17th Sept, 2009 – HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL), a leading global IT services provider, entered into a five year Transformational IT Infrastructure Management engagement with Oncor to seamlessly connect and support Oncor corporate functions, grid management operations and numerous community- based field service centers located throughout Oncor’s service area.

Oncor operates the largest electric distribution and transmission system in Texas, delivering power to more than 3 million homes and businesses through approximately 117,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. “With this new contract, HCL will be investing in both the utilities sector and in Texas, through the development of a worldwide Utilities Center of Expertise in Dallas.

The Center will research and develop technologies to help transform the way energy is generated, marketed and delivered to customers around the world, which fits Oncor’s leadership in advanced Smart Grid technology deployment,” said R Srikrishna, Senior Vice President and Head – Global Sales, HCL Infrastructure Services Division (HCL ISD).

HCL’s scope of work (SoW) will cover end user computing (service desk, desk-side services) for approximately 3,600 employees; datacenter and network Services, business continuity /disaster recovery and consulting services supporting Oncor’s IT infrastructure architecture and platform modernization projects. “Our client services delivery model utilizes local personnel for on-site support, which contributes to local job base stability,” said Todd Crandall, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Energy and Utilities Sector, HCL Axon. “This engagement clearly underlines our commitment and dedicated focus in Texas.”

Now this is interesting they are also utilizing local personnel and following the govt. guidelines as the part of Obama’s initiative to save jobs and reducing the loss of jobs due to off-shoring – great going. I believe it is necessary – Everything can’t be remote!

The project is designed to help the DoP, which has been reporting losses to drive revenue and regain market share in different services and products such as bill payment, e-posts, life insurance, money transfer and banking. The technology upgrade would also benefit citizens via speedier banking and insurance services, track and trace abilities and would help the postal department to compete effectively with the local and international courier firms. Accenture would also advise DoP on the development of a wide-area network that helps connect all post offices on which various online services can run.

Krishna G V Giri, who leads Accenture’s Management Consulting practice (Health and Public Service operating group) in the Asia Pacific region said,”Armed with efficiency at DoP, the government will be better positioned to share various social schemes, such as Mahatma National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, with even the most remote citizens.”

- – Source: EconomicTimes

With commonwealth games planning that was going on in the last few years, Department of Post earlier mentioned to make use of their unused or rather less used Post Offices turned into WiFi Centers / Cyber Cafe for the tourists. With Post Offices present almost everywhere, I believe it was the right decision. DoP has many IT Services at their disposal :-

• Internal Mail |
• Sahuliyat HelpDesk |
• A Sluggish looking website |
• A Hindi Website (which as all govt. websites requires fonts) which seems not up to date.
• and last but the most important thing –  Visibility of Internal/official news to the general public over the website which can ultimately become a security threat or a loop hole.

However I think they have taken a right decision, but why NOW ?

– With so many IT services at their disposal! Why did they loose the opportunity cost of not giving the contract earlier to an experienced organization?

– Obviously with all websites / services being maintained by NIC, it’s quite visible the kind of quality they are delivering – Pathetic.

Its for us to decide, whether we allow our hard-earned and payed as Income Tax to let go loose or not, we can see the govt. utilization at some points and its crystal clear about their mis-utilization.

Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ search advertisers.

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force. Under the agreement, Yahoo! will innovate and ‘own’ the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology. Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites. Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 per cent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement. Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.

The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, e-mail, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The companies expect the deal to close in early 2010.

• Socrata :  Social Data Network. One of the most advanced data creation, collection and management tool.
• Google Docs : One of the most used by me, as all the data gets stored as Excel sheet, Automatic graphs based on data.
• Free Online Surveys : Free Solution for your survey or Quiz needs. Quite an apet
• FormSite : A free and easy to use solution

Google doing Analysis of your data!

<DING> I was writing this article and guess what? Well I received another Question a part of one more Questionnaire, hopefully I was successful in stopping the transfer that could have taken my mind for answering those questions on chat, rather I offered help to make that dull chat session into a simply exciting good looking web based questionnaire using Google Docs, and guess we did!! and we got 35 responses in just 18 hours. There was one another Questionnaire which I made for my junior, which was about 12 pages in length of Microsoft Word format. I still remember it was midnight when I working on it, and till that time she hadn’t got a single response from it. And the very next day even before it was 9 in the night, she had 62 responses right in the excel sheet waiting for to lay her hands on it.

Still the practice, the.. information, the.. simple technological usage that could be easily disseminated among the students, among interns still remains hidden from the most of the world. Well, I hope this article does what is necessary.

The company now has 60 stores in 27 cities in the country and plans to take the number up to 100 by December this year. It has signed up with 81 franchises already. The company runs over 1,700 stores globally across 51 countries. US, one of its mature markets, with around 600 stores has also shown a year-on-year growth of 15 per cent last fiscal banking on the same phenomenon.

“The recession has actually been good for us. It made larger corporates ready to try our product”, Rakhecha said adding that India is one of the fastest growing markets for Cartridge World. It,however, currently contributes a mere 4-5 per cent of the global turnover of the company that is pegged at around $450 million.

Rakehcha informed that the company was all set to get into agreements with hypermarkets, electronic superstores and other leading retail outlets to have shop-in-shop formats. “We are very close to inking a deal and will announce the first tie-up within a month, and a couple of others will follow”, he added. It will also increase the existing product line that its stores offer to include allied products like stamps, office supplies besides printer repair services.

The printer cartridge industry in India is estimated around Rs 3,000 crore which is largely dominated by original equipment manufacturers. Around 20 per cent lies with the re-filling industry and of that a large section again belongs to the unorganised sector players. Organised re-filling is still quite nascent in India. Cartridge World currently enjoys a more than 50 per cent market share in the space.

Source:  Business Standard

“In the backdrop of one of the worst ever global financial and economic meltdown, it is estimated that in 2009, the overall India IT/ITeS industry is expected to grow at 10.8 per cent, which is the lowest in the last five years. “Going forward, the overall IT/ITeS industry is expected to grow at 13.9 per cent (CAGR 2008-2013) to touch over $110 billion in 2013,” IDC India Country Manager Kapil Dev Singh said in the report.

The total revenue for the Indian IT industry in 2008 stood at over $57 billion in 2008.

“The ongoing global slowdown will definitely have its impact on the Indian IT sector. Despite that the industry is still expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.4 per cent by 2013,” IDC India Country Manager Kapil Dev Singh said.

The domestic IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) revenue is slated to touch about Rs 2,06,398 crore by 2013 from Rs 99,254 crore in 2008, growing at a CAGR of Rs 15.8 per cent, the study said.

“The growth will be led by spending by the government, manufacturing, telecom, pharmaceutical, utility and healthcare sectors. Retail, IT/ITeS along with banking and financial services would also continue to spend on IT,” Singh said.Export of IT/ITeS are expected to grow 12.7 per cent to touch Rs 3,28,081 crore by 2013 against Rs 1,80,064 crore in 2008, Singh said.

IDC’s study pegs the total IT industry revenue to touch Rs 3,09,573 crore in 2009. Of this, while the domestic IT/ITeS market accounts for Rs 1,09,406 crore, exports could touch Rs 2,00,168 crore, the study said.

“The hardware market will remain under pressure through the year, while the software and IT services markets will also be affected, though to a comparatively lesser extent, the share of IT/ITeS in the Indian domestic market is expected to rise from 31.7 per cent to 41.9 per cent in 2013, signalling the increasing focus of enterprises to ‘leverage’ the capacities built-up,” Singh said.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com

Gaming is not new to UTV. The company used the acquisition route to enter the segment in 2007, when it acquired online and mobile gaming firm, Indiagames. It simultaneously acquired the UK-based console gaming firm, Ignition. And finally in 2008, it acquired US-based True Games, an online gaming firm.The strategy has worked so far. For fiscal 2009, the gaming content segment revenue (comprising online, console and mobile games) almost doubled to Rs 110.5 crore. By FY10, the company expects the gaming segment to contribute 32 per cent to its total revenue (18 per cent in FY09).

Taking its gaming plans forward, UTV Media recently showcased three games — War Devil (a third-person player game), Reich (a first-person player game) and El Shadai (an action and adventure game) — at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) gaming conference, one of the biggest events for the console gaming industry. The company has invested Rs 280 crore in the development of these three console games alone.

“I was taken by surprise and awe. Surprise, as we have had a first look of not one or two – but three high-end games. Normally game companies track each other well – so they are all surprised as to where and how long we have been working. And awe, as the quality and the game play, as well as the diversity, of the three games has really created an impact,” Screwvala told Business Standard.

These games are being develped from its studios in Japan, London and Florida (US). The company, though, is yet to work out the additional investment that will go towards marketing and distribution of these games.

The focus of its console gaming segment is clearly the international market. “Our three markets are international and there is nothing Indian about them. Our market in India for these games, too, is insignificant. Besides, in many cases we are creating our own patented technology for the games,” added Screwvala.

While he did not share the revenue estimates these new console games will contribute, he explained that “The upside for even a moderately successful game is huge. We know our cost for creation is very competitive and lower than most in the industry. The gross margins on games can be anywhere between 40 and 300 per cent and if they are even a moderate success, they go into sequels and the margin increases.”

In the online segment, UTV’s True Games unit will be launching its own massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORG) by the second quarter of FY10 in the US and emerging markets like Turkey, Brazil, etc. This unit is also working on additional intellectual properties (IPs).

Indiagames, on its part, is focused on the mobile segment and has grown 120 per cent in FY09, with 60 per cent of market share in India, according to UTV. The company expects this will continue to have a growth rate of 50 per cent year-on-year for some more years.

Source: Business Standard

Wipro Infotech, the India and West Asian IT business of Wipro, aims to use its data centre platform to offer a host of services, including cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) on a pay-per-use model, Anand Sankaran, senior vice-president told Business Standard.

The company has already announced opening of one enterprise data centre in Mysore. Built over 4,000 sq ft in the first phase, it has already been sold out. The company is in the process of setting up data centres in Greater Noida and Pune. At Greater Noida, the plan is to have a data centre of 14,000 sq ft, of which 4,000 sq ft will be ready for commissioning by next month. The company is yet to decide the location in Pune.

“Wipro has been addressing the IT needs of customers for over two decades now, and we are now launching the Wipro Enterprise Data Centre (WEDC) to complete our portfolio of offerings. Enterprise customers today are seeking services beyond simple hosting and co-location. This will position us uniquely to cater to the lifecycle needs of enterprises as a single face,” said Sankaran.

HCL will also operate a global service desk in 9 languages for UTi. The Indian IT firm didn’t disclose the value of the deal or the number of employees to be deployed on the contract. A few UTi employees will also be transferred to HCL as part of the deal but both firms refused to divulge details.

UTi Worldwide senior VP and chief information officer Ron Glickman said the deal with HCL will help reduce the complexity of its disparate IT systems and total cost of ownership. Under the contract, HCL will provide operational support for over 250 applications and IT infrastructure in over 60 countries. It will also enable UTi’s transition to a single enterprise software solution and consolidate the firm’s over 50 data centres into two large enterprise-class data centres.

HCL manufacturing and travel, transportation & logistics (TTL) global head Sandeep Kishore said the IT firm will invest the cost savings through the transition into further incremental and transformational projects. “It’s a significant relationship for HCL as it’s a transformation-led integrated applications and infrastructure deal that deepens our credibility,” he said.

HCL started the IT applications and infrastructure transition at UTi towards the end of calendar year 2008. The global service desk will be operational by July, while the consolidation of networks and data centres will be completed next year. Mr Kishore said HCL sees significant growth opportunities in the TTL industry that faces the task of consolidation its disparate IT systems.

HCL has clinched a number of outsourcing deals in the recent past, the largest being a $350-million total IT services outsourcing deal with Readers’ Digest Association (RDA) last month. It also won a seven-year, Rs 393-crore IT services deal from general insurer National Insurance Company that covers application blueprinting, systems integration and IT infrastructure management.

Earlier this month, it signed a $100-million data centre services and transformation deal with printing major Xerox Corporation.

Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstroem were given jail sentences of one year each by a Stockholm district court yesterday. The court ordered the defendants to pay compensation and damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million), below the more than 100 million kronor claimed by prosecutors. The defendants said they plan to appeal.

The ruling is the industry’s biggest triumph since successful lawsuits against music-swapping sites Napster Inc., Kazaa and Grokster Ltd. The International Federation of Phonographic Industry(IFPI)  estimates 95 percent of all downloaded music is pirated, as consumers can get access to files free of charge within minutes, often before commercial release dates.

Pirate Bay is the largest file-sharing site using BitTorrent software, which allows users to download and share files in 34 languages for free, according to IFPI. Pirate Bay has said the site is a network where users put up content to share with other users and that there is no copyrighted material on the site. Pirate Bay had 22 million simultaneous users in February.

Content owners have successfully sued to stop file-sharing services such as Napster and Grokster from allowing consumers to download copyrighted material without permission. Napster began in 1999 as a free music-swapping Web site. Roxio Inc. purchased the company out of bankruptcy to start a paid download service and adopted its name in 2004.

Yes, This indeed is a lesson for not only the people who create such sites but also who download the copyrighted materials for free.

DELHiTECHiES strongly condemn illegal downloads!

“In addition to IBM’s strong credentials, the team showcased excellent knowledge of our domain and was able to put us at ease from day one. We strongly feel that in order to provide the best customer service, it is imperative to be flexible and agile to the changing needs of the market place. The SAP solution, implemented by IBM, will allow us to do that.”

said Sanjay Jain, CFO, Star India.

- – -

“We are delighted to have made in roads into the Media and Entertainment space in India. We strongly feel that this is a market with a lot of potential, although it is also one of the most competitive industries in the world. IBM offers an unmatched breadth and depth of services that drive business results for clients like STAR India, allowing them to strictly focus on their customers.”

Sandip Patel, Managing Partner, Global Business Services, IBM India/ South Asia remarked,

IBM Global Services works closely with over 2,200 organizations in India, spanning across varied industries, providing them diverse spectrum of IT services. 2008 saw the company signing up customers — small, mid-sized and large — across all the key industries and regions. This partnership will strengthen IBM’s leadership in the domestic IT services market and bring about significant Business Transformation engagements. This deal with Star India was signed in February 2009.

About STAR:

STAR is a leading media and entertainment company in Asia. STAR broadcasts over 60 television services in 13 languages to more than 300 million viewers across 53 Asian countries. STAR and its joint venture channels cover all genres including general entertainment (Star Plus, Xing Kong, Star Chinese Channel, Star World, Star One, Star Utsav, Star Jalsha, Star Pravah, Vijay, Asianet, Asianet Plus, Sitara, Suvarna, antv, Phoenix Chinese Channel), sports (ESPN, Star Sports, Star Cricket), movies (Star Chinese Movies, Star Chinese Movies 2, Star Gold, Star Movies), music (Channel [V]), and news and current affairs (Star News, Star Ananda, Star Majha, Phoenix InfoNews Channel).

STAR controls over 20,000 hours of Indian and Chinese programming and also owns the world’s largest contemporary Chinese film library, with more than 600 titles, featuring superstars including Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Bruce Lee. In partnership with leading companies, STAR businesses extend to filmed entertainment, television production, cable systems and distribution, direct-to-home services, terrestrial TV broadcasting, wireless and digital services. STAR is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation. www.startv.com

About IBM:

For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

The suit was filed on 7th April  in U.S. District Court in San Francisco,

“We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” Dennis Liu, an Elan spokesman, said  adding that the companies had been in licensing talks for about two years.

Apple is based in Cupertino, California.

The lawsuit alleges that Apple products — including its MacBook computer, iPhone and iPod Touch — use technology that infringes on two of Elan’s patents, Elan said.

It was not immediately clear what penalties or remedial action Elan was seeking in the suit.

In January, Apple reported fourth quarter earnings that were stronger than expected in part because of robust sales for the iPhone, MacBook and iPod.

Touch screen technology allows users to zoom in and out, flip images around and perform other tasks using two or more fingers pressed to the screen.

Touch screens are increasingly popular in a wide array of electronic devices and appliances. The market consulting company iSuppli last year forecast that the worldwide market for all touch screen modules would nearly double, from $3.4 billion in 2008 to $6.4 billion by 2013.

Elan said it won a preliminary court injunction against a U.S.-based rival, Synaptics, in a dispute over one of the patents mentioned in the Apple lawsuit, after a suit was filed in 2006 by a unit that was a subsidiary at the time. Synaptics countersued.

Both actions were dismissed last year after the two companies reached a cross-licensing agreement, according to a statement on Elan’s Web site.

Pixaaza Technology

Here’s another quickie, Google now backs Pixazza a new advertisement technology, its quite similar to what Google has been doing with the text – showing advertisements based on the text on the webpages. Pixazza is very similar to that except that it applies to the pictures. People tag the pictures (or part of the picture) with the links of the online merchants, they are given commissions based on the number of hits, their links recieve.

Pixazza’s “experts” are paid a commission based on sales from their links. The start-up also employs reviewers that track the links. “There’s a work queue of all the images that come in and you can see which are high-traffic images and which are interesting to users,” said Bob Lisbonne, chief executive of Pixazza.

Pixazza has signed up with Amazon.com, Bluefly and Zappos. Pixazza is currently targeting Fashion industry as per the teh CEO Bob Lisbonne. However there are other websites which are following similar for years, one of them being – Coolspotters. Somewhere in the world of web even Microsoft has filed a patient for the technology even before Pixazza, but I guess they got late!

But still I believe, Pixazza has an edge over everything -

• It has “the publisher” involved, that means people can use a single line of javascript to use technology for images on their site.
• People will do anything to make money (even if it takes hours to tag pictures), so tagging isn’t a problem, its good.
• They have Google to support them!
  • Google can utilize Pixazza’s technology with their image labeler, and ultimately with Adsense
  • Google can ultimately acquire Pixazza

Well that was it, It wasn’t quick.. right? Anyways I hope you have learnt a new technology coming your way.

• BollywoodHungama.com (Formely IndiaFM.com)
• IN.COM (A Network18 Venture)

Talking about IndiaFM, its a very popular website for Bollywood News, it has several brand associated with it one being Mr. Taran Adarsh who’s very popular as an Industry analyst. Quite a large user traffic and a Google Page Rank of 6. I think that is pretty definitive.

IndiaFM includes an unsubscribe link (an email address: unsubscribe@bollywoodhungama.com) at the very bottom, and that is how every one works, however the font size for the unsubscribe links are always compromised. But, and yes here comes the ugly part the link doesn’t works! I search the site, and NO you don’t have it. You don’t have any setting or link that says opt-out, unsubscribe, leave us, R.I.P.

Now lets come to IN.COM and believe me its a very-very big website. If you want to have a look at statistics – follow here.

So, now how about IN.COM, I really don’t like their mails. All they do is meshing up things spread across the web. So I really thought of unsubscribing from the emails, and Voila’ you don’t even have a link down below the email, just a quote -

Please go to http://www.in.com to unsubscribe

And would you believe it, you have everything on their web site (you can find almost the whole web out there), except the unsubscribe link. Some times its even harder to find where to log in!

That’s just 2 of the shoal of big sharks out there. But I believe I’ve done my job of putting them naked in front of you. I’ve mailed them long time back too, but haven’t got the response for the emails, probably they ended up in their junk box.

I’m quite sure they don’t have an real auditing department doing the real checking, and I’m damn sure since they have started making money out of absolutely nothing of their own, they would not be worried about the email ordeals people are going though.