'Café owners need to use softwares to manage their tasks better'

What are the challenges faced by a cyber caf solutions company like Ideacts in India and which are the areas (if at all) where fundamental shifts may happen?

The cyber caf market is highly unorganized. The first challenge is to concentrate the network under one offering. The shift that needs to take place is that the caf owners themselves need to realize the importance of using softwares that manage their tasks better. Nevertheless, with the awareness spreading rapidly among people and the government trying its best to implement laws to mandate certain requirements in cafes in order to standardize the usage of cyber security softwares, the scene of the unorganized cyber cafe market will soon change for the better.

What is the role of C3M in monitoring and preventing cyber terrorism?

C3M is a support software that has features to capture the time and date stamp of the user, contact details of the user, photograph of the user and machine number of the user. If any legal body asks for information on the same, it can be provided. Therefore, it helps to monitor the crime in terms of making the tracking simpler.

What is the difference between your products, C3M and iCafeManager?

C3M (CLINCK Cyber Caf Manager) is a cyber caf security, management and accounting software used in cyber cafes in India. Whereas, iCafeManager is a global software launched in 13 countries and is predominantly a management software for Internet cafes.

How can one avail C3M and iCafeManager softwares?

C3M is free to download from the company site. iCafeManager is also a free software. The revenue generation model of the company is not related to the direct payment for these softwares.

How do you ensure the reach of this software to cyber cafes, especially those located in interior locations and are more prone to acts of cyber terrorism?

We have a fleet of street teams of relationship managers who cover all tier-2 and tier-3 cities and smaller towns in India. Also, support of the Indian Police has been very encouraging and helps us greatly to cover areas that might be problematic and active in acts of cyber terrorism. The cyber caf owners themselves are now very aware of their responsibilities and download the software on their own in many cases.

Drishti D Manoah
drishtim@cybermedia.co.in

Mahindra Satyam
Announces Partnership with Stratus Technologies

Mahindra Satyam has established a global partnership with Stratus Technologies, a world leader in Uptime Assurance products and services based in Maynard, Massachusetts to jointly provide consulting services, solutions and products to customers globally. Mahindra Satyam and Stratus Technologies will work together to accelerate adoption of next generation uptime assurance technology to customers across the globe to ensure business flow without disruptions.

Sterlite and CTC Enter Strategic Relationship

Sterlite Technologies and CTC Cable Corporation have announced a strategic relationship wherein Sterlite would manufacture specialty ACCC power conductors for the Indian market, using CTCs patented ACCC conductor technology.

Oxigen and Ezeego1.com to Provide Easy Travel Booking Services

Ezeego1.com, an online travel market place, has tied up with Oxigen Services India, to provide easy travel bookings and other travel related services. The tie-up enables the OxiCash users and Oxigen retailers across India to transact and buy travel products from http://www.ezeego1.com/. The association will offer easy transactional service to the customers who do not have credit/debit cards, netbanking accounts or cannot get access to PCs to purchase their travel online or prefer using a cash payment mechanism online.

QuEST and Caterpillar Sign Engineering Services Contract

QuEST Global Engineering has entered into a master service agreement with Caterpillar India to provide engineering services. This agreement with QuEST will offer the necessary engineering resources to Caterpillar Engineering Design Center, India (EDCI) to support high value engineering domains such as CFD, FEA, design & drawing checkers, and 3D modelers. In order to bring the best engineering talent pool for Caterpillar India, QuEST has strategically started its operation in Belgaum with a planned capacity of several hundred engineers over the next 2 years. QuEST will be setting up the necessary dedicated link for Caterpillar to allow seamless offshoring possibilities.

Google and NXP Integrate NFC in Android 2.3

NXP Semiconductors has announced a strategic collaboration with Google to provide a complete open source software stack for Near Field Communications. The NFC stack will be fully integrated and validated on Gingerbread, the latest version of the Android platform. Google also integrated NXPs NFC controller (PN544) into its newly launched Nexus S phone, co-developed by Google and Samsung.

Hitachi Partners with Frontier Business Systems

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation announced a strategic partnership with Frontier Business Systems, a comprehensive IT infrastructure and solution provider. Hitachi Data Systems will leverage Frontier Business Systems integration skills and domain knowledge of virtualization to strengthen its presence in the south and west regions.

Tata Indicom Launches Remittance Service

Tata Indicom has announced its tie-up with eSSecom to offer CellPay (direct debit to account) solutions. The company claims that eSSecoms CellPay solutions will provide consumers an efficient, convenient and secure way to make their payments through their mobile phones using funds in their bank accounts (direct debit to account) or through credit card. This service is available for all Tata Indicom postpaid mobile subscribers across Karnataka. The CellPay solution is available for customers who are registered for mobile banking with CellPay connected banks.

Hitachi Pacts with Frontier Business Systems

Hitachi Data Systems has partnered with Frontier Business Systems. Hitachi Data Systems plans to leverage Frontier Business Systems integration skills and domain knowledge of virtualization to strengthen its presence in the south and west regions.

LG, VMware Join to
Accelerate Adoption of Smartphones

VMware and LG Electronics have partnered to let employees use their personal smartphones and mobile devices to access corporate data while still permitting IT departments to manage the sensitive data on those devices with enterprise-level security and compliance. LGs use of VMwares end user computing technology from 2011 is expected to help LG grow its footprint in the enterprise sector. Initial efforts include enabling LG smartphones to securely run a work account in isolation from a users personal account on a single mobile device.

Qualcomm and Microsoft Join Hands to Drive
Innovation

Qualcomm Incorporated and Microsoft has partnered to identify the most promising early stage wireless technology companies in India. This year, Qprize competition finalists from India will be considered for incubation at Microsoft as part of the companys BizSpark program. Microsofts BizSpark is a global program that helps software startups succeed by giving them access to Microsoft software development tools, connecting them with key industry players, including investors, and providing marketing visibility to help entrepreneurs starting a business.

Mastek Acquires Assets of SEG Software, LLC

Mastek has acquired all the assets of Glastonbury, CT based SEG Software. This acquisition is expected to provide the life and annuity market place with a next generation configurable solution that gives immediate support for the range of life, health, and annuity products in the industry. As companies retool their product offerings coming out of the recession the need for product flexibility and end-to-end capabilities is critical.

Dell to Buy Compellent for $960 mn

Dell plans to buy data storage company Compellent Technologies for about $960 mn. The deal for Compellent comes 3 months after Dell lost to HP in a bidding war for another storage firm, 3PAR, and as large vendors are looking to buy small firms and become one-stop shops for business technology. Dell has agreed to offer $27.75 per share which means Dell would pay $820 mn.

NetAmbit acquires Rupeetalk.com

NetAmbit is all set to expand its horizons in online space with the acquisition of Rupeetalk.com, a personal finance portal. With Rupeetalks acquisition NetAmbit plans to start Internet enabled model for fulfillment of leads. It combines Rupeetalks online ability to offer comparisons on financial products and other information along with NetAmbits offline reach in reaching the customer and offering him what is best.

Synnex Acquires Divisions of e4e

Synnex has signed a definitive agreement to acquire worldwide tech support, customer service and telesales divisions of e4e, a privately held BPO company. e4e will continue to focus on its healthcare and interactive entertainment service divisions. e4es support divisions have annual revenues of approximately $30 mn and the divisions employ about 1,700 employees in Bengaluru and Chennai, India; Glasgow, Scotland; Hunt Valley, Maryland and Phoenix, Arizona. The closing of the acquisition, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to occur by the end of December 2010.

KineticGlue Acquires Injoos

KineticGlue announced the acquisition of Injoos, a company building social media tools for the enterprise. The acquisition expands KineticGlues offerings and will accelerate its own product development. KineticGlue claims to have built a strong installed base in large and medium sized companies in India over the last year. Injoos was founded in 2008 by Jagdish Vasishtha and Srinivas Seshadri, both formerly with Infosys. Jagdish and Srinivas will both join the companys board and respectively be COO and CTO of KineticGlue.

Groupon Rejects Googles $6 bn Offer

Groupon has reportedly turned down Googles $6 bn offer. Both the companies have been talking about this merger for quite some time. Google is focussing on local search advertising aggressively these days, and was thus trying to take Groupon over as the company has access to a huge database of sales employees, apart from having good relationships with small businesses all over North America. Groupon has shot to success employing over 3,000 employees, has presence in 35 counties and is worth approximately $1.3 bn (according to reports in April).

Red Hat Acquires Makara

Red Hat, Inc has acquired Makara, a developer of deployment and management solutions for applications in the cloud. Makaras technologies will accelerate the development of Red Hats comprehensive Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution as part of its Cloud Foundations portfolio. Based in Redwood City, California, Makara provides solutions to enable organizations to deploy, manage, monitor, and scale their applications on both private or public clouds.

Renesas Electronics Acquires Nokias Wireless Modem Business

Nokia and Renesas Electronics Corporation announced the completion of Renesas Electronics acquisition of Nokias Wireless Modem business, which was initially announced on July 6, 2010. With this transfer, Renesas Electronics assumes full ownership of the Wireless Modem unit, which has been responsible for development of Nokias wireless modem technologies for LTE, HSPA, and GSM standards.

Aurigo to Implement CPMS at Adams County

Aurigo Software Technologies Inc has got a contract from Adams County public works department in the US for deploying its CPMS solution for their construction projects, procurement and contract management processes. Aurigo CPMS is a web based project management solution that boasts of managing the complete lifecycle of any capital project development. The county will implement Aurigo CPMS to automate and streamline their existing manual contract management process and increase the scope of visibility on their construction projects.

Genpact Bags Deal from Ingram Micro

Genpact has announced a 3-year agreement with Ingram Micro to provide an end-to-end IT service desk for infrastructure and application support services. Under the agreement, Genpact created a consolidated global IT service desk to support Ingram Micro across 35 countries around the world. The service desk operates 24 hours per day, 365 days per year supporting 8 languages from Genpacts centers in India, Romania, and China. Genpact is implementing technologies and processes, such as incident management, to provide a truly client-centric approach for these services.

UP Selects TCS for its State Data Center Project

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won a contract for establishing and managing the State Data Center (SDC) for the state of Uttar Pradesh. The SDC will enhance the infrastructure required to consolidate the state level applications and will be interoperable with the existing infrastructure. The company will help the UP government consolidate services, applications, and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of government-to-government, government-to-citizen and government-to-business services.

Atlantique Chooses Subexs Fraud Management System

Subex announced to have finalized its deployment of ROC for fraud management and revenue assurance for Atlantique Telecom (AT). Atlantique Telecom is one of the leading providers of telecom services throughout the West and Central African countries. The system from Subex is said to provide AT a centralized system hosted at their headquarters in Abidjan Ivory Coast. This will benefit AT by giving strategic control, reduced hardware overheads, and reduced operational costs while ensuring each country is able to use the systems easily.