The number of unwanted, offensive and misleading emails sent across the globe went down by 75% to a mere 60 billion or so a day, according to spam filtering companies.

And the billions of dollars pumped into the fight through anti-spam software or legal battles have nothing to do with the breakthrough.

Instead, a ragtag band of researchers pulled off the unprecedented coup of drastically cutting the spam volume by  adopting a new strategy: going after mainstream US companies that can unknowingly help spammers, identity thieves and child porn purveyors by carrying their traffic on the internet, the Los Angels Times Reported.

McColo, a californian-based company played house to some of the world’s worst online victory criminal gangs and was booted off the internet following an investigation by Washington Post security researcher Brian Krebs.

The company’s online presence was extinguished after Krebs alerted McColo’s access providers Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric earlier this week to the criminal material it was pumping out over their networks.

Few expect the relief to last. The major anti-virus firm Symantec predicted a return to the previous level by Christmas. But the rare victory gives hope to those combating spam and other “malware” by showing that even as the bad guys get smarter, new strategies can make a difference.

Courtesy Times of India November 18, 2008

The growth of IT sector in India has propelled the growth of the hardware industry too, which has even rubbed off onto the telecom infrastructure and equipment industry. India and China are the fastest growing IT hardware products markets in the Asia Pacific region. With the efforts to increase broadband offerings and internet and PC penetration, other related hardware products too will be at an advantage.

The computer hardware industry is continuously growing over 30% annually and is expected to do so till 2012. But this might face some slowdown with the current situation - inflation, rupee fluctuations and economic turmoil. As per MAIT, Indian consumers and businesses bought 7.34 million units during the previous fiscal and the industry association forecasts that they will consume 8.5 million in fiscal 2008-09. The front runners, who are the huge buyers of hardware products, are the small and medium businesses (SMBs). This market is estimated to be $11.5 billion for 2007-08, of which the SMB contribution is expected to be $4.3 billion. At the same time, PCs, printers and peripherals will together account for more than 50% of SMB hardware revenues, predicts research firm Zinnov.

As per research firm BMI, the hardware industry (including telecom hardware), has seen investments of more than $18 billion in hardware manufacturing in India. However, a high tax regime means that around 25% of the retail price of an average computer goes to the government, and there are fears that this may delay growth.

According to Gartner, PC sales in the first half of 2008 was 4.7 million units, 11.25% higher than in H1 2007; notebook sales were 1.25 million units in H1 2008 up by 94.5%. Hardware sales in India are $11.6 billion at present; this includes strategic electronic with $4.87 billion, computer electronics with $4.87 billion, computer electronics with $4.87 billion, and communication and broadband equipment with $2.32 billion.

The computer hardware peripherals and accessories include the CPU, mother boards, hard disk, RAM(memory), floppy drives, display adaptors, monitors, keyboards, mouse, CD ROM/CD writers/external drive to DVD ROM/DVD writer, sound cards, speakers, modems, UPS, printers, scanners, softwares, TV tuner/FM cards, tape / pen drives, cartridges, networking products, wireless networking products, cables and connectors, memory cards, laptop products and accessories. The PC penetration amongst SMBs was 15.7% in 2007-08. This experts think, will hit 38% by 2012.

Internet laptops

While laptops are growing rapidly, the newest area of growth within that segment is expected to be basic internet access laptops. Some of these have been designed specifically for Indian consumers. Industry experts say that vendors are moving towards the low-price ultra portable notebook. It is said to be seeing great potential with certain demographics.

HCL has been promoting its MiLeap laptops, which are priced Rs 13,990 upwards. HP and Dell are both scheduled to launch ultra portables in 2008, both priced at below $500.

The ultra portable laptop are powered by the Intel celeron M ULV processor with 2-GB flash drive storage.

The laptops are rugged, eco-friendly and come with an Intel chipset that reduces power usage. These laptops come with a 7 inch screen and have an integrated WiFi 802.11a/b/g LAN connection.

Courtesy Times of India October 25, 2008

The enthu with which we started did not last long. The competition was not ‘fair’ enough for us to stay. We were at the 60th place and were sure will move up but reverse happened. It was more luck than professionally conducted.

1. The site was not ready for the traffic and was down greater part of the time and this reduced the voting opportunity.
2. No equal opportunity was available for the competing companies. The SMS system clogged and ’sent sad replies’ like ’server busy’, ‘can’t recognize your format’ etc. Again votes are lost.
3. The experts were not available to comment till few days back and when they commented…
4. The newly introduced mail validation system works, not works and then not works…

When we raised our concern we got very good response and we were told that all the problems will surely be addressed by the 2009 Hottest Startup. We knew we were in the wrong place. We withdrew. We were at 115.