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Showing posts from July, 2008

IBM Sets up Tivoli Center in India - Rekha Garapati, Director IBM India Software Lab

IBM has set up a center in Pune, India, that aims to give its customers the opportunity to understand and test service management concepts and technology built into its Tivoli software. The center will focus and build skills in areas such as telecommunications, security, automation and asset management, Rekha Garapati Director IBM said. Service management gives customers better visibility into its IT assets and applications, while also enabling better security, compliance management and automation, said Rekha Garapati, director at IBM India Software Lab. The new center, called the IBM Service Management Center of Excellence, will be used by IBM's sales and marketing teams for customers both in India and in the Asia-Pacific region, Garapati added. Some of the services it will provide to IBM sales teams and to partners include facilities for proofs-of-concept, demos, and workshops. IBM already does some of its product development for Tivoli software in Pune, which will ensure that

hi5 Is Fastest-Growing Top-10 Social Network in the World for First Half of 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 29, 2008 -- hi5 Networks, one of the world's largest social networks, announced today that it is also the world's fastest growing among the top-10 global social networks. Based on the June comScore Media Metrix worldwide figures released today, hi5 grew 79% in the first half of 2008 - more than twice the growth rate of any of the top 10 social networks. According to comScore, the popular site's monthly unique visitors increased from 31.4 million in December 2007 to 56.4 million in June 2008 - an increase of 25 million monthly visitors. The June numbers firmly establish hi5 as the company to watch in the social networking category. According to comScore, Facebook and MySpace increased 35% and 10%, respectively, over the same time period. And hi5, with its huge international user base, has nearly 20 million more unique visitors per month than other comparable sites in the social networking category, including Orkut, Bebo, and Friendster. "These latest

Akken Releases New Back Office Features to their All-in-One Staffing Software System

Akken (Giridhar Akkineni Founder, CEO) , the first All-in-One on demand staffing software and recruiting software provider has upgraded its invoice design editor, making it one of the most automated, flexible invoicing tools available on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. This enhancement is included for all Akken Staffing users at no additional charge. With this innovative breakthrough, staffing and recruiting companies can accommodate a client's complex, specific billing requirements and create customized, professional invoices with just a few clicks of the mouse. With this new feature, small to mid-sized firms now have robust invoicing tools to compete with larger organizations. "This upgrade makes it simple for Akken Staffing users to create invoice templates to the exact requirements of even the most demanding customers" says Akken's vice president of engineering, Prakash Akkineni. "The biggest impact is the time our users save in the invoicing proces

Navabharat and Maytas consortium wins Hyderabad metro rail bid

The elevated metro rail project will have three routes--Miyapur to LB Nagar, Jubilee Bus Station to Falknuma and Osmania University to Shilparamam in the city Hyderabad: A consortium of Navabharat Ventures Ltd (Panda Punnaiah, Chairman), Maytas Infra Ltd, Ital Thai of Thailand and IL&FS Ltd has won the Rs12,200 crore or $2.87 billion Hyderabad Metro Rail project and will develop the 71km metro network on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis with a concession period of 30 years. The financial bids were opened here on Wednesday. The other consortia that were shortlisted included one of Essar Constructions (India) Ltd, SREI, Singapore MRT, SEC and STE, another of Nagarjuna Construction Co. Ltd, Magna Allmore of Malyasia, Siemens AG of Germany and Emirates Trading Agency of Dubai, a third of Reliance Energy Ltd and Bombardier Transportation GmbH of Canada, and a fourth of the GVK group, Gammon, Alstom Corp. of France and IDFC Ltd. The elevated metro rail project will have three ro

Solar Semiconductor & AS Solar Make US $629 Million Deal

Solar Semiconductor and AS Solar GmbH have announced that the two companies have signed a strategic partnership for the supply of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules. This multi-year partnership is valued at approximately US $695 million. "Solar Semiconductor has achieved phenomenal success in the European market in a very short period of time primarily due to our emphasis on quality and partnering with companies which value quality and customer service above everything else. In AS Solar we have such a partner." -- Hari Surapaneni, CEO, Solar Semiconductor The modules, which will be produced by Solar Semiconductor , will be used by AS Solar in the European market. The deal was announced during Intersolar North America in San Francisco, California this week. "Solar Semiconductor has achieved phenomenal success in the European market in a very short period of time primarily due to our emphasis on quality and partnering with companies which value quality and customer servic

Navayuga unveils India's largest private sector port in Krishnapatnam

Billed to usher in a new chapter in Indo-Gulf and Indo-Far Eastern trade, the Krishnapatnam Port is promoted by Navayuga Group, which recently entered the UAE market with its subsidiary company Navayuga Engineering (NEC) targeting a turnover of Dhs800m from the region by the end of 2009. Navayuga had won a build-operate-share-transfer (BOST) concession from the Andhra Pradesh government for the port, which has a total capital expenditure of INR120bn (Dhs10bn; $2.75bn). The port is the first of the state-owned minor ports to be awarded to a private company for development and operations. Mr Chinta Visveswara Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Navayuga Group, said the port will have an eventual cargo capacity of 125 million tonnes, and will be one of the largest container terminals in the country. 'The port will play a key role in further energizing trade between India and the Gulf region, with its dedicated iron ore handling units, coal jetties and general cargo handling facilitie

Satya Nadella - Microsoft confirms Powerset Acquisition

Natural language search becoming a priority Satyanarayana Nadella, the senior vice president of Microsoft's Search, Portal & Advertising Platform Group, isn't afraid to admit that the current crop of search engines suffer from some problems. Nadella seems to be hoping, however, that his company's acquisition of Powerset will help it solve them. Yes, Microsoft and Powerset are fessing up to the deal that was discovered last week. Perhaps since the younger company's abilities remain somewhat unproven, Nadella writes on the Live Search blog , "We're buying Powerset first and foremost because we're impressed with the people there." He also didn't get into the issue of price, which leaves us with the $100 million estimate from earlier. Yet natural language search will be quite important to Microsoft as Nadella later mentioned a "shared vision . . . to take Search to the next level by adding understanding of the intent and meaning behind the

Karuturi may sell stake in Ethiopia unit

BANGALORE: Karuturi Global, worlds biggest floriculture company , expects to sell a part of its stake in its Ethiopian subsidiary to private equity players by August and is aiming at a valuation of close to $1 billion for the overseas unit. This stake sale will help fund Ethiopian Meadows planned projects in floriculture as well as sugarcane and oil-palm cultivation and processing. Our programme in Ethiopia is drawing attention of various private equity players. It would not be possible to divulge the names of entities at this point of time. We have also commenced our search for setting up base in Ecuador and Colombia, Karuturi chief Managing Director, Karuturi S Ramakrishna said. Karuturi is believed to be looking to sell a 10-15% stake in the subsidiary.

Solar Semiconductor Announces Strategic Supplier Relationship With SolarWorld AG

June 30, 2008: Solar Semiconductor strengthened its position as a rapidly growing international manufacturer of high-quality solar photovoltaic (PV) modules today by concluding a comprehensive delivery agreement with SolarWorld AG subsidiary Deutsche Solar AG , which operates one of the largest factories worldwide for the production of multi-crystalline solar silicon wafers. The agreement is a multi-year contract for the delivery of wafers worth over $1.2 billion U.S. dollars (750 million euros ). Significant and Proven Step Ensuring a Steady Module Supply“We are very pleased to conclude a long term wafer-delivery agreement and are proud to be associated with SolarWorld AG,” commented Hari Surapaneni, Chief Executive Officer of Solar Semiconductor . “Solar Semiconductor has a reputation for delivering the highest quality modules to the global marketplace. One of the key raw materials is the cell which derives its high quality from the source wafer. As a rapidly growing manufacturer

Social Network Hi5 Acquires PixVerse

June 30, San Francisco - Online social network Hi5 announced on Monday that it has acquired PixVerse, the provider of a Flash-based, no-download virtual world platform for social networks. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. PixVerse was founded in 2007 and backed by venture capital firm Venrock. The company is one of thousands of third-party developers that have written applications that run on Hi5, which claims 80 million users. "Communicating with friends is one of the primary benefits of hi5, and this technology and team enables hi5 to deliver a much richer, more visual medium of interaction for users of our network," said Hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi.