“Totally Free Word Mail Merging Solution” – OPRO Japan Announces the Launch of OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge for Salesforce.com

Tokyo, Japan: OPRO Japan Co., Ltd, has unveiled new Software as a Service (SaaS) solution for the Salesforce.com AppExchange platform. Salesforce.com is one of the leading IT companies providing hosted CRM services over the web. The new solution will help Salesforce.com users to generate different sales documents easily in less time. Named OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge – this would provide a user friendly, secure Word mail merging solution for Salesforce.com.

Users could simply follow the document generation wizard and generate quotations, order forms, invoices and delivery notes by clicking few buttons. Easy Merge users could also generate stylish documents by using the built in templates. One of the key advantage of Easy Merge, among many others, is that the assurance of the security of customer data. Easy Merge is developed using Apex and Visualforce technologies, provided by the Salesforce.com CRM platform and assures data security as no user data is transmitted to a third party location at any time.

OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge is offered free of charge for the Salesforce community. User with a Salesforce.com account will be able to enjoy OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge by installing it to their account.

In addition, if a user requires more features and capabilities in document merging, the user could move to OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge Unlimited Edition, which supports using custom templates and generate customized sales documents and many other features like adding company logo, formatting and changing the component layout, adding new components to the templates etc.. OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge Unlimited Edition could be purchased for a one time fee of US $ 99.

This application uses the SaaS delivery model with which, OPRO Japan has eliminated the need of organizations to install or maintain software.

For additional product information regarding OPROARTS Apps Easy Merge, please write to inquiry_en@jp.opro.net and product sales related inquiries should be directed to sales_en@jp.opro.net. For media related inquiries, please write to arts_en@jp.opro.net.

About OPRO Japan Co., Ltd

OPRO Japan is a premier Tokyo based enterprise reporting solutions provider which provides business reporting and document delivery solutions in Japan. They have been providing enterprise reporting solutions for more than a decade and OPRO clientele includes multi national and leading companies world wide.

OPRO Japan is dedicated to provide business solutions which “Make IT Simple”. OPRO uses latest technologies to provide simple reporting and document delivery solution. OPRO Japan has a wide experience in successfully deploying OPRO X Server powered reporting solutions in different operating systems and database management systems.

Foreseeing how the current global economy would affect the operations of business community world wide, OPRO Japan started focusing on SaaS based solutions a couple of years ago. OPRO Japan realized that instead of purchasing software for a higher cost, customers would prefer using a lower monthly subscription scheme or pay per use scheme for the software services they require, which would also alleviate the customer’s burden of software maintenance and IT support.

This model is very much helpful to the companies without the financial and personnel resources to run costly software. This gives them an opportunity to use software services for a lower total cost of ownership and frees up company capital allowing them to use their resources on other critical needs.

OPROARTS is the response to the growing need of a cost efficient reporting service. OPROARTS provides a web based reporting service to its users. OPROARTS users will be able to generate their reports based on pre built templates and deliver them to remote destinations using Fax or Email using OPROARTS service.

As a result, OPRO Japan introduced “OPROARTS for Salesforce” for Salesforce.com community in Japan. This was the first application OPRO Japan introduced for Salesforce.com community and was highly successful in building up a large client base. It provides innovative solutions for Salesforce.com community’s reporting and document delivery needs on Salesforce.com. In addition, the standard sales document generation service allows users to create quotations, order forms, invoices and delivery notes easily. Now the OPRO is planning to make it available for Salesforce.com community out side of Japan and let them enjoy the whole lot of features available in OPRO products.

In addition to the Software as a Service model, OPRO Japan will continue to offer its flagship reporting solution OPRO X Server.

For more information, visit:
OPROARTS web site: http://www.opro.net/oproarts/en/
Corporate web site: http://www.opro.net/en/

Company Address: 6F Shibashin-Mita Bldg,
3-43-15,
Shiba, Minato-ku,
Tokyo 105-0014,
Japan.

Telephone Number: +81 3-5765-6510

Fax Number :+81 3-5765-6560

Sales Inquiries : sales_en@jp.opro.net

Product Inquiries : inquiry_en@jp.opro.net

Press & Other Inquiries: arts_en@jp.opro.net

NOTICE this is ONLY the Basic list. I also offer a list of commands for:

TIP 1:
All of these commands should work from your command prompt (regardless which shell you’re using). Just in case some folks were not aware, you MUST press enter to invoke the command

TIP 2:
For this summary, please note that the EX: stands for example and is not part of the command. Commands are denoted in courier type font.

TIP 3:
If you need help understanding what the options are, or how to use a command, try adding this to the end of your command: –help

For example, for better understanding of the df command’s options, type:
df –help

Command	Summary Use
Use cd to change directories	Type cd followed by the name of a directory to access that directory. Keep in mind that you are always in a directory and allowed access to any directories hierarchically above or below. Ex: cd games If the directory games is not located hierarchically below the current directory, then the complete path must be written out. Ex: cd /usr/games To move up one directory, use the shortcut command. Ex: cd ..
Use clear to clear the command prompt	Type clear to clean up your command prompt window. This is especially helpful when you are typing lots of commands and need a clean window to help you focus.Ex: clear This is also useful when you are getting ready to type a rather long command and do not wish to become confused by other details on the screen.
Use date to set your server’s date and time	Type date followed by the two digit month, the two digit date, the two digit time, and two digit minutes. The syntax is easy enough and resembles this: MMDDhhmm This command is helpful but must be used when superuser or logged in as root. Otherwise you will get an “Operation not permitted” reply.As root user you can use the command such as: date 11081300 The above command will set the server date and time to the 11th month (November), the 8th day, at 1:00pm.
Use df to check disk space	Typing df provides a very quick check of your file system disk space. Type df -h to get a more easily readable version of the output. Notice that this command will include all applicable storage such as your hard disk/s (hda, hdb etc.) and your server SWAP file (shm). To list disk space including filesystem type: df -h -T
Use finger to see who’s on the system	Typing finger allows you to see who else is on the system or get detailed information about a person who has access to the system. Type finger followed by the name of a user’s account to get information about that user. Or, type finger and press enter to see who’s on the system and what they are doing. Ex: finger johndoe
Use logout to quit using the system	Yep, you guessed it, typing logout will log your account out of the system. Type logout at the prompt to disconnect from your Linux machine or to logout a particular user session from the system. Keep in mind that although rudimentary, leaving your critical account logged on may be a security concern. We always recommend promptly using logout when you are finished using your root account! Ex: logout
Use ls to list files and directories	Type ls to see a list of the files and directories located in the current directory. If you’re in the directory named games and you type ls, a list will appear that contains files in the games directory and sub-directories in the games directory. Examples: ls Mail ls /usr/bin Type ls -alt to see a list of all files (including .rc files) and all directories located in the current directory. The listing will include detailed, often useful information. Examples: ls -alt ls -alt /usr/bin If the screen flies by and you miss seeing a number of files, try using the |more at the end like: ls -alt |more* In Bash (Linux shell) often the abbreviated command L is available. To get a verbose listing of files and directories you could therefore simply type: l
Use man to pull up information about a Linux command	Type man followed by a command to get detailed information about how to use the command. Ex: man ls Type man -k followed by a word to list all of the commands and descriptions that contain the word you specified. Ex: man -k finger
Use more to read the contents of a file	Type more followed by the name of a text file to read the file’s contents. Why do we exmphasize using this on a “text” file? Because most other types of files will look like garbage! Ex: more testfile.txt
Use nano to start a text editor	Typing nano will start a basic text editor on most Linux systems. Type nano followed by the filename you wish to edit. This basic editor is quick and easy to use for beginners. However, it is very important that you also learn about other text editors available on Linux and UNIX systems. Click on this link to learn about others like emacs, vi, and pico. Ex: nano /etc/security/access.conf
Use passwd to change your current password	Type passwd and press enter. You’ll see the message Changing password for yourname. At the Old password: prompt, type in your old password . Then, at the Enter new password: prompt, type in your new password . The system double checks your new password. Beside the Verify: prompt, type the new password and press again. Create a secure password that combines parts of words and numbers. For instance, your dog’s name may be Rufus. He may have been born in 1980. Create a password that uses parts of both the name and date of birth, such as 80rufuS. Note the use of at least one capital letter. This is a fairly secure password and easy to remember.
Use pwd to list the name of your current directory	Type pwd and hit enter. You’ll see the full name of the directory you are currently in. This is your directory path and is very handy. This is especially handy when you forget which directory you’ve changed to and are trying to run other commands.

Previously, I made the assertion that software-as-a-service is a commodity business. My intention was to make the essence of the SaaS model easy to understand, but also to make it clear that the reality of doing what you need to do to achieve SaaS success is a little difficult to swallow. I mean, who wants to be in a commodity business anyway, especially in software? It’s all about innovation and differentiation right?

You can achieve very strong differentiation in SaaS. The next post in this series will explore that. But, before you differentiate around the edges of your software-as-a-service offering, you must commoditize it at the core. Otherwise, your cost structure will not support your pricing, and you will not be profitable–at least not for a very very very long time, like many of the of the recent SaaS “success” stories and IPOs. (Disclaimer: having received my economic training from the University of Chicago, I have a strong bias toward the idea that a business should turn a profit, especially public companies.)

I’m not going to go into the technical details of multi-tenant architecture. I believe that this element of SaaS is well understood. What I do want to emphasize here is that the SaaS competitive cost advantage arises from the general principal of aggregating customers to achieve new economies-of-scale, not the specific technology used to accomplish it. Multi-tenant architecture is simply a means to an end for relational database-driven applications, like Salesforce.com.

The concept of aggregating customers onto a single infrastructure to lower costs extends far beyond the database. It impacts the entire application infrastructure. You are aggregating customers onto a common set of servers, a common user interface, and a common set of business processes. And, it extends beyond the application to the entire business. You are aggregating customers into a common communication channel, a common purchase process, common pricing and a common support process. You are Wal-mart. Online. It is in the second half of the cost equation, customer acquisition and support, where most SaaS companies lose their way, or rather find their way to long term unprofitability.

If all your customers are identical: identical business needs, identical communication needs, identical purchase process, identical support needs, etc. then you will have no trouble aggregating them onto a common business infrastructure for an enormous cost advantage. But, to the the extent that they are different, or simply believe that they are different, then you have your work cut out for you.

For example, how much website content do you have to present to get a customer to register for trial? Is it a single, simple message for all customers, or do you need pages and pages that detail your benefits for each industry segment in the specific vernacular of that segment. To maintain your cost advantage you must do your best to streamline all this complexity without losing customers, and ultimately walk away from customers whose needs are so unique that you cannot meet them.

Luckily, while this may sound like your own customers are the roadblock to achieving your ordained cost advantage, they can also provide you with the secret weapon to overcome the roadblocks. It’s the one aspect of your single, uniform, vertically integrated infrastructure that can be customized without limit and without eroding your cost advantage. Data. Unique data. Customer data. In the Web 2.0 world they call it user generated content. In SaaS, you should think of customer data as the user generated application. Whether you capture it on your website to personalize the purchase process or you capture it in your application to customize security roles, it is the enabler of mass customization and it may allow you to push the economic boundaries of the commodity-based SaaS cost advantage through the complexities of the SMB market all the way out to the idiosyncrasies of the long tail.

(Chaotic Flow)

“The Majority sees the obstacles; the few see the objectives; history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward for the former.”
- Alfred Armand Montapert

What Do Companies Have to Prepare for 2009?
What a year, 2009 will be for business organizations! The economy is in shambles, it’s getting harder to raise capital and customers are freezing budgets. 2009 won’t be the prettiest year ever for business.

Whether it’s a slowdown or full-blown recession, most people agree we’re heading into choppy economic waters. Growing concerns about the business implications of the turbulent economic climate and intensifying credit crunch are driving companies and non-profit institutions of all sizes to thoroughly reevaluate their corporate priorities, capital expenditures, operating budgets and sourcing strategies.

Many organizations continue to face increasing pressure to cut costs in all areas, including IT and labor costs, while maintaining and improving outcomes and customer satisfaction. In the face of pressures caused by economic slowdown, the need to improve services to maintain revenues becomes even more important to companies. Simply trimming costs without paying attention to quality of service is unacceptable.

IT and business decision-makers in nearly every industry must make cuts to their capital and operating budgets in order to offset rapid declines in business and tightening credit markets. Companies will have to cut somewhere, and take a hard look at each employee, business strategies, pricing, etc. Basically: Look at everything. In many cases, this is forcing them to fundamentally reevaluate the way that they acquire and utilize technology and business applications.

As “Cost cutting” becomes a popular topic during today’s uncertain economic times, you can opt to hide in fear and close your wallet or you can take steps to gain more predictable operating costs – while driving your business forward. The question, then, is which sectors and which companies are best positioned to withstand the tempest? One answer is technology; especially companies that help their customers stretch a buck – such as firms that run software as a service model.

There is good reason to take a look at these Saas products no matter what the prevailing economic winds, because they are riding trends that will barrel ahead in good times and bad. Any IT / business decision-maker who isn’t seriously considering these on-demand alternatives is doing their organization a disservice and could be jeopardizing their jobs and companies chances of withstanding the shocks of faltering economic markets as well.

Is SaaS resilient to recession?”
IT budgets can be precarious in the best of times, and the current economic recession will affect an IT department’s ability to spend while unwelcome, budget restrictions also can be an opportunity to be creative and try new things.

With possible economic hard times looming many companies don’t want to invest in large-scale software installations. As IT departments are tasked to do more with less, that’s an opportunity for SaaS to get a “foot in the door”. SaaS is certainly attractive from a capital perspective and SaaS wins when it comes to saving money on deployment.

With or without a recession, the SaaS delivery model offers the lowest and most predictable cost of ownership and in times like this makes lot of economic sense to the companies. As all companies will look to constantly improve their operations, SaaS applications become more attractive.

SaaS products offer customers the ability to do more with less, whether it’s money, people or both. SaaS offers a model where vendors own the enterprise system. The organization /customers pay for using the system but not for owning the system. SaaS is cheaper to implement and the enterprise can avoid the upfront capital expenditures for hardware.

The SaaS solutions not only lower costs, it simplifies implementation and updates. SaaS vendor takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting for customers and they no longer need to dedicate IT staff to patch management and maintenance.

This unique delivery model is bound to make enterprise applications more agile and relevant to the company’s strategy.

Will SaaS be the “Panacea” During tough Times?
It appears that SaaS model has emerged as an attractive proposition capable of delivering cost savings that makes lot of economic sense to the companies.

Worldwide software as a service revenue in the enterprise application markets is on pace to surpass $6.4 billion in 2008, a 27 per cent increase from 2007 revenue of $5.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to more than double with SaaS revenue reaching $14.8 billion in 2012. Gartner analysts say the adoption of SaaS is growing and evolving within the enterprise application markets as new entrants challenge incumbents, popularity increases, and interest for platform as a service grows, despite the challenging economic climate. If independent research reports of Gartner are any pointers, 25 per cent of new software business will come from SaaS by 2011. Many organizations are moving away from large packaged software implementation approach towards the on demand software.

As managing professionals construct crucial purchasing decisions in times of profitable slowdown, Forrester Research says software as a service (SaaS) can benefit organizations by offering a deployment model that lowers near-term expenditures, allows buyers to prove the value of a solution before committing to it, and shifts meaningful aspects of the investment risk from the organization to the SaaS provider. Many firms see the value of SaaS regardless of the profitable climate. But however, when software buyers are faced with fears of potential recession, SaaS offers even greater value, considering it provides a more flexible way of investing in software.

Market research firm IDC predicts that the SaaS market will expand rather than contract during 2009, even as broader markets for products and services are declining or at a standstill. The finding is the result of cumulative research and customer interviews conducted by IDC and predicts that the current economic crisis will actually contribute to growth of hosted service based software. The research firm now says year over year spending on SaaS will increase 40.5% in 2009 rather than the 36% predicted earlier.

SaaS Offers IT Agility
Companies need to try out new business ventures and products to see which ones work and they need ways to manage the risks inherent in doing this especially during turbulent times. SaaS is an integral part of how they can manage that risk and the three unequivocal benefits of IT agility offered by SaaS make it irresistible to many organizations.

The Three benefits of IT agility are;
1) No Capital Expense;
2) Variable Cost; and
3) Scalability.

No Capital Expense
The SaaS cost model is a pay as you go month to month arrangement that is based on actual usage. Over the long run a company may incur more costs using this model if a new business venture is successful and grows to a large size. But that possibility is far outweighed by the uncertainty over whether a new venture will actually succeed. So a variable cost business model is the best way to protect cash flow because costs will only rise if the business grows and operating expenses will drop or stay small if business volumes contract or don’t grow as big or as fast as expected.

There will also be no large sunk costs if the venture has to be abandoned or incurs loss. In this economy where it is so hard to predict what will happen next, and where companies need to keep trying new things to find out where new opportunities lie, variable cost business models are best for managing financial risk.

Two key factors exist here:

1. No need to invest in hardware/software as capital assets. SaaS allows rental of the applications through web based delivery. This lower cost model becomes an operational expense and not a capital expense.

2. requires fewer or no IT personnel. This can often be the most expensive item in the IT budget. Reduction of one or more technical resources can often cover the entire monthly cost of the SaaS offering.

Other benefits possible include: reduced helpdesk costs, more effective data backup, no management of license agreements, no data center or server farm management, and predictable monthly costs.

Variable Cost
The chief advantage of a SaaS solution is that the company only needs to invest in a subscription for the software. The SaaS vendor will deal with all the infrastructure costs, so you don’t have to. That can cut costs dramatically, and instead of a huge payment, you are looking at a monthly subscription fee. It should reduce your initial investment significantly and make the whole project more palatable from a budgetary standpoint.

Most SaaS solutions offer easy access to pilot services or a free trial solution before a buyer decides whether or not there is value in purchasing the service. Furthermore, SaaS makes rolling out software incrementally easier, meaning firms can prove the return on investment of their purchase in one area or division before rolling it out to other divisions or the whole enterprise.

Scalability
Scalability is another attractive option offered by SaaS. A scalable systems infrastructure enables a company to “think big, start small, and deliver quickly”. The top management can create strategies with big potential and try them out quickly on a small scale to see if they justify further investment. Companies do not have to guess how much system capacity they will need and they do not have to guess which technology to use to get that capacity. They can leave those questions to the SaaS provider. The SaaS provider typically has better information to make those decisions and can spread the costs over a wider customer base than any individual company. Besides it should be noted that companies don’t outgrow scalable systems; they don’t have to rip out and replace scalable systems as these systems rarely become liabilities. SaaS is typically easier to scale up or down to meet needs by date. Finally, since upgrades are seamless and automatic, firms do not need to nag about a spike in costs when they are forced to upgrade.

When The Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get SaaS(y)
In times of great change there are great opportunities. Now is the time for companies with new ideas to test them out and gain market share while their competitors are lying low and just trying to survive. Business agility requires an agile IT strategy to make it happen and SaaS is central to any agile IT strategy.

It seems clear that the economic malaise we are in is probably going to last a while, but that doesn’t mean that your company’s IT investment needs to stop, only that you have to get a little smarter in how you go about it. Looking at SaaS system may make a lot of sense in tough economic times.

A company’s business agility and the IT agility that propels it will determine whether it becomes a victim of tough economic turbulences and sink to the bottom or whether it rises to the challenge and reinvents itself to fit new fickle circumstances as a survivor to ride the crest of the wave.

I found this useful Effective Writing Skills Presentation on Scribd.

View this document on Scribd

Some Caveats

Companies are finding that one of the best ways to foster interest in their applications is to distribute SDKs and let developers have at them. A growing trend toward delivering Platform as a Service capabilities means that mashups have sprung up in the thousands, making the notion of old-fashioned software customization seem almost quaint.

Earlier this month Zuora, a startup that’s less than a year old, launched Z-Commerce, a platform that gives developers access to its applications as well as Z-Force’s API (application programming interface) documentation, sample code and toolkits. There is also a sandbox environment, currently available in private beta.

A few years ago, this might have seemed like an overly ambitious undertaking for small company. Today — thanks to developments in the Software as a Service space — it has become almost expected.

Those developments were fueled by Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) , which in 2007 introduced its Force.com platform to third-party developers so they could build apps that integrated with its existing services. This move was a runaway success for Salesforce.com. Since then, not surprisingly, it has been duplicated in various ways by other vendors.

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Salesforce.com hardly deserves all the credit, though. Social media, the advancement of Web 2.0 in the enterprise space, and Web services in general have all contributed to the development of next-gen customer relationship management applications that are far more open and able to incorporate dynamic, third-party information.

Also, to be fair, there were other vendors experimenting with this approach around the same time — although not at the same scale. Salesforce.com, though, was inarguably the best at promoting it, mirroring its success a decade ago selling the SaaS delivery model.

Vindicia, for example, opened its CashBox billing platform to developers three years ago, enabling them to build their own applications in one of six programming languages, noted Vindicia CEO Gene Hoffman. CashBox provides a standards-based API for automatic subscription-based and one-time billing services.

Hoffman is not surprised that this model is gaining traction: “CRM and other software companies are increasingly encouraging developers to build applications on their platforms and to distribute those applications online as a turnkey solution,” he told CRM Buyer. “In addition to the distribution and ecosystem benefits for developers, this Platform as a Service model offers vendors an opportunity to expand their reach with developers.”

There are, however, limitations to this approach. “Salesforce.com certainly is on the mark, making its application open and ready to integrate. Doing that advances the value proposition of any Platform as a Service,” Francis Carden, founder of OpenSpan, told CRM Buyer.

“But CRM applications in any form might only represent between 10 percent to 30 percent of an enterprise’s core legacy application set. The rest might be financials, shipping, inventory control and the like — split among mainframe, Web, Windows native, Java , even virtualized applications. Even if a CRM Platform as a Service comes ready to work with some of these, there are often many legacy applications with no obvious APIs or other integration points, and little IT appetite or budget to approach them, he explained.”

Service-oriented architecture, or SOA, was one integration promise, but changes to existing SOA take time and can be expensive. “Thus, true enterprise-wide desktop integration remains a challenge,” said Carden.

Striking Contrast

Still, the contrast between what was possible a few years ago and what even small companies can do today is remarkable.

BatchBlue Software, for example, opened its BatchBook application development platform to partners and users in early January 2009, CEO Pamela O’Hara told CRM Buyer.

The public API allows both customers and partners much more flexibility when working with the BatchBook application, including a more streamlined tool for sharing data with other applications, she said. “For example, one customer used the BatchBook API to migrate their CRM data from another application into BatchBook. A BatchBlue partner is using the API to develop a tool that all customers can use to sync profile information with a popular social media network.”

Many CRM vendors, in fact, are taking advantage of applications that providers of corporate data are offering, such as Jigsaw.

Last year Jigsaw launched its Open Data Initiative, an open source program that allows vendors to import or preload its data into their own applications. Since then, vendors such as NetSuite, Oracle, Sage, SugarCRM, Entellium, Landslide and Maximizer have inked partnerships with the company to incorporate its data into their own applications.

These, of course, are mashups: Web applications that combine data from one or more sources — usually outside the original application or database — into a single integrated tool.

While their use has become ubiquitous, many companies are not aware they are using them, Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone told CRM Buyer. “When we query users we ask about mashups and they either don’t understand what the term is or they say they are not interested — but when we dig a little further, they are obviously using them.”

Their value, though, is clear. “There is a lot of data stored in a variety of places — whether in third-party social networks or CRM databases,” Denis Pombriant, principal of Beagle Research , told CRM Buyer. “It is very helpful to be able to seamlessly access the information as if it were all part of one database.”

For instance, many mashups focus on “perennial pain points.” he continued.

The integration of dynamic contact information into a CRM application, for example, address a sore need for this functionality on the part of sales and marketing staff, said Pombriant. “Rather than company databases becoming obsolete, social networking mashups have the potential to keep them up to date. Having these capabilities gives us the opportunity to let our imaginations go wild.”

Indeed, the mashup capabilities with third-party data represent only the tip of an iceberg.

(ecommercetimes)

The market in Britain for software and IT services will shrink over the next two years as the economy continues to contract, according to a bleak report published this week by technology experts.

Spending on IT services to fall during recessionBusinesses will be looking at more innovative technologies to cut costs as well as prepare for the end of the recession, according to a report from newly formed analyst house TechMarketView.

But the recession could be good news for new technology as more companies adapt innovative ideas during economic downturns, claimed TechMarketView, which was formed by technology researchers Richard Holway and Anthony Miller.

Alternative technologies such as cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS), open-source software and mobile broadband will change the way business services are delivered.

Related Content

The report states that the sector contracted last year for the first time since 2003, as the recession sank in. This year, according to the analysts, would bring an even steeper decline with an average business spending fall of up to five percent in size.

Businesses are “reining back ‘discretionary’ IT spending, driving down the demand for new software licences and related project services”, the report stated. The pervading attitude among firms was “make do and mend”.

(TechWorld)

But businesses would continue to outsource, particularly application outsourcing, in a bid to cut costs, TechMarketView predicted. Business process outsourcing grew eight percent last year.

Miller, one of the report’s authors, told Computerworld UK: “It was no surprise to us to find that there was going to be a very deep drop in the market and that it was going to be prolonged.”

“CIOs have told us they have a business of two halves, often having to reduce strategic projects but maintain investment in outsourcing.”

A recovery was likely to take place in 2011, it said. But if the economy worsens, the software and services arena will struggle for even longer and private sector contracts will dry up, the analyst house warned.

Yet emerging technologies will be given a boost by the downturn. “The explosive growth of mobile internet devices (MIDs), from smartphones though to netbooks, will drive an insatiable demand for a huge variety of ‘rich’ content anytime, anywhere, on any device and at lightning speed.

Cloud will be an increasingly important part of the equation. This will change the way that business solutions are delivered — with associated changes to the revenue and profit models of the main players,” said the report.

“Far from being downbeat about the IT industry’s prospects, we think this is the most exciting time to be part of the scene!” the report concludes.

Read More…

Drupal is a robust Web content management system that can be customized and extended with well documented APIs. This means it’s a system for managing website content–like articles, photos, or other files. A dynamic web site platform which allows an individual or community of users to publish, manage and organize a variety of content.

Like most well conceived Web content management systems, Drupal separates content from presentation through the templates (PHP, xHTML and CSS).it is built on PHP with current support for MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, with plans for pluggable database support in version 7. Drupal is built on technologies that are among the most widely used and supported on the web today.

Drupal is a feature rich application that includes a host of built-in features and Offers many advantages to it’s users.Drupal offers a robust application development framework for add-on functionality.Drupal integrates many popular features of content management systems, weblogs, collaborative tools and discussion-based community software into one easy-to-use package.

Drupal provides a presentation layer, via a robust theme engine, for customizing the HTML output of virtually any piece of the application. We can put the user experience first.

Users of the Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed.

The flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people’s computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say.

Microsoft urged people to be vigilant while it investigated and prepared an emergency patch to resolve it.

Internet Explorer is used by the vast majority of the world’s computer users.

“Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer,” said the firm in a security advisory alert about the flaw.

Microsoft says it has detected attacks against IE 7.0 but said the “underlying vulnerability” was present in all versions of the browser.

Other browsers, such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, are not vulnerable to the flaw Microsoft has identified.

As many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since last week to take advantage of the security flaw, said antivirus software maker Trend Micro.

The websites have been mostly serving up programs that steal computer game passwords, but the flaw could be “adopted by more financially motivated criminals”, a Trend Micro security researcher said on Monday.

Richard Cox, chief information officer of anti-spam body The Spamhaus Project and an expert on privacy and cyber security, echoed Trend Micro’s warning.

“It won’t be long before someone reverse engineers this exploit for more fraudulent purposes. Trend Mico’s advice [of switching to an alternative web browser] is very sensible,” he said.

PC Pro magazine’s security editor, Darien Graham-Smith, said that there was a virtual arms race going on, with hackers always on the look out for new vulnerabilities.

“The message needs to get out that this malicious code can be planted on any web site, so simple careful browsing isn’t enough.”

“It’s a shame Microsoft have not been able to fix this more quickly, but letting people know about this flaw was the right thing to do. If you keep flaws like this quiet, people are put at risk without knowing it.”

“Every browser is susceptible to vulnerabilities from time to time. It’s fine to say ‘don’t use Internet Explorer’ for now, but other browsers may well find themselves in a similar situation,” he added.

(BBC)

While working on a presentation on communities, social computing and how important the role of Software as a Service is I realized that the current view on SaaS is far to limited.

If you read the media everybody talks about Software as a Service and the current economic situation might accelerate the adoption of SaaS. In the discussions mainly focus around the economics, reduction of cost of ownership, CapEx versus OpEx, etc. I’m not an accountant and look different towards the whole evolution of Cloud computing and Software as a Service. It’s all about scale!

When we are doing business we collaborate and communicate with other people, both in our own organization as well as in other organizations. Infrastructures like phone, email and IM have increased the communication capabilities between people in different organization. IT infrastructures have optimized business processes within organizations, but a limited number of business processes are automated and optimized between organizations. Up until today the cost of integrating business processes between different IT systems is very high, and only economically available for larger organizations dealing with huge number of transactions. This is where Cloud computing, Software as a Service or whatever you want to call it comes in, it’s creating scale, it’s driving the commoditization of IT. This will make new ways to communicate, collaborate and integration of business processes available for a much larger group of companies. Companies adopting Software as a Service solutions can now share the same infrastructure, enabling then to add value in their communication and collaboration with other companies.

Cloud computing, Software as a Service, etc.. is all about adding value, not about new delivery models!

(Passion for Innovation)