerns expressed by existing clients and prospects:

1. China as a travel destination is growing quickly and we want to take this business from our competitors
2. How can we get a quick, yet quality start on winning a piece of the China travel business?
3. How has Freeborders helped customers execute an entry into China successfully and quickly?

The company has recently published a whitepaper “Advances in Travel Technology” which discusses ten technologies that are changing the global travel industry.

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SAN FRANCISCO, (Feb. 23, 2012)  —Yammer, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise social networks, today announced an integration with the SAP ERP Central Component which enables updates from SAP’s software to appear as activity stories in Yammer’sTicker. SAP customers who have installed the Yammer SAP Connector will see updates from all business suite applications including HR, ERP and CRM.

The Connector was built in partnership with Freeborders, a leading provider of information technology services to large and medium-sized businesses. Freeborders is a certified SAP developer with deep expertise in SAP integration.

How It Works

The Yammer SAP Connector is a plug-in installed on the customer’s SAP instance by Freeborders on-premise. The Connector adds the capability for users to follow data objects in SAP so when changes to those objects occur, an activity story describing the event will appear in Yammer’s Ticker. The activity story links back to the original record in SAP, enabling users to take further action.

For example, upon seeing an SAP-generated activity story surfaced in Yammer’s Ticker, a sales rep may discover that a customer billing transaction failed. To follow up, the rep can simply click on the activity story inside of Yammer, which will then open the ERP record directly in a separate tab.

“The integrations we announced today are a continuation of our strategy to be the social layer on top of all systems of record companies rely on, improving collaboration and decision-making around critical business activity,” said David Sacks, CEO, Yammer. “In particular, the Yammer SAP Connector increases the value of Yammer for several of our large enterprise customers who use SAP daily to manage business processes.”

Additional Integration Partners
Yammer also today announced five new integration partners. Adding to the quickly growing roster of organizations that utilize Yammer’s open API, the following companies now integrate with Yammer:

• GageIn – The business content aggregation platform posts articles directly to Yammer in addition to publishing stories about key topics and forum activity into the Ticker.
• Kindling – The ideation company publishes new ideas, votes, comments and other updates in the Ticker, building awareness and engagement for innovation campaigns.
• Moreover Technologies – The media monitoring platform utilizes Yammer Embed, adding a conversation layer to the content delivery tool.
• Planview – The portfolio and program (PPM) management solution, Planview Enterprise, employs Yammer Connect and Yammer Embed for publishing PPM stories in Ticker as they are happening.
• Sparqlight – The cloud-based workflow management platform utilizes Yammer Connect to seamlessly authenticate users and publishes workflow task stories in Ticker.

The Yammer Platform

The Yammer platform allows developers to easily build or customize applications using Yammer’s open APIs. There are three different ways to integrate with Yammer to create deeply social experiences:

• The Login Button allows users to log in to third-party sites using their Yammer credentials
• Yammer Embed enables any Yammer feed to be delivered into existing business applications
• Ticker publishes real-time [1] activity stories from third-party business applications in a scrolling side module

Yammer also integrates with Badgeville, Box, Expensify, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, NetSuite, Salesforce.com, Spigit, TripIt and Zendesk.

Availability

New integrations will be available by March 31. Customers interested in the Yammer SAP Connector should contact their Yammer representative or call 888-926-7377.

Comments on the News

“The reality is that many organizations today are using aging enterprise systems with a less that satisfactory user experience. Adapting these legacy systems to the rapid pace of innovation and change is a significant challenge. By providing a social engagement layer that aggregates content from both cloud and on-premises systems, Yammer wants to help organizations unlock content that lives in legacy systems and make it more accessible and engaging for employees and mobile workers.” – Michael Fauscette, GVP, Software Business Solutions, IDC.

“Capturing and socializing ideas are key aspects of a successful innovation program. The partnership between Kindling and Yammer will accelerate the realization of innovation for Deloitte.” – Peter Williams, CEO, Deloitte Digital

“Today competitiveness is defined by information insights, connectivity and collaboration. By integrating the Freeborders’ SAP ERP Central Component in Yammer’s social media platform, SAP customers can act immediately on business suite applications updates. They can alert and loop in team members to safeguard business operations, enhance customer service and identify new business opportunities.” – Paul Machle, CFO, Freeborders, Inc.

“GageIn and Yammer’s relationship delivers on the huge untapped potential behind social enterprise tools. By injecting relevant business content into users’ feeds, enterprise social networks become even more powerful and valuable.” – Dr. Luosheng Peng, CEO of GageIn

“Our partnership with Yammer turns up the volume on idea innovation by leveraging the social web. This isn’t just a handshake of data integration, but a commitment to changing the way employees collaborate on ideas.” – Dan Summa, president, Kindling Inc.

“We are excited to offer an integration with Yammer so our joint customers can collaborate within Planview Enterprise. Users now have a platform to increase communication, collaboration and the sharing of information critical to moving their businesses forward.”  – Patrick Tickle, executive vice president of products, Planview.

“By eliminating outdated, unorganized collaboration methods like email threads and endless whiteboard sessions, Sparqlight allows you to experience the pure joy of simply getting work done. Integrating workflow management with the powerful social interface provided by Yammer is a no-brainer for our users. They can plan and track their work in Sparqlight and broadcast their progress in real-time to their Yammer activity feed. It’s simple to deploy and our customers can integrate in seconds.” – Brian Resigen, CEO, Sparqlight

About Yammer, Inc.

Yammer (www.yammer.com) is the leading provider of enterprise social networks, enabling organizations to make transformative changes quickly by empowering employees to collaborate across departments, geographies, content and business applications. The basic version of Yammer is free, and customers can pay to upgrade their network to receive additional administrative and security controls, priority customer service and a dedicated customer success manager. Companies and organizations from across the globe, including more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500, are using our award-winning Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution to improve employee productivity and engagement. Visit ourblog to see how our customers are benefiting from Yammer.