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SUNDAY FEBRUARY 05 2012
 

 

 

 


Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, India, FEBRUARY 04 :
ANTEC , Inc., the  computer components and accessories brand has won “BCN Award 2012” among PC cases in the Japan domestic market.

BCN Award  honours top sellers, according to the annual actual sales.
In the highly competitive Japanese market, Antec PC cases are  supported and widely accepted by end -users. We never stop demanding ourselves toward a goal of an ever-higher level of satisfaction for customers and end users.

The company is  expanding into new business fields and new markets, like  Antec Advance accessories, to bring better performance and to create a better experience with products.

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

 NEW DELHI,  DECEMBER 14 :
SONY forayed into the   Android™ tablet category in India  on Wednesday with the launch of Sony Tablet S & P.

The tablet is designed to  deliver the combination of hardware, content and network with seamless usability for a high-quality, engaging entertainment experience.

Sony’s rapid response technologies  load website information for faster browsing, with the swift and smooth technology.

 In India, Sony has collaborated with local content developers to design unique applications for the Indian consumers. Priced at Rs. 33,990 and Rs. 36,990 for the 3G + Wi-Fi version, Sony Tablet S & Tablet P will be available in 500 stores in India starting mid-January 2012.

Mr Masaru Tamagawa, Managing Director, Sony India, said, “Sony Tablet exemplifies our strategy of combining hardware, software and network services. It offers customers a device which meets their  demand for seamless, on-the-go access to the internet, digital entertainment content and social networking services.”

He added, saying, “IT Market in India is growing at a very fast pace and we expect the tablet to gain rapid momentum in the near future. At the moment, we want to build a strong business foundation for Tablet.”

The company is planning to invest Rs 10 crore in the next quarter for Tablet promotion, he added.
 
'Sony Tablet' devices are optimally designed, and is differentiated from all other tablet devices with its  asymmetric design that shifts the center of balance to one side.

The Tablet S has a wedge-shape, similar to a magazine that’s been folded over, that gives it a finely balanced feel, as well as a sense of lightness that makes it a true pleasure to hold and use for hours on end.

On the other hand, the dual screen design of Sony Tablet P provides optimized entertainment experience and portability. One can watch video on one screen while using the other to control it, or check e-mail while using the other screen as a keyboard.

Mr Hideyuki Furumi, Deputy President, VAIO & Mobile Business Group, Sony Corp, said, “Sony is committed to deliver a great user and entertainment experience that will inspire and spark everyone’s curiosity. The ultimate on-the-go entertainment hub, Sony Tablet is fitted with numerous thoughtful features and applications. Powered with the latest Android™ operating system, it is built to appeal to a cross section of users from avid gamers, busy professionals, thrill-seeking youngsters or multi-tasking homemakers.”

Sony Tablets respond instantly and accurately to every touch, drag, zoom, or twist of the fingers. Optimising usability and performance, they offer both Quick view and Quick touch capabilities. With Quick view and Quick touch, faster loading of website information is realised, web sites scroll quickly and smoothly, HD Flash video playback is more fluid, and even the latest games featuring advanced high resolution graphics are handled with aplomb.

Sony Tablets wirelessly connects to DLNA compatible devices, including BRAVIA televisions, so users can “throw” their personal photos and videos up on the big television screen with the touch of a button. A built-in infrared sensor also allows Sony Tablet S to function as a remote control for any number of devices, including TVs, stereos, and more.

Sony Tablets will be available across 500 stores in India including Sony Center, VAIO flagship stores, Organised IT channel, national retailer and Mobile stores.

 

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

BANGALORE , India, DECEMBER 12 :
NComputing, the global leader in end-to-end desktop virtualization solutions, has made a breakthrough in the performance and economics of VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructures) with the release of vSpace Server 6.5 desktop virtualization software.

vSpace Server 6.5 delivers a host of industry features including the ability to support up to 100 users on a single operating system, reduce the number of physical host servers by 75 percent, and radically improve configuration and management of VDI environments.

VDI deployment is now possible at a fraction of the initial and on-going cost of a traditional PC desktop computing environment.

The user density breakthrough in vSpace Server 6.5 delivers a 3-fold increase in the number of virtual desktop sessions that can be hosted on a single OS compared to previous versions. It also allows IT and network managers to significantly reduce the number of hardware hosts, OSs and VMs needed in virtual desktop architecture thus delivering the most affordable based VDI solution per seat on the market.

According to Mr Will Poole, co-chairman, NComputing, Inc., "VDI deployments have been held back due to cost and management complexity. We have addressed these issues with vSpace 6.5. Our customers asked us for simple, powerful, scalable, and green solutions, and we've delivered with the best economics in the industry."

This new software combined with NComputing client devices powered by NComputing's Numo™ system-on-chip technology enables a user experience at the lowest cost per seat.

Will Poole adds, "We expect the vSpace server 6.5 to build on our substantial success in the Indian market and deliver what customers in India require to fuel their growth and profitability – lower-cost and greener solutions that exceed user's expectations and at the same time make IT management easier. CIOs and IT managers can now get unparalleled computing and economic advantages that will help optimize the performance of their entire IT infrastructure".

"Deployment of NComputing solutions can save customers 50 percent on system costs and up to 75 percent on ongoing management and maintenance, and reduce energy consumption by up to 90 percent", he further adds.

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 06 :
IT managers are beginning to view the data center more holistically and are taking a more strategic approach to technology procurement and deployment, and technology and service providers that sell into the data center will want to broaden their marketing approach, according to Gartner, Inc.

"If you are selling into the data center, you are no longer just competing head-to-head with familiar competitors selling like products," said April Adams, research director at Gartner,” he added.

"Today, you have increased competition not only in your specific area of technological expertise, but for overall enterprise mind share, as well. Providers will need to expand their view of the competitive landscape and consider alternative ways to go to market in order to highlight their strengths and maximize their sales potential."

Gartner has identified six ways that technology and service providers can go to market in the data center.

Option 1: Compete as a Specialist

If a provider is competing as a specialist, it specializes in one technology area, and it doesn't try to be all things to all people. It doesn't go to market with converged systems or as a one-stop shot. Specialists want to be perceived as best-in-class in their technology area and covet a reputation as the provider with the most innovative or advanced technology. The primary advantage of this go-to-market option for strategic marketing, product marketing, product management, marketing communications and brand managers is that the approach is familiar. The primary downside is the changing market environment that introduces new competition. True specialists may well be better off trying to lead within their technology area than expanding into adjacent markets.

Option 2: Go to Market as a Traditional Portfolio Provider

Portfolio providers are large providers that sell all or some of the various components that make up the data center infrastructure. In the traditional portfolio provider model, these technologies are developed in-house. The primary advantage of this go-to-market strategy lies in the provider's size. Most traditional portfolio providers are large enterprises, which means that they have the resources on hand to focus effectively on more than one technology area and produce successful, if not always groundbreaking, products in the areas deemed important to the customer's marketing strategy. Traditional portfolio providers should carefully monitor the market, and if there is any chance that they might move toward a converged offering, they should begin to explore how an integrated product might be deployed.

Option 3: Partner to Achieve a Portfolio Offering


Partnering is an alternative way to get all the necessary data center infrastructure components into the provider's portfolio if it doesn't have offerings in every category in-house. This approach also enables providers to focus their resources on the things they do best and rely on partners for the rest. However, partnerships can be fickle, and sometimes they falter. Those taking the portfolio-by-partnership route should not underestimate the resources required to effectively manage and nurture these partnership relationships.

Option 4: Develop a Converged Offering

Some portfolio providers have taken a step beyond certification, integration and test, and developed converged systems or integrated offerings for the data center. If the trend of approaching change in the data center with a definitive strategic plan that includes an integrated project road map continues into 2012, then going to market in this way could position providers as market leaders rather than market followers. Undertaking this strategy is a bold move. This approach represents a commitment to a new kind of data center and a new relationship between providers and customers. It requires significant investment and has the potential to take a long time to achieve a good return on investment (ROI).

Option 5: Hedge Your Bets by Using Multiple Approaches

Portfolio providers with a data center transformation (DCT) offering have the opportunity to sell both in the traditional, silo-based way and as a converged system or integrated stack. This strategy has all the benefits of both strategies and, with the exception of not being part of the holistic data center conversation, all of the disadvantages as well. Going to market both ways allows providers to cover all the bases no matter what buyers opt to do, both individually in the short term and collectively for the longer range.

Option 6: Sell Your Data Center Technologies as a Service

The final go-to-market strategy alternative for the data center is to deliver the technology as a service — cloud or otherwise. There are several ways to achieve this:
The customer owns the infrastructure, but the provider operates it (on-premises/off-premises).
The provider owns the infrastructure, but the customer operates it (on-premises/off-premises).
The provider owns and operates the infrastructure (on-premises/off-premises).
Depending on the requirements of the customer, the service can be shared between entities or restricted.

Advantages to pursuing this go-to-market option, at least for technology (as opposed to service) providers, include the fact that there are several ways to go about it, some requiring less infrastructure investment than others. This alternative also allows providers to stick to their area of expertise while still tapping into the key wants and needs of data center customers. One critical decision faced by those who select this option is whether to transition existing customers to these models (and if so, how) or to pursue a dual strategy in which they sell both in the traditional way and as a service simultaneously.

"These options are not intended to be sequential. Providers can and do dip their toes in the waters of a new option, while maintaining most of their business in their mainstay position," Ms. Adams said. "Considering these trends as part of your forward-thinking, go-to-market planning and making thoughtful decisions based on your company's unique set of strengths and weaknesses will position you well in the changing market and could give you a marked competitive advantage relative to providers that do not."

 

Thesynergyonline Corporate Bureau

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 24 :
ASUS Technology, a global brand ON Thursday unveiled Zenbook. The ultrabook from ASUS, which is available in 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch varieties focuses, as the company claims, on user experience and aesthetics more than any previous ASUS notebook,.


To develop this state of the art product, the company’s development team focused on four key incredible principles that guided the development team in the designing phase of Zenbook.
 
The silver exterior panel features a concentric circle design that refracts a halo of light that excites the senses. With a thickness of 0.11” at the front and 0.67” at the rear, the Zenbook UX31 exterior lines are sleek, making it the thinnest Ultrabook in the market and perfect for users constantly on the go or in the classroom, says the company.

 
“Today’s introduction of ASUS Zenbook is a proof of fundamental transformation that ultrabooks are ushering in the space of personal computing. It is packed with the security, responsiveness, and other exciting features, that deliver on the promise of the Ultrabook, to offer the most complete and satisfying computing experience,” said Alex Huang, Country Head, Systems Business Group, ASUS Technology

The ZENBOOK UX31 will be available in India at a price point of MRP Rs 89999.

 

 

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 22 :
BEING a social organization goes far beyond experimenting with social media technology tools such as Facebook and Twitter, according to Gartner, Inc. A social organization addresses significant business challenges and opportunities using social media platforms to enable mass collaboration — what Gartner predicts will be the next evolutionary pillar defining how work gets done around the world.

Analysts at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here from November 23, will explain how mass collaboration extends beyond social media to enable employees, customers, suppliers and all other stakeholders to participate directly in the creation of value. However, few executives and managers know how to turn opportunities for greater collaboration into meaningful business results.

In the recently published book, "The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers and Employees" (by Harvard Business Press, October 2011, $35), co-authors Anthony J. Bradley, group vice president at Gartner, and Mark P. McDonald, group vice president and head of research at Gartner Executive Programs, reveal how executives from CEOs to managers can make mass collaboration a source of enduring competitive advantage in their enterprise.

"Deployed effectively, social media unleashes the collaborative power of employees at all levels and locations in your organization, customers and prospects, and partners anywhere in your company's value chain — while minimizing the constraints imposed by the specialization and compartmentalization that inevitably creep into businesses as they grow," Mr  McDonald said.

"Organizations can achieve unprecedented business results by using social media to effectively tap into the power of mass collaboration," said Mr McDonald. "New mass collaboration capabilities are irreversibly redefining what it means to be a highly productive organization."

In the book, Mr Bradley and Mr McDonald share insights from their study of more than 400 organizations around the world — including Xilinx, NASA and CEMEX — that have used social technologies toward these ends.

Mr Bradley and Mr McDonald identify a set of core disciplines that managers need to master to translate mass collaboration into results:

•      Vision: defining a compelling vision of progress toward a highly collaborative organization
•      Strategy: taking community collaboration from risky and random success to measurable business value
•      Purpose: rallying people around a clear purpose, not just providing them with technology
•      Launch: creating a collaborative environment and convincing customers and employees to embrace it
•      Guide: participating in and influencing communities as they pursue their purpose, without stifling collaboration
•      Adapt: responding creatively to change by modifying the organizational context, in order to better support community collaboration

"The Social Organization" highlights the benefits and challenges of using social technology to tap the power of collective effort. Packed with practical advice and compelling examples, this new book reveals how leaders can make collaboration a management imperative to help guide and nurture employee communities and in turn, create social organizations.

Mr McDonald will present a session at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo titled, "The Social Organization: How to Build a Corporate Competency in Social Media ". During the session, Mr McDonald will discuss the specific capabilities that organizations must develop to compete in an increasingly interconnected social world.

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 17 :
DELOITTE in India released its technology trends report titled ‘The Natural Convergence of business and IT’ identified areas in which CIOs may have invested time, resource and thought in the past, but are encouraged to take a fresh look at potential value from recent advances and opportunities for CIOs to effect a positive disruption in costs, capabilities and even the core operational model of IT and their businesses. 

This report examines the ever-evolving landscape of technology put to business use. Its trends list plays significantly to the convergence of social and mobile computing – a convergence that is fundamentally changing how information is accessed and used in business operations and decision-making.

“There’s an app for that” captures the essence of this change, engaging users wherever and whenever they choose, and taking full advantage of the next generation of Cloud Computing.

These finished business capabilities within the cloud, for both structured and unstructured information analytics, are changing the role of the CIO and the shape and size of apps.

Along with this there is a constant increase in importance of information security and privacy practices that can stand up to today’s hyper-evolving cyber threat landscape.

On the occasion of the launch of technology trends, Rajarshi Sengupta, Senior Director, Deloitte in India, opined, “All of these trends are relevant today especially when it comes to India, which has become an early adopter of technology. Each trend has demonstrated significant momentum and has a potential to have an impact – and each trend is important enough to support immediate consideration.”

“Forward-thinking organizations should consider developing an explicit strategy in each area, even if that strategy is to wait and see”, he added.

Echoing his view, Mark White- Chief Technology Officer, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP said, “Today the CIO is challenged with providing a more useful and usable set of solutions for end users. Information must be put in the right context for a given individual at their point of need – with the ability to enable decisive action. It is easy to get lost in any of the building blocks of user engagement – social media, collaboration, knowledge management, rich Internet applications, mobile solutions, and enterprise applications.

Each trend represents exciting new technical platforms and functionality – and could easily consume a CIO’s attention”. 

Thesynergyonline Communications Bureau

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 11 :
CONSUMERISATION is now the primary driver of the mobile universe, and CIOs must be ready to embrace a range of more-flexible approaches to their mobile strategy, according to Gartner, Inc. At least four new mobile management styles will emerge as leaders because different groups of staff will demand different approaches.

"The landscape of devices and user needs is changing, "said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "CIOs are facing mass-mobility, and it is expected to grow rapidly."

Gartner predicts sales of smartphones to end users will reach 461.5 million in 2011 and rise to 645 million in 2012. In 2011, sales of smartphones will overtake shipments of PCs (364 million). Combined sales of smartphones and tablets will be 44 percent bigger than the PC market in 2011. More of these devices will find their way into enterprises as employees entering the organization will expect to be allowed to use them.

Consumerization, app stores and mobile ecosystems are causing a proliferation of new applications and services in the enterprise. Employees increasingly seek to take full advantage of better browsers and innovative applications from app stores. Gartner estimates that 18 billion apps will be downloaded in 2011, up 114.5 percent from 2010 and will rise to 31 billion in 2012.

This array of mobile devices and applications leads to changes in society. Employees are behaving more like consumers, demanding a wider choice of devices, exploiting consumer devices and applications from app stores, and adopting new strategies such as 'bring your own' (BYO) IT, where employees use personally-owned tablets and smartphones for work. As a result, the distinctions between a person's role as an employee and as a consumer are more blurred than ever.

"CIOs need to explore new ways to provide, fund, and manage mobile devices to allow employees more choice and support BYO programs," said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

IP-GLITTER.COM

Thesynergyonline INfotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 08 :
WORLDWIDE online music revenue from end-user spending is on pace to total $6.3 billion in 2011, up from $5.9 billion in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc.
The online music revenue is forecast to reach $6.8 billion in 2012, and grow to $7.7 billion in 2015.

By comparison, consumer spending on physical music (CDs and LPs) is expected to slide from approximately $15 billion in 2010 to about $10 billion in 2015.

"As consumers opt for connected devices — media tablets, smartphones and connected media players — across world regions, their desire for access to and consumption of music and content is growing as well," said Mike McGuire, research vice president at Gartner. "Music labels, artists, publishers and new distribution intermediaries are developing new business models to address consumers' changing behaviour.

"The music industry was the first media sector to feel the full impact of two major forces — the Internet and technology-empowered consumers. It has staggered through the first decade of the 21st century, and entered the second bedraggled financially and facing a powerful set of intermediaries, which are creating borderless global ecosystems that defy the industry's previous notions of control and monetization. The primary stakeholders in the music industry are facing wrenching changes and a somewhat uncertain future. However, the next four to five years portend solid growth."

In the past 10 years, CD sales, the largest revenue stream for the industry, have eroded, while the online music revenue share is rapidly increasing. Digital downloads and streaming music services — referred to as subscription services — are the clear drivers in the online music industry for the coming years. Gartner estimates that subscription services will account for nearly one-third (29 percent) of end-user online music spending in 2015.

As the shift from physical to digital music content quickens across the world, different regions are at different stages. Online music in North America is maturing, so the double-digit growth rates will be harder to maintain, and analysts expect to see solid, but flat, growth over the next five years. Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and Japan will see similar growth, while the highest growth rates will be in regions such as Latin America and the Middle East and Africa, which have not historically been strong markets for paying for tracks or albums from online services or stores.

As online distribution revenue starts to overtake physical revenue, which will happen beyond Gartner's forecast to 2015, Gartner analysts said stakeholders in the music industry will continue to realign their businesses to maintain their places in the value chain. Consumers are likely to continue to take advantage of the applications, devices and services that provide them with multiple ways of discovering, consuming and communicating about music. As more music-related transactions, such as concert ticket sales and merchandise, have moved online, online music services, downloads or subscription services will have to find ways to make those related transactions available to their customers.

Mr. McGuire said the key issue that will affect the fortunes of many stakeholders in the music industry is how each sector addresses consumer data (specifically their behavior patterns), and how consumers find and share data about music and information. This issue will likely remain a point of contention among labels and artists and the online music services. Stakeholders will need to agree to broadly beneficial standards, such as extensions of OpenID, to minimize the number of times a consumer has to proffer an ID/password for multiple social media tools.

"For music labels, artists and publishers, challenges abound," Mr. McGuire said. "However, there remain real opportunities to reinvent the business based on consumers who are adopting connected devices and who are showing they will pay for content in multiple ways. These sorts of changes offer the potential for many new types of service and business models aimed at allowing music fans to manage and access their music libraries while also integrating social media and content payment options.

"In particular, communications service providers (CSPs) should focus business development investigations into the potential for providing managed services options — such as cloud storage — as part of their consumer-facing services. However, CSPs must balance these potential opportunities with a careful examination of how any deployment addresses consumer concerns over privacy and 'net neutrality' issues," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner.

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau  

 
NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 19 :
HCL Infosystems  India’s  ICT system integration, services, hardware and distribution major on Wednesday launched its  first flagship store at Nehru Place in the heart of Delhi.

The store would showcase the entire range of HCL’s products - HCL Desktops, ME Laptops, ME Gaming Consoles, All-in-Ones and other IT accessories and peripherals.

<a href="http://slideful.com/v20111019_2324948157115742_pf.htm">View the slide show</a>  

With this launch the exclusive HCL store number would elevate to 32 across India including 8 stores in Delhi NCR.

The flagship store is spread over an area of 1000 square feet and would also include new products like the X1 Tablet and special edition Ra.One laptops.  

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Harsh Chitale, CEO, HCL Infosystems said, “It will be our constant endeavour to create more such customer experiences and touch points in the future. Also I would like to wish all our customers a very happy festive season!”

Mr Princy Bhatnagar, vice oresident, Head-Consumer Computing, HCL Infosystems, “With over three decades of understanding of the Indian consumers’ mindset and requirements, we have come up with these large format stores which will enhance the digital life experience of our consumers.”

Mrs Pushpa Kamath, president, PNB Prerna giving away cheque to NGO Adharshila for distribution of training kits to girls of underprivileged families.

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 14 :
WORLDWIDE data center hardware spending is projected to reach $98.9 billion in 2011, up 12.7 percent from 2010 spending of $87.8 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. Data center hardware spending is forecast to total $106.4 billion in 2012, and surpass $126.2 billion in 2015.

Data center hardware spending includes servers, storage and enterprise data center networking equipment.

"Worldwide data center hardware spending  will finally reach and surpass 2008 levels," said Jon Hardcastle, research director at Gartner. "Growth in emerging regions — particularly Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries) — is balanced by continued weakness relative to pre-downturn levels in Japan and Western Europe. Storage is the main driver for growth. Although only a quarter of data center hardware spending is on storage, almost half of the growth in spending will be from the storage market."

The very largest size category of data centers (which is data centers with more than 500 racks of equipment) will increase its share of spending from 20 percent in 2010 to 26 percent in 2015, driven by the cloud and the shift from internal data center provision to external.

In 2010, 2 percent of data centers contained 52 percent of total data center floorspace and accounted for 63 percent of data center hardware spending. In 2015, 2 percent of data centers will contain 60 percent of data center floor space and account for 71 percent of data center hardware spending.

"Traditional in-house enterprise data centers are under attack from three sides.
First, virtualization technologies are helping companies to utilize their infrastructure more effectively, inhibiting overall system growth.

Secondly, data centers are getting more efficient, leading to higher system deployment densities and inhibiting demand for floor space.

Thirdly, the move to consolidated third-party data centers is reducing the overall number of midsize data centers. Meanwhile, the largest data center class is, of course, benefitting from the rise of cloud computing," Mr  Hardcastle said.


Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 13:
HCL
Infosystems , India’s premier hardware, services and ICT systems integration and distribution major , unveiled its new ME Tablet, the X1 at a media conference held in New Delhi on Thursday.

The company has introduced the X1 ME Tablet tailored to suit the needs of the Indian consumers.

The ME Tablet also sports a trendy user interface that enables consumers to navigate the
Android device smoothly and comes power packed with pre-loaded handpicked  applications.

The X1 is competitively priced at Rs 10,490 and also enables an exclusive  access to the ME App store which has over 10000 applications capturing the latest and the best android apps in the world for the X1 users.

Powered by the Android OS 2.3, the light and portable ME Tablet is packed with special
local applications, enabling a converged solution for mobile computing and entertainment needs with 34+ ready to use applications.

The X1 offers an 800X480 pixel capacitive screen, Cortex A 8, 1Ghz processor with high performance and low power CPU.

The tablet comes with a 2 MP Camera and 512 MB storage capacity with an internal memory of 4GB expandable to 32GB.

The Internet experience on the tablet is something to look forward to with the 7” screen along with Full High Definition 1080 pixel video support.

It has 3500 mAH battery and with an option of data connectivity through USB Dongles.

Also there will be Flash Support through Adobe 10.3.

Mr Harsh Chitale, CEO, HCL Infosystems, said, “New tablet ‘The X1’, is designed especially to meet demands of the Indian customers. "

“Today’s consumer doesn’t just look for a product but a complete productivity and service ecosystem around it, which led us to innovations like creating powerful content and local applications which will be backed by our nationwide support service network and 24*7 one touch customer service,” he added.

“As a brand we are aligning ourselves with the consumer’s unmet desire to live the life he wishes for. We want our products to be one of the prime enablers to the life that our consumer aspires for and we are confident that with our expertise in the industry a device like The X1 will unleash innovative models of usage both in the B2B & B2C segments backed by customized applications,” Mr Chitale added.

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 12 :
MICROSOFT
Corporation India on Wednesday launched its latest version of windows phone operating system(OS) the Windows Phone 7.5 in India.

The new operating system sports a smooth transitional user interface called 'Metro', a visually appealing modern design language based on a set of principles which are modern, clean, alive in motion, and authentically digital.

Announcing the launch of Windows Phone in India, Mr Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India said, " With Windows Phone, we have looked at the consumer experience in an absolutely fresh way, and the end result is an operating system that is stylish, innovative, and one that seamlessly integrates the most sought after user experiences such as search, gaming, email and social networks across Bing, Office, Xbox LIVE, Facebook, Twitter and more."

The conventional application icons have been replaced by Live Tiles on the Windows Phone start screen, thus boldly displaying critical information at a glance.

<a href="http://slideful.com/v20111012_2202544366115685_pf.htm">View the slide show</a>  

The Live Tiles come to life with real-time updates from the Web such as news, appointments or the status of friends. New Live Tiles can be easily created from whatever content a consumer wants, for applications, websites and music, he said.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Vikas Arora, Group Director - Operator Channel, Microsoft, said, "Windows Phone is for people who are ready for a new phone experience, one that brings together the things you care about in a way that uniquely represents who you really are –whether at work or play".

Microsoft revealed a range of Windows Phone devices that will be available in India soon, the first being the HTC Radar. This will be followed by devices from Samsung and Acer, and subsequently Nokia.

The company also announced the launch of a smartphone n partnership with handset manufacturer HTC, named HTC Radar, which is based on the new operating system.

"HTC Radar is priced at Rs.23,990 and will be available in the market in the next week," said HTC India's country manager Mr Faisal Siddiqui.

Firms like Acer and Nokia would roll out their handsets based on Windows Phone 7.5 in the Indian market, said Mr Pramanik.

The key features of the operating system are threads which enables users to switch between texts, Facebook chat and Windows Live messenger linked inbox wherein consumers can see multiple email accounts in one linked inbox.

Built-in voice-to-text and text-to-voice support system also enables hands-free texting and chatting.

He informed that phones based on Windows Phone system cost around Rs 20,000 presently.

IP-GLITTER.COM


Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10 :
AMDOCS
, the provider of customer experience systems, on Monday released the findings of a global research report, conducted by leading analyst firm Heavy Reading, which highlights the importance for service providers around the world to integrate charging and policy management capabilities to enable their future pricing strategies for data services.

The recent rise in new data price plans is being driven by the need for service providers to offer customers an improved data experience and to better monetize their investments in network capacity.

"We can expect new data price plans to flood the market as data usage skyrockets with the introduction of improved tablets and smartphones, such as the iPhone 5, BlackBerry Torch and the Nokia N series," said Ari Banerjee, senior analyst, Heavy Reading.

"Our research shows there is global consensus that integration of charging and policy management capabilities is required to monetize these new data pricing strategies.Service providers have found attempts to integrate charging and policy management by their internal IT and network departments challenging and too expensive and are now seeking pre-integrated vendor solutions."

Key research findings reveal that charging subscribers based on the customer experience provided is gaining mindshare, but existing systems are challenged to enable it:


Marketing departments want to introduce more sophisticated data price plans

• 83 percent of respondents say their marketing organizationsare asking IT to enable innovative data price plans;
• Over 90 percent saytheir companies are looking to create packages across lines of business, customer types and payment methods;
• 86 percent of providers plan to launch tiered pricing plans;
• 82 percent plan to launch single data plans for multiple devices (e.g. tablets, smartphones, etc.);
• 67 percent plan to launch family plans.
Integrated charging and policy managementcapabilities are required to enable these more sophisticated data price plans
• 85 percent of respondents see a need to integrate charging and policy management capabilities. Integration between charging and policy management will allow providers to offer a better customer experience by introducing plans that relate to the device type, network status, customer information across all lines of business and other parameters.
IT organizations find it difficult to deliver
• 80 percent of respondents do not think their existing policy managementsystems, deployed to support network-related use cases (bandwidth management, fair usage, bill shock) can support more advanced use cases, such as data plans across multiple lines of business, payment methods and spend limits, and more;
• 10 percent have tried to integrate charging and policy management systems and failed.

"This survey validates the need for better integrated charging and policy management capabilities in order for service providers to create, offer and monetize the next generation of data services," said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs. "But we must remember that end customers also want to get their new services in a simple and intuitive manner. This is exactly where value-based pricing should come into play.

For example, a movie package that has data and speed prerequisitesalready embedded into itfor a high-quality experience will offer end customers the ease of use and personalized servicesfor which they are willing to pay more."

The research is based on 64 qualitative interviews with decision makers in director, vice president or chief executive rolesfrom 32 service providers from across Europe (13), North America (9) and Asia-Pacific (10), from both IT and marketing departments. Interviews were conducted between MayandJuly2011.

Amdocs' recent acquisition of leading policy management vendor Bridgewater Systems will enable the company to offer the market a pre-integrated convergent charging and policy management solution, scalable to meet the needs of the largest service providers.

IP-GLITTER.COM

REVENUE TO REACH $1.8 BILLION IN 2015

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10 :
WORLDWIDE platform as a service (PaaS) revenue is on pace to reach $707.4 million in 2011, up from $512.4 million in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. The market will experience consistent growth with worldwide PaaS revenue totaling $1.8 billion in 2015.

"Cloud has three technological aspects — infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and finally software as a service (SaaS)," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner. "While SaaS is the most developed aspect, PaaS is the least developed, and it is where we believe the battle between vendors is set to intensify."

Initial PaaS products primarily supported application server capability, but the market has since expanded to encompass other middleware capabilities as a service, such as integration, process management, and portal and managed file transfers (MFTs).

PaaS offerings are increasingly set to take market share from the low end of the portal, application server and business process management (BPM) markets, but as the technology matures, PaaS offerings will also challenge the upper layers of the market.

Gartner analysts said PaaS offerings are likely to expand the application integration and middleware (AIM) market by bringing in a new range of organizations that otherwise would have been packaged application and office software users.

"One of the likely consequences of the cloud for the application integration and middleware (AIM) market is further market concentration," said Yefim Natis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "When application infrastructure is deployed on-premises, organizations can take a best-of-breed approach and integrate all acquired components in their data center."

"When middleware services are acquired in the cloud from different PaaS providers – the services remain in different data centers and resist optimized integration. Mainstream users of PaaS services will likely look for providers that deliver comprehensive and integrated PaaS functionality suites – forcing the specialist offerings to consolidate," he added.

Few providers deliver a comprehensive and integrated PaaS offering, and Gartner believes that such fragmentation will be impossible to deal with when users and service providers start to implement large-scale, business-critical applications requiring the simultaneous and in-concert use of multiple PaaS capabilities such as user experience, application servers, database management systems (DBMSs), security and messaging.

Gartner analysts predict a rapid aggregation of PaaS offerings into suites of functionalities, providing users with well-integrated and optimized platform services (from the same or different suppliers), co-located in the same data center to provide appropriate levels of performance, security, manageability and availability.

This process will take place in steps. Initially, around 2013, PaaS functionalities will consolidate around specific usage scenarios, paving the way for integrated comprehensive PaaS offerings to emerge from 2015 and beyond.

"Clearly, from the attention given to this segment by the industry's giants, it is likely that they are viewing PaaS as a strategic undertaking as much as an incremental market opportunity," said Mr. Biscotti.

"As PaaS suites mature, they may emerge as critical enabling technologies for many cloud-based businesses; at the same time, as companies adopt these platforms, the providers of the platforms will likely leverage them to expand their ecosystem, leverage their natively developed application services (SaaS) or extend their on-premises solutions," he added.IP-GLITTER.COM 

ECB DISK STORAGE REVENUE TO SURPASS $1.45 BILLION IN 2015

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, India, OCTOBER 04 :
WORLDWIDE external controller-based (ECB) disk storage vendor revenue from external cloud computing deployments is forecast to grow from $267.4 million in 2010 to $1.45 billion in 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is on pace to total $417.3 million in 2011, a 56 percent increase from 2010.

Gartner uses the term "external cloud" to mean any public, private or hybrid cloud that is offered by a third-party provider that services multiple customers, as a contrast to those deployed within individual organizations' internal data centers, which serve only internal clients.

"As external cloud computing emerges as a new segment of the storage market, competition is increasing with leading commercial ECB disk storage vendors developing or acquiring technologies that will serve as a good fit for external cloud deployments," said Sid Deshpande, senior research analyst at Gartner.

ECB disk storage deployed in the external cloud today forms a very small portion of the overall market for ECB storage. Gartner estimates that external cloud deployment constituted only 1.4 percent of overall ECB disk storage vendor revenue in 2010. However, this segment will grow much faster than the overall market because many external cloud services are still at the early build-out stage.

Although both small or midsized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises are utilizing software as a service (SaaS) today, the primary consumers of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) will continue to be smaller organizations. The external private cloud infrastructure market is still in a nascent stage, with hosting providers largely looking to leverage their existing large-enterprise customer base for early customer wins.

On the demand side, in the last 18 months external cloud services have gained increased popularity and traction, with several new providers emerging and ramping up their cloud service offerings.

Gartner's research reveals that most ECB storage revenue generated from external cloud deployment in 2010 and the first half of 2011 came from SaaS and IaaS deployments, and analysts said that the SaaS and IaaS provider segments will continue to constitute the bulk of opportunities for ECB disk storage sales through 2015.

"We believe the SaaS providers offer the largest cloud opportunity for ECB disk storage vendors in the short term, as many software service vendors lack a hardware portfolio and may lack the resources to develop their own infrastructure hardware," said Pushan Rinnen, research director at Gartner.

"However, SaaS-based vendor revenue will grow much slower than the combined growth rate of cloud application infrastructure and cloud system infrastructure through 2015. Therefore, we believe IaaS will represent a larger long-term opportunity for commercial disk array vendors," he added.

Gartner analysts said the vast majority of cloud opportunities for ECB disk storage vendors lies with SaaS and comprehensive IaaS providers, which offer storage and servers/applications together and require the high availability, reliability and performance of some commercial disk storage arrays.

With the exception of a few extremely large cloud providers, such as Google, Amazon and Facebook, which have deep pockets for internal R&D to develop their own storage infrastructure with commodity hardware, enterprise-focused external cloud providers will prefer commercial ECB storage technologies over homegrown storage hardware infrastructures.

"Recognizing the inadequacy of older storage architectures to serve public cloud workloads and meet price-to-performance ratios for large-scale deployments, storage system vendors have started focusing on acquiring or developing cloud-optimized storage arrays that provide increased scalability and performance at lower price points," Mr. Deshpande said.

"While this focus on organic and inorganic technology innovation by storage vendors holds strong promise for external cloud service providers, price points for these cloud-optimized storage arrays will have to decline significantly if they are to find traction among the largest cloud infrastructure deployments," he added.


Thesynergyonline Corporate Bureau

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 04 :
FINLAND-BASED Tekla Corporation, specialists in 3D model-based software products leveraged by construction, engineering and architectural communities to design and analyze building models, announced plans to expand operations in the Indian market.

India is the fastest growing market for Tekla.  Revenues from India operations even exceed developed markets such as the US.

The company’s customer base is increasing rapidly in the country and to address the various local customer needs, Tekla has opened a development unit primarily to cater to local project needs.

The centre will also be an R&D and innovation hub for Tekla globally.  The company is also in discussions with public sector officials to enter the rapidly growing industrial construction segment.

Tekla also plans to start educational training hubs across several cities targeting to produce over 500 engineers trained on the BIM technology by 2012.
The company is also in talks with major engineering colleges including IITs to introduce and train students on Tekla technologies.

The company currently has five training centers (Tekla Centre of Excellence) in India. 

With its recent acquisition by Trimble Navigation Limited, it will be able to provide its customers more holistic solutions while increasing its solution portfolio in the India market.

Mr Nirmalya Chatterjee, Chief Operating Officer (COO)  at Tekla India said, "The Indian infrastructure industry is booming and we have aggressive plans to further expand our presence in the country. There is significant value that we can, and would like to add to our Indian customer base and our unique value added service offering will enhance the business opportunities for them. "

We view India as one of the most important and dynamic markets when it comes to construction. 

As part of the India expansion plan, we are very optimistic to tap this market by launching our new product, Construction Management. It is an add-on module in addition to a stand-alone software configuration that includes functionality to manage and track project status.” said Mr Ari Kohonen, CEO of Tekla Corporation.

To further strengthen their user base and make an impact on the construction industry, the company  has launched a new advanced application for building information model-based project communication and cooperation and is providing this software absolutely free. 

Now contractors, designers, architects, MEP detailers and fabricators can combine their models, check for clashes, and collaborate using new and unique BIM software. 

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER  22 :
WORLDWIDE media tablet sales to end users are on pace to total 63.6 million units, a 261.4 percent increase from 2010 sales of 17.6 million units, according to Gartner, Inc. Media tablet sales will continue to experience strong growth through 2015 when sales are forecast to reach 326.3 million units.

Apple’s iPad is projected to account for 73.4 percent of worldwide media tablet sales in 2011, down from 83 percent share in 2010. Beyond Apple iOS and the Android operating system (OS), Gartner does not expect any other platforms to have more than 5 percent share of the tablet market in 2011.

“We expect Apple to maintain a market share lead throughout our forecast period by commanding more than 50 percent of the market until 2014,” Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “This is because Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services. Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal. “

“ Apple had the foresight to create this market and in doing that planned for it as far as component supplies such as memory and screen. This allowed Apple to bring the iPad out at a very competitive price and no compromise in experience among the different models that offer storage and connectivity options,” Gartner says.

Android tablets are on pace to ship 11 million units in 2011 (see Table 1), accounting for 17.3 percent of media tablet sales. This is up only slightly from Android’s 2010 market share of 14.3 percent. Gartner’s forecast for the Android OS has been lowered by 28 percent from last quarter’s projection. The reduction would have been greater had it not been for the success of lower-end tablets in Asia, and the expectations around the launch of Amazon's tablet.

“So far, Android’s appeal in the tablet market has been constrained by high prices, weak user interface and limited tablet applications” Ms. Milanesi said. “Google will address the fragmentation of Android across smartphone and tablet form factors within the next Android release, known as ‘Ice Cream Sandwich,’ which we expect to see in the fourth quarter of 2011. Android can count on strong support from key OEMs, has a sizeable developer community, and its Smartphones application ecosystem is second only to Apple’s.”

Gartner analysts said Research In Motion’s QNX OS is a promising platform, but it is still in the early stages of development. RIM’s main challenge will be to attract more support from application developers as the company is going through a tough period, with considerable pressure on its smartphone business.

The current buzz around Windows 8 driven by the demonstrations seen at the Build conference might be short-lived if Microsoft’s push to use the new OS across devices comes at a compromise in usability. Moreover, the late arrival might limit its appeal, especially to consumers, as Apple and Android will be more entrenched by then. Microsoft’s platform will find its biggest opportunities in the enterprise segment, where IT departments could benefit from smoother integration with existing Microsoft software.

As more vendors will arrive in 2012, Gartner analysts said it’s important they concentrate on delivering a rich user experience based on a strong tie between Smartphones and tablets, a good set of apps, an intuitive user interface, and the ability to share content easily between devices.

“Most of Apple's competitors are struggling to meet Apple's prices without considerably sacrificing margins. Screen quality and processing power are the two hardware features that vendors cannot afford to compromise on,” said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner. “They should consider everything else ‘nice to have,’ rather than essential, in order to keep bills-of-materials costs competitive with those of the iPad.”

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 15 :
WORLDWIDE semiconductor revenue has slowed in 2011, and the market is on pace to have revenue total $299 billion, a decline of 0.1 percent from 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. This outlook is down from Gartner's previous projection in the second quarter for 5.1 percent growth this year.

"Three key factors are shaping the short-term outlook: excess inventory, manufacturing overcapacity and slowing demand due to economic weakness," said Bryan Lewis, research vice president at Gartner. "Semiconductor companies' third-quarter guidance is well below seasonal averages. The current guidance by vendors points to flat to down third-quarter growth."

"Typically, we see guidance for 8 to 9 percent growth in the third quarter because of back-to-school and the holiday build. The supply chain is also showing significant slowdown, and semiconductor-related inventory levels are still elevated," he added.

PC production unit growth has significantly decreased. Last quarter, Gartner estimated PC production growth of 9.5 percent; that has now been reduced to 3.4 percent. Gartner has lowered its forecast of mobile phone production unit growth from a second-quarter projection of 12.9 percent growth to 11.5 percent growth in this most recent outlook.

DRAM has been severely impacted by reduced PC demand and falling prices and is now expected to decline 26.6 percent in 2011. NAND flash and data processing ASIC are the fastest-growing device areas in 2011, with about 20 percent growth. This growth is due in part to the strong growth in smartphones and iPads.

"2012 is the wild card. We have lowered our 2012 semiconductor forecast from 8.6 percent to 4.6 percent due to a worsening macroeconomic outlook," Mr. Lewis said. "However, the odds of a double-dip U.S. recession continue to rise and are raising fear that sales prospects will deteriorate further. Gartner is closely monitoring IT and consumer sales trends for any significant signs of weakness."

 


Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 10 :
E-TUTORIAL
market in India is growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 40 per cent and is likely to cross Rs 3,500- crore mark by 2015 from the current level of Rs 1,200 crore, says The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

With greater Internet penetration and availability of top-notch broadband services slowly but steadily the online tuition market in India is getting popular among students as there is a huge price difference between private tuitions at various coaching centres and online tutoring and this is a significant reason as to why more and more school, college going students are now getting enrolled for online classes providing them practical insights and individual attention in the comforts of their home at a time convenient to them, according to an ASSOCHAM study on 'E-tutorial market-parallel education industry'.

"E-tutorials is a niche sector that provides limitless world of knowledge as there are various online learning programs that compliment every student's unique learning needs," said Mr D.S. Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM.

Besides, a large number of teachers and even senior students with expertise in a particular subject are going online to teach children in view of the growing demand for online tutorials across the globe and rake in quick money especially during the US academic year starting in September-October, points out the study.

E-tutoring does not require any significant investments and simply requires a basic software and hardware set up to support multimedia and internet connection to facilitate interactive study sessions via e-mails and engaging in live discussions and video conferencing.

The online tutorial market in India is still at a nascent stage as it is mainly confined to the urban centres while the industry will get the real push from the semi-urban and the rural areas which are still jostling with dearth of technological advancement, said ASSOCHAM.

There are plenty of institutes in metro cities offering online learning programs for core subjects like maths, physics, chemistry, biology, english, economics and accountancy through an excellent team of professional, experienced and highly qualified tutors.

"It is a multi-faceted utility that facilitates students' interaction with their tutors seamlessly and in real time through voice calls, live chat, emails and discussion boards making the whole learning process interesting and enjoyable," said Mr Rawat.

ASSOCHAM had interacted with about 800 parents in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune between June and August to ascertain the amount of money spent by them on coaching classes for their wards preparing for class XII exams, engineering, medical entrance tests, chartered accountancy and other such courses at private tuition centres.

About 40 per cent of parents across these cities said that their tuition bills run into Rs 80,000 to Rs 1 lakh annually and said that even though, affordability is a challenge but they don't wish to take any chances considering that competition in schools, colleges and professionally is getting tougher by the day.

Nearly 55 per cent of the respondents were aware of the online tutorials and most of these people said that conventional tuition centres remain their first choice while rest of them said that online tutorials is a better way of learning unlike the coaching centres which are nothing but extended classrooms, highlighted the ASSOCHAM survey.

About 30 per cent of respondents were working couples and majority of them said that since they hardly get time to teach their kids they had enrolled their kids for private tuition at primary level itself.

Most of those who were unfamiliar with e-tutoring said that it is a good concept considering its easy accessibility, flexibility of time, comparatively low price and convenience to attend classes from the confines of their homes.

 


Thesynergyonline Inotech Bureau


NEW DELHI, India , SEPTEMBER 08 :
WORLDWIDE
PC unit growth is on pace to total 352 million units in 2011, a 3.8 percent increase from 2010, according to the latest preliminary forecast by Gartner, Inc. PC shipments are forecast to see better growth by the end 2012, when units are expected to reach 404 million units, a 10.9 percent increase from 2011.

PC unit growth for both 2011 and 2012 has been reduced from previous projections: from 9.3 percent growth for 2011 and from 12.8 percent growth for 2012.

The notably lower outlook for 2011 PC growth is largely due to sharply downgraded forecasts for Western Europe and the United States in the second half of the year. The lower outlook for 2012 is the result of a weaker 2011, and also a slower start to 2012 — with an expectation for better growth in the second half of next year as economies stabilize and new mobile PC form factors enter the market. Even so, the slowdown in the market is notable: Total unit shipments in 2012 are expected to barely reach 400 million units, which was originally a target for 2011.

"Western Europe is not only struggling through excess PC inventory, but economic upheaval as well," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "U.S. consumer PC shipments were much weaker than expected in the second quarter, and indications are that back-to-school PC sales are disappointing. An increasing pessimistic economic outlook is causing both consumer and business sentiment to deteriorate in both regions. We're expecting consumer spending to tighten in response. Business spending will also tighten, but less than the consumer space."

Gartner analysts said that while PCs remain important to consumers and businesses, purchases can be easily delayed, especially when there are complementary devices that are seen to be more attractive.

"More worrisome for the long term is that Generation Y has an altogether different view of client devices than older generations and are not buying PCs as their first, or necessarily main, device," Mr. Atwal said. "For older buyers, today's PCs are not a particularly compelling product, so they continue to extend lifetimes, as PC shops and IT departments repair rather than replace these systems."

"Media tablets have dramatically changed the dynamic of the PC market, and HP's decision to rethink its PC strategy simply highlights the pressure that PC vendors are under to adapt to the new dynamic or abandon the market," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner.

"Vendors' tried and true business models are failing as traditional PC functionality is extended to other devices, and users continue to lengthen PC lifetimes. Vendors only seem to be flailing as they look for quick fixes to their problems. Unfortunately, the resulting chaos is just creating more confusion across the entire PC supply chain, impacting sell-in," he adds.

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau


NEW DELHI, , India, SEPTEMBER 07 :
SURVIVING as a 21st-century supply chain requires operating as a demand-driven value network, according to Gartner, Inc. Orchestrating these value networks means supply chain executives must understand and adopt best practices in selecting, onboarding and managing supply chain outsourcing partners. Therefore, Gartner has identified eight best practices in supply chain outsourcing.

Key Issues in supply chain management will be discussed at Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2011, 14-15 September, London.

"Supply chain executives are starting to apply more comprehensive analysis to outsourcing decisions, such as factoring in agility, responsiveness and cost," said Michael Dominy, research director at Gartner. "Companies must focus on what they can do best and appropriately outsource activities that value chain partners can do better. This often means using one or more logistics, manufacturing or business process outsourcing (BPO) partners, instead of performing these supply chain activities themselves."

"Successful supply chain executives must be able to manage outsourcing partners. That's what we hear from our supply chain clients," Mr Dominy said. "Based on this feedback and other Gartner research, we have identified eight key best practices that companies should leverage when outsourcing logistics, manufacturing or supply chain management business process outsourcing (SCM BPO). These best practices can help companies avoid some of the key pitfalls associated with supply chain outsourcing."

The eight best practices in supply chain outsourcing include:

Align the outsourcing strategy with the corporate and supply chain strategy.

Companies that compete by offering personalized, high-touch customer service need outsourcing partners that have flexible and agile service delivery models. Conversely, companies or supply chain segments within companies that compete on price need lean, operationally efficient and low-cost partners. Because most companies operate several supply chains, it's essential to understand each one before selecting an outsourcing partner.

Understand your current capabilities in managing supply chain outsourcing partners.

Companies should use Gartner's Demand-Driven Maturity Model to determine how stakeholders view and engage with outsourcing providers. Knowing the current level of maturity will help companies understand what type of outsourcing they require as they become more demand-driven. It also provides insight regarding organizational and interorganizational models and governance.

Understand your core competencies, the market participants and the points of overlap.
The major players in the supply chain outsourcing market are expanding their services into each other's turf. Knowing what services are core and which ones are not for each service provider is an important factor to consider when deciding the activities to award to an outsourcing provider.

Make outsourcing decisions based on strategic and tangible factors, not just cost.Numerous companies that have outsourced a supply chain function such as manufacturing purely based on direct costs have experienced problems later. Some companies found that total costs didn't improve as much as anticipated because customer service suffered and quality problems increased after outsourcing. In addition to a robust cost-service analysis capability that addresses make/retain versus buy/outsource, companies must incorporate quality, responsiveness, past performance and risk as decision criteria.

Understand how corruption and intellectual property (IP) risks differ by country in key outsourcing regions, such as Asia.
Such data can be factored into outsourcing decisions, and can be useful when defining policies, procedures and governance for doing business in countries where corruption and IP theft are a greater concern.

Establish and maintain a regular flow of data, information and ideas.
Data such as inventory levels, customer orders and master data should be visible and shared weekly; data about significant changes should be communicated more promptly. Information such as promotion plans, supplier changes or other decisions that will impact the outsourcing partner should also be updated and communicated weekly. Ideas for improving overall supply chain performance and multitier visibility should be exchanged and discussed at regular intervals by operational and management personnel.

Define and track service levels and key performance indicators (KPIs).
The service-level agreements (SLAs) and KPIs defined when an outsourcing partner is selected should be linked to key business goals and objectives. Gartner's hierarchy of supply chain, manufacturing and product metrics will help to identify what to measure. Companies that align SLAs with key business goals tend to have a more positive relationship with their outsourcing partners and achieve better results.

Leverage the outsourcing partner's processes, technologies and capabilities if warranted.
Often, an outsourcing provider can perform an activity or process better than its clients, which means that embracing the outsourcing provider's process will improve overall supply chain performance. Having the outsourcing provider use its own technology can also prove beneficial, because it should be faster and easier for the provider to perform the functions and processes required.

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, India, SEPTEMBER 04 :
THE worldwide social customer relationship management (CRM) market is forecast to reach over $1 billion in revenue by year-end 2012, up from approximately $625 million in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide social CRM is projected to total $820 million in 2011.

However, analysts said spending by buyers on social software for marketing, customer service and sales increased by 40 percent in 2010, but social CRM remained less than 5 percent of the total CRM application market. More than 100 vendors have social CRM offerings. Most are not profitable and generate annual revenue of less than $1 million.

"Use by consumers accounts for over 90 percent of spending on social CRM, but spending on business to business (B2B) use is growing faster and will account for 30 percent of total social CRM spending by 2015," said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. "The market will continue its rapid consolidation throughout 2011. Previously, social vendors acquired each other. Now, business application vendors and outsourcers have started to add capabilities through acquisitions."

Most vendors remain relatively small and unprofitable, although many grew 50 to 100 percent in 2010. In order to thrive in the future, analysts said that social CRM vendors will need to provide clear benefits for companies and communities, demonstrating multiple use cases for sales, marketing and customer service processes.

"Until recently, many companies have treated social CRM as a series of experiments and tactical purchases. Few have a social CRM strategy or established metrics to measure its effect on hard business results. Different departments, employees and managers implement different types of applications for different purposes," Mr. Sarner said.

"This lack of consistency among buyers keeps the market fragmented into at least three segments — sales, marketing and customer service — with many small vendors taking various approaches to address one area, approach or use case. The majority of vendors that survive and thrive in the mid-term will offer tools that can address multiple use cases in more than one department," he added.

Today's vendors differentiate themselves on the basis of functions, process workflow, analytics and ease of use or superior experience delivered through professional services. The functions that social CRM vendors offer tend to reflect one of four typical starting points:

·Hosting and supporting a branded or private-label community, and providing the surrounding functions
·  Monitoring, listening to, surveying and responding to private-label or independent social networks
Facilitating the sharing of B2B or business to consumer (B2C) contacts through communities
·  Establishing community product reviews largely to facilitate online sales

"Vendors who can assemble a full set of social CRM functions, and make progress in two or more of these areas, will be best positioned for market success as the market matures," Mr. Sarner said. "Over time, vendors will find it harder to gain an advantage by providing unique core functions for social CRM."

Four other factors will also differentiate vendors:
· Seamless interoperation between public social networks and internal collaborative communities
· Integration of processes with traditional, operational CRM applications, such as multichannel campaign management, a customer service knowledgebase or a sales lead application
· Application-specific analytics to help prove the ROI of the social CRM application
·  Partnerships with global system integrators, or digital or interactive agencies and consultants, to promote and deploy the applications

Gartner analysts said that R&D in social CRM will center on five areas: (1) deeper integration with traditional CRM processes; (2) tools to measure ROI; (3) deeper integration with social network services — particularly Facebook and Twitter; (4) increased use of analytics; and (5) new use cases for social CRM.

"The need for integration will favor more-traditional CRM vendors that add social capabilities. Integration did not matter much when enterprises were just experimenting with social CRM," Mr. Sarner said.

"However, companies are asking for the integration of social data with other customer data within sales, marketing and customer service processes, which will require the integration of social CRM with applications such as a knowledgebase for customer service, multichannel campaign management, sales force automation or e-commerce, Web content and Web analytic applications, master data management, and even back-office applications," he added.

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, India, AUGUST 30 :
THE
worldwide social customer relationship management (CRM) market is forecast to reach over $1 billion in revenue by year-end 2012, up from approximately $625 million in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide social CRM is projected to total $820 million in 2011.

However, analysts said spending by buyers on social software for marketing, customer service and sales increased by 40 percent in 2010, but social CRM remained less than 5 percent of the total CRM application market. More than 100 vendors have social CRM offerings. Most are not profitable and generate annual revenue of less than $1 million.

"Use by consumers accounts for over 90 percent of spending on social CRM, but spending on business to business (B2B) use is growing faster and will account for 30 percent of total social CRM spending by 2015," said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. "The market will continue its rapid consolidation throughout 2011. Previously, social vendors acquired each other. Now, business application vendors and outsourcers have started to add capabilities through acquisitions."

Most vendors remain relatively small and unprofitable, although many grew 50 to 100 percent in 2010. In order to thrive in the future, analysts said that social CRM vendors will need to provide clear benefits for companies and communities, demonstrating multiple use cases for sales, marketing and customer service processes.

"Until recently, many companies have treated social CRM as a series of experiments and tactical purchases. Few have a social CRM strategy or established metrics to measure its effect on hard business results. Different departments, employees and managers implement different types of applications for different purposes," Mr. Sarner said. "This lack of consistency among buyers keeps the market fragmented into at least three segments — sales, marketing and customer service — with many small vendors taking various approaches to address one area, approach or use case. The majority of vendors that survive and thrive in the mid-term will offer tools that can address multiple use cases in more than one department."

Today's vendors differentiate themselves on the basis of functions, process workflow, analytics and ease of use or superior experience delivered through professional services.

"Vendors who can assemble a full set of social CRM functions, and make progress in two or more of these areas, will be best positioned for market success as the market matures," Mr. Sarner said. "Over time, vendors will find it harder to gain an advantage by providing unique core functions for social CRM."

Gartner analysts said that R&D in social CRM will center on five areas: (1) deeper integration with traditional CRM processes; (2) tools to measure ROI; (3) deeper integration with social network services — particularly Facebook and Twitter; (4) increased use of analytics; and (5) new use cases for social CRM.

"The need for integration will favor more-traditional CRM vendors that add social capabilities. Integration did not matter much when enterprises were just experimenting with social CRM," Mr. Sarner said.

"However, companies are asking for the integration of social data with other customer data within sales, marketing and customer service processes, which will require the integration of social CRM with applications such as a knowledgebase for customer service, multichannel campaign management, sales force automation or e-commerce, Web content and Web analytic applications, master data management, and even back-office applications," he added.

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, AUGUST 29 :
THE Asia Pacific server market remained healthy throughout the second quarter of 2011, with year-on-year shipment growth of 25.6 percent and revenue up 26.1 percent compared to the same quarter last year, according to Gartner, Inc.

"We saw Asia Pacific as the strongest region for server shipment growth during the second quarter of 2011," said Erica Gadjuli, principal research analyst at Gartner. "The spotlight very much remained on the China market."

Internet companies in China continued to build up their cloud infrastructure, one of the significant driving factors for healthy server demand in the second quarter. Servers shipped to China increased 33 percent from the same quarter in 2010 while revenue was up 29 percent.

Other countries in the Greater China sub-region, Hong Kong and Taiwan, also experienced double digit year-on-year growth of 16 percent and 12 percent growth in shipments respectively, however revenue increased at a faster pace, 29 percent and 32 percent. Other major markets, Singapore, Korea and Australia, observed similar trends, indicating continuing improvement in virtualisation adoption during the second quarter.

All server categories, including RISC/Itanium Unix, mainframe class and x86-based, attained positive revenue growth on year on year basis in second quarter 2011. However, the x86 server segment continued to gain market share in both shipments and revenue, compared to both last quarter and the same quarter last year.

This segment represented 65 percent of total revenue and 98 percent of total servers shipped in Asia Pacific, compared to 61 percent and 97 percent in the second quarter of 2010.

From a form factor perspective, high density servers (which Gartner calls skinless servers) were preferred by Internet companies in building their cloud infrastructure.

Blade remained a higher growth category compared to other form factors, rack optimized and tower, as a preferred platform for virtualisation in large and mid-size businesses. HP led the blade server space with 48 percent of revenue and 39 percent of shipments.

HP remains the leader in shipments with 27 percent of the total market and IBM led by revenue with 37 percent share. All top five vendors grew their shipments in double digits over the same quarter last year.

The increase of interest in and activities around cloud computing, in China particularly, benefited to vendors such as Dell and Huawei Technologies.

With a market size of US$190 million , India market witnessed a year- on- year growth of 18.2 percent during the second quarter of 2011.

This revenue growth translated into an annual shipment growth of 22 percent for the same period. In terms of vendor landscape, HP (37 percent), IBM (30 percent) and Dell (9 percent) emerged as the top three vendors this quarter, in terms of revenue.

x86, with a revenue share of 69 percent this quarter, emerged as the leading market driver, which is driven by various factors such as virtualization, workload migration from other technologies such as Unix.

Changing enterprise behavior around x86 lead to an annual x86 shipment growth of 23.1 percent in the same time frame, which is in line with the global trends.

On the other hand, Unix market observed an annual revenue decline of 6 percent, as compared to last year though this market performed relatively better as compared to last quarter, fuelled by server procurement in Banks and public sector organizations.

 

 

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

 

<a href="http://slideful.com/v20110827_2014024677115182_pf.htm">View the slide show</a>   GREATER NOIDA, AUGUST 27 :
THE two-day Inter B-School Festival 'Vihaan'11' with about 125 participants from India's best 25 Business Schools kicked off here on Saturday at a colourful opening ceremony at Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) .


Dr Alok Bhardwaj, Sr VP , Canon India , was the chief guest at the inauguration and Mr Rajesh Aggarwal, CEO, Micromax Informatics was the guest of honour.

 

GREATER NOIDA, AUGUST 27 :
THE two-day Inter B-School Festival 'Vihaan'11' with about 125 participants from India's best 25 Business Schools kicked off here on Saturday at a colourful opening ceremony at Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) .


Dr Alok Bhardwaj, senior vice president, Canon India , was the chief guest at the inauguration ceremony and Mr Rajesh Aggarwal, CEO, Micromax Informatics was the guest of honour.

Inaugurating the festival, Dr Bhardwaj said "In this world of technological transformation, the modern day technology is touching our lives in homes, outside and while traveling . Keeping pace with the technology is a must in today's world as it is empowering the people and is providing an edge in every day life" .

"The students should have global mindset as technology is helping in providing international opportunities to every one. The local brands are becoming global overnight. The students should also develop various multi skills as future companies need variety for increasing business and stay in competition" Mr Bhardwaj said.

"The business world is not as easy and rosy as it seems after passing out from business schools as people take you for granted. It is the age of team work, alliances, partnerships. Micromax which has become number three company in the mobile handset market has been started by four partners. This has helped the team to divide responsibilities which resulted in success and Micromax is a Rs 2600 crore company today, said Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal, CEO, Micromax.

"The company launched innovative products like long battery life, introduced dual sim phones and gave a big fight to global markets. Presently, Micromax products are available in seven global markets and will be launched in three new markets by end of this financial year", he added.

Earlier in his welcome address, Dr H. Chaturvedi, Director , BIMTECH said "'Vihaan' which is a a sanskrit word meaning, the dawn symbolizes the aspirations of Indian youth and its dreams about rise of India as superpower of community of nations. Inspired from the sacrifices of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sahdev towards our freedom struggle in past, today India is looking for its second freedom from corruption".

He informed that students from best of B-schools in the country including Indian Institute of Managements (IIM's), Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Xavier, IMT Ghaziabad, FORE and MDI will challenge each other in various business contests and leisure events including Best Manager, Business Plan, Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Debate and Quiz along with extra-curricular activities like singing, dancing, theatre and gaming during the festival.

Mahesh Bhatt, renowned writer, director and producer of Bollywood, will be the chief guest during the second day opening programme of the festival tomorrow, August 28.

"The festival has been organised aimed at increasing competitive spirit, raise cultural values among participating teams. While managing the festival, the BIMTECH students would extensively gain experience in managing visitors, service planning, marketing strategy evaluation, assessments and social inclusion strategies," said Dr. Chaturvedi.

"To promote work and leisure together, the major highlight of the festival will be the cultural events comprising of six events namely;Bailamos, the group dance competition, Bedazzled, a theme-based fashon show on the designs prepared by the students of different colleges, Blitzkrieg, the gaming event, the war of the bands, Informals, comprising of games, music, dance, art & craft whatever one wants to participate in and the Nukkad Naatak, the street play competition," BIMTECH Director added.

 


Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW DELHI, India, AUGUST 15 :
ADITYA Infotech , distribution house, in association with its key IT vendors Zotaic, Corsair and AVerMedia on Monay rolled out its multi-city product training and partner meet program to reach out to  channel partners in 4 major cities.

The meets are scheduled on August 10 ,11,19 and 24 , 2011 in Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur and Kolkata respectively.

The company expects around 100 plus partners at each of the locations. Through this channel initiative, the companies aim to impart complete products and sales training to its partners and educate them about movement to the next level where they can offer variety of solutions as per the customer’s needs being offered by Zotac, Corsair and AVerMedia.

“Channel Partners will get an opportunity to get introduced with new advanced technology in IT and gaming industry and the meet will witness briefing from AIL official and business heads of Zotaic, Corsair and AVerMedia on offerings” said, Sanjay Gogia, vice president of IT/Audio/Video BU at Aditya Infotech.

“Our complete range of GPU and mini-PCs are exclusively being marketed and sold to partners and consumers by Aditya Infotech. We would be showcasing our latest range of mini PCs, hi-end graphic cards, NVIDIA 3D vision to the partners in order to familiar them with USPs of our products”, mentioned, Deepak Gupta, country manager, India at Zotac.

"To a growing number of computing enthusiasts the PC has evolved from a simple productivity tool into a status symbol and object of desire amongst their community of fellow enthusiasts, hence partners need to understand consumer’s demand so that they can sell gaming solutions to them. We would be demonstrating latest 600T cabinet, Apple certified RAM, HS1A gaming headset, speakers etc to the partners” commented M A Mannan, Country Manager – India at Corsair.

“Through our wideranging offerings to Indian market, we aim at  enriching entertainment experiences among partners. At the channel empowerment programme, we shall impart knowledge &  showcase our latest products like 3D TV Tuner, wire- free TV tuner solution for Ipad / NB home and office segment (home free combo / classic), HD capture solution for professionals and gamers, external HD capture solution for gamers and professionals, full HD media player with network  and other latest products,  said, Atul Arora,  sales manager – India at Avermedia Technologies Inc.

“This meet would give us an opportunity to exchange notes, understand their challenge, analyze problems, remove irritants and find solutions, which will further strengthen the bond between channel community and us” further added by Mr. Gogia.

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Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau

NEW YORK , AUGUST 15 :
IN  a biggest deal ever Google Inc said it will acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.5 billion cash..

But in buying Motorola, the Internet giant risks alienating the hardware partners that license its free Android software. Google CEO Larry Page sought to calm the jitters by stressing on Monday that Android will remain open to all.

"The danger is that other handset makers feel disenfranchised," said Nomura Securities global technology specialist Richard Windsor.

The deal -- which took Wall Street by surprise -- appears to mark a shift in strategy for a company that had focused on shoring up its Internet search and advertising empire with forays into video and social networking.

As part of the deal, Google also gets Motorola's set-top box businesses, giving its nascent TV operation a much-needed boost by providing it with a more direct route into the home.

The deal values Motorola Mobility at $40 per share in cash, a 63 percent premium to its Friday closing price on the New York Stock Exchange. The deal features a rich reverse breakup fee of $2.5 billion, according to a source.

"It's a deal that will take time to pay off, but they have a lot of cash and they want to chase after profit," BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said, referring to the fact that Android has not been profitable thus far.

Given his status as Motorola's largest shareholder, the deal represents a big win for activist investor Carl Icahn.

Google, which plans to run Motorola Mobility as a separate business, said the deal will close by the end of 2011 or early in 2012, and requires regulatory approvals in the United States, European Union and other areas, as well as the blessing of Motorola Mobility's shareholders.

Thesynergyonline Infotech Bureau


NEW DELHI, AUGUST 09 :
GOOGLE India on Tuesday released a report on the auto sector in India , providing deep insights into consumer search trends in the sector.

A compilation of consumer search behavior in the auto category (cars and bikes) in the last two years ('09 & '10), the "'Google India Auto Report', underlines how Indian consumers are increasingly relying on the Internet to make auto purchase decisions.

Speaking about the trends observed in the report, Rajan Anandan vice president and MD of Google India, said, "The report shows how crucial the Internet has become in influencing purchase decisions of the consumers. In the last two years, we've seen great traction amongst the players in the auto vertical as they continue to embrace digital advertising to engage car & bikes shoppers online."

"We have seen over 150 percent growth in revenues from the auto sector in 2010 and we expect the share of auto advertising spends on digital to grow significantly in the next few years," he added.

The boom in the auto Industry in India was reflected in the search behavior of Indian users on Google. According to the report, the auto vertical witnessed tremendous growth in online searches registering 110 percent and 84 percent growth in 2009 and 2010 respectively on Google Search.

The trend continues to show fast paced growth this year with the auto category showing a growth of 72 percent in the first six months of 2011 over same period last year.

The auto vertical is now also the fastest-growing vertical compared to other key verticals like consumer electronics, finance and travel.

The online search behavior of consumers mirrors the offline world, as query volumes on Google search see a 38 percent increase over first half of the year as Indian consumers tend to make auto purchases during the festive season (2009 to 2010). Indians are also more research oriented when it comes to auto related purchases, with 65 percent Indians using the Internet as the first place to do their research before deciding on the vehicle of their choice.

This is ahead of consumers in mature markets like US and Europe where only 62 percent of users use Internet as their first stop.

In cars, entry and mid segment cars in the price range of (2 lakhs upto 6 lakhs), the highest selling car category by volumes in India, was also the most-searched category registering over 50 percent year on year growth in query volumes. In terms of type of queries, vehicle-shopping queries accounted for over 49 percent of all cars related queries.

Interestingly, in-spite of the choices available in fuel efficient small cars category, diesel cars queries saw a huge jump in query volumes registering 114 percent growth in 2010. Rising petrol prices weighed on car buyers mind as diesel car queries saw a jump of 52 percent in the period of April 2011 to May 2011 when petrol prices increased by 5 Rs/litre.

The search queries also reflected a strong trend of India's growing appetite for bigger and luxury cars with SUVs emerging as the second most searched cars category registering over 61 percent growth yoy, followed by Luxury cars in the price range of (15 lakhs to 30 lakhs) which emerged as the fastest growing car category showing a growth of 141 percent from June 2010 to May 2011 over the same period in '09 to '10.

In the period of 2010 till May 2011 India saw over 25 new cars or variant launches. Amongst all the new car launches the following top 10 cars were the most searched car launches.

 

 

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