Top 20 software companies

Recession hit the market and there were lots of up and downs in the growth of the companies.Despite the slowdown, which did create a negative impact in the market, eight companies registered growth in the 20s :) The eight fastest growing companies among the Top 20 list included

MphasiS (Rs 3,173 crore; 69 percent)
HCL Infosystems (Rs 8,089; crore 60 percent)
Cognizant Technologies (Rs 9,410 crore; 49 percent)
Wipro (Rs 23,882 crore; 41 percent)
HCL Technologies (Rs 8764 crore; 41 percent)
SAP India (Rs 4,320 crore; 33 percent)
Dell India (Rs 4,266 crore; 32 percent )
Infosys (Rs 20,392 crore;31 percent).

Here is the list of top 20 IT companies.

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SmartGate deployed at Sydney airport

SMARTGATE, the self-processing option for travellers, is now available at Sydney International Airport.

In general, people may stand in a queue and spend lot of time at the immigration check counters in the Airport. Passport check and other authentications are done manually at many of the airports accross the world. Here we have a scope for human errors. Nw imagine a computer or a machine doing these checks with no scope of errors.

SmartGate uses ePassport data and face recognition technology to perform the customs and immigration checks usually conducted by actual officers.

The system aimed to make border crossing simpler and easier, but still maintain border integrity, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said. The system was first introduced at Brisbane airport in 2007 and is now also available at Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Cairns international airports.

To be eligible to use SmartGate, Australian and New Zealand travellers need to be the holder of an ePassport and be aged 18 or over.

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Adobe Flash Platform Media and Text Frameworks as Open Source

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced two new Adobe Flash Platform open source initiatives for developers, media companies and publishers. OSMF which is known as Open source Media Framework is a part of project code named Strobe,enables users to build more robust , feature-rich media players optimized for the Adobe Flash Platform.

The Adobe Flash Platform is a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, clients, and servers for the development of Web applications, content and video that run consistently across operating systems and devices. Adobe Flash Player content reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops, and the latest version, Flash Player 10, has been installed on more than 86 percent of computers worldwide in just the first seven months since its initial release.

The flexible OSMF architecture enables developers to easily create unique playback experiences that can leverage plug-ins for advertising, reporting metrics and content delivery along with standard video player features such as playback controls, video navigation, buffering and Dynamic Streaming. OSMF provides standard functionality along with plug-ins from third parties so content providers have the flexibility to adapt monetization strategies to specific content and the needs of their audiences.

OSMF includes an API for partners to build plug-ins for value-add services. OSMF will enable more innovation around media experiences on the Web by allowing partners to easily experiment with new services for content providers, which spans content delivery, presentation and monetization.

OSMF source code and pluggable software components are available immediately under the Mozilla Public License and available at www.OpenSourceMediaFramework.com.

The Text Layout Framework (TLF) will help developers bring sophisticated typography capabilities to Web applications. Both OSMF and TLF are now freely available as open source software, helping content owners extend their online media efforts as they look to create new business opportunities and monetization strategies for publishing on the Web.

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Yahoo confirms acquisition of Xoopit

Xoopit a San Fransico start up which won the Yahoo Open Hack contest by building an app that runs on top of Yahoo Mail. The application digs through a person's inbox to reveal photos and other media lurking within, including both attachments and Web addresses that link to sites such as Flickr or Picasa Web Albums.


Now Yahoo has confirmed that its going to acquire Xoopit, a start-up that helps people share content from their inboxes with social-networking sites such as Facebook, the Web pioneer confirmed Wednesday.

Yahoo planed to acquire Xoopit as it feels like it can add new photo features to Yahoo mail which may boost up their service. According to sources the deal value is US$20 million.

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Windows 7 Ready to Release

Microsoft on Wednesday said it has finalized the code, making the way for the software to make its way onto retail shelves and new PCs in time for its October 22 launch.

Microsoft is keenly looking on to the release of this OS and hopes to differ from the earlier release of the OS which was Vista. Windows Vista didnt had a good review in the market. Lots of bugs and issues have been raised on its performance and compatibility. Microsoft is launching its new OS after 2 years and hoping for a better release.

Windows 7 relies on the same underpinnings as Windows Vista, but adds a lot of features aimed at making the operating system both look and perform better.

Visually, it does a better job of managing open windows through an improved taskbar and a feature that lets users peek at one particular window or see the desktop that is hidden below all of the windows. On the performance side, it boots up and shuts down faster, and can run better on Netbooks and low-end machines.

Microsoft is also working hard in marketting windows 7.Microsoft plans to offer Windows 7 in a number of different versions ranging from a low-end "starter edition" to an ultra-high-end "ultimate version." However, it expects most people in the U.S. and other developed markets to run either the Home Premium or Professional editions.

Now its been more than 10 days that Microsoft has not made any changes to code of Windows 7. It says that Microsoft is pretty confident about its new Release.

"After we produce a build, all the different teams will go through their test path," said Iain MacDonald, the general manager of the Windows Server unit. Microsoft also on Wednesday finalized the server version of Windows 7--a modest update known as Windows Server 2008 R2.

The actual build that Microsoft is using as the final one--build 7600.16385--has already leaked to the Web--several days ahead of Microsoft's confirmation that it was, in fact, the final version.

Well Lets hope for the best. Microsoft is getting ready to rock the market.

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Steve Jobs back at Apple

Apple without Steve jobs this was the talk in the industry and lots of questions been raised "will the Apple be the same without Steve". Well the news is Steve jobs is back.Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave since January, is back at work. Jobs returned back after nearly Five and a half months leave to undergo a lever transplant in Memphis.

On 14 January 2009, Jobs had announced medical leave until the end of June, saying his health issues were "more complex" than originally thought. He handed day-to-day operations to chief operating officer Tim Cook and said he planned to remain involved in major strategic decisions.

Bloomberg quoted Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis, as saying, "Jobs's return may reassure investors concerned that he was too sick to continue as CEO. It should give investors confidence in Apple's three-to- five-year road map. Having Steve Jobs back means they got the visionary back."

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Roshni Nadar Takes Over As CEO Of HCL Corp

Shiv Nadar founded HCL in mid 1970's and with huge efforts he transformed the IT hardware company into an IT enterprise.Shiv Nadar received PadmaBhushan in 2008 for his constant efforts in IT industry.Roshni Nadar, daughter of HCL founder Shiv Nadar, has been appointed as the executive director and CEO of HCL Corporation

Shiv Nadar earlier in chennai announced that HCL technologies and HCL Infosystems are run by highly corporatised boards. And also said Roshni Nadar's role will be confined to just HCL Corporation and will be responsible for holding the company which is HCL Corporation and non of the HCL Stake companies.She runs the treasury, all the new investment decisions will be taken by her." He added that he will focus on "developing a vision for the group".

Well talking about Roshni, she is an MBA student in social enterprise Management and strategy from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Roshni has been involved with Rajiv Gandhi Foundation to promote the education of the girl child amongst dalits and muslims in backward areas of UP. She has also worked with Sky News and CNN in the production and programming functions.

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Unisys to adopt cloud computing strategy

Unisys corporation is another company unveiled its cloud computing strategy for moving their enterprise application workloads securely to cloud environments.

Security is in Unisys DNA, data center transformation and application modernization are our heritage, and outsourcing services tailored to the client’s specific business needs are our forté. Our cloud computing strategy draws on all those core capabilities to help clients break through the barriers to adoption and gain a full range of options for cloud services while safeguarding their operations and lowering IT costs.”

Unisys stealth security solution which is a data protection technology which was initially designed for the government and for commercial clients is underpinning this strategy.The Unisys Stealth technology cloaks data through multiple levels of authentication and encryption, bit-splitting data into multiple
packets so it moves invisibly across networks and protects data in the Unisys secure cloud.

“I believe that cloud computing will revolutionize the way enterprises obtain business and IT services and change the kind of payback they get from their IT investments,” said Rich Marcello, president, Unisys Systems and Technology

The new services include Secure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), for provisioning physical and virtual servers that both scale out and scale up; Secure Platform as a Service (PaaS), which provides a Java software stack—with .NET support planned—to make it easier for clients to move their applications to the cloud without making changes; My Secure Application as a Service (AaaS), for automatic provisioning of IT resources to support applications with multi-tier architectures; and Secure Software as a Service (SaaS), which provides access to hosted applications.

These services help clients assess what application workloads can be moved to the cloud, how that can be done, and the technology, financial and security implications of their choices.Unisys is planning "cloud-in-a-box" solution which includes Virtualisation capabilities, automation of ITIL best practices for service management.



Implementing cloud computing Unisys is providing best options for the clients to choose the services which meets their needs.The Unisys cloud computing strategy enables clients to choose the type of data center computing services that best meet their business objectives, from self-managed, automated IT infrastructures to Unisys-managed cloud services.

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Ubuntu into the cloud by launching Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services

Cloud Computing the new era of technology has influced many companies accross the industry. There are few big players in this Cloud computing but there is a good news for the open source developers or the companies following open source. Ubuntu which had new version earlier this year , Canonical the founder of ubuntu has launched a new professional services to help and support users building 'private Clouds' behind the corporate firewall.

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), an open-source system that enables organisations to build their own clouds that match the interface of Amazon EC2. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (also known as "EC2") is a commercial web service that allows customers to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications.A customer can create, launch, and terminate server instances as needed, paying by the hour for active servers, hence the term "elastic".

Option for creating private clouds can optimise server use for an organization. Ubuntu is the first Linux(Debian) distribution to provide cloud services. Opensource adapting the cloud services shows the importance of the cloud concept though some industry experts speak about dis advantages of adapting cloud computing.

"Enterprises are realising that building 'private clouds' enables them to better manage variable workloads, while reducing the waste of idle servers. Building on open-source technology also avoids the issue of vendor lock-in," said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical. "Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud enables businesses to do this - and the addition of these services helps them to do it with confidence."

As per the info, Yearly pricing for entry-level support for five physical servers and up to 25 virtual Ubuntu servers is US$4,750 for 9x5 standard support and US$17,500 for 24x7 advanced support. Additional support packs are available per physical server and per ten virtual servers for US$1,250 p.a. for standard support and $3,000 p.a. for advanced.

Site support is also available which covers one geographical location. It includes an unlimited number of physical and virtual servers for US$90,000 p.a. for standard support and US$150,000 p.a. for advanced.

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