As it turns five, Android solidifies its smartphone OS dominance - Computerworld

Five years after its inception, Android is more dominant than ever in the smartphone OS market, despite facing a number of challenges along the way.

Android has endured legal battles, platform fragmentation, security issues and user complaints over upgrade delays. But none of these issues has so far seriously impacted its market share and sales, which reached record levels during the third quarter. A total of 136 million Android-based smartphones shipped around the world, giving Google's OS a 75 percent market share, according to IDC.

"The decline of RIM, lack of Windows Phone sales and the late launch of the iPhone 5 all had a positive impact on Android sales and market share," said Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at IDC.

Apple's iOS was the second largest operating system with a 14.9 percent market share.

"People say that the fragmentation is a mess, and there is some merit to that argument, but it is also indicative of Android's success," said Geoff Blaber, who leads the mobile device software research at CCS Insight.

The patent wars continue to be a threat to Android's future, and the nightmare scenario is increasing the costs of developing phones based on the OS.

"If suddenly you have got a whole lot of IPR [Intellectual Property Rights] issues and you've got to pay Apple half of your profits, everyone is going to say, perhaps I am not going to support Android anymore and maybe I'll go with Microsoft instead," said mobile analyst Richard Windsor, who blogs at Radio Free Mobile.

Android was unveiled on Nov. 5, 2007, when Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola and almost 30 other companies joined forces to announce the development of the open source OS.

About two years earlier Google had acquired Android, the company, whose co-founder Andy Rubin is still in charge of developing the operating system. It took another year before the first smartphone -- the T-Mobile G1 -- arrived. Android's success wasn't immediate, but by the end of 2010 it had become the most popular smartphone operating system.

Android's impressive ascent is due to several factors.

"Android's timing was perfect in that the iPhone had reset expectations, but that was specific to one product and the carriers needed a counter to Apple's success. At the same time Symbian was struggling," said Blaber.

The cost of using the operating system also helped, according to Windsor.

"One thing that galvanized everyone to, at least, consider it was the fact Android was freely available," Windsor said.

That meant not having to pay for a software license, and the possibility to "hack the code to pieces," he added.

As it turns five, Android solidifies its smartphone OS dominance - Computerworld

Microsoft tablet can be cheaper than competitors| Microsoft news - CIOL News Reports

Microsoft tablet can be cheaper than competitors| Microsoft news - CIOL News Reports

Microsoft Corp is gearing up to unveil its own tablet to boost its new Windows 8 operating system and counter Apple Inc's hot-selling iPad, according to media reports on Friday.

Such an effort, which the company has not confirmed, would be a departure from its usual focus on software and potentially throw Microsoft into direct competition with its closest hardware partners such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Hewlett-Packard Co.

The world's largest software company has invited media to a "major" announcement in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, but has not provided any details.

In the absence of information, talk is swirling that Microsoft will introduce its own tablet, according to anonymously sourced reports in the New York Times and the AllThingsD tech blog. Microsoft declined comment on the subject and those reports.

It is not the first time such talk has surfaced, as Microsoft looks for a way to make an impact with its new tablet-friendly Windows 8 operating system and put the best product it can in the market to counter Apple's iPad.

Apple, which makes both hardware and software for greater control over the performance of the final product, has revolutionized mobile markets with its smooth, seamless phones and tablets. Rival Google Inc may experiment with a similar approach after buying phone maker Motorola Mobility this year.

"Anything is possible if they don't feel their partners are doing it right," said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. "But it's hard to compete with companies that sell your stuff and still have a great relationship with them."

Other analysts suggested an own-branded tablet may be chiefly aimed at kick-starting the market for Windows tablets working on ARM Holdings Plc microprocessors - a new venture for Microsoft, which has traditionally relied on Intel Corp chips.

Microsoft charges hardware makers $50 or more to incorporate its software in machines and analysts suggest that hardware makers are struggling to produce tablets at a low enough price to challenge the iPad. By making its own tablets, Microsoft would presumably use its software for free, bringing down the overall price.

"It suggests to me that they've struggled to get OEMs (hardware makers) on board to bring the prices down, so they feel they have to subsidize these products to get them out of the door, at least in the first iteration," said Al Hilwa, an analyst at tech research firm IDC.

Making its own hardware for such an important product would be a departure for Microsoft, which based its success on licensing its software to other manufacturers, stressing the importance of "partners" and the Windows "ecosystem."

When it has ventured into hardware, the Redmond, Washington-based company has a mixed record.

Apart from keyboards and mice, the Xbox game console was its first foray into major manufacturing. That is now a

successful business, but only after billions of dollars of investment and overcoming problems with high rates of faulty units - a problem which was nicknamed the "red ring of death" by gamers.

The company's Microsoft-branded Zune music player, a late rival to Apple's iPod, was not a success and its unpopular Kin phone was taken off the market shortly after introduction.

Microsoft has tried hard to generate the type of excitement Apple gets for its secretive product launches, but usually disappoints. Talk was rife at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2010 that Microsoft would pre-empt Apple's iPad with a slate of its own devising, but it never materialized.

The company killed off a two-screen, slate-style prototype called Courier later that year, saying the technology might emerge in another form later on.

Aadhaar project (UID) and the role of IT in its success

Aadhaar project (UID) and the role of IT in its success.

Aadhaar project, also known as UID (unique identification), is an initiative rolled out by Government of India under which a unique number is provided to every Indian citizen for identification. The number can help citizens to avail several benefits and services. So far, more than one crore cards have been issued. This Manager’s Guide will touch upon theproject objectives and explain the role of IT in Aadhaar’s implementation.

In this guide: 

1. Aadhaar project: Scope and benefits

2. Software applications used

3. Information security risks involved

4. Criticism and challenges

5. Vendors who have been awarded contracts

1. Aadhaar project: Scope and benefits 

The need for Aadhaar project arose after the discovery of fake and duplicate records and non-existent beneficiaries in government’s welfare schemes for the underprivileged. This was mainly due to poor attempts at verification of demographic and biometric information.The Aadhaar project will address these issues. Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) overarching goal is to ensure that a significant number of underprivileged citizens are brought under the UID system.

Aadhaar project will furnish each Indian citizen with a unique, 16-digit identification (UID) number representing 12 identity parameters corresponding to the demographic information. This also includes an individual’s fingerprints and iris scan that form a biometric record mapping to the Aadhaar number. All data would then be collected and stored in a central database known as CIDR (Central ID Repository). CIDR will be used by security agencies forproactive threat monitoring and investigations as well as by service providers for providing prompt services especially to the underprivileged class.

<< Back to Index

2. Software applications used 

Aadhaar database a.k.a. CIDR (Central ID repository) is hosted on a central system powered by data centers. This data is used to serve Aadhaar project’s core objectives such as:

(1) Enrolment application is used for receiving new client enrolment requests and capturing new data. After verifying the uniqueness of the request, the Registrars enroll the data that is received in magnetic media from various logistic providers. This data is then uploaded to Aadhaar database post-validation. The Registrars include (but are not restricted to) ministries and departments of state and central governments, banks and other financial institutions, telephone companies, etc. Once this is done, the Aadhaar number is generated for the request.

(2) Authentication application will conduct online authentication of identity (demographic and biometric information) done by querying the Aadhaar database that responds to such queries in the form of Valid/Invalid type of response. Also, de-duplication of biometric data is done by assigning a scaled data fusion score to each duplicate record. This score is in the range of 0 to 100, with ‘0’ indicating the least level of similarity and ‘100’ as the highest level of similarity.

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(3) Fraud detection application detects identity fraud by catching fraud scenarios. Few examples: registration for non-existent applicants, misrepresentation of information, multiple registration attempts by same applicant, user impersonation, etc.

In addition, a number of support applications have been developed to ensure effective functioning of the Aadhaar project. Some of them are:

(4) Administrative application provides user management, role-based access control, automation and status reporting.

(5) Analytics and reporting application provides enrolment and authentication statistics for both public and partners.

(6) Information portal provides administrative access for internal users, partners, and general information/reports/ grievance requests details to public.

(7) Contact center interface application provides query and status update functionality.

(8) Logistics interface application interfaces with the logistics provider for letter printing and delivery management.

<< Back to Index

3. Information security risks involved 

(1) UIDAI plans to transfer operations related to Aadhaar project to an external service provider some time down the line. Given that Aadhaar database holds sensitive data of Indian citizens, it is critical that the chosen provider is trustworthy.

(2) Unauthorized access to Aadhaar project database could have disastrous effects.

(3) Ownership of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) implementation lies with the Registrars(refer to section ‘Software applications used for Aadhaar‘). As a result, there is a risk of use of broken encryption algorithms by registrars at the time of receiving updates from CIDR thereby compromising data confidentiality.

(4) Inadequate measures for securing local copy of enrolment data held by Registrars (refer to ‘Software applications used for Aadhaar‘) at their end.

<< Back to Index

4. Criticism and challenges 

The Aadhaar project has also received criticism.

(1) Possibility of burdening the existing system of photo-identification instead of creating a new Aadhaar project from scratch.

(2) Given the sensitivity of data being held, contracts should have been awarded only to Indian vendors but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

(3) Backup mechanism and recovery time objectives of Aadhaar project database in case of natural/technical failure may prove a challenge considering the scale of the project.

(4) UIDAI may also face operational challenges. For instance, updating of the current demographic information, change of residence or marital status, by existing Aadhaar holders, promptly and securely may be challenging.

<< Back to Index

5. Vendors who have been awarded contracts   **

Solution type	Vendor(s)
Application development, maintenance and support	Application Software Development, Maintenance and Support Agency for UIDAI - Mindtree. Intranet and knowledge management portal - HCL Infosystems Re-design, maintenance and support of UIDAI portal -Tata Consultancy Services.
Reprographics solution	HP India Sales
Biometric solution implementation	Solution implementation - Satyam Computer Services. (Mahindra Satyam), L1 Identity Solutions Operating Company, Accenture Services. Biometric authentication devices - Sagem Morpho Security., Totem International, Linkwell Telesystems., Sai Infosystems., Geodesic, HCL Infosystems,  I D Solutions. Biometric devices - Tata Consultancy Services,  HCL Infosystems, 4G Identity Solution., Base Systems.
Contact center	Intelenet Global Services
Data center	Space - Bharti Airtel. (Bangalore), Wipro (Delhi/NCR) Hardware/Blade servers/Storage - National Informatics Centre Services Disk Array Enclosures, SATA Disk Drives and Upgrade Pair 4G FC Ports - HCL Infosystems. Piped Data Connectivity - Aircel, Bharti Airtel, BSNL, RailTel Corporation of India, Reliance Communications, Tata Communications Supply, Installation, Commissioning for Hardware & Software -  Wipro Audit – STQC

** List may not be comprehensive

TCS, Infosys line up to invest in Indore | Techgig

 

TCS, Infosys line up to invest in Indore

Times of India |3 hrs ago

Indore has emerged as an attractive investment destination for IT companies which are looking to expand operations amid global economic slowdown. According to industry experts, availability of workforce, incentives by the Madhya Pradesh government and availability of facilities are attracting IT companies to invest in the city, known as financial capital of the state.

"These days, five big companies including the likes of Infosys and TCS are investing crores in the IT Special Economic Zones (SEZ)," Madhya Pradesh SEZ Development Commissioner A K Rathore said.

He added that six years after notification as an SEZ in 2006, work has commenced recently at the Crystal IT Park.

A senior official in the Union Commerce Ministry said Crystal IT Park is the first SEZ in the IT sector in which production was commenced for exports. Madhya Pradesh Audyogik Kendra Vikas Nigam (MPAKVN) was given the responsibility of developing the SEZ.

"Impetus has recently begun exporting from the Crystal IT Park. Apart from Imptus, companies like Cleartrail and Intellicus have been given approval for investment," the official said.

Rathore said companies are increasingly looking at investing in Indore as, "There are a large number of engineering colleges from where thousands of talented engineers graduate every year. Apart from that, the air and rail connectivity to the city has improved significantly."

Meanwhile, the state government is also rolling out the red carpet to IT companies and is working towards developing Indore as the new IT destination.

Officials said Infosys has been given 52.64 hectare (130 acre land), while TCS has been given 40.47 hectare (100 acre) on the Super Corridor by the state government.

They said the two IT giants were given the land to develop SEZs at Rs 20 lakh per acre and added that Ruchi Realty Holdings, Impetus and Agroweb Online are also working on similar SEZ projects.

Tech News - TCS, Infosys line up to invest in Indore | Techgig

Moving from Products to Services

 

Moving from Products to Services

20 June 2012 05:55 am , Varun Aggarwal

In a conversation with Varun Aggarwal, Vishal Awal, Executive Director, Services, Xerox South Asia talks about the changing approach of Xerox from a products company to a services firm.

How are you trying to drive a services approach at Xerox from the traditional products centric approach?

Xerox is a services led technology driven company. We bought ACS for $8 billion almost two years back. Among the reasons why we acquired ACS was that in India there is a huge opportunity to build a sustainable services business for Xerox Corp. ACS is a IT & BPO outsourcing company (US based – strong player in US, Latin America and Europe, around  8500 employees India’s working for back office jobs for whole lot of contracts that ACA  has in the U.S(all IT services). They are big in transportation, Financial Services, HR Systems, they are really well recognized players. This merger between Xerox and ACS has been a game changer and this was hailed by the investor community as well as a huge step in the right direction.

A whole lot of wheel has already turned. This has positioned Xerox corp. firmly as possibly the most potent entity on this globe who has the entire spectrum of business process and document management services. Unlike other players who are offering compartmentalized solutions in different domains of BPO and DMS, Xerox has the capability to take over the whole 9 yards of this business and keep adding sustained business value to an enterprises operations, For e.g. One can start by optimizing the office print infrastructure via MPS, then one can take it one notch above via taking the document supply chain management activities such as marketing, collaterals, brochures , customer on boarding process, loan application processes basically all kind of document related things, this whole can be centralized by Xerox as we provide - Single point of accountability, enterprises core business isn’t managing documents , but documents is essential to manage their core business. Hence they would like to have less issues in this rewinded domain and someone who is the master in this space, to manage their document domain rather than their management leveraging their bandwidth towards managing these transactions, hence it’s a very strong value proposition.

These are the whole services you’re talking about which are already existent in Xerox?

What I talked about so far were already existent in Xerox, now with the combined strengths of the organizational assets of Xerox corp. and erstwhile ACS which is again Xerox now, the capability has become multimode, so you do MPS, DMS, cross media communications services, BPO and IT outsourcing. In a way Xerox is in a unique position to be able to offer a one stop shop solution covering the whole gamut, eventually that is the wanted position. I am not saying that the merger has happened in such a way that we are ready to services the whole spectrum, but that’s where it is heading to.

So basically instead of offering MPS, now it’s servicing the complete IT outsourcing which you can handle?

I would say BPO and DMS outsourcing, that’s the wanted position and that’s where the company is gearing to. We have already taken some big steps in that direction. Xerox was primarily a technology provider a ‘box’ if I may use that word, an equipment provider, that model has changed about a few years back (about 3 years). Now both the box link services and standalone services both of these are being brought and given as an offering to the target market.

• Helps clients to improve business process and significantly enhance ROI
• Ensures cost savings on an average on outsourcing document management needs
• Help them manage customer experience much better
• Brand consistency
• All the services being done by a single point of accountability
• Uniformity in the documents and look and feel factor
• Standardization, Imaging and digitalization of documents

In India mostly MPS is about printing solutions and infrastructure management – Views towards market?

We did a lot of research on the sizing of the market. We got Boston Consulting group to do some work for us, market sizing exercise, on how till 2009 – 2015 the market structure is transforming. The finding was quiet eye popping.

In 2009 overall market size – Xerox addressable market size 3billion US dollars (250$ mn was DMS), $1.7 bn was equipment, 1bn$ was ACS (BPO & ITO + transportation Services))

In 2015 (the $250mn is cut to increase upto $3bn (includes MPS+DMS+CMS), 12 times growth in 6 years, equipment (1.7 – 2.7 bn dollars at 8-9% CAGR whereas the Services CAGR is almost 51%. ACS pie is going from 1bn to 6 bn with 35% CAGR.  Hence the market transformation is quiet significant.

Structure of market if transforming from CAPEX to OPEX driven. As part of our rebranding exercise earlier this year, now ACS is Xerox ACS division, it is fully integrated now. Estimated size for Xerox kind of Services business could be 12-15 billion out of which more than 75% of market could be in Services space. This itself could a good data point on why the company’s strategy is to transform at a global level from a Services led technology driven comany. More than half of our revenues are now coming from Services and our vision is to take this progressively higher. The market is right, the organizational assets are aligned and the timing is right. This journey will keep gathering acceleration as we go on.

Xerox has traditionally been an enterprise player, especially in the MPS market. What are doing in the SMB sector?

We want to deliver superior value services to all the segments of enterprises. When it comes to MPS we are consistently appearing as the leaders. ‘Quoted how Xerox has been recognized by leading research companies such as Gartner, IDC & Magic Quadrant’.

We provide solutions to clients which helps them from commercializing to customizing

-          Reach out to SMB’s & companies by Channel partners (XPS – Xerox print Services – enable Xerox to service non-Xerox partners – Lower end to top end enterprises all are in our radar)

-          Developing Channel partners base (XPPS – Xerox partner print services – standardized, cost efficient manner – recent initiative being rolled out by later half of the year – basically a MPS proposition)

-          Positioning of ACS operations & increasing revenue

Xerox GDO provides the benefit of security, cost saving, accessing web, back office, expense system, validation & extraction of consolidated data.

For Xerox, BFSI & Telecom are the key focus verticals presently. Xerox is planning to tap other potential verticals such as Healthcare, consumer goods, retail & manufacturing sectors; government sector is also a big space which cannot be ignored.

What are you plans for the next one year?

Xerox streamlines client’s Document-Intensive Business Processes investment by offering outsourced services and services delivery platform rather than capital intensive procurement; this helps customers to optimize on capital infusion and select pay per services mode as a viable alternative for ROI. We have some of the leading BFSI & Telecom clients in India.

Xerox has major plans for its document management group in the coming years. Our key strategies include right capability to gear towards Services led company; streamline business models; market reach via alliances, channels & go to market strategy and investment in Xerox infrastructure.

CTO’s & CFO’s are an integral part of decision making when it comes to MPS for larger enterprises – In smaller enterprises these decisions are generally taken by the Facility Management divisions. Xerox believes in driving its revenues via driving & accelerating its customers’ success.

What is your opinion on paperless office?

While we do believe that in the near future a lot of documentation would be digitalised, which is a big opportunity area for us. However, paperwork would definitely be an imperative part for enterprises and can never be completely eliminated, at least not in the near future.

Moving from Products to Services

Biztech2.com India - Great BlackBerry Apps For Business

 

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Biztech2.com India - Great BlackBerry Apps For Business, Productivity and Travel - Blogs - Blogs - Editorial Blogs

Useful for everyone !!!

A chat with Dr.Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya (Heart Specialist) Bangalore was arranged by WIPRO for its employees. The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.

Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart?
Ans:
1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week;
avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control BP - Blood pressure and Sugar

Qn: Is eating non-veg food (fish) good for the heart?
Ans: No

Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person
gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?
Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.

Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?
Ans: Yes

Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?
Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?
Ans: Walking is better than jogging, since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints

Qn: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?
Ans: Mother Theresa, who was my patient.

Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?
Ans: Extremely rare.

Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age (I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?
Ans: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?
Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?
Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut .

Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?
Ans: Fruits and vegetables are the best and oil is the worst .

Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?
Ans: All oils are bad.

Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?
Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?
Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position, place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit, since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.

Qn: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?
Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG.

Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.
Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?
Ans: Yes.

Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?
Ans : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may NOT have a software engineer as a child

Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart? What precautions would you recommend?
Ans : When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short/long term)?
Ans : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?
Ans : No.

Qn: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?
Ans : No.

Qn: How would you define junk food?
Ans : Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds , Samosas, and even Masala Dosas.

Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?
Ans: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?
Ans: No.

Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded e-mails on this)?
Ans: Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?
Ans: No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?
Ans : Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?
Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?
Ans : Diet, exercise, drugs on time , Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?
Ans : No.

Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?
Ans: There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.

Qn: Does dispirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?
Ans : No.

Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?
Ans: Nat ure protects women till the age of 45. (Present Global census show that the Percentage of heart disease in women has increased than in men )

Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?
Ans: Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkups if you are past the age of 30 ( once in six months recommended) ....

Please, don’t hoard knowledge.It takes sharing of knowledge to discover and understand the world in which we live. Please send it to all your friends and relatives....... They might --- benefit as well……!

...Monday is world cancer day...

A small request and it's just one line. Dear God, I pray for a cure for cancer. Amen All you are asked to do is keep this circulating, even if it's only to one more person. In memory of anyone you know who has been struck by cancer or is still living with it. A Candle Loses Nothing by Lighting Another Candle.. Please Keep This Candle Going...

Microsoft bags its biggest cloud order — from AICTE - Money - DNA

 

Microsoft on Friday said it has won its biggest global deal for cloud computing, which will provide free services to the All India Council for Technical Education, or AICTE.

Cloud computing is about software and services delivered through the internet.

The project will afford IT access to 11,000 AICTE affiliated institutions across India.

SS Mantha, chairman, AICTE, said since his organisation had a huge space crunch, there was need for a simple, cost-effective solution.

“We asked Microsoft to develop a cloud solution for this. Thus came about the Live@edu platform, whichwill include three main offerings - a project factory, a placement portal and an academic networking site. This will be offered free of cost, as it is part of Microsoft’s CSR initiatives, and will allow 7.5 million students and 4.5 lakh teachers to interact with each other, by drawing resources from the cloud. We have roped in L&T to develop these apps for the cloud.”

While the Project Factory allows students to upload their projects online, enabling viewership by a much larger audience of academicians, students as well as the industry who are part of the AICTE cloud platform, the Placement Portal allows students to send their CVs directly to the HR of a company of his choice, without having to log into paid job sites.

Additionally, companies will also be able to post their exact requirements on the Live@edu platform, allowing for more streamlined placements. The Academic Networking site will be similar to other social networking sites like Facebook, allowing students and teachers to exchange ideas and information. These three cloud apps are expected to be launched by June 1, before the start of the new academic year.

“Microsoft has always seen education as a priority area and believes that technology offers possibilities that can help empower not just teachers and students but collectively India as a nation,” said Sanket Akerkar, managing director, Microsoft Corporation.

For users, cloud computing is inexpensive and simple, because it removes the need to spend time and money on installing software and managing servers.

Large government departments are prime targets for vendors such as Microsoft and Google.

Last June, Microsoft unveiled a revamped online version of its hugely profitable Office software suite.

Microsoft bags its biggest cloud order — from AICTE - Money - DNA

Shuttling between boardroom & classroom - Express Computer

 

Shuttling between boardroom & classroom

With many years of experience in developing software for various verticals and IT training, Kamal Matta, Head IT, Sonic Group, now wants to share his experiences with potential future CIOs. By Heena Jhingan

Kamal Matta, a graduate in Science, was well settled as a software developer and a trainer at Omni Computers before he joined Sonic Electrochem, known for Jet, its brand of mosquito repellent mats. Later, the brand was sold to Godrej and the company decided to diversify into fiscal services and the Soya business. It has been almost 12 years since the time that Sonic Electrochem restructured itself as Sonic Biochem, a manufacturer and exporter of Soya products.

Back in the day, all data from branch offices used to be sent to the headquarters for punching, which was a hassle as the MIS report generation used to be delayed by nearly 15 days due to manual processes. Some efforts to change the way the data was being collected and processed were made before the company ventured into new businesses. Matta, along with the IT team, developed systems in COBOL on a Unix platform. Using this system over a TCP/IP network was a new concept for the users in those days.

As the group diversified in to new business, it needed to restructure its IT infrastructure to meet the requirements of the new areas and the subsidiaries of the group. Matta was given the charge of IT operations of the Soya business, which at that time clocked a turnover Rs 100 crores. Since then, the company has grown four fold now with about 300 employees across five major locations.

Switching technologies

Matta recalled 2000 as a maddening year as, thanks to the millennium bug, the company had decided to convert the COBOL based systems to a client-server architecture of Visual Basic and Oracle. Soon after taking charge of Sonic Biochem in 2001, he realized that his platter was loaded with many things that needed to be acted upon immediately.

His foremost focus was on designing a centralized IT infrastructure that would save the users time and efforts in getting hold of accurate data. “We needed a low cost technology deployment and tried not to spend much on licensing. Besides, we needed an alternate, yet dependable technology solution,” he said.

In 2007, Matta was promoted as the IT head for the group, leading a team of 12 persons involved in various areas of operations and infrastructure development. Under his current role, Matta is also responsible for looking after the telecom infrastructure of the organization and he noticed that due to the traditional PBX systems, the company was burdened with heavy bills, which could be halved if they used an IP telephony system instead. “We revamped the entire telecom infrastructure by deploying IP-PBX and hooking all the locations under one Cloud, utilizing all WAN and LAN links. We began using IP phones and voice gateways using IPLC and IPTC cards for interconnecting PBXes for voice over IP,” he explained.

Over the last five years, as the IT head of the Group, Matta has undertaken various IT projects. Of these, the SAP deployment was his biggest achievement as the project was completed in a record 90 days. “We went live in December 2010 and for the first four months the solution was running parallel with the legacy ERP system. By April 2011 the enterprise-wide solution was up.”

Matta is proud to have been part of some of the most exciting projects for the group. “We have been innovative when it comes to using technology. There was a point when we realized that there was a need to cut costs on the server side and the simplest way to do it was to virtualize resources. We began server virtualization using VMware / Hyper-V and the physical servers were reduced from 20 to 10,” Matta said, adding that the company was now planning to introduce desktop virtualization

Last year, the company got its own in house data center for 24x7 operations and at the same time the IT team put in extra efforts to migrated the production data center to IBM’s data center facility in Bangalore. “It was important to use an outsourcing model for the production data center. We needed a set up with higher stability and to avoid manpower dependency while achieving a controlled management cost,” he explained.

Resolution 2012

This year is likely to be equally engaging for Matta as he has some big projects lined up. He reasoned that IT can add value to the business if enterprises can learn to effectively process the data resources that they create. “We are contemplating a project around deploying Business Intelligence tools, so that we too can derive maximum value from the information being captured across the value chain.” he said.

Another important task on his To Do list is to develop a data recovery site. He also plans to complete XBRL implementation by year end.

All said and done, Matta still finds his heart in the training room, where he said he had got an immense scope to learn from the young minds in the early years of their careers. “The inquisitiveness of the young minds that I have trained has motivated me to delve deeper into technological concepts and this proved to be healthy for my software development projects. I now want to try delivering my experience to the students in IT institutes in Indore, a city, which is catching up in the area of IT education. I am already in touch with a couple of institutes and might get an opportunity to interact and share my knowledge with the students,” he concluded.

heena.jhingan@expressindia.com

Shuttling between boardroom & classroom - Express Computer

The ever busy CIO - Information Technology Management with a Purpose

 

The ever busy CIO

Posted by: S R Balasubramanian
workaholism, wage slavery, CIO role, work-life balance, job delegation, succession planning

The CIO is an important functionary. He is one of the most sought-after executives and is most remembered when things go wrong. At other times he is given importance and is befriended by many when they want their PC or printer to be replaced, or when they want a new system to be developed or existing system modified.
He has a team of a few professionals to support him in delivering various services to business. He is sometimes told to downsize staff and go in for outsourcing. During difficult times he is asked to work on a slashed budget outlay, yet he is expected to maintain the level of services that he gives to the organization.

Let us also look at the positives:

• Outsourcing has helped him in shifting a lot of routine tasks and the resultant headaches to a third party that is bound by strict clauses on service level agreements (SLAs).
• He has a lot of automated software tools that are available for server monitoring, network monitoring, diagnosis, etc. which let him identify faults and to rectify them.
• Reliable hardware and software ensure fewer failures.
• Increased availability of hosting and cloud services makes his task easier further.

Sorry, I’m busy!
I have found some of the CIOs quite stuck up with their office work and go home late every day. Vendors find them hard-pressed for time and take several days to get a meeting fixed. People look for them at various seminars and other professional events but are told that they couldn’t make it because of work pressure. Some poor souls call up to cancel their participation at the last minute regretfully citing important meetings, such as those with their Directors or the CEO, as the key reason. There are, of course, others who state very clearly that they are not available during the month-ends and month-beginnings because of the accounts-closing and for generating MIS reports.
I feel sorry for them. Sometimes I reckon there cannot be more unfortunate victims than them and that the industry should do something to improve their lot.

Professionals of wage slaves?
I have often wondered what makes them the most victimized set of professionals. I remember those days when the IT head used to supervise data entry and processing and was answerable for generating various reports to the management. He couldn’t then leave office till the processing was completed and reports were handed over. Today, however, users do their own tasks and reports are available online. Users are made owners of the systems and are custodians of the data quality. Routine IT tasks are outsourced and the CIO plays only a supervisory role.
But he is still busy and an overworked executive! He slogs and still feels he doesn’t get his due.  His evenings are not his own and sometimes misses important social functions.

A possible way out
It is very difficult for any expert to prescribe a solution. Every situation is difficult; some are genuinely difficult, especially if in an organization maintains a high pressure work environment.
One solution could be to delegate and initiate some succession planning so that the incumbent starts taking additional responsibilities and frees up the CIO’s time. Another way could be to stop accepting random / ad hoc requests. He could work on a long term plan in conjunction with the business heads and work as per an agreed plan only. It may not be a good idea to try to impress management with our late sittings – it doesn’t work in many situations.
I had once angered my CEO by closing work in my department at the evening closing office hours but later he realized that no work was affected and admitted so to me. Our difficult position, in some cases, is perhaps of our own making.

The ever busy CIO - Information Technology Management with a Purpose

How to Start a Consulting Business | Entrepreneur.com

 

How to Start a Consulting Business | Entrepreneur.com

Comparison between COBIT, ITIL and ISO 27001 SecurityProcedure.com

Comparison between COBIT, ITIL and ISO 27001 SecurityProcedure.com.

IT Next January 2012 (Nex100 Future CIO Special)

 

IT Next January 2012#share

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World's smallest diesel engine

Tata Motors Ltd, India's largest vehicle manufac- turer, will introduce a diesel version of its small car Nano to boost sales. The model will have the world's smallest diesel engine, according to two people familiar with the devel- opment.

The company though has not set a deadline for the project.
“It's far-off. There is no launch time frame for the Nano diesel as of yet,“ a company spokes- person said. “Eventually a diesel version of the Nano will come.“

The engine will be completely developed in India, said a top official at a leading engine mak- ing firm, which is working on the project.

“The company is developing an 800cc twin cylinder turbo- charged diesel engine,“ this offi- cial said. “The company also plans to use the engine for its light commercial vehicles (LCVs).“

To begin with, the same en- gine may be used in Ace--the LCV from Tata's stable.

“This is for the first time that we are developing a turbo- charged diesel engine in India from scratch,“ said the official cited above. “Earlier we used to bring the engine from our over- seas operation and modify them here.“

The Tata Motors spokes- person said that he does not have the details about the en- gine and whether it will also be used in the company's LCVs.

An analyst said that it is an at- tempt by the company to boost the patchy sales of the Nano, delivery of which started in July 2009.

“It will be a big boost for the Nano,“ said Nikhil Deshpande, research analyst at Pinc Re- search, a Mumbai-based bro- kerage firm. “But the company needs to ensure that it should be a very fuel efficient engine.“

A diesel version of the car was expected from the company right from the outset, according to Deshpande. “But its success will depend a lot on the quality of the engine and how it is tuned,“ said Deshpande. “Nor- mally, the diesel engines are bulky while the Nano is a lighter car. So, it is likely to have more vibration than a petrol version of the car and the company needs to address all these con- cerns.“

Since its high-decibel launch in March 2009, the Nano has of- ten been in the news for the wrong reasons.

There have been six known in- stances of the car catching fire.
In October 2010, Tata Motors of- fered to install additional fire re- sistant safety systems in the 70,000-odd Nanos already sold.

In December last year, Tata Motors announced that it will recall all Nanos on the streets (except for the 2012 models) to replace the starter motors.

Monthly sales of the car dropped drastically in 2010-- from 9,000 in July to 8,103 in August and 509 units in Novem- ber 2010. Sales were later re- vived with the help of some strong marketing initiative by the company. Now, it sells a Nano at a down payment of `15,000, with easy instalments.

The company sold 6,401 Na- nos in November 2011. In the April to November period the same year the company sold 39,646 units of the Nano com- pared with 40,796 a year ago.

The company is also consid- ering entering the Indonesian market by striking a contract manufacturing deal with a local company to sell the Nano and other products. Mint reported this on 16 December.

Mint ePaper - Article