MaSSSoftech

BANGALORE, India, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Infosys Technologies (Infosys), a world leader in Consulting and Information Technology Services, today announced that it has teamed up with Oracle through the ’BPO Powered by Oracle program,’ and is launching a comprehensive managed services platform for multi-function HR through its Infosys Business Platforms offering.

With this launch, Infosys moves into the next generation of multi-process HR transformational outsourcing. This platform is built on state-of-the-art technology and will enable process transformation, while also being cost-effective. This will help companies streamline their HR operations and reduce operational costs. The Infosys Business Platform for HR frees up significant capital expenditure locked into HR technology and process investments, allowing the HR function to be a strategic enabler of an organization’s business objectives.

The Infosys Business Platform for HR is built on Oracle’s industry-leading PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (HCM) Suite and offers the entire "Hire-to-Retire" processes and operations such as HR Administration, Payroll and Talent Management functions like Recruitment, Performance Management, and Learning Management in a fully hosted and managed environment.

Clients can take advantage of the scalable IT infrastructure to achieve economies of scale, best practices and variable cost models. Offshore teams will provide integrated technology, process and language support from multiple offshore and near-shore delivery centers. The unique shared services business model helps clients realize transformational benefits by unlocking capital expenditure, streamlining business processes and enhancing operational performance metrics.

"We are excited to team up with Oracle and are already seeing early successes of this model in Australia and New Zealand. The launch will also extend to Asia, Europe and the Americas," said Anantha Radhakrishnan, Vice President, Infosys. "This unique bundling of HR technology, application services, HCM process consulting and BPO delivers transformational value using levers such as global sourcing, technology innovation, process optimization, scale and centralization."

"The combination of Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM Suite and Infosys’ world-class IT and HR capabilities can help global organizations achieve HR process transformation and cost reduction using a ’pay-as-you-go’ variable pricing model," said Tibor Beles, Vice President, Oracle Business Process Outsourcing. "We are impressed with Infosys’ execution capabilities as demonstrated by winning their first customers on Infosys Business Platform for HR within the first few months of working together."

About Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Infosys (Nasdaq: INFY) defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered. Infosys has over 105,000 employees in over 50 offices worldwide. Infosys is part of the NASDAQ-100 Index and The Global Dow. For more information, visit www.infosys.com.

Infosys Safe Harbor

Statements in connection with this release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of US Securities laws intended to qualify for the "safe harbor" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties including those described in our SEC filings available at www.sec.gov including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31, 2009, and our other recent filings, and actual results may differ materially from those projected by forward-looking statements. We may make additional written and oral forward-looking statements but do not undertake, and disclaim any obligation, to update them.

Trademarks

Oracle® is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

3PAR InServ Storage Servers Maximize Storage Capacity
Back in 2004, Cvent, a provider of meeting and event management SaaS offerings, had outstripped the 1.2TB capacity of its SAN. Its fast growth and rapid acquisition of customers was threatening to overwhelm its storage capacity, and the IT staff was spending a lot of time troubleshooting performance problems and trying to find additional space on its database.

“We couldn’t even grow volumes. We had to play games on the SAN to find additional space on our database,” says Dwayne Sye, CIO of Cvent. “That was all time we weren’t able to spend helping our customers.”

So Sye and others on the IT staff began evaluating possible replacements for the system. They knew they needed not only more storage space but also much faster performance. At the same time, however, they were concerned that any significant upgrade was likely to be both complex and time-consuming—and being a small, fast-growing company, Cvent didn’t have endless IT resources to spend on a complicated storage implementation, so manageability and ease of use were key requirements for any new system.

After looking at three vendors’ SAN products, Cvent opted to go with 3PAR’s InServ S400 storage server (www.3par.com), which has two or four controller nodes, up to 32GB of data cache, up to 640 drives, and a top storage capacity of 300TB. It also features RAID levels 0, 10, and 50.

Making SANs Simple

A key selling point of the InServ server, says Sye, was its administrative interface. The interface was designed to make configuring and changing drives and setting up the virtual SAN as quick and easy as possible.
“While it’s not extremely complicated stuff—creating volumes, exporting them, resisting, optimizing—it can seem pretty complicated and time-consuming. So the ability to do that so easily [on the InServ], especially compared to our old SAN, was what really sold me,” he says.

3PAR’s interface hides some of the complexity of configuring and administering storage by automating details that don’t really need a human to do, such as application provisioning and array planning and mapping. That automation, and the easy-to-understand interface, has saved Cvent substantially in IT administrative time, according to Sye.

Performance has also been very satisfactory, says Sye: “Now we don’t have performance problems with the disk subsystems. We don’t have to experience long query times to the database server—no bottlenecks.”

Saving Time & Effort

For Cvent, the Virtual Copy and Remote Copy functions of the 3PAR InForm software suite that accompanies the InServ have proved useful in reducing administrative time and headaches

Virtual Copy is 3PAR’s version of a snapshot that provides a quicker method of backing up data than the traditional one of copying the entire set of data. Virtual Copy allows Cvent to take quick snapshots of the data to be backed up on an incremental basis, thus reducing overall backup time substantially.

“We used that when our backup window approached eight hours. By using Virtual Copy, we made it virtually instantaneous,” says Sye.

Remote Copy is a host-independent, array-based data mirroring solution. 3PAR Virtual Volumes are mirrored from one 3PAR InServ server to another. Remote Copy, which Cvent uses to back up its corporate data, has helped reduce the time to recover lost information from an average of two weeks to two hours.

The InForm Suite also includes 3PAR’s Thin Provisioning capability, which automatically manages applications’ storage needs with a just-in-time approach. This differs from the traditional method of allocating space, wherein an administrator assigns large blocks of unused storage to each application for it to use as needed but that no other application can use. By employing Thin Provisioning, Cvent has been able to reduce its new storage capacity purchases by an estimated 95%.

Moving To T-Class

Cvent today has more than 4,500 clients, compared to just 45 when it first bought an InServ in 2004. So far, the scalability of the S400s, plus the optimization technologies it leverages, have provided Cvent with ample storage space. But given the growth rate of the firm and the associated growth in storage, Sye is considering an upgrade to 3PAR’s newest server, the T-Class array.

A big part of the appeal of the T-Class, says Sye, is that it offers administrators the ability to change volumes from fat to thin on the fly. So past decisions to use traditional “fat” provisioning—allocating a set amount of storage per application—for a volume can be changed if the administrator sees the need.

“I could deploy everything as thin or fat and then see how the volume gets utilized to decide if I need to change it,” says Sye, noting that being able to make use of these new types of storage optimization capabilities has also changed his way of looking at storage in general.

Detecting the presence of malicious code is one thing, successfully eradicating it is entirely another.

According to AV-Comparatives.org’s recently released malware removal test evaluating the effectiveness of sixteen antivirus solutions, only a few were able to meet their criteria of not only removing the FakeAV, Vundo, Rustock and ZBot(Zeus) samples they were tested against, but also getting rid of the potentially dangerous “leftovers” from the infection.

More info on the tested antivirus solutions , and how they scored:


The test, including the following antivirus solutions - Avast Professional Edition 4.8; AVG Anti-Virus 8.5; AVIRA AntiVir Premium 9.0; BitDefender Anti-Virus 2010; eScan Anti-Virus 10.0; ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.0; F-Secure AntiVirus 2010; G DATA AntiVirus 2010; Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010; Kingsoft AntiVirus 9; McAfee VirusScan Plus 2009; Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0; Norman Antivirus & Anti-Spyware 7.10; Sophos Anti-Virus 7.6; Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010; Trustport Antivirus 2009, relied on a modest malware sample, whose prevalence is however easily seen in the wild these days.

Their conclusion:

“None of the products performed “very good” in malware removal or removal of leftovers, based on those 10 samples. eScan, Symantec and Microsoft (MSE) were the only products to be good in removal of malware AND removal of leftovers. Due to the sample size, the final ratings may be generous, but we applied the scoring tables strictly. We tried to give different values for different types of leftovers, although this was very difficult in some gray area cases.

This was the first public malware removal test of AV-Comparatives and due the lack of generally accepted ways to rate malware removal abilities, we did out best to give a fair rating based on the observed overall malware removal results and to do not look / base out ratings on e.g. the deletion of the binary malware only.”

Sony Ericsson has been known to make some compelling smartphones that had sleek, solid designs at high prices, like the XPERIA X1 I purchased and then returned earlier this year. Today we see the announcement of their first Google Android device, the XPERIA X10 and I have to say this device is lustworthy with its 8 megapixel camera, custom Mediascape interface that is highly focused on media (a weakness in all other Google Android devices), Timescape technology that recognizes connections between contacts, content, and media, and much more.

The SE XPERIA X10 won’t be available until the first half of 2010, but it shows how awesome Google Android devices can be and I think 2010 will be the year of the Android revolution and I can’t wait. I loved seeing that the X10 will have a model supporting T-Mobile USA’s 1700 MHz frequency and I hope to see it released sooner rather than later.

Specifications of the XPERIA X10 include:

* 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250
* Up to 1GB integrated memory
* 4 inch 480×854 pixel resolution touchscreen display
* 8.1 megapixel camera with face recognition and stabilization
* WiFi
* Bluetooth
* A-GPS
* 3.5mm headset jack
* microSD card slot with 8GB card included
* microUSB for syncing and charging
* Support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
Engadgets has a full hands-on look at the XPERIA X10 and this will definitely be one that I will find hard to resist. It has no hardware keyboard so it will have to be priced right for me to go for it though.

I had a couple of very enlightening conversations with representatives from Microsoft and Google back-to-back on Friday. While our conversations were focused on their educational initiatives, some of which I’ll be featuring tomorrow on ZDNet Education, the more interesting aspects of the interviews actually related to their entirely different approaches to the Web, the cloud, and computing in general. These approaches, and the history behind them, beg the question, is it time for Microsoft to reinvent itself if it wants to avoid becoming the computing equivalent of fossil fuels?


I know, the La Brea Tar Pits don't actually contain any dinosaurs...but is it time for a shift in strategy for Microsoft?

Microsoft has been around for a while. It was founded in 1975, the year before I was born, making it truly ancient in computer years. This isn’t a bad thing, in and of itself. Experience counts for a lot and, if Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Office 2007 (with 2010 on its way) show us anything, it’s that Microsoft has learned a lot of lessons and can crank out some pretty impressive desktop productivity software. True, Server 2008 isn’t desktop software (unless you count what it can do in terms of Terminal Services and desktop virtualization), but Active Directory and much of its software stack directly support desktop computing environments.

Google, on the other hand, is a relative baby. Founded in 1998, the company was created for, by, and through the Web. As Google’s Jeff Keltner told me the other day, the company has built an entire Web-based infrastructure throughout the company. They have a “single way” of thinking about how they do business with a single “back-end and front-end model” that they leverage both internally and externally in the variety of products that grew from their original search business.

If you talk to the folks at Google, Microsoft is shoehorning a dying desktop-centric strategy into a Web-enabled world. Talk to the folks at Microsoft and Google is shoving cloud strategies down the throats of enterprise customers who need far more control than Google Apps can offer.

So who’s right? And more importantly, who’s right long-term? Right now, it seems clear that they both are. Microsoft has a robust, mature software ecosystem that can manage an enterprise’s desktop experiences quite handily. Increasingly, with Live Web Apps, Sharepoint Live, Outlook Live, etc., users can access their documents and messaging in very familiar forms from the Web. The best of both worlds, right?

But what if the desktop really is dead? What if the desktop computing experience will be irrelevant in a year? Two years? What if Google is right? Google doesn’t need an ecosystem of integrated products that also integrate with the cloud because all of its services were built from the ground up to work in the cloud. The desktop was not part of Google’s core strategy; they’re simply able to leverage their massive Web presence and huge data center capabilities to potentially eliminate the need for a desktop for many users. In fact, again according to Keltner, Google now focuses in terms of Apps on how best to satisfy the needs of their customers, rather than replicating what Microsoft can do.

Many of these questions have been asked before:

* Is the desktop dead?
* Is the OS dead?
* Is Microsoft a dinosaur?
* How many of your users really need Office in all its glory?
* Can the cloud actually work for the enterprise?

Now, though, as Microsoft pushes hard to keep up in the cloud and maintain its desktop advantage, while Google begins to look like the 1000 pound gorilla taking over the Internet, it seems as though the game might be changing. I think that it’s premature to assume that Microsoft will follow the dinosaurs into extinction. Not only did the dinosaurs dominate the earth for millions of years before mammals pulled a slick bit of Darwinism, but as any 2nd-grader will tell you (mine most definitely included), dinosaurs are super cool. So are many of Microsoft’s current products.

However (and this is a really big however), Google’s products are maturing at an incredible pace, perhaps because they eat their own dogfood and run their own enterprise on Google technologies. Here’s the real question you have to ask yourself: Is it worth investing in a Microsoft ecosystem now? Or does Microsoft need to fundamentally shift directions if it hopes to keep attracting new customers in a world that is increasingly turning to the Web for everything it does?

All of Microsoft’s Live offerings are a compelling start. My money isn’t on either Microsoft or Google; it’s on the Web and the company who can leverage web technologies in the way that is most meaningful to users. Right now, the advantage seems to be going to Google, but this is hardly over. Microsoft, as well as plenty of other cloud players like IBM and Amazon will not be conceding any time soon.

When hard drives fail and blue screens abound, students with a myNotebook laptop have sought out the support services of Information Technology. But most students at the College of William and Mary have no knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes in the basement of Jones Hall.

The College’s IT department maintains the campus computer labs, phone system, myWM, Banner and the e-mail servers.

Usually students only encounter the public face of the department when two student employees at the front desk attempt to diagnose a computer’s problem and repair it on the spot.

“Some things you’re replacing right here while you wait, so we do some keyboards, CD drives, AC adapters, hard drives,” Manager of Technology Support Center Brian Persinger said.

Of all of the computers brought to IT, around 20 percent of them are repaired at the front desk, within fifteen minutes. But if the damage is more serious, the computer is checked in and brought to the back room where staff technicians dismantle the computer to replace broken parts.

“Spills are a pain,” Technology Support Engineer Danny Clouser said. “I had one yesterday where I had to replace eight or 10 parts because somebody dumped a coke on it.”

The technicians can draw from numerous drawers filled with the parts for each computer model in the
myNotebook program.

“The way it works is that [the manufacturers] give us one computer for every 100 computers sold and we take that one computer and break it down into parts,” Persinger said.

Once the broken parts are replaced in a student’s laptop, the broken pieces are sent to the manufacturer, who then restocks the parts assembly in IT’s back room. When the computer is fixed, it heads to the front desk for the student to pickup.

Computers are usually returned within a day, with three days as the maximum. If a computer has multiple parts failures, the technicians will sometimes, reluctantly, send the computer back to the manufacturer for repair or replacement of the unit.

“We always want to get the computer back in the student’s hands as quickly as possible so they can do their schoolwork,” Persinger said.

Persinger said that IT has recently changed its support policy to stop backup and data retrieval for myNotebook computers because a single hard drive would take the staff hours to backup.

“Our turn-around time was always around three days, but we wanted that to be our maximum, not our norm,” he said. “So we decided to make some changes which was getting some repairs done up front and eliminating us being responsible for helping users restore data.”

Technicians will not only repair any myNotebook computer, but also will attempt to fix any student, staff and faculty Lenovo or Dell computer that has an active hardware warranty.

Though they are not directly involved, the department also provides consulting to the Tribe Apple Center in the ID Office.

The myNotebook program, established five years ago, was designed to have a consistent hardware in the student populace.

“It would have given the professors much more flexibility to incorporate technology into their teaching because everybody had [the same computer],” Chris Ward, Director of Systems and Support said. “But that didn’t work.”

The idea never truly took off as diversity in campus computers has increased over the years.
myNotebook laptops have declined in popularity, and now constitute only 50 percent of College’s computers, down from 80 percent five years ago.

IT strongly recommends that all students back up their hard drive. Ward said that one professor had to learn that the hard way when she paid $1,000 dollars to an outside company to extract her book off a failed hard drive.

“We have a tech that always says there are two kinds of people,” Ward said. “There are those who have lost data and those who will lose data. So back-up your data.”

SEATTLE, WA -- 11/02/09 -- In booth #200 at the 2009 PASS Summit, Idera, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading provider of management and administration solutions for Microsoft SQL Server, today announced SQL toolbox(TM), a collection of powerful, easy-to-use products containing more than 25 essential tools for SQL Server database administrators (DBAs) and developers. SQL toolbox combines more than 25 tools for SQL Server database backup, virtual data recovery, database comparison and database administration, all in one value-priced bundle.

The SQL toolbox includes:

-- SQL virtual database(TM) -- A NEW tool that enables instant-access to
critical data in a backup file without wasting the time or storage
necessary to restore the database.
-- SQL safe Lite(TM) -- A lite version of Idera's award-winning SQL
safe(TM) backup and recovery solution for SQL server, SQL safe Lite
delivers record breaking compression and speed using a scriptable interface
(command line and XSP).
-- SQL administration toolset(TM) -- 24 essential desktop tools for
monitoring, troubleshooting, administering and reporting on SQL Server.
-- SQL comparison toolset(TM) -- One product that does the job of two:
object and data comparison, and synchronization of SQL Server databases.


"Idera's SQL toolbox delivers powerful tools that DBAs will use each and every day to save hours of time and provide increased levels of service to their users," said Rick Pleczko, President and CEO of Idera. "When you consider the price of SQL toolbox is around $600 less than the cost of the individual tools, it's easy to see that SQL toolbox provides incredible value for SQL Server DBAs and developers."

Idera also announced new product, SQL virtual database, and a new version of its SQL safe(TM) product. To read the press releases go to http://www.idera.com/Action/Show.aspx?ThisList=News

Pricing and availability

The SQL toolbox is available today at $995 per instance. Idera customers receive automatic notifications when new tools are available, upgrade notifications and even the ability to install upgrades directly from SQL toolbox.

About Idera

Idera provides tools for Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint and PowerShell management and administration. Our products provide solutions for performance monitoring, backup and recovery, security and auditing and PowerShell scripting. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Idera is a Microsoft Gold Partner and has over 6,000 customers worldwide. To learn more, please contact Idera at +1-713.523.4433 or visit www.idera.com.

Idera is a division of BBS Technologies, Inc. Idera, SQL toolbox, SQL administration toolset, SQL comparison toolset, SQL virtual database and SQL safe are trademarks or registered trademarks of BBS Technologies, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Major market averages fell roughly 2.5% Friday but not everything went down. OPNET Technologies (OPNT) gained 4.7% today in the face of relentless selling in most other stocks. What gives?

Background --

OPNET Technologies, Inc. provides software products and related services for managing networks, servers and applications. The company's products are used to troubleshoot performance problems in production applications and perform capacity planning and design optimization of networks and servers. Products are also used to provide centralized, real-time visibility of network topology, traffic, and status in a single, integrated view and perform modeling of designs and configuration changes. The company also has products that perform some of the same functions but on wireless networks. Finally, OPNET offers consulting and professional services.

Financials --

OPNET is a profitable small-cap that actually pays a dividend, unusual for a tech company of its size. My several measures, it is not inexpensive: PEG is high at 3.61 and the 12 month trailing PE of 63 is definitely at nosebleed levels.

Given the economic backdrop, it's not surprising that trends in revenue and earnings have been lackluster. The company actually suffered losses in the first two quarters of 2009.

On Thursday after the close, however, OPNET reported results for the third quarter of calendar year 2009 (which, if you're interested, is equivalent to the second quarter of their fiscal year 2010). The company recorded earnings per share of $0.09 which soundly trounced analyst expectations of $0.03. Revenue for the quarter was $30.6 million, which compares favorably to the estimate of $28.69 million.

Software license revenue grew 30.9%, or $2.8 million over last quarter, and operating margin went from negative 2.3% to positive 7.2% over the last quarter. The company also ended the quarter with record deferred revenue of $34.9 million.

Though the year-over-year revenue comparison was negative, the solid profit was enough to fire up investors. The chart below shows Friday's nice up-move on strong volume. The stock was on the TradeRadar Swing Signals list as a BUY on Thursday night. I wish I could say all the Swing Signals worked out as well as this one.


Outlook --

Despite a stronger than expected quarter, management remains cautious. OPNET sees Q3 revenues of $30.5-$32.5 million, versus the consensus of $30.3 million. They see Q3 EPS of $0.03-$0.09, versus the consensus of $0.06. The CEO claims to be seeing more normal buying patterns after the previous year where deals dried up or were yanked at the last minute.

The company seems resilient and responsive to changes in the industry and committed to growth through innovation. As an example, with virtualization an increasingly important strategy for more and more corporations, OPNET has introduced a product for troubleshooting application performance problems in virtualized environments.

For those who like to see management put their money where their mouth is, fully 36% of shares are owned by insiders.

Though a player in infrastructure performance management (IPM), the company's primary strength is in application performance management (APM) which, as it turns out, is not the strong suit of their biggest competitors (all known by their initials) BMC, CA, HPQ and IBM. The other competitors are mostly on the same level as OPNET or even smaller so OPNET still has wide open opportunity to grow market share. The company could even be a buy-out target as one of the big four look to shore up their APM product suite.

Conclusion --

As networks and applications grow in complexity, OPNET is there to offer tools that more efficiently identify root causes and potential solutions. As customers routinely seek fast performance and 24/7 availability, OPNET's products provide the ability to monitor in real-time and troubleshoot quickly.

Despite a tough environment OPNET has managed to deliver bottom-line growth. In an improving economy they should do even better. When the current market correction has run its course, OPNET could add to gains.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of Macintosh computers and Apple products. From its sleek design to its user-friendly setup, the Mac is here to stay.

The debate over whether to use a personal computer or a Mac is all about preference.

The advantage of owning a PC is the use of basic programs such as Microsoft Office. However, Macs have all that plus more. Unlike a PC, a Mac is less vulnerable to viruses that will cause the computer to crash or breakdown.

According to edubook.com, Macs focus on the artistic and creative industry, making the use of Adobe software and Photoshop easy. It also increases the competition against your everyday PC.

Even though Macs are considerably more expensive than PCs, you pay for what you get.

If you prefer a PC, then look into what you’re getting into. Every PC catches a virus at one point or another, usually more than one. If you’re ready to face that sort of doom, then get a PC.

But Macs are a good investment. There are little to no virus problems. Even the least expensive Mac is more expensive than a PC, but the way I see it, one should choose quality over quantity any day.

Whether you use your computer for music, work or entertainment, you cannot put a price on something that has such practical value.

Are you familiar with those Apple commercials? Though they’re sometimes exaggerated, they carry some truth.

Apple support and customer care are number one. Apple is right there for you if you are have a problem.

In every Apple retail store, there are “geniuses” that have all of the answers to your questions as well as, provide hands-on technical support for not only Macs, but also for items such as the iPod, Apple TV, and the iPhone. No automated recordings!

The “geniuses” even take care of troubleshooting and actual repairs. I can’t speak much for PCs, but I’ve yet to see a Dell or HP Store.

My first year in college, I was cursed with a PC. If it wasn’t the battery, then it was a virus. If it was not a virus then, it was something else.

If it weren’t for my mother buying me a Mac the next year, than that PC would have been the death of me. My freshman year was so much more stressful as a result of owning a PC.

According to the Apple Web site, the Mac has the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X, and with the recent release of Snow Leopard, it is “finely tuned.” Take THAT, Windows 7!

The better choice for a computer is obviously a Mac. For the Mac users, with all of your wisdom and responsibility, I salute you. PC users, I will continue to pray for you.

Apple’s weathered the economic downturn like almost no other company, pulling in massive profits without having to resort to deep price cuts. But what’s its secret?

Over the past few weeks I’ve been asking a group of Mac/Apple fans why they thought Apple was doing so well. Here are four possible reasons for Apple’s success:

* Constantly improving, innovative product line
Apple doesn’t have a huge product line, but the company is constantly tweaking it. Most of the product updates are well thought out and offer the end user extra value. This is attractive to both new and existing customers.
* Advertising
Apple has a massive ad budget and this allows it to spread the word to a huge audience. When this comes to Macs, this is allowing Apple to aggressively go after those disillusioned PC users. Those funny Mac vs. PC ads are serious business.
* Customer satisfaction
Apple consistently scores very high in customer satisfaction surveys (the company usually tops the list). Happy customers not only re-buy, but tell others that they are happy, therefore generating further sales.
* Vista sucked
Given how Vista was widely considered by many consumers to be a failure, this has handed users over to Apple on a plate. After all, for users who were sick of Vista, or just wanted to give the OS a wide berth, Apple is an obvious choice.

Google now gives users of a subset of Google Voice features if they want to simply use their service without getting a brand new “Google Number”. Mobile phone users can now forward incoming calls to their “Google Voice” mailbox rather than the one hosted by their carrier.

The features available to these users basically includes voicemail, and the ability to make low-priced long distance phone calls, according to the official Google Voice blog.

* Online, searchable voicemail
* Free automated voicemail transcription
* Custom voicemail greetings for different callers
* Email and SMS notifications
* Low-priced international calling

For those of you who want to use Google Voice to its full potential — you’re going to have to take the plunge and get a brand new number. The features, if you choose to go this route, are much more interesting and useful:

* One number that reaches you on all your phones
* SMS via email
* Call screening
* Listen In
* Call recording
* Conference calling
* Call blocking

Once Google fully supports number portability, perhaps they will be able to allow users to simply use one of their existing phone numbers with the full service — but I’m not going to hold my breath for that just yet.

Will you be using the new voicemail service from Google Voice?

There is a common saying that only lawyers or solicitors should get acquainted with different aspects of law, they must be well informed or else the profession may come to an end. Can this be accepted as true? Shouldn’t common people get familiar with the same?

What is Information Technology Act 2000 (ITA-2000)?

Well, if you are living in India and are almost a PC freak, you must remain aware of Information Technology Act 2000 (ITA-2000). It, by and large, is an Act of the Indian Parliament (No 21 of 2000) notified on October 17, 2000. It is worthwhile to mention that the United Nations General Assembly by means of resolution A/RES/51/162, dated the 30 January 1997 did accept the Model Law on Electronic Commerce adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. This is referred to as the UNCITRAL Model Law on E-Commerce. What is more the Information technology Act 2000 amendment Bill 2006 has since been passed by the Indian Parliament on December 23, 2008.

Is there any new proposal?

It has to be stated that the Government of India, by now, has proposed major amendments to ITA-2000 in form of the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006, passed by the Cabinet Committee of the Government of India and are prepared for being placed before the Indian Parliament for discussion.

Nevertheless some substantial developments have taken place in all these years and the bill is known as, at the moment, Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2008. Even though some persons try to discern any similarity with the 2006 Bill, it is a totally different Bill and has been approved by the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. Is there any more problem? The Bill is awaiting approval of the President along with the formal notification.

There has been the inclusion of many changes, as already said, and at the same time it does incorporate the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. However there is another problem. In the Indian scenario till the moment a Bill gets finally notified by the Executive it remains a mere Bill. For this reason, till the government of India notifies it, the old Information Technology Act, 2000 would continue to preside over the Indian cyber law.

Has there been any criticism?

What surprises many persons is the dearth of media recognition afforded to the amendment. Apart from this the amendment was passed in 26 minutes the 22nd of December 2008 along with 4 other bills, and another 8 in just 17 minutes the next day. This indicates that there was hardly any debate on what should have been very contentious laws. Even Karnika Seth, renowned cyberlawyer & chairperson of the Cyberlaws Consulting Centre in India, through making a detailed analysis of the recent amendments in the IT Act, 2000 has failed to be optimistic.

And I don’t just mean for geeks. I mean a real, viable alternative to Windows for many users despite the apparent quality of both Windows 7 and Server 2008.


About a year and a half ago, ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes asked, “Is Ubuntu becoming the generic Linux distro?” and concluded that “the evolution of Ubuntu into the generic Linux distro isn’t a bad thing”. Fair enough, but Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth took this idea a bit farther during a press conference call yesterday:

“We’ve already done a lot of work in developer ecosystem and we’re now increasingly interested in the non-developer consumer ecosystem, so that’s what all the OEM work is about,” Shuttleworth said, declaring that his focus was on “making sure that Ubuntu gets pre-installed and Ubuntu is available from Dell.com and others and making sure that Ubuntu is the default alternative to Windows.”


He didn’t mention Apple, which, to many consumers, is the only alternative to Windows. For all its buzz in the tech world, Linux (or Ubuntu) is hardly a household word. Competing with Apple, though, which already has an impressive ecosystem of hardware and is the reigning king of usability, doesn’t make sense anyway and this ad from Novell would never fly outside of the tech community:

So how can I be so confident that Shuttleworth’s vision of becoming the “default alternative”, and not just the default Linux for those geeky enough to try it, will become a reality? Because he very clearly tied it to a vision of platform. If Ubuntu can work well on every device users encounter (including non-Intel smartbooks and other new classes of portable devices that will be emerging in the next couple of years, displacing notebooks for many consumers), then name recognition will follow.

Obviously, the PC space is dominated by Windows. Yet no matter how spiffy Windows 7 is (and even Shuttleworth acknowledged that it was a good OS, worthy of competing with Ubuntu), Vista taught us all a lesson (consumers and techies alike). There are alternatives to the latest and greatest from Microsoft, even if that’s Windows XP. We don’t have to upgrade.

This “PC space” is changing, though. Windows Mobile stinks. Microsoft has no plans to develop Windows on ARM platforms. The cloud is here, not because of the economy, but because of the value businesses perceive in it. Ubuntu is actively developing in all of these spaces and their latest, highly polished OS (available Thursday) shows off many of the technologies.

What forced Microsoft to crank out it’s best OS in years (some might say it’s best ever and certainly the most stable prior to a service pack or two)? Competition. Competition from Apple, certainly, but also a growing awareness of open source concepts in general. Many artists are releasing DRM-free music (and still making money). Books are widely and freely available. Content is everywhere, much of it for free. Something that you pay for, then, like Windows, better be a heck of a lot better than its free alternatives. Competition is our friend, whether we’re consumers, pro users, or CIOs.

Microsoft may very well continue to dominate the desktop PC space. However, a quick look around at the variety of ways people access online content and cloud-based resources suggests that the importance of the desktop PC as we know it is diminishing. Ubuntu is ready to capitalize on that in ways that the average consumer won’t recognize until he or she finds him or herself using Ubuntu on a MID, a netbook, a kiosk, a phone, a virtualized OS, or a smartbook. Can Apple, Microsoft, or any other Linux distributor say that? Competition might be our friend, but an ubiquitous platform is the friend of developers who can start creating the next generation of killer apps, easily ported to whatever screen we might be using.

It’s no secret that there are millions of digital photos that never see the light of day. They languish on hard drives, flash memory cards, photo CDs, and other digital media, never to be printed or shared. And though some lucky shots get distributed via photo sharing and social networking sites, the days of snapshot prints that you can pass around to your friends and family are dwindling. Sony Electronics is trying to stem the tide with its new S-Frame DPP-F700 digital photo frame.

The DPP-F700 is an all-in-one digital photo frame that not only displays photos on a 7-inch widescreen LCD, but also prints out 4×6-inch snapshots, using a built-in dye-sublimation technology printer. And when Sony says all-in-one, it means all-in-one: you can use the device to do some basic photo editing, such as enlarging, reducing, cropping, and adjusting sharpness, brightness, contrast and hue, as well as print out calendars and other predefiined image templates.

An automatic sensor rotates portrait- or landscape-format images appropriately and offers multiple playback options, such as single images, thumbnails, or slideshows with 10 built-in transitions.



The frame accepts most flash memory formats — including SD, SDHC, MMC, CompactFlash, xD-Picture Card, and of course Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Pro DUO cards — as well as USB input from your PC.

And if you actually just want your digital snaps to languish, there’s a gigabyte of internal storage that automatically downsizes your photos to store up to 2,000 images.

The frame/printer will sell for about $200 when it ships in January and is compatible with SVM-F series photo paper packs for Sony Picture Station printers. The cost of consumables per print varies from about 50 cents a print with the SVM-F40P pack (which includes 40 sheets of 4×6 paper and a printer ribbon for $19.99) to about 30 cents per print with the SVM-F120P (which includes 120 sheets of 4×6 paper and two printer ribbons for $34.99).

The White House announced the move in an Associated Press story that somewhat clumsily tried explaining, "the programming language is written in public view, available for public use, and able for people to edit." Debugging and upgrading the site's code "now...can be done in the matter of days and free to taxpayers."

Well, sort of. First of all, Drupal is a program, not a programming language, and second, just because software is available for free doesn't mean that using it is free. It takes time and expertise to install, configure, and maintain software. Indeed, Drupal and Acquia founder Dries Buytaert said in a blog posting announcing the White House's use of Drupal that companies involved in the Web site switch included not just his but also General Dynamics Information Technology, Phase2 Technology, Akamai, and Terremark Federal Group.

And although open-source software in general can offer a tight feedback loop between the programmers creating the software and the people using it, there's no guarantee that debugging and security patches automatically arrive faster or that software is easier to maintain than with proprietary software.

This move is just the sort of thing that can lead to a lot of misunderstandings about the idea of openness, a term that's up there with motherhood and apple pie these days when it comes to values everybody wants to embrace. Don't confuse the fact that Drupal is cooperatively created and debugged in public with the openness of the present administration's government.

This line in the AP story in particular raised my hackles: "Aides joked that it doesn't get more transparent than showing the world (the) code that their Web site is based on."

That's just silly. Drupal-powered blogs and forums can enable online information sharing and public participation in discussions, but that sort of thing can be accomplished with proprietary software as well. Likewise, it's perfectly possible to use open-source software in a system that's locked-down and closed.

That's not to pluck the feather out of Drupal's cap--or indeed out of the caps of Red Hat's Linux operating system, Apache software for hosting Web site and powering its search, and the MySQL database, all of which also are used in the White House project, according to publisher, tech pundit, and open-source fan Tim O'Reilly.

It's not without reason that open-source software is very popular to power Web properties, including plenty of high-powered ones such as Google and Facebook. The White House's move is an endorsement that could help others--notably the many customers in the federal government itself--feel more comfortable with open-source software.

Today Windows 7 hits the GA or general availability milestone. That means that you’ll be able to pick up a PC with the OS pre-installed on it, or pick up a disc from your favorite virtual or bricks-and-mortar outlet. To celebrate, here are my top 7 favorite Windows 7 features.

#1 - Performance boost

Without a doubt the top Windows 7 feature for me is performance. On every system that I’ve put Windows 7 on, from monster quad core rigs to humble netbooks, I’ve seen a performance boost.

Putting numbers on this performance hike, on key metrics such as boot-up, video encoding and gaming frames per second, the boost over Vista is, on average, in the region of 10%.

In my opinion, this performance boost is Windows 7’s strongest selling point.

#2 - More restrained UAC

The User Account Control (UAC) experience under Vista was a little like being shot in the face with a shotgun filled with dialog boxes. A single simple action could unleash a barrage of warnings that left many users feeling confused, bewildered and angry.

Under Windows 7, UAC is a little more restrained, limiting prompts to specific actions. Some might argue that this decreases the security it offers, but I think that the “dialog blindness” that the old UAC caused is worse.

Another good side of the new, improved UAC is the fact that users can customize the level of warnings they receive and so set up the system to best suit their needs.

#3 - 64-bit becomes the new default

Microsoft, along with the big OEMs, are pushing 64-bit flavor of Windows harder than ever. Given that hardware, software and driver support for 64-bit is now at an all-time high, there’s very little reason for users not to migrate to 64-bit.

Within a few years I expect the Windows 7 effect to start to erode 32-bit’s strangle-hold on PCs.

#4 - Improved troubleshooting tools

When users hit a problem, what they want to do is find a solution or fix and get on with their day. To help users accomplish this, Microsoft has incorporated numerous troubleshooters into Windows 7.

No troubleshooter is perfect, but the work that Microsoft has done in Windows 7 will help many users fix problems for themselves without having to resort to tech support or trawling the web for answers.

#5 - UI improvements

No one can say that the Windows 7 UI is revolutionary, but the evolutionary changes that Microsoft has made in this new OS are almost all steps in the right direction. There are two aspects of the UI that have been tweaked:

- Helping users find the applications and documents they want to work with
- Once the user has found what they want, the UI fades into the background and allows the user to get on with things

#6 - Touch support

It’s going to be a while until the built-in touch support incorporated into Windows 7 really takes off, but there’s no doubt that Microsoft’s inclusion of support for touch-screens right into the Windows 7 OS will encourage OEMs to offer more systems with this cool feature.

#7 - XP Mode

I’m not a huge fan of the XP Mode feature available in some editions of Windows 7 that allows users to run XP within a virtual machine from the desktop. However, for those folks with specific bits of software that won’t work on a later OS, then XP Mode does offer a lifeline.

Bonus favorite feature - It’s not Vista. ‘Nuff said!

So, is it a good OS? Yes. In fact, I agree with Ed Bott when he calls the OS “impressive.” However, that said, I can’t see any really compelling reason to rush adoption. Take your time, Windows 7 will be there waiting for you 6 months of a year down the line. Over that time it’ll get better, and hardware/driver support will get better, so everyone’s a winner.

So, join the party and upgrade now, or wait and upgrade later. Or stick with what you are already running. Or go with a Mac or Linux … The choice if yours.

Microsoft is really turning up the consumer-focused volume on the Windows 7 launch on October 22 — despite the fact that the company makes a lot of money from selling Windows to business users, either via volume-license agreements and/or various other channels.

Why so much attention on retail — where Microsoft admittedly garners the least amount of Windows revenues? Microsoft officials believe if they can win over consumers with Windows 7, these consumers will push their workplaces to move to Windows 7 more quickly. There’s also, undoubtedly, a large helping of Apple envy/fear that’s part of Microsoft’s consumer push.

To kick off the launch activities, Microsoft unveiled on October 21 a number of retail deals for the product that it has forged with some of its PC partners and retail outlets. Microsoft is calling the promotion “7 Days of Windows 7.” Company officials said to expect more Windows 7 deals to be added throughout the coming week and to check back on Windows.com if you’re in the market for new hardware, upgrades, support, etc.)

Day 1 (October 22) offers include:

* Best Buy offering Full home technology remodel, handyman included. Best Buy PC Home Makeover
* HP laptop, netbook, desktop and monitor package with Windows 7. Geek Squad wireless home network with router and new PC setup is included for $1,199.00
* Dell Studio XPS 13. Save more than $100.00
* Acer AZ5610-U9072 23″ Touch All-in-One (with Windows Touch) for $880.00
* With the Buy a PC, Get a Discounted Upgrade offer, customers who buy a new PC running Windows 7 Home Premium can upgrade a Windows XP- or Windows Vista-based PC they already own with a discounted box copy of Windows 7. This offer will run through Jan. 2, 2010.
* The Windows 7 Family Pack is available tomorrow in select countries while supplies last. With this offer, consumers can buy three Upgrade licenses of Windows 7 for one price.
* The Student Offer begins tomorrow. For a limited time, the Windows 7 Student Offer gives college and university students in the U.S. and select markets worldwide the opportunity to purchase Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade or Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for a discount.

I’m weighing which Windows 7 machine to buy and am open to suggestions. I’m looking for something that’s lightweight and very durable. (I’m actually considering buying both a netbook and a laptop, making the laptop my primary machine and the netbook what I take on the road.) I don’t care about running games. I don’t want or need touch. I do value battery life and don’t need anything flashy (though something with a little personality would be nice). Any suggestions out there?

One other note: If you’re in the New York City area on October 22, feel free to come by our post-launch party. It’s at the Antarctica Bar on Hudson and will start around 5 p.m. Lot of Microsoft bloggers — including Ed Bott of ZDNet, Paul Thurrott of the Windows SuperSite, Tom Warren of NeoWin and more will be there. We’re also expecting Most Valuable Professionals, testers, a few brave/crazy Softies and other hangers-on to show up to sample the seven beers on tap. Hope to see you there!

Today is Windows 7 launch day. Here are some launch day offers that might be of interest to you.

Microsoft is introducing a limited-time series of offers known as “7 Days of Windows 7” with amazing deals on hardware, upgrades, support and other options. Watch for new offers to be released daily on Windows.com.

To kick off Day 1 tomorrow, Microsoft is offering PCs that are targeted at simplifying consumers’ lives. There are a host of offers available for customers, including:

* Best Buy. Full home technology remodel, handyman included. Best Buy PC Home Makeover
- HP laptop, netbook, desktop and monitor package with Windows 7. Geek Squad wireless home network with router and new PC setup is included.
$1,199.00
* Dell Studio XPS 13. All the speed you’ll need.
- Simply put, everything you do on your PC will be easier with a fast, high-performing laptop.
Save more than $100 on a Dell Studio XPS13
* Acer AZ5610-U9072 23″ Touch All-in-One (with Windows Touch)
- Touch capabilities and all-in-one elegance with an integrated PC and monitor
- This stunning, All-in-One PC with Windows Touch incorporates intuitive multi-touch technology for exceptional high-definition (HD) entertainment at your fingertips. An elegant, bring exceptional HD entertainment to your fingertips.
$880.00

With the Buy a PC, Get a Discounted Upgrade offer, customers who buy a new PC running Windows 7 Home Premium can upgrade a Windows XP- or Windows Vista-based PC they already own with a discounted box copy of Windows 7. This offer will run through Jan. 2, 2010.

Other offers available include:

* The Windows 7 Family Pack is available tomorrow in select countries while supplies last. With this offer, consumers can buy three Upgrade licenses of Windows 7 for one low price.
* The Student Offer begins tomorrow. For a limited time, the Windows 7 Student Offer gives college and university students in the U.S. and select markets worldwide the opportunity to purchase Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade or Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for a significant discount.