Tamil bloggers’ ‘unconference’ to take place on Sunday

Chennai: A group of Tamil bloggers from the city — ‘Chennai Valaipathivar Pattarai’ — is organising an ‘unconference’ style Tamil bloggers’ camp and workshop at the Tamil Department, Madras University Marina campus on Sunday. The workshop will be conducted in Tamil by Tamil bloggers, and in true ‘unconference’ style the participants can nominate themselves as speakers.

Blogging in Tamil has caught up in recent times. According to thamizmanam.com, a leading aggregator of Tamil blogs, there are more than 2,000 Tamil bloggers active in the blogosphere.More than 40,000 articles have been written in t hese blogs by Tamil bloggers, whose age ranges from 7 to 70 years, a press release issued by the organisers said.In addition to blogging basics, the workshop will cover topics such as ‘blogging as a profession’, ‘blogging for social cause’ and ‘corporate blogging’. It is a sincere attempt to take Tamil blogging to the next level. The highlight will be demonstrations by experts on Tamil computer writing and getting them published in blogs. For details call 98407 41478.

Allsec Tech to Open its center at Trichy ..

Business process outsourcing firm, Allsec Technologies has reported 32 per cent decrease in net profit at Rs 4.57 crore for the quarter ending June 30, compared to Rs 6.77 crore during the same period last year.

The decline in revenue and profitability was mainly on account of appreciating rupee, a release said here today. Gross revenue for the quarter stood at Rs 26.99 crore, compared to Rs 28.75 crore last year, falling six per cent.

The company was setting up a new 200 seater facility at Trichy, which was expected to become operational in the second quarter of 2007-08, it release said.

Taley tied up with UK firm

Chennai: Tally Software, the accounting software major, has tied up with UK-based International Institute of Certified Bookkeepers.CEO of Education and Training Wing of Tally Avinash Gupta, who was in Chennai on Friday to interact with the company’s partners, said students who had completed the “Tally certification” programme will be able to transfer their credits for higher studies in UK. The Institute of Bookkeepers recognised the Tally programme as a “Level 5” certification.

Students can appear for the “Tally Financial Accounting Certification” test at any of Tally’s centres. The 90-minute online test will include multiple-choice questions. The examination fee is Rs.1,350.Tally has over 90 per cent market share of all accounting software in India and also has a strong presence across the globe.He said the company identified training as a separate strategic business unit in 2004.The company currently has 1,100 training centres and tie-ups with 800 colleges.

Plan to float a new web portal in Tamil

Madurai:S. Tamilselvan of National Literacy Mission speaking at a workshop in Madurai. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), a research wing of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, has planned to float a web portal in Tamil to help people from rural areas gain knowledge about child rights, education and technology.The Centre of India Development Gateway (INDG) and Hyderabad-based Centre for World Solidarity and Littles Trust organised a State-level workshop on `Universalisation of education and child rights' here on Thursday.

A discussion was organised to decide on the contents of the portal, content providers, validators and translators.Briefing about the workshop, T.R. Parvatha Varthini of Littles Trust, a Madurai-based non-Governmental organisation working for children, said that the portal would focus on strengthening first-level service providers to discharge services more effectively. It would also educate the actual end user on various issues in five identified areas such as agriculture, healthcare, rural energy, education and e-governance.

The portal aimed at facilitating technology to serve as means to provide information and share knowledge.The participants discussed 13 topics, including database, programme policies, laws and legislation, child rights and protection, e-forum and teaching methodologies. They wanted the portal to give more details on `Sarva Siksha Abhiyan' and space for students to assess their teachers' performances annually.The portal would also serve as a platform for the rural children and the public to post their views on Government policies and schemes, provided if the information is properly validated at various levels, Ms. Varthini said.

Inaugurating the workshop, S. Tamilselvan of National Literacy Mission, said that education should be demystified and the interests of children protected.As many as 45 participants from 18 districts, including representatives from non-governmental organisations, teachers, doctors and advocates, took part in the workshop.Persons interested in contributing to the portal can log on to http://www.indg.in/

Cellphone anti-theft software launched

Chennai: A software to help mobile phone users turn the tables on handset thieves was launched in the city on Thursday.Mumbai-based Innova Technologies unveiled the Virtual Mobile Security (VMS) suite, an anti-theft software that would lock up the phones in case of unauthorised SIM card change or if the owner sends a text message alert to the culprit. The password-protected software would literally render the handset useless to anyone but the owner.

It would also forward the new SIM card number, the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the handset and the cell phone number of the new user via an SMS to a mobile phone nominated by the user.It would run on stealth mode, the company representatives told reporters at the launch function. "The new user would not even know that he is being tracked," they added.Right now the software is compatible only with second and third generation Nokia mobiles using Symbian OS.

The software also provides the registered users to spy on the new users and even nag them. It would set off an alarm siren every time the user receives a call. There is also an option to activate the speakerphone remotely to spy on the new user. Though it is similar to other anti-theft software available in the developed markets, such as Symbian Guru's `Phone Guardian,' Innova Technologies promoter Kshitiz Jain said the software also offered an option hitherto unavailable.

"The user can retrieve important phone numbers from the mobile by sending an SMS to the new user.This is an important feature because most users do not know the stored phone numbers by heart." Innova has tied up with Vibrant Marketing to market the product in Chennai.It would be available with mobile phone retailers soon.

Sundaram infotech tied with Jordan comp

Sundaram Infotech Solutions (SISL), IT arm of Chennaibased NBFC Sundaram Finance has tied up with Jordan-based Business Soft to target the financial services and manufacturing segments in the West Asian country. Business Soft will market Microsoft’s ERP Axapta, customised by SISL. Mr Srinivas Acharya, CEO, SISL and Deputy MD, Sundaram Finance, said “ERP market in Jordan is just beginning to grow as the SME sector has started modernising. In fact, SISL sees great potential there as the market has opened up to ERP implementation and the Microsoft product is the right fix for them.”

He said SISL’s growth strategy as it expands into a new geographies is to partner with leading local players in that market. “Business Soft has a proven track record in the Jordan market and we are confident that our partnership will add value to our offerings in that market,” he said. Mr J Raghunathan, VP-marketing, SISL said the tie up brings together development strengths of SISL and marketing expertise of Business Soft. SISL would provide technology solutions and support delivery, both on site and off shore from its Chennai software development facility.

Guruji launched Tamil search capabilities

Chennai: Guruji.com, 'the Indian search engine', has launched Tamil search capabilities on its site, in addition to the existing Hindi, Telugu and Kannada options. In a few weeks, the site plans to add Malayalam too to its roster.Speaking to Business Line, ahead of the official launch on Tuesday, the founders Mr Anurag Dod and Mr Gaurav Mishra said that offering vernacular search is key to expanding the Internet user base in the country. “The future is in regional languages. That’s why we are releasing one language capability after the other, in quick succession,” said Mr Mishra.

Guruji.com is planning to capitalise on the wide reach of Tamil-speaking diaspora. Around 200 million people speak Tamil in India, and an equal number, in the rest of the world. “We see a huge surge in the southern region, which makes it our focal point,” said Mr Mishra.Mr Dod said that the response to native language search has been “tremendous and encouraging. We have logged in more than 10 million hits.”Guruji.com is backed by Sequoia Capital, which also funded Google, the world’s most popular search engine, years ago.The founders said that their plans for the current fiscal include adding other services, such as maps, music, and video. A plan to offer search results on the mobile platform is also on the anvil, according to Mr Mishra.

Synaptris ties up with Gee Kay ..

Synaptris, a software products company, has tied up with Gee Kay Systems, a Hong Kong-based financial management solutions firm to venture into that region. As per the agreement, Gee Kay Systems will market, support and implement Synaptris’ reporting and analysis solutions in Hong Kong, the company said. Mr Madan S Kumar, CEO, Synaptris, said the partnership would help in addressing the needs of Hong Kong market in financial management area.

Gee Kay will dedicate an exclusive team to provide sales, product evaluation and postsales support to its customers for Synaptris’ products. Synaptris specialises in reporting and analysis solutions. These solutions have a huge potential in Hong Kong market, Mr Kannan Krishnan, MD, Gee Kay Systems said. “Financial decisions are critical and have enterprise-wide impact. Hence, it is important to ensure better information management for rapid and informed decision-making,” he added

Calsoft accquire Aspire Comm..

California Software is to acquire 51% equity in Aspire Communications, a hardware design services company in a cash and stock deal for an undisclosed amount. The two companies signed an MoU on Tuesday, which culminate into a final share purchase agreement. The process is expected to culminate by July 2007 and to add $3 million in revenue and $4,00,000 in net profit to the Calsoft Group in 2007-08.

Mr Sam Santhosh, MD and CEO, Calsoft, said, “This acquisition will help Calsoft augment its Product Engineering Services.” Dr Mahesh K Rao, CEO, Aspire Communications, said “We are excited at the opportunity of servicing the Calsoft customer base, especially the BIOS and Flash customers in US and China. Joining the Calsoft group will allow us to grow faster under a bigger umbrella.”

Symantec increases Head Count !

SYMANTEC India, which recently set up its second centre in India at Chennai, is planning to touch a headcount of 3,500 in the next 2-3 years. Currently, the company has 2,200 people in its Pune centre. Symantec India is also preparing to launch two new products this year, one of which was completely developed in the country. Anil Chakravarthy, head-R&D, Symantec India said, “We are looking to grow our headcount to 1,000 people in its Chennai centre. These will be in R&D, tech support and IT services.” Symantec India which also has a research lab in Pune, currently accounts for 36% of the company’s global R&D workforce.

The company has been working with Symantec’s other R&D centres, especially in the US, to develop new products. In a phenomenon which is just starting off, the Pune centre has been working on version 1.0 products, which means that the entire product has been conceived, designed, developed, tested and launched in India. Some of these have been in Storage Foundation, Server Management, NetBackup, Enterprise Vault and Control Compliance Suite. “This year, we will be launching two products -data leakage prevention tool and web security product,” he said. The data leakage prevention tool, developed completely in India, helps companies prevent people from taking out confidential information.

US Embassy To Adopt Tough Steps For Visa Fraud

Concerned at the large number of people giving false information to obtain visas for the United States, its embassy in India has decided on tough steps to check visa fraud including taking "fingerprints of all 10 digits"."The US Mission is alarmed by the rush of clearly unqualified visa applicants in recent weeks. A significant number of applicants are relying on incorrect information and are using false documents to support their applications," US Consul General Peter Kaestner told reporters at the Press Club here.He, was quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI), as saying that it had decided on touch steps to curb visa fraud and while biometric samples and electronic images of a person's face were already being taken along with two fingerprints.

"Fingerprints of all 10 digits will now be taken to make it impossible for anybody to cheat to get a visa," he said.Replying to a question on the recent case of alleged involvement of some MPs in human trafficking, Kaestner said they had strict procedures in place to detect such fraud."Only a few months back, we had this gentleman who pretended to be from the Congress party and gave us false documents to obtain a visa but he was caught," he said.

From October 2005 to September 2006, he said 460,000 visa applications had been processed while between October 2006 and September 2007, they were expecting the figure to jump to 700,000.Kaestner said in March they had brought down the waiting period of getting visas from 6 months to 6 days but with rush of unqualified visa seekers the waiting time was now around a month.The refusal rate had gone up to 30 percent from 20 percent because of fraudulent information and documents given by people, he said.He said there were individuals and companies taking advantage of citizens by suggesting they could provide a short cut to an American visa."They are deceiving innocent people into wasting their money and making it harder for legitimate travellers to obtain visa appointments," Kaestner said.

On some Indian firms being asked to disclose workforce details by two US lawmakers who felt H-IB visas were being abused to displace qualified American workers, he said information was being gathered and the US senate preparing a comprehensive immigration reform legislation.To a question, he said 30,000 Green Cards were given to Indians last year even as "no limit" had been put on student visas."Last year, we issued 26,000 student visas to Indians, showing an increase of 30 percent in the number of visas issued in 2005. We are also in the process of negotiating with the Indian government our partnership to double the Fullbright scholarships," he said.

BSNL plans to launch Internet Protocol Television

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) plans to launch Internet Protocol Television services in cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata. It had successfully launched IPTV in Pune recently.

Also BSNL is readying itself to expand the customer base for broadband activity and by June 2007. It expects to release 3.3 million broadband connections in urban areas and two million-plus connections in the rural areas.

eBay India Motors enhancing in TN

'eBay India Motors,' a leading only B2B marketplace, announced its plans of enhancing focus in Tamil Nadu.The company also plans to increase awareness of eBay platform and the opportunities it provides for corporates and dealers across the state, 'eBay India Motors' Director Amit Bhartiya told newspersons here today."Our company is a B2B motors marketplace where corporates, financial institutions, large dealers and fleet owners sell vehicles to automobile dealers across the country," he informed.He pointed out "1000 dealer-entrepreneurs (12.5 per cent), who buy on the platform in the country are from Tamil Nadu, making it an emerging market for eCommerce development." "Many of these dealers were new to the internet with over 60 per cent getting first introduced to the computer and the internet through eBay training,"

Mr Bartiya said adding about 61 per cent of the dealers come from small towns like Tuticorin, Marthandam, Karikudi and Pollachi.He said the complany provides free training to registered dealers across the country through the 'eBay Motors Academy.' "The academy conducts buyer-training programmes to inform the participants about the opportunity, benefits and processes of buying on eBay," he informed adding "in addition, there is phone-based training and even regional language online animated tutorials in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Bengali."

State's e-gov network to be commissioned by June

TIRUCHI: The Tamil Nadu State Wide Area Network (TNSWAN), a major e-governance initiative to put in place the backbone connectivity network of the State, is likely to be commissioned by the end of June.

TNSWAN will link Government departments to provide voice, data and video connectivity towards improving service delivery, response-time and transparency in administration.The Internet Protocol (IP) based state-of-the-art and cost effective network will provide connectivity to the Secretariat, 30 district headquarters, including the official and camp offices of Collectors and District Rural Development Agency offices, over 70 revenue divisions, 206 taluk and 384 block offices.

The project is in the advanced stage of completion and district-wise testing is under way. All the required equipment have arrived for the taluk and block-level centres. Though the target date for completion of the project is May 31, there has been slight delay of three to four weeks, according to C. Umashankar, Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), the implementing agency.

The TNSWAN network would be of two-tier architecture -- Tier I would cover the Secretariat, five Government complexes and seven special offices in Chennai and 30 district Collectorates and Tier II would cover the districts, revenue divisions, taluks and blocks. While the tier II centres would have 2 Mbps connectivity, the tier I centres would enjoy 8 to 12 Mbps bandwidth. A State Data Centre has been established in Chennai and a disaster recovery centre, which would be a data backup centre in case of disasters, is being set up in Madurai.

The network would interconnect all the administrative establishments across the State and provide adequate bandwidth for various operations/applications. It would provide uninterrupted connectivity, video communication facility between Tier I centres and integrated data/intranet/internet and voice communication facilities for both the tiers.

Get live email updates now on your mobile phone

Canada-based mobile solutions provider Consilient's `push email' service promises to do for all java-enabled mobile phones with GPRS access what hitherto has been an unique service enjoyed by expensive smart phones. It recently released a free version of the application for Indian mobile phone users. The mobile client can be downloaded after registering the mobile phone number at www.consilient.com.

Push email client provides an "always-on" email capability to the mobile, wherein the Consilient server actively `pushes' the emails arriving in the email inbox on to the resident client in the handset of the user. The service offers multi-account access, including popular email services of Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL and Gmail. It could also be configured for local email clients POP3 and IMAP4.The service needs a data network to run on. Bharti Airtel, Reliance India Mobile, BSNL, Hutch, IDEA and Tata Mobile offer access to the Internet through GPRS and can be used for downloading and using the Consilient Push Mail services.

In a tele-conference from Singapore, where the company has a regional office, a Consilient spokesperson said the service could be operated from almost all the GPRS-enabled handsets. Since the Consilient server would act as a relay service, the subscribers need not worry about the safety of their emails or passwords.In a press release, Consilient CEO Trevor Adey said they were excited to enter the Indian market, one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets. "People can now run mobile email for up to five accounts on their everyday mobile phones. This gives them a fresh, free alternative for mobile messaging," he added.Consilient would be wrapping the emails with advertisements. That would be its revenue model.

Helion Venture invest on Anantara Solutions

Helion Venture Partners, a $140-million India-focused, stage independent venture fund, will announce today (Wednesday) its decision to invest in Chennai-based Anantara Solutions Private Limited, ‘a new generation outsourcing firm’.In Chennai, to announce the investment, Mr Sanjeev Aggarwal and Mr Ashish Gupta, managing directors of Helion, told that Anantara’s business model and its world-class management team clinched the decision.Anantara, which in Sanskrit means ‘the continuum’, was founded by Mr G.B. Prabhat. The company promises to deliver solutions by enabling a collaborative work environment, working closely with customers and business partners.

Mr Aggarwal also said that Helion has finalised its decision to invest in two companies, one in backup software and the other in equity research. “The announcement will be made in a couple of weeks,” he added.Helion, which has offices in Bangalore and Gurgaon, focuses on sectors such as outsourcing, Internet, mobile and technology products.

NIIT opend 3 learning centres

NIIT, an IT training and knowledge solutions provider, has opened three learning centres for infrastructure management in Chennai. The facility will offer programmes in networking and infrastructure management technologies, under the institute’s NetworkLABS curriculum.

“The industry is facing an acute shortage of skilled professionals in the networking and infrastructure management space. Our NetworkLABS training programmes have been designed, keeping in mind the current trends and emerging networking technologies and provides the learners the edge to take up jobs in this emerging sector,” said G Raghavan, president, Global Individual Learning Business, NIIT. The company added that according to a recent study, the growing hardware deployment and support market, estimated to grow at a compounded rate of nearly 8% to $6 billion by 2010 in Asia, could face a shortfall of nearly one lakh professionals against the need for 375,000 by 2009.

The NIIT NetworkLABS curriculum provides students with experience of Infrastructure Management, Business Desktop Deployment, WAN, OS Deployment and others and training to pursue globally mapped certification programmes such as A+, Network+, MCDST, MCSE and CCNA.

TimesJobs.com Jumbo Job and Professional Education Fair

The Annual TimesJobs.com Jumbo Job and Professional Education Fair opened as a huge success and saw thousands of Job-seekers walk-in and walk away with over 3,500 Jobs offers on Day 1– on-the spot- from the 100+ companies recruiting at the Jumbo.The Hon’ble Minster of State for Industry, Shri Ashwani Kumar, while inaugurating the TimesJobs.com Jumbo Job Fair said, “I am amazed at how much has been achieved through TimesJobs.com’s fairs, in terms of employment generation.On behalf of the Government, I must also say, that while we are extremely proud of the way the Indian Economy is growing, we have recorded the highest economic growth rate in the history of our nation, but is equally true that we need to translate this growth into jobs and careers for our youth, who have a legitimate expectation of a quality of life that their predecessors, perhaps could not have.”

After having access to excellent education, it is only fair, that in India, recording high growth rates we are able to promise a better future to our people, in that context, the Government is supportive of every single idea, that would facilitate access to gainful employment that would bring the employer and potential employee together.And I think we could not have done a better job than to organise such job fairs.I am absolutely delighted to be at the TimesJobs.com Jumbo for two reasons, while we have talked about high growth rates, we needed this growth rate to mean something for those who are unemployed, and this Job Fair organised by TimesJobs.com and ITPO has served that very vital need to bridge the gap between growth and employment. In Addition, the National Common Minimum Programme of the UPA Government lays the highest stress on employment generation, of our young people in order to achieve inclusivist growth and social equities.What is remarkable about this fair is that the aspirants are drawn not only from the metros but also from the hinterlands and small towns of India, which is where we need to create and offer employment.

In the future we will give a fillip and a push to such fairs, and our department will give total support to such ventures.”Clients at The Fair were equally please with the turnout on the first day – Mr. Sachin Varma, Sr. VP, SITEL remarked, “ We’ve been regular participants in TimesJobs.com’s Job Fairs and our experience of first day at this Jumbo has been extremely positive both in terms of the quality of people and the numbers, we shortlisted over 150 people today alone.”A spokesperson of HCL Technologies added, “Because of our positive past experience we have chosen to be the title sponsor for the three TimesJobs.com Jumbo events being in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. As usual this is event was well managed by TimesJobs.com. Today’s turnout was good and we shortlisted 30 people, and expect to recruit many more in the next 2 days.”Sonam Sangwan of QA Infotech said ” Today has been a good day, we shortlisted 75 good profiles, The quality the event and the talent available at TimesJobs.com’s Jumbo has improved tremendously, even the number of people is more than we expected, this is one of the best Jumbo Fairs we’ve participated in.”

Candidates were also charged and enthused at the Fair – Javed Khan – “ I visited this Fair for the first time and got a job. I am very happy thanks to TimesJobs.com for this great opportunity, you are doing very good work for us and help all Indians in getting the right job.”Pramod Kimar – “This is a great platform to all those youngsters looking for big companies under one roof, I am very grateful to TimesJobs.com as I was able to approach so many employers and got a job offer from Vision Unlimited.”Ms. Ojasvita Arora, a fresh graduate, who got an offer from Genpact – “It’s the best job as it will help me specialise my knowledge and enhance my skills. TimesJobs.com’s Jumbo is simply the best, as so many recruiters are here - It’s Awesome!”Ravinder Pal Singh – “ TimesJobs.com’s Jumbo was a very good break for me, as I got a good offer from an company like IBM.”Nishikant Tiwari – “TimesJobs.com’s Jumbo was very well organised, and I am very happy because I got the job of my choice with Compare Infobase”

Polaris launches development facility in Canada

Chennai-based Polaris Software Lab has launched a development centre and a software testing laboratory in Mississauga, Ontario. This facility is aimed at providing the firm’s North American clients a cost-effective nearshore application development centre that falls in the same time zone as well.The software firm announced that development and application certification projects for two customers have already commenced at the facility, situated near the Toronto airport.

Arup Gupta, president and COO, Polaris said: “The Canada centre, like our other overseas facilities improves the company’s ability to serve its North America-based clientele with the convenience and cost-efficiency of a nearshore facility.” He added that the newly-launched lab reflected the company’s strategy to assume the lead in providing specialised testing solutions for global banking and financial services institutions through the PACE practice, integrating local expertise in domain and technology. Polaris Application Certification Enterprise (PACE) is an independent verification and validation unit of the company that’s been providing testing services to global financial institutions for the last eight years. The Global PACE Lab, provides independent performance engineering consultancy services, ISV and product performance benchmarking, remote application performance testing and tuning, customer application hosting and testing and remote application and systems performance, availability and stability management.

TCS Join hands with MS

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global IT services, business solutions and outsourcing firm have joined hands with Microsoft Corporation to deliver Business Intelligence and Performance Management (BIPM) solutions to global companies. TCS BIPM practice experts will be showcasing solution accelerators based on the Microsoft platform, and will also present a breakout session on creating agile, adaptable and efficient enterprises. TCS' BIPM practice has a holistic view of Business Intelligence and Performance Management. TCS believes that 'Enterprise Intelligence' will drive business outcomes, if powered by process integration and business innovation.

Santosh Mohanty, global head (BIPM Practice) of TCS said, "The unique confluence of Microsoft's technologies such as SQL Server, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 and the 2007 Office system, along with the elaborate architectural framework offered by TCS, provides customers with a solution ecosystem supporting organizational agility, efficiency and adaptability." TCS has created a service oriented framework "SOLAR" to strategize and deliver the BIPM solution for the enterprise. The SOLAR framework brings the right alignment of 'Integration, Intelligence and Innovation' and 'Process, Performance and Prediction'. The TCS BIPM practice currently has 7,000 consultants and contributes to 10% of TCS' global revenues. The announcement was made at the first-ever Microsoft BI Conference being held in Seattle, Washington, at which TCS is a platinum sponsor.