Microsoft, Hughes Partner on Broadband-enabled Rural Kiosk Network

http://www.sda-asia.com/sda/news/psecom,id,11423,srn,4,nodeid,1,_language,Singapore.html

Thursday, 5 October 2006

Microsoft Corporation India and Hughes India have decided to work together on rolling out 5,000 broadband-enabled Information & Communications Technology (ICT) rural kiosks across the country. The ICT kiosks will be deployed across 200 small towns and rural regions and will be operated on a franchisee- based model offering budding entrepreneurs across the rural landscape to use technology for e-commerce, education and e-governance.

“The ICT kiosks aims not only to provide a platform for exchange of information and knowledge, but also serve as a platform to create over 15,000 jobs and self- employment opportunities,” said Pranav Roach, president and CEO,Hughes Network Systems India.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Rohit Kumar, Country Head, Public Sector, Microsoft, said, “Connectivity is a key challenge in creating a digitally inclusive society and this partnership is a step towards our aim of providing an ecosystem under ‘Project Saksham’ at the ground level and enable the rural ecosystem.”

Microsoft under its ‘Saksham’ initiative will create an engagement model with kiosks service providers & various governments for delivering e-government and other B2B services. As an effort to impact the sustenance of the kiosk owner, Microsoft Corporation will also offer a 12 day IT literacy program for kiosks operators aimed at helping the operator to become IT literate so as to enable him to further offer IT literacy programs to the community. This training will be provided free of cost to the Kiosk operator and will be conducted in more than 60 locations across India.

Powered by HughesNet satellite broadband network and Microsoft’s platform, the kiosks will be run and managed by local entrepreneurs for providing the content and services to the people that would ensure a sustainable return on investment.

NIC, IBM join hands to provide Govt information

NIC, IBM join hands to provide Govt information

http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=140747

MUMBAI, SEPTEMBER 18: IT giant IBM has joined hands with National Informatics Centre to power the country’s official portal and provide a ‘single-point entry’ to government information and services.

The portal – india.gov.in – based on open standard and service-oriented architecture from IBM,

will provide a ‘single sign-on’ facility for government services and information on India besides offering access to over 5,000 websites,

NIC Director General Vijayaditya and IBM Vice President and Country Executive (Software Group and Developer relations) R Dhamodaran said.

The portal can also be used for other e-governance projects as well, they said.

The portal aims at enhancing features like search, localisation and personalisation of the content to suit the diverse requirements of the users.

The NIC and IBM will also work toward ensuring universal accessability of the portal for physically challenged and those using handheld devices, they added.

Microsoft Office for Linux ‘inevitable’

Friday August 18, 12:31 AM

By Tom Sanders at Linuxworld in San Francisco

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/17082006/175/microsoft-office-linux-inevitable.html
Microsoft within the “next couple of years” will release a version of itsOffice productivity to run on Linux, Stuart Cohen, chief executive for the OpenSource Development Labs, predicted in an interview withvnunet.com at the Linuxworld conference inSan Francicso.

“They did it once with Apple, they will do it again with Linux,” Cohen said

The OSDL consortium aims to advance Linux and open source. The organizationemploys Linux founder Linus Torvalds and is funded by IT vendors including IBM,HP and Intel.

The software developer will be compelled to create a Linux version in a moveto preempt the further rise of the open source Open Office productivity suite,Cohen argued.

“They’ll go fight the total cost of ownership with a very inexpensive officesolution. I don’t think that they will open source Office , but they will makeit available to run on Linux desktops.”

Cohen compared the expected Linux Microsoft Office version to the would mimicOracle’s Database 10gExpress Edition application that was launched last November. The softwareoffers a free, entry level database in an effort to fight off competition fromopen source competitors.

The OSDL chief claimed that Microsoft is starting to soften it stance againstopen source.

“They are trying to cooperate. It’s no longer: ‘Linux is the cancer, it hasno center of gravity.’ Microsoft is past that. They have now acknowledged thatLinux is here to stay.”

The change is attitude is limited to Microsoft as a company, he stressed.Windows and Linux will remain fierce competitors.

IBM jazzes up Rational

IBM jazzes up Rational

IBM Rational hopes to open source some of the core elements of its tech program called “Jazz”

http://www.ciol.com/content/news/2006/106081102.asp

Friday, August 11, 2006

<A href=”http://ads.mediaturf.net/click.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=ciol&size=250×250&category=tech&content=news&SpaceDesc=middle&lang=eng”> <IMG WIDTH=250 HEIGHT=250 border=0 src=”http://ads.mediaturf.net/image.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&site=ciol&size=250×250&category=tech&content=news&SpaceDesc=middle&lang=eng”></A> Priya Padmanabhan

BANGALORE: Big Blue is leveraging the strength of its research lab to raise the bar of its developer software tools division – IBM Rational Software.

Rational is currently working on a technology innovation program called “Jazz” which works on increasing efficiency around measurement, seamless integration, collaboration and support processes across the lifecycle of software development.

“We hope to include new technologies that can take our governance platform to the next level,” said Martin Nally, CTO, Rational Software.

Jazz hopes to serve up a developer platform that can exploit new technologies for global communication and collaboration. These include Net based channels like instant messenger, RSS feeds, Wiki and blogs.

“We want to offer a environment that can leverage on instantaneous collaboration. The emphasis is on bringing all kinds of data live” he added. Rational Software engineers are working in concert with IBM Research on Jazz. This would raise the bar by bringing together testers, project managers and integrating all kinds of data. The tech preview of this project is expected in Q1 of next year.

“A few pieces of that project would go into version 8 of Rational Software suite,” Nally told CyberMedia News on the sidelines of the IBM Rational Software user conference in Bangalore.

The project will also look at leveraging standards based open source and commercial web-era middleware and support plug-in models.

Rational has decided to open source the core elements of this project and invite contributions from the community. Rational executives are terming this exercise as an “open commercial development.”

© CyberMedia News

IBM Alliance With University Aims To Make Students Mainframe-, Linux-Savvy

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=191901513

The expanded curriculum addresses the expected evaporation of mainframe and related skills as baby-boomer techies retire.

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
InformationWeek

Aug 10, 2006 12:00 PM
To help meet the demand by New York-area employers looking for techies with skills related to mainframe, Linux, and open-standard technologies, IBM has expanded a partnership with Pace University, enhancing the curriculum it already helps develop at the school.

This fall, Pace will tweak its curriculum to include more lessons related to open systems, software development, Linux, and large systems, says Susan Merritt, dean of Pace University’s Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems.

“This is a focused project to better prepare students for the many jobs out there,” says Merritt. Financial-services companies and banks, health-care organizations, and consulting firms are among New York-area employers seeking those skills in their new recruits.

The expanded partnership between IBM and Pace reflects findings from a recent forum sponsored by IBM with another local university, Stevens Institute of Technology, for New York employers during which the participants brainstormed about ways to address the expected evaporation of mainframe and related skills as baby-boomer techies retire.

As part of its expanded alliance with Pace, IBM says it will also host a series of technology seminars and lectures, sponsor faculty education workshops, and arrange for IBM professionals to mentor Pace students and provide career advice. IBM is also arranging for Pace students to visit IBM research and development labs and manufacturing facilities in Poughkeepsie and Hawthorne, N.Y.

Local employer StrikeForce Technologies, an identity-management products vendor, has already hired one Pace student and expects to hire many more as the company grows, says CEO Mark Kay.

Prior to joining StrikeForce three years ago, Kay was a 26-year veteran of J.P. Morgan, including his last post as CIO of corporate services, and he’s no stranger to Pace. “I’ve done a lot of hiring from Pace over the years, at least two to three students a year,” he says.

Kay is confident that the new classes being developed at Pace with IBM will continue to provide Pace students with tech skills that he can use at his company. “We prevent identity theft. The more a person understands about Unix, PCs, Java, the better,” he says.