Hacked Company: Breach exposes nearly 6,00,000

Silicon IndiaBangalore: Hosting company and domain registrar Network Solutions has disclosed the data security breach of nearly 6,00,000 credit card holders by malware on a server. The company has notified 4,343 of its nearly 10,000 e-commerce merchant customers about the breach, said Roy Dunbar, Chairman and CEO of Network Solutions.As reported by CNET News, Network Solutions is investigating this breach that may have led to the theft of credit card data of 5,73,928 people, who made purchases on Web sites hosted by the company. It affects 573,928...

Can Mozilla face the browser onslaught from Google, Microsoft

Mountain View The Economic Times Boxes lined the cubicles and hallways in the offices of Mozilla on a recent afternoon, and its chief executive, John Lilly, seemed a bit disoriented as he looked for a place to sit. Mozilla, which makes the Firefox Web browser, had just moved from one end of this city to the other, mainly to gain more space for its growing work force. Yet it was hard not to read symbolism into the move. Mozilla’s old offices were next door to Google’s sprawling headquarters. For several years, Google has been Mozilla’s biggest...

Animated Film works the net

The Financial Express And the Oscar for the best-animated short film goes to ... an Internet community? That teaser, posted last fall on Facebook by the upstart company Mass Animation, kicked off a project many people in Hollywood thought was laughable: making a five-minute animated film using the Wikipedia model, with animators from around the world contributing shots, and Facebook users voting on their favourites. But it worked. The completed short, “Live Music,” has been deemed of high enough quality by Sony Pictures Entertainment to warrant...

Orissa small IT Firms seek sops

Jayajit Dash, Bhubaneswar Business Standard Small and medium information technology enterprises in Orissa have sought a host of enabling measures from the newly elected government in the state to remain competitive during the ongoing recession. These measures include complete exemption from VAT (value added tax) on hardware procurement by the units, investment subsidy and employment subsidy as well as ‘plug and pay’ office space for upcoming units. “IT SMEs in the state have been hit hard by the economic meltdown and are finding it increasingly...

We offer high-end cloud services to small businesses

Shilpa Shree Financial Chronicle NaviSite, a Nasdaq-listed data centre service provider, has over 1,500 customers worldwide. The company has several Indian customers spread across sectors such as fast moving consumer goods, retail, healthcare and pharma, IT, banking and advertising. The company's managing director, Sumit Sabharwal, spoke on NaviSite's India plans. What is the kind of infrastructure NaviSite has? We provide enterprise hosting and application solutions with over 1,500 customers depending on us for managed application services...

Extension of sunset clause for industrial parks hailed

Ronojoy Banerjee, Saahil Anant, New Delhi Financial Chronicle India Inc on Monday welcomed finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s measure to extend the sunset clause for industrial parks by 2 more years up to March 31, 2011. Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of IT firm Zensar Technologies, said, “Exporters will get a big relief. The slowdown had made life very difficult for most of them and hence the move is welcome.” "There was a compelling case for the extension of tax holiday for industrial parks as IT spending is going down and the industry is facing challenges....

Web spiders picks 51% stake in netwings info

Kolkata Business Standard Web Spiders (India) Pvt Ltd, a Kolkata-based software consulting firm, has acquired 51 percent stake in Netwings Infotech Pvt Ltd (NIPL), which is engaged in delivering fibre optic networking and GIS solutions. The development marks the company’s entry into systems integration, which was earlier only into manufacturing and software development. Another company, Supreme & Co Pvt Ltd, manufacturer of fibre optic, telecom and power equipment, has a 50 percent shareholding in Web Spiders. Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, CEO,...

IDS Softwares eyes govt tourism projects

Shahani Fatima, Chennai Business Standard Bangalore-based hospitality software solutions firm IDS Softwares Private Limited is targeting government tourism projects to boost growth. During the first quarter, the company added Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation and Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation (Citco) as clients. “Around 40 hotels under the Madhya Pradesh tourism department and Citco were centralised using our software and we are in talks with tourism departments of eastern states as well,” said Sivaprasad...

Emotions’ security solution for Metro Rail

Ritwik Mukherjee, Kolkata Financial Chronicle Kolkata-based technology startup eMotions Infomedia, jointly with Jadavpur University, has come up with four security solutions focused on public transportation system, especially for the Metro railways. Partha Das Chowdhury, CEO, eMotions Infomedia, said, “We had formally teamed up with the Centre for Microprocessor Application, Training, Education & research (CMATER), Jadavpur University and have been working on these ‘Intelligent Surveillance Solutions’ for little more than one year now.” “We...

Global IT cos expect Indian PC market to rebound in H2

Writankar Mukherjee, Kolkata The Economic Times With computer sales in India expected to revive in the second half of 2009, PC makers and chip manufacturers alike are planning to provide a thrust to their game plan in the country. While Intel and AMD are adopting multiple initiatives to target the first-time users and lower PC prices in the market, PC vendors such as Dell and Acer are looking at ways to grow the market by tapping the huge potential in government projects and growing consumer sentiments. For starters, AMD has just rolled out a...

Browse the web on your TV

Hindustan Times (Delhi edition) Vu (pronounced `view') has unveiled its Gem collection of three 22-inch PC monitors. It also has a DPF (Digital Photo Frame) printer, which allows connect to your external memory device via a USB port and print images at a cost of 35 images for Rs 500. The Intelligent TV, Vu's latest release, stands out from all its other products. It is a 46-inch, flat-screen, full HD, PCcum-TV with a number of ports on the back which, along with your usual cable wire, give you the option to connect a USB broadband device. So you...

Bangalore techies settle for low-paying jobs

Silicon IndiaBangalore: Till a few months ago, IT professional T.V. George was earning Rs.70,000 per month, plus perks. But after losing his high-paying job, and being unemployed for three months, George, 31, has started giving tuitions in mathematics and physics to aspiring engineering students in his neighbourhood"Now, I am earning Rs.15,000 per month. It's been hard. I got married only a few months before losing my job. So, when I lost my job, I was in a difficult position. Thankfully, I had some savings. With the savings, I am paying my rent...

Ericsson to buy Nortel's wireless biz for $1.13 billion

Toronto, July 26, 2009 Business Standard Ericsson is all set to acquire a major part of Nortel's North American wireless business for $1.13 billion, after the Swedish firm emerged as the successful bidder for the bankrupt Canadian company's CDMA and LTE technologies. The purchase is structured as an asset sale at a cash purchase price of $1.13 billion on a cash and debt free basis, the two companies said in separate statements. The acquisition significantly expands Ericsson's footprint in North America and also provides Nortel's customers with...

Internet 2.0 will drive productivity growth

California, July 27, 2009 Mint John Chambers/CISCO The crash has hit Silicon Valley as hard as anywhere else. The only consolation is that this time, at least, it didn't start here. But while other firms are hunkering down and trying to survive, networking giant Cisco Systems ($130 billion market value, $40 billion in annual sales) continues to stride forward. "Even in this downturn," says chairman and CEO John Chambers, sitting at the table in his modest, mementocrammed office, "We intend to be the most aggressive we've ever been." A decade...

How deleted email can come back

Washington, July 27, 2009 The Times of India Beware, emails or Facebook posts or pictures can resurface months after they are deleted -- in the wrong hands or at the wrong time, according to researchers. "If you care about privacy, the internet today is a very scary place," said University of Washington (UW) computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno. "If people understood the implications of where and how their email is stored, they might be more careful or not use it as often." For instance, a lost cell phone can expose personal photos or text messages....

Job drought could end soon; recruitment agencies see pick-up in hiring

Kirtika Suneja & Seema Sindhu, New Delhi, July 26, 2009 Business Standard The job market has begun to show signs of a revival led by sectors like telecommunication, pharmaceutical, life sciences and financial services. Human resource firms claim there are more vacancies now than a year ago when the slowdown first set in, though these are way below past peaks. TeamLease Services Managing Director Ashok Reddy said that the demand for temporary employees had gone up nearly 100 percent from the earlier levels. “On an average, we have over 3,000...

Managed services spell big IT Business

Peerzada Abrar, Bangalore, July 27, 2009 The Economic Times As global recessionary pressures increase, enterprises are looking at ways to capitalise their existing IT infrastructure, with many of them adopting the managed services business model. Telecom IT companies such as products company Subex and Netmagic Solutions, an IT services provider that count on customers such as AT&T, BT and Vodafone, have adopted this model. Subex is going to change its business strategy for the next five years by focusing more on managed services rather than...

‘SOCIAL’ Technologies in education

D. Murali, July 27, 2009 The Hindu Business Line The IT boom did many things, and one of its significant effects was to cause a shift in the conversation from only `employment' to `employability' and `scale,' observes Vaidya Nathan, Founder and CEO, Classle Knowledge Pvt Ltd, Chennai (www.classle.net). The speed at which it hit the education system, India's most `regulated' sector, caught everybody unawares, he continues, during a lunch-hour interaction with eWorld. "With solutions being looked at every level starting from policy and governance...

Shriram properties to invest rs 4,900 crore in 3 years

T E Narasimhan, Chennai, July 27, 2009 Business Standard Shriram Properties, part of Chennai-headquartered diversified Shriram Group, is planning to invest around Rs 4,900 crore in various residential and commercial projects. Shriram Properties managing director M Murali said that the company had set a target to become Rs 1,000 crore company over the next three years from the present Rs 450 crore. Speaking about commercial projects, Murali said that so far the company was promoting IT/ITeS projects and delivered one million sq.ft. currently...

Helipads, Skywalks planned at Mukesh Ambani promoted SEZS

New Delhi, July 27, 2009 The Economic Times Business Standard Mukesh Ambani-promoted Navi Mumbai SEZ Private Ltd has sought government permission to set up helipads and skywalks at its Special Economic Zones on the outskirts of the metropolis. The SEZ firm co-promoted by Ambani's close associate Anand Jain has plans to build helipad at four and skywalks at five of its Special Economic Zones at Navi Mumbai. As per the proposals submitted before the BoA, the helipads will come up in the "non-processing" areas of the three SEZs for IT and ITES,...

Bill Gates urges India to move from low-cost to R&D

New Delhi, July 26, 2009 The Economic Times Billionaire Bill Gates urged India to move away from low-cost labour toward high-end research and development to keep its giant IT sector competitive. On a visit to New Delhi, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp called on the Indian government to speed up its commitment to R&D and to boost low number of home-grown PhD students. Gates told a panel discussion that India's "IT success story" should strive to add value and move away from low-cost labour as other developing countries play catch-up. "At...

MS wants to be part of Unique Identity project

TK Arun, Shelley Singh & Shubham Mukherjee, July 27, 2009 The Economic Times Coming to slowdown, the US is erecting barriers in terms of tightening visas and forcing companies to create jobs locally. Is that the answer to cope with a slowdown? Of course not. Immigration restriction in the US didn’t really emerge out of the recession. We have had some difficulty and unfriendliness in our immigration system, limits in H1B visas, difficulty in green cards. We have had these for quite some time. The recession may have made it even more difficult...

iPhone: a lifeline for small Indian Software firms

Samanth Subramanian, New Delhi, July 27, 2009 Mint Last July, when Apple Inc. threw open the doors of its iPhone App Store to third-party developers, a Silicon Valley start-up immediately contacted Net Solutions India, a Chandigarh-based software shop. “This was one of our regular clients, and he was very excited,” says Maninder Bains, chief technology officer of Net Solutions. “But even if he hadn’t said so himself, we’d already realized that iPhone applications would be big.” Bains was right. The iPhone’s applications—or “apps”, essentially...

Customers want to buy value

Shamik Paul/Vishwanath Kulkarni, July 27, 2009 The Hindu Business Line Wipro Ltd, looking to strengthen the sales organisation for its global IT business, recently appointed a global sales head. Martha Bejar, the former head of communications sector at Microsoft Corp, joined India’s third largest software exporter to lead its sales initiatives. eWorld caught up with Bejar, who is currently in Bangalore to understand the company and the people steering its operations. Excerpts: After having worked in product companies, do you see a drastic shift...

Best buy tests Internet contract

July 27, 2009 Financial Chronicle Best Buy, the world's largest electronics retailer, is testing sales of discounted laptops with Internet contracts as it expands higher-margin services to fend off Wal-Mart Stores and online outle...

PC Players will inject new levels of efficiency in Mobile Phone industry

Pragati Verma, July 27, 2009 The Financial Express World’s third largest computer maker, Acer has recently jumped into the smartphone market. Unfazed by a slowdown in mobile phone sales globally and disappointing earning numbers from mobile phone companies, Acer mobility division head Aymar de Lencquesaing is confident of smartphone sales. “Consumers are increasingly accessing the Web from their mobile devices,” he reasons. Acer has recently launched five new feature-rich smartphones, in the price range of Rs 24,000 to Rs 35,000, in the Indian...

WAL-MART WOOS Laptop shoppers

San Francisco Business Standard Wal-Mart Stores Inc has expanded its laptop selection by 40 percent and will be aggressive in pricing the computers and the accessories to go with them as the discount retailer looks to win sales from frugal back-to-school shoppers. Starting this Sunday, WalMart will begin selling an exclusive Compaq Presario notebook computer that it developed in partnership with Hewlett-Packard Co for $298. A similar unit currently sells at Wal-Mart for $548. “We think that that’s a screaming value,” said Gary Severson, Wal-Mart...

YAHOO! SWOOPS For XOOPIT Email photo finding firm

San Francisco The Economic Times Yahoo! said on Wednesday it would buy Xoopit, a San Francisco startup specializing in finding and organizing photos buried in email inboxes. "In short, Xoopit will bring phenomenal photo organization, improved photo sharing, and the serendipity of discovering forgotten photos to Yahoo! Mail," Yahoo! Applications senior vice president Bryan Lamkin said in an online post. Xoopit got Yahoo!'s attention last year when it won a "Hack Day" event at the Internet pioneer's campus in Sunnyvale, California, presenting software...

AMAZON.COM buying shoe seller zappos for $928 million

San Francisco The Economic Times Amazon.com will pay about $928 million for booming online shoe retailer Zappos.com, expanding aggressively into the apparel arena with a well-known name after trying unsuccessfully to go it alone. Amazon said on Wednesday it struck a deal to buy Zappos, for 927.9 million -- mostly in stock -- growing its footprint in shoes and apparel. The world's largest online retailer should benefit from the fiercely loyal customer base at Zappos, which had about $1 billion of gross merchandise sales last year. Zappos is known...

New IT Projects to generate 6000 jobs in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal The Economic Times As many as 6,000 jobs will be generated in Madhya Pradesh by the four Information Technology Parks coming up, Industry and IT Minister Kailash Vijaywargiya told the state assembly Thursday. Replying to a question by independent legislator Paras Saklecha, Vijaywargiya said the four Information Technology Parks, coming up at Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior and Jabalpur, will create jobs for about 6,000 people. The minister further said that a total of 22 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) have been signed in the recent past to...

Firms look at IT infrastructure, outsourcing to stay competitive

P.R. Sanjai, Mumbai Mint BK Madhav and Sons is one of the many customs clearing agents in the Ballard Estate area of south Mumbai. Like many of his peers, Prathmesh Madhav, the firm’s promoter, was never interested in investing in information technology (IT) infrastructure. The economic slowdown has now compelled Madhav, who manages customs clearing for the Indian unit of a global automobile firm, to integrate his processes and trim costs using technology. This has also cut his customs filing time to five minutes from three days earlier. Like...

Biometric card that doubles as database

Sameera Kapoor, Vashi, Mumbai DNA (Mumbai edition) Micro Technologies, an IT-based security solution company based at MIDC TTC Industrial Area, Mahape, recently launched a unique identity card for its employees embedded with important information for emergency access. The card is enabled to store numerous personal information of the employee using biometric technology for purpose of individual identification. Termed as leap in personal identification, the information encrypted includes date of birth, PAN details, residential address, banking...

BOA TO MULL 5 SEZ Proposals on August 11

New Delhi Business Standard The Economic Times (Delhi edition) The Commerce Ministry will consider on August 11 five proposals for setting up SEZs, including those of Brooke Bond Real Estates and Deccan Infrastructure. The 19-member inter-ministerial Board of Approval (BoA) headed by Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar may also give formal approval to 25 developers who have been given more time to execute their projects. The Board would also take a decision on requests of Lanco Solar and Cochin Airport International to set up special economic zones...

SAP to acquire SWISS CO SAF for $100 million

New Delhi Business Standard Financial Chronicle Mint The Statesman The Tribune The Hindu Business Line Deccan Herald Global IT firm SAP today said it was looking to acquire Switzerland-based software developer SAF AG for around $100 million. “We are in the process of acquiring SAF AG. We are in talks and have gone for public bidding. The size of the acquisition is around $100 million,” SAP Indian Subcontinent Managing Director Ranjan Das said here on the sidelines of an event. Das, however, declined to give further details and the time-frame...

Mid-sized firms expect IT budgets to increase

Darlington Jose Hector, Bangalore Financial Chronicle According to a global study released by IBM, over 50 percent of Indian mid market business decision makers (including COOs, CFOs, CIOs etc) expect their IT budgets to increase in 2009 as compared to last year even in tough economic conditions. A majority of Indian companies surveyed cited supply chain management (SCM), information management and security management as critical business priorities for improving business performance and efficiency. Most midsize companies also recognise that a...

Bill Gates foundation to log out from India

Bangalore/New Delhi DNA (Bangalore edition) The Economic Times Financial Chronicle Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and one of the world's richest men, is in India to receive the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) that has been actively working in the field of health and development, especially HIV/AIDS. Gates on Thursday announced an increase in his foundations' AIDS prevention commitment in India to $338 million from $258 million, saying India's AIDS prevention could be a model for the rest of...

Canon India to invest Rs 200 crore, launch 100 products

Mumbai Mint Financial Chronicle The Financial Express The Economic Times (Mumbai edition) Canon India, maker of digital imaging equipment, plans to invest up to Rs 200 crore this year to launch over a hundred new products and increase customer-reach through promotions. “We have a capex plan of Rs 100 crore for our Indian operations this (calendar) year, which includes launching over a hundred new products. It is a cash-based investment,” Canon India Pvt Ltd, president and CEO, Kensaku Konishi, said. “That apart, we will spend about Rs 80-100...

PC makers plan to prop up market revival

Writankar Mukherjee, Kolkata The Economic Times (Kolkata edition) With computer sales in India expected to revive in the second half of 2009, PC makers and chip manufacturers alike are planning to provide a thrust to their game plan in the country. While Intel and AMD are adopting multiple initiatives to target the first-time users and lower PC prices in the market, PC vendors like Dell and Acer are looking at ways to grow the market by tapping the huge potential in government projects and growing consumer sentiments. For starters, AMD has just...

Mobile power

The Times of India (Delhi edition) With miniaturisation gripping the technology sector, all companies have to do now is combine it with low costs. And that’s exactly what Intex has done with its line of ultra-compact netbooks. The Intex N101-WC1100 has a 10.1” display and weighs just 1.2 kg (with battery). Powered by an Intel Atom N270 processor, it has a 160 GB hard drive, a 1.3 meg video camera and a 1 GB RAM, which is expandable up to 2 GB. Price: Rs 18,900 (black); Rs 19,400 (r...

Wipro net up 12 percent but IT revenue declines

Bangalore: India's third largest IT bellwether, Wipro, remained profitable in the first quarter this fiscal despite marginal revenue decline in its global IT services business sequentially and annually.Even for the second quarter, revenue from its flagship IT services business is expected to remain flat in the $1.03-$1.05 billion range, as against the $1.03 billion garnered in the first quarter this fiscal, but still less than the $.1.11 billion earned in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. According to the company's financial statement for...

Tech Mahindra Q1 net plunges 49 percent y-o-y

Silicon IndiaBangalore: IT firm Tech Mahindra reported 49.08 per cent plunge in net profit at Rs.131.62 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2009 owing to the interest costs on borrowings the company incurred after acquiring Satyam. Tech Mahindra, which recently acquired 42.7 percent stake in Mahindra Satyam, had a net profit of Rs 258.52 crore in the June quarter of last fiscal. Total income of the company fell five percent to Rs.1,086.88 crore during third quarter, from Rs 1,142.50 crore in the year-ago period. On a quarter-on quarter basis,...

An engineer kills himself over lost 4G iPhone

Silicon IndiaBangalore: A Chinese engineer killed himself after a fourth-generation iPhone prototype he was responsible for disappeared. Sun Danyong, 25, was a recent graduate in engineering who worked in product communications at Foxconn Technology Group. Foxconn is a Taiwanese firm that makes many Apple products at a massive factory in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong KongThe Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported that his property had been seized and was held in solitary confinement, where he faced "unbearable interrogation techniques"...

Windows 7 ready for PC companies: Microsoft

Seattle The Economic Times Microsoft Corp. says Windows 7 is complete. The software maker sent the final code for its next computer operating system to manufacturers Wednesday, and said it's still on track for an Oct. 22 launch. Mike Angiulo, a general manager in the Windows group, said in an interview that getting up and running on a Windows computer will be ``a lot smoother'' than it was when Windows Vista launched in 2007. At the time, Microsoft boasted about the number of programs and devices that would work with Vista, but many PC users...

Emails can resurface after deletion but in the wrong hands

Washington The Economic Times Beware, emails or Facebook posts or pictures can resurface months after they are deleted -- in the wrong hands or at the wrong time, according to researchers. "If you care about privacy, the internet today is a very scary place," said University of Washington (UW) computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno. "If people understood the implications of where and how their email is stored, they might be more careful or not use it as often." For instance, a lost cell phone can expose personal photos or text messages. A legal investigation...

Google, Apple: two mobile software visions

The Economic Times When Service-now.com, a maker of software for corporate information technology departments, created a smartphone version of its product last year, it bucked a major trend. Instead of creating an application that customers could download through an outlet like Apple's (AAPL) iPhone App Store or Google's (GOOG) Android Marketplace, the company built a customized Web site so users of many different devices could use the software via their phones' browsers without downloading anything. Tailoring software for the five big mobile-phone...

SREI identifies new verticals in Medical Equipment, IT

V. K. Varadarajan, Bangalore The Hindu Business Line Srei Equipment Finance Pvt Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd and BNP Paribas Lease Group, has identified the medical equipment and IT sectors as new verticals for financing. The company has lent Rs 150 crore to these sectors so far and set a target of Rs 1,000 crore for this fiscal. The company is also contemplating entering agricultural equipment financing, leveraging its French partner’s experience in Europe. BNP Paribas is a leader in financing IT/medical...

ICAI backs rotation of partners every 5 years

Pankaj Doval, New Delhi The Times of India Following the outcry over role of auditors in the Satyam scam, auditing regulator ICAI has recommended major changes in auditing processes, which include among other things, joint auditors for big companies and rotation of partners every five years. These recommendations of a high-powered committee of ICAI, formed after the Satyam scam, will now be considered by the government. The committee, headed by ICAI president Uttam Prakash Aggarwal, was tasked with suggesting changes required to make the auditing...

I&B to set up towers along border areas

Nitin Mahajan, New Delhi The Asian Age In an effort to counter this anti-India propaganda, the government has an aggressive programme of setting up high-frequency towers in such areas In an effort to counter Pakistani propaganda against India through its broadcast mechanism, the information and broadcasting ministry is planning to establish high-frequency transmitters and towers in bordering areas of the country. Official sources stated that the I&B ministry has earmarked an amount of around Rs 100 crore for implementation of the project....