Infosys to hire 35,000 in fiscal FY 12-13

India's second largest IT firm Infosys on Friday said it will hire 35,000 people this fiscal, including 13,000 for its BPO operations. 

"We are going to add 35,000 more people next year, which includes 13,000 people for the BPO operations," Infosys Member of the Board and Chief Financial Officer V Balakrishnan said. 

Infosys and its subsidiaries added 10,676employees in the fourth quarter of FY'12, while the net addition during the period stood at 4,906 people. Its total employee strength was 1,49,994 as on March 31. Infosys today reported a 27.4 per cent jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 2,316 crore for Q4 FY'12, as against Rs 1,818 crore in the January-March quarter of FY'11. 

The company's rate of attrition (excluding subsidiaries on last twelve month (LTM) basis) has come down slightly to 14.7 per cent in the reported quarter against 15.4 per cent in the October-December quarter of 2011-12. 

Infosys also plans to hire about 1,200 in the US. "In the last two years, we hired 1,200 people onsite in the US each year (who were) local hire. We are going to continue with that this year and will hire 1,200 people... local hire in the US," Balakrishnan said. 

Over the past months, anti-outsourcing campaign against Indian technology companies has gained momentum in the US and European Union -- main markets for the country's software and IT service companies. 

Politicians and governments in these countries have been objecting to off-shoring of work by their companies to countries like India so as to retain jobs back home. Industry experts have called such criticism a political rhetoric. 

Most Indian technology companies have been consistently hiring more and more in the western countries over the past few years to blunt the criticism of 'taking away' jobs. 

Microsoft's answer to Amazon's CloudSearch: Bing on Azure Marketplace

The same day that Amazon announced the beta of its new CloudSearch technology, Microsoft announed its counterstrike: Moving the Bing Search application programming interface (API) to the Windows Azure Marketplace.

The Windows Azure Marketplace is the site where Microsoft and third party vendors can sell (or offer for free) their data, apps and services.

Microsoft officials said the Bing API Marketplace transition will “begin in several weeks and take a few months to complete.” Via a post to the Bing Developer blog on April 12, officials did say that Microsoft plans to make the API available on a monthly subscription basis.

“Developers can expect subscription pricing to start at approximately $40 (USD) per month for up to 20,000 queries each month,” according to the post. However, “(d)uring the transition period, developers will be encouraged to try the Bing Search API for free on the Windows Azure Marketplace, before we begin charging for the service.”

In the interim, Microsoft is advising developers that they can continue to use the Bing Search API 2.0 for free. After the transition, it will no longer be free for public use and will be available from the Azure Marketplace only.

“We understand that many of you are using the API as an important element in your websites and applications, and we will continue to share details with you through the Bing Developer Blog as we approach the transition,” the Softies added.

Amazon CloudSearch, which went to beta today, is Amazon’s new managed search service in the cloud designed to allow developers to add search to their applications. Amazon officials blogged today that customers can set it up and start processing queries in less than an hour for less than $100 per month. The service relies on a set of CloudSearch APIs that can be managed through the Amazon Web Services console.

Update: One Microsoft Azure partner who requested anonymity told me today that he thought Microsoft’s real competitor to CloudSearch might be FAST search on Azure. Microsoft bought FAST Search and Transfer in 2008 and subsequently made it part of the SharePoint family

“Microsoft has FAST Search. That’s what people want on Azure. FAST was not built to run on Azure. FAST does not understand Azure storage. That will be fixed. Not sure when,” the partner said.

(Source: Zdnet)

Apple releases Flashback removal tool, infections drop to 270,000

Apple today officially released the third update to its Java component in the space of a single week. The new Java security update delivers Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_31 and supersedes all previous versions.

In a separate article published earlier today, Symantec published results from its monitoring network. On April 6, the number of infections was estimated at around 600,000. Symantec says that number dropped to 380,000 on April 10 and to 270,000 on April 11. Those results suggest that community efforts and the wide availability of third-party removal tools had a significant impact.

Apple’s update is described in two separate bulletins, one for OS X Lion and a second for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

It includes functionality designed to detect and remove “most common variants of the Flashback malware.” Another interesting new feature is intended to block copycat attempts that try to exploit vulnerabilities that might be found in this version, although the new feature is available only to users of the latest version of OS X.

The update for OS X Lion configures the Java web plug-in to disable automatic execution of Java applets, a security feature that many Mac experts recommend for all Mac owners.

If a user re-enables this feature—to use a web-based Java applet, for example—the Java web plug-in starts a counter and disables Java again after a specified interval.

A separate mailing from Apple Product Security describes how that feature works:

As a security hardening measure, the Java browser plugin and Java Web Start are deactivated if they are unused for 35 days. Installing this update will automatically deactivate the Java browser plugin and Java Web Start. Users may re-enable Java if they encounter Java applets on a web page or Java Web Start applications detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets.

The new feature does not apply to Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Although Apple has never officially acknowledged that it has dropped support for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and earlier versions, a third security bulletin released today makes the point implicitly:

How to disable the Java web plug-in in Safari describes the procedure for Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.5, in addition to the two more recent, fully supported versions. The same document includes links to third-party support documents with procedures for disabling the Java plug-in inChrome and Firefox.

If Apple holds true to its previous support policies, support for Snow Leopard will end this summer with the release of OS X Mountain Lion.

HP wins as EMEA PC market booms unexpectedly Read more: http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2167298/hp-wins-emea-pc-market-booms-unexpectedly#ixzz1ryIfN1yV CRN - Essential information for VARs, integrators and converged resellers. Claim your free subscription today.

HP has emerged as one of the big winners from a Q1 EMEA PC market that unexpectedly hiked by seven per cent, according to Gartner.

Global PC shipments defied expectations to grow 1.9 per cent year on year in the three months to 31 March as Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal declared that the desk-based PC "is not dead yet".

The market watcher had previously expected the market to shrink by 1.2 per cent.

Despite its "will-it, won't-it" PSG saga last year, HP was one of the quarter's largest gainers, both globally and in EMEA, leading Gartner to conclude the company's management problems are behind it.The main engine of that growth was EMEA, where the long-awaited flurry of Windows 7 projects in the professional market drove growth to 6.7 per cent.

Globally, HP's shipments rose 3.5 per cent to 15.3 million, propelling its market share from 16.9 to 17.2 per cent.

In EMEA, HP not only retained the top spot but increased its lead over its closet rivals, Acer and Dell.

Its market share rose from 19.1 per cent to 20.5 per cent year on year. Acer (13.5 per cent), Dell (8.8 per cent), Asus (8.3 per cent) and Lenovo (8.2 per cent) rounded out the top five in EMEA.

The HDD supply shortage had a limited impact on PC supply during the quarter, Gartner said, although there was a moderate impact on select sectors including low-end consumer notebooks and the white-box market.

"HP was able to secure HDD inventory, unlike in the fourth quarter of 2011 when it was faced with a shortage issue," Gartner said.

"HP's growth also indicates that internal management issues were resolved, and analysts said it appears HP was able to restore some of the business it lost as a result of those issues."

Delhi court drops case against Google India

The Google India's name was today taken out from the suit for trial of various social networking websites for allegedly hosting offending contents, after it was pointed out to a Delhi court that it is merely a software developing firm. 

Administrative Civil Judge Praveen Singh dropped the case against Google India agreeing with its plea that it does not operate any social networking website. 

The court also dropped cases against seven other entities, Exbii, IMC India, My Lot, Shyni Blog, Topix, Zombie Time and Boradreader as they were not found to be proper parties to the suit. 

The court earlier had also dropped cases against Yahoo and Microsoft. After today's court proceeding, names of merely six websites have been left in the suit. 

With this, of the 22 entities against whom the suit was filed for hosting objectionable contents, the case will proceed only against six -- Facebook (India and US), Google Inc, Orkut, Youtube and Blogspot (through Google Inc CEO Larry Page). 

The judge allowed firm's plea after plaintiff Mufti Aijaz Arshad Quasmi's counsel Santosh Pandey did not oppose dropping the names of the firms. 

Google India pleaded that it is only a subsidiary of internet giant Google Inc and does not operate the website and it should be removed from the array of parties. 

Agreeing with its contentions, the judge dropped the case against the company saying "it is a subsidiary of Google Inc registered in India and is a software developer company which has no role in running of Google Inc."

Facebook lets users take more data home

Facebook on Thursday began letting members of the world's leading online community take more of their pictures, posts, messages and other data home with them. 

Facebook expanded the types of information its approximately 845 million members could download from their personal account histories to include data such as friend requests and IP addresses of computers used to log-in. 

"This feature will be rolling out gradually to all users and more categories of information will be available for download in the future," Facebook said in a message at its Public Policy Europe page. 

The move comes as the California-based Internet star works to reassure regulators, members and advocacy groups concerned about how much privacy and control of personal information people have at Facebook. 

The "Download Your Information" tool was launched in 2010 to allow Facebook members to keep copies of what they share with friends at the social network. 

Facebook is expected to make a much-anticipated debut next month on the technology-heavy NASDAQ exchange. Facebook in February filed to go public and could raise as much as $10 billion in the largest flotation ever by an Internet company on Wall Street. 

Facebook, which is shifting operations to a former Sun Microsystems campus in the California city of Menlo Park, had a reported net income of $668 million last year. 

Revenue nearly doubled to $3.7 billion in 2011, with most of it coming from targeted advertising gleaned from personal information shared by the platform's hundreds of millions of users. 

Facebook's value has been estimated at between $75 billion and $100 billion.

NextUC Launches New Procurement Site for Desk Phones

NextUC has launched a new procurement site for desk phones giving new options for customers who want to buy handsets, headsets or video conferencing cameras.

The company has also announced a new partnership for both wireless and wired headsets.

New procurement site and a new partnership are expected to speed the evaluation, purchase, delivery and support for all hardware.

NextUC, a cloud-based Microsoft Lync communication product provides enterprise-class voice, messaging, conferencing, presence, chat, collaboration and mobility capabilities.

The customers who want to order hardware products from NextUC can do so by going to the device purchase page on the company’s website and choose the best option for their specific environment.

Jabra (News -Alert) and Polycom are the go to partners for the different options available through the NextUC relationship.

“We are excited to add another great way for our customers to get collaborating in a fast and efficient way” said Bob Barnes, VP of Product Sales and Marketing. “We found two partners that provide great support for their specific products and want to make the purchase and use experience outstanding, which is a great match for NextUC’s approach to business relationships.”

Partnership between Jabra and NextUC delivers an attractive bundle for NextUC customers as newly registered teams can get 1 free headset for every 10 that are purchased- with a limit of 5 free devices.

Polycom (News  - Alert) provides NextUC customers with video conferencing options for conference rooms as well as desktop Ethernet phones for desks or conference rooms.

NextUC was in news recently for announcing that uptake rates for its PSTN enabled Microsoft (News  - Alert) Lync platform's full integration to Exchange in Microsoft's Office365 has been exceptionally strong since its launch in January.

(Source: http://headsets.tmcnet.com/topics/headsets/articles/285836-nextuc-launches-new-procurement-site-desk-phones.htm)

Autonomy’s private cloud passes 50 petabytes in size Read more: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2166825/autonomy-s-private-cloud-passes-petabytes-size#ixzz1ryH3ap2M Computing - Insight for IT leaders Claim your free subscription today.

Autonomy's private cloud service has passed the 50 petabyte mark, doubling in size in less than a year, according to the company.

The HP-owned company's internal cloud network contains web content, video, email and multimedia data of more than 1,000 clients on 6,500 servers in 14 datacentres around the world. The data is equivalent in size to 665 years of high-definition video – or four billion drawers of paper-filled filing cabinets.

Autonomy claims that it has some one billion new items of content being stored on its private cloud every day.

In May 2011, after the company acquired the digital archiving business of Iron Mountain in a $350m cash transaction, Autonomy's CEO Mike Lynch (pictured) claimed that the deal would increase the amount of data under management from 17 petabytes to 25 petabytes.

The company said this total grew to 31 petabytes in August 2011, before booming to 50 petabytes barely eight months later. Autonomy attributes this surging demand to both an increase in customer content and more customers.

"Our cloud contains four trillion objects and grows by more than one billion more per day. This data is all customer-generated," a spokesman told Computing.

The cloud is managed using Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL), the company's suite of software technologies for recognising concepts and patterns in structured and unstructured data.

Unlike a public cloud, a private cloud – such as Autonomy's – clearly separates usage for each organisation, giving them a guaranteed level of IT resources and, hence, service levels. Autonomy claims that nine out of 10 of the world's largest banks use Autonomy's private cloud to store financial data.

Autonomy was acquired just months after its Iron Mountain deal by HP for $10.3bn – a deal widely regarded as over-valuing Autonomy and precipitating the abrupt departure of HP CEO at the time Leo Apotheker, who was replaced by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Kaspersky Lab suspends Flashback-removal tool

 Kaspersky Lab on Thursday suspended distribution of its tool to remove the Flashback malware attacking Mac computers, saying the tool itself was making unacceptable alterations to user computers. A replacement is expected soon.

The lab's Flashfake Removal Tool was suspended after Kaspersky discovered that it was erroneously removing user settings--including auto-start configurations, user configurations in browsers, and file sharing data--from infected computers. It had been in operation since Monday.

"The Kaspersky Flashfake Removal Tool has been temporarily suspended," spokesman Greg Sabey said in an email to reporters. "The company will release an updated version of the utility with the bug corrected and will send a notification as soon as it's available."

Sabey said a different tool, Flashback Checker, is unaffected and remains in use. Flashback Checker works differently than Flashflake Removal. The checker is a website where you can paste your Mac's unique identifier to see if you're infected by Flashback. The site will also check that you have the latest Java update installed, and are thus safe from further infection--otherwise it will prompt you to run Apple's Software Update.

Kaspersky's suspension comes during a busy week in the Flashback-fighting front. Apple on Tuesday said it was developing a technical solution to the defeat the malware, and added that it was working with service providers to disable Flashback's "command and control network."

The malware has reportedly affected more than 600,000 Macs.

Other options remain available. For example, Apple issued a patch last weekto close the Java vulnerability that Flashback exploits, though that update won't detect whether you're infected or remove the malware. Last week, F-Secure published a set of Terminal commands to uncover the exploit, and on Monday an independent programmer released a Mac app that can check for the infection as well.

Kaspersky, meanwhile, asked users who had experienced problems with its Flashflake Removal Tool to email the company, or call its Moscow home office at 7 (495) 797-70-32. It is there to provide support or answer questions.

Heavy hitters throw weight behind future OpenStack Foundation

IBM, HP, Red Hat, Dell, Cisco, NetApp, and a host of other technology companies today announced plans to lay down big money and other resources to become premium members of a future OpenStack Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing the open source cloud operating system.

OpenStack Foundation will be an independent body providing shared resources to continue the development of OpenStack while preserving the project's open development process. "The formation of a foundation is not about changing the approach, but preserving and accelerating what's working and moving the community building activities to a neutral long-term home with a broad base of support," said Jonathan Bryce, OpenStack Project Policy Board and co-founder of Rackspace Cloud.

In total, 18 companies have declared their intentions to become either platinum or gold members of the OpenStack Foundation. The platinum members include AT&T, Canonical, HP, IBM, Nebula, Rackspace, Red Hat, and Suse. Gold members include Cisco, ClearPath, Cloudscaling, Dell, DreamHost, ITRI, Mirantis, Morphlabs, NetApp, and Piston Cloud Computing.

The announcement -- particularly the backing of a major player such as IBM -- comes at a critical time for OpenStack. The OpenStack community faced a setback earlier this month when Citrix bailed on OpenStack to focus on advancing rival cloud platform CloudStack as part of the Apache Foundation.

Explaining the decision, CloudStack representatives criticized the pace at which OpenStack was evolving, taking jabs at the community for being slow to respond to real-world customer demands. Citrix also cited technical incompatibilities between CloudStack and OpenStack. Citrix had ambitions to integrate the two platforms under the moniker Project Olympus.

Citrix's decision and associated qualms with OpenStack were clearly not enough to deter plenty of other companies to throw more support behind OpenStack. As outlined in the OpenStack wiki, platinum members will commit $500,000 annually over three years; gold members will contribute between $50,000 and $200,000 per year, depending on company revenue. Additionally, platinum and gold members will each be expected to dedicate at least two full-time employees (or the equivalent) to work on OpenStack. The foundation will also be open to individual members for free.

"This is not just about money. We want to make sure the foundation is well resourced to accomplish its mission and support the OpenStack community," said Bryce. "This is not about taking checks from anyone who wants to write one."

Premium membership will have its privileges: Platinum and gold members will participate in writing the Foundation's detailed bylaws. The goal is to reach a final draft for ratification by the Rackspace Board and the OpenStack Community by Q3 of this year. All members of the OpenStack community will have a say in the process, according to foundation organizers.

What's more, platinum members will have the authority to appoint one-third of the members of the foundation's board of directors, while gold members and independent members will each elect one-third of the board.

OpenStack licensing will not change with the establishment of the foundation.

(Source: InfoWorld.com)

HP's OpenStack bet to deliver what Amazon Web Services won't

HP today announced its HP Converged Cloud, which when released in beta form in May will use a version of the open source OpenStack software. HP's betting that the OpenStack-fueled offering will get enterprises excited about the cloud in ways that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has not -- and overcome the objections in many IT organizations around using technology from public cloud vendors such as Amazon.com, whose private and hybrid cloud offerings are an afterthought handled by third parties.

HP says its Converged Cloud lets enterprises use cloud computing to deploy an internal architecture to interact with some external cloud service providers that leverage OpenStack. In turn, this could provide a private cloud approach that takes into account IT's fears and a more palatable path to extending into public and hybrid clouds.

HP is not picking a winner for the use of virtual machine hypervisors and other development platforms. Instead, its private cloud service hosts the major virtual machine offerings: EMC VMware's ESX Server, Microsoft's Hyper-V, and Red Hat's KVM. HP's approach is to not worry about customers' preferred VM technology but to provide an on-premise IaaS that works and plays well with other OpenStack-based cloud providers, whether inside or outside of the enterprise.

HP will also provide cloud maps, which are templates of preconfigured cloud services, so you don't have to build your cloud from scratch. Moreover, HP promises several new features such as service virtualization, which will let cloud developers test systems in protected domains. There are new networking and security services in HP's cloud cocktail as well.

Although HP is clearly looking to beat AWS as the premier enterprise cloud platform, Converged Cloud offers AWS compatibility; you can reach out to AWS services as needed. HP understands that if you don't work with AWS, you won't have much of a chance in this emerging market. No doubt HP hopes that such compatibility will provide a nice offramp from AWS for enterprises that want a private cloud strategy and will be happy to extend beyond -- or even replace -- AWS's focus on public IaaS and PaaS offerings. The fact that AWS leaves private cloud deployments to partners means HP's approach nicely complements AWS for enterprises that don't fear the public cloud.

HP's cloud vision is different than Amazon's. Where Amazon sees the public cloud as the endgame, HP sees cloud deployments moving from private to public to hybrid. HP'ss focus is on cross-compatibility and on development and deployment of software that can leverage public clouds, including the company's own.

From where I sit, this is exactly what HP should do -- in fact, it's HP's only option. If HP tries to battle it out with AWS in the public cloud space, it will quickly be handed its head. That's why it needs to focus on what AWS is not focusing on: the transformation of internal systems to private and hybrid clouds, with the vision of eventually moving to public clouds.

But HP needs to do more than roll out the beta Converged Cloud offering. It must also improve its thought leadership (rather than constantly searching for new CEOs) so that it can lead the conversation. Right now, IBM and Microsoft have more to say about this kind of enterprise-out migration than HP does. Second, HP needs to make its stuff work. Companies like HP have made many hard, complex promises like this one that end up as failures. HP can't afford that now.

(Source: Infoworld)

Google Currents Available Worldwide

If you've been downloading Google Currents through unofficial channels, you won't have to do that anymore. Previously found only in the United States, Google Currents is now available across the globe.

Launched in December 2011, Google Currents is essentially an app for Android and iOS that gathers RSS feeds onto an easy-to-read magazine layout. Think of it as Google's answer to Pulse or Flipboard. To date, Google has seen nearly 400 publisher editions and over 14,000 self-produced editions available on Google Currents.

A new dynamic sync feature is also added to Google Currents, with content constantly refreshed when you're reading news off Google Currents. If you're worried about a reduced battery life from the constant syncing, Google claims that the dynamic sync feature will use a minimum of the phone or tablet's battery, bandwidth and storage.

Going international also means that Google is prepared for multiple languages. Other than its global availability, Google Currents also adds Google Translate into its mainframe, providing support for up to 38 languages. However, this is still subjected to whether international publishers, through Google Currents Producer, choose to make their publications available globally and enable auto-translation.

Android users can make your way to Google Play and push the app to your Android devices, while iOS users can visit the iOS App Store for the app.

Source: Google via The Verge

Intel Introduces Notebook Theft Protection Service in Singapore

Intel and Ingram Micro announces the Intel Anti-Theft Service in Singapore.

Employing technology built into some laptops powered by 2nd gen Intel Core processors as a foundation to lock down lost or missing laptops, it works by allowing a user to submit a lock down request over the web or by configuring a hardware timer to trigger a lock down if the machine fails to "check in" with a server at set intervals. The service also creates a secure data vault on the hard drive where personal files can be encrypted and stored.

Ingram Micro and Intel have collaborated to provide this service as an option to customers purchasing selected laptops which are powered by the 2nd gen and 3rd gen Intel Core processors, including Ultrabooks.

Ingram Micro will be offering boxed Intel Anti Theft Service at a starting retail price of S$39.90 for a 1-year period and S$79.90 for a 3-year period from the day the user activates the service. Intel provides service hosting, customer support and working with different OEMs to ensure their notebook hardware is embedded with Intel Anti-Theft Technology.

Intel Anti-Theft Service is available from Challenger today.

Read on for the full press release.

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SINGAPORE – Intel and Ingram Micro today announced the availability of the Intel Anti-Theft Service in Singapore. A first-of-a-kind initiative in Singapore, the service is intended to enable consumers to safeguard and secure their notebook. Intel Anti-Theft Service is available from Challenger today, and expected to become more broadly available throughout the year.

Intel Anti-Theft Technology uses technology built into select 2nd Generation Intel Core processor-powered laptops as a foundation to lock down lost or missing laptops. It works by allowing a user to submit a lock down request over the web or by configuring a hardware timer to trigger a lock down if the machine fails to ‘check in’ with a server at set intervals. The service also creates a secure data vault on the hard-drive where personal files can be encrypted and stored.

Ingram Micro has worked with Intel to provide this service as an option to customers purchasing select laptops that are powered by 2nd Generation Intel Core processors and upcoming 3rd Generation Intel Core processors, inclusive of Ultrabooks. This service is available today at Challenger, with more resellers expected to begin offering the service during this year.

Intel Anti-Theft Service takes advantage of intelligent hardware to lock down a lost or stolen notebook. It works even if a thief reimages their hard drive, installs a new hard drive, changes the boot order or avoids connecting to the network. A lost or stolen notebook can be locked-down such that it does not boot by sending a notification over the internet or by using intelligent hardware timers on the notebook. This service also creates a secure data vault on a user’s hard-drive to provide protected storage area for sensitive information. When the notebook is locked-down, access to information in secure data vault is locked down as well and cannot be read even if the hard-drive is attached to another notebook. Notebook owners can display custom message on locked notebooks facilitating return by good Samaritans and can revive the notebook to its full functionality by using their personal password.

Under this program, Ingram Micro will be offering boxed Intel Anti Theft Service at a starting retail price of S$39.90 for a 1-year period and S$79.90 for a 3-year period from the day the user activates the service. Intel provides service hosting, customer support and working with different OEMs to ensure their notebook hardware is embedded with Intel Anti-Theft Technology.

Raspberry Pi set to begin shipping over weekend

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has confirmed that the first batch of its much-vaunted device will start shipping this weekend, ending weeks of frustration as the launch was hit by manufacturing delays and compliance issues.

Writing in a blog post Raspberry Pi Foundation volunteer Liz Upton confirmed that the two distributors, RS Electronics and Premier Farnell, are preparing to ship the devices and she also highlighted the various TV coverage the device has been gathering.

"As computers have got better they have got harder for children to use," professor Alan Mycroft, one of the organisation's Trustees told BBC showNewsround.

"We like our students to know how things work inside so they can [...] invent things and make the country richer and do great ‘Made in Britain' things."

The Raspberry Pi is a low-cost single-board computer aimed at revitalising programming skills among UK students and features a Broadcom ARM processor with embedded GPU and 256MB RAM, and runs a version of Fedora Linux that boots from an SD Card Flash drive.

The device costs just £22 and on launch caused a huge surge of interest. However its availability was delayed by a manufacturing error in which the first production batch were accidentally been fitted with the wrong type of Ethernet jack socket at the factory.

Further delays were caused when the device had to await its CE certification marks, which it managed to achieve last Friday.

Samsung about to take Nokia’s 14-year crown as king of cell phone sales

When Samsung announces its earnings on April 27, it will likely become the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, dethroning Nokia, the 14-year crown holder.

Though we’ve seen it coming for quite some time, the day may finally be here: Samsung’s handset sales may have eclipsed Nokia’s, making it the world’s most popular cell phone manufacturer in the world. Two days ago, Nokia revealed that it sold about 71 million mobile phones and 12 million smartphones, adding up to about 83 million device sales for the last three months.

Though Samsung doesn’t reveal its sales data until April 27, estimates tallied by CNET indicate that analysts expect it has sold between 85 and 92 million handsets during the last three months, putting it squarely ahead of Nokia for the first time ever. 

Nokia has been the world’s number one mobile phone manufacturer for 14 years straight — since 1998. That means it’s pretty much been the top handset maker since, well, the dawn of the actual cell phone market. Mobile phones have only gone mainstream in the last 10 years. 

The journey to the top is even more remarkable for Samsung, a South Korean manufacturer, which has gone from being perceived as a budget device maker to a top electronics maker in almost every category it has joined in the last decade or so, holding solid positions in laptop sales, TV sales, mobile phones, tablets, and a number of other markets, like component production (screens, etc).

In 2011, Samsung sold more than 300 million phones, and in January claimed it would outsell Nokia this year. 

Nokia has been under fire for a while, as its smartphone business has lagged behind its competitors due to the growth of new smartphone operating systems around the world like Android and iOS. Nokia’s home-grown Symbian OS has not been able to keep up, a cold reality which forced the company to sign a huge deal with Microsoft last year to begin relying on Windows Phone as its premium OS for smartphones.

Intuit Brings Big Data to Small Businesses and Consumers

When someone utters the words Big Data (and pretty much everyone does these days), the first companies that tend to come to mind are Google and Facebook--Internet companies whose entire business is based upon voraciously devouring data. However, there are plenty of other companies out there with massive volumes of information at their fingertips, and they too are undergoing data-driven transformations.

Intuit--maker of QuickBooks, Quicken and TurboTax--is one such company. It provides business and financial management solutions to small and mid-sized businesses, financial institutions such as banks and credit unions, consumers and accounting professionals. And it has mountains of data available to it, provided by users that trust it and have opted-in to share that data.

It has transactional data, behavioral data (drawn from products like TurboTax Online and Mint), user-generated data and even social data drawn from social networks and Twitter. And it wants to democratize that data through an initiative it calls "Big Data for the Little Guy," through which individuals and businesses will be able to make their own queries on Intuit's data.

"We want to save you time and money through the use of data to give you analytics that you could never afford otherwise," says Nora Denzel, senior vice president in charge of Intuit's Big Data and social design initiatives.

Denzel notes that using this data, she learned that her dry cleaner was charging her four times the average rate of dry cleaners in her city, prompting her to switch dry cleaners. Another example is determining whether you're paying more or less than others in your area for car repairs.

The data is also useful for businesses. If you're opening up a new café in New York City, you could use it to determine the proper wages for a new barista or an experienced barista. The data can also take you beyond comparisons.

"In QuickBooks, if you're a florist, for instance, we know what you buy," Denzel says. "Right now, while you're buying, we can tell you that you can save a certain amount of money if you buy from this vendor right now."

Getting to the point of leveraging its data for these services has required a transformation within Intuit.

"When I began in the 80s, IT was the cost center," Denzel says. "We didn't really understand what they did. But then we aligned IT with the business and IT became the business. I think the same thing is happening now with data."

Apple under fire for backing off IPv6 support

Apple Computer came under fire for back-pedaling on its support for IPv6, the next-generation Internet Protocol, at a gathering of experts held in Denver this week.

Presenters at the North American IPv6 Summit expressed annoyance that the latest version of Apple's AirPort Utility, Version 6.0, is no longer compatible with IPv6. The previous Version, 5.6, offered IPv6 service by default.

Comcast, for example, is urging its subscribers that are interested in using IPv6 not to upgrade to AirPort Utility Version 6.0 if they use the OS X Lion operating system because of incompatibilities with IPv6.

"Apple has taken the ability to seamlessly support IPv6 away from the AirPort Utility," said John Brzozowski, chief architect for IPv6 and distinguished engineer with Comcast. "It's a little concerning. We hoped to see more IPv6 support, not less, among [customer premises equipment] vendors."

Apple's AirPort Utility 6.0, released in January, allows users to set-up and manage Wi-Fi networks. Because Version 6.0 of AirPort Utility doesn't support IPv6, users also must install the older version 5.6 in order to run IPv6.

Indeed, Comcast is giving only a conditional recommendation for Apple's AirPort Utility to be used along with its new home networking service for IPv6. In contrast, Comcast offers a blanket recommendation for various IPv6-enabled home gateway models from D-Link, Cisco and Netgear.

Comcast is the first U.S. ISP to offer an IPv6 service for home gateway users, which will be officially announced later this month. Currently, Comcast is offering this service in two U.S. cities. The service allows Comcast residential subscribers with IPv6-enabled home gateways to have native IPv6 support on any device connected to the Internet.

Overall, home networking products like AirPort Utility have been slow to adopt IPv6.

"Home gateways have been one of the areas that was slowing IPv6 adoption," said Timothy Winters, senior manager at the University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Lab. The lab is running a major interoperability test for home gateway equipment next week.

In order to pass the UNH-IOL test, home gateways must enable IPv6 by default and pass a set of interoperability tests. So far, the lab has approved six home gateways as passing 100% of its interoperability tests, including models from Cisco, Actiontec, Broadcom, D-Link and Lantiq. No Apple products are included on the UNH-IOL list.

While home networking vendors like Cisco and D-Link are adding IPv6 across their product lines, Apple appears to be the only vendor that is removing this feature.

Home gateways are a critical class of networking gear that requires upgrading as the Internet migrates from IPv4, the original version of the Internet Protocol, to IPv6.

IPv6 is needed because IPv4 is running out of addresses to connect new users and new devices to the Internet. IPv6 solves this problem with a vastly expanded address space, but it is not backwards-compatible with IPv4. So ISPs like Comcast have to upgrade their routing, edge, security, network management and customer premises equipment to support IPv6. The alternative is for carriers to translate between IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, which adds latency and cost to network operations.

IBM acquires BI software maker Varicent

Adding to its already considerable line of analysis software and expertise, IBM announced Friday that it has acquired business intelligence software provider Varicent Software.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Based in Toronto, Varicent was a privately held company founded in 2003. It has more than 180 corporate customers, including banks, insurance companies, retailers, information technology and telecommunications providers. Starwood Hotels, Hertz and Office Depot have used the company's products.

Varicent software collects and compiles reports of sales data from different systems, such as finance, sales, human resources and IT departments. Such data can then be used to determine employee compensation, streamline territory assignments, manage sales quotas, and report on and analyze sales activities.

The software will be folded into IBM's Smarter Analytics line of software packages, joining analysis software from previous acquisitions, including Algorithmics, Clarity Systems, OpenPages, Cognos and SPSS. IBM has been deploying software from these acquisitions into packages, called Smarter Analytics Signature Solutions, that address specific needs such as fraud detection, financial operations and customer service.

IBM expects to generate $16 billion in the sales of data analysis systems and services by 2015. The company has almost 9,000 consultants and operational personnel devoted to business analysis systems. It also employs 400 researchers in the field, who are expected to secure hundreds of patents a year.

ICANN postpones cutoff date for new gTLD applications after glitch

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has postponed the last date for applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) on its application system to April 20, after it detected a technical issue with the software.

The organization said in a statement that it had to take the TLD application system (TAS) offline temporarily after it learned of a possible glitch in the software that has allowed "a limited number of users to view some other users' file names and user names in certain scenarios."

"Out of an abundance of caution, we took the system offline to protect applicant data. We are examining how this issue occurred and considering appropriate steps forward," ICANN chief operating officer Akram Atallah said ina statement on Thursday.

TAS will be shut down until Tuesday at 23:59 UTC, unless otherwise notified before that time, ICANN said.

The last date for submitting applications was April 12.

The board of directors of ICANN approved in June last year an increase in the number of gTLDs from the current 22. The gTLD plan is expected to bring significant benefits to Internet users, including the ability to create new TLDs in non-Latin, non-English scripts. But trademark owners have objected to the plan, saying it will be difficult to protect their intellectual property on hundreds or thousands of new TLDs.

SAP revenue rises 11% in first quarter, but margin shrinks

SAP published preliminary figures for its first-quarter results on Friday, showing revenue up 11% year on year, but margins shrinking with operating profit up only 6%.

Software and software-related service revenue amounted to €2.62 billion ($3.49 billion as of March 31, the last day of the period reported), up 13% year on year, while software revenue grew 4%, to €640 million, according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), SAP said.

Total revenue came to €3.35 billion, with an operating profit of €630 million, up 6%. SAP's operating margin slipped to 18.8% for the quarter, down from 19.7% a year earlier.

Excluding the effects of certain acquisitions and of currency fluctuations, total revenue for the first quarter rose 8% year on year, SAP said, while software revenue rose 1% under the same conditions.

Looking ahead, SAP expects software revenue in the second quarter -- again excluding certain acquisitions and currency fluctuations -- to grow by 15 to 20% compared to a year earlier, and for software and software-related service revenue for the second quarter to grow by 14 to 16%. A strong "pipeline," or backlog of pending deals, is contributing to SAP's optimism, according to a statement.

"Some of the deals that didn't happen in the first quarter have already happened," co-president Bill McDermott said during a conference call Friday.

For the whole of 2012, SAP expects software and software-related service revenue to increase by 10 to 12% at constant currency rates, including a contribution of up to 2 percentage points from the recently acquired SuccessFactors business. It also forecast operating profit of between €5.05 billion and €5.25 billion, up from €4.71 billion for 2011.

The company has been on a recruiting spree to keep pace with its growth forecasts: excluding acquisitions, the company added the equivalent of 1,700 full-time staff over the year to March 31, ending the first quarter with 59,400 employees.

SAP's revenue grew fastest in Asia-Pacific and Japan in the first quarter, with software revenue there up 19% and software and software-related service revenue up 22%.

"The execution issues that impacted our results in the first quarter were local," and have "nothing to do with demand for business software in general," co-president Jim Hagemann Snabe said during the call.

Software revenue fell in the Americas, dropping 4% to €236 million. SAP blamed "sales execution issues in North America" for that weakened performance.

"Rest assured, these issues have been swiftly resolved," McDermott said on the conference call. SAP made "some leadership adjustments that were the right ones at the right time," he added, in an apparent reference to the recent departure of North America president Robert Courteau.

SAP is also changing the way sales teams in that region operate, McDermott said. Different industries had been combined with different geographical regions, such as the East with financial services and the West with retail companies, according to McDermott. "We have no interest in that coverage model."

SAP's sales teams have been placed on high alert and are living in a Darwinian culture, judging from the tone of other remarks McDermott made during the conference call.

"Everyone carries a quota," he said. "We don't have caddies. We don't have people that are carrying other people's bags."

The company intends to publish further details of its results on April 25.

Executives didn't discuss specific revenue numbers for SAP's much-hyped HANA in-memory database product. But they will "be more explicit" on April 25, Snabe said. There is "very, very high interest in all regions" for HANA, he added.

In addition, SAP has enjoyed "very fast leverage" of the combined sales force following the close of the SuccessFactors acquisition, Snabe said.

Users of SAP's on-premise software have "a huge interest" in combining those products with SuccessFactors' array of cloud applications, he said. "We have a very solid and high-growth situation."