HiddenBrains is today an IT Outsourcing global leader in Mobile and Web Application Development. The company’s management is happy to announce its scheduled tour of European countries during the third week of Feb 2012 with an aim to interact and communicate with our trusted clients. Its lead management team has scheduled an interactive visit to few of the European Countries like Poland, Austria, Sweden, Hungary, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Norway and others between 23rd Feb and 17th Mar 2012.

The company representatives will meet clients and professionals belonging to various sectors and exchange main growth areas of mobile and web application development; moreover, have media interactions and typically exchange mobile expansion functionalities along with latest mobile apps delivered by the group. There would be exchange of web app as well as mobile app development success. We would like to welcome all our well wishers for any of their needs towards IT outsourcing and other related queries.

This visit will provide good opportunities to further discuss the effective implementation of various web and mobile technology advancements and to inspire an interest in quality mobile applications that we are developing. This trip of Europe will help us to better our associations with clients and drastically help to broaden our vision for future application development for web and mobile platforms.

HiddenBrians Participation at Mobile World Congress 2012
As part of our Europe tour, we will also represent ourselves at the Mobile World Congress 2012, to be held from 27th Feb to 1st Mar 2012 at Barcelona. We will prove and demonstrate our skillful innovations for various smart phones like iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian and in other Embedded Technologies etc., and will prove our expertise in Mobile app development field.

Source:http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/sbwire-125129.htm

01 Synergy will unveil a range of iPhone & Android Applications — including ExhibitionApp — at India Soft, an international IT meet scheduled for March 2012. Over 350 business partners and global enterprises from 75 countries are expected to participate in the two-day event.

01 Synergy will launch ExhibitionApp, which is designed specifically for the tradeshow industry, it features real-time show alerts and interactive floor maps. Users can schedule tradeshow information while travelling to the show or download it to the phone for later reference. Exhibitor information can also be downloaded to prevent a user from having to carry marketing materials and brochures around the show. 01Synergy will also launch the Pro version of Golf eScorer at IndiaSoft 2012.

We look forward to meet & interact with the India Soft 2012 delegates and forge business alliances.

Despite some hopeful fits and starts, the U.S. economy didn’t escape the doldrums in 2011. Unemployment remained stubbornly high, the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis and budget scuffles spurred more economic uncertainty, and Europe’s ongoing financial problems threatened global markets. If there’s an upside, at least it’s familiar territory.

“Back in 2008, nobody knew what was going to happen as a result of the global financial crisis and IT spending almost stopped overnight,” says Richard Gordon, a research vice president at Gartner. “We’re not in that kind of situation now. The solutions to the problems [in the U.S. and Europe] are understood and known. The question is now, is there a political way to execute and make them happen?”

Against the worrisome economic backdrop, enterprises have continued to spend on IT, albeit with caution. IT budgets grew in 2011, but not by much when the impact of exchange rates is factored in.

“If you look at constant dollars — in other words, if you strip out exchange rates — we’ve seen marginal growth in 2011 in the very low single digits, maybe 1 percent or 2 percent globally,” Gordon says. Healthier growth in emerging economies compensated for sluggish growth in the U.S. and Europe, but the net effect is essentially flat IT spending in 2011 compared to 2010.

We’ll see more of the same in 2012, Gordon says. “From an enterprise IT perspective, folks are planning for a period of slow economic growth.”

Research firm IDC is more bullish, estimating that worldwide IT spending will grow 6.9 percent year over year to $1.8 trillion in 2012. A healthy chunk of spending — as much as 20 percent, IDC says — will be driven by a handful of technologies that are reshaping the IT industry: smartphones, media tablets, mobile networks,social networking and big data analytics.

Mobility is introducing significant management and security headaches for IT, while at the same time enabling the business to increase employee productivity and improve customer service. Social networking is spawning a treasure trove of customer data, but also creating an enormous challenge for companies that want to make any sense of all that data.

Fighting for talent
As companies try to balance the technical challenges and opportunities, they’re also grappling with a shortage of skilled professionals. IT pros with application development, virtualization or cloud computing skills are in short supply, as are those with business analytics expertise.

The number of available IT jobs in the U.S. is up about 12 percent compared to a year ago, and demand for tech professionals is expected to get even stronger in 2012, according to Dice.com. When the jobs site surveyed 1,200 IT hiring managers and recruiters, 65 percentsaid they’re planning to add tech pros in the first half of 2012. Among those in hiring mode, 27 percent said they plan to expand headcount by more than 20 percent. (See “Can you keep your IT staff in 2012?”)

Tech pros with in-demand skills and relevant experience aren’t having trouble finding jobs, says Jack Cullen, president of IT staffing and recruiting firm Modis. “If candidates have strong skills, robust backgrounds, and they communicate well, they’re getting snapped up fast,” he says. In fact, many hiring managers haven’t adjusted to the new pace. “They’re still slow to react, still very deliberate in the hiring cycle,” Cullen says. “They’re really looking for that quality hire.”

Cars.com has been on an IT hiring spree for the past year and remains bullish as 2012 kicks off and the hard-hit automotive industry’s recovery continues.

“We’re optimistic,” says Bill Swislow, CIO at Cars.com, a pricing and reviews site for online car shoppers. “We suffered in the recession just like everyone else, but the auto industry has been rebounding. Even though we’re still not close to pre-recession levels of auto sales, the incremental climb in sales has been pretty steady.”

As a result, Cars.com has been investing heavily in IT. “In 2010 and 2011 we made substantial investments. We increased headcount, increased overall IT spending and executed a number of different strategic initiatives and infrastructure upgrades,” Swislow says.

That growth will continue in 2012, he says, though he won’t be increasing headcount by as much as he did in 2011, when his IT team grew by about 30 percent. Swislow is predicting about 10 percent growth in headcount for 2012.

On the project front, Cars.com is planning a handful of major projects in 2012, including reengineering its CRM and fulfillment systems, deploying a new data warehouse platform, and rolling out new business intelligence technologies.

“There’s an increasing market expectation with our customers, especially car dealers, that they can log into a tool and see real-time metrics. Our current data warehouse architecture requires an overnight batch process, and we want to load continuously throughout the day,” Swislow says. “On the business intelligence layer, we’re looking to greatly upgrade our visualization and dashboard capabilities, both for internal use and for customer-facing reporting.”

Successful execution of some major IT projects over the last couple of years — in particular shifting from a waterfall to an agile development methodology, which dramatically increased developer productivity — makes it easier to justify further increases in headcount and IT budgets, Swislow says. “Our ability to spend effectively enables us to make a credible case for spending more.”

Keeping it lean

Not all enterprises are staffing up and spending more, however. Many organizations are still struggling to pare back expenses.

IT headcount and budgets are remaining flat in the city of Ridgeland, Miss. “We’re still cautious,” says Joe Kirchner, information systems manager for the city. “We’re taking care of the essentials, and there’s beginning to be some optimism.”

A key project for 2012 will be to extend a VoIP rollout. Ridgeland analyzed its VoIP options for several years before starting to deploy the technology at city hall and the police department. Beginning in January, more city departments, including the fire department, will be brought on board.

Further out, Ridgeland is researching its options for a virtual desktop deployment, though the purchase won’t happen in 2012, Kirchner says. “We have a lot of legacy applications that communicate in a unique way, so you can’t rush to everything.”

The city of Ridgeland is replacing IT staff who leave, but it’s not adding new positions. Nucleus Research says it’s seeing more of that: IT departments putting money into technology rather than more personnel. Among the ROI-driven case studies Nucleus published in 2011, 60 percent said they were able to reduce or avoid adding staff as a benefit of technology investments. (See story, “The CIO’s lament: 20-somethings who quit after a year.”)

“With uncertainty about what corporate taxes are going to look like in 2012, and what unemployment is going to look like, companies are opting to invest in technology that makes their existing employees more productive,” says Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at the firm.

Know thy customer and business
Enterprises are deploying technologies that can help them improve customer service, analyze data for better decision making, and get the most out of their workforce.

Companies have continued to spend on CRM, even during the recession, because it’s important for businesses to know their customers — to be able to identify and retain the customers who generate profit for the company, to cut loose the ones who don’t, and to track new customers who are willing to spend, Wettemann says. “For every dollar you spend on CRM, you get $5.60 back.”

Analytics technology is hot because it enables businesses to make decisions based on data instead of gut, and it doesn’t require an enormous IT outlay. “We’ve seen companies make a relatively small investment, do a pilot analytics project, understand how the technology works, and see what it delivers in terms of returns,” Wettemann says.

In upstate New York, analytics are helping cash-strapped school districts to track academic performance trends and identify students who are most likely to benefit from targeted education services.

Nicole Catapano is data analysis coordinator at the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services (WSWHE BOCES), which serves 31 school districts in a five-county New York region. WSWHE BOCES manages and analyzes volumes of school data from different districts, customizing projects based on each district’s needs.

“We’re taking the burden of organization and analytics away from the school districts and helping them pinpoint where they should focus their time and attention regarding student achievement,” Catapano explains. “For one group we looked to see what variables predicted student readiness for college classes. In another district, we looked at early literacy indicators to see what skills students had or were lacking in order to be demonstrating a level of proficiency by third grade.”

Catapano’s team invested in predictive analytics software from IBM, which has significantly shortened the amount of time it takes to create a predictive model from weeks or even months to just days or hours.

Cloudy forecast
Cloud computing is another area of accelerated growth as 2012 gets underway. The shift from traditional IT acquisition models to public cloud services is still in the early stages but growing at much faster rate (19 percent annually through 2015) than overall enterprise IT spending, according to Gartner. (See “Cloud activity to explode in 2012.”)

The appeal of the cloud, with its potential to reduce capital expenses and enable greater IT agility, is proving strong enough to convince companies to entrust their data to a cloud provider. More than 50 percentof the world’s largest companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in the public cloud by year-end 2016, Gartner predicts. Under pressure to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, more than 20 percent of organizations are already selectively storing customer-sensitive data in a hybrid cloud environment, Gartner says.

Cars.com has adopted some software-as-a-service apps, and this year is implementing a cloud-based desktop backup solution. So far, it has resisted outsourcing its Web infrastructure to a cloud provider, though the appeal of a service that can handle extreme spikes in traffic (such as when Cars.com advertises during the Super Bowl) is tempting, Swislow says. “That’s something we continue to consider.”

In the financial services industry, the current economic environment and regulatory climate are driving firms that traditionally would have built and maintained their own trading infrastructures, and procured market data on their own, to consider outsourcing those functions to a provider such as NYSE Technologies, the tech division of NYSE Euronext.

“People are going to have to make painful decisions” as financial organizations work to cut costs, trim IT budgets and staff, and transform their operating models, says Stanley Young, CEO of NYSE Technologies.

“The natural tendency for all companies is to do everything themselves. Trusting somebody to provide a critical part of your infrastructure is a tough decision. But I think they’ve reached a tipping point where doing the same things they’ve always done is no longer an option.”

Mobile, social mayhem
Two complementary trends — the meteoric adoption of the mobile devices and the increasing use of personal smartphones and tablets for business purposes — are further disrupting the IT status quo and driving new investments.

Enterprises are grappling with how to incorporate employees’ mobile devices into existing corporate technology infrastructures. The city of Ridgeland, Miss., is so far prohibiting employees from using personal devices to access internal systems. Limited personnel is one reason, Kirchner says, along with the management and security challenges that employee-owned devices introduce. (Read: “Security minefield: Bring your own device will bedevil IT security in 2012.”)

Digirad, a maker of cameras used for medical purposes, allows employee-owned iPhones and iPads at work, but limits their application access. “We’re only trying to support email,” says Jon Martin, vice president of IT at Digirad. “And the users can’t contact us for advice. We say, ‘check with your provider.’”

A recent survey by the Enterprise Device Alliance found that 66 percent of organizations allow some employees to bring their own devices, which IT supports at least to some degree. But while employee-owned devices are showing up at work, many IT organizations are under-investing in tools to manage and secure those devices. Just 16 percent of organizations reported using mobile device management tools — a percentage that is expected to more than triple to 50 percent by the end of 2012.

There’s a similar tug-of-war going on in the social media realm.

Sales and marketing teams want to engage customers through social networking sites, end users want to access personal accounts from the workplace, and HR wants to be able to recruit, hire and retain social media-savvy employees. But IT doesn’t want to expose the company to unnecessary risk.

In a recent a Ponemon Institute survey, 63 percent of respondents said use of social media puts the organization at risk, and 52 percent said their organizations suffered increased virus and malware attacks as a result of employees’ use of social media. Yet only 29 percent have security controls in place to mitigate or reduce the risk.

Looking ahead, industry watchers say organizations will adopt enterprise tools that bundle compliance, content management and analytics features so companies can stay on top of content created by employees and measure the effectiveness of their social media activities.

In the big picture, enterprises aren’t waiting around for the economy to improve. IT executives are spending in new areas and dramatically rethinking how they acquire technology and deliver services to end users. After a period of unrelenting focus on cost-cutting, these course adjustments are a breath of fresh air.

Source:http://www.cio.in/article/mobility-cloud-analytics-reshape-it-2012

Headstream Advisory, the consultancy firm specialises in global sourcing strategies, has launched a mobile application called GlobalSourcer that gives insights for those who want to source work to information technology and IT-enabled service providers.

Available on Apple Stores, the app provides “granular information on the qualitative aspects of the service providers that is generally kept under wraps by established advisory firms”.

“In the current highly volatile economy, the key traps for any outsourcing buyer are lack of in-depth analysis of service provider’s domain expertise and a clear methodology to distinguish service providers. Lack of information creates a biased perception on the service providers,” Mr Sashikant Kakara, founder and Managing Director of Headstream Advisory, said.
New platform

This app fills the gap and reshapes the way customers perceive the providers. Service providers can look at the app as a new channel and platform to optimise their brand presence and gain traction in new geographies and verticals, he claimed.

The company’s sourcing advisory covers areas such as financial services, telecom, retail, technology and media. It has developed the app that is being offered at $19.99. “This will also take the apps space to a new level by moving it to enterprise application segment from games,” he said.

Mr Sashikant argued that global sourcing knowledge economy was not transparent. “Normally, buyers purchase insights on the service providers at exorbitant prices. Additionally, buyers are charged premium for running the deal and the service provider selection,” he said.

“The sensitive information, decisive in nature, which the advisory and analyst firms hold onto, is being opened up to the decision makers through a simple app now,” he said.

GlobalSourcer App has been designed by Xcube labs for Headstream Advisory.

Mr Sashikant expected that the app would make the major advisory firms to reduce the pricing of their insights provided to buyers since the information provided in the app is typically sold at a premium to the buyers.

Source:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/article2735569.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home

Android is the new craze of the Mobile application development industry and is predicted to be the next-generation thing in the mobile-web world. By providing an open development platform, Android offers developers the ability to build extremely rich and innovative applications. 01 Synergy is offering six months Industrial training in Android. This training aims at learning Android applications for various purposes. It is a course which is specially designed keeping in view the need of IT and engineering graduates who have either completed or in the final year of completion of BCA, M.Sc IT, MCA, BE/B.Tech.

This is hands on training, you will be asked to set-up development environment & then start to work on “LIVE” Application Development for Google Android mobile devices in JAVA and C/C++.

The project would entail understanding of object oriented programming (OOPS) and coding in Java & C/C++. The Live project would cover Graphical User Interface (GUI) design, inter-process communication, threading, graphics, multimedia, networking, GPS API. web services , performance & debugging.

After the training is completed, 6 months experience certificate is offered by 01 Synergy, which qualifies the trainee as an expert in Android software apps. Since Industrial Training in Android is a job oriented course, the trainees will get job security amalgamated with bright career prospects.

Enquires about the training program will be available at 0161-4344000 or you can even email at: hr@ldh.01s.in or register online at www.01s.in/IT

The most popular business social network LinkedIn already has its mobile application and on Tuesday morning a spiced-up application with more features is released. This adds positive impact to the reputation of the only popular business social network.

LinkedIn is one social network where companies regardless of whether a company is a software development company or an IT outsourcing company creates their profile and acquire an online presence with positive reputation. It is a place where business and business enthusiasts meet up seeking opportunities and the ladder to grow.

The upgraded mobile app is for Android, Apple iOS and other mobile web browsers and is believed to make the social network even more popular.

The application is reported to be faster, more attractive and more flexible than the previous versions. It is indeed one of the best applications web application development world has seen. This application will help business make connection, get jobs, swap resumes which will keep its reputation for being different from other social network like Facebook and Twitter.

New features added to the new LinkedIn mobile application are:
1. Groups allowing people to talk and share business interests
2. New navigation like Updates, Inbox and Groups for easy access.
3. “People You May Know” feature which will assist an user to find connections
4. Ten times faster speed in comparison with the previous version
5. HTML 5 mobile website

Various technology reviewers said that this new application has slick, quality visual interface and most people would like to use it.

In a video promoting the mobile application, the company says that the new LinkedIn mobile application will give the suits meeting intelligence.

Business enthusiasts will now have an enhanced flexibility in gaining information about a company or an individual just minutes before meeting them in person.

Oglacs is a top Software Company dedicated to provide best in class software solutions like web application development and software development to enterprises and individuals over the world.

Source:http://www.openpr.com/news/188063/LinkedIn-Spicing-Up-Its-Mobile-Application.html

While the previous decade may have seen business process outsourcing (BPO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and software services leading IT growth in Gujarat, the next decade is set to witness a new vertical – mobile applications.

Thanks to the platforms like Android, Apple and Symbian that have got consumers hooked on to mobile applications, more and more players in Gujarat are joining the bandwagon, say industry players.

Currently, industry players see mobile application development at hardly two per cent of the total IT industry in Gujarat, which is estimated to be growing at over 15 per cent.
“As compared to last year, this year there has been tremendous increase in start-ups venturing into mobile application, unlike any other vertical. There are increasingly new players entering the mobile applications vertical in Gujarat. If the trend is anything to go by, the next decade will definitely see mobile applications leading the way for IT growth in Gujarat,” says Kaushal Mehta, president, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) – Ahmedabad Chapter.

Seconding his thoughts is Chirag Patel, founder CEO of Ahmedabad-based Net4Nuts Limited. “The IT growth in Gujarat will be driven by mobile applications primarily because of landscape changes in telecom technology. Not only platforms like Android, Apple and Symbian are pushing up the standards and demand for applications, network connectivity has made sure more consumers using such applications,” says Patel.

A middleware technology company providing various Mobile Value Added Services to top mobile operators in India and S.E. Asia, Net4Nuts recently developed a mobile application that showcases TV schedule on mobile phones.

Other than consumers, it is also corporates and industry that seems to be thriving on mobile applications, say some players. “Applications that are required to be made available on cloud computing are also depending on the telecom industry to enable such uploads. Add to that, even corporates are increasingly seeking applications wherein they can see their revenue, sales, etc on mobile interface. Even localised marketing is also thriving in Gujarat on mobile applications which has led to a sudden growth in the vertical,” says Nikhil Jain, president and COO, Elitecore Technologies.

Moreover, according to Patel, availability of smartphones in Gujarat has also added to growth in mobile applications development in the state. “Smartphones which were three per cent earlier of overall mobile handsets market will now be 25-30 per cent. Moreover, people are discovering various usages of smartphones that has led to increase in demand for mobile applications,” adds Patel.

However, apart from mobile applications the other verticals that will lead growth of the industry include infrastructure management and cloud computing, says the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).

“Apart from mobile applications, there are other verticals that are going to add to the growth of IT industry in Gujarat. It is being observed that new age technology like infrastructure management, cloud computing and engineering services are grow consistently,” adds Rajiv Vaishnav, vice president, NASSCOM.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/mobile-apps-to-drive-it-growth-in-state/442868/

My IT Business Edge colleague Susan Hall on Friday wrote about how a developer shortage could mean companies won’t be able to create mobile applications as quickly as they’d like. She noted that the scarcity is forcing companies to boost wages, retrain software engineers, outsource work to third-party developers and set up offshore development labs to meet demand.

While this issue is impacting companies of all sizes, it’s likely to be an especially big deal for small and mid-size companies, few of which can afford the kinds of salaries Susan mentions in her post, $90,000 a year and up.

Gil Seabra, director of business development for Actminds, a provider of development and management services, said that companies like his, which employs developers in Brazil, can help SMBs cost effectively roll out mobile applications. In addition to the labor shortage that is driving up demand and salaries for mobile developers, Seabra said many mobile projects are “not linear demands.”

In other words, unlike some business applications, many customer-facing mobile apps require little major development work once they are complete. So it may not make sense to build an internal staff with specialized mobile skills, Seabra said. (Of course, companies may become more interested in beefing up internal mobile skills, as they also add more mobile apps used by their own employees, a trend Seabra said is growing.)

Even companies that intend to build their own mobile staffs can attain a quicker ROI from working with vendors like Actminds as they bring their employees up to speed. Working with a wide variety of clients gives vendors experience with “usability, look and feel and specific functionalities,” Seabra said.

Like other Brazilian service providers, Actminds touts its cultural compatibility with Western companies. Unlike Indian services providers, which must contend with a time difference of 10 hours or more with their U.S. clients, Brazil is three hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. This facilitates easy communication with clients, which Seabra said is especially important as Actminds uses Agile development methodologies for 95 percent of its projects.

Source:http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/outsourcing-mobile-app-development/?cs=46552

01 Synergy – your Mobile phone application development partner

Orange and T-Mobile’s Everything Everywhere joint venture is outsourcing its IT to T-Systems in a seven-year deal said to be worth £700m, Computer Weekly has learned.

Staff have been informed that the UK joint venture between T-Mobile and Orange will transfer 220 staff to T-Systems.

T-Systems confirmed that it “has signed a new, seven-year outsourcing contract for IT services with Everything Everywhere.” No value was given but according to sources it is about £700m.

The deal is for the delivery of desktop services, datacentre operations and infrastructure management, IT applications support and ITIL support processes to support 16,000 staff.

It also triggers off a move into the cloud. “The contract sets out a path for migrating 40% of Everything Everywhere’s IT estate onto T-Systems’ Dynamic platform within three years,” said the T-Systems statement.

T-Systems already provided IT services to T-Mobile, which is also owned by Deutsche Telekom but the Orange UK IT infrastructure, which is done in-house, is said to be twice as big as its T-Mobile equivalent.

Source:http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/03/25/246065/Orange-and-T-Mobile-UK-operation-outsources-IT-to-T-Systems.htm

The need to improve the delivery of processes and services was the most important factor driving demand for IT skills over the past year. a Forrester survey has revealed.

The analyst questioned 139 senior IT leaders earlier this year, and found that improving execution (26 percent), the need for greater consistency of processes and services (22 percent) and business growth (20 percent) were the main drivers for businesses looking to improve or bring new skills inot the IT department.
The Three Ps of Evaluating Managed Network Services: Portfolio, Partnerships and Processes: Download now

Decreases in staffing demand tended to be driven by cost reduction (for 58 percent of respondents), followed by automation or virtualisation (for 20 percent of respondents).

In his What’s driving demand for key IT roles? report, Forrester analyst Marc Cecere, said that the drivers for increasing demand were not surprising.

“The need to improve IT process execution is at the top of most CIOs’ priority lists,” he said.

“That greater consistency of processes and services was close to execution in importance reflects the tremendous interest in developing global processes and services.”

In contrast, the survey found that cost reduction (nine percent) and managing outsourcing (four percent) had little effect on increased demand .

“Most IT leaders have been aggressively reducing costs over the past few years and already have the expertise in-house to continue this. Managing outsourcing is only of interest to those who are expanding outsourcing and currently lack the skills to do so,” Cecere explained.

Forrester found that portfolio management (36 percent) and project management roles (44 percent) were in more demand as businesses strived to improve execution, as these roles needed to be able to allocate resources effectively, while killing off bad ideas quickly.

Increased consistency, however, drove the demand for service management and process design skills.

“To build more consistent processes, you need people who understand how services are designed, sourced, and executed, as well as highly specialised people to design the processes that enable these services,” said Cecere.

In addition, client relationship management roles were also more in demand as businesses tried to attain business growth. Cecere said that this was because this goal needs people who are able to manage the relationship with business leaders, and those with skills in strategy, data and business analysis.

Although common activities that companies are doing today require a broad range of skills, for example legacy system re-engineering and the creation of more consistent business and IT processes, Cecere believes that in the future, there may be more demand for a narrow set of skills.

“New technologies such as the iPad or new services such as cloud, when mainstream, will drive a narrower range of skills.

“As of today, this is not being felt, though we expect the increasing use of mobile devices and cloud services to change the mix of skills required,” he said.

Source:http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/120610-efficiency-and-service-delivery-driving.html?hpg1=bn

ViryaNet Limited, a provider of mobile workforce management solutions that optimize the full cycle of scheduling and dispatch processes for field service management, said it has been selected by Vertex, a global provider of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Customer Management Outsourcing (CMO), and IT solutions, to deliver an Outsourced Field Service Dispatch Service for Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA).

According to a release, through the engagement, Vertex will work with TMWA to establish and implement uniform business processes and best practices across TMWA’s utility field services operations based upon the ViryaNet technology.

Using this service, the utility retains its field technicians and the dispatchers are outsourced to Vertex. The dispatchers use ViryaNet’s mobile workforce management solution to schedule and dispatch work to field technicians. Field technicians use ViryaNet’s mobile client software to receive work orders, update work order status, and report completion.

The ViryaNet solution is tightly integrated with the utility’s CIS system to insure customer service representatives can accurately book appointments and answer customer inquiries with timely information about the status of work orders. This will allow Vertex to enhance TMWA’s customer service while reducing cost to serve.

TMWA is a not-for-profit, community-owned water utility, overseen by elected officials and citizen appointees from Reno, Sparks and Washoe County in Nevada. TMWA has a workforce that ensures the around-the-clock treatment, delivery and availability of drinking water for more than 330,000 residents

“We have partnered with Vertex since 2006 and are thrilled to see them extend and expand their Field Service Dispatch service with the addition of Truckee Meadows Water Authority,” said Jeff Oskin, President, ViryaNet. “We are looking forward to continued growth in Vertex’s Field Services Dispatch service which plays an important role in utilities’ enterprise-wide effort to establish common best practices and deliver the highest quality field service at the lowest cost.”

Dan Sullivan, managing director, North America Utilities, Vertex added: “We have been delighted by the contribution from ViryaNet and look forward to deploying the technology as we support TMWA’s pursuit of ever-higher levels of customer service.”

Vertex employs close to 15,000 people on four continents across 70 locations, delivering solutions to a range of clients 24/7 and supporting over 50 million consumers.

Headquartered in Southborough, Mass., ViryaNet has a worldwide presence with offices and customers located in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

Source:http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/vrya_vertex-chooses-viryanet-s-mobile-workforce-management-solutions-1303706.html

While cloud computing dominates many outsourcing discussions, offshore providers are having a different conversation with their enterprise customers: mobility. As companies plot their post-recession strategies, they are showing a strong interest in using mobile business applications to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace or to optimize a critical business workflow.

“With the advent of [personal digital assistants]PDAs and mobile devices, people are seeing that this is yet another way to get ahead of their competitors,” said Sury Kant, president of New York-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd. North America.

The demand manifests itself on several fronts, said Kant and Shanky Viswanathan, who heads TCS North America’s telecom services business unit and its mobility practice, which spans TCS’ business units. Organizations want to take their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and reflect them on smartphones so that employees who need the information can make decisions on the fly. Retail and other consumer-facing businesses are feverishly pursuing e-commerce initiatives for PDAs and other devices, from flashing store coupons to providing real-time updates on accounts. Sprint Nextel Corp., AT &T and their ilk want mobility applications they can white label and include in their telecom infrastructure offerings to small and medium-sized business and enterprise customers.

As for the mobility niche where TCS claims to have a particular advantage? That would be optimizing a business process to save money and boost productivity by “plugging productivity leakages,” Viswanathan said.

“This is not just Web-enabling a set of screens to put on a mobile device,” Viswanathan said. “You have to look at the entire process: Where you need optimization, how the processes can change and at which touch points the mobility enablement can be done to optimize the process. You need core domain strength. And you really need to be a full-blown integrator to manage the ecosystems of these applications,” he said.

Two major cons

Finding that deep domain knowledge in a provider is one of “two major cons” to taking the sourcing route for mobile business applications, said Steve Hall, a partner and managing director at Woodlands, Texas-based TPI Inc., a global sourcing advisory firm.

“You need a provider with an understanding of your enterprise data,” said Hall, who leads TPI’s applications outsourcing group. “They are going to have to get under the covers to really understand the data. And they need business knowledge and domain experience.”

Cautions notwithstanding, there is no question that mobile business applications, as a strategic component of enterprise systems, are major push for companies and for providers, Hall said. The emphasis on mobile platforms was evident to him on a recent visit to India, where “everyone from TCS, Infosys and Wipro down to the smaller players” were busy building out their mobility services, he said.

“This is a really strong trend that I think is a little bit under the radar because of the overload of press on cloud computing these days,” Hall said.

Another reason for the lack of buzz is the tendency to equate mobility applications with Web-enabled business applications, which require access to a laptop or desktop and have been a staple of enterprise computing for close to a decade, Hall said. Mobile business applications also differ from the dizzying array of mobile apps for the consumer market in the sense that they must be managed, supported and secured. “People see these apps on their iPhones and Droids and think it’s all so easy. The complexity is lost on them,” he said.

Critical to mobile business applications: Speed to market

With the influx of iPhones, iPads and Android devices into both the enterprise and the consumer market, CIOs are under “tremendous pressure” to adapt business applications for these devices, Hall said. Couple these circumstances with a lack of internal expertise and money to develop mobile business applications, and it makes sense that CIOs are turning to sourcing providers, he said.

But maybe the biggest argument for seeking outside help, Hall said, is speed to market and rapid prototyping.

“The thing with mobile is that you can’t have a six- to nine-month project to roll these out. Going with somebody that has a platform that can launch these quickly is going to be critical,” Hall said.

Judging from their reluctance to go public with their plans, it is clear that CIOs have a high, albeit cautious interest in the competitive advantage mobile business applications could bring to their organizations. Using offshore providers, however, was not on their agendas.

The CIO of a large metropolitan newspaper, for example, told SearchCIO.com that using mobile platforms to drive content and custom applications to customers is an important initiative for the paper’s digital business content group, which he runs. He said he has used domestic partners for help, but no offshore providers, for the very reason cited as a plus by many experts: speed.

“What we have learned when we have done the mobile products for the external audiences is that we need very rapid turnaround time,” the publishing CIO said. “It helps to have somebody with that experience that is onshore, not offshore.”

The CIO of a large U.S. department store chain said his IT group is developing mobile financial applications that would tie into ERP systems. The chain’s executives would have access to, and share, this information during meetings and on the fly, for more effective and efficient collaboration, he said. He has bought iPads for his executives, so they could see “what it can do for them right now,” and prod them to think about the potential business benefits of other mobile computing applications. The chain already has a robust initiative for getting shopping information to customers’ mobile phones.

As for sending this work to an outsourcing provider?

“The offshore companies have all reached out to me,” the chain’s CIO said. “I am not sure if I would actually entrust the offshore companies with this development. All the iPhone apps tie into our Web databases and e-commerce piece, so I don’t know if I would trust anyone outside of our four walls with that task.”

Source:http://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/2240022861/Outsourcing-trends-Mobile-business-applications-for-a-business-edge

The business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is seeing growth in the domestic market, driven by the massive drop in call tariffs as telecoms firms engage in price wars.

“Since the price wars began last week, we have already signed two domestic clients — a bank and an insurance company — purely because the telecommunications charges now make sense,” Mr Nicholas Nesbitt, the chief executive of Kencall told Business Daily.

Zain last week made a permanent cut on its tariffs by 50 per cent, allowing subscribers to call across all networks at three shillings, a move that was soon replicated by Yu.

Taking cue, Safaricom also issued an offer that has seen its non-net and off-net tariffs start at two and three shillings respectively.

On Wednesday, Telkom Kenya introduced a permanent record low on-net tariff of two shillings and revised off-net charges by half to four shillings.

“It is still more than twice as expensive for us to call domestically than for us to call a client’s customer in the UK, but things are suddenly looking much better. Historically, our domestic clients would pay more for the telephony charges when they outsourced work to us than they paid for our staff time. That was ridiculous,” Mr Nesbitt said.

He added that the firm’s phone bills — and in effect the fees billed to clients —are expected to drop by at least 60 per cent.

“The phone bills were typically about five to 10 per cent higher than the cost of labour,” he said.

International calls have remained comparatively cheaper as they are routed through satellite or fibre networks, costing between Sh1.20 to Sh1.50 per minute to call landlines in the US and UK and a little more to call mobiles.

The BPO sector relies more on foreign clients, with local companies citing lack of a data protection law and high costs of outsourcing as impediments to channelling some of their daily operations, including customer service to BPO firms.

One key advantage of outsourcing is that it affords a company the opportunity to focus on its core business and potentially save money in the process.

Safaricom, Kenya Commercial Bank, and other large companies have invested millions of shillings in in-house customer service departments, also known as captive BPO in industry speak, denying the BPO players some of the most valuable deals.

Analysts say that banks, for instance, fear litigation that is likely to come with disclosure of customer information.

They argue that even with the passage of the data protection law, banks may only outsource less sensitive processes like loan applications.

“There is a bit of concern with regard to quality of services offered by local BPO firms,” Mr Eric Musau, a financial analyst, said in an earlier interview.

Ms Gilda Odera, the managing director of Skyweb Technologies, was upbeat about the impact the low telephone bills will have on the BPO sector.

“This is a welcome development. It will lower the cost of operations. Business decisions will have to be made to take advantage of the best deals in the market,” she said.

Source:http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Company%20Industry/Mobile%20price%20wars%20spell%20boon%20for%20outsourcing%20firms/-/539550/996830/-/druyl5/-/

Krypton Softwares, a leading offshore Mobile Application Development Company expanding its software development services for the latest BlackBerry Platform 6.0 SDK.

RIM has opened the gateway for BlackBerry OS 6.0 based devices by releasing the BlackBerry Torch device in US Market on 12th of this August 2010 said Reema Verma, the CEO of Krypton Softwares. In addition to release, RIM also committed to bringing BlackBerry 6 as an upgrade to the Bold 9700, Bold 9650, and Pearl 3G in couple of months. We are looking up the huge potential to “develop the more sophisticated app for BlackBerry business users using 6.0 Platform SDK” said Reema Verma.

KryptonSoft has been one of the pioneers on the Mobile Application Development to offer the Blackberry-based development services. KryptonSoft started development on BlackBerry since the release of 4.2 SDK and provide business apps for each BlackBerry OS SDK including 4.2, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 5.0 and now 6.0. KryptonSoft covers up the most range of devices than any other company and provide full support and services under the budget. If you are looking to oursource blackberry application development for your venture, KryptonSoft is your one stop provider for all mobile development services.

The new OS 6.0 SDK Provides the most long awaited features. Some are listed below :

a) It provides ability to create Shortcuts for different context within application, so that user has flexibility to directly jump to specific part of the application for faster access.

b) The new context menu now open ups the popup menu that allows better control and include text, an application icon and a command.

c) The Animation API, which can be used to quickly create common animation scenarios and allow customization for business specific requirements.

d) First time the 2D Vector Graphics Support using OpenVG™ 1.1 API which uses hardware acceleration to reduce power consumption while providing smooth graphics that scale fluidly.

e) The rendering is more smooth and fast by the inclusion of SVG API, which also support linear and radial gradients on fill and stroke paints, high quality anti-aliasing and smooth text rendering.

f) The Absolute Position API so that UI objects can be placed anywhere on the screen using x, y position and can even be overlapped.

g) Maps API

h) Blackberry added support for Swipe gesture and Pinch gesture.

i) The UDP Protocol support is included in 6.0 and it now accept all udp:// and datagram:// URL

j) The messaging API is enhanced for inbuilt support for JSON, SOAP, RSS(RDF, Atom) and XML.

k) The long awaited feature, which can change the way BlackBerry can be used is the inclusion of Scan 1 and 2D Bar Code API. Now, the stores can think multiple use of their BlackBerry Device.

KryptonSoft has also expertise in mobile development and mobile application porting services for iPhone Application Development, iPad, Windows Mobile, Android, Pre-Palm WEB OS, J2ME and Symbian OS platforms. The variety of services demonstrates the expertise of the company, and the level of competency in developing robust and secure mobile application software.

Source:http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/54217-1282077523-kryptonsoft-expanded-blackberry-application-development-outsourcing-services-in-new-os-60-sdk.html

Cash-strapped public sector undertaking Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., (BSNL) plans outsourcing its third-generation (3G) mobile services. For this, it is to invite expressions of interest by month-end from private operators, reported Business Standard on Monday.

BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Kuldeep Goyal reportedly said that the PSU was working out the details. The company and another state-run unit MTNL, were the first to get the 3G spectrum as the government gave priority to public sector companies. MTNL offers services in Delhi and Mumbai while BSNL looks after the rest of the country.

BSNL wants to raise its market share considerably before private players roll out 3G, perhaps any time six months from now. Goyal also said the company anticipated 5% of the total user base to come from 3G, later rising to 10%-15% of the mobile customer base. At present, 3G subscribers form a minimum number of its total user-base of over 60 million.

He added that the franchisee might be an existing mobile operator who had either won or bidden for the 3G spectrum, and could acquire customers, besides marketing and selling 3G services in the country.

Source:http://www.rttnews.com/Content/IndianNews.aspx?Id=1350808&SM=1

Outsourcing is subcontracting a process or piece or work, to a third-party company. A firm’s decision to outsource is based on several factors such as lowering operational costs, resources, feasibility of competencies and global market dynamics.

Outsourcing and off shoring are used interchangeably. Outsourcing involves contracting with a supplier, whereas off shoring is the transfer of an organizational function to another country.

With emerging times and market dynamics there is now a very thin line drawn between outsourcing and off shoring.

Buisness Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a part of the outsourcing industry and is dependent on information technology. This is referred to as Information Technology Enabled Services or ITES. Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) and Legal Process

Outsourcing (LPO) are some of the subsets of business process outsourcing to name a few.

BPO is also an extension of the Service Industry. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) measures the quality of service and contractual agreements. However a more iron clad contract is drawn out to weed out any contractual loop holes. This is referred to as the Service Delivery SLA.

An integral part of quality is CSAT scores. These are end user experiences measured through customer satisfaction questionnaires (CSAT). This function allows quality to be tracked over time and to tweak and fix any corrective action that has been identified and seek closure.

BPO vendors offer their services on a fee-for-service basis. This is either on a Full Time Employee (FTE) or Pay For Performance (PFP) model. A healthy BPO unit will invest in the time and tested variable cost structure function as it does not require investing in assets thus making the unit flexible in its scalability. This revenue generation model is rapidly increasing as it allows for optimal utilization of funds and resources to run day to day businesses.

In India, The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) mediates as a watch dog to the Indian software industry and Indian BPO industry.

A significant concern for the BPO industry is Information Security and Data Intellectual Property. An outsourcing unit uses internal measures to minimize if not eradicate security issues besides seeking assistance from local law enforcement agencies. Such measures include but are not limited to:

1. Mobile phones and cameras are prohibited on the production floor as well as in data sensitive areas.

2. Ban on the usage of any recording devices on the production floor including paper and pens. This means creating a paperless environment wherein employees are restricted from recording any information and removing it where it can be accessed by unauthorized personnel.

3. Restricted or no usage of internet on the production floor for employees.

In India data security is governed under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Source:http://www.imcashsaver.com/blog/business-process-outsourcing-bpo

Mediatek, the biggest supplier of mobile phone chips to China, just became SAP’s newest client, hiring IBM to install the European software company’s Enterprise Resource Planning system globally.

This is welcome news for technology bulls, who will see it as concrete evidence of the return of corporate IT spending. After strong consumer spending on netbooks and smartphones helped lift the industry last year, there is considerable debate on whether this year and the next will see corporates lead a second wave in the global tech recovery.

What’s more, the bulls will argue, this is another sign of Asia and emerging markets coming to the rescue. Mediatek, a Taiwanese company, was a unknown within the IT industry just a few years ago. Now, thanks to the rise of China’s ‘whitebox’ unbranded mobile phone market, it is one of the world’s biggest chip design companies and is this year expected to ship 450m chips, or as many as Nokia will ship phones. Even if US and European corporates may not yet be ready to upgrade their systems, the thinking goes, their competitors in Asia will step up to the plate.

Unfortunately, the picture is not quite so simple. While Mediatek said this project was one of the company’s biggest IT outlays in recent years, the spending is not new. Installing SAP’s ERP system was two years in the making but the move was announced only on Thursday because the system is expected to come online next month.

Bhavtosh Vajpayee, head of technology research at CLSA, also points out that while Asia Pacific accounts for 28 per cent of consumer IT spending, it only makes up 10 per cent of corporate spending, compared to 66 per cent for North America and Western Europe. “For a revival, look Westward,” he said.

Mr Vajpayee instead points to other signs that support a revival, such as a recovery in companies’ profits and cash flows, the fact that by next year, more than four-fifths of corporate desktops will be five years old, and that IT services outsourcing is increasingly saving companies’ money that they can then spend on hardware and other areas.

Mediatek’s announcement may in the end herald little more than yet another “ . . . Runs SAP” ad at international airports, but that’s not necessarily bad news. Mediatek shareholders should even be able to look forward to cost savings improving the bottom line for what is, after all, a project the company spent two years on.

Source:http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2010/03/mediatek-runs-sap/

IT outsourcing users should closely watch the development of mobile technologies such as Bluetooth and mobile web, experts have claimed.

A new report from IT industry analyst Gartner suggested that some mobile technologies will experience significant evolution during 2010 and 2011, which could make them more useful to companies.

The organisation pointed out that two new versions of Bluetooth are scheduled to be released in 2011 – one which will allow faster data transmission and another designed to use less energy.

In addition, Gartner predicted that more than 85 per cent of mobile handsets will feature some form of internet browser, offering companies a useful way to reach their customers.

“The growth in smartphones with relatively large and high-resolution screens will encourage greater numbers of people to access conventional websites on mobile devices,” the report added.

Widgets that allow phones to use technologies such as JavaScript and HTML, app stores for smartphones and enhanced location awareness were other mobile technologies that firms should pay attention to, Gartner claimed.

Recently, Juniper Research predicted that mobile Web 2.0 services could generate annual revenues worth $18.9 billion (£12.5 billion) by 2014.

Source:http://www.ihotdesk.com/article/19686440/Firms-should-watch-mobile-developments,-Gartner-suggests

The market for mobile cloud-based applications aimed at enterprise customers is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, according to a new report.

Juniper Research’s Mobile Cloud Applications study told IT outsourcing users that the sector could have more than 130 million customers by 2014.

The report claimed that the expansion will be caused by the entry of more platform-as-a-service offerings from large companies such as Microsoft and Google.

Dr Windsor Holden, the study’s author, added that enterprise mobile cloud-based applications will be similar to those used on Apple’s iPhone and could lead to a number of benefits for users.

“For enterprise customers, outsourcing application management to a remote third-party, costed on a scalable, pay-per-use basis, offers far more flexibility combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditure,” he commented.

The research also claimed that enterprise users will account for the majority of cloud-based application revenues in the next five years, although consumer products such as social networks, music and games will make up a significant proportion.

Last month, Mobile Choice magazine editor Natasha Stokes predicted that market for smartphone security applications is likely to grow in the next few years.

Source:http://www.ihotdesk.com/article/19645711/Growth-set-for-mobile-cloud-based-apps,-research-predicts