Telecom spending among Asian SMBs to cross $50 bn

SINGAPORE: Small and medium businesses (SMBs, or companies with up to 999 employees) across the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan (APeJ) are on track to invest US$50 billion on telecommunications equipment and services this year. This is up some 5 percent over 2006, according to the latest study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners.

“SMBs look toward telecom operators and service providers to offer telecom services to enable profitable business growth,” says Prasannavadan Gaitonde, Singapore-based analyst at AMI-Partners. “SMBs have to work harder for earning their dollar. They have tighter budgets and need high quality, low-priced telecom solutions and services.”

AMI’s findings reveal that developed markets such as Australia and South Korea, and fast-growing markets like India and China will account for more than 70% of the APeJ telecom spending this year. “The market is witnessing a transition from traditional PBX to IP-based PBX, with most new replacements going the IP way,” Gaitonde says. “While the base switch is going IP, the end points are moving to IP more slowly. This is due to the higher price of IP end points over digital end points.”

In 2006, only 8 percent of desk phones of medium businesses (MBs or companies with 100 to 999 employees) in a mature market like Australia had IP phones. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) will reduce the price, making such solutions even more affordable. As for Unified Messaging—which can be considered a precursor to the more advanced Unified Communications—only 16 percent of Australia’s MBs are utilizing this service.

“SMBs are as interested in advanced solutions like Unified Communications as large businesses,” Mr Gaitonde says. “The difference is that SMBs have smaller budgets and need higher justification for spending their budgets on such services.”

As services mature and can be provided on a hosted model, SMBs can deploy enterprise class solutions. Once these enterprise class solutions are offered as a service—similar to SaaS (software as a service)—SMBs can adopt them at the right price points. Hosted communication services or managed telephony services can be provided by telecom operators and service providers in partnership with equipment vendors to provide low-cost solutions to SMBs.

Hosted communications or managed telephony services are set to grow more than three times the growth rate of premises-based equipment among SMBs over the next 3-4 years. Equipment vendors, telecom operators, and service providers need to work together to provide such hosted solutions to SMBs across the Asia-Pacific region.

MBs are expanding their horizons and need more connectivity between offices. Thus, spending on wide area network (WAN) services is expected to go up by a huge 24 percent in 2007 over 2006 among MBs. More than one in four MBs in this region is currently connected using WAN. In Australia, more than 75 percent of its MBs are connected by WANs.

“SMBs in the Asia-Pacific will continue embracing new technologies to remain competitive,” Gaitonde says. “Telecom equipment vendors, operators and service providers need to offer products and services using the right model and price points to tap this growing market.”

SMEs must invest in IT in advance of business growth

BANGALORE, INDIA: The National conference on 'Emerging Technology Trends for SMEs' organized by Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) was truly a learning experience for IT managers and representatives of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The day-long conference focused on how to maximize the contribution of IT to the core competency of SMEs and drive enterprises to higher performance levels for increased ROI.

SMEs, which are the backbone of Indian economy, need to remain competitive by adopting appropriate and robust technology. It is estimated that SMEs in India are set to spend over $8 billion IN 2007-08 to ramp up their IT infrastructure.

Delivering a keynote on 'Efficiency improvisation for SMEs through IT', Samir Inamdar MD and CEO of Forum Synergies (India) said that SMEs would drive the Indian economy going forward. "The manufacturing SMEs have to grow at a rate which is well into double digit."

Sharing the technology lessons he has learnt over the years as a CEO, Inamdar said that it is important to adopt IT to be globally competitive. He also advised SMEs to invest in IT in advance of business growth.

He also stressed that it is essential for the top management to take ownership of the projects. While regular CEO reviews are a must to sustain focus on the project, planning and system design was critical, he added.

Inamdar also called upon the SMEs to exploit new methods in IT like the hosted models and shared services and urged them to be flexible to in adopting to changes in IT designs.

Deliberating on the topic 'Industry perspective', Ashok Pamidi, director for commercial accounts, SMB and enterprise partners, Technology Solutions Group, HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd. said, "There is a big ecosystem supporting the SMBs today. IT no longer supports the business, it powers the business, more so with the SMBs."

SMEs are growing beyond 24 percent per annum for next three years but the penetration of IT among SMBs is only 17 percent. Adapting to change is the biggest challenge for SMBs, he added.

The event, which provided a common platform for both the SMEs and technology providers in the country, discussed strategies for driving business growth with right IT adoption.

ST chips to be used in Machblue media platform

MONTREAL: Bluestreak Technology, Inc., the developer of the MachBlue platform for mobile phones and digital television, has announced that the MachBlue platform will be using its STi710X family of decoder chips from STMicroelectronics. The MachBlue rich media platform enables enhanced UI and access to Web services including Flash video found on the Internet directly from the STB.

MachBlue also enables the creation in Flash of all these rich media services and takes advantage of the STi710x's computation power and graphic capabilities. This will bring a new level of interactivity and enhanced visual appeal to TV viewers. Bluestreak CEO Paul Forostowsky commented, "STMicroelectronics will demonstrate to operators, OEM's and developers the full capabilities of our platform, paving the way to a better TV viewing experience.''

According to Stefano Groppetti, director of Cable and IP Business Unit, Home Video Division, STMicroelectronics, "The integration of MachBlue into our industry-leading STi710X single-chip HDTV decoder will demonstrate the possibilities to leading consumer manufacturers of offering viewers increased levels of web content via Set Top Boxes, and a richer TV experience through the use of enhanced user interfaces.'' MachBlue offers a large subset of the Flash functionalities augmented with TV centric extensions.

Motorola selects Infineon to develop 3G RF chip

NEUBIBERG, GERMANY: Infineon Technologies AG today announced that it has signed an agreement with Motorola to develop a new multi-mode, single-chip 3G radio frequency (RF) transceiver based on Infineon’s SMARTi UE chip.

The RF transceiver is a core component in a mobile phone or other mobile cellular device; its primary function is to send and receive digital data over the air. As consumers continue to demand more multimedia functionality from their mobile devices, the RF plays a key role in delivering the data speed and signalling needed to support mobile content and services.

Motorola selected Infineon to develop the new RF chip which will address this growing market for 3G services by offering maximum HSDPA and HSUPA performance, efficient power consumption and slim design.

"We are pleased to enter into this strategic relationship with Motorola to create an advanced 3G RF solution based on our leading SMARTi UE chip. The new chip will effectively reduce size and footprint for next generation 3G devices and offer best in class radio performance at market leading system cost," commented Stefan Wolff, Vice President and General Manager of Infineon’s RF Engine Business Unit.

“Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)-based technologies will be domi-nant for the early forecast period, accounting for just under 70 per cent of all produc-tion in 2006. However, the market is rapidly switching over to 3G-based technologies of various types”, explained Alan Brown, Research Director at Gartner. “The main 3G variant is WCDMA (including HSPA and LTE), and this will be produced in high vol-umes worldwide in 2010, representing 56 per cent of total production.”

Terms of the development agreement were not disclosed.

Technology blesses religion

BANGALORE: Technology has seeped into every aspect of our life and religion, which is important to many, is not spared – or do technological advances bless religion?

Very few miss the Sunday church service. But, one Sunday morning, due to unavoidable circumstances, Stacy Anne Homewood, a Michigan resident, missed the morning service.

Nevertheless, she was glad that she did not miss the sermon.

All she had to do was to log on to Second Life or virtual world, and put on her headphones and attend the service conducted in the ALM CyberChurch by Rev Benjamin Pastor.

Virtual world or Second Life is a 3-D virtual world, developed by Linden Lab, and is entirely built and owned by its users or residents.

In Second Life, users can create their avatars and can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.

Religion has not failed to be identified in the virtual world. Residents or believers have built churches, temples, synagogue and mosque in the virtual world.

“This is a not a complete substitute for real life church. But it serves the purpose for those who cannot go out due to various reasons. They can just log into Second Life. I consider this as a real church, just in a pixel form,” says Homewood.

Homewood is an ALM church staff. She is responsible to maintain decorum in the church. If anyone misbehaves she can ‘eject’ them from the church.

“I attend the real church and also attend the service in ALM CyberChurch. By the time service starts in CyberChurch, I would have finished my service in real life. Due to time difference I get to attend both,” says HomeWood.

The residents or users can light candle, kneel and offer prayers to the Lord. Rev Benjamin Pastor conducts morning sermon every Sunday and they sing hymns.

“ALM CyberChurch is the best Church in the virtual world. Sermons are conducted every Sunday morning and also conducts Women’s bible study every Tuesday,” says Mariposa Psaltery, pastor of the Church.

Kalmeri, a regular in ALM, says, “Sunday is a busy day for me and I attend real life morning mass as well as morning sermon in the ALM CyberChurch in Second Life.”

ALM CyberChurch is the frequently visited Church by many residents in Second Life and has over 100 members.

Morning sermon is also conducted in the “Jesus House” another church in Second Life. It is conducted only on Sundays.

Little Enzian, another pious soul says, “Although we have prayer groups during the week. The “live” nature of our sermon, is difficult to do more often, although we’d like to”

Second Life has Krishna temple, Mosque as well as Buddhist temple. The residents or users have built a virtual temple of Lord Krishna. The temple is decorated with flowers, incense sticks and lamps. The resident can sit and meditate listening to the slokas at the background or the resident can listen to Prabhupada talks or bhajans.

So is the case in a mosque or a Buddha Vihara.

Second Life, since its opening in 2003, has grown and today is inhabited by a total of 9,430,051 pious members from around the globe.

Religion, faith that forms a core essence of every individual, finds its way out to be expressed in every other form. Many believers log on to the virtual world to evangelize religion.

The authenticity of the virtual religious ‘places’ is questionable. There are many fake churches and synagogues, aimed at making a quick buck.

This correspondent even came across a Shiva temple built in Second Life, belting out popular Bollywood numbers.

However, a question remains to be answered: Will virtual Gods – irrespective of religion -- bless real men and women?

Bhutan releases Dzongkha Debian Linux

THIMPHU, BHUTAN: The Bhutan government has launched their own version of linux which has been named Dzongkha Debian Linux.

As seen from the name, it is based on Debian and it has been designed around the national language of the country Dzongkha.

It has been designed to co-exist with existing operating system on a computer machine. Users can also use it as a Live CD!

It has been under development over a period of 13 months and the government has spent around US$80,000 on it.

They are now working on addition newer functionalities on it like Text to Speech, Speech Recognition, and Optical Character Recognition.

Interested users could get their CDs for free from the Department of Information and Technology.

It's sad to know that Indian government has shown little interest in Linux except for some rare deployments.

Source: techwhack.com

Microsoft unveils office for Mac 2008

PARIS, FRANCE: The Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) at Microsoft Corp. has announced at the Apple Expo in Paris its product lineup for the upcoming Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac release.

The product, Office 2008 for Mac, is the core suite that includes Microsoft Office Word 2008, Microsoft Office Excel 2008, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2008 and Microsoft Office Entourage 2008 for exceptional productivity on the Mac.

A new combination for Mac users is Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition, which features the Office 2008 applications together with the Microsoft Expression Media digital asset management system.

According to release, all versions of Office 2008 for Mac support the new Open XML file format and are Universal applications that will perform natively on Power PC- and Intel-based Macs.

“We built Office 2008 with the unifying goal of making it easier for Mac users to access the tools they need to get the job done — whether it’s creating a brochure for their business, managing their family schedule and finances, or finalizing a presentation to share between Macs and PCs,” said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft.

He added, “And, of course, Office 2008 for Mac will provide the document fidelity with the 2007 Microsoft Office system that our users need to stay connected with their friends and co-workers on PCs.”

Office 2008 for Mac features a leading suite of applications that Mac customers rely on to get their work completed with office applications and Microsoft Messenger for Mac.

“We’ve worked closely with Microsoft since it launched the first version of Office for Mac more than 20 years ago,” said Ron Okamoto, vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple. “Office delivers tremendous compatibility across platforms for Mac and PC customers, and we look forward to another great user experience with Office 2008 for Mac.”

Asia, Europe top outsourcing destinations

NEW YORK, US: Asia and East Europe have emerged as the favored destinations for IT and BPO outsourcing, with 19 Asian and 12 East and Central European nations dominating the list of the Top 50 emerging outsourcing cities globally, according to the study revealed by Global Services, a magazine for global sourcing of IT and BPO services and Tholons, an investment advisory firm.

"Global Services sees the Top 50 emerging cities grabbing a much bigger chunk of the global IT and BPO services pie in the next three years," said Juhi Bhambal, editor of Global Services.

The study lists Bangalore, New Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), Manila NCR, Mumbai and Dublin as the top five cities that have established themselves as prime outsourcing cities by servicing the global corporate world for over a decade.

Five cities from India, three cities from China and two cities from Vietnam dominate the top 15 emerging destinations list. The top three emerging outsourcing cities world-wide from India are Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune. Kolkata at number five and Chandigarh at number nine are the other two Indian cities in the list, the report revealed.

The three hot cities for outsourcing from China are Shanghai at eight, Beijing at No. 10 and Shenzhen at No. 13. Vietnam's capital Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi at six and No. 12 respectively are the other emerging cities to feature in the list of top 15 cities.

Cebu City ( Philippines) at number four, Colombo at seven, Cairo at No. 11, Buenos Aires at No.14 and Sao Paulo (Brazil) at No.15 are the other hot destinations.

The study reveals that the outsourcers consider process maturity, availability of relevant skills and costs in the individual city as the top reasons before deciding on the location for IT and BPO services outsourcing.

Avinash Vashistha, chairman and CEO, Tholons, said, "With the demand-supply gap widening, newer tier II cities will play a critical role in re-engineered globalization models. Destinations will need to provide greater level of cost effectiveness and operational efficiency."

The research ranked the top 50 and profiled the top 15 emerging global cities for outsourcing. These are the ones that may not be top of mind for most companies; but nevertheless are well suited for specific IT and BPO functions. As there are some global outsourcing cities that stand as the clear winners, the study also ranks the top five obvious choices that need no introduction.

Six cities of the Top 50 emerging cities is from India, followed by five cities from China. Brazil, Philippines, USA with three cities, followed by Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, UK and Vietnam housing two cities each. The top 11 countries offer 32 destinations among the Top 50 outsourcing.

Govt sets deadline for telecom license application

NEW DELHI, INDIA: With the surge in application of new telecom licenses, the Ministry of Telecommunications on Monday issued a statement not to accept new applications after October 1.


This comes in wake of 160 license applications pending at the office of the Department of Telecom (DoT), most of the applications from non-telecom companies.


Non-telecom companies like Unitech Ltd, Parsvanath developers and a number of other players applied for the licenses after the telecom regulatory submitted it recommendations on no cap on the number of operators in each circle.


"India will not accept any new telecom license application after October 1," the ministry statement said.


However, DoT is in a fix with large number of application pending from the existing telecom operators due to scarcity of spectrum.


Speaking to the media, A Raja, Minister for Communications and IT said that the government would come up with a report on the license application in the next 10 days. "The government will be scrutinizing the license applications from the companies seeking for operating licenses. We are looking at formulating new screening guidelines where we need to be selective," Raja said.


However, the Ministry is in talks with the defence forces on the release of spectrum to be allotted for commercial use to ease the current congestion in the network. The minister had earlier informed that the license applications would be cleared once the government has received the appropriate amount of spectrum from the defence.

Nabard aid for new IT complex at Kochi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA: A new IT complex, which will spread across a total area of 4.27 lakh sq ft will get financial assistance to the tune of Rs 50 crore.

The project, being implemented by the Department of IT, Kerala, will take shape at the Inforpark campus at Kakkanad in Kochi. According to National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) officials, the assistance is part of its Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) loan. It is expected that there will be minimum contribution of Rs 60 crore to the nation exchequer when the project is ready for operations.

As any as 50 large, medium and small information technology companies are expected to set up shop at the facility. It is also expected that about 5000 IT professionals will get employment. A major chunk of employment generated would benefit the qualified youth in Information and Technology Sector from rural and semi urban centres all over the state. Besides, about 300 local people are likely to be employed for service related work in and around the project. Nabard had included IT as an eligible activity under the RIDF.

The proposed IT complex is part of the 144 projects being undertaken by the Kerala government. Nabard has sanctioned an amount of Rs 82.25 crore from its RIDF.

Novatium to roll-out Net PC and TV in 3 metros

NEW DELHI, INDIA: After the launch of the Net PC and TV in the national capital, Novatium Technologies is planning to launch it in three more cities within this year.

Speaking to CyberMedia News, Alok Singh, CEO, Novatium said that the company is strongly focusing on expanding to other cities by the year-end. “We are planning to launch in two to three cities. We will be launching in the major cities now,” Singh said.

Launching the Net PC and TV with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, the company is planning to launch its services in Mumbai soon. “We will prefer to launch in Mumbai next, as MTNL has its network present there,” he added. The estimated capacity to offer subscription in Delhi is around 20,000 users. He said that they have initially rolled out with 20,000 capacity, which will be increased in regard to the market response.

“We are targeting 25 per cent of the customers who own a home PC. We will also be targeting the current MTNL broadband customers in the capital,” Singh added.

It may be mentioned here that CyberMedia News has first reported about the company roll out plans in Delhi.

When asked about the tie-up, RSP Sinha, CMD MTNL said that the PSU is only offering the network connectivity to Novatium to offer the service. He said that it was a non-exclusive tie-up and Novatium can offer its services with other service providers.

Company insiders informed that Novatium is in talks with telecom major, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to roll out this service in other major cities across the country. The company is planning to launch its services in Mumbai and Bangalore within a couple of months.

IP networks do the trick for video conferencing

BANGALORE, INDIA: Video conferencing is certainly not a new application to enterprise communications users. Room to room video conferencing has grown from its introduction at the World’s Fair in 1964 to a widely deployed enterprise application around the globe. Video conferencing as a general business application however, while promising to become mainstream during the last 50 years, has remained a special purpose application and a niche market.

Video conferencing’ inherent benefits, such as facilitating in-depth interaction levels and reducing travel expenses have often been offset by a number of technology and operational issues. Expanded bandwidth and special networking requirements have limited its integration with the enterprise’s overall communication network and made it an overlay application that required special attention and administration.

Today, a number of changes have occurred that are stimulating an increased interest in video conferencing as a mainstream business application. The first change has been the growing deployment within businesses of IP Telephony based upon converging voice and data networks into a single integrated and robust network with enough bandwidth to accommodate video applications.

By creating a networking layer that can easily incorporate video streams into its transport mechanisms, the move to IP networks has broken down one of the technical barriers to broader deployment of video conferencing.

A second change enabled by IP Telephony is the ability to set up sessions that can carry multiple media streams while using telephony and windows based interfaces to achieve click-to-dial video conferencing setups between parties on the conference. Multi-party conferences can also be set up using video bridge technologies in a similar fashion.

A final factor that is facilitating a leap in the ease of use for video conferencing is the incorporation of SIP enabled presence within soft phone applications. This technology allows users at their desktops trying to set up a video conference to know if the person they are connecting to has the ability to enable a video call from their end.

Video conferencing can be easily added to a voice call by simply activating the video application on each end of the existing call.

The migration to IP Telephony along with the incorporation of standards based interfaces to other applications promises to open the door to a rapid expansion of video conferencing. Ironically, video conferencing is being discovered as a “new” IP enabled productivity application.

In addition, the extension of business telephony features to video endpoint devices makes video calling as natural as voice calling, while providing enterprise class call handling capabilities and scalability. For example, users now can have the ability to setup a call coverage path for a video call in the same way and with the same capabilities as a voice call.

If somebody calls on a video endpoint and the called party is not at their desk, a coverage path would direct the call to voicemail or a coverage assistant. The system can recognize whether the receiving endpoint (i.e. voicemail system or coverage assistant) has video capabilities and if not, the call would fall back to a voice only call. Easy call set up and coverage features had not been available for video until now.

The ability to expand video conferencing to any IP Telephony connection has the potential to deliver substantial business and employee productivity value to enterprises. Extending video interaction to employee conferences can make sessions more focused, productive and potentially shorter as clarity and real time decision making are facilitated.

Customer Requirements for a Video Telephony Solution

While the convergence of technology trends has enabled the arrival of mainstream video conferencing application, to achieve mass acceptance and deployment, communications applications providers will need to address requirements at three levels.

The next generation of video conferencing will have to address overall business drivers, cost and manageability requirements of an enterprise’s IT group and finally the usability requirements of employees.

No matter how impressive new technology capabilities might be, they need to justify their acquisition of serving enterprise business objectives.

Mainstream deployment of enterprise video conferencing must be built upon business case justification that includes facilitating global business growth, decreasing or offsetting existing business costs, improving employee productivity and enabling virtual business models with highly mobile workforce groups.

The next threshold that must be addressed is the specific requirements of IT decision makers in adopting widespread application deployment. IT Managers require applications that are easy to install, operate and manage.

New applications must also integrate easily with their existing network and leverage that infrastructure, thereby increase its value and payback. Open standards are often a critical requirement for new applications because it facilitates integration and prevents vendor ‘Lock-in”.

Finally, IT managers are concerned about the economic payback for new application deployment that dovetails with enterprise business objectives.

The third set of requirements would be to meet the needs of the employee user community. New technology acceptance and adoption can sometimes be pushed from power user communities who are driving for greater personal productivity tools.

Besides, being simple, easy and convenient to use, the application must also markedly improve personal productivity, enhance working relationships, and lead to faster and more efficient decision making within the enterprise.

Video Conferencing tightly integrated into telephony has the potential to meet the business, IT, and user requirements that will open it up to an impressive adoption rate over the next few years. Thus, moving the application from a specialty to a mainstream productivity tool.

The author is the country manager, India & SAARC, Polycom. Polycom is the provider of unified collaborative communications solutions (UCC) for enterprises.