Dell Inc. and SunGard Higher Education announced that they will expand their existing strategic relationship to make their solutions more interoperable and help higher education institutions worldwide improve efficiencies, streamline operations and enhance learning. The expanded relationship supports SunGard's new Open Digital Campus strategy and gives campuses and universities wider access to open, scalable products to build out their solutions, based on Dell PowerEdge servers and Intel Xeon Processors. The companies also announced plans to open a new digital campus test center at Dell's Central Texas headquarters for customers to preview technology solutions designed to optimize IT environments. The new onsite test center will help the company's engineers to: Conduct a broader range of testing on full-scale campus reference-architecture and evaluate software and hardware solutions before purchase decisions are made. Quickly use a portfolio of tools to help IT departments measure operational efficiency, manageability and flexibility. Develop co-branded sizing guides to help reduce cost and complexity of maintaining technology. Develop reference architectures based on unique customer environments that take into consideration interoperability challenges facing higher education. Work with SunGard Higher Education to test Dell products, including Dell EqualLogic(TM) iSCSI storage, with SunGard products.

SunGard Higher Education, The New York Times Company and Epsilen, LLC announced a partnership to help provide more flexible e-learning options to enrich the learning experience. As part of the project, SunGard Higher Education will integrate Epsilen's e-learning environment with its solutions to help institutions offer their constituents Web 2.0 standards-based personal e-learning solutions. The New York Times Company and SunGard Higher Education will offer Epsilen to SunGard Higher Education customers. Epsilen can be implemented as a standalone solution or to augment the functionality of other campus and learning solutions. It is delivered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis which provides remote hosting and management. Through its relationship with The New York Times, Epsilen allows teachers and learners to access Times content back to 1851, creating a rich database of articles and information that can be of help for researching and teaching many subjects.

Sungard Higher Education Inc. announced that Matt Mandalinci has been appointed president and chief customer officer of SunGard Higher Education, a new role reporting to chief executive officer Ron Lang. Mr. Mandalinci will oversee global marketing, sales and services, and will be responsible for the customer experience from developing prospects through sustaining loyalty with long-time customers. Mr. Mandalinci is highly regarded as a hands-on, energetic leader who will drive strategies to feed customer acquisition, retention and loyalty with the ultimate goal of growing the higher education business. He most recently served as president of SunGard's Energy Solutions business within SunGard Financial Systems.