In this era of technological inventions, with the plethora of technologies, platforms, paradigms, how should the India telecom network evolve?    The evolutionary path for the telecom network clearly should ensure that the customer base is retained and increased while also being capable of handling increasing demands on the network .The article below looks at some of the technologies that make the most sense in the current technological scenario.

The wireless tele-density in India has now reached 48% and is showing no signs of slowing down. The number of wireless users will only go up as the penetration moves farther into the rural hinterland. In these times Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are faced with a multitude of different competing technologies, frameworks and paradigms. On the telecom network side there is the 2G, 2.5G, 3G & 4G. To add to the confusion there is a lot of buzz around Cloud technology, Virtualization, SaaS, femtocells etc., to name a few. With the juggernaut of technological development proceeding at a relentless pace Senior Management in Telcos, Service Providers the world over are faced with a bewildering choice of technology to choose from while trying to maintain the spending at sustainable levels.

For a developing economy like India the path forward for Telcos and CSP is to gradually evolve from the current 2.5G service to the faster 3G services without trying to rush to 4G. The focus of CSPs and Operators should be in customer retention and maintaining customer loyalty. The drive should be in increasing the customer base by enhancing the customer experience rather than jumping onto the 4G bandwagon. 4G technology for example LTE and WiMAX make perfect sense in countries like US or Japan where smart phones are within the reach of a larger set of the populace.

In India smartphones, when they come, will be the sole preserve of high flying executives and the urban elite. The larger population in India would tend to use more of the VAS services like mobile payment, e-ticketing rather than downloading video through their mobile phones.  In US, it is rumored that iPhones with their data hungry applications almost brought a major network to its knees. This is primarily due to popularity and affordability of these smart phones in countries like the US. Hence it makes perfect sense for Network Providers in the US to upgrade their network infrastructure to handle the increasing demand for data hungry applications. Hence the move to LTE or WiMAX would be a logical move in countries like US. In our nation the thrust of Service Providers should be to promote customer loyalty by offering differentiated Value Added Service (VAS) service. Also the CSPs should try to increase the network coverage so that the frustration of lost or dropped calls is minimal. The Service Providers should try to attract new users by offering an enhanced customer experience through special Value Added Services (VAS). This becomes all the more important with the impending move to Mobile Number Portability (MNP). Once MNP is in the network many subscribers will switch to Service Providers who offer better services and have more reliable network coverage.

Another area where the Service Providers should focus on is in creating App Stores like iPhone which has spawned an entire industry in the US. Mobile App s from app stores besides providing entertainment and differentiation can also be a very good money spinner.   While the economy continues to flounder the world over the Service Providers should try to reduce their Capacity Expenditure (Capex) and their Operating Expenditure (Opex) through the adoption of Software-as – Service (SaaS) for their OSS/BSS systems. Cloud technology besides reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Network Providers can be quite economical in the long run.  It is quite possible that prior to migrating to the Cloud all aspects of security should be thoroughly investigated by the Network Providers and critical decisions as to which areas of their OSS/BSS they would like to migrate to the Cloud. While a move to leapfrog to 4G from 2G may not be required, it is imperative that with the entry of smartphones like iPhone 3GS, Nexus One and Droid into India the CSPs should be in a position to handle increasing bandwidth requirements. Some techniques to handle the issue of data hungry smartphones are to offload data traffic to Wi-Fi networks or femtocells.  Besides, professionals these days use dongles with their laptops to check email, browse and download documents. All these put a strain on the network and offloading data traffic to femtocells & Wi-Fi  have been the chosen as the solution by leading Network Providers in the US.

Conclusion :

So the road to gradual evolution of the network for the Network Operators, Service Providers are

1. Evolve to 3G Services from 2G/2.5G.
2. Create app stores to promote customer retention & loyalty and offer differentiated VAS services
3. Improve network coverage uniformly and enhance the customer experience through specialized App stores
4. Migrate some of the OSS/BSS functionality to the cloud or use SaaS after investigating the applications of the enterprise that can move to the cloud
5. Offload data traffic to Wi-Fi networks or femtocells.

Contributed by: Tinniam V. Ganesh is a technology expert with 25 years of experience in the software industry. You can write to him at tvganesh.85@gmail.com   and read his blog http://gigadom.wordpress.com

Data Overload

We are slowly, but surely, heading towards the age of “information overload”. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey started in year 2000 returned around 620 terabytes of data in 11 months – more data than had ever been amassed in the entire history of astronomy. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe’s  particle physics laboratory, in Geneva will during its search for the origins of the universe and the elusive Higgs particle, early next year,  spew out terabytes’ of data in its wake. Now there upward of 5 billion devices connected to the internet and the numbers are showing no signs of slowing down. A recent report from Cisco, the data networking giant, states that the total data navigating the net will cross ½ a zettabyte (10²¹) by the year 2013.  Such astronomical volumes of data are also handled daily in the world by retail giants like Walmart, Target or telcos like AT&T or Airtel etc. Also advances in the Human Genome Project and technologies like the “Internet of Things” are bound to throw up large quantities if data.  The issues of storing data are now slowly becoming non-existent with the plummeting prices of semi conductor memory and processors coupled with a doubling of their capacity every 18 months with the inevitability predicted by Moore’s law.

Plumbing the depths of data

Raw data is by itself is quite useless. Data has to be classified, winnowed and analyzed into useful information before if it can be utilized. This is where analytics and data mining come into play. Analytics, once the exclusive preserve of research labs and academia has now entered mainstream. Data mining and analytics are now used across a broad swath of industries from retail, insurance, manufacturing, health care and telecommunication. Analytics enables the extraction of intelligence, identification of trends and the ability to highlight the non-obvious from raw, amorphous data. Using the intelligence that is gleaned from predictive analytics, businesses can make strategic game changing decisions. Analytics uses statistical methods to classify data, determine correlations, identify patterns, highlight and detect deviations among large data sets. Analytics includes in its realms complex software algorithms like decision trees, neural nets to make predictions from existing data sets.

For e.g. a retail store would be interested in knowing the buying patterns of its consumers. If the retail store could determine that product Y is almost always purchased when product X is purchased then the store could come up with clever schemes like an additional discount on product Z when both products X & Y are purchased. Similarly telcos could use analytics to identify predominant trends that promote customer loyalty. Telcos could come with voice and data plans that attract customers based on consumer behavior after analyzing data from its Point Of Sale and retail stores. Besides, telcos could use analytics to determine causes for customer churn and come with strategies to prevent it. Analytics has also been used in the health industry in predicting and preventing fatal infections in infants based on patterns in real-time data like blood pressure, heart rate and respiration.

Analytics requires at its disposal large processing power. Advances in analytics have been largely fueled by similar advances in a companion technology, namely cloud computing. Cloud Computing allows computing power to be purchased on demand almost like a utility and has been a key enabler for analytics.

Conclusion

Data Mining and analytics allows industries to plumb the data sets that are held in the organizations through the process of selecting, exploring and modeling large amount of data to uncover previously unknown data patterns which can be channelized to business advantage. Analytics help in unlocking the secrets hidden in data and provide real insights to businesses. Analytics enable business and industries to make intelligent and informed choices based on the wisdom that is mined from the data in their systems.

In this age of information deluge, data mining and analytics are bound to play an increasingly important role and will become indispensable to the future of businesses.

Contributed by : Tinniam V. Ganesh is a technology expert with 25 years of experience in the software industry. You can write to him at tvganesh.85@gmail.com   and read his blog  http://gigadom.wordpress.com

We are progressively moving towards a more connected world. We use a variety of devices to connect to each other and to the network. We are connected to the network through the mundane telephone, mobile phone, desktop, laptop or iPads.  We use the devices for sending, receiving, communicating or for our entertainment. In the year 2005, ITU-T,  came up with a seminal report titled “The Internet of Things” visualizing a highly interconnected world made of tiny passive or intelligent devices that connect to large databases and to the  “network of networks” or the internet.

This Internet of Things adds another dimension to our already existing notions of networks. The Internet of Things or M2M (machine-to-machine) envisages an anytime, anywhere, anyone, anything network bringing about a complete ubiquity to computing. In Mark Weiser’s classic words “the most profound technologies are those that disappear and weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”. This will result in the metamorphosis of the network from a dumb pipe to intelligence at the edges. Embedded intelligence in the things themselves will further enhance the power of the network and move the intelligence to the edges of the network.

The portents of this highly revolutionary technology are already visible.  The devices in this M2M network will be made up of passive elements, sensors and actuators that communicate with the network. Soon everyday articles from tires to toasters will have these intelligent devices embedded into them. Radio Frequency Identification (RFIDs) is the early and pivotal enabler of this technology. In RFID there is the tiny RFID tag which is a passive device that is capable of responding in the presence of RFID receiver. The RFID receiver emits a signal which is received by RFID tag which responds with its identification. Already RFID technology has been used by a leading US retailer to keep track of the goods coming in and going out of its warehouses to the its various stores across the country. In a typical scenario one can imagine a retail store in which all items in the store are RFID tagged. A shopping cart in the store fitted with a RFID receiver can automatically track all items placed in the shopping cart for immediate payment and check out.

Other interesting applications are for the payment of highway tolls. Similarly, plans are already afoot for embedding intelligent devices in the tires of automobiles.  The devices will be used for measuring the tire pressure, speed etc and appropriately warning the drivers of low pressure or tire wear and tear. The devices will send data to the network which can be processed at the back end network. This technology is also extremely suited for the insurance companies who can give insurance discounts to safe drivers based on the data sent by these sensors.  Other promising applications are implantable devices that are capable of remote monitoring of patients with lethal heart problems. These specialized implantable devices can warn the physician when it detects an irregularity in the patient’s heart rhythm.

The Internet of Things can also play an important role in monitoring the stress and the load on bridges and forewarn when the stress is too great and a collapse is imminent. There can be many more worthy applications that are possible by installing intelligent sensors in deep mines. The sensors can send real time info on the toxicity of the air inside the mines, the structural strength of the walls or possibility of flooding inside the mines.

With increasing miniaturization and advances in nanotechnology the day is not far off when extremely powerful, intelligent miniature devices with processing and communicating power will connect to the Internet to monitor and control its environment improving our daily lives and warning us of impending hazards.

Contributed by : Tinniam V. Ganesh is a technology expert with 25 years of experience in the software industry. You can write to him at tvganesh.85@gmail.com   and read his blog http://gigadom.wordpress.com

To address a growing market demand for analytics savvy graduates, IBM is working with universities around the world to bring advanced analytics training directly into the classroom.

The company is expanding its Academic Initiative for business analytics with new programs in India, China, Ireland and Scotland, helping students keep pace with today’s competitive job market by gaining skills in this fast-growing field of technology.

In India, IBM is working with faculty members from 500 universities to help more than 30,000 students develop skills in predictive analytics. As part of the program, IBM will conduct a series of training programs with business school faculty concentrating on predictive and business analytics, in 15 major cities throughout the country of India. The faculty members will complete a certification process in analytics at the end of the program.

Once certified they will begin to teach students about how analytics can be applied to their topic of study.  The learning will involve access to predictive analytics technology and will focus on how to act on the results the analytics technology uncovers.

“I have been using IBM predictive analytics technology in a number of programs at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta,” said Sahadeb Sarkar, Professor, Operations Management Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM). “I hope this initiative will help teachers in universities to learn and include analytics in existing courses and design new curriculum that will helps students gain a top-notch education to meet the demands of today’s businesses and government organizations.”

Everyday people create the equivalent of 2.5 quintillion bytes of data from sensors, mobile devices, online transactions, and social networks; so much that 90 percent of the world’s data has been generated in the past two years. This amounts to more data than organizations can effectively use without applying analytics.  The new programs are providing students and faculty members, regardless of their course of study, with access to the latest software capabilities and thinking on how advanced analytics can be applied to tackle complex business and societal challenges.

According to the 2010 IBM Institute for Business Value and MIT Sloan Management Review study of nearly 3,000 executives worldwide, the biggest challenge is the lack of understanding in how to use analytics to gain insights that can improve business outcomes. In response to market demand, universities are incorporating analytics curricula and courseware into a variety of degree programs to educate college students in this growing field.

The University of West Scotland is introducing several new courses to its School of Computing curriculum including data mining, business intelligence and knowledge management. Plans to expand the analytics course offerings to non-IT and non-finance students are underway.

“Beyond teaching business and IT skills, we are preparing students for future job opportunities with new analytics courses,” said Professor Malcolm Crowe, University of West Scotland. “The University of West Scotland is adding new courses in direct response to the recommendations of regional employers. They have specifically advised the School of Computing that important computing skills such as business analytics are in demand and will help graduates secure jobs.”

Xi’an Jiao Tong University in China, together in cooperation with IBM’s China Development Lab in Xi’an, has developed business analytics oriented curriculum, project training materials, and planned a series of technical salon and master speech focus on analytics. These activities cover Cognos, SPSS and many best practices and tips integrated and tailored by the China Development Lab, and this analytics curriculum is planned to be replicated to six other Chinese universities in the future. This promotion of business analytics techniques and tools will enable a new generation of students, helping the Xi’an Lab with a pipeline of students with necessary skills, and will help to build up the business analytics ecosystem in China.

At the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland’s largest university, students are using analytics software in a variety of application areas allowing them to collect hidden data and applying knowledge that seemed impossible to find before that can could now be uncovered.

These universities join schools around the world including Northwestern University, Yale School of Management, Fordham University, DePaul University, University of Southern California and University of Ottawa Telfer School of Management, that are working with IBM to develop and implement undergraduate and graduate curriculum and training on business analytics.

Some of the early analytics projects underway at the university level were inspired by IBM’s Watson technology – the most advanced analytics technology currently available. Through the development of Watson, IBM sparked the interest of many students in the areas of math and computer science. IBM has teamed with universities to work on the sophisticated technology associated with Watson’s deep-Question and Answer capabilities, giving more than 10,000 students exposure to analytics technology.

“Through IBM’s Academic Initiative, universities are adding analytics to their course offerings, establishing new degree programs and now we are seeing acceleration in global demand for training in analytics,” said Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager Academic & Developer Relations, Career Education & Localization, IBM India/SA. “By combining IBM’s leadership in analytics with its global reach. we will begin to bridge the gap between to better-equip students for new job opportunities.”

Courtesy: www.indiainfoline.com

On the Internet, trust no one. Or at least, as President Reagan famously said, “Trust, but verify.” In particular, whenever an unusual and unexpected message appears on your computer, be suspicious of its authenticity.

The most recent example supporting this advice is the MAC Defender Trojan horse.  After clicking a link to a site that comes up in a Google search, a message may pop up claiming that your computer is “infected.” At the same time, a ZIP file is downloaded to your Mac. If you’re using Safari, the file is automatically launched, unless you disabled the option to ‘Open “safe” files after downloading’ in Safari’s Preferences. The downloaded file turns out to be an installer for a supposed piece of software named MAC Defender. You are asked to purchase this software so as to fix the “infection.”

It’s all a scam. There is no actual program to install. The goal of the creators of this con is simply to get your money and credit card number.  After reports of the scam began circulating on the Web, the package was modified with a new name: MAC Security. It’s just as phony.

This is merely the latest in a series of similar scams. For example, as reported in an Apple Support Communities thread posted in January, Skype users may receive a false alert claiming: “ATTENTION! Security Center has detected malware on your computer.”

How can you tell if these warnings are phony? What should you do if and when you receive one?

For starters, assume that all such unfamiliar messages are scams. Better safe than sorry. There are no legitimate error messages in Mac OS X or Safari (or any other Internet-connected software that I have ever used) that directly link to unrelated third-party sites. If the third-party site requests any personal information, from an email address to a credit card number, be even more suspicious (if that’s possible).

Don’t click on any links included in such messages. Don’t install any software that accompanies the message. Don’t provide any personal information at all. In fact, don’t do anything that the message requests that you do. Just ignore it and discard it.

Similarly, beware of phishing scams in emails that you receive. If you get an email, even from a website that you frequent (such as Facebook or PayPal), that includes a link to login to the site: beware. It could be a fake message taking you to a phony site–all designed to trick you into giving scammers your username, password, and/or credit card number.

As a rule, whenever I receive any such messages from known vendors, if I think there is any chance that the message is legitimate, I separately log in to the site, ignoring the provided link. If I truly need to perform the requested action, I should be prompted to do so.

The same rule applies to e-mail attachments. Be especially suspicious of unsolicited attachments from unknown senders. In this regard, Microsoft recently posted Security Bulletin MS11-036, describing a vulnerability in Microsoft PowerPoint that “could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted PowerPoint file. An attacker… could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user.” You could be at risk by opening a suspect PowerPoint file that you received in an e-mail. On a Mac, the danger is limited to Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 (not the latest 2011 version). An update to patch the security hole is in the works, and should be available soon.

This is the world we live in–where being skeptical typically pays off and being trusting too often leads to disaster. Still, I suppose it’s always been that way. The technology keeps getting updated; the dangers stay the same.

Courtesy: PC word. Ted Landau

Piracy cost the software industry a record $58.8 billion last year, a 14% gain that was driven by increasing computer use in emerging economies like China.

The Business Software Alliance. a trade group that includes tech giants like Apple Inc.(AAPL) and Microsoft Corp.(MSFT), warned Thursday that the economic impact of illegal software use will continue to grow if authorities in the world’s hottest economies don’t show they’re serious about stamping out theft.

“The story in this is that for an industry that’s really at the heart of the digital economy, that the rampant increase in the value of pirated software is effectively causing the industry to be robbed blind,” Robert Holleyman, president and chief executive of the BSA, said in an interview.”It’s really out of control in the world’s fastest-growing markets.”

Emerging economies accounted for over 54% of global software losses, up from 52% the previous year and less than a third six years ago. In a worrisome sign, those countries made up over half of all computer shipments worldwide for the first time last year, but they held less than a fifth of the value of paid software licenses.

China continues to be the biggest challenge for the industry, with software losses increasing 3%, to $7.8 billion, to remain second only to the $9.5 billion cost in the U.S. While the piracy rate in China edged down by a percentage point, to 78%, that means nearly four out of five programs installed there are unlicensed–versus just one out of five in the U.S.

As an indication of the economic significance software piracy poses, U.S. officials added the issue of software piracy to the agenda of this week’s high-level bilateral talks for the first time While the overall cost of piracy continues to mount worldwide, however, the global piracy rate actually dipped by a percentage point, to 42%. The group attributed the slight improvement in the rate of piracy–the percentage of software programs installed that aren’t licensed–to the sharp increase in sales of laptops that come with pre-installed bundled software and industry efforts to promote legalization.

A survey conducted along with this year’s study suggests that part of the problem could be relatively simple to address through basic awareness and enforcement, since seven out of 10 computer users say they support paying software developer in order to promote technological advances. Moreover, the most common piracy activity in developing countries is to buy a copy of licensed software and install it on multiple computers. Over half of people surveyed in those countries didn’t know that is illegal.

Courtesy :  Tom Barkley, Dow Jones Newswires

Why is there a gap in the college output and employability? Lets talk about IT / ITES hires. In spite of college degree + certificate courses there is still a gap. What according to you is the biggest gap and missing skill set in new entrants into your company.

The question was born keeping two scenarios in mind..one the bigger companies keep hiring, as you rightly said, keeping the training aspect in mind. A lot of time & money is being spent.. and not much is thought about, as it is necessary to make the freshers employable.

Secondly, one of the reasons for attrition is the same gap.. freshes who are not hired by bigger companies swamp smaller companies and startups to use them as ladders. And the trained resource from bigger companies keep hoping jobs in the name of new technology.

What ever be the case companies are spending both time and efforts for development of skill sets which can come from the market itself..if domain experts and industry leaders come to open and clearly state, like what you have done, the exact gap, the actual pain area..then the issue can be addressed..

2% of the revenue goes to educating freshers to become employees”. So, it’s good to identify these gaps and fulfill…

Post your commets..

If BlackBerry creates problems for corporate e-mail users on the move because it cannot comply with the security monitoring norms of the government, a homegrown firm is ready to offer a similar service with that problem removed.
Welcome to BharatBerry! Dubbed as “an India compliant end-to-end service” this venture started by Ajay Data,36, from Rajasthan says a BharatBerry service (in which handsets are not made by the firm) aims to address one million BlackBerry users as a market should Research In Motion fails to comply with government requirements that it must allow interventions to help law enforcers trying to check abuse of confidential corporate mail by terror groups.

“It is an alternative for the existing and potential BlackBerry handset users who are worried about the disruption of this service,” Data toldHindustan Times.

A PhD from Netherlands, Data says his firm, Jaipur-based Data Infosys Ltd, offers calendar, contact management and other value-addition through its e-mail server, XGeN Plus and compatible open-source technologies.

It might not be quite the thing for multinationals with a global footprint,but the affordability makes it quite Indian as it is available for monthly fee that is a fraction of base-level BlackBerry offers.

“We have tested the service thoroughly on all BlackBerry models and it works well with all of them. It is a completely secure, fully tested, and totally reliable service for as low as R250 a month,”Data said.

Data Infosys offers BlackBerry-like security, akin to corporate IT systems, but over a larger network.

“The data stored on our server is encrypted and behind a firewall,” Data said.

“Before we encrypt and send the email to users’ handsets, the BharatBerry server can give monitoring capability on any user the government desires.”

This contrasts BlackBerry approach, which offers a secure encryption but does not offer any interface for other agencies. In fact, RIM says it has no window of its own to the data it encrypts.

Company officials said BharatBerry follows a 128-bit encryption, considered a high industry standard. BlackBerry has a proprietary encryption with its own technological secret sauce.

Data said his technology platform is already being used by the Reserve Bank of India and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times.

Since early 1990s, many firms around the world have shifted their information technology (IT) strategy from developing information systems in-house to purchasing application software such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

As more and more enterprises move from functional to process-based IT infrastructure, ERP system becomes one of today’s most widely used IT solutions in many large enterprises. IT managers responsible for managing their organization’s ERP implementation view their ERP systems as their organizations’ most strategic computing platform. In spite of the widely used IT solutions, many ERP implementations are not successful. It takes longer time and costs more money than expected. Given the large investment that an ERP project requires and the potential benefits it can offer if successfully implemented, it is important to understand what is needed to ensure a successful ERP Implementation , during a whole process of ERP implementation, i.e.: pre implementation phase, implementation phase and post-implementation phase.

Serving as a company’s central nervous system, ERP systems orchestrate many functions, including order management, materials planning, warehouse management, payables, receivables, and general ledger. Because these systems touch so many aspects of a company’s internal and external operations their successful deployment and use are critical to organizational performance and survival. In reality, ERP implementation is costly and complex. In many cases, ERP is the largest single investment in any corporate-wide project. The software is expensive, and the consulting costs even more

Here is what works and what you need to do to reap the benefits of a fully integrated business.

A critical success factor is something that the organization must do well to succeed. In

terms of information system projects, a critical success factor is what a system must do

to accomplish what it was designed to do. Three factors consistently appear as critical success factors for information systems projects: top management support, client consultation (user involvement), and clear project objectives

The critical success factors can be categorized as strategic factors, tactical factors, and operational factors.

Strategic factors:

Top management support – In any ERP implementation a top-down decision, approach needs to be taken for ERP adoption .The commitment of top management should be emphasized throughout an organization. In particular, no more important factor than the support of the management is critical in the project’s life. The roles of top management in IT implementation include developing an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of IT, establishing reasonable goals for IT systems, exhibiting strong commitment to the successful introduction of IT, and communicating the corporate IT strategy to all employees Senior management must be involved, including the required people and appropriate time to finish and allocate valuable resources to the implementation effort.

Tactical factors:

Effective project management – in order to successfully accomplish the decision

to implement an ERP system, the effective project management comes into play

to plan, coordinate and control such an intricate project. In order for the ERP system to progress it is critical to clarify the ERP project’s and every participators’ scope and ensure

consideration of all the required work

Re-engineering business processes –To gain full benefit of ERP systems, it is imperative that business processes are aligned with the ERP systems, It is a proven fact that the ERP itself can not improve the firm’s performance unless the firm reengineers the business process per ERP systems. Modification of the software causes problems, such as code errors and difficulty upgrading to new versions. Each company needs customized software, but the organization must keep customization to a minimum, since any modification will lead to higher related cost . It is very important to consider the extent to which the company needs to re-engineer its current business processes in order to be compatible with the ERP software

Suitability of software and hardware – management must make a careful choice of an ERP package that best matches the legacy systems, e.g. the hardware platform, databases and operating systems.

Operational factors:

Education and training – when the ERP system is up and running it is very important that the users be capable to use it, hence they should be aware of the ERP logic and concepts and should be familiar with the system’s features. ERP systems involve big change for people, and the system will not do you any good if people do not understand how to use it effectively. Therefore, spending time on money on training, change management, job design, etc. is crucial to any ERP project.

User involvement – participating in the system development and implementation, the users go through a transition period that gives them time to better understand the project’s consequences.

By ensuring these critical success factors in place, your organization will be much more likely to maximize the business benefits of ERP.

Courtesy: Articlesbase

In the recent turn of events, the Indian tech market has shocked the world through hopes of selling a tablet for $35 or less. Assuming the fact that India can get to have its contracts straightened out with manufacturers and suppliers, what can you expect from this practically disposable tablet device?

The rumors point out that the device will have no internal memory unit – it will rely on a Micro SD flash card. There’s going to be 2 gigs of RAM and a USB port + Wi-FI connectivity for smart PC enthusiasts. All the more these specs seem reasonable for $35.

In terms of software compatibility and features, the tablet will have a PDF reader, office, multimedia player, online video conferencing tools, web browser and all the right things to set you off in the right direction. PC purists are already questioning the value of the tablets from a long term perspective. We already know that for $ 400, out investment is not going to last forever for in our iPad. *What we need it something cheap, up to date and disposable and $35 range seems perfect for that.

As of now, the idea is still lying somewhere up there in the production+ materializing state. So far, the infamous $35 tablet hasn’t really even made it as a prototype to the surface. There was a small running model of it, but we were not given enough details on it. Having said that, the Indian industry for tablets is all set to push the envelope. We can say one thing for sure; the $35 tablet will be a big success in the international market.

Courtesy: Tech Reviews