Inatech gears up for Reg:Connection Point Dubai

Inatech gears up for Reg:Connection Point Dubai

Inatech has announced its itinerary for Reg:Connection Point, taking place at the Dhow Palace Hotel, Dubai, on April 1st-2nd.

The event is expected to attract around 70 attendees and offers a number of presentations.

Oracle’s Cliff Godwin will update attendees on Oracle E-Business Suite; Jim Bistis of Core Services will present on outsourced hosting; Oracle’s Omar Tahoub will give a speech on financial management solutions; and many more.

Other seminars and presentations will discuss upgrade best practices, SOA, Fusion Middleware, and government, retail and airline industry software uses.

Inatech will make case studies of its own work available, on topics such as integration/service orientated architecture and identity management.

There will also be a quiz and a raffle with prizes for attendees.

Passes for the event are priced at $450 for the full conference, or $300 for a one day pass.

Inatech talks Business Intelligence Standardization

The most recent Gartner report on standardization of Business Intelligence says businesses hugely benefit from implementing BI standards. This is all very well, but standardization involves time and money that many organizations simply feel they don’t have. Many sector experts, however, see through the apparent problem with ease.

Rather than businesses being scared of the transition, it is a simple, rational business decision to standardize. Jacqueline Coolidge of AMR Research has noted that businesses are beginning to realize that the short-term difficulty of standardization is more than outweighed by the benefits in the long run.

Inatech’s BI partner, Rosetta Stone’s Donald Macdonald is quick to agree with this point of view. “Go back just two years and there were three big players, Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion plus many of a similar size and many small ones,” He said. “The three big players have gone, been swallowed by IBM (Cognos), SAP (Business Objects) and Oracle (Hyperion) and this makes you consider where the BI sector will be in five years time.

“We see that people are generally adopting a common platform and so are standardizing around a product stack from SAP, Microsoft or Oracle. This is leading organizations to standardize their BI tools where possible on their Platform provider. There are obvious benefits of integration, support, training, interoperability, supplier leverage and so on.

“Oracle is making standardization even more appealing by offering pre-built data warehousing modules that fit right over it's e-Business Suite ERP system and deliver immediate capability out-of-the-box. If it was free, everyone would take it because its value proposition is quite compelling.”

It’s not all so easy, however; in a recession, some companies simply want to fix one problem, rather than uproot all of their systems. Tim Young, vice-president of corporate marketing for Netezza, claims that his organization is on the side of these companies, and that singular platforms are simply for the convenience of IT suppliers. “A customer basically has a problem with a particular application - revenue assurance, loyalty management, clickstream analysis – we would come in and be considered as the solution for that particular problem," he said. "In a recession, that's all people think about. No one is thinking about corporate-wide, enterprise-wide, or culture-changing projects.

“Our view is that in most cases the advantage with the better performance will offset any perceived disadvantage [with regard to] standardization.”

Donald disagrees, saying the advantages are long-term for companies: “The challenge to standardization is that for the principles to work an organization needs to turn off its legacy BI tools and actually benefit from one platform, one solution, simplified training and support and so on.

“However, where an organization has for example 200 reports built in BI Tool A, to re-develop them may cost £200k because of the sheer effort involved and business users will not want to pay that when the incumbent tool may work perfectly well. So, migration or conversion from one tool to another is the challenge to Standardization and making it work.” So where does Inatech stand in the midst of all this change?

Donald is quick to show that the organization is at the forefront of the sector, with expectations all of its own: “Inatech predicts that within two years there will be automation tools to help organizations switch off legacy products and that laws already in place will enable that to happen quicker here in Europe than in North America.

“Already there are software tools that can speed up this process dramatically and have brought forward the financial feasibility of standardizing within the reach of many large organizations and within a couple of years all organizations, depending on which BI tools they want to replace. “Organizations who are troubled with this challenge of removing non-standard BI tools should contact Inatech for a no-obligation review as to what degree of effort, and therefore cost, this would take for them specifically.”

Donald is not alone. SAS CEO Dr Jim Goodnight said in a recent interview that companies must keep on top of their BI systems or risk being left behind: “[Businesses] should be investing in an enterprise wide platform, not just individual point solutions for each department. They really need to take a long look at some of the BI tools they might be using currently and consider how they are going to grow.”

The future of BI looks bright and exciting. Mitch Betts of ComputerWorld.com predicts a process of democratization as BI truly takes flight, with information and BI tools being put in the hands of white-collar workers rather than a handful of analysts. Donald explained in detail the future of BI consultation that will develop as a result of this general democratization process: “After Siebel acquired nQuire in 2001, they fulfilled their objective of selling a data warehousing solution right out of the box. Not just a series of reports or dashboards but the real thing. A series of staging databases, subject oriented data marts, all of the ETL feeds to populate and keep the data up-to-date and then the dashboards.

“They bought nQuire because it had the best dashboard software anywhere in the BI market and it was used in Siebel Analytics as the front end tool and Informatica was used as the ETL layer with a custom component called DAC (data warehouse application console) to manage the mappings and workflows.

“Siebel achieved a significant market share of its core CRM user base. When Oracle bought Siebel in late 2005 it didn't guess that the jewel in the crown was the Siebel Analytics solution. “Further to the Siebel acquisition, Oracle has now closely replicated the Siebel strategy by launching a series of data warehousing solutions based upon the same principles and architectures covering e-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, SAP and other applications. They are based upon the same tool set and still use Informatica and the custom DAC component.

“With Oracle having strong examples of e-Business Suite users and a market share for Oracle Business Intelligence Apps (OBIA) of only 1% or less, you can image why they are focusing on this area. Achieving a comporable market share that Siebel did will drive many millions of dollars in license revenues. However, does this mean that the need for consultants has gone away and if so will the Oracle Partners that provide services defect to other vendors?

“The simple answer is no. OBIA is maybe an 80% fit to a solution that works for an organization but in order for them to maintain their competitive edge they will need to extend and customize the OBIA solution. The real advantage of OBIA to the services sector is that it takes BI into the strategic applications area and out of the tactical solutions one. This means that when organizations have to tighten their belts they won't abandon OBIA as they may have done with a tactical BI solution.

“However, the services organizations now have a much more complex solution to master because OBIA is a complex application made up of a number of software tools working closely together. Their understanding of the processes developed and how these tools integrate will determine their success or otherwise in this evolving marketplace.

Srihari Vedante, managing director of Inatech commented: “When the going gets tough, those organisations that can leverage customer and process insights will be the ones that come out of this downturn ahead of the competition.” He added, “Challenge us show them the tangible benefits!”

Calsoft announces release of Flash Lite 3.1 Windows CE plug-in for Internet Explorer

Calsoft announced last week the release of Flash Lite 3.1 Windows CE plug-in for Internet Explorer.

Flash Lite, an optimized version of Adobe’s Flash player, is targeted towards the mobile and embedded market.

The release joins Calsoft's other standalone version of Flash Lite 3 player, which can be used for user interface, games and applications.

The new plug-in will allow users to view sites such as YouTube using IP on Windows CE devices. It will play Flash 9 content, provided it is written using Actionscript 2, and is available immediately. It will start shipping in production devices in spring 2009.

Anand Joshi, Director of Mobile and Embedded Divison at Calsoft, said:

"In the absence of Flash player, users were restricted in the amount of web content they could browse on Windows CE devices.

"This port allows users to access a wide range of rich content on the web and experience web to the fullest.

“Due to portable architecture of Flash Lite 3, it is possible to create a plug-in on a very tight schedule to meet market requirements."

Calsoft’s Sam Santhosh on OPD

Calsoft CEO and MS Sam Santhosh gave an interview with DataQuest this week on OPD. Here’s a quick summary of what he had to say on the state of the market and what Calsoft is doing in the current economic climate.

On the market performance of OPD in 2008:

“Typically the OPD market has been viewed as a stable and steady market.

“The second half of 2008 has been a tough year for all segments within the OPD space. My view is that 2009 will see the OPD market slowing down even further. In 2008 the OPD division of Calsoft grew by 29% but we do not expect the same momentum in 2009.”

On the recession and Calsoft:

”The US has been our main market and a slowdown in its economy will impact our sales. Our outlook for FY 2009 is cautious. We expect to generate more business from our relationships with industry players like Ixia with whom we have partnered. We will need to develop more such relationships.”

On Calsoft’s product engineering and product-based business solutions:

”The product engineering market is very different from the traditional IT services market. In the case of IT services the customer does not see it as a core part of their business, and hence, is keen to outsource it if the benefits are clearly visible.

“Product based solutions are service offerings based on successful products. In most cases successful products create an ecosystem of their own and thus provide many opportunities for players to provide value added solutions.”

For the full interview, click here

Virtualisation for efficiency in 2009

This year the focus is on efficiency in the IT sector, as businesses examine their balance sheets and look for areas of sunshine in streamlining. According to new research by communications provider Colt, one significant priority for improving efficiency is virtualisation.

Colt surveyed businesses within the financial services sector, including stock exchanges and investment banks, and found that 83% of respondents said that using server virtualisation software in the datacentre was at the top of their list. The ability to run multiple servers on one piece of hardware can save businesses millions; investment management company Standard Life has saved £1 million per annum by using server virtualisation software, as well as reducing energy costs by £300,000 per year.

Despite the cited advantages, more research from Earl Perkins has found that few organizations are using their investments in access, governance, risk, compliance and identity to competitive advantage. Whilst the financial sector is leading in these areas, they still have improvements to make in efficiency, which Gartner predicts that they will begin to do from 2012.

One of the barriers to efficiency, Gartner also claims, is because organisations are failing to govern properly their projects when it comes to identity and access management technologies.

The arguments for virtualisation become stronger when taken in the context of these pieces of research. Virtualisation streamlines operations and reduces time filing and accessing data, cutting down unnecessary expenditure. A business investing in virtualization will therefore consolidate technology across multiple offices, allowing it to compete effectively with its rivals. Virtualisation also introduces best practices across an organization, meaning that all employees have a better understanding of compliance. So, it is clear that businesses missing the virtualization boat will be at a disadvantage in the long run.

Virtualisation can even be managed remotely, which is why Inatech offers its iDBA iBIZ services to businesses looking to excel. These two products allow clients to access all of the advantages of virtualization, and, due to their modular nature, allow further savings as clients only pay for services they need rather than being tied into long-term contracts that outlive their usefulness.

Oracle continues series of acquisitions

Oracle has revealed plans to acquire drug safety and risk management solutions provider Relsys.

Oracle plans to add the company to its Health Sciences global business unit, and details of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

The news comes in the wake of several expansions by Oracle in the past few months. In November, Oracle bought the intellectual property assets of Tacit Software.

Over September to October, the organisation expanded dramatically. It bought ClearApp, the application management solutions provider; Haley, the policy modelling and automation software provider; Primavera, project portfolio management software provider; and Advanced Visual Technology. In the same month, Oracle also entered into a number of partnerships; its Educational Foundation joined forces with Adobe Systems Inc. to help train students, and teamed up with Intel and Net Optics to provide Prevalidated Server Solutions.

The expansion is expected to continue in the coming months well into 2009. As a Oracle Certified Advantage Partner Inatech is able to adopted, implement and consolidate all new acquisitions and developments as part of Oracle's activities.

Symantec study finds outsourcing security a top priority

75% of European organizations are outsourcing part of their security function, new research from Symantec has found.

This is because organizations are facing increasing risk, regulatory and cost pressures, plus staffing problems. The survey of 500 mid- to large-scale companies found that 95% of respondents had suffered attacks in the past two years. 75% said that organizations counted such attacks in their top two greatest risks.

Businesses require a service that tackles security risks with expertise and thoroughness. Providing clients with round the clock, seven days a week surveillance, like iDBA means that security breaches are most likely to be found and dealt with immediately.

The service relies on specialists and experts from an outsourced team, which means that clients have access to a wealth of field experience when dealing with security risks.

Iceland signs seven-year IT services deal

Frozen food retailer Iceland has signed a £11.5 million deal with an outsourcing firm for the provision of 24/7 server hosting, service desk provision, systems management, and desk side PC and Blackberry support.

The deal is an extension of an existing strategies and fits in with original technical plans, including database support, technical architecture and managed print services.

Mark Pearson, Iceland IS director, said: "The changes made to the contract have provided us with stability and security in terms of our IT platform in the current financial climate.”

The supermarket will benefit from increased support in areas vital to business such as an anti-virus service and Blackberry support for end user community on the move."

Inatech can support similar businesses needing to cut costs but be realistic in maximising operations.

Inatech marks Chandramana Ugadi

Parts of the Indian office will take time out next week to mark Chandramana Ugadi, the Hindu festival for the beginning of a new year.

The festival marks the start of spring, and celebrates new life. It is believed to have been created by Hindu pantheon Lord Brahma, and marks the beginning of the new Hindu lunar calendar.

Traditionally, Hindus celebrate the occasion by spring-cleaning their homes, dressing in new clothes, cooking special dishes and decorating the entrance to their houses with floral drawings and mango leaves, in homage to Kartik and Ganesha, the two sons of Lord Siva. Worshippers chant mantras, and make predictions for the New Year.

Linux thrives in economic downturn

A recent survey by Novell and IDC demonstrates that more than 50% of IT executives are planning to accelerate Linux adoption this year.

The research claims that the global downturn has encouraged the sudden interest in open source, improving business for Linux.

The survey of over 300 IT professionals in companies of more than 100 staff found that 72% are either deciding whether or not to increase their adoption of Linux on the server, or have already decided to do so. 68% expressed the same interest in the desktop service.

The reasons given are similar to what is driving all businesses in the current climate; cutting costs. Respondents who said they were reluctant to move over to open source gave a lack of application support and difficulties operating with Windows and other environments as reasons not to use Linux.

Markus Rex, senior vice president for open platform solutions at Novell, said: "The feedback gleaned from this survey confirms our belief that, as organisations fight to cut costs and find value in this tough economic climate, Linux adoption will accelerate.”

Following the hit of the credit crunch, Linux were quick to advocate their services, which sparked a backlash from critics who predicted the complete collapse of open source.

It would seem, however, that Linux was right. Further, it would seem that open source is growing with outsourcing; the uptake of Linux is most popular in the Asia Pacific region. Of the 134 respondents from the region, 73% expressed an interest in increasing the adoption of Linux, compared to 53% of respondents overall.

Turner Report calls for more IT in bank risk management

Yesterday’s report from chairman of the Financial Services Authority Lord Turner recommends that banks manage their exposure to risk better through more effective use of IT.

The report said that banks’ decisions should be founded on up-to-date information from IT departments. Banks will, for example, need to have more and better managed data on their available capital and the risks involved in deals.

The news comes after a general backlash against the banking system, in which critics claim that more regulation of banks and fewer incentives for staff to take risks, such as big bonuses, would have avoided the current crisis.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he had called for greater regulation and an end to unnecessary risk-taking ten years ago, and has since faced harsh criticism for not taking more action when he was Chancellor.

Lehman Brothers was the first bank to collapse in the onset of the credit crunch. Former UK COO of the bank James Martin has said that IT “has to provide completely reliable management information” in order for banks to operate responsibly.

Inatech has been working with the second largest bank in the UAE to implement transparent, secure and innovative banking technologies. The instituion's strategy is focussed on the customer working with Sharia law to maximise the faith people have in banking internationally.

Oracle March 5th

We've just returned from a well attended Oracle event, with over 400+ registrations, Inatech was of around 10 partners who had a stand. Inatech received a mixture of of traffic from DBA techies through to Architects across a broad range of industries.

We also seemed to have had more than our fair share of Industry Analysts coming past – definitely three to my knowledge which surprised me. I guess there is a lot of close monitoring being paid to the IT industry during this economic situation.

The mix of attendees was truly international, I had meetings with visitors from the UK, Europe, US and Libya.

Keith Rock, Sales Director

Inatech celebrates Milad-Un-Nabi

Inatech’s muslim community will take a break to mark Milad-Un-Nabi tomorrow.

The Muslim Bank Holiday is to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, on the 12th day of Rabi-ul-Awwal, the third month in the Islamic calendar.

During the special day, Muslims will visit mosques and offer prayers to Allah for the welfare of the Islamic people and for the forgiveness of sins, after which spiritual leaders will giver sermons on the life and lessons of Muhammad.

Across India, preparations are being made for its annual holiday in Islamic communities.

President Pratibha Patil made an address today to see in the holiday in New Delhi. “May the message of universal peace, compassion, tolerance and service to humanity preached by the holy prophet inspire us to live in fellowship, harmony and unity,” she said.

“Just like the myriad colours of Holi, our nation too is replete with diversity and let us learn to respect and protect the vibrant culture of our nation.

“Let the celebrations this year also bring the young and the old together and the joyous festivities infuse in us, a sense of compassion for our fellow human beings in our life,” she continued.

Customers can be rest assured that Inatech’s managed services will continue to operate as part of its 24/7 commitment. The company’s diversity and multiple offshore development centres across the world ensure there is no downtime and experts are at hand when required.

Inatech presents eBS Supply Chain & Manufacturing

As this year’s OBUG Benelux Connect conference looms, Inatech’s Simon Ellis, Director of Custom and Product Development, prepares to speak on eBS Supply Chain and Manufacturing.

Ellis will present a session from 11.30am-12.15pm on 31st March, in Room 12 of the Metropolis Cinema Complex in Atwerpt, Belgium.

The session will provide insight to Real World Experiences of Oracle Release 12 Supply Chain and Manufacturing. During the session, entitled "Living (again) in the Material World", which will assess how far the Oracle Supply Chain and Manufacturing products have progressed since Release 10.6.

As well as a large exhibit area in the Hollywood Lounge, at which delegates can meet, network and showcase the achievements of their organisations, there will be several other mini-lessons from the Oracle University. Marc de Kam of KPN and Balt Leenman of CapGemini will present a seminar on improving financial transaction processing and consolidation with Financial Services Accounting Hub and Oracle DRM at KPN. Gerard Stam of Public Works Rotterdam, and Eric Vennix of Deloitte will present “From Redactive To Proactive Governance”.

There will be an opening keynote speech from Jose Lazares, Vice President of Oracle's Applications Development and Applications Integration Architecture, whilst the closing keynote will come from Andrew Sutherland, vice president of technology for Oracle EMEA.

Maximising IT in a downturn

IT projects can be the first to be put on hold as companies tighten their belts to weather the current economic downturn, but as learned from the recent Oracle conference, companies that choose to cut their IT budgets run a greater risk of failing.

Conference speakers said that the economic downturn provides an opportunity for intelligent companies to stay competitive, and IT savvy solutions are what will give these companies the edge to win the race. Examples from world yacht racing as well as Formula 1 racing illustrated the conference’s main points. Round-the- world yacht races lasts weeks and quite often end in the same order as they began, but when a storm comes along, it is then that the wheat are separated from the chaff. In Formula 1 racing it is often only when the track is wet that we see a proper race.

Speakers noted that spending on IT solutions that leverage existing infrastructure will help with cut backs. (Example – eliminate duplicate letters going out to customers, especially ones that have already bought the product. This is green and saves money on a large scale.) As company CEOs spend less time with business contacts who say, “Don’t spend,” they can use this time more wisely with the CFOs to solidify the companies’ IT systems, leading to smart computing. In doing this, the companies will save money now and get a head start on the economic turn that will come.

What does this mean to us? We, as IT solutions/service providers, need to shape our message, services and prices to reflect a cost-saving solution to existing and prospective clients. If our clients understand that our services can minimise their risks, and increase their efficiency and productivity and thus net profits, we stand a good chance at not only surviving the economic downturn, but actually growing our businesses during this period.

Ian Scott
Customer Services Technician

Inatech to attend Oracle Day 2009

Inatech will be attending this year’s Oracle Day at the Chancery Court Hotel, London, on 5th March.

The day will see a number of seminars and exhibitions of the Oracle Technology stack, including Database and Middleware, SOA, Enterprise 2.0, Business Intelligence and Security. IT professionals will come together to tackle such challenges as cost-cutting, innovation and consolidation.

Inatech plans to use the event as a platform to showcase its latest achievements, such as its nomination for best Emerging Business in Applications at the Oracle Partner Awards, its selection as Oracle UK’s FY09 ISV partner, and its status as Oracle partner of choice for Retail Integration in EMEA.

Inatech will also use the occasion to demonstrate its tried-and-tested strengths and accolades. It is formally recognised by Oracle as a leader in the implementation of Application selection and evaluation of Oracle Release 12, and its leadership team are Oracle veterans who all held positions in Oracle’s senior management in EMEA, USA and India.

Further, Inatech has the chance to display some of its most impressive products and services, such as is iDBA and iBIZ modular programmes, and Business Consulting, its practice of using expert business and IT strategy assessment to plan applications and technology.

Calsoft boss talks tough in face of recession

Sam Santhosh, CEO of Calsoft, Inatech’s parent company, comes across as a intelligent realist in his latest interview with Rediff.com.

Santhosh, who set up Calsoft in 1992 in Silicon Valey, spoke to Rediff about the recession, outsourcing, entrepreneurs and business in India.

Santhosh appears as a man who understands the seriousness of the credit crunch, but refuses to panic as some businessmen have.

“The mood is pretty gloomy,” He readily admits, “the situation is bad; in fact worse than the dotcom bust. But today, the economy is global. So much wealth was created, and when it just goes away, or even a part of it goes away, the impact is more widespread. When salaries are down and you are out of a job, the situation becomes very, very serious. I can see tension among my friends. People are all worried.”

That said, Santhosh said it has not been so bad for Calsoft and its subsidiaries as it could have been. The onset of the crunch was late for the company: Staff in India are not at as great a risk of finding themselves unemployed as those in Silicon Valley. “Here in India,” Santhosh said, “we have not done any lay-offs but we are in the process of trimming a little bit. But the net numbers are not different as we are still hiring. We have to hire few people with specialised skills.”

Santhosh doesn’t try to hide the fact that outsourcing business, as with everything, has reduced by 10-15% since the recession hit. Despite this, he refuses to join the chorus of scaremongerers and doom-sayers. “I don’t think it is gloom for India, but it will be a tough time for India,” he said, and went on to explain that he did not expect India to lose its dominance in global IT markets.

In fact, he believes that with some hard work and creativity, Indian outsourcing for Calsoft and Inatech could even increase: “It is not going to go [down]. If we play our cards well, like innovating and finding out the gaps, it may go up. If we innovate, we can get more work even in the mature areas.”

“I think it’s a very good time to start an enterprise,” he said, “This is the time people will be receptive to new ideas, cost savings and cost cutting. Secondly, the time is good now for an entrepreneur to attract people. “

India takes time out to celebrate Maha Shivratri

February brought one of Hinduism’s most important festivals; Maha Shivratri.

The festival commemorates the salvation of creation by Lord Shiva, who drank demonic poison out of the ocean to prevent it wiping out the earth’s population, when asked by Lord Vishnu.

It is believed that the alighnment of planets and stars on Maha Shivratri create a natural surge of enemy in humans, making for vibrant celebrations.

The festival took place on 23rd February, during the thirteenth night and fourteenth day of the Krishna Paksha (waning moon) in the Hindu month Maagha.

Worshippers marked the occasion with music, dance, and the traditional rituals of making offerings of Bael leaves to Lord Shiva, a night long vigil (said to be beneficial to health) and a day long fast.