IT Updates

Akamai Technologies has released its third quarter, 2011 State of the Internet report, based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform - a distributed computing platform comprising thousands of servers across the world that is used to monitor and speed up access on the Internet.
The report provides insight into key India statistics such as Internet penetration, mobile traffic and data consumption, global and regional connection speeds, and observed attack traffic.
Commenting on the report, Sanjay Singh, Senior Vice President & General Manager – Asia Pacific and Japan & Managing Director - India, Akamai Technologies, said, “Akamai is in a unique position to measure and analyze unique trends in this hyperconnected world and it is exciting to see broadband adoption in the country touching the 10% threshold. Increasing hyper-connectivity and steady growth in connection speeds across India will bring new business models and reach for organizations in every industry – from media to mining, from financial services to manufacturing, from commerce to logistics.”
In the current report, the average connection speed in India was recorded at 0.9 Mbps, a sequential quarterly growth of 12%. In comparison, China’s average connection speed was at 1.4 Mbps and India remains the only measured country in Asia with average connection speeds below 1 Mbps. The global average connection speed by comparison grew by 4.5% to 2.7 Mbps.
Akamai also found that Hyderabad and Chennai were the fastest Indian cities in India with average connection speeds of 1.5 Mbps and 1.2 Mbps. The report also finds that average connection speeds in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Kolkata were at 0.8 Mbps, 0.8 Mbps, 1.1 Mbps, and 1.1 Mbps, respectively.
Indian broadband (>2 Mbps) adoption finally touched the 10% threshold, growing 45% quarter-over-quarter, while high broadband (>5 Mbps) adoption was at 0.6%, growing at 46% quarter-over-quarter.
During the third quarter of 2011, attack traffic originated from 195 unique countries or regions, up from 192 in the second quarter. India ranked #8 in terms of global attack traffic origination with 3.7% of global attacks originating from India.
Singh added, “While we continue to see security threats dampening some of the enthusiasm in the report, we believe the opportunities outweigh the risks for businesses in the region to leverage the hyperconnectivity era for both efficiency and competitive advantage.”

According to a latest update, Western Digital has completed the acquisition of the hard drive business of Hitachi, and set up two subsidiaries with separate brands and products, to meet the conditions of antitrust regulators.
Sources informed that WD has completed the acquisition of Viviti Technologies Ltd. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) in US$3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of its common stock valued at about $0.9 billion and is effective from March 8, 2012. 
After the latest acquisition, Hitachi now owns 10 percent of Western Digital's shares outstanding and has the right to designate two members to the board of directors of WD.
It is reportedly said that the new WD will operate with WD Technologies (WDT) and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries.
It is worth noticing that Western Digital had announced the proposed acquisition in March last year. But its completion was delayed largely because of the need for regulatory clearances. 
However, Western Digital did not immediately respond to a request for comment

Microsoft outsourced its internal IT services including help desk, desk-side services, infrastructure and application support, to Indian outsourcing firm Infosys.


Infosys will manage IT services for Microsoft employees worldwide, while benefiting from a consolidation of services that were already outsourced to HP and others.

Infosys will be in charge of the streamlining processes, simplifying support and service, and cutting costs by using Microsoft's own software.

Infosys teamed up Unisys to support Microsoft's applications, devices, and databases in 450 locations delivering on-premise support and service desk capabilities.

According to the measurements of NetApplications, Windows 7 (perhaps the most complex software platform for mass consumption) has reached in only three months the market share reached by Vista in almost a year.
Windows 7 ended January with a usage rate of 7.5%, a level that its predecessor, Windows Vista  reached only after 11 months from its launch in January 2007.

In January also both Windows XP and Vista have lost market share in favor of Windows 7.

Windows XP has reached  66.3% market share, down 1.46%. Vista has lost 0.5 percent and reached 17.4% share.

If the trend of the last three months doesn’t change, Windows 7 will overcome vista and will be ranked second in the top of the most popular operating systems in June.

This Monday Skype released a new version of its client software for Apple Mac, which brings a number of improvements.
The  latest version 5.3 is optimized for Mac OS X Lion and includes support for high definition (HD) video calls.

The company said: "With Skype 5.3 for Mac OS X, you'll also be able to send and receive HD quality video when talking to your friends and family."

For an extra cost, the software include features like group video calling or group screen sharing. Also, Skype made a deal  with Facebook to offer video chat to the social networking service.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the second largest x86 processor manufacturer in the world, has no plans to enter smartphone Market.

AMD is interested on other areas as, the already crowded,  smartphone market   does not align with the company's strength in  graphics.

For now, AMD is focusing on servers, notebooks, traditional desktops and, recently have set their sights on the tablets market. Their newly released Z-series processor, launched back in June, was the first dedicated tablet chip.   Models that use the Z-series processors are  in short supply and  will compete with ARM.

"We haven’t announced any plans to go in that handheld space. We’ve got plenty of opportunities… in server, notebook and now tablets, that’s our immediate focus. But if the right circumstances come up and we can see a way to impact the market, we’ll obviously continue to look … We’re excited about what the tablet market can do for AMD" said Rick Bergman, AMD senior vice president and general manager.

AMD added processor market share and lost server market share.

Cloud Computing may sound something related to Computation or some fast calculation or may sound funny as Computation on Clouds/ for clouds etc. However, this is the time when we should come down from that Cloud to this CLOUD.. It will sound surprising that this concept is actually a business model adopted by companies which is now gaining attention. In simple words it is the strategy / Business Model wherein you just pay for what you use. Cloud is a metaphor which is used for internet, so Cloud Computing is Internet Based Service (Cloud) with use of Computer (Computing). This concept is actually a strategy wherein a third party service is used to perform required computing tasks. Here virtualized resources are provided over internet as a service & the end users just pay for it on monthly basis. This eliminates the propaganda of actually buying the complete product with bringing in the ease of using the product as a Service & paying monthly. This concept is not new to us as we have been implementing this for years now, quoting a similar & very simple example of Living in a Home. I am treating a house as a product which solves our purpose of living. Now here generally speaking we have 2 options, first we can buy a ready made product (Home) or we can can buy land (platform) & construct (Customize) as per our requirements. Say a Readymade house in the market has got three floors wherein my requirement is just of a single floor with three rooms. Now, if I purchase above mentioned readymade product I would end up paying for that requirement as well which I actually don’t need & would need lot of investment. Now as per this concept wherein rather than going for above two options we opt to take a floor with three rooms & paying a monthly minimum rent would eliminate involvement of huge investments & also just paying for the requirement we have. In a similar way this concept is implemented in IT industry which inculcates the idea of rather than buying complete IT product, we use that as a service with the required features & paying for it monthly. This is treated as a revolution in IT industry as it has got huge benefit to both user as well as the software provider. This service is broadly divided into 3 different Categories IaaS (Infrastructure - as – a - Service) PaaS (Platform - as - a -service) & SaaS (Software -as -a - Service). The best part of this concept is that it is actually sold on Demand & a User can have as little or as more of a service. This is fully managed / maintained by Service provider which eliminates the inputs towards cost of maintenance, up gradation & failures. Unlike Client Server model wherein servers, package installations, supported files installation, here a User actually needs just a Computer & Internet connection. Looking back & even, now Software applications are sold as a product which requires lot of efforts from both parties (Buyer & Seller) and from a Buyer’s perspective a readymade product will lead to the cost of even features which are not required by the user. This will also involve the investment of time & huge cost starting from finding vendors till the deployment of project.   In scenarios where IT departments spend a significant portion of their time on frustrating implementation, maintenance, and project up gradation which could not add significant value to the company’s bottom line. Increasingly, these IT teams are turning to these kinds of services which minimize the time spent on such activities and allow IT teams to focus on other strategic activities with larger impact on the business. However, many popular CRM Solutions (hosted on the Internet) based on SaaS model render limited / lesser flexibility to users and considering the fact that these solutions cannot cater to the need of every business model or cannot be highly customized to meet required objectives, the importance & existence of Customized Applications still prevail.