IBM Updates Small Businesses for Lotus Foundations

This week at Lotusphere, IBM announced an update of its Lotus Foundations line of small business software, built on IBM's Express Advantage program. The Lotus Foundations hardware and software system helps businesses from five to 500 employees collaborate with tools like email, office applications, file sharing, back up and recovery.

The company also announced the opening of the Lotus Foundations Branch Office.With Lotus Foundations Branch Office, large enterprise Lotus Domino customers will be able to extend existing skills and data to remote offices quickly and efficiently. IBM says it will help large organizations reduce costs and better manage operations by supporting the often complex technology needs of the branch and satellite offices with a fully integrated appliance. The company is touting evaluations of Lotus Foundations' functionality and ease-of-use by Research In Motion (RIM) and ShoreTel, who say they believe it is a good platform to reach the SMB market.

For more info visit:www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/IBM-Updates-Lotus-Foundations-for-Small-Businesses/

Amit

Our IT Vision

PM pushes in proble to restore IT trust quotient for swift Satyam

NEW DELHI: The hit India's IT sector's trust quotient has suffered in the wake of Satyam's very public fall from grace may impact India's ability to attract new economy

Investors and clients, prompting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stress on speedy and thorough investigations into the scam.

Even eight days after its founder Ramalinga Raju owned up to the fiddle, the Satyam mess is high on the PM's to-do list due to its worrisome fallout for the sunrise sector of India's economy. While ensuring Satyam does not sink, the PM has focused on what is felt as the core issue of investor confidence.

The stock-taking in government, which has involved senior ministers, industry, SEBI and National Stock Exchange chiefs and banks, has underlined risks to not just Satyam's survival as a viable business organisation, but the likely erosion of the vital "trust factor" in India's IT and software sector which has earned billions of dollars in foreign exchange.

Sources said government's intentions to pursue investigations into the scam vigorously were driven as much by a need to beam out a strong message that India would not tolerate corporate malfeasance as a desire to bring guilty to book. "Action will be taken by various agencies, those responsible will not be let off the hook," they said. This would cover all aspects of the fraud including the role of the board and top company officials.

The next steps the government takes may well have to wait a few days before the firm's accounts, described as completely opaque, unravel a bit. It is expected that even as auditors and investigators work hard, the government may not have an idea of Satyam's "receivables and liabilities" before the weekend. That would then provide some answers of how soon, and how, the hurt IT major could stand on its own feet again.

For more info visit: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India_Business/PM_pushes_for_swift_Satyam_probe_to_restore_IT_trust_quotient/articleshow/3979676.cms

Amit

Our IT Vision

SBI to retain contract with Satyam

Kolkata (IANS): India's largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), has decided to retain its contract with scam-tainted information technology (IT) firm Satyam Computer Services for maintaining its Internet banking services, a top bank official said here Thursday.

"We are not at all thinking of changing Satyam as our vendor for Internet banking services. But we are prepared," SBI deputy managing director in charge of IT, R.P. Sinha told reporters on the sidelines of an IT seminar.

"We are happy with Satyam's service as a vendor, there is no problem at all. If anything happens anywhere, we are fully prepared. There will not be any disruption in our net banking services,"

Sinha said when asked whether the vendor is capable of handling the banking transactions that takes place through the portal. Satyam's founder and disgraced former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju last week admitted to committing a Rs.70-billion (Rs.7,000-crore/$1.43 billion) accounting fraud.

Sinha said he was hopeful that the Satyam's condition would improve as the government was taking measures to "bring it back to health".

For more info visit: www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200901151931.htm

Amit

Our IT Vision

Luxury Customer Service Provided by NET-A-PORTER.COM

NET-A-PORTER, winner of the Customer Excellence category at the 2008 CBI/Real Business Growing Business Awards has selected eGain Mail(TM) and eGain CallTrack(TM) to provide distinctive and unified customer service experiences across email and phone that are also consistent with its luxury brand identity.

"As we grow our business, we are committed to further improving our award-winning customer service; we see partnering with eGain as key to achieving this," said Ian Tansley, VP of Ecommerce at NET-A-PORTER.

As a rapidly growing business with an absolute focus on exemplary customer service, NET-A-PORTER required a unified multi-channel customer service solution with the capability to manage all its customer interactions to the high standards that its customers expect and demand.

To begin with, the company will deploy eGain Mail and eGain CallTrack to manage email and phone customer service. Both eGain Mail and eGain CallTrack are an integral part of eGain Service(TM) suite, the industry's top-rated solution for unified multichannel customer service management. This enables a 360-degree view of all customer interactions regardless of channel and enables agents to provide rapid, context-aware customer service.

About NET-A-PORTER.COM
NET-A-PORTER.COM was launched in June 2000 and has since successfully established itself as the world's premier luxury online fashion retailer. Presented in the style of a fashion magazine, NET-A-PORTER features collections from over 200 of the world's most coveted designers including Chloé, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, Miu Miu, Stella McCartney and many more. With its acclaimed editorial format, express worldwide shipping to 170 countries (including same day delivery to London and Manhattan), luxurious packaging and free returns, NET-A-PORTER offers an unparalleled shopping experience.

About eGain Service
eGain Service is the industry's most comprehensive customer interaction hub software suite and the first solution to support short message service (SMS) customer service interactions, as well as next-generation web self-service, chat, co-browsing, email, fax, postal mail, notification management, call tracking and resolution, knowledge management, and service fulfillment. eGain Service is built on eGain CIH(TM) Platform, the industry's most flexible and integrated customer interaction hub platform. Based on a 100% J2EE architecture, it includes out-of-the-box integration with leading business applications, content management systems, and call center infrastructure solutions. With its fine-grained service-oriented architecture (SOA), eGain CIH platform enables rapid development of powerful applications.

For more info visit: www.money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0465835.htm

Amit
Our IT Vision

Google Gets Serious About Resellers

Google is opening the doors to resellers for its Google Apps suite of office services. Businesses who want to use Gmail, Google docs and other Google offices services in lieu of Microsoft or other solutions will be able to sign up at Google or through any qualified value added reseller that chooses to carry the products.

Google says that more than 1 million businesses and 10 million users use Google Apps today, and 3,000 new businesses sign up daily. The largest business user, Genentech, has 20,000 employees on Google Apps.

The service is free for businesses that are willing to put up with ads, little customer service and relatively low storage limits. The premium version is $50/user/year. Most of the 10 million users are using the free version of the service, but Google says "hundreds of thousands" of users are paying for the service.

For more info visit: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/14/AR2009011400037.html

Amit

Our IT Vision