As businesses embrace new technologies in the drive to improve efficiency and productivity, Microsoft Office is proving ever more important to their operations.

In recognition of this trend, IT outsourcing company Quiss Technology, has become an authorised testing centre, offering courses and exams in Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010.

“Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification is a valuable credential that recognises the skills needed to use Microsoft Office to its full potential. It’s important that the learning never stops and a business will undoubtedly benefit from having employees fully conversant with all aspects of Microsoft Office. It allows individuals to complete complex tasks and projects more easily, improving productivity and efficiency — both vital in today’s ultra-competitive markets,” James Smith, Training Manager at Quiss Technology said.

“Certification verifies an individual’s proficiency with the world’s most popular commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications and allows businesses to benchmark employee development and training programmes. Passing these exams helps increase self-confidence and job satisfaction, whilst reducing the need for support from helpdesks — a genuine win-win situation.”

The achievement of Microsoft Office Specialist features a series of certification levels, Specialist, Expert and Master, which offers the opportunity for on-going learning and skills validation.

Source:http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/news.php?NID=11545&Title=Microsoft+Office+Specialist+certification+in+Tamworth

Westpac’s Australian operations to consume Microsoft collaboration from Fujitsu data centre.

Westpac’s entire Australian operations are set to shift from an on-premise legacy mix of Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise and Microsoft Exchange to a hosted Microsoft collaboration suite delivered as a service from a local Fujitsu data centre.

The migration, negotiated as part of Westpac’s renewal of an IT outsourcing agreement with incumbent supplier IBM, represents one of the largest software-as-a-service deals to be struck in Australia.

On Friday, Westpac Group technology executive Bob McKinnon revealed that the service would be delivered to staff across Westpac’s retail office, St George, BT Financial Services, BankSA, Bank of Melbourne, RAMS Home Loans, Westpac Business Banking and Westpac Institutional Banking.

Sources close to the deal told iTnews this represented some 50,000 inboxes. The bank’s staff would use Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, Lync Unified Communications (Instant Messaging and Live Meeting) as well as Mobile Device Manager.

McKinnon noted that Westpac was the first financial services organisation in the world to have such a large SaaS implementation around collaboration.

The sizeable deal replaces a mixed legacy at the Westpac Group’s various banking brands.

Westpac’s retail arm had been “locked in to a very old version of Lotus Notes for a very long time”, McKinnon said, while St George ran on Novell GroupWise and BT Financial Services used Microsoft Exchange.

McKinnon said it was “quite difficult to organise a meeting across every organisation” under the Westpac Group umbrella, as every diary was based on different technology.

He said Westpac showed interest in the cloud model and had plenty of options on the table.

A “number of service providers” had pitched a SaaS offering from offshore data centres, including a direct offer from Microsoft, which delivers the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) from a data centre in Singapore.

Westpac declined these offers due to regulatory pressure around data sovereignty, he said.

“We had a major restriction,” he noted. “We could have bought from Microsoft who had a hosted service out of Singapore, but from a data sovereignty point of view, financial services providers can’t allow data to be offshore. You wouldn’t be surprised to know a lot of important data is held on email.”

Other providers had offered a hosted Exchange service onshore, but none were “doing it to scale”, he said.

Fujitsu provided “both the cheapest and most effective way” to move to SaaS, he said.

Fujitsu cloud computing executive Cameron McNaught said the deal was a “huge confidence booster for the [cloud computing] market” and had vindicated the company’s early investment in cloud computing.

“We deliberately invested in Australia ahead of the curve,” he said. “This infrastructure is owned by Fujitsu and was on the ground and available – this was built.”

McNaught confirmed that the Westpac Group had negotiated additional components on top of Fujitsu’s standard cloud computing terms.

Fujitsu’s standard offering allows for multitenant network access into its data centres. The Westpac deal allows for a dedicated compute environment, cryptologically separate data storage and a level of dedicated network access to meet Westpac’s security requirements.

Benefits from the scale of infrastructure built under the Westpac contract would “no doubt” flow onto other Fujitsu customers, McNaught said.

While the deal was genuinely “pay-as-you-go” – giving McKinnon’s team the flexibility to pay per seat and scale up and down as required – a base term was agreed between Westpac, Fujitsu and IBM that forms part of Westpac’s IT outsourcing deal with IBM.

IBM had been contracted to help integrate the Microsoft/Fujitsu SaaS solution with internal Westpac systems.

Source:http://www.itnews.com.au/News/261689,westpac-shifts-50000-inboxes-to-microsoft.aspx

Wipro Technologies, Global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT), in partnership with Citrix and Microsoft, launched Wipro Desktop as a Service (WDaaS), a desktop virtualization solution that delivers desktops, applications and data as an on-demand service. The solution is based on HP technology. The announcement was made at Citrix Synergy™ 2011 in San Francisco, the conference where virtual computing takes center stage. WDaaS was announced earlier in October 2010 and is available in the market now.

WDaaS is an integrated service offering which uses the market-leading desktop virtualization technologies of Citrix and Microsoft and provides efficient plug and play desktop and application virtualization capabilities. The solution is built on HP Converged Infrastructure. For enterprises that want to deploy desktop virtualization on-premises, WDaaS will offer a pre-configured appliance (hardware, software and services) that can be managed remotely by Wipro. This solution lowers deployment cost and reduces the implementation time by half as compared to traditional system integration approach. For enterprises seeking a hosted or cloud offering, Wipro delivers desktops and applications as a service from a dedicated private cloud environment in its own datacenters or by leveraging cloud infrastructure providers. These delivery models lower the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and move the desktop cost from a CAPEX to an OPEX model.

Dominique Raviart, Research Director, IT Outsourcing, NelsonHall, a leading analyst and advisory firm, says, “The development of the Wipro Desktop as a Service offering is a good example of the growing take-up of cloud desktops in the market. Interest is growing across the world and especially in the U.S. and U.K., typically initially triggered by server cloud computing and virtualization overall.”

The WDaaS solution is based on Citrix XenDesktop®, the Microsoft VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) Premium Suite and Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) software components. It leverages Citrix FlexCast™ delivery technology which enables IT to optimize the performance, security and cost of virtual desktops, hosted or local, for any type of user, including task workers, mobile workers, power users and contractors. It uses Citrix HDX™ technology that assures each user gets a rich, high definition experience over any network on any device, including PCs, Macs, thin clients, tablets and smartphones. The solution relies on Hyper-V for running the Windows desktop in the guest virtual machines and incorporates Microsoft’s comprehensive VDI infrastructure and management software, including Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services, App-V as well as System Center management solutions so customers can virtualize, manage and deliver applications and desktops. WDaaS will be offered on the HP Converged Infrastructure solution. The hosted and cloud delivery models leverage Rackspace infrastructure.

WDaaS includes a hosted session virtualization platform that can be efficiently used to build industry-specific cloud solutions. Utilizing this platform, Wipro has created an ‘Application access over the Internet’ solution to address the needs of higher education. Students and faculty will have a convenient way to access applications anywhere, anytime from any device instead of visiting the traditional computer lab on campus. For the industry specific solutions, Wipro will work with its channel partners to address the Small and Medium Business (SMB) market segment.

Wipro conducted a primary research with colleges in the US to analyze the benefits of desktop virtualization in the higher education and compare traditional implementation approach through in-house system integration with a cloud computing delivery model. The findings of this research are published in a White Paper and clearly demonstrate reduction of implementation time from 18 month in a traditional approach to 3 months with cloud computing.

“Traditionally, desktop virtualization has been complex to implement,” said Neeraj Jaitley, Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure Solutions, Wipro Technologies. “Customers are now looking for providers with end to end technical and operational capabilities who can deliver scalable and highly reliable infrastructure, leveraging hybrid cloud architecture as appropriate. Wipro Desktop as a Service solution benefits from focused technology R&D investments and supports ‘as a Service’ delivery models. Our engagement methodology can reduce the technology deployment cycle by half.”

“Desktop virtualization is a key priority for today’s CIOs as they look to transform their desktops to become more agile, flexible and secure. Citrix XenDesktop supports this desktop change with market leading technologies that turn desktops, applications and data into an on-demand service that can be accessed from any user on any device,” said Dave Jones, Vice President of System Integrator Development at Citrix. “WDaaS is a perfect example of how customers can transform their workplace and quickly realize the benefits of desktop virtualization through an integrated hardware, software and services offering of a major global System Integrator.”

“Wipro, Citrix and Microsoft are breaking down the barriers that impede desktop and application virtualization,” said Mike Schutz, Senior Director, Server and Cloud Division, Microsoft Corp. “Our work together helps provide a broad range of solutions for desktop and application delivery that enable users to stay connected and productive anywhere, anytime.”

“To accelerate growth and produce higher-quality products and services, organizations must change the way they use technology,” said Paul Miller, Vice President, Solutions and Strategic Alliances, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP. “HP Converged Infrastructure gives organizations using WDaaS solution an integrated, scalable and automated IT platform for virtualization, to drive out cost and provide the foundation for agile service delivery.”

Odus Wittenburg, VP of Enterprise Solutions at Rackspace said, “Our collaboration with Wipro is focused on creating end to end service offerings leveraging capabilities from both companies. Rackspace offers private and public cloud environments or a hybrid combination using RackConnect® that is highly optimized for hosted desktop virtualization.”

R Srinivasan, General Manager, Wipro IT said, “Desktop and application virtualization enables transformation of the end user computing in an enterprise. Wipro has many different user groups that can take advantage of this technology. The ROI can be achieved through improved worker utilization, enhanced productivity, distributed workforce, optimized office space allocation and reduced desktop management overhead. We are actively exploring new approaches like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). WDaaS offers us a convenient way to take advantage of this technology without the need to go through a complete learning curve on another new technology with our own staff; it allows us to take advantage of the investments done by the core team.”

Wipro is a global systems integrator, delivering industry-specific business solutions. For WDaaS, Wipro is actively leveraging its strategic relationships with Microsoft, Citrix and HP to create an integrated and productized service offering and deliver increased value to its customers.

Source:http://www.businesswireindia.com/PressRelease.asp?b2mid=26999

Wipro Technologies announced that Wipro has been awarded the Microsoft Platform Modernization Award for Sales for 2010.

The award is the highest recognition for technology transformation and is awarded to partners who create an impact in the market place in transforming customer applications from competing platforms to Microsoft.

Wipro received the award at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this year.

“This recognition brings into spotlight, our commitment to technology driven business transformation for our customers,” said Srinivas Pallia, Senior VP and Global Head, Business Technology Services, Wipro Technologies.

“Our Microsoft Technology Services has high maturity and depth of experience in the area of collaboration, cloud and platform transformation.

This has enabled us to consistently deliver the very best value to our clients in all industries.

We believe this is validated by the success we have had in delivering high business impact from IT for our global clients, like Shell.”

Wipro Technologies, a division of Wipro Limited is the first PCMM Level 5 and SEI CMM Level 5 certified global IT services organization.

The company is a global consulting, system integration and outsourcing business of Wipro Limited.

Source:http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/11/13/5135526.htm

Microsoft (China) Co.,Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Jinan municipal government Monday, projecting to build a branch office in the capital of Shandong Province, according to a newsletter released by the government Tuesday.

Microsoft will cooperate with the Jinan government on the development of the information technology (IT), service outsourcing, cloud computing and personnel training.

According to the newsletter, in the next five years, Microsoft will attract over 40 IT and outsourcing companies to Jinan, creating job opportunities for 15,000 people, and bringing revenue of up to 5 billion yuan ($748 million) to the city.

The company also plans to carry out similar projects with the governments of Dongguan, Xi’an, Qingdao and Nanjing in 2011.

Source:http://business.globaltimes.cn/industries/2010-10/586661.html

peterevans, leading solutions provider for financial services firms, today announced a new SaaS (Software as a Service) for small and mid-range firms to outsource their front and back offices. The offering is based on a fully managed scalable and resilient IT platform which decreases operational overheads and ensures corporations comply with regulatory changes. SimplyStockbroking, one of the UK’s most innovative execution-only services for private investors, is the first client to use the service.

The outsourcing platform is based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 using the Microsoft SPLA licensing model for ASP applications. By making use of load balancing and redundancy technology down time is minimised and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) guarantee exceptional performance levels. Clients are charged on a tiered transactional basis, with charges decreasing as the level of transactions rise.

The front to back office outsourcing is the newest addition to peterevans’ offering for brokers and wealth managers to increase the efficiency of their front and back office operations.

peterevans initially developed and hosted SimplyStockbroking’s online platform which allows retail investor to register on line, fund their account and be trading in minutes. This has now been extended by the addition of peterevans’ award winning back office system to provide a real-time fully integrated front to back retail stockbroking system.

SimplyStockbroking was also peterevans’ first client to use the technology to offer the UK’s first real-time share trading and execution mobile application. It enables clients to view their current portfolio in real time, simply and quickly and place and manage limit orders on the go and uniquely, buy and sell shares from a smartphone.

Mike Foley, CEO of peterevans commented: “Since peterevans’ inception, we have always strived for innovative ways to help companies increase their efficiency and reduce costs. Outsourcing has always been one of our key areas, and we have now created an offering which is truly reliable and easy to deploy, offering access to latest technologies.”

John Douthwaite, CEO at SimplyStockbroking says: “We have been partnering with peterevans since inception, and the team constantly brings our solutions to new levels. Using xanite Wave to create the UK’s first mobile application for real-time stockbroking was a milestone in our product offering, and outsourcing our back office is now the logical extension of our partnership. These new services, functionalities and features make us stand out of the crowd and help us to be one step ahead of the competition.”

Karen Cone, general manager, Worldwide Financial Services, Microsoft, says: “peterevans’ outsourcing platform, built on the solid foundation provided by Microsoft SQL Server 2008, enables securities firms such as SimplyStockbroking to accelerate innovation, greatly increasing the speed and effectiveness with which new products and services are created, constantly improving the connected customer experience.”

Source:http://www.bobsguide.com/guide/news/2010/Oct/26/peterevans_introduces_new_front_to_back_office_outsourcing_offering.html

Representing nearly 1,200 member companies from the public and commercial sectors of the economy, TechAmerica is the U.S. technology community’s largest advocacy organization and a leading industry voice. TechAmerica established its SLG Advisory Board to provide guidance on the changing conditions of the SLG marketplace, as well as the association’s program offerings, planned events and policy positions. Current members of the TechAmerica SLG Advisory Board include executives from leading technology and consulting organizations such as EMC, Microsoft and Oracle.

“Jose Garcia is a recognized leader in the industry, and offers the combination of talent, vision and dedication necessary to take TechAmerica’s State and Local Government programs and policy work to the next level,” said Carol Henton, vice president for state and local government, TechAmerica, public sector group. “It’s exciting to see the breadth and depth of the companies represented on the SLG Board. The executives serving on the Board have extensive experience and their insights will be invaluable as we formulate positions on a variety of policies affecting state and local government IT.”

Garcia, who has headed the SLG efforts at Capgemini Government Solutions LLC since September 2009, brings to the TechAmerica SLG Advisory Board more than 25 years of experience in public sector sales and marketing. Prior to joining Capgemini, he served as executive vice president of sales for the Agilex State and Local Government, Education and Civilian Agency business.

“Capgemini is proud that Jose Garcia is lending his public sector experience to the TechAmerica SLG Advisory Board,” said Joe Moye, chief executive officer, Capgemini Government Solutions LLC. “Under Jose’s leadership, Capgemini Government Solutions has seen tremendous growth in the state and local government space, and we look forward to building on this success in the coming months and years. Capgemini is dedicated to providing government agencies with the resources and knowledge to overcome the ever-changing challenges of today’s public sector arena, and we know that Jose’s work with TechAmerica will only reinforce this commitment.”

Source:http://newsblaze.com/story/2010101323305200001.bw/topstory.html

Perhaps one of the first centralized services in many organizations, email — along with associated services such as calendaring and contact management — is quickly becoming a staple cloud service with offerings available from many companies, including Microsoft, Google Inc., IBM and even VMware Inc.

I’d be surprised if there was a company that has yet to consider whether to keep this service internal or move it to the cloud.

Working in higher education, the topic of email outsourcing is constantly discussed and is being actively undertaken by colleges and universities as both Microsoft and Google provide free services under Live@EDU and Google Apps.

Obviously, not every vertical enjoys free offerings from these companies, so money plays an important role in the outsourcing decision. Among the financial factors that play a role are:

* Infrastructure reductions. For some organizations, the hardware that supports email and related collaboration services cost millions per year.

Organizations need to factor both server and storage space and associated power, and cooling and backup needs for equipment when determining the total financial impact of the hardware side of the service.

* Software licenses. It goes without saying that almost any enterprise-grade email/collaboration service carries software licensing fees.

If you’re using Exchange, for example, you need to consider the total cost of Exchange Server licenses, Exchange user Client Access Licenses, Windows Server licenses and Client Access Licenses.

* Staff time. Every system requires administration. When it comes to email and collaboration systems, this consists of managing the aforementioned infrastructure and licenses, but also includes managing the individual user accounts and servicing help desk requests associated with the service.

By moving to cloud computing, some — yet not all — of these items are eliminated — but there does remain a workload need.

On the infrastructure question, there is a clear return since an organization can eliminate the servers and storage that formerly supported the email infrastructure.

Once that equipment is retired, there is also a resulting drop in energy and cooling bills. Software licensing may also be simplified now that there is one less service to include. On the staff time front, however, the return is probably less clear.

Although the actual systems administration tasks go away, an IT staff’s contract negotiation and management skill set needs to be beefed up in order to ensure that organizations don’t suffer from poorly defined service-level agreements (SLAs), or worse — from bad vendors.

Although the financial benefits may be pretty clear, organizations need to carefully consider the following factors before deciding to offload what is a business critical function:

* Bandwidth. Can the organization’s current bandwidth support what could be a massive increase as a critical, continually used service is moved off-site?

For highly centralized organizations, does the increase in bandwidth cost negate the financial benefit for outsourcing the service? For highly decentralized organizations that depend heavily on a distributed and mobile workforce, there could actually be a financial benefit to email outsourcing.

After all, if the users no longer need to use the central pipe to access email and instead use a provider, the organization may be able to avoid bandwidth increases in the future.

* Business processes. How will business processes be affected with a move to off-site hosting? Is the existing email and calendaring system tightly coupled with other on-site services, such as third-party room or resource scheduling services, mobile device synchronization and customer relationship management systems?

If so, these organizations need to undertake a process-by-process review to determine how to handle each and every need before pulling the trigger on an outsourcing contract.

* User training. If an organization is simply moving from on-premises to hosted Exchange and users will continue to use Outlook, the training issue is likely a moot point, although users need to be made aware that their experience may vary depending on the quality of the connection to the Internet (a move from LAN to a wide area network could have an adverse impact).

If, however, you’re making the jump from Exchange to Google Apps, users will likely notice the change and will need to be prepared for it, even if you use the Outlook Connector.

* Service criticality and acceptance of risk. Some organizations prefer to control their own destiny and not be at the mercy of a provider, no matter how solid the SLA. How critical is email to your organization?

While major providers can offer more solid infrastructures, outages affect massive quantities of customers and organizations are left simply waiting with no control over the resumption of service.

Although keeping email internal necessitates a highly available architecture, some organizations prefer it this way as they can react when a need arises.

Westminster College and the email outsourcing dilemma

As far as email is concerned, for now we’ve decided to keep email as an internal service at Westminster College.

First, we’re moving to virtualize anything and everything under the sun, and we’ve simply included Exchange 2010 in these plans.

While there is still a resource cost in the form of licensing, server resources and storage space, it’s not a significant enough sum to make a major financial case. Remember, Microsoft licensing for colleges is pretty inexpensive.

Further, we’re working hard to provide users with a highly integrated experience and feel that keeping this service internal helps us move toward that goal.

Next, as a highly residential — that is, very centralized — college, we’re concerned about the bandwidth impact and potential issues that we’d experience in the event of a connection or service outage, although these are relatively rare.

Over time, we’re working on moving to multiple providers for Internet access, but in a rural area, that’s a bit of a challenge. Once we’re at that point, the decision may change.

We’ve also put forth considerable effort into building a “private cloud” in our data center.

While it will never be, on paper, as available as a commercial data center, we’ve experienced great uptime success (knock on wood!) in recent years, partially due to the redundant nature of our architecture.

Although there are obvious upsides to outsourcing, we’re at a point at which the potential for downside — in our opinion — currently outweighs the benefits.

Any organization considering undertaking a similar initiative needs to do an analysis — financial and operational — to determine need, fit and whether or not the expected outcome of the project meets the business need.

Source:http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid183_gci1521514,00.html

Wipro Technologies the global Consulting, System Integration and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) and Citrix Systems announced today an initiative with Microsoft to deliver an integrated Wipro Desktop as a Service (Wipro DaaS) solution that uses the market-leading desktop virtualization technologies of Citrix and Microsoft.

The announcement was made at Citrix Synergy™, the conference where virtualization, networking and cloud computing meet. This service is designed to meet the needs of specific industries including education, manufacturing, banking and healthcare. It is currently available for beta customers, and will be generally available in the first quarter of 2011. Pricing and licensing will be disclosed at the time of availability.

The Wipro DaaS solution is based on Citrix XenDesktop® and leverages Citrix FlexCast™ delivery technology to provide multiple types of virtual desktops – hosted or local, physical or virtual – each specifically tailored to meet the performance, security and flexibility requirements of each individual user. By leveraging Citrix HDX™ technology, each user is assured a rich, high definition experience on any device, including PCs, Macs, thin clients, tablets and smartphones. The solution incorporates the Microsoft VDI Premium Suite, which includes Microsoft VDI infrastructure and management software so customers can virtualize, manage, stream and remotely display applications and deliver desktops remotely.

Wipro DaaS offers organizations virtual desktops and applications as a service. The solution will be hosted at Wipro’s datacenters or at a customer’s location. It replaces complex, custom implementation projects with a plug-and-play, preconfigured delivery model that is based on the most common user requirements in order to improve time to market, performance and scalability of virtual desktops. Customers will realize these benefits as a hosted service with minimal upfront capital costs and no deployment delays.

“Wipro is excited to work with Citrix and Microsoft in developing a Desktop as a Service solution to simplify the implementation and management of virtual desktops for various industry verticals,” said, Deepak Jain, Senior Vice President, Global Head Technology Infrastructure Services (TIS). “Customers are looking for virtual desktop and virtualized application solutions that allow for a modular approach at a low operating expense (OPEX). We see a need to simplify the deployment and management of desktop virtualization. Our solution can be hosted at Wipro’s state-of-the-art datacenters and at a customer’s location, allowing our clients to have the benefits of the private cloud computing model while achieving the optimized distribution of the hosting infrastructure.”

“Customers are rapidly adopting desktop virtualization to enable users to get access to their desktop, apps and documents anywhere, using any device”, said Sumit Dhawan, Vice President, XenDesktop Product Marketing said. “The Wipro DaaS service with Citrix XenDesktop and Microsoft offers a low cost, modular and scalable service model, which can be easily adopted by organizations. This new service broadly addresses the needs of different users via multiple types of virtual desktops, such as session-based shared desktops for task workers, VDI desktops for power users, or streamed desktops for lab environments.”

“Citrix and Microsoft software provides customers of all sizes with groundbreaking solutions that are simpler, richer and more cost-effective,” said David McCann, general manager, of Server and Cloud Platform marketing at Microsoft Corp. “Employees want options in where and how they work, while IT still needs to enforce compliance and cost containment. Our work with Wipro can help customers build on existing investments with comprehensive management to mitigate risks and control costs, while still equipping employees to be more productive from anywhere.”

Wipro and Citrix are working closely together in delivering desktop virtualization implementations to enterprises worldwide. Wipro is also a global systems integrator and strategic partner to Microsoft, delivering industry-specific business solutions on Microsoft technologies.

Source:http://www.businesswireindia.com/PressRelease.asp?b2mid=24208

Syntel, Inc. , a global information technology services and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) firm, today announced it has been named “Partner of the Year” by Microsoft India for the distribution and services industry.
Syntel was honored for its Store Service Workbench (SSW), an innovative cross-functional retail solution built on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) platform. The solution empowers stores with business intelligence, scorecarding and training, while enforcing business excellence through a robust task management, store audit and collaboration platform.

Accessible though a browser or mobile devices, SSW is an ARTS-based platform that features open architecture, making it highly customizable with low effort requirements.

Jitesh Shetty, Director of Microsoft India’s Industry & Partner Group, described Syntel’s solution as, “an intuitive, easy to use solution that enables store managers/regional managers to get a snapshot of business with near-real time visibility.” He also cited substantial interest for Syntel’s solution from retailers as a factor in the award.

“We are extremely proud to receive this award from Microsoft,” said Raja Ray, Head of Syntel’s Retail, Logistics and Telecom business unit. “The Store Service Workbench is an innovative part of Syntel’s end-to-end suite of retail solutions. Retailers need the right blend of cross-functional business intelligence and training to stay competitive, and the SSW helps achieve this by reducing operating costs while improving business agility.”

Syntel is implementing this solution for a department store retailer seeking to improve its retail operations. The store audit will be rolled out in phases to over 500 supervisors across its locations.

Syntel was presented this award at the Microsoft Partner Summit in Mumbai, India on September 8, 2010. The annual awards recognize the development and delivery of the most outstanding solutions using Microsoft products.

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/syntel-retail-solution-earns-partner-of-the-year-award-from-microsoft-india-2010-09-27?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Microsoft today released an updated version of its Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 that can tap into compute resources throughout an enterprise as well as a cloud computing system.

The company is hoping that the new features in the HPC server will make it more attractive to corporate IT managers, particularly those looking to boost the speed of Excel data crunching.

Microsoft’s new HPC, or high performance computing, server can also be managed with existing Windows management tools, and “supports the trend of HPC becoming from what used to be islands of specialized infrastructure to be weaved into the rest of IT processes,” said Kyril Faenov, general manager of Microsoft’s High Performance Computing Group.

The updated HPC server can scavenge for compute cycles on other systems running on a network that are preloaded with an agent. The upcoming Service Pack 1 for the server will add to also tap into public cloud computing cycles, Microsoft said.

A systems administrator sets the parameters that allow those compute cycles to be used. The settings can have the process run in the background on a PC or stop the moment a user touches a keyboard.

The capabilities are similar to those in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI@Home system, which can access available compute cycles on several million computers to run its calculations.

Faenov said adding the capabilities to a Windows-based product will help expand HPC beyond the limited set of users currently able to use the technology. Microsoft believes that enterprises and governments are “fundamentally becoming dependent on large scale simulation and analysis,” he said.

Although Microsoft’s HPC system can support thousands of processors, Linux remains the dominat operating system for very high end computers. Linux runs 91% of the Top 500 supercomputers, while Windows runs just 1%. Microsoft is currently aiming mostly to expand Windows to mid-sized to small-sized HPC clusters.

Addison Snell, an analyst at Intersect360 Research, said the updated server brings Microsoft in line with the current direction of high performance computing.

Meanwhile, Cray today said HPC 2008 R2 will be available on its Cray CX1 deskside supercomputer that supports both the Linux and Windows operating systems. The Cray CX1 is priced from $25,000 to $100,000, and supports up to 96 CPU cores.

The Cray CX1 speed is variable, depending on the chip configuration and whether it is using any GPU accelerators or not, but if it is using Intel chips then its speed is probably on the order of 5 TFLOPS, said Barry Bolding, vice president of Cray’s products division.

Cray has enabled a dual boot capability, and Bolding said that Microsoft has enabled features in its HPC software that makes it easier to run both operating systems in the same cluster.

Cray rival SGI also announced today that its Octane III personal supercomputer will run Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. SGI also said it plans to extend support for the Microsoft HPC server to its Rackable server and other product lines in the future.

SGI officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on the plans for the new Microsoft offering.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9186858/Microsoft_new_HPC_Server_adds_SETI_like_capabilities

Microsoft is moving its IT into the public and private cloud to help make its supply chain agile and adaptable.

Brian Tobey, corporate vice-president of manufacturing, supply chain, information and services at Microsoft, told Gartner’s Supply Chain Executive Conference in London that the company was moving its IT structure into the cloud to eliminate the traditional approach of dealing with partners in a supply chain via “one-to-one telephone connections”.

Microsoft uses Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform, the public cloud, for its partner-facing applications in the digital supply chain, for example, for its Xbox 3PP Account Management. Meanwhile, for back office applications and sensitive data, the company uses the private cloud, Windows Hyper-V.

Other cloud products Microsoft uses include Microsoft BizTalk Server and Microsoft Sharepoint. “Part of the agility and adaptability [of a supply chain] is overcoming the paradigm of how you connect with partners,” said Tobey.

“The cloud helps us manage the scale and requirements of services. [Azure and BizTalk] allows you to use server capacity as you need it.” According to Tobey, Microsoft has the “most outsourced supply chain in the world, definitely in our industry”.

Microsoft has six primary operation centres in five countries. Its supply chain comprises 10 Tier 1 manufacturing and 15 supply chain partners and more than 640 suppliers, delivering to 50,000 retail outlets and 300 retail partners in over 60 countries.

Although he said that outsourcing had clear financial benefits, Tobey said that outsourcing was a “natural” option to enable the company to scale rapidly, and its use by Microsoft was more about agility and adaptability than a cost saving.

“Our supply chain has grown tremendously over the last several years,” said Tobey.

He explained: “As early as three years ago, we managed about 25GB a day of data coming into the organisation. Now we manage 350GB a day, all coming in from different companies. That is one of the challenges of our supply chain, which affects are agility and adaptability.”

In an effort to manage the data, Microsoft decided to take the supply chain IT team out of the corporate IT team and put it directly into the supply chain.

“Supply chain is IT,” said Tobey. “The IT people have to understand supply chain. We put the IT group in [the supply chain] and then we told them that they have to be supply chain people, which took about four years. It was one of the harder experiments we ran.”

“[But] it was fortuitous because when we ramped up our digital supply chain [from a traditional supply chain], our IT people understood it immediately.”

He added: “My best supply chain person is one of the heads of IT.”

Microsoft has noted a number of trends affecting supply chain, ranging from increasing globalisation, which has led to varying market and customer requirements, to increased scale of business, resulting in more data being available, to increasingly complex supplier, partner and customer networks.

Furthermore, it refers to its supply chain model as the AAA Supply Chain, which stands for Alignment, Agile and Adaptable. In terms of alignment, Microsoft aims to align interests across the supply chain by freely exchanging information, clarifying roles and sharing risks, costs and gains.

Tobey was keen to emphasise that Microsoft does not align with its supply chain partners’ goals, but that the partners have to align their goals with those of Microsoft.

“Alignment is not consensus. When they [partners] work with us, it’s our strategy they have to align to, because we’re not going to align to your strategy. They have to learn how to be successful in their strategy within our strategy,” he said.

Source:http://news.techworld.com/data-centre/3239808/microsoft-moves-it-supply-chain-into-the-cloud/

Originally called NGWS, Microsoft’s new internet strategy Microsoft .Net is an umbrella term for collection of products and technologies from Microsoft helping connect people, information, systems and devices. Microsoft .NET Framework is simply a software framework and it can be installed on computers that run on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Asp .net consulting firms are now also offering quality Microsoft .Net services that are reliable, scalable and trustworthy.

The entire .Net architecture makes software integration really smarter and easier. Microsoft .Net services are developer-oriented services providing building blocks for applications. .Net services help developers focus on their application logic so as to create result-oriented .net application development. If you run a research about the Microsoft .Net application services experts in your city online, you will find a number of .Net application building agencies staffed by experienced Microsoft Certified professionals with applications development experience in selected Microsoft .Net development environments.

Microsoft .Net connects a broad range of personal as well as business technologies and enables access and use of crucial information, whenever and wherever it is needed. Built on XML Web service standards, Microsoft .Net helps connect both new and existing applications with software and web application to services across platforms. Applications and programming languages can also be accessed in the connection framework Development environment, testing server, database, coding standards are the prime Microsoft .Net solutions areas that many an outsourcing services providers of the segment are now focusing on. Using protocols and file formats such as Simple Object Access Protocol, Web Services Description Language and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, Microsoft .NET was built for integration through XML Web services. But today, it also includes internet standard like HTTP, the communication protocol between Internet Applications. Truly, .Net framework has turned into a common environment for building, deploying, and running different types of web services and web applications.

Source:http://qualityarticles.com/microsoft-net-experience-it-for-universal-services.htm

Microsoft is now spending $9.5 billion per year to provide the infrastructure that will be required for the cloud computing era. By comparison, Salesforce.com is investing only $120 million in research and development and won’t be able to keep pace with the Amazons, Googles and Microsofts of this world.

This assessment, served up by Microsoft Business Solutions Corporate VP Michael Park, can be seen as a blatant attempt by a cloud computing Johnny-come-lately to cast doubt on one of the movement’s pioneers and leaders.
Never mind that Salesforce.com, launched in 1999, has more than 80,000 customers while Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, introduced in April 2008, is clearly in catch-up mode.

Microsoft doesn’t share customer counts. Gartner figures for 2008 ranked Salesforce.com third in the total $9.15 billion CRM market, behind SAP and Oracle, respectively, with 10.6% of the market. Microsoft ranked fourth with 6.4% of the total CRM market. SAP, Oracle and Microsoft still get the vast majority of their CRM revenues from on-premise apps while Salesforce is delivered exclusively through the cloud.

And try to forget that Microsoft Azure, introduced late last year, recently surpassed the 10,000-customer mark. Salesforce.com, in contrast, says its Force.com platform as a service is “road tested and trusted by nearly 60,000 companies.” And more than 200,000 developers are said to have joined the developer.Force.com program.

Don’t think about the present. Microsoft wants you to consider the future and the capacity for Salesforce.com to play in the big leagues. For starters, Salesforce is on track to reach $1.3 billion in revenue this year. Cash-rich giants Microsoft, Google and Amazon are projected to reach $62.5 billion, $23.6 billion, and $24.5 billion in revenues, respectively.

Park says Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investments are being made in data centers worldwide in support of Microsoft Business Process Outsourcing Services (BPOS), Hotmail, Live.com, the Azure platform, and Dynamics Online applications.
Park shared his thoughts in connection with last week’s release of the beta version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 (in both online and on-premise versions). The final online release will go live in 41 languages and 40 different markets (in a first-phase) in January. Other markets will be added as data-center capacity grows.

Salesforce is putting roughly 10% of its sales back into R&D, according to Park, and he notes: “When you look at what Salesforce has to do to maintain its installed base, invest in data-center infrastructure, and continue to move the applications forward, $120 million isn’t a lot to cover all those needs.

Source:-http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/crm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227400366&subSection=Hosted+Software

Rajiv Kaul, former Microsoft India chief executive and now heading CMS Info Systems, majority owned by Blackstone (the private equity investor), feels the company’s revenue will grow by 20 per cent for 2010-11, after a tough year. The company expects to close FY11 with revenue of Rs 800-850 crore.

“Last year was a difficult year. We had to do business with a pricing pressure of 15 per cent. In some cases, clients had stopped payments. Add to this, since the talks of stake sale at CMS were going on for some time, the management bandwidth at the company was low. But from here, I think we are ready to ride the domestic growth story,” said Kaul, executive vice chairman and CEO of CMS. He was a partner with Actis, a PE fund, before he took this position.

With a target to be a Rs 2,000-2,500 crore revenue firm in the next four to five years, Kaul says he has managed to get the right foundation in place after Blackstone took over the company close to two years before.
Team

“If you ask me what is the one important achievement we have managed over the past year, then it’s getting the right team. I think we now have a good senior management team in place,” he added. CMS has managed to pull in Sudev Muthiya from Microsoft to head the information technology (IT) business here. Raja Roy, who was with HCL Infosystems, heading its institute business, is now spearheading CMS Institute Systems. Anand Sunderesan quit HCL Technologies and took over the role of vice-president, Sales. Some others will be joining soon.

For Kaul, a seasoned professional, joining CMS was an entrepreneurial bet. “I think there is a huge domestic opportunity. If you look at the domestic market, there are three large players — IBM, TCS and Wipro. After Wipro, there is a huge gap and enough room for another player to emerge in the domestic market and that’s what we are aiming at,” he added.

CMS Info Systems, the entity carved out from the CMS Group, is 60 per cent owned by Blackstone and 40 per cent by the promoters, the Grover family. Blackstone had acquired the stake for $40 million in December 2008. This is the second investment of Blackstone in the IT sector.

After getting a team in place, Kaul is focusing on the operational side. “Since the promoters were in a sell-mode for over a year, critical investments that are required in a services firm were not made. Of the six verticals that we are in, three are doing very well —- card services, cash management and print services — but three need to gear up. We will leverage Blackstone to get customers,” he added.

CMS Info Systems’ six vertical offerings are managed IT services, systems integration, IT Training, print services, cash management services and card services.

Aims

An objective for Kaul is to also restructure the business into two verticals — IT business and outsourcing services. “Almost 80 per cent of the work is done,” he said. The IT business will have the verticals of infrastructure services, systems integrator, IT training and print services, whereas outsourcing will have cash management and card services.

“Today 40-44 per cent of revenue comes from IT and cash management; print and card services contribute 10 and 5-7 per cent. In future, we want to double our print business,” said Kaul.

Another initiative Kaul is venturing into is the international market, with its remote infrastructure management services. The company has set-up a network operation centre in Mumbai.

“I think the contracts that we have with the Indian government are significant, both in terms of size and work. For instance, we are working with the Registrar General of India on providing IDs (identity cards) for people residing in coastal regions. We have won significant deals in the SI (systems integration) and infrastructure space. We have closed four deals in the public sector and are in talks with another four,” said he. It had also bagged the contract to supply personalised magnetic strip cards for the Rs 1,200-crore Employees State Insurance Corporation project from Wipro.

When asked what would be Blackstone’s exit option and if it is in the near future, Kaul said: “We are in for a long haul. From my conversation with the partners at Blackstone, I can say they are not in a hurry. Besides, right now I want to focus on how I can make 8x of their investments in the company.”

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/blackstone-investee-cms-info-systems-to-scalebusiness/407914/

STORAGECRAFT has lured a renowned specialist in Microsoft technology for the role of Asia-Pacific technical services general manager.
The appointment of IT entrepreneur and consultant Wayne Small, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, was announced at Microsoft’s Tech-Ed 2010 event on the Gold Coast.

The award recognises technical leaders who share their knowledge of Microsoft technology.

Small will control all StorageCraft’s technical services across the region, including technical support, professional services, technical updates and technical training.

“This is a major coup for us,” StorageCraft Asia-Pacific vice-president Richard Giddey said. “Wayne brings with him a wealth of diverse knowledge and is a highly respected industry expert who will be instrumental in helping us to accelerate our expansion in the Asia-Pacific market.”

Small has been involved in the IT industry for more than 30 years, even running a computer repair business as a young boy. Since then his roles have ranged from technical support to account management and marketing support.

In 1997, he started Sydney-based small and medium business IT consultancy Correct Solutions, which grew to an eight-strong team with multi-million-dollar revenue.

In 2005, it merged with two other companies to become a major IT reseller. In late 2006, he handed over the reins to focus on training, presenting and writing on technical and business topics, as well as consulting. Explaining his latest move, he says: “The company is recognised as a thought leader in back-up and disaster recovery, and StorageCraft products are market leaders, featuring innovations such as head-start restore and virtual boot, which reduce the impact on a business should a disaster occur. They are allowing resellers to provide higher availability solutions to their clients at lower costs than ever before.”

StorageCraft provides disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops.

“We have seen exponential growth of StorageCraft ShadowProtect server, SBS and virtual server editions over the past 12-18 months,” Giddey says.
FARID Jarrar has been appointed chief information officer of Stellar’s Asia-Pacific business. He has spent more than two decades in the IT industry, including 12 working with contact centres.

Past employers include Origin Healthcare, Excelsior and Skilled Group.

His expertise spans business process outsourcing and contact centre technology with merger, acquisition, divestment and outsourcing projects.
Jarrar has a master’s degree in information technology and management, and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Britain’s Office of Government Commerce.

Stellar, a business process and call centre specialist, has a big outsourcing contract with a major energy retailer.

Jarrar replaces Warwick Marx, who spent much of his time building synergies between Stellar’s sites and oversaw the opening of a new call centre in Queensland.

FORMER Adobe executive John Treloar has been made Australia-New Zealand managing director at video specialist Ooyala.

He’ll be bringing its business-ready video platform to market and helping customers engage with viewers and maximise revenue from video content.
He says Ooyala’s software as a service Backlot video platform includes analytics to help publishers target videos and advertising.

“Video is exploding on the Australian corner of the internet and customers are demanding a reliable platform for hosting and analysing their online video,” Treloar says.

“Because of our common language with the biggest economies in the world, Ooyala’s platform gives Australian publishers the ability to build, scale and promote global online video businesses.”

Ooyala customers include Australia’s Austereo, Telegraph Media Group, Arsenal Football Club, Electronic Arts and Red Bull.

AUSTRALIAN managed security services provider Seccom Global is celebrating some rapid growth with the appointment of Michael Livingstone as national head of sales.

He will be responsible for co-ordinating sales and developing business relations.

“Michael’s position is instrumental in our national growth plans,” chief information officer Gavin Matthews says.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside Michael in the security space for the past two years. He is well known within the industry and his personable approach and dedication make him a valued member of the Seccom team.”

Livingstone is an industry veteran with more than 20 years experience in the sector.

He was previously sales and marketing director at Australian security vendor Tier 3, responsible for development of the Huntsman product set.

He has also held senior sales and marketing roles with organisations including Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics.

Seccom Global offers continuous monitoring of network activity from its security operations centre, including attack definitions, application patches and firmware updates.

HITACHI Australia has appointed Miranda Fong as sales executive for NSW, Queensland and New Zealand, replacing Sue Perez.

Based in Sydney, she will work closely with authorised dealers to raise brand awareness and increase market share in the data projector and interactive whiteboard markets.

“Miranda has proven capabilities and experience in Hitachi’s digital presentation solutions division, making her the ideal person to help drive sales and market share within this market,” digital technology solutions group general manager Dipak Kumar says.

Fong has been with Hitachi Australia since October 2008, having held sales and logistics co-ordinator roles.

Earlier she was sales co-ordinator at Horizon Media, and had similar sales roles at QR National and Queensland Rail.

Fong holds a commerce degree in marketing from Griffith University.

INTERACTIVE Intelligence has bolstered its local presence with the appointment of Rameses Florentino as Australian and New Zealand inside sales representative, based in Sydney.

Florentino has more than 10 years experience in inside sales, customer service and contact centre support.
Interactive provides unified internet protocol business communications systems.

He will be responsible for pre-sales prospect identification and qualification for Interactive Intelligence products, as well as supporting marketing programs to drive brand awareness and partner and alliance momentum.

Florentino was previously inside sales and marketing consultant at FrontRange Solutions, and earlier managed lead generation campaigns at Expand Networks.

He also worked for LAN Systems, DirectIT, Salmat, Coles Myer and GE Finance.

Interactive Intelligence was founded in 1994 and has more than 3000 customers worldwide.

The company employs about 600 people, is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and has offices throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/storagecraft-snares-microsoft-expert-as-technical-services-manager/story-e6frgakx-1225914988247

MICROSOFT has set out to prove to Your Business readers that there is a compelling case to invest in the latest business technology now that the economy has emerged from recession by giving one reader £10,000 of the latest software and hardware.

The technology giant, which has recently released the latest version of its Windows operating system, said that many businesses had understandably delayed updating their IT during the last two years as they prioritised spending and reduced costs.

But it argued that many businesses were now operating on systems that underperform and are costly to maintain.

Robert Epstein, head of small business at Microsoft UK, said that more than 80pc of small businesses were still using Windows XP, first released in 2001, and Microsoft Office 2003.

“The biggest challenge is the economic environment,” he said. “A year or so ago people said, ‘Let’s lock down everything,’ and people have got stuck in that mentality now. There’s a belief that the technology that they have that’s becoming a bit aged is still good enough. But XP is up to nine years-old.

How many pieces of nine-year technology are people using in their business? Not their mobile phones, their photocopier or even their car. So why is it good enough to use nine-year-old software?”

To make its case, Microsoft has given Devon-based Westaways, a £3m-turnover sausage maker employing 24 staff, 12 Dell PCs and three laptops loaded with its latest operating system and updated versions of Office.

Westaways, run by former Royal Marine Charles Baugham, 53, has agreed to update its systems and will report back to Your Business in three months time on its experience.

Mr Baugham said: “There’s a degree of apprehension in the office but we have a system that’s creaking.

It would have been something we invested in if we had been trading normally. It’s not antiquated but it’s slow to load applications.

Individuals are finding it difficult to have two or three applications open at one time. Then there’s this computer that does not work with this printer. So one printer gets hammered and the troublesome printer gets worked around.”

The company has a mix of software and hardware. Staff have BlackBerrys for communication but they still use Office 2000, with updates, and the PCs mostly run off Windows XP. It also uses a seven-year-old server.

Mr Baugham said: “Individuals work on their own PCs and we back up all our information to our server. But the synchronisation of files is not happening correctly, and it means for the integrity of the company we are out on a limb. For me the security aspect as well as the slowness is really frustrating.”

Mr Baugham said he hoped to see routine tasks becoming simpler and that it would help those staff who wanted to work from home to do so more effectively. “For me, the 24/7 boss, I want to dial in and check an accounting package and often

it’s, ‘Oh, it’s not working’. So I trundle the three to four miles into the business as I can’t go to sleep without doing it. I work around it.”

Westaways, which slaughters 3,500 pigs a week from local Devon farms and exports 10pc of its sales to Europe, the Middle East and Asia, is also investing in a new Microsoft small business server 2008 to replace its 2003 model.

But Mr Baugham said previous experience has taught him to be wary of the IT sales pitch. “We spent some £20,000 on a new accounting package which we eventually got rid of 10 months later because we could not get it to do what we wanted it to do,” he said.

“We went back to the original system and there were universal cheers in the office. These systems that come in have to have a degree of flexibility and stability and be user-friendly.”

He added: “None of us likes spending money unless we can see the value, particularly in this environment.

But equally I can see you do need someone to say to you, ‘Why have you walked over to the printer six times?’ and ‘What’s happening over there?’ There’s a surprising level of inefficiency that you are prepared to put up with in IT.”

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/7971901/Microsofts-call-for-IT-investment-put-to-the-test-in-10000-trial.html

India’s flagship outsourcing industry reacted angrily on Saturday to a new US law that tightens security at the Mexico border with measures paid for by steep hikes in work visa fees.

The 600-million-dollar measure, signed into law Friday by US President Barack Obama, will sharply increase visa fees for some information technology workers entering the United States.

“The US government has a legitimate right and critically important responsibility to protect its borders but foreign companies should not be asked to bear the cost,” said the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), which represents India’s leading software exporters.

“Any new fees should have been required of any firms using the programs. This would have been fair and equitable and would not have discriminated against any sector,” NASSCOM president Som Mittal said in an emailed statement.

The new law nearly doubles fees on visas for skilled workers brought in by companies whose employees are more than 50 percent foreign, a move that largely affects India’s IT and outsourcing industries.

US high-tech firms such as Microsoft, which bring skilled immigrants into the United States on the same visas, would not be hit by the bill as the vast majority of their workforce is American.

NASSCOM has warned that the measures will boost annual US visa costs for the outsourcing industry by 200-250 million dollars annually.

India, which already holds at least 50 percent of the global outsourcing market, has become the world’s back office where Western firms set up call centres and number-crunching and software development outlets to cut costs.

But the 50-billion-dollar industry also sends skilled workers to the United States to develop software and direct projects for US clients.

Under the law, the fees for non-immigrant “H1B” and “L” visas go up by 2,000 dollars for firms with more than a 50 percent non-American workforce. The current fee is 2,500 dollars.

Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jYhq-0fosqsLctbx5s6Dx23m71cg

PPD Inc.and Microsoft Corp.today announced they have entered into an agreement to jointly implement an innovative technology solution designed to improve efficiency in managing U.S. Food and Drug Administration-mandated Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) programs.

The technology will be based on Microsoft Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS), a data aggregation platform that gives healthcare professionals access to the information they need when they need it, and Microsoft HealthVault, a personal health application platform that lets consumers gather, store and share health information online.

When completed, this first-of-its-kind technology solution will provide biopharmaceutical companies with a long-term system for managing operational components of REMS programs while tracking large amounts of information collected from multiple sources, including the patient, healthcare provider and pharmacy.

The robust solution will integrate PPDs strategic, scientific, operational and regulatory capabilities in designing and implementing comprehensive REMS and risk management programs with Microsofts strong global software development expertise.

Efficient, effective REMS programs require real-time access to information by multiple internal and external stakeholders, said Mike Wilkinson, executive vice president and chief information officer for PPD. We are committed to combining operational and scientific excellence with leading REMS-specific technologies for this rapidly evolving sector of our industry and are pleased to collaborate with Microsoft in this effort.

Lori Eberhardt, vice president of global late stage research for PPD, added, Our clients rely on our expertise in delivering comprehensive risk management programs, which are critical to ensuring patient safety. Whether we are working with clients to develop and manage REMS programs to ensure safe use or developing a virtual training curriculum, this platform is an efficient solution to connect, manage and track all components of REMS programs.

The centralized platform based on Microsoft Amalga UIS and HealthVault will provide an easy-to-use interface for physicians, pharmacists and patients involved in REMS. It will also feature intuitive navigation and a high level of customization to provide clients with greater control of their REMS programs.

Were excited to collaborate with PPD to deliver a new REMS solution for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, said Steve Shihadeh, general manager, Microsoft Health Solutions Group. Using Amalga and HealthVault, we will be able to connect all of the stakeholders involved in REMS programs and make it much easier for them to get the right information at the right time to help improve patient safety. We look forward to seeing the positive impact our solution brings to PPD clients as they manage the prescription drug life cycle.

REMS programs are required by the FDA for certain marketed drugs to ensure the benefits of a product offered to consumers outweigh the risks. They can include elements to ensure safe use, communications plans and medication guides, which all require assessment.

Source:http://www.webnewswire.com/node/558884

Outsourcing makes a lot of sense in today’s diminishing economy. Increasing costs of production are one reason why many companies choose cheaper destinations for manufacturing their product lines. Outsourcing to China still remains the top option for companies worldwide for reasons anyone can imagine.

Outsourcing makes a lot of sense in today’s diminishing economy. Increasing costs of production are one reason why many companies choose cheaper destinations for manufacturing their product lines. Outsourcing China still remains the top option for companies worldwide for reasons anyone can imagine. China might not be in the ranks of the developed nations, but one thing it is richer than anybody else is in it’s abundance of engineers. China ‘produces’ 350,000 engineers every year and the pure entrepreneurial nature of the skilled labor in China makes them put in up to 12 work hours a day, six days a week!

China outsourcing has been a regular feature in every business forum. Even as the dollar falls, outsourcing to China becomes cheaper because the yuan is pegged to it. Whether you are in IT, electronics, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, raw materials or even fashion, China outsourcing helps you develop your brand while maintaining top notch standards. Consider the case of the top pharma outsourcing company WuXi PharmaTech (WX). Helping the World’s top companies with their R&D, WX is known for 100% client retention. The Ph.D’s in the company are trained in the west as are their MBAs. While maintaining the highest standards for employment and corporate practices, the company managed to grab the cream of projects from the best pharmaceutical companies.

China’s outsourcing companies are majorly supported by the government of the country. It is no surprise since the country’s economy is practically dependent on its manufacturing industry. Apart from investing majorly in the education sector, Chinese government is also known to fund advanced infrastructure that helps various outsourcing companies. For example, the country directed the majority of a huge stimulus package to develop a west-to-east pipeline project that helped the oil services companies all over the country to get offshore projects.

China outsourcing companies offer a lot of value for your money and at 6.81 yuan a dollar, the services come far cheaper than anywhere else in the world. You will still be left with a comfortable margin even after shipping and other miscellaneous duties. The best way to go about a China outsourcer is to contact an agency that specialize in rating the companies in terms of employee qualification, rate of production, prices, packaging, engineering quality, infrastructure, etc. Extensive research is required before making a deal with a company and because China outsourcing companies go to every length to retain a customer, it is best to have this relationship with a trustworthy and promising company.

Source:http://dixini.com/china-outsourcing-a-benefit-to-companies-worldwide.html/