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ArchIntel Releases White Paper to Analyze OSINT, CI in a Competitive Marketplace; Jim Garrettson Quoted
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ArchIntel Releases White Paper to Analyze OSINT, CI in a Competitive Marketplace; Jim Garrettson Quoted

ArchIntel, a provider of concise actionable intelligence to business leaders, has released its latest white paper, “Leveraging OSINT for Competitive Advantage: A Guide to Having Your Listening Post,” that analyzes how open source intelligence (OSINT) can enhance business performance and gain competitive advantages in a marketplace.

Learn more by downloading a free copy of the white paper here.

ArchIntel has described OSINT as any intelligence derived from open-source or publicly available information such as the traditional media, internet, the Deep Web and Dark Web, government reports, as well as academic and professional publications. OSINT will also enable strategic intelligence sharing across organizations.

“OSINT is a good resource for not only government and international organizations but is outstanding for businesses as well. Information is power. Businesses use OSINT to navigate new markets, investigate competitors, and so forth,” ArchIntel explains in its white paper.

This white paper outlines how companies can attain a competitive advantage by using OSINT techniques to monitor publicly available information. The report also discussed how a company can set up its OSINT listening post or infrastructure to have a steady, brief and easy to digest stream of relevant and useful information on its competitors, market and customers.

ArchIntel also noted in “Leveraging OSINT for Competitive Advantage: A Guide to Having Your Listening Post,” how outsourcing the entire process to an open-source competitive intelligence (CI) provider can be the most cost-effective solution and provided an explanation about the necessary conditions for identifying a reliable competitive intelligence provider.

The white paper has also provided context for how companies should customize the services of a vendor to align the competitive intelligence gathering process with the company’s strategic objectives.

“CI is a legitimate field, and it relies entirely on OSINT techniques to monitor publicly available information to achieve the desired results,” ArchIntel stated.

Companies that utilize competitive intelligence (CI) have the potential to gain a competitive advantage through OSINT in the business sector. CI will enable organizations to analyze competitor analysis, competitor mapping, technological advancements and changes in industry standards, marketing insights, product insights, buyer behavior and big data analytics.

“A good CI provider will adopt a categorize-dimensionalize-contextualize approach to provide customized intelligence outputs to its customers,” states ArchIntel. “The intelligence reports generated will apply directly to your business by addressing your specific needs.”

CI providers will offer detailed reports, update its intelligence regularly, deliver actionable intelligence, and have a dedicated and customized intelligence archive. The intelligence reports generated will apply directly to the business by addressing its specific needs.

“Competitive intelligence in the open source world is a moving target that professional analysts wrestle with and fight the distraction of unreliable sources. Planning and direction, collection,Processing and exploitation,Analysis and production, dissemination and integration are the key watch words for this community,” said Jim Garrettson, ArchIntel president and founder.

Download your free copy of ArchIntel’s “Leveraging OSINT for Competitive Advantage: A Guide to Having Your Listening Post” here.

About ArchIntel

ArchIntel provides business leaders with customized, actionable daily intelligence and situational awareness about their competitors, customers and partners delivered in concise newsletter format by email at 6 a.m. and online at archintel.com. By leveraging highly-customized search engines crafted to the precise specifications of each ArchIntel customer, a human intelligence team of account-dedicated researchers, writers and editors construct daily intelligence briefings that help executives identify critical information. ArchIntel researchers leverage proactive sourcing to deliver highly-customized daily intelligence reports. 

While traditional open-source intelligence providers rely upon mainstream media, social media platforms, customer specialized public domains, and private resources, ArchIntel researchers take it a step further to leverage non traditional sources of actionable intelligence. This includes patent and trademarks, human capital movement, site-specific reporting, and customizable manual searches. ArchIntel houses all daily intelligence briefings in private, secured interactive archives with user-friendly features. ArchIntel Daily Intelligence Brief subscribers can utilize the interactive archive to collaborate around all sourced intelligence.

ArchIntel serves as a competitive intelligence library, and a business and corporate development tool. ArchIntel is part of a larger network that reaches over 150,000 daily subscribers; half of ArchIntel’s customers are leaders of Fortune 1000 companies. To request a complimentary customized Daily Intelligence Briefing, please visit archintel.com or call 703-226-7009.

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Accenture Completes Acquisition of Gekko to Strengthen Cloud, AI Capabilities; Olivier Girard, Roland Esnis Quoted
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Accenture Completes Acquisition of Gekko to Strengthen Cloud, AI Capabilities; Olivier Girard, Roland Esnis Quoted

Accenture has completed the acquisition of Gekko, a leading French Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services company, Accenture reported on Tuesday. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Aligned with our development strategy, the acquisition of Gekko would be another significant addition because it would give clients more support for public cloud options. Gekko would also be a major opportunity to accelerate our growth strategy in France,” said Olivier Girard, Accenture’s Geographic Unit managing director for France and Benelux. 

The acquisition will strengthen Accenture's cloud and artificial intelligence as well as extend its ongoing relationships with technology providers, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Accenture will also gain additional cloud migration expertise and strategic objectives of the Accenture AWS Business Group (AABG).

Gekko will provide more than 100 trained cloud professionals, with more than 85 AWS certifications and a deep relationship with AWS. Gekko is an AWS Advanced Partner and maintained AWS competency in Storage and is an AWS Authorized Training partner. 

The acquisition of Gekko would strengthen Accenture’s general and industry-specific cloud experience in AWS technologies. The combination of Gekko’s skills in AWS with Accenture’s industry knowledge and experience in global large-scale cloud initiatives will provide highly differentiated end-to-end services to the European market.

“Accenture’s advantage is our ability to keep pace with evolving customer expectations. Our clients call on Accenture to help them innovate and transform their business. Gekko would bring key cloud, AI and DevOps skills and would help us serve a greater and more diverse range of clients in France and the broader European market.” 

“In the fast-growing cloud market, joining Accenture would be a unique opportunity to help even more organizations to leverage journey to the cloud for accelerating their digital transformations, growing their businesses and improving customer experiences,” said Roland Esnis and Julien Favre, co-founders and CEOs of Gekko. 

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations, with digital capabilities across all of these services. 

We combine unmatched experience and specialized capabilities across more than 40 industries — powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. With 509,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture brings continuous innovation to help clients improve their performance and create lasting value across their enterprises.

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BWXT Divests U.S. Nuclear Services Portfolio to Framatone; Rex Geveden Quoted
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BWXT Divests U.S. Nuclear Services Portfolio to Framatone; Rex Geveden Quoted

BWX Technologies (BWXT) has completed the process to divest its United States-based commercial nuclear services business to Framatome, the company reported on Tuesday.

“Adding a premier nuclear-qualified manufacturing facility to our footprint also enables expansion into space and defense microreactors,” said Rex Geveden, BWXT’s president and chief executive officer.

In a cashless transaction, BWXT will receive a 118 thousand square-foot manufacturing facility and the associated 11 acres of land from Framatome. BWXT will also transition certain contracts, equipment and intellectual property to the company.

BWXT will assume occupancy and ownership of the Framatome facility located near one of BWXT’s Virginia manufacturing sites. BWXT’s Canadian-based nuclear manufacturing and services business is not part of this transaction and will continue its work in North America and overseas.

BWXT has a proven track record of providing maintenance, field service, inspection and plant refurbishment, assisting our customers in meeting their challenging business needs within the company’s nuclear services division.

The company has worked to ensure that all of its projects are aligned with our customers’ goals to increase safety, improve plant productivity and availability, and extend plant equipment life. BWXT has extensive experience in managing projects involving the primary and secondary systems of nuclear plants and reactors.

BWXT’s projects have drawn upon the company’s solutions and have delivered a multi-disciplinary approach with custom engineering capabilities, quality control, research and development and field service personnel.

“This strategic divestiture implies a sharper focus on our core government nuclear manufacturing and site operations businesses,” added Geveden.

About BWXT

At BWX Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BWXT), we are People Strong, Innovation Driven. Headquartered in Lynchburg, Va., BWXT provides safe and effective nuclear solutions for national security, clean energy, environmental remediation, nuclear medicine and space exploration.

With approximately 6,600 employees, BWXT has 12 major operating sites in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, BWXT joint ventures provide management and operations at more than a dozen U.S. Department of Energy and NASA facilities

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QTS Announces Upsize and Pricing of Forward Common Stock Offering
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QTS Announces Upsize and Pricing of Forward Common Stock Offering

QTS Realty Trust has announced the upsize and pricing of an underwritten public offering of 4.4 million shares of its Class A common stock offered by the forward purchasers or their affiliates in connection with the forward sale agreements at a public offering price of $64.90 per share, the company reported on Tuesday. 

The offering was upsized from the previously announced offering size of 4 million shares of common stock. The forward purchasers or their affiliates have also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an aggregate of up to an additional 660 thousand shares of common stock.

QTS has entered into separate forward sale agreements with each of Bank of America Securities and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC or their affiliates, with respect to 4.4 million shares of the company's common stock covered by the offering. 

The forward purchasers or their affiliates are expected to borrow from third parties and sell 4.4 million shares of QTS’ common stock to the underwriters in connection with the forward sale agreements. The company expects to physically settle the forward sale agreements in full and receive proceeds by June 30, 2021.

QTS will not initially receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of its common stock offered by the forward purchasers or their affiliates to the underwriters, except in certain circumstances described in the prospectus supplement relating to the offering. 

The company has projected that net proceeds to it, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and other estimated offering expenses, will be approximately $273.6 million, assuming full physical settlement of the forward sale agreements, and excluding the option to purchase additional shares.

When drawn, QTS will use the net proceeds of the offering to repay a portion of the amounts outstanding under the company's unsecured revolving credit facility, for capital expenditures, including the development of properties in the company's portfolio, and for other general corporate purposes.

About QTS

QTS Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: QTS) is a leading provider of data center solutions across a diverse footprint spanning more than 7 million square feet of owned mega scale data center space throughout North America and Europe. 

Through its software-defined data center platform, QTS is able to deliver secure, compliant infrastructure solutions, robust connectivity and premium customer service to leading hyperscale technology companies, enterprises, and government entities.

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DoD to Use CARES Act Funds to Apply AI in COVID-19 Vaccine Testing
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DoD to Use CARES Act Funds to Apply AI in COVID-19 Vaccine Testing

The Department of Defense (DoD) plans to use funds allocated under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to develop artificial intelligence-based models to accelerate screening and testing of vaccines, antibody-based treatments and other drug candidates for COVID-19, Bloomberg Government reported Monday.

The Pentagon plans to shift $3.8 billion in funds for the Defense Health Program to its research and development accounts to support the AI initiative, according to the department’s spending plan for $10.5 billion in emergency funds under the CARES Act.

The congressional report also outlined how DoD plans to spend $688 million to address the economic impacts of COVID-19 on the defense industrial base, including shipbuilding, aircraft propulsion, microelectronics and space launch.

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GAO: DHS Needs to Take Additional Steps in Transition to Agile Software Development
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GAO: DHS Needs to Take Additional Steps in Transition to Agile Software Development

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fully implement leading practices for adopting Agile software development to improve the process of acquiring information technology systems.

GAO said in a report published Monday that DHS fully implemented the practice of planning for organizational change as part of its transition to Agile development, but partially executed the two practice areas – the need to implement and measure the impact of undertaking a significant change.

Of the 202 activities related to 18 Agile action plans, DHS completed 134 activities but pushed back approximately 34 percent of activities to a later date.

The congressional watchdog offered 10 recommendations for DHS to carry out, such as establishing Agile training requirements for senior stakeholders, measuring results in relation to Agile adoption, developing a set of core performance metrics and creating new guidance on Agile methodologies.

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Aaron Weis Offers Update on Navy’s Cybersecurity, IT Modernization Effort
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Aaron Weis Offers Update on Navy’s Cybersecurity, IT Modernization Effort

Aaron Weis, chief information officer of the U.S. Navy and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, told C4ISRNET in an interview published Monday that the service has made progress in two areas when it comes to strengthening its cybersecurity posture and one of those is from a “defend” perspective.

He cited the need to change the service’s perspective on cyber defense.  “I talk a lot about moving from this culture of security by compliance to a culture where we have security as a constant state of readiness, where we’re always assessing our own readiness from a cybersecurity perspective,” Weis added.

He commented on the Navy’s complete reassessment of its risk management framework. “They’re refining and retuning RMF to be more responsive to reflect current state and to be able to be a more consistent indicator of risk management versus the one and done,” he said of the Navy.

Weis also offered updates on the service’s identity management pilot in conjunction with the Navy’s Enterprise Resource Planning system as well as on software-defined networking initiative and logistics effort, particularly the log IT systems portfolio.

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AFRL Modifies Existing Gas Detector Program to Address COVID-19
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AFRL Modifies Existing Gas Detector Program to Address COVID-19

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity and the University of Michigan have partnered to develop a tool that could identify the relation the acute respiratory disease syndrome present in COVID-19.

AFRL's Materials and Manufacturing Directorate provided researchers to support IARPA's Molecular Analyzer for Efficient Gas-phase Low-power Interrogation program, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said Friday.

The resulting product would be able to support civilian, industrial, military and now, COVID-19 assessment activities. MAEGLIN's gas sensor can be used to examine exhaled air from COVID-19 patients.

MAEGLIN originally aimed to produce portable technology that detects nuclear presence, pollution, chemical weapons, drugs and other dangerous materials via ultra-low-power chemical analysis.

The pandemic and MAEGLIN's potential to address the issue prompted AFRL to augment the program to accommodate COVID-19-related applications.

"The technology showed promise for medical applications, and we saw an opportunity to use it for urgent needs during the global pandemic," said Robert Bedford, a researcher with AFRL.

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DOE Unveils Funding Opportunity for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Tech Projects
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DOE Unveils Funding Opportunity for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Tech Projects

The Department of Energy has earmarked $30M in funds to support the development of technologies that will work to grow hybrid small-scale solid oxide fuel cell systems.

DOE said Friday it aims to commercialize the systems for power generation and hydrogen production via the use of solid oxide electrolyzer cell technologies.

The department is looking for proposals that cover cleaning processes for coal-derived syngas, small-scale distributed power generation SOFC systems and hybrid platforms that employ solid oxide technologies.

Steven Winberg, assistant secretary for fossil energy at DOE, said the effort will potentially help the department achieve global emission standards.

DOE also seeks to utilize syngas from gasification facilities in the assessment of SOFC platforms as part of the initiative.

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Rep. Jim Langevin: US Needs Nat’l Cyber Director to Prevent Major Attacks
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Rep. Jim Langevin: US Needs Nat’l Cyber Director to Prevent Major Attacks

Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., has said that a national cyber director at the White House is crucial to ensuring that federal agencies are taking appropriate measures to defend their systems, Fifth Domain reported Saturday.

Langevin, a commissioner on the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, said at recent German Marshall Fund webinar that the commission’s recommendation for a national cyber head can help prevent major cyber breaches like the attack on the Office of Personnel Management’s systems in 2014.

According to Langevin, there could be some challenges with approving the cyber director position after the White House eliminated the post in 2018.

“You have all these different departments and agencies — cybersecurity is not their primary mission,” he noted.

The Senate-confirmed national cyber director would be responsible for cyber-related budgetary and policy concerns across federal agencies. The position also entails the execution of a national cyber strategy, crisis response and defensive cyber activities, according to the report.

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