Infosys and SAP Enter Into Global Services Partner Agreement

Infosys and SAP announced that Infosys has signed up to the SAP Global Service Partner Program in order to strengthen its capabilities to deliver enhanced value to customers. This announcement marks an important milestone in the relationship between the two organizations, which have been working together for more than five years to help companies realize information technology (IT) and business results from their investments in SAP applications

Through this newly expanded relationship, customers will benefit from bolstered implementation services, enhanced solution delivery and increased global reach. Progressive companies such as ABB Group have already realized the benefits of the existing partnership।

"Infosys' SAP implementation approach is highly specialized and in lockstep with industry best practices," said Mauro Romano, internal controlling officer at ABB। "Compliance is assured during every phase of the implementation or upgrade, providing enterprises with ample opportunity to review or realign internal controls to enable better business practices. The end result of this collaborative approach is a reduced year-over-year compliance cost and improved control mechanisms."

Kodak, the global imaging innovator, has also benefited from the partnership. The company selected Infosys to help implement its SAP-enabled transformation globally.
"Infosys' solution and delivery capabilities in the Greater Asia region not only improved the time to market and predictability, but reduced the cost of implementation," said Imran Khan, chief information officer, Consumer Digital Imaging Group & Graphic Communication Group, Kodak

Infosys' SAP Practice has been growing at nearly 70 percent annually over the past five years and is a key contributor to the expansion of the SAP ecosystem. According to the December 2007 report Forrester Wave: SAP Implementation Providers, Q4 2007, "Infosys has the best pre-implementation process consulting expertise of any other pure-play Indian provider, and comes closest to successfully competing against the legacy multinationals in this area ... Infosys' SAP application services practice is aligned along verticals to ensure that clients get the benefit of its deep vertical process expertise."

"Infosys' SAP Practice has grown rapidly as customers globally have responded to our unique value proposition, combining pre-implementation business consulting with delivery excellence," said S।D. Shibulal, chief operating officer and member of the board, Infosys Technologies, Ltd. "Today's partnership expansion underscores our commitment to SAP applications and our vision of enabling businesses to win in a 'flat world.' Through this partnership, we can provide our customers with access to some of the finest expertise in the world. We'll help service their implementations of SAP applications, leading to faster ROI."

"Infosys' SAP Practice has grown rapidly as customers globally have responded to our unique value proposition, combining pre-implementation business consulting with delivery excellence," said S.D. Shibulal, chief operating officer and member of the board, Infosys Technologies, Ltd. "Today's partnership expansion underscores our commitment to SAP applications and our vision of enabling businesses to win in a 'flat world.' Through this partnership, we can provide our customers with access to some of the finest expertise in the world. We'll help service their implementations of SAP applications, leading to faster ROI."

Infosys further plans to establish a solution center in Bangalore to help ensure that Infosys' SAP Practice professionals continue to help customers advance to the next generation of SAP solutions. Infosys will also take an instrumental role in enabling customers to access the business benefits of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), which is designed to provide businesses with an agile, powerful infrastructure required to grow their businesses and adapt rapidly to changing market conditions. With Infosys' newly founded India Business Unit and the collaboration with SAP India, the partnership will support the development of the fast-growing Indian market.

"Having a strong ecosystem is critical to SAP's success and something that has been instrumental in helping SAP extend its global reach," said Zia Yusuf, executive vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP. "To become an SAP global services partner, a company must not only demonstrate repeated implementation success, but, more importantly, be committed to SAP's vision of enabling enterprise SOA for our global customers. We have found this in Infosys, and look forward to working on future customer collaborations with them."


source=http://soa.sys-con.com/

IT can open door to manpower export

Let's take the instance of the voter list and national identity card project। A voter sits in front of a computer. His fingerprint, signature and picture are taken in a computer. Then the software is doing the rest automatically. The voter's personal information is sent to a specific place where the data is being preserved. Since made and preserved by software, it will be possible to prevent illegal use or misuse of the person's identity card. The task of the voter list and the national ID project is going on in full swing. Two Bangladeshi companies have developed the database software being used in this gigantic project.

According to IT experts, software is a set of serially placed programme's in computer's language aiming to resolve problems, which activates the hardware by creating a relation between computer hardware and user। Due to the influence of suitable software, the computer becomes mathematically intelligent. System software and application software are made as products meaning software has an unlimited commercial utility.

Computer Usage Corporation (CUG), a US-based organisation, began software use in 1955 as a service-providing sector. Then this has become the fast changing sector. People have gradually become dependent on it. Everything, from I-pod to laptop and computers to businesses, is run by software.

New software is being used in many ways like bringing newness in business, atomising offices and industries, and producing different products. With software, information is readily available everywhere. It has been possible to time-consuming works in a short time. So, the software industry is expanding very fast. Though challenging, this new industry is creating various types of employment's too.

There is a bright prospect for Bangladesh in this software industry. By virtue of this flourishing industry, the country too is forwarding to e-commerce-based economy keeping pace with the world. Lakhs of unemployed youths are getting opportunity to work both at home and abroad.

Manual Islam, 30, is one of them. After his graduation in software programming from India's Pune University, Manual is now working as an assistant director in Development and Research Network, a private organisation.

Nurul Absar also works in the same organization as web application developer. Though working in software section now, his field of study at university was different. He completed master's in statistics from Sylhet Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. Later, he had a post-graduate diploma in information technology from the same university. "Software is now such an industry where self-employment is possible after necessary training. This is why employment is rapidly expanding in this industry," says Absar.

According to a recent joint research by Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), software is the most promising export sector in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) is a leading IT organisation as it has been working since 1997 for its development. As of June 2007, the number of BASIS members was 245.

On the present state of Bangladesh's software industry, BASIS programme manager Shariar Shams says, "At present, there are over 4,500 registered software companies in the country where about 5,000 professionals are working। Besides, from June 2006 to May 2007, 1,839 job advertisements have been published in newspapers and on the Internet. This figure is 7 percent higher than June 2005 to May 2006.

He also says the demand for Bangladeshi software has increased significantly. A huge quantity of quality software is being produced in the country. The demand for software in the local market is worth over Tk 300 crore. About the performance of BASIS, Shams says his organisation regularly exports software to 30 countries. In the first eight months of2006-2007 fiscal, BASIS exported software worth about Tk 2 crore that is about 26 percent higher compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year.

Bangladesh Economic Survey-2007 states the country is exporting software and IT enabled services to 30 countries, including the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia and different European states. Over 50 software firms and IT companies are involved in the export प्रोसेस

The survey also says some of the organisations that use Bangladeshi software are Nokia, Japan Airlines, the World Bank, US Postal and US Agriculture Department. An ICT incubator centre has been established in Dhaka city's Karwan Bazar for flourishing the software industry. Currently, 48 organisations are working at the centre. From this incubator, an amount of Tk 4.27 crore was earned in the last two years through export.

A Commerce Ministry reports on 'Export of Computer Software from Bangladesh: Problems and Prospects' says there are many positive aspects of Bangladesh's software। Every year, a huge number of students are receiving degrees and training on computer-related subjects from different government and private universities. Many Bangladeshi students are also studying abroad. Besides, IT -educated manpower is available in Bangladesh at much lower cost than the developed countries and even neighbouring India.

There are also many problems in the software industry of the country. Saqibul Hasan, an engineer of ICT research-related firm Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Development, says, "In our country, it's not being possible to create enough manpower for lack of IT institutions. This is the main problem. Besides, lack of information is another aspect. For instance, many people with the highest degrees in Computer Science don't even know that software can be made sitting at home. There are many works available on line for professionally skilled software developers."

Enamul Haque, project manager of Daffodil Software Ltd, points out another problem the industry is now facing। "Software industry is electricity dependent. But, we never get uninterrupted power supply. For this, software developers face problem in delivering the orders. It also affects the efforts to create skilled manpower in the IT sector."

BASIS executive director TIM Nurul Kabir says despite many problems, Bangladesh's software sector is moving ahead contributing to the national development. About the prospects of software industry in Bangladesh, eminent economist Dr Atiur Rahman says, "This sector will create huge employment opportunities. It will be possible to export trained manpower meeting local demand."

According to experts, the main problems that are hindering development of the industry include absence of duty-free facility in case of software export-import, problems relating to necessary infrastmcture and marketing, reluctance of government offices in using software, lack of IT-based educational institutions, inadequacy of teachers and labs, lack of planning and government support, reluctance of banks to provide loans and absence of software-related laws.

If the existing problems could be resolved, this export-oriented industry can open up a new horizon of prospects for national development

source=http://nation.ittefaq.com/

Microsoft looks to tackle software piracy

Kolkata, May 23 Microsoft has adopted a three-pronged approach to tackle the problem of software piracy, which accounted for losses of $48 billion globally in 2007.

Microsoft’s approach comprises education, engineering and enforcement. “Our endeavour is to work with customers, businesses and partners to drive awareness of piracy as an issue, and to educate them on how they can work on minimising this menace. Access to original software is one of the most critical elements to reduce piracy in India and we have taken the initiative to provide original software online and telephonically,” Mr Vipul Sant, Director of Microsoft India, stated in response to a questionnaire from Business Line.

According to him, India lost over $2 billion in 2007 to software piracy, a substantial increase from $367 million in 2003. In India alone, a 10 per cent reduction in software piracy would generate 44,000 jobs, $200 million in tax revenue and $3.1 billion in economic growth.

A KPMG Software License Compliance Survey 2007 states that companies lose a significant amount of revenue due to unlicensed use of their products. Thirty-four per cent of those polled in this regard said losses on this score amounted to 10 per cent of their revenue, while 21 per cent of the respondents felt the losses could well go up to 20 per cent of revenue. The survey also points out that managing software licence compliance is a low-risk, high-reward endeavour.

Mr Sant felt a large number of home PC users use counterfeit software simply because they are unable to distinguish between original and pirated software. He underscored the need to educate customers on the risks associated with the use of pirated software.

With regard to enforcement, Mr Sant said that though India has stringent laws to curb software piracy, there were gaps in implementing them appropriately. Strong intellectual property rights protection was critical to the growth of the software industry, he has stated.

He disagreed with the view that lowering the price of original software would help the industry address the issue appropriately।

source=http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/

Increase Your Web Design Business Revenue & Customer Loyalty Reselling Hosting

May 14, 2008 - Web designers and developers are the heart and soul of the Internet. As a web designer or web developer you can make a solid, growing income on the Internet. The secret to making money with your design and development skills is to include hosting in your design or development quotes.

You can make up to $50 per month per site, hosting your client sites. And this is much easier than you think. You don’t need a dedicated server and you don’t need to worry about competing with hosting companies. Most people think about just getting a web site up, and the first people they think of is web designers. Terms with “web designer”get more searches per day than terms with “hosting”. People are looking for web designers to get their sites on the Internet.

Web designers and developers can incorporate the sale of hosting into their web development and design projects. As a web designer you can bill your customers for the hosting fees within the design and then host the account for a year or on a month to month basis. You will be surprised at how much extra income you can generate from your web design customers.

Providing hosting for your web design clients will give you greater assurance that your customers will come back to you to make changes or update their site. This allows you to keep generating income from your work and customer base. Let’s look at some numbers, and how billing for hosting on top of your web design work can make you some serious money. Let’s assume you get paid $500 - $1000+ for a site design. If you charge your client for hosting as well you could generate up to $50 extra per site, per month in hosting fees. You could make up to $1100 to $1600 per site, per year instead of just $500 or $1000 per site. With 100 clients this could make you $110,000 or $160,000 per year instead of $50,000 - $100,000 per year. On top of this, remember your client is more likely to come back to you to update and maintain your site which means more money for you, for easy work.

With a little effort and focus you could generate a very healthy income in your web design business. With tools like Joomla, WordPress and other highly customizable content management systems you can make the hard work incredibly efficient so you can focus solely on the design. There are a huge amount of free, powerful web applications, content management systems and shopping carts you can quickly install in your reseller web hosting account and produce a design style for very quickly. There are also a myriad of ready to run, specialist applications written in ASP, ASP.Net and PHP that you can bolt on to your customers site, customize the design for and really impress your them. With these easily installable web applications you can very quickly impress your customers and raise the value of your web design fees - and the fact that they are specialist customized web applications you have put together, your web design customer will be happy to pay your hosting fees.

For your design business you don’t need anything fancy, you don’t need dedicated servers or specialists billing or server management systems. You can utilize the cost efficiencies of shared hosting to maximize your profit. One way to do it and a lot of designers do this, is get a new shared hosting account for each site they design and charge the customer more than they pay.

The better way to do it and really maximize your profit is to get a reseller hosting account where you can host all your customer sites in the one hosting account. This works out much cheaper than getting a separate account for each customer site. A good reseller account will give you far more room to move and even greater cost effectiveness which means even more profit and less effort.

Getting up and running with a good reseller hosting account is easy and incredibly affordable. For just a few hundred dollars per year you can host 50 or more sites. A quick search on reseller hosting will give you plenty to choose from. In our experience Windows hosting reseller packages are a good idea as a Windows reseller hosting account will give you the freedom and choice to run ASP, ASP.Net as well as PHP sites with MySQL or SQL Server databases. Linux hosting is incredibly efficient and gives you some of the cheap hosting options available but does not support ASP or ASP.Net applications. For an extra few dollars a month you can get Windows hosting and dramatically increase your options for your web design customers from a wider array of available web applications and freely available code in ASP and ASP.Net.

With Windows hosting you can use all your favorite web design tools and you’ll have the vast resources of Microsoft development products like Visual Studio at your disposal. As a reseller looking at Windows hosting accounts make sure the host offers Multiple IIS sites and not just unlimited domains. To properly host multiple sites on Windows each site needs to have it’s own entry in IIS (Internet Information Server - the Windows web server). Many hosts say unlimited domains and what they really mean is running unlimited domains on one site. All you get with unlimited domains on one site, is your multiple domains show the same site or requires you to write code to detect the domain and redirect to a directory. This is not a great way to run your customer sites.

With each site having it’s own entry IIS means you can have separate application settings, assign it to different application pools and maintain separate log files. This means you can have more control, more flexibility and produce a much better solution for your client. Putting your customer sites in separate application pools protects your customer sites. If one of your customer sites gets busy or some crazy bug causes a problem it will isolate it to just that site and you wont end up with all your customers screaming at you that their sites are down.

After 12 years working on the internet. Through booms, through busts, good times and bad times web designers and developers quietly rule the web. Businesses needing a web site look for web designers first and in our experience they really don’t want to know too much about hosting. As a designer you can save your clients from the complexity and confusion of hosting and make money from it. To make money from hosting your client work you really don’t need to leap out and set yourself up as a web hosting provider with billing systems, hosting plans and support systems and processes. Start off by hosting all your sites in one reseller hosting package and you’ll be surprised at just how much extra money you can make for very little effort. The best thing of all you can keep your focus on why you became a web designer - designing web sites!

By: Michael Guilfoyle

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Joomla! and the latest trends in the open source revolution

Australia's Andrew Eddie and Brad Baker, two of the core team members of Joomla!, the free open-source Internet content management system (CMS) that in three years has grown into a global development community with more than three million downloads in a year, will be guest speakers at a special event in Sydney on May 19, 2008

Australia's Andrew Eddie and Brad Baker, two of the core team members of Joomla!, the free open-source Internet content management system (CMS) that in three years has grown into a global development community with more than three million downloads in a year, will be guest speakers at a special event in Sydney on May 19, 2008.

The content management system has grown into a global development community with more than three million downloads a year.

Eddie and Baker will talk about the latest trends in the open source revolution.

In a statement they said:"We will talk about the latest trends in the open-source revolution that has liberated online software from the proprietorial designs of companies like Microsoft and made feature-rich Web sites affordable for all businesses, not-for-profit groups and individuals."

Eddie and Baker are keynote speakers at the annual JoomlaDay Conference being held at the Sydney Conference and Exhbition Centre in Darling Harbour.

The Joomla! project has deep Australian roots.

It began in 2005 as an offshoot of the Sydney-based Mambo content management system, after members of the Mambo development team became concerned about protecting key open source principles they believed were being violated.

Andrew Eddy (aka "MasterChief") wrote an open letter that within a day had garnered the support of a thousand developers in the global free software community.

The name later chosen for the new open source project is derived from the Swahili "jumla," meaning "all together" or "as a whole."

Since then the community has grown exponentially.

As of February 2008, the official Joomla support forum, moderated by Brad Baker, has more than 260,000 threads and 1.2 million posts from more than 170,000 registered members in 40 languages.

Joomla! leverages much open source and Web 2.0 technology, and now offers more than 3,000 add-on features, from podcasts to calendars, wikis to social networking tools.

A live demonstration of the power of Joomla! will be held on May 20, 2008, with a team of developers building a fully functional Web site for a nominated charity in less than seven hours.

OSDI Delivered Joomla, Drupal Custom Design Templates & Wordpress Custom Theme / Templates Design

Offshore software development India has successfully delivered B2B ecommerce website for its Canadian client. The website is all about product information, services of the company with ecommerce facility and integration with the payment gateway.

The other new project of the website design is also delivered to new Canadian client - IP consulting. This includes custom theme, logo design, website design and development, data migration.

In the month of the April, OSDI has successfully delivered different themes for the Joomla, Magento, Wordpress and Drupal to the UK based client with all adequate standards.

Experienced designers at offshore software development India have designed neat and clean eye catching professional themes for the corporate websites which keeps visitors to stay longer on the site. This helps websites with high volume traffic, higher sales, and more inquiries. These are the comments from the clients.

Unique logo design of all these themes is one of the major reasons for getting constant praise and more work from their clients. Logo design meets the criteria of band reorganization, company name and company approved colors and typography,

Designers at offshore software development India, ready to take challenges to deliver low cost, neat and clean corporate design websites and logo with brand reorganization and high traffic.

Please contact info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com for the inquiry of logo design, flash website design, theme design, and website development using Joomla, Drupal, Magento and Wordpress.

More Information

Blogging Advice - What Every New Blogger Needs To Know

Blogging advice tailored for newcomers can be hard to find. With new terms and tools appearing daily, it can be confusing for new bloggers to know where to start. To learn the basics of blogging such as how to set up a blog and make money from it, keep reading; it's easier than you think.

First, pick which blog platform you would like to use. The top two contenders are blogger.com and wordpress.org. Here's some simple blogging advice if you're having trouble deciding. If you're entirely new to blogging, blogger.com is the way to go. If you're familiar with the basics of blogging or would just like to have more ''control'' over your blog, wordpress might be a better choice.

No matter which option you choose, the process is simple. All it takes is filling out your name, email address and naming your blog. Although each platform comes with its own web hosting, here s some blogging advice every blogger should take. Purchase your own domain name. Not only will having your own domain be easier for your visitors to remember, it will add another level of professionalism to your blog.

After you've picked out which blogger platform to use and have started to set up your blog, the next step is choosing your template. Templates are pre-made designs for your blog. The best blogging advice when it comes to templates is to make sure that your template reflects the topic of your blog. It's more sensible to use a car template if your blog is about exotic cars, than it is to use a template about food. You may not realize it, but you're halfway done.

You've picked a blog platform, registered your blog name, and picked out your very own template. You may have also decided to register your own domain name. Now its time for some blogging advice that everyone wants to know - how to make money from your blog. There are 3 main ways to monetize your blog - through traffic, content and ads. Traffic for your blog can be obtained in many ways. While most people think you have to pay a huge amount of money to achieve traffic results, the following tips are not only free, but also simple.

The easiest way to earn money from your blog is by simply filling it with content. If you can remember this, it will become one of the best blogging advice you've ever received. The more relevant content that you add to your blog, the easier it will be for search engines to find it. This means more traffic, which equals more money. When you first begin to blog, try to post several times a week and eventually work up to blogging on a daily basis. Readers like to know that every time they visit your blog, they will read something new.

Don't worry if you don't like to write; content comes in different forms. No longer is writing the only way to fill up a blog. Videos, podcasts and even games are now considered content. Once you've filled your blog with content, the next step is to add your blog to social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking sites are websites that cater to sending readers to blogs based on their personal interests. The top social bookmarking sites include StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, Reddit, Propeller, Fark, and Del.icio.us. However, many bookmarking sites prohibit any marketing ploys; so to minimize risk, bookmark 4 to 5 non-self-serving links for every self-serving link you bookmark.

Post comments on other people's bookmarks and be an active participant in the discussions. Bookmark sites that other people have bookmarked so you ll be seen as part of the community. Another effective way to create income is by signing up for affiliate programs and promoting them on your blog. This is not only great blogging advice, but can be used for other ventures as well such as websites.

Every time a visitor purchases an affiliate product from your blog, you get paid a commission for it. The commissions can range any where from a few bucks to hundreds of dollars. The tip to remember when it comes to affiliate marketing is to pick programs and products that are related to your blog. It's much easier to get your visitors to sign up for a recipe subscription if your blog is about cooking, than it is to get them to sign up for a stock market subscription.

One last tip for creating money for your blog is to place ads. This can be done in various ways. One of the most popular ways is through Google adsense. Each time a visitor clicks on one of the adsense ads, you get paid. It's also free to sign up for an account. As a bonus, if you signed up under the blogger.com platform, all it takes are a few clicks to get adsense onto your blog. If you chose wordpress, the setup is still easy.

You just simply install a plug-in to add Google adsense to your blog. A lot of people will tell you that this is the blogging advice they wished they would've received when they first started to blog. Not only do you now know how to setup a blog, you also learned how to profit from it. Now the only thing you have to do is go create your blog and start earning!

Source: powerhomebiz

Microsoft Throws A Bone To SharePoint Partners

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) on Monday launched a program that lets qualified channel partners provide Office SharePoint Server 2007 planning and deployment services to volume licensing customers, and be paid by Microsoft for delivering these services.

SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS) is a partner-focused offering that's limited to Microsoft's Software Assurance customers, and is similar to programs Microsoft has offered in the past for Exchange, BizTalk, and SQL Server. To some partners, SDPS is another sign of the runaway success of SharePoint, which is already a billion dollar business for Microsoft.

Ken Winell, CEO of Expertcollab, a SharePoint-focused solution provider in Florham Park, N.J., says customers benefit not only from the Microsoft-subsidized partner delivered services but also from being able to get their own IT staff quickly up to speed on SharePoint.

"This is a great example of how the SharePoint product team is addressing field concerns regarding deployment and adoption, while also incenting the partner community to attain another level of competency with revenue-rewarded results," said Winell.

The SDPS pilot program is open to Microsoft partners with competencies in Information Worker Portals and Collaboration, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), or Search specializations. Partners also get access to SharePoint deployment plan templates, architecture design guidance documents, and SharePoint server farm deployment guidance.

In the SDPS program, partners provide deployment planning sessions of 1, 3, 5, 10 or 15 days, with the duration and depth of the engagement determined by a combination of a customer's qualifying Office licenses and the number of Core Client Access License Suites and Enterprise CAL Suites, according to Microsoft.

Source: crn

Blogger now schedules future-dated posts

Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.

Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options” toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.


“Scheduled” posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published.

One quick note: If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish it again.

We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned entries in, say, 2027.

P.S.: Thanks to everyone who tested this out on Blogger in draft and posted comments! We appreciate your time and effort.

Source: blogger

New book Teaches You to Set up & Develop your own Internet Community with phpBB

Create a thriving online community for your website by setting up and running your own online discussion forums using phpBB, the free, open source bulletin board package.

phpBB is a standard among web hosting companies throughout the world, and is one of the most widely used bulletin board packages in the world. phpBB short-circuits the need for you to be a web development master in order to create and manage massive online communities.

One of the benefits of phpBB is that with the right guidance, anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML and a willingness to learn will be able to create, customize and manage their own Internet community. Packt Publishing have just announced a new book �Building Online Communities with phpBB,� that is ideal for those who are just starting out or looking to take phpBB further. Written for new and intermediate users, the authors, each an experienced phpBB administrator and enthusiast, take you through the whole process of setting up your own phpBB site, helping you to create, customize and manage your online community with phpBB.

�Building Online Communities with phpBB� begins with the initial installation and configuration of phpBB on your system, with troubleshooting tips to help you through. You will then go on a tour of phpBB and its features, stepping you through the basic tasks, growing your understanding and familiarizing you with the power of phpBB.

Everybody wants their community to look special, and customizing your forum is the next stop in the book. Beginning with a detailed rundown of styles and themes, you will then see how to customize your forum by first modifying existing styles, adding new elements, and even creating a new style from scratch.

The book then goes onto cover further administration of your community, creating hacks or "modifications" for phpBB, custom PHP programming with phpBB, and reference appendices with more phpBB resources, the phpBB file and directory structure, guides to the BBCode and permission systems, and the phpBB database structure round off this book.

The emphasis is on simple and practical guidance for you to get the most from phpBB. This book is available now through Packt Publishing, for more details,
please visit: www.PacktPub.com/book/phpbb

Beta of BizTalk Server R3 Expected Later This Year

Later this year, Microsoft will deliver the first preview of the new release of its BizTalk Server middleware platform that supports Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and the ।NET Framework 3.5, with general availability during the first half of 2009, a Microsoft product manager said on his blog last week.

BizTalk Server is Microsoft's core business process management (BPM) middleware platform for integrating enterprise applications, synchronizing the flow of data with external systems, and sending and receiving business documents as part of a supply chain। In short, if it's B2B processing you need on a Windows Server, BizTalk Server is a good start.

There has been some concern among Windows customers that Microsoft had not yet communicated its plans to support the new Windows Server stack--anchored by Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and the ।NET Framework 3.5--with a new release of BizTalk Server.

Those fears were addressed last week by Steven Martin, director of product management for the Connected Systems Division, on his blog, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Simple Middleware

"Once SQL Server 2008 . . . becomes generally available, we will follow with an updated version of BizTalk Server designed for the latest versions of Windows Server, the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and SQL Server," Martin wrote on his blog.

The new release will be called BizTalk Server 2006 Release 3, and the first community technology preview (CTP) will go out later this year, with a release to manufacturing (RTM) expected during the first half of 2009, according to Martin

Here's what else you can expect, in addition to expanded platform support: support for UDDI 3।0, the Web services repository; new adapters for ERP systems, databases, and legacy hosts; enhanced support for RFID devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile, a new product Microsoft announced last week and which will ship later this year; better support for B2B protocols like SWIFT and EDI; and support for SOA patterns and best practices.

source=http://www.itjungle.com/

Microsoft's Enterprise Project suite isn't just for the enterprise

Keeping track of a project -- any project -- can be an overwhelming task, especially if you're dealing with multiple teams, various funding expenditures, and the ever-popular string of setbacks and delays that haunt projects

Microsoft has continued to roll out products to help take control of projects। In addition to unleashing the latest project flavor last year, Redmond ripped Project Server in two, creating Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007. Each offers complementary and useful features to help users organize and control the flow of a project.

Both servers (with their client counterparts) are part of what Microsoft calls the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution, which has been designed to help "you gain visibility, insight, and control across your project, program, and application portfolios"

Project Server 2007 allows you to access and manage a project through different methods: Among them, there's Project Professional, the client application sold separately or as part of Office 2007, as well as Project Web Access, which allows users to connect to Project Server from a Web browser

With Project Server, users can track project planning through the approval process। The activity plan can show users where a project stands at any given moment. Through the Resource Center, you can get quick reports as to where resources are allocated. Moreover, you can analyze timesheet management, as well as cross-project dependencies, on a project-by-project basis, allowing for more efficient use of time and money. In terms of security, admins can establish permission settings for users, allowing them access only to the resources they need to see and work with.

Project Portfolio Server 2007 lets you go one step further in creating an entire portfolio of projects or sub-projects। The server analyzes work flows and displays them graphically so you can see ways to optimize the project plan and execution. Through the Dashboard Module, you can see and track multiple portfolio scorecards for managing and tracking active portfolios. You can use the Optimizer Module to put your project portfolios through various what-if scenarios; you can also build out informational charts about your portfolio as it currently exists.

But this really becomes interesting when you compare Microsoft's EPM solutions to the project management products on the market -- and there are plenty of out there. On the upscale side, we have Oracle Fusion, and IBM Rational as well as Niku from Computer अस्सोसिअतेस

But Microsoft is also seeing competition for the smaller project management market from companies such as Clarizen and LiquidPlanner

How can Microsoft respond in the mini-market of project management when its offerings of Project Professional, Project Server, and Project Portfolio Server all seem so gi-normous to the average user?

The project servers allow for Project Web Access and therefore also allow for hosted solutions through a cornucopia of different vendors. So, the high-end features of an EPM solution don't necessarily require in-house servers or the administrative skill necessary to handle the dedicated hardware and software that come with such high-end project management solutions

Does this mean Microsoft Project is for everyone? Not quite। Many will argue that aside from the cost for infrastructure (which would be removed somewhat by the hosted solution path), there is still a valid reason to consider other solutions due to the unnecessary complexity of Project and concerns that it actually doesn't handle projections reasonably.

What solutions are you currently working with to handle project management?

source=http://weblog.infoworld.com/

Glue and Mortar

Zend co-founder talks about the new PHP framework, Yahoo! and open Web standards।

As university students, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski discovered PHP/FI-predecessor to PHP -- while working together on a "shopping cart" project for extra credit। They rewrote the PHP core engine and started their own company, Zend Technologies Inc.

As university students, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski discovered PHP/FI-predecessor to PHP -- while working together on a "shopping cart" project for extra credit। They rewrote the PHP core engine and started their own company, Zend Technologies Inc.

What does the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern let you do in Zend Framework?
What Zend Framework has already had for the last year and a half is a really respectable MVC pattern, and what that allows you to do is to separate your business logic from the presentation layer। That's kind of the simple thing it allows you to do, but in most cases -- including ours -- it also allows you to create composite views. So if you have an app that has two or three different pieces of information on the same Web page, it allows you to build those kinds of Web pages in a very modular way. Also, our MVC supports AJAX, so if you're writing a rich Internet app with JavaScript on the client, there's already the right plumbing in our MVC framework to communicate with the browser and respond to AJAX requests from the browser.

What advantages does PHP offer for a Microsoft shop?
I think the main difference to customers who choose PHP -- and we have a lot of enterprise customers that have very heterogeneous environments -- is that they can use PHP on all of their systems। A Fortune 500 customer of ours -- a very big Microsoft and IBM customer -- they have mainframes, System i [IBM midrange server], Unix and Windows and they can now put PHP on System i, expose a Web service with PHP, put PHP on Windows and consume it on Windows.

What's the latest on your interoperability partnership with Microsoft?
In the past year and a half, we've really been working closely with Microsoft to make sure that PHP works well on the Windows platform, and as part of that work they implemented FastCGI support for IIS and we optimized PHP on Windows। And with the release of Windows Server 2008, both of these efforts come together -- FastCGI ships with Windows 2008. And we have a product called Zend Core, which is our certified PHP distribution. We've worked with Microsoft to make sure that Zend Core is certified to work with Windows Server 2008. Now customers can come to Microsoft or Zend and get a PHP stack that's ready for running business-critical apps on Windows.

In your blog, you talked about MIX08 and your fears that technologies like Silverlight and Flex might work against an open Web.
The risk with something like Silverlight succeeding too much is that it's not an open standard। Microsoft decides which platforms are supported. So today, it's really Windows and Mac, and kind of Linux with the Novell relationship, but it wasn't planned last year when they announced Silverlight 1.0. So it means that if you're on a mainframe or System i, or any other Unix system, you might not have that available. I really think the foundation for the Web -- whether it's HTML, JavaScript or whatever comes afterward -- [we] should make sure those things are open standard so that all the different browser implementations can support them.

Someone at MIX08 described Web development as building the Taj Mahal out of wire and Popsicle sticks -- making older technologies do things they weren't meant to do. What's your view of Web development today, and how do the different versions of PHP fit into it?
In general, we've always viewed PHP as a glue language। One of the reasons that PHP has become so successful is that it's very easy for people to adopt. You can develop object-oriented with it or you can develop in a functional paradigm with it, so anyone can pick it up. And it's very easy with PHP to get at any database, any Web service, any information assets in your company. And so this whole notion of gluing your various assets together has always been PHP's main strength, which is why it's so dominant today.

Where we're going is, we're continuing down the same path। So we're continuing to extend how you glue all your various assets together: the interoperability with the browser with AJAX, the interoperability with Web services. With PHP 6, we're going to have more internationalization support. The world is becoming flatter; a lot of companies are global businesses today. They need to be able to expose data and content in multiple languages. A lot of it is really more of the same, but we're continuing to evolve as the Web is evolving.

If Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! is successful, what are the implications for PHP development within Yahoo! and in the community at large?
I do think that over time, it's probably likely that Microsoft's influence will trickle over। You might see more use of Microsoft servers in production, so they might start running PHP on Windows. You might see more with Silverlight and, who knows, eventually over time, when they start a new big project and it's rewritten, there's probably a likelihood that they might choose ASP.NET before PHP. So I do think long-term it could affect how PHP is being used at Yahoo!. I think for the next couple of years, there probably won't be a lot of influence there.

source = http://reddevnews.com

New version of Enterprise Service Bus software extends the Microsoft .NET Platform

/PRNewswire/ -- Neudesic, a leading provider of business solutions that leverage the capabilities of the Microsoft product line, announced today the release of version 2।0 of Neuron-ESB. Neuron-ESB is an Enterprise Service Bus that extends the Microsoft Platform by providing real-time messaging, integration and web service management. Neuron-ESB accelerates SOA adoption by helping companies successfully implement real-time integration across their enterprise, allowing timely response to changing events within their business.

Neuron-ESB is built on the Microsoft Windows Communication Framework (WCF) technology to provide real-time reliable messaging options for companies adopting SOA। Neuron-ESB manages all communication over the bus by sending messages over "Topics" using a publish-subscribe pattern and supports federated, geographic deployments। Neuron-ESB helps companies administer and automate complex tasks and is proven to significantly reduce the infrastructure, development, training and long term support costs for businesses developing SOA solutions.

"Neuron-ESB provides the messaging backbone for all of our critical applications," said Jeffrey Sullivan, Chief Information Officer of ThinkCash. "Neuron-ESB allowed us to leverage our developers much more effectively while providing us the ability to go to market quickly with new solutions. We were able to shift our service development from the architect role to the more ubiquitous developer role while, decreasing our deployment time of new services by 50%. We started with just 1 developer who received 4 days of Neuron-ESB training. Within 6 months and no additional training, we had a 15X increase in the number of our internal developers who were able to use Neuron-ESB."

Neuron-ESB 2।0 delivers a unique set of capabilities that extend and combine key strategic Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 & RFID, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 3.0, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Office, .NET 3.0/3.5, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), WCF Line of Business Adapters and MSMQ. The synergy between Neuron-ESB and these products empower companies to develop more robust and business-aware applications with far less effort and complexity.

"Neuron-ESB 2.0 represents a significant evolution for the Microsoft Platform while addressing the Enterprise Service Bus needs of every customer running Microsoft Windows. Our technology allows businesses to effectively leverage their Microsoft investments to deliver real-time solutions," stated Marty Wasznicky, Vice President of Product Development. "Our product provides a new level of flexibility and ease of use that will help companies increase their productivity while reducing their development and operational costs. Moreover we have formed a strategic partnership with SOA Software and achieved certification as a Governed Service Platform through the Open Governance Initiative. Our customers can be confident that Neuron-ESB will enhance the fidelity of their Governance initiatives."

"The Open Governance Initiative is rapidly gaining momentum amongst platform vendors, Governance solution providers, and end-user customers," said Frank Martinez, Executive Vice President of SOA Software। "The addition of Neuron-ESB, as a Microsoft .NET and WCF based ESB to the list of Governed Service Platforms highlights the importance of this certification for platform vendors."

source=http://www.earthtimes.org/

Auto-ID vendors reveal Microsoft BizTalk connectivity

Microsoft BizTalk 2006 R2 extends core process management technologies to connect real-time business processes and leverage intelligent RFID data।

Avery Dennison Printer Systems Division, a front-runner developer of UHF and HF RFID printer/encoders, item-level smart tags and labels, and compliance shipping labels, says BizTalk Server 2006 R2 users now can leverage Avery Dennison’s printing/encoding capabilities, as well as its smart tags and labels।

Additionally, SATO, a leading supplier of bar-code printing, labeling, and EPC/RFID solutions, offers expanded integration with BizTalk 2006 R2 within SATO's iTRAK application suite, which tracks assets, equipment, parts, documents, and many other items in real time using active, semi-active, and passive RFID. The iTRAK Asset Management system allows RFID devices to be managed easily and with immediate visibility to the client’s host ERP, warehouse management, or transportation management system.

BizTalk Server for Windows Server 2008 not till 2009

When Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008 in February, company officials shared timetables for how long it might take the company to make available compatible versions of its various business applications. But it wasn’t until this week, the company finally shared information on how and when it will release a Windows-Server-2008-compatible version of its integration server, BizTalk Server.

Users had been wondering when and whether Microsoft might port BizTalk Server 2006 to its Windows Server 2008 platform। On April 23, Microsoft Connected Systems Division Director of Product Management Steve Martin blogged that Microsoft will release an updated version of BizTalk some time in the first half of 2009 for Windows Server 2008. That release will be called BizTalk Server 2006 Release (R) 3.

Microsoft is limiting the feature changes it is making to BizTalk for the R3 release, Martin blogged। The included changes will include UDDI 3.0 support; enhanced support for B2B protocols like SWIFT and EDI; and new and updated adapters for business apps and databases. Martin blogged:

“To ensure existing BTS (BizTalk Server) applications continue to run without changes, we are taking an incremental approach and limiting the changes to the items listed above। Because this release build on existing bits, the name of this release will be BizTalk Server 2006 R3. Refreshing the bits (instead of applying a large Service Pack) provides for the best update experience. You should expect to see a CTP (Community Technology Preview) of BizTalk Server 2006 R3 later this year (with an RTM planned in H1 CY09).”

One Microsoft partner said BizTalk isn’t the only Microsoft application lagging well behind Windows Server 2008।

“System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 just released on April 1 2008, but it was developed and tested ONLY on a W2K3 platform and domain (plus it needs WINS too),” said Scott Hill, CIO of RightSize IT, a Microsoft Gold reseller partner based in Texas। “It will not be supported on a W2K8 platform or ‘native mode’ domain until the Service Pack at year end.

“Another application has the same issues – OCS (Office Communication Server)2007। That team is now stating that they will not have a fix this month as discussed in January, but are delaying until that service pack in December 2008,” Hill said.

Any other users running into other Windows Server 2008 compatibility snags with Microsoft and/or third-party apps?

source=http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1363

Microsoft Adds Mobile RFID To Biztalk

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) is adding support for mobile RFID readers to its BizTalk Server product with a goal of enabling these devices to transmit data to back-end स्य्स्तेम्स

Microsoft BizTalk RFID Mobile works in conjunction with BizTalk Server 2006 R2, the business process management and service-oriented architecture offering Microsoft launched last Fall, to allow workers to make realtime decisions based on the data they gather in the field using mobile RFID readers।

For example, a service technician on a factory floor can walk up to a piece of malfunctioning equipment, and using an RFID reader, pull maintenance history and diagnostic information onto the device, and then transmit that data back to headquarters।

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 introduced support for fixed RFID readers, and BizTalk RFID Mobile expands this to mobile environments, said Steve Sloan, lead product manager in the Connected Systems division at Microsoft।

"Connecting the data coming off that reader to backend SAP (NYSE:SAP)-type systems has been a challenge, but it helps make data relevant to the business," Sloan सैद।

Microsoft on Thursday kicked off a beta of BizTalk RFID Mobile and is recruiting customers and partners to take part in its BizTalk RFID Mobile Technology Adoption Program।

source=http://www.crn.com/software/207400388

Azaleos Betas New Remote Monitoring Service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Azaleos has announced the beta of a new remote monitoring service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, called OneStop ViewPoint।

The company said the service offloads 90 percent of the tasks associated with SharePoint monitoring to Azaleos। The OneStop service allows organizations to deploy SharePoint without increasing IT staff, or to re-assign SharePoint IT personnel to other strategic projects.

Azaleos touted its ability to remotely manage Exchange Servers and Blackberry Enterprise Servers deployed on a customer s premises। The Azaleos management services include, but are not limited to, archiving, e-mail security and business continuity. With the addition of OneStop ViewPoint, Azaleos is expanding its portfolio to cover the entire breadth of the Microsoft enterprise stack and extending the unique Azaleos services value proposition to SharePoint Server customers.

iStar Financial, a publicly traded finance company focused on the commercial real estate industry, relies on SharePoint to manage the collaboration process for financing projects that span multiple documents as well as internal and external contributors।

According to Chris Beach, Vice President of Information Technology for iStar Financial, SharePoint helps us organize and manage documents and communications for complex business transactions that can take months to complete। However, monitoring and maintaining SharePoint is equally complex and requires significant time, effort, and expertise. We wanted to focus our core IT resources in other areas, so we turned to Azaleos. Their ability to keep our confidential SharePoint data and records on-premise and on our network was a key selling point for us.

ViewPoint adds SharePoint Services to the modular lineup of Azaleos OneStop Managed Services। OneStop offerings are delivered in conjunction with OneServer appliances, which serve as on-premise service endpoints inside the customer s firewall. Azaleos offers a virtual OneStop server appliance as well as several physical appliance options for both Exchange and SharePoint.

With nearly 100 million users, SharePoint is rapidly emerging as the de facto collaboration platform and document storage location for mission-critical projects। To ensure that SharePoint is always available and running at peak performance companies are asking Azaleos for assistance, said Keith McCall, Chief Technology Officer of Azaleos. With ViewPoint we provide 24x7 remote monitoring, maintenance, and upkeep of SharePoint by a team of experts in our network operations center.

As SharePoint continues its rapid growth, services are becoming an increasingly important focal point for SharePoint and this is underscored by our recent launch of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Online offering, said Thomas Rizzo, Microsoft s Director of Product Management for SharePoint। Azaleos has now created an innovative new hybrid services approach for SharePoint which further underscores and augments Microsoft s services commitment to SharePoint. The Azaleos service breaks new ground in assisting IT by remotely managing and monitoring on-premise SharePoint performance and uptime.

source=http://www.tradingmarkets.com/

Study: SaaS Most Important Enterprise Software Trend

According to a recent survey of 850 "enterprise software customers," software-as-a-service (SaaS) continues to be the most important enterprise software trend, followed closely by Web services/service-oriented architecture (SOA), then offshoring/globalization, open source software and software industry consolidation.

The survey, conducted by research firms McKinsey & Company and the Sand Hill Group, asked participants to select "the most important [software] trend impacting your business." 31 percent selected SaaS, up one percent from the last time the firms asked the question in 2006. Web services/SOA also rose 1 percent, from 24 percent to 25 percent.

Offshoring/globalization remained in third place, but dropped two percentage points, from 15 percent to 13 percent. Open source also dropped, from 10 percent to eight percent, as did software industry consolidation, with only seven percent choosing it as their top trend this year, as opposed to 17 percent in 2006.

Participants saw other trends ahead than those listed above, with 16 percent selecting "other" in this year's survey, up from four percent saying so in 2006 IT budgets are more focused toward

subscription/on-demand licenses, the research found, with 19 percent of the average respondent's budget going toward "Subscription/On-Demand" services in 2008.

The amount of money enterprises are expected to spend on software overall is also on the rise, the study stated. The average percentage budget allocated to software rose from 30 percent in 2006 to 32 percent in 2008, according to respondents, and it was expected increase to 35 percent in 2010.

"Despite the economic downturn in the U.S., there is slow but steady growth in software's share of the overall IT budget," the researchers commented in the report. "Survey respondents projected that this growth pace will continue for the next two years, indicating that software plays an ongoing role in delivering business productivity gains."

Respondents were also asked to choose where they think the industry is in its current innovation wave। Sixty-two percent said that it is "on the upswing," while 17 percent said it's "at the peak," five percent said it's "past the peak" and 17 percent picked "What innovation wave?" as their answer.

source=http://www.adtmag.com/

Local authorities carry out anti-piracy raids against two IT resellers in Ajman in coordination with Microsoft Gulf

Microsoft Gulf in collaboration with Ajman authorities has announced that it has recently conducted two raids against IT resellers who were selling products with unlicensed Microsoft software in the emirate of Ajman।

Microsoft, initiating the raids in its capacity as a member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), has been closely monitoring the resellers following reports that they were installing illegal versions of MS Office 2007 and Windows XP on computers sold to customers। The raids resulted in the confiscation of two PCs loaded with pirated versions of Windows XP and Microsoft Office, along with several CDs containing illegally copied Microsoft programs.

The ongoing campaign involving Microsoft, BSA, the international association established by the software industry to promote a safe and legal digital world, and local authorities in the UAE, is part of a drive towards removing unlicensed installations of Microsoft programs in the UAE, where a Madar Research report reveals that PC sales are growing at a compound average growth rate of around 12%, one of the highest in the Middle East। At this rate, PC penetration in the country will be 27% higher than the world average by 2008.

'Our nationwide anti-piracy campaigns are in line with the UAE's strong commitment to create a piracy-free environment। To effectively tackle the menace of piracy, we require the sincere efforts of the business sector and end users, who need to take a conscious decision to not use pirated software and report any violation of intellectual property rights,' said Jawad Al Redha, IPR Manager, Microsoft Gulf.

The UAE leads the Middle East in intellectual property rights and copyright protection, currently placing 29th in the world rankings of IPR protection. According to global research firm IDC, the country enjoys a software piracy rate of 35 per cent, far below the 57 per cent average of the Middle East and North Aftrica region. UAE law strictly requires software users to keep evidence of the originality of the software they buy and use.

source=http://www.ameinfo.com/

IT gurus launch software cleanup of Estonia

TALLINN (AFP) — Skype guru Ahti Heinla and Microlink and Delfi founder Rainer Nolvak put cutting-edge IT technology and 40,000 volunteers to work Saturday to clean-up the tiny Baltic Sea state of Estonia।

Heinla and Nolvak used special software based on Google Earth, positioning software for mobile phones and mobile phones with GPS to map and take images of illegal garbage dumps across the country।

"The aim is not just to clean the fields and forest from the enormous amount of garbage but we also wish to kind of clean the brains of those people who have left that garbage in nature," Tiina Urm, a spokeswoman for the cleanup campaign told AFP।

The innovative software also brings the massive garbage collection campaign virtually into living rooms where Estonians can follow its real-time progress, organisers said।

Dubbed "Teeme Ara 2008", the campaign covers all 45,227 square kilometers of Estonia that won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has since developed a major IT industry।

source=http://afp.google.com/

Philippines to Emerge as a Major SaaS Hub

“By 2010, over 30 percent of global software revenue will be driven by SaaS (software as a service) enterprise applications,” according to Winston Damarillo, executive chairman of Morph Labs, Inc।, “and the Philippines will emerge as a major SaaS innovation hub for the industry,” with many developers using tools and services provided by Morph Labs for rapid, cost-effect development of SaaS applications.

Manila, Philippines (OPENPRESS) May 5, 2008 -- Morph Labs is a Philippine-based SaaS product and service developer and a leading enabler of SaaS web application development by third-party independent software vendors (ISVs)। Its Morph AppSpace service, the first Platform as a Service (PaaS) for Ruby on Rails — a popular open source programming framework — allows developers to quickly deploy applications into an enterprise quality on-demand environment.

A recent Gartner Research reports supports Damarillo’s projection। According to Gartner, one third of spending on business application software will be through subscriptions by 2010, up from just five percent in 2005. Gartner also projects that 84 percent of small and mid-size companies and 69 percent of large companies are willing to consider, are currently reviewing or are already using SaaS applications.

Damarillo believes the Philippines will become an important supplier of SaaS applications globally, and his company is providing products and services to help ISVs develop their own SaaS applications। “Morph Labs enables ISVs and entrepreneurs to enter the global SaaS marketplace and compete without making huge investments in technology capabilities,” said David Abramowski, chief executive of Morph Labs.

“And with the Internet as the distribution channel, there is plenty of opportunity for grassroots marketing that’s only provided in the Web 2।0 world. Our tools and Internet distribution present great opportunity for Philippine startups,” he said. “Given the Philippines’ capabilities and global reputation for software development, we are confident that this country will be among the major hubs of the global SaaS industry,” Abramowski said.

Damarillo said that cost benefits are the most obvious advantage of SaaS applications over traditional software, but that this end user advantage puts tremendous pressure on SaaS developers. “The challenge for a technology innovator is overcoming the time and cost to establish a reliable technology platform to deploy, deliver and manage new business applications,” said Damarillo. “By reducing the cost of infrastructure and making it more affordable for ISVs, Morph Labs is enabling an increase in global supply of SaaS applications.

“And that increase in supply means more options for clients and end users, which generates increased demand as SaaS applications become mainstream,” he said. “Our vision is to simplify innovation.” Abramowski said. “Morph Labs will continue to introduce applications and services that will help entrepreneurs and ISVs in streamlining development and deployment.”


Morph Labs itself provides a suite of software applications called Morph AppSuite that can be used by ISVs to build applications, or directly by end users। SaaS applications developed or under development at Morph Labs include human resources management, expense management, and customer relationship management solutions. Since launching services in January this year, Morph Labs has signed up nearly 300 Morph AppSpace subscribers.

A service used by third-party developers for the development of help and training sites, Morph helpME, is being leveraged for the development of over 200 sites. An online community for developers and their clients, Morph eXchange — through which subscribers access Morph AppSpace — has nearly 1,000 direct subscribers who regularly access both free and for-fee SaaS subscriptions, he said.


Damarillo is often referred to as a successful serial technology entrepreneur, having founded a number of internationally successful startups. He is also managing director of Global Gateway Venture Capital, which funds global-facing Asian start-ups. His career as a venture capitalist began with Intel Capital, where he was one of the top performing professionals.


About Morph Labs
Morph Labs (http://www।mor.ph) is the leading enabler of Software as a Service (SaaS) that leverages virtual infrastructure and open source technologies to simplify the deployment, delivery, and management of web based applications.

Morph Labs uses virtual infrastructures including Amazon Web Services to provide a truly elastic environment for web applications that can be instantly provisioned and seamlessly scaled।

Morph Labs is a global company with headquarters in Cebu City, Philippines with additional in-country operations in Manila along with Los Angeles, California and Austin, Texas in the U।S.A.

source=http://www.theopenpress.com/

MS looks to increase installed base of licensed

Kolkata: Microsoft Corporation is contemplating the rollout of a “subscription-based software model” with a view to facilitating an increase in the installed base of licensed software, according to Deepak Maheshwari, Director, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd.

Speaking on the sidelines of a seminar on ‘Information Security’ organised here on Friday by the Confederation of Indian Industry (Eastern Region), Maheshwari said the number of people who pay for the software they use was very low.

More India business stories
The unit cost of software can come down only if the number of people paying for it goes up. To facilitate an increase in the installed base of software that is paid for, Microsoft was toying with the idea of unveiling a subscription-based software model।

Maheshwari, however, could not throw any light on when the initiative would be rolled out and if it would be launched on a global basis।

Speakers at the seminar said information security and its management were critical issues not only to business and the industry but also to the society at large. Cyber crimes, it is also believed, threaten the core infrastructure that supports critical business activities।

Dr। Debesh Das, West Bengal’s Minister for Information Technology, stressed upon the importance of information security and its varied implications. He said the day was not far when there would be security agencies to protect our IT infrastructure just as we have security agencies to guard our homes, offices and vital installations. Academic institutions should incorporate courses on IT security in their curriculum, he said.

More India business
Vikram Tiwathia, Chief Information Officer of CII, said, as hardware costs go down, the industry needs to address the issue of software costs appropriately।

source = http://sify.com/

Benefits of Having a Content Management System (CMS) based Website

As the internet is maturing the existence and Web applications are emerging, web development is becoming essential for proper growth of business on internet. Web development make your work easy to be done on the internet and gives some lots and lots of advantages with high increase in revenue as with web development you can hit the international market as your target market.

A website is important if you are looking for an online presence. But once your website is up, it s crucial that you manage the content in an organized way. You will need to make many changes on your site. This is where E-Commerce Websites packages, OS commerce, Content Management System, CMS in short, come into play. Content Management System (CMS): This system is the core of web development and used to manage contents of a web site, providing the facilities for the creation, modification, archiving and removal of information resources from an organized repository usually saved in a database.

This tool allows you to maintain your site. CMS is a web application designed to manage the content on the website. Most companies, who put their contents on their sites, use it.

CMS is extremely crucial to the success of any website. It helps creation, storage, management and publishing of all information in an organized way. In short, it streamlines all the data in a consistent and accessible way.

Here are some reasons why your website needs a CMS:

1. Content updation on desire : Your website needs to be updated, as nobody wants to read stale content. With CMS you can update your web content in no time. It allows you to create, edit, organize, manage, and publish contents (be it graphics, image, documents, etc.) very easily.

2. Technical Knowledge not Necessary : CMS is for you. No HTML or programming skills required, which means you don t need to be technically sound to update the content. All technical details are handled by CMS. It allows you, your colleagues, and non-technical staff, content authors to update the contents.

3. No Time restriction : Don t let your site go without updates due to time constraint. CMS will allow you to carry out changes when they re needed. This is important if your business relies highly on the website. CMS usually simplifies the process required to post content.

4. Reduce Website Maintenance Cost : As mentioned before, you don t need to be tech-savvy to update contents. This not only reduces the site maintenance costs, but also lessens the need of website administration staff. The IT team can use their time more productively.

5. Archive Your Web Content : Archiving content is much easier, since a CMS uses a database to store, manage, and retrieve content. New contents get updated and older ones get stored. You can always revert back when the need arises.

6. Build Site Navigation : Content Management System navigation is usually dynamically driven, which means that future updates can be made without losing all the contents. Menus are generated automatically based on the database content.

7. Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) : If you want to drive the website s traffic based on keywords and phrases, then CMS can prove to be a good option. Many CMSs have built-in options that include keywords, meta tags, hyperlinks, descriptions, etc. These can be automatically generated from the site s content, resulting in improved SEO.

Source: design4web.wordpress.com

Web 2.0 helps firms innovate, allows closer monitoring of marketing spend

To fulfil the aspirations of a young workforce, continuously asking for seamless, real-time interaction, companies are allowing the use of Web 2.0 applications such as Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook, Joomla!, Second Life and S for business purposes to generate sales leads, recruit talent and test and improve products.

Subash A K Rao, director, human resources, Cisco India — a leader in networking for the internet — says the company uses a broad suite of social networking tools like blogs and wikis. It also uses richer applications like TelePresence to connect and collaborate.

Infogain, a technology solutions company, uses its internal as well as external blog sites to connect communities of dispersed knowledge workers for collaborative benefit. Eddie Chandhok, president, global delivery organisation, Infogain, says: "We expect to leverage the power of collaboration by getting innovative ideas from individuals, who are free to send theirtechnology/business ideas to the our CTO office directly."

Soon, the company is planning to use these communities (through Infogain Blog, Infogain Wiki) to get feedback on new services feedback. This will help in raising the efficacy of its marketing.

APC-MGE, a leading global provider of critical power and cooling solutions, (a part of Schnieder Electric) uses mashups besides wikis, instant messaging services and others.

Subodh Tagare, marketing director, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh region, APC-MGE, says: "Our employees use mashup to manage leads emanating from diverse sources. It helps in consolidation and tracking of leads and to ensure closures."

Salesforce.com is another hit among sales and marketing employees across the world for automation of sales and marketing tasks. Anand Dhand, director, Salesforce.com, India, says: "Though Salesforce applications are used across all the verticals, Business-2-Business, Business-2-Customer, Salesforce Automation (SFA), partner — and customer- relationship management are the most widely-used services."

Vineet Tyagi, associate director, engineering, Impetus Technologies, says his company's sales team in the US extensively uses Salesforce.com for research, lead generation and prospect management. "Our recruitment team uses a variety of social networking websites to narrow down on talent and communicate about the work options the company offers.

Not only this, Impetus marketing and communication team makes wonderful use of social content sites such as YouTube and Wikipedia for branding," he says.

Sunil Mangalore, CEO, Datacraft India Ltd, a leading IT services and solutions provider and a strategic partner of Microsoft, concurs: "We use blogs, wikis, discussion forums, shared calendars, shared project-tracking tools to collaborate on leads, projects, problem resolution."

Sundararaj S, Partner, Anantara Solutions, a provider of business and IT consulting services, says: "We use sugarCRM for customer relationship management, basecamphq for managing and tracking projects, LinkedIn for business connections and as a recruitment aid and Skype for messaging and for tele-conversations." Anantara has an office in Second Life and uses this extensively to socialise and connect.

here are inherent risks like data privacy, application security, information integrity and information silos in using Web 2.0 applications, note experts. There is a chance that inaccurate, or occasionally even offensive, information may get out. But social networks can help monitor and control this situation. "Over time, we think the social norms around these collaboration tools will develop and become second nature.

For example, there was a lot of concern around abuse and misuse when email was first deployed in enterprises. Now, people know what is acceptable to email and what is not," Rao from Cisco says.

Source: business-standard.com/common

Congratulations to All Webware Top 100 Winners

Audio: Amazon MP3, BlogTalkRadio, eMusic, FineTune, ilike, iTunes, Last.fm, live365, Pandora and Zune Marketplace
Browsing: Firefox, Google Reader, iGoogle, Internet Explorer 7, iphone, Maxthon, My Yahoo!, Opera, Safari and Windows Live Home
Commerce: Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Etsy, Google AdWords, Kayak, PayPal, Woot, Yahoo! Shopping and Zillow
Communication: AIM, Gmail, iChat, meebo, Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, ooVoo, Pidgin, Skype, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail
Productivity: 30 Boxes, Basecamp, Google Calendar, Google Docs, I Want Sandy, Microsoft Office Live Workspace, Mint, Remember the Milk, Yahoo Calendar and Zoho
Publishing: .Mac, Blogger, Drupal, Flickr, FotoFlexer, Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums, Twitter, Wordpress & Wordpress.com and Worth 1000
Search: Answers.com, Ask.com, Google, Google Earth, Google Maps, Hakia, Live Search, Wikia, Wikipedia and Yahoo
Social: Bebo, Deviantart, Facebook, Friendster, Gaia Online, Google Groups, LiveJournal, Myspace, Stardoll, Yahoo Groups
Utility: Amazon S3, BitTorrent, Box.net, LogMeIn, OpenDNS, OpenID, Pando, ShareFile, Yahoo Briefcase and Yousendit
Video: Amazon Unbox, FixMyMovie, Joost, Miro, Netflix, uStream, Veodia, Vimeo, VoiceThread and YouTube

Source: cmswire.com

Joomla! and the latest trends in the open source revolution

Australia's Andrew Eddie and Brad Baker, two of the core team members of Joomla!, the free open-source Internet content management system (CMS) that in three years has grown into a global development community with more than three million downloads in a year, will be guest speakers at a special event in Sydney on May 19, 2008.

The content management system has grown into a global development community with more than three million downloads a year.

Eddie and Baker will talk about the latest trends in the open source revolution.

In a statement they said:"We will talk about the latest trends in the open-source revolution that has liberated online software from the proprietorial designs of companies like Microsoft and made feature-rich Web sites affordable for all businesses, not-for-profit groups and individuals."

Eddie and Baker are keynote speakers at the annual JoomlaDay Conference being held at the Sydney Conference and Exhbition Centre in Darling Harbour.

The Joomla! project has deep Australian roots.

It began in 2005 as an offshoot of the Sydney-based Mambo content management system, after members of the Mambo development team became concerned about protecting key open source principles they believed were being violated.

Andrew Eddy (aka "MasterChief") wrote an open letter that within a day had garnered the support of a thousand developers in the global free software community.

The name later chosen for the new open source project is derived from the Swahili "jumla", meaning "all together" or "as a whole".

Since then the community has grown exponentially.

As of February 2008, the official Joomla support forum, moderated by Brad Baker, has more than 260,000 threads and 1.2 million posts from more than 170,000 registered members in 40 languages.

Joomla! leverages much open source and Web 2.0 technology, and now offers more than 3,000 add-on features, from podcasts to calendars, wikis to social networking tools.

A live demonstration of the power of Joomla! will be held on May 20, 2008, with a team of developers building a fully functional Web site for a nominated charity in less than seven hours.

More information: sydney.joomladay.org.au

Joomla! Accessibility by Joshue O Connor

This book concentrates mainly on making websites accessible, particularly to the visually impaired. These techniques are then used, more briefly, to explain how to make Joomla! sites accessible. The book’s author, Joshue O Connor, is clearly an expert on accessibility and has covered these areas well.

Joomla! Accessibility - A quick guide to creating accessible websites with Joomla!, published by Packt is a short book that contains materials that every web designer should know and offers sound advice on understanding the problems faced by web users with disabilities and ways to deal with these problems.

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