May 16, 2012 

* Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA), the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software, has announced the winners of the 2012 Informatica Innovation Awards program, honouring innovative organisations that have achieved exemplary return on data through their use of the Informatica Platform.

* The winners were recognised by Sohaib Abbasi, chairman and chief executive officer of Informatica, who presented the award trophies at Informatica World 2012, the company’s twelfth data integration showcase and user conference, attended by customers, partners and industry professionals from around the world.

* Winners were selected from Informatica’s nearly 5,000 customers which best showcased their use of the Informatica Platform. The Platform helps organisations increase the value and lower the cost of data to maximise return on data, including delivering new revenue at lower costs, increasing margins and ensuring unique competitive differentiation to their businesses.

* Individual winners were recognised in 11 business and technical enablement award categories and one best-of-the-best award. The categories and winners in this year’s competition underscore the broad applicability of data integration technologies in today’s market and their vast potential for delivering business advantage.

The 2012 winners in each category are:
o Accelerating Shareholder Value in Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures – Vale
o Cloud Computing – D&B
o Delivering Trusted Information to Drive Data Governance, Compliance and Reduce Risk – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan with HighPoint Solutions
o Driving Operational Excellence by Outsourcing Noncore Functions, Modernising the Business, or Reducing IT Costs – Pfizer
o Efficient Messaging Architecture – Direct Edge
o Enabling Better Decision Making by Driving Business Intelligence – eHarmony
o Enhancing the Informatica Marketplace – Vertica, An HP company
o Fortifying Overall Operations with Global Data Quality – Fannie Mae
o Improving Customer Information to Enhance Customer Service or Increase Customer Revenue – Queensland Police Service
o Megatrends – Big Data, Cloud, Social Media – U.S. Xpress Enterprises
o Strengthening Partner Network Efficiency – Deutsche Telekom

* U.S. Xpress Enterprises was awarded the “best-of-the-best” Overall Award for the company’s strategic approach to data integration.

Supporting quotes
“Use of the Informatica suite of tools has provided data that has helped the management team of U.S. Xpress reduce idle time and drive down costs” said Tim Leonard, chief technology officer and vice president for information technology, U.S. Xpress, Inc.

“Informatica helps Direct Edge stay competitive among the world’s largest stock exchanges by helping our systems achieve high reliability, fast speed and maximum throughput,” said Richard Hochron, chief technology officer, Direct Edge. “We value the benefits we have accomplished with Informatica and winning this prestigious award among tough competition is a great achievement for us.”

“Through their ground-breaking implementations, best practices and amazing set of achievements, the finalists and winners of the Informatica Innovation Awards exemplify the dramatic business value realised by integrating and cleansing data across the enterprise,” said Brian Babineau, vice president of research and analyst services, Enterprise Strategy Group. “As the finalists and winners illustrate, access to relevant, timely and trustworthy data underpins nearly all key business imperatives, from improving customer satisfaction to attract and retain more customers to ensuring the risk of a data breach is reduced and compliance with regulations is maintained. I applaud all of their successes as technology innovators.”

“The Informatica Innovation Awards celebrate our customers and partners for their continued dedication to drive innovation and business success,” said Chris Boorman, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Enablement and Informatica University, Informatica. “We congratulate these pioneering organisations for the remarkable successes they have achieved through the use of the Informatica Platform and are excited to be able to spotlight their cutting-edge implementations and best practices here at Informatica World 2012.”

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About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organisations around the world rely on Informatica for maximizing return on data to drive their top business imperatives. Worldwide, nearly 5,000 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.

Note: Informatica, PowerCenter and Informatica Platform are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.

May 16, 2012

“The drive toward cloud, social and mobile computing is fuelling the unrelenting rise of big data, with data expected to grow globally by as much as 44 times1 over the next year alone,” said Girish Pancha, executive vice president and chief product officer, Informatica. “When harnessed, big data can deliver exceptional business value. But if not managed correctly, it can also present titanic costs and compliance risks. Informatica 9.5 lets companies increase the value of big data while reducing the costs to maximise return on big data.”

Big data is a confluence of three related but distinct technology trends: big transaction data, big interaction data and big data processing. Each trend represents breakthrough innovations and promising potential. Now, as the combination of all these innovations, big data opens up tremendous new possibilities. Informatica 9.5 introduces major advances in helping enterprises realise the full benefit of big data in the following ways.

Increasing the business value of data
Data is the key to driving competitive advantage and big data can power a proportionally big advantage. Informatica 9.5 helps customers increase the value of data by making it:
* accessible – the first visual data transformation environment optimised for Hadoop, Informatica HParser makes complex data types available to the business
* actionable – proactive monitoring correlates real-time event streams to identify patterns of interest and provides actionable alerts to help maximise business opportunities, minimise risk and ensure governance
* authoritative – data timeline tracks changes to data over a period of time to provide a four dimensional view of customers, partners and products
* holistic – providing a single environment for data integration and data federation, data virtualisation integrates existing enterprise and big data in days versus months, delivering new insights so organisations can take action
* relevant – embeddable cloud service enables any cloud application to rapidly and dynamically embed relevant business data
* secure – pervasive data privacy protects sensitive data no matter where, how and by whom it is used, with a single solution combining both persistent data masking and dynamic data masking, to reduce risk
* timely – leveraging a broker-less messaging architecture integrated with real-time data replication and integration, data streaming delivers big data transactions efficiently to applications and analytics environments to maintain an edge on competitors
* trustworthy – comprehensive data governance delivers consistent and accurate data with new data stewardship workflows to inspire business confidence.

Lowering the cost of data
Lean principles are more valid than ever in the era of big data and are critical to keeping big data from becoming a big liability. Informatica 9.5 lets organisations embrace lean data management in order to reduce the costs of data, including:
* business costs – data validation helps companies avoid making bad business decisions by identifying data integration errors
* hardware costs – Hadoop MapReduce processing of data integration transformations, mappings and rules accelerates adoption of low-cost, big data computing platforms to reduce hardware spend
* labour costs – data discovery automates the discovery of business entities and sensitive data to increase developer productivity
* software costs – hybrid IT platform lets organisations capture the economic and self-service benefits of cloud while cost-effectively retaining governance and control over all data, whether on-premise or in the cloud
* storage costs – smart partition archiving, unified with tiering and archiving, proactively manages data growth, improving application performance and reducing infrastructure costs for relational data and database appliances.

“Big data is a mandate to get better at information governance which has been a concern for many organisations that have struggled with managing their data,” said Ted Friedman, Vice President, Gartner.

Realising the promise of big data
The promise of big data lies in its ability to drive competitive advantage, new business productivity and new revenues and profits. Informatica 9.5 helps organisations successfully address all aspects of the three big data megatrends:
* big data processing – unified visual IDE for Hadoop empowers developers who are not expert in Hadoop to create business logic and deploy it to Hadoop using an intuitive and familiar visual development environment; Hadoop-native transforms accelerate development of complex data transformations and thus time-to-business value for Hadoop developers
* big interaction data – social MDM integrates social customer profiles with existing customer master data to increase customer retention and share of wallet
* big transaction data – Universal Data Replication, Ultra Messaging and PowerExchange deliver transaction data to Hadoop to lower processing costs.

Availability
Informatica 9.5 will be available in June 2012. Informatica 9.5.1 is expected to be available in Q4 2012.

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About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organisations around the world rely on Informatica for maximising return on data to drive their top business imperatives. Worldwide, nearly 5,000 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.

Note: Informatica, PowerCenter, Informatica Platform and Informatica HParser are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions regarding Informatica’s product release. However, these statements are not guarantees of the availability, which may be delayed or cancelled. The development, release and timing of any Informatica product described in this document remain at the sole discretion of Informatica and should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision. This document is provided for information purposes only. Statements made regarding product and packaging and future functionality are based on current available information, which is subject to change. Such statements should not be relied upon as a representation, warranty or commitment to deliver specific products or functionality in the future. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the results described in this press release. More information about potential risks and uncertainties that could affect Informatica’s business and products are included under the caption “Risk Factors” in Informatica’s report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31 2012, which are on file with the SEC and are available on the Company’s investor relations website at http://www.informatica.com/. All information provided in this release is as of May 15 2012 and Informatica undertakes no duty to update this information.

1 Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012-2015 Forecast (IDC #233485)

May 15, 2012

Designed to assess the state of big data projects and understand big data strategies, the survey reveals an aggressive move on the part of organisations to master big data for business advantage, with the majority of enterprises, nearly 70 per cent, now considering (44 per cent), planning (22 per cent), testing (13 per cent) or running (20 per cent) big data projects.

The complete survey report entitled, Balancing Opportunity and Risk in Big Data, is available for download.

The multiple facets of big data
The new survey reveals the diversity of big data and its breadth of opportunities and challenges. When asked which aspects of big data are relevant to their organisation, most respondents cite the management of growing transaction volumes (74 per cent), indicating there are still significant challenges even in the more traditional enterprise data realm. But also of relevance are new technologies such as Hadoop and NoSQL (46 per cent) for efficiently processing big data. Meanwhile, the management of big interaction data – including social media data (35 per cent), mobile device data (31 per cent) and machine-generated data (22 per cent) – is very much rising in relevance due to the insights, efficiencies and customer engagement these new data types can help drive.

Many eyes on many prizes
What do organisations intend to get from their big data efforts? A wide variety of benefits, according to survey respondents. Improving efficiency in business operations by doing more things with more data is the number one business driver (71 per cent). This is followed by increasing business agility (51 per cent).

But also important is introducing new products and services (50 per cent) and attracting and retaining customers (49 per cent), as well as enhancing analytics (47 per cent) and lowering IT costs through technologies such as Hadoop (38 per cent).

Big data challenges
Lack of maturity in big data tools is the top challenge (52 per cent) that respondents face in big data projects, including a lack of support for reuse and metadata in current Hadoop environments. Lack of support for real-time streaming data is another key challenge (39 per cent), followed by concerns over poor data quality (38 per cent), data security and privacy (38 per cent) and the limited availability of skilled developers to manage big data (35 per cent). Other top concerns are overly difficult development for Hadoop (34 per cent), and lack of data governance capabilities (32 per cent).

“The reality is, big data represents both opportunities and challenges, but those key challenges identified by our survey respondents are set to diminish with the advances introduced in the newest version of the Informatica Platform, Informatica 9.5,” said Girish Pancha, chief products officer, Informatica. “Engineered expressly to help organisations maximise their return on big data, Informatica 9.5 will accelerate the ‘mainstreaming’ of new technologies such as Hadoop, enable existing skill sets to be leveraged for big data projects and enable organisations to realise the promise of big data while maximising the data’s value and reducing its costs.”

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About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organisations around the world rely on Informatica for maximising return on data to drive their top business imperatives. Worldwide, nearly 5,000 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.

Note: Informatica, Informatica Platform, Informatica 9.5 and PowerCenter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.

May 14, 2012

Tim Pittaway, principal, RSM Bird Cameron, said, “The task of transitioning to a low-carbon economy will place significant regulatory, market and reputational pressures on business.

“The main implication for management and boards is that carbon risks need to be integrated into decision-making and risk management processes throughout the organisation. Company directors need the skills and expertise to understand and respond to climate change-related risks.

“Businesses that do not manage carbon risks appropriately will fail to become compliant with emerging legislation or will not manage to collect quality emissions data or produce quality disclosure.”

The areas business should be considering in their strategies include:
* carbon risk management
* compliance audit with existing and future carbon legislation
* internal audit reviews of carbon reporting procedures, systems and internal controls
* verification and assurance of emissions reports
* tax and accounting advice for treatment of carbon permits and allowances
* tracking ongoing developments in environmental regulations aimed at mitigating greenhouse gases
* assessing the potential impact of global climate change on the company’s stakeholders
* devising the appropriate mixture of risk management instruments required to lower climate change-related threats to acceptable levels
* evaluating the company’s position in the technological landscape of sustainable energy
* undertaking strategic acquisitions of advanced energy technologies
* identifying possibilities for boosting energy efficiency within the organisation
* formulating and executing strategies to exploit emerging growth opportunities in sustainable energy markets.

Pittaway said, “Businesses need to identify opportunities to improve the management and reporting processes in place to manage, collect and report on emissions, energy consumption and broader environmental performance.

“Systems for addressing the risks need to be put in place and continuously monitored.”

RSM Bird Cameron advises the following issues should be considered.

Identification of primary liability under the proposed Clean Energy Legislation:
* identify any “facilities” of the company as defined under the National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act and the operator of any such facilities
* determine the amount of emissions released by that facility that are covered by the Carbon Pricing Mechanism. If it is greater than 25,000 tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions per year, there is a registration requirement.

If the business has a primary liability under the Clean Energy Legislation:
* identify the gross quantum of emissions and verify the accuracy of those emissions
* assess whether any mitigation incentives are available, i.e. free carbon units, to reduce the primary liability
* determine the indirect cost impact of supply chain into the business, such as electricity
* model the impact of the direct and indirect costs of the Clean Energy Legislation
* assess whether such costs can be passed onto customers either contractually or through market forces.

If the business does not have a direct impact or requirement to register:
* determine the indirect cost impact of supply chain into the business, such as electricity
* determine whether any mitigation incentives are available to reduce the overall cost to the business
* assess whether such costs can be passed onto customers either contractually or through market forces.

Industry assistance:
* assess the availability of financial assistance such as through the allocation of free permits for emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) activities under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program, the Clean Energy Innovation Program, the Carbon Farming Initiative and other grant programs.

Financial reporting and taxation impacts:
* consider appropriate accounting treatment for any carbon units acquired and surrendered
* review the possible impairment of the value of affected assets
* include greenhouse reporting needs in corporate governance framework corporate tax implications, including cashflow impacts as a result of having to acquire carbon units.

Corporate governance and emissions measurement:
* allocate responsibility for greenhouse reporting
* assess emissions methodology and data
* establish appropriate reporting and documentation systems and processes.

Pittaway said, “Global climate change promises dramatic changes in the environmental, regulatory, and competitive environment of corporate Australia in the coming years and businesses need to consider now how to strengthen their capacity to navigate these shifts.

“Business that do not consider carbon as a major source of risk will also miss opportunities for future growth markets.”

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About RSM Bird Cameron
RSM Bird Cameron is the largest mid-tier accounting firm in Australia with national ownership and profit sharing and offers a full range of specialist advisory services, including business consulting and advisory, assurance and advisory, taxation consulting, corporate consulting and turnaround and insolvency. RSM Bird Cameron is a core member firm of RSM International, the sixth largest network of independent accounting and consulting firms in the world.

May 14, 2012

Tim Pittaway, principal, RSM Bird Cameron, said, “The task of transitioning to a low-carbon economy will place significant regulatory, market and reputational pressures on all businesses.

“While the carbon price will firstly affect big polluters, the most likely outcome is that extra costs will be transferred onto SMEs and consumers.

“SMEs need to start preparing for the introduction of a carbon price in Australia and initiate moves to understand their carbon exposure.

“The more Australia continues to generate additional carbon emissions, the higher the carbon price and the more expensive reduction strategies will become, which is why SMEs have a real incentive to
start accounting for carbon sooner rather than later.”

Issues SMEs should start considering now:
* what risks does the business run by ignoring existing and future carbon emissions regulations?
* do business owners and managers understand the business’ carbon footprint including how much energy it consumes and how much greenhouse gas it produces?
* what is the business’ carbon reduction strategy?
* how will additional carbon emissions regulations, in particular the introduction of a carbon price, impact the business’ financial bottom line and accounting and reporting practices?
* will the business’ stakeholders demand more transparency on actions to reduce carbon emissions?

Pittaway said, “SMEs should also be aware that products and services made from less polluting material will ultimately become cheaper compared to products made through processes that incur more carbon pollution.

“This may provide the opportunity for SMEs to realise cost savings through careful selection of suppliers.”

-ENDS-

About RSM Bird Cameron
RSM Bird Cameron is the largest mid-tier accounting firm in Australia with national ownership and profit sharing and offers a full range of specialist advisory services, including business consulting and advisory, assurance and advisory, taxation consulting, corporate consulting and turnaround and insolvency. RSM Bird Cameron is a core member firm of RSM International, the sixth largest network of independent accounting and consulting firms in the world.

May 10, 2012

As the No. 1 Wi-Fi planning solution in the market today, AirMagnet Planner offers predictive modeling to determine the ideal quantity, placement and configuration of Cisco Access Points (APs) for optimal security, performance and compliance. AirMagnet Planner for Cisco Small Business can take into account the wireless properties of more than 10 Cisco Small Business access points and wireless routers, including the newly released WAP121 and WAP321, to accurately design the Cisco Small Business network for maximised coverage and performance.

Wayne Allen, program manager, Fluke Networks, said, “Wireless is a critical business application not only for the enterprise, but also for SMBs. Ensuring these networks perform at the highest levels possible requires accurate planning and deployment. Fluke Networks AirMagnet Planner is the de facto solution for wireless network planning and we’re excited to join forces with another market leader to offer the solution to SMB customers.”

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About Fluke Networks
Fluke Networks is the world-leading provider of network test and monitoring solutions to speed the deployment and improve the performance of networks and applications. Leading enterprises and service providers trust Fluke Networks’ products and expertise to help solve today’s toughest issues and emerging challenges in WLAN security, mobility, unified communications and data centers. Based in Everett, Wash., the company distributes products in more than 50 countries. For more information, visit www.flukenetworks.com/au.

Clive Astbury, senior technical consultant, Informatica, said, “As organisations adapt to change and leverage the latest technology to deliver more value to customers, the corresponding change is reflected in the application portfolio.

“It is not uncommon for companies that have been in business for a decade to have hundreds of legacy applications that deliver marginal value to the business yet represent a significant operational and maintenance cost.

“Application retirement addresses these challenges by removing the legacy application and
the supporting software and hardware stack while keeping the application data accessible for
reporting, regulatory compliance and regular business needs.”

The following seven steps can assist organisations to successfully retire applications:
1. Create a cross-functional team. Successful application retirement projects are typically staffed by cross-functional teams with representation from compliance, the line-of-business function, and IT to ensure the requirements of the entire organisation are met.

2. Understand the legacy application and the data that needs to be retired. A good understanding of an application and the underlying data model ensures that data required for normal business needs and regulatory compliance is retired. To get a better understanding of the scenarios in which an application is used and the business benefits, conduct interviews with employees, partners, customers and auditors who use the legacy application.

Answering the following questions will assist in developing a better understanding of the legacy application and the data that needs to be retired:
- what purpose does the application serve today versus when the application was originally deployed?
- what application modules or functionality are no longer in use?
- what reports are run against the application?
- if there are several reports being run, can reports be consolidated?
- are there similar applications in the organisation that serve the purpose of the legacy application?
- should data be migrated to another application?
- what data needs to be retained for compliance purposes?

3. Preserve the business context of the application data. Once you understand the data that needs to be retained, it is important that the original business context of the data object is preserved. For example, if you are retiring purchase orders from a legacy financial application, all the transactional, referential and audit information associated with the purchase order must be captured.

Transactional information associated with the purchase order includes each item purchased, quantity, price and shipping details. Referential information includes vendor name, address and contact information. The audit trail includes details about who approved the purchase order and the user who changed the purchase order. This data is typically stored in several tables in the database.

There are complex relationships between the data in the tables and business rules that define additional semantics. Adding to the complexity is the fact that many of these relationships and business rules are defined at the application layer and cannot be mined directly from the database.

Preserving the original business context of the application data requires application knowledge and sophisticated data modeling techniques that ensure the relationships between the data and the business rules are not compromised.

4. Access to retired data. Providing quick and efficient access to retired data is key to the success of your application retirement project. Organisations must have the capability to retrieve historical data on demand. The ability to query, browse and generate reports lets you respond to audits and discovery requests.

Once the application is shut down, the retirement solution must provide robust application-independent access leveraging open industry standards such as ODBC/JDBC, XML, and SQL and reporting tools such as Crystal Reports and Cognos.

Access to retired data should not compromise the user experience. For example, if a legacy insurance policy administration system is retired, the policies should be accessible in its original format. Consider the following when developing a plan that defines how retired data will be accessed:
- how will business users and administrators access data? What format do they need to see retired data in?
- how will auditors access the data? What reports do auditors typically access?
- what reporting tools are users and administrators familiar with?
- how will users search for retired data?

5. Secure retired data. It is not uncommon for a legacy application to contain privileged information, which needs to be protected when an application is retired.

Consider the following when developing a plan to secure retired data:
- should only administrators and privileged users be entitled to access retired data or should a broader group be allowed to access the retired data?
- should the same security policy that controlled access in the legacy application apply or should the security policy be further restricted or relaxed?

6. Set retention policies on retired data. More and more organisations are recognising the costs and the risks associated with retaining data indefinitely. Retired data should be managed as defined by the enterprise-wide information management policy. An application retirement solution must provide comprehensive policy management features as well as integration with storage platforms that manage retention.

7. Select a vendor for application retirement. Because application retirement requires sophisticated data modeling, extraction, and retrieval capabilities, organisations can be better served by seeking out a vendor with a proven application retirement solution rather than reinventing the wheel. An application retirement solution must:

- model the data in the legacy application
- create policies that define what data should be retired
- extract the data
- index the data for efficient searching
- provide application independent access and reporting.

For more information download the whitepaper A Practical Guide for Legacy Application Retirement: http://www.informatica.com/downloads/6957_retirement_wp_web.pdf.

-ENDS-

About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organisations around the world rely on Informatica for maximising return on data to drive their top business imperatives. Worldwide, over 4,630 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.

May 7, 2012

The 985 is ideal for HVAC and IAQ professionals to verify cleanroom classifications and conduct HVAC filter testing and IAQ commissioning and investigations in hospitals, labs and other sensitive environments.

The Fluke 985 Particle Counter features:
* six particle size channels with a range of 0.3 µm – 10 µm, assuring accurate measurements
* rugged, ultra-lightweight, ergonomic design for easy single-hand operation
* in-device storage of 10,000 records for easy access to historical data
* ten hours of standard-use battery life to last a full workday.

The 985 has a large 8.89 centimetre (3.5 inch) QVGC colour display with backlight and intuitive icons plus a large font option for easy navigation and viewing. It features configurable settings for the display, sample methods and sample size alarm. Data can be presented in traditional tabular or as a trend graph and exported to a USB memory stick or directly to a PC via a USB or Ethernet cable.

The meter meets ISO 21501, JIS B9921 and CE standards.

The 985 comes with a cradle for charging and USB and Ethernet communications, ENET CAT5E cable, USB-A to MINI-B cable, 12 VDC power supply, zero count inlet-filter, filter adapter, sample inlet protective cap, hard case, getting started manual and user manual CD.

-ENDS-

Pricing and availability
The Fluke 985 Particle Counter model is available now. For information on Fluke tools and applications, or to find the location of your nearest distributor, contact Fluke Australia, Locked Box 5004, Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153, call (02) 8850-3333, fax (02) 8850 3300, or e-mail sales@fluke.com.au. Visit Fluke’s website at www.fluke.com.au.

About Fluke
Founded in 1948, Fluke Corporation is the world leader in compact, professional electronic test tools. Fluke customers are technicians, engineers, electricians, and metrologists who install, troubleshoot and manage industrial, electrical and electronic equipment and calibration processes. Follow Fluke on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn.

Fluke is a registered trademark of Fluke Corporation. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. For more information, visit the Fluke website.

May 3, 2012

Andrew Graham, national head of business solutions, RSM Bird Cameron, said, “Often the end of financial year creeps up on businesses. While we know it is coming, preparation and planning does not need to be frantic and last minute.

“Wrapping up the end of financial year successfully helps businesses minimise tax and be better prepared for the year ahead. It is important to have a check list to methodically work through to ensure that every aspect is covered, and nothing is missed.”

RSM Bird Cameron offers the following 12 tips for starting the 2012/13 financial year:

1. Trading stock – physically count stock on hand at June 30. If this is not practical, ensure systems are in place to ascertain correct stock levels at year end so your balance sheet is correct. Incorrect or unexpectedly low (or high) stock levels can change the fundamental financial position of your business and impact cash flow, debt management or even the overall liquidity of your business. It can also assist to uncover fraud, theft and inventory control systems which may need to be upgraded or reviewed to reduce stock loss through damage or inadequate logistics.

2. Obsolete stock – identify any obsolete stock and write it down or off your books as a special rule. It is unlikely that obsolete stock can ever be sold and it should not be reflected on your balance sheet as an asset as it will give you an inaccurate reading of your financial position.

3. Bad debts – review debtors prior to June 30 to identify all bad debts. In order to write off a debt it must be bad, not merely doubtful. That means the business can demonstrate that it has tried all reasonable, practical measures to recover the monies owed to it and, in spite of that, it is unlikely that the debt will be repaid. A bad debt must have been previously included as assessable income.

4. Superannuation guarantee – ensure that superannuation obligations are paid and cleared prior to June 30 to obtain a deduction in the current financial year.

5. Additional superannuation – consider making additional superannuation contributions as an employer (subject to current limits) before June 30 to take advantage of concessional tax rates afforded to superannuation contributions.

6. Consumables/repairs – consider restocking consumables such as fuel, stationery, sprays and chemicals before June 30. Also undertake any necessary repairs before the end of the financial year to minimise taxable income and prepare yourself for the year ahead.

7. Staff bonuses and commissions – a tax deduction may be claimed for staff bonuses and commissions that are unpaid at June 30, provided they were ‘definitely committed’ to the expense prior to the date.

8. Accrued wages – wages that have been accrued at June 30 but not paid until after that date may be claimed as a tax deduction.

9. Defer income – cash flow permitting look to defer income if possible until after June 30 to decrease taxable income

10. Prepayments – are available if the entity is permitted to prepay expenses under tax legislation i.e. SBE (Small Business Entity).

11. Prepaid interest on passive assets, such as commercial and residential properties – look to prepay interest prior to June 30.

12. Fixed assets – review last year’s depreciation schedule to determine if assets listed still exist. Identify missing items, any that have been scrapped or disposed, and any new ones that have been acquired. Update your depreciation schedule accordingly.

-ENDS-

About RSM Bird Cameron
RSM Bird Cameron is the largest mid-tier accounting firm in Australia with national ownership and profit sharing and offers a full range of specialist advisory services, including business consulting and advisory, assurance and advisory, taxation consulting, corporate consulting and turnaround and insolvency. RSM Bird Cameron is a core member firm of RSM International, the sixth largest network of independent accounting and consulting firms in the world.

May 1, 2012

Honouring those enterprises that have achieved exemplary data integration results and performance, Informatica will announce the winners on May 15, 2012 at the ARIA Resort and Casino in Las Vegas as part of Informatica’s 12th annual user conference – Informatica World 2012.

Finalists were selected from Informatica’s nearly 5,000 customers which best showcased their use of the Informatica Platform. The Platform helps organisations increase the value and lower the cost of data to maximise return on data, including delivering new revenue at lower costs, increasing margins and ensuring unique competitive differentiation to their businesses.

The 2012 Innovation Awards Business Enablement and Technical Enablement categories and respective finalists include:
* Accelerating Shareholder Value in Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures – Vale, Wendy’s, Large Hungarian Telecommunications Service Provider
* Cloud Computing – D&B, PDI, Inc., PSA Insurance and Financial Services with Silverline
* Delivering Trusted Information to Drive Data Governance, Compliance and Reduce Risk – AEGON with HCL, BAP Credit Bureau, Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan with HighPoint Solutions, Morgan Stanley
* Driving Operational Excellence by Outsourcing Noncore Functions, Modernising the Business or Reducing IT Costs – BBVA Compass, Central Bank of Brazil, Cox Communications with Cognizant, Discount Tire Company with Cognizant, Pfizer
* Efficient Messaging Architecture – Direct Edge, SURFACExchange, Large Global Bank, Large International Banking and Financial Services Company
* Enabling Better Decision Making by Driving Business Intelligence – Abbott, Con-way Freight, eHarmony, Ingersoll Rand with Cognizant, Novamex
* Enhancing the Informatica Marketplace – AnalytiX Data Services, Assertive Software, Undraleu from CoeurData, Leading Provider of Real-Time Analytics
* Fortifying Overall Operations with Global Data Quality – Fannie Mae, UMass Memorial Health Care, Large Brazilian Private University
* Improving Customer Information to Enhance Customer Service or Increase Customer Revenue – Ochsner Health System, Queensland Police Service
* Megatrends – Big Data, Cloud, Social Media – eHarmony, OppenheimerFunds, U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Westpac Group New Zealand
* Strengthening Partner Network Efficiency – Avnet, eHarmony, MetLife, Large German Telecommunications Company.

“It truly is an honour to be recognised as a finalist in the Informatica Innovation Awards program among such visionary and innovative organisations,” said Torrance Mayberry, senior systems manager, Westpac Group New Zealand. “The Informatica Platform enables Westpac to tackle our big data challenge and leverage social media data, regardless of its sheer volume or complexity, to gain deeper customer insights and compete more effectively as a customer-centric organisation. We are proud to serve as a successful example to other organisations dealing with big data.”

“The finalists in this year’s Informatica Innovation Awards showcase organisations that have achieved revolutionary results through their innovative use of data integration technology,” said Chris Boorman, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of enablement and Informatica University, Informatica. “Our customers tell us that data is their most important asset. These finalists are amazing examples of companies who are using data as the cornerstone of their key business imperatives—from attracting and retaining customers to improving efficiency and reducing costs. It is this approach which enables these organisations to maximise their return on data. We applaud their successes and are proud to have played a part.”

For more information on Informatica World 2012 and to register, please visit www.informaticaworld.com. Additional information and regular updates can also be found on Twitter at @infaworld and #IW2012, Facebook at www.facebook.com/informaticaworld and LinkedIn at http://linkd.in/xzjxPU.

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About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organisations around the world rely on Informatica for maximising return on data to drive their top business imperatives. Worldwide, nearly 5,000 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.

Note: Informatica, PowerCenter and Informatica Platform are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.