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  • Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project

    Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project include and are not limited to: cost reduction, increased return on investment (ROI), reduced time to market, increased speed and efficiency, increased security, and increased interoperability. These drivers primarily focus on streamlining and reducing cost to make a company more profitable with less overhead. According to Answers.com cost reduction is defined as reducing costs to improve profitability, and may be implemented when a company is having financial problems or prevent problems. ROI is defined as the amount of value received relative to the amount of money invested according to PayperclickList.com.  With the ever increasing demands on businesses to compete in today’s market, companies are constantly striving to reduce the time it takes for a concept to become a product and be sold within the global marketplace. In business, some people say time is money, so if a project can reduce the time a business process takes it in fact saves the company which is always good for the bottom line. The Social Security Administration states that data security is the protection of data from accidental or intentional but unauthorized modification, destruction. Interoperability is the capability of a system or subsystem to interact with other systems or subsystems. In my personal opinion, these drivers would not really differ for a profit-based organization, compared to a non-profit organization. Both corporate entities strive to reduce cost, and strive to keep operation budgets low. However, the reasoning behind why they want to achieve this does contrast. Typically profit based organizations strive to increase revenue and market share so that the business can grow. Alternatively, not-for-profit businesses are more interested in increasing their reach within communities whether it is to increase annual donations or invest in the lives of others. Success or failure of a project can be determined by one or more of these drivers based on the scope of a project and the company’s priorities associated with each of the drivers. In addition, if a project attempts to incorporate multiple drivers and is only partially successful, then the project might still be considered to be a success due to how close the project was to meeting each of the priorities. Continuous evaluation of the project could lead to a decision to abort a project, because it is expected to fail before completion. Evaluations should be executed after the completion of every software development process stage. Pfleeger notes that software development process stages include: Requirements Analysis and Definition System Design Program Design Program Implementation Unit Testing Integration Testing System Delivery Maintenance Each evaluation at every state should consider all the business drivers included in the scope of a project for how close they are expected to meet expectations. In addition, minimum requirements of acceptance should also be included with the scope of the project and should be reevaluated as the project progresses to ensure that the project makes good economic sense to continue. If the project falls below these benchmarks then the project should be put on hold until it does make more sense or the project should be aborted because it does not meet the business driver requirements.   References Cost Reduction Program. (n.d.). Dictionary of Accounting Terms. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/cost-reduction-program Government Information Exchange. (n.d.). Government Information Exchange Glossary. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from SSA.gov Web site: http://www.ssa.gov/gix/definitions.html PayPerClickList.com. (n.d.). Glossary Term R - Pay Per Click List. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from PayPerClickList.com Web site: http://www.payperclicklist.com/glossary/termr.html Pfleeger, S & Atlee, J.(2009). Software Engineering: Theory and Practice. Boston:Prentice Hall Veluchamy, Thiyagarajan. (n.d.). Glossary « Thiyagarajan Veluchamy’s Blog. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Thiyagarajan.WordPress.com Web site: http://thiyagarajan.wordpress.com/glossary/

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  • Java Developer Days India Trip Report

    - by reza_rahman
    You are probably aware of Oracle's decision to discontinue the relatively resource intensive regional JavaOnes in favor of more Java Developer Days, virtual events and deeper involvement with independent conferences. In comparison to the regional JavaOnes, Java Developer Days are smaller, shorter (typically one full day), more focused (mostly Oracle speakers/topics) and more local (targeting cities). For those who have been around the Java ecosystem for a few years, they are basically the current incarnation of the highly popular and developer centric Sun Tech Days. October 21st through October 25th I spoke at Java Developer Days India. This was basically three separate but identical events in the cities of Pune (October 21st), Chennai (October 24th) and Bangalore (October 25th). For those with some familiarity with India, other than Hyderabad these cities are India's IT powerhouses. The events were basically focused on Java EE. I delivered five of the sessions (yes, you read that right), while my friend NetBeans Group Product Manager Ashwin Rao delivered three talks. Jagadish Ramu from the GlassFish team India helped me out in Bangalore by delivering two sessions. It was also a pleasure to introduce my co-contributor to the Cargo Tracker Java EE Blue Prints project Vijay Nair at Bangalore during the opening talk. I thought it was a great dynamic between Ashwin and I flipping between talking about the new features and demoing live code in NetBeans. The following were my sessions (source PDF and abstracts posted as usual on my SlideShare account): JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond Building Java HTML5/WebSocket Applications with JSR 356 What’s New in Java Message Service 2 JAX-RS 2: New and Noteworthy in the RESTful Web Services API Using NoSQL with JPA, EclipseLink and Java EE The event went well and was packed in all three cities. The Q&A was great and Indian developers were particularly generous with kind words :-). It seemed the event and our presence was appreciated in the truest sense which I must say is a rarity. The events were exhausting but very rewarding at the same time. As hectic as the three city trip was I tried to see at least some of the major sights (mostly at night) since this was my very first time to India. I think the slideshow below is a good representation of the riddle wrapped up in an enigma that is India (and the rest of the Indian sub-continent for that matter): Ironically enough what struck me the most during this trip is the woman pictured below - Shushma. My chauffeur, tour guide and friend for a day, she fluidly navigated the madness that is Mumbai traffic with skills that would make Evel Knievel blush while simultaneously pointing out sights and prompting me to take pictures (Mumbai was my stopover and gateway to/from India). In some ways she is probably the most potent symbol of the new India. When we parted ways I told her she should take solace in the fact she has won mostly without a fight a potentially hazardous battle her sisters across the Arabian sea are still fighting. I'm not sure she entirely understood the significance of what I told her. I hope that she did. I also had occasion to take a pretty cool local bus ride from Chennai to Bangalore instead of yet another boring flight. All in all I really enjoyed the trip to India and hope to return again soon. Jai Hind :-)!

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  • Welcome to the Oracle EMEA Partner Community for Exadata!

    - by javier.puerta(at)oracle.com
      The EMEA Partner Community for Exadata is the place where partners in Europe, Middle East and Africa can share experiences and best practices about selling and implementing Exadata projects. You will also receive first-hand information from Oracle on products, training and tools that can help you better market, sell and implement your Exadata-based projects and services    Who should join the Community? Community membership is for individuals. If you are working for a company that is an Oracle partner and your job is selling, implementing or supporting Exadata projects in EMEA then this community is for you.    How is this different from the Oracle Exadata Knowledge Zone? The Oracle Exadata Knowledge Zone is the fundamental source of information from Oracle for partners interested in specializing on Exadata. It is higly recommended that you get access to the Knowledge Zones related to the product areas of your interest. To get access to any of the Knowledge Zones an application must be completed by the Partner Program Administrator for your company. The Exadata Partner Community complements the Knowledge Zone by providing partners with information which is specific for the EMEA market (market, references, training, events,..) and it is also a mechanism to share experiences and best practices among partners in marketing, selling, implementing and supporting Exadata projects.   How to join?  For you to be able to register as an individual, your company must be member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) and should be working towards becoming OPN Specialized in Exadata. If this is the case then Join the EMEA Exadata Partner Community Now! If your company is not an OPN member yet, then Join Oracle PartnerNetwork first.   How do you get access to the information for the community members? We use two mechanisms to provide and share information: The EMEA Exadata Partner Community blog. This is a public blog and we use it to provide  quick and easy communication to the community members. For detailed or restricted material we will point you to a restricted area. The EMEA Exadata Partner Community Collaborative Workspace. This is an area with restricted access that only community members can access. It contains materials from community events, sales kits, implementation experiences,... reserved to community members. It also allows for partners to share content and collaborate with other community members. You will get access to this restricted area when you register as a member of the EMEA Exadata Partner Community     Need help? I hope that you will find useful the resources and the experience exchange provided by the community. If you need help or any further clarification, don't hesitate to contact me!  Javier Puerta ([email protected])Director Core Technology Partner ProgramsAlliances & Channels EMEAPhone: +34916312141 Mobile: +34609062373   

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  • HP and Microsoft: That&rsquo;s What Friends Are For ?

    - by andrewbrust
    Today, HP pre-announced the second coming out for its recently acquired Palm webOS mobile operating system.  I happen to think webOS is quite good, and when the Palm Pre first came out, I thought it a worthwhile phone.  I was worried though that the platform would never attract the developer mindshare it needed to be competitive, and that turned out to be the case.  But then HP acquired Palm and announced it would be revamping the webOS offering, not only on phones, but also on tablets.  It later announced that it would also use webOS as an embedded solution on HP printers. The timing of this came shortly after HP had announced it would be producing a “Slate” product running Windows 7. After the Palm deal, HP became vague about whether the Windows-powered slate would actually come out.  They did, in fact, bring the Slate 500 to market, but by some accounts, they only built 5000 units. Another recent awkward moment between HP and Microsoft: HP withdrew itself from the Windows Home Server ecosystem.  That one hurt, as they were the dominant OEM there.  But Microsoft’s decision to kill Drive Extender had driven away many parties, not just HP. On Wednesday, HP came out with their TouchPad, and new phone models.  Not a nice thing for Windows Phone 7, but other OEMs are taking a wait and see attitude there too, I suppose.  There was one more zinger though, and it was bigger: HP announced they’d be porting webOS to PCs. No Windows Phone 7? OK. No Windows Home Server?  Whatcha gonna do?  But no Windows 7 either?  From HP?  What comes after that, no ink and toner? Some people think Microsoft’s been around too long to be relevant.  But HP started out making oscilloscopes!  The notion that HP is too cool for Windows school is a it far-fetched.  This is the company that bought EDS. This is the company that bought Compaq.  And Compaq was the company that bought Digital Equipment Corporation.  Somehow, I don’t think the VT 220 outclasses Windows PCs. What could possibly be going on?  My sense is that HP wants to put webOS on PCs that also have Windows, and that people will buy because they have Windows.  And for every one of those sold, HP gets to count, technically speaking, another webOS unit in the install base.  webOS is really nice, as I said.  But being good isn’t good enough when you are trying to get market share.  Number of units shipped matters.  The question is whether counting PCs with webOS installed, but dormant, is helpful to HP’s cause.  Seems like a funny way to account for market share, and a strange way to treat a big partner in Redmond.

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  • Tech Ed/BI Conference 2010: A Recovering Industry in a Recovering City

    - by andrewbrust
    I tried writing a post for this blog last night, while at the this year’s Microsoft Tech Ed and Business Intelligence conferences, in New Orleans. But I literally fell asleep while writing it.  That’s probably a sign that my readers might have done the same while reading it. Why the writer’s block? This was a very good show for me, but I think I was having trouble figuring out exactly why.  Now that I’m on the flight home, I’m starting to piece it together. One reason, for sure, was that I’ve spent years in both the developer and the BI worlds, and a show that combined the two was really enjoyable for me.  Typically, the subject matter, the attendees, the Microsoft execs and managers, and even the social circles have been separate.  This year’s Tech Ed facilitated a fusion of each of these previously segregated groups.  That was good for me as a speaker; for example, I facilitated a Birds of a Feather session on PowerPivot (Microsoft’s new self-service BI offering) which was well-attended, and by a large number of non-BI pros.  The fusion was good for me as an attendee too, as Microsoft BI, in the form of a new Pivot Viewer control, made it into the Day 1 keynote, demoed by Microsoft’s key BI champion, Amir Netz.  And it was good for me socially, as I was able to meet with peers in both camps, and at one location. Speaking of meeting with industry colleagues, I did a lot of that at this show.  Probably for the first time ever, I carefully scheduled and conducted a series of meetings with friends and business acquaintances in the developer tools, data visualization, utilities, publishing and training areas of the Microsoft ecosystem.  Beside the time efficiencies in conducting so many meetings, I discovered another benefit. I got a real handle on the tech industry’s economic health. The news here is good.  First of all, 2010 has been a great year for just about everyone I spoke to.  The mood is positive, energy is high, and people are working really hard.  This is, of course, refreshing to see, and it’s a huge relief.  Add to that the fact that this year’s Tech Ed was about 2.5 times larger in headcount than last year’s (based on numbers from unofficial, but reliable, sources), and the economic prognosis seems excellent.  But there’s more to it than that. Here’s the thing: everyone I talked to seems to be working, and succeeding, at changing their business models to adapt to changes in the industry.  Whether it’s the Internet’s impact on publishing and training, the increased importance of the developer audience in South Asia, the shift of affordable developer and business talent to unfamiliar locales abroad, or even lapses in Microsoft’s performance in the market, partner companies aren’t just rolling with the punches; they’re welcoming the changes and working them to their advantage.  No one seemed downtrodden, or even fatigued.  Even for businesses who have seen core revenue streams become commoditized, everyone seems to be changing their market strategy and winning.  Even Microsoft, of whom I have been critical recently, showed signs of successful hard work and playbook change, in the maturing of their cloud strategy, their commitment to it and their excitement around it.  And the embedded, managed, self-service BI strategy that Microsoft has been touting looks like it’s already being embraced by customers, even though PowerPivot, and other new Microsoft BI products, were released only recently. The collective optimism I have witnessed, and that I have felt, tells me good things about this industry and the economy.  The stock market had huge mood swings during my stay, and that may yet subdue the industry recovery I have seen this week.  Nonetheless, I am convinced that a strong foundation of hard work, innovative thinking and, if I may,  true renaissance is underlying this industry’s success. That kind of strength will generate a strong recovery, I am certain, whether now or once we’re past another round of choppy weather in the broader economy.  The fundamentals are good.

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  • Smooth Sailing or Rough Waters: Navigating Policy Administration Modernization

    - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Life insurance and annuity carriers continue to recognize the need to modernize their aging policy administration systems, but may be hesitant to move forward because of the inherent risk involved. To help carriers better prepare for what lies ahead LOMA's Resource Magazine asked Karen Furtado, partner of Strategy Meets Action, to help them chart a course in Navigating Policy Administration Selection, the cover story of this month’s issue. The industry analyst and research firm recently asked insurance carriers to name the business drivers for replacing legacy policy administration systems. The top five cited, according to Furtado, centered on: Supporting growth in current lines Improving competitive position Containing and reducing costs Supporting growth in new lines Supporting agent demands and interaction It’s no surprise that fueling growth, both now and in the future, continues to be a key driver for modernization. Why? Inflexible, hard-coded, legacy systems require customization by IT every time a change is required. This in turn impedes a carrier’s ability to be agile, constraining their ability to quickly adapt to changing regulatory requirements and evolving market demands. It also stymies their ability to quickly bring to market new products or rapidly configure changes to existing ones, and also can inhibit how carriers service customers and distribution channels. In the article, Furtado advised carriers to ensure that the policy administration system they are considering is current and modern, with an adaptable user interface and flexible service-oriented architecture. She said carriers to should ask themselves, “How much do you need flexibility and agility now and in the future? Does it support the business processes and rules that are needed for you to be able to create that adaptable environment?” Furtado went on to advise that carriers “Connect your strategy to your business and technical capabilities before you make investment choices…You want to enable your organization to transform for the future, not just automate the past.” Unlocking High Performance with Policy Administration Transformation also was the topic of a recent LOMA webcast moderated by Ron Clark, editor of LOMA's Resource Magazine. The web cast, which featured speakers from Oracle Insurance and Capgemini, focused on how insurers can competitively drive high performance by: Replacing a legacy policy administration system with a modern, flexible platform Optimizing IT and operations costs, creating consistent processes and eliminating resource redundancies Selecting the right partner with the best blend of technology, operational, and consulting capabilities to achieve market leadership Understanding the value of outsourcing closed block operations Learn more by clicking here to access this free, one-hour recorded webcast. Helen Pitts, is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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  • JD Edwards Apps in a Box - Update

    - by Hartmut Wiese
    Summary and clarification JD Edwards Apps in a box is a Partner offering to the customer. We as Oracle have a huge interest in getting a successful offering to the market and we help the Partner building their offering. We provide components like JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and the Hardware. The Business Partner adds the installation services and position this as a solution to the market for a single price. As you know JD Edwards EnterpriseOne can run on multiple hardware platforms. Linux/X-86 version As you all know we do have JD Edwards VM Templates available from Oracle for the X-86 architecture. Each Partner should or is already able to install JD Edwards EnterpriseOne using these images from our software delivery cloud. We built a master bill of material for a X3-2 Hardware configuration now. It has been uploaded on the Community Workspace now. This is a SUGGESTION and limited to 50 Users MAX. However I strongly recommend you to do a sizing as usual and verify the configuration for each opportunity individually. T4-1/X3-2 version Oracle is not providing similar images for the T4-1 SPARC / SOLARIS architecture. There is an Optimized Solution Team inside Oracle who has created an Optimized Solution for JD Edwards some time ago. They created a whitepaper which is still available to download. This whitepaper was used as a starting point however we decided to build a new version of it using the latest Software and Hardware available. This has now been finalized and we are happy to provide this to our partners. This image is more a service we provide for each partner which they can reuse and extend based on their individual offerings. It is not an official supported Oracle Product and cannot be used to deploy to customers immediately. You cannot resell “JDE in a box”. You can use these images to save time while building your own Go-to-Market offering. You might want to add functionality like Mobility. It is also not complete as also the Deployment Server needs to be configured individually at the customer site. We will create some documentation about: what this images contains (and what not)? what final installation activities needs to be provided by each VAD/Partner in this process?  I will send an email to the community once we are ready to share it. You find these assets than in the Community Workspace. The Business Model with Oracle Hardware For those who have not done any Hardware business with Oracle yet: Usually a HW reseller orders the hardware through a Value Add Distributors (VAD) and not from Oracle directly. Each Partner needs to have Hardware Resell rights to do so. The VAD is assembling the boxes according to the needs of each customer. It is easily possible for them to prepare the boxes with the images we/you provide. However the final configuration is something a reseller/implementer needs to do at the customer site. This process is not the same in the EMEA region. Sometimes a VAD are taking the order but they do not see the Hardware at all. In those cases a VAD cannot provide any help with the pre-loading of any images and the reseller/implementer needs to do that. In some countries we do not have VADs at all.

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  • Launch 7:Windows Phone 7 Style Live Tiles On Android Mobiles

    - by Gopinath
    Android is a great mobile OS but one thought that lingers in the mind of few Android owners is: Am I using a cheap iPhone? This is valid thought for many low end Android users as their phones runs sluggish and the user interface of Android looks like an imitation of iOS. When it comes to Windows Phone 7 users, even though their operating system features are not as great as iPhone/Android but it has its unique user interface; Windows Phone 7 user interface is a very intuitive and fresh, it’s constantly updating Live Tiles show all the required information on the home screen. Android has best mobile operating system features except UI and Windows Phone 7 has excellent user interface. How about porting Windows Phone 7 Tiles interface on an Android? That should be great. Launch 7 app brings the best of Windows Phone 7 look and feel to Android OS. Once the Launcher 7 app is installed and activated, it brings Live Tiles or constantly updating controls that show information on Android home screen. Apart from simple and smooth tiles, there are handful of customization options provided. Users can change colour of the tiles, add new tiles, enable/disable transitions. The reviews on Android Market are on the positive side with 4.4 stars by 10,000 + reviewers. Here are few user reviews 1. Does what it says. only issue for me is that the app drawer doesn’t rotate. And I would like the UI to rotate when my KB is opened. HTC desire z – Jonathan 2. Works great on atrix.Kudos to developers. Awesome. Though needs: Better notification bar More stock images of tiles Better fitting of widgets on tiles – Manny 3. Looks really good like it much more than I thought I would runs real smooth running royal ginger 2.1 – Jay 4. Omg amazing i am definetly keeping it as my default best of android and windows – Devon 5. Man! An update every week! Very very responsive developer! – Andrew You can read more reviews on Android Market here.  There is no doubt that this application is receiving rave reviews. After scanning a while through the reviews, few complaints throw light on the negative side: Battery drains a bit faster & Low end mobile run a bit sluggish. The application is available in two versions – an ad supported free version and $1.41 ad free version. Download Launcher 7 from Android Market This article titled,Launch 7:Windows Phone 7 Style Live Tiles On Android Mobiles, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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  • MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 3

    - by GeekAgilistMercenary
    I rolled over to the Mandalay for breakfast.  There I met a couple guys that were really excited about the new Windows 7 Phone.  They, as I, are also hopeful that the phone really gets a big push and some penetration into the market.  Not because we don’t like any other of the phones, but because this phone is so much better in many ways.  From a developer's perspective creating applications in Windows 7 Mobile will be vastly superior in ease, capabilities, and other aspects.  The architectural, existing code base, examples, and provisions to create things on the 7 Mobile Device are already existing as of RIGHT NOW.  There is no reason, except for fickle market conditions, for this phone to not just explode onto the market.  But alas, I won't hold my breath. Day three keynote had a whole new slew of things provided.  It also seemed that things got a lot more technical on this second keynote.  The oData was one of the very technical bits, yet it included almost no code.  Starting with a Netflix example and all the way to the Codename "Dallas" effort the oData Services provide some expansive possibilities. A mash up going 4 ways was then shown for finding a movie, finding local places to have a viewing, and information about the movie and were to prospectively find and buy additional movie bits.  The display was of course, in a Windows 7 Mobile device with literally a click to view each set of data.  The backend and the front end of this was beautifully smooth. The Dallas Project has a lot of potential for analytics in dashboard and scorecard creation also.  If there is a need or reason to provide data to a vast and wide range of clients, Dallas is a prime example of how to do that. Azure Clouds After the main keynote I checked out (while developing a working WPF & Silverlight Application for work) the session on deploying ASP.NET Applications, services, etc, into the cloud.  The session was pretty good, but I'll admit I got a little unfocused from it a few times.  It is after all hard to do two things at one time. I did take note that the cloud still is a multiple step process for deploying to.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  There needs to be more checks and verifications when deploying something into the cloud just for technical reasons.  However, I feel that there should be some streamlining to the process.  Going back and forth between web and Visual Studio as the interface also seems kind of clunky.  Deployment should be able to be completed from within Visual Studio in my perspective.  Overall, the cloud is getting more and more impressive in function as well as theory. That's it from me so far on the third day of MIX.  I'll be note taking and studying hard to have more good tidbits to provide. Thanks for reading, if you're curious about more of my writing, check out this original entry at my other blog Agilist Mercenary.

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  • More Free Apps Bound for the Marketplace

    - by Scott Kuhl
    Microsoft has announced they are raising the limit of free applications a developer can submit from 5 to 100.  But what does that really mean? First, lets look at the reason for the limitation.  The iTunes Store and the Android Market both have a lot more applications available than the Windows Phone Marketplace.  But that says nothing about the quality of those applications.  I attended a couple of pre-launch events and Microsoft representatives were clearly told to send a message. We don’t want a bunch of junky applications that do nothing but spam the marketplace.  That was the reason for the 5 free application limit. Okay, so now what has the result been?  Well, there are still fart apps, but there is no sign of a developer flooding the marking with 1500 wallpaper applications or 1000 of the same application all pointed at different RSS feeds.   On the other hand there are developers who want to release real free apps but are constrained by the 5 app limit. So why did Microsoft change it’s mind?  Is it to get the count of applications up, or is to make developers happy?  Windows Phone Marketplace is growing fast but it’s a long way behind the other guys.   I don’t think Microsoft wants to have 100,000 apps show up in the next 3 months if they are loaded with copy cat apps.  Those numbers will get picked apart quickly and the press will start complaining about  the same problems the Android Market has.  I do think the bump was at developer request.  Microsoft is usually good about listening to developer feedback, but has been pretty slow about it at times.  And from a financial perspective, there will me more apps that Microsoft has to review that they will see no profit on.  At least not until they bake in a advertising model connected to Bing. Ultimately, what does this mean for the future? Well, there are developers out there looking to release more than 5 simple free apps, so I think we will see more hobby apps.  And there are developers out there trying to make money from advertising instead of sales, so I think we will see more of those also.  But the category that I think will grow the fastest is free versions of paid applications that are the same as the trial version of the application.  While technically that makes no sense, its purely a marketing move.  Free apps get downloaded a lot more than paid apps, even with a trial mode.  It always surprises me how little consumers are willing to spend on mobile apps.  How many reviews of applications have you seen that says something like “a bit pricey at $1.99”.  Really?  Have you looked at how much you spend on your phone and plan?  I always thought the trial mode baked into Windows Marketplace was a good idea.  So I’m not sure how the more open free market will play out. In the long run though, I won’t be surprised to see a Bing ad mobile ad model show up so Microsoft can capitalize on the more open and free Windows Marketplace. Bonus: The Oatmeal on How I Feel About Buying Apps

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  • Planning in the Cloud - For Real

    - by jmorourke
    One of the hottest topics at Oracle OpenWorld 2012 this week is “the cloud”.  Over the past few years, Oracle has made major investments in cloud-based applications, including some acquisitions, and now has over 100 applications available through Oracle Cloud services.  At OpenWorld this week, Oracle announced seven new offerings delivered via the Oracle Cloud services platform, one of which is the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service.  Based on Oracle Hyperion Planning, this service is the first of Oracle’s EPM applications to be to be offered in the Cloud.    This solution is targeted to organizations that are struggling with spreadsheets or legacy planning and budgeting applications, want to deploy a world class solution for financial planning and budgeting, but are constrained by IT resources and capital budgets. With the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, organizations can fast track their way to world-class financial planning, budgeting and forecasting – at cloud speed, with no IT infrastructure investments and with minimal IT resources. Oracle Hyperion Planning is a market-leading budgeting, planning and forecasting application that is used by over 3,300 organizations worldwide.  Prior to this announcement, Oracle Hyperion Planning was only offered on a license and maintenance basis.  It could be deployed on-premise, or hosted through Oracle On-Demand or third party hosting partners.  With this announcement, Oracle’s market-leading Hyperion Planning application will be available as a Cloud Service and through subscription-based pricing. This lowers the cost of entry and deployment for new customers and provides a scalable environment to support future growth. With this announcement, Oracle is the first major vendor to offer one of its core EPM applications as a cloud-based service.  Other major vendors have recently announced cloud-based EPM solutions, but these are only BI dashboards delivered via a cloud platform.   With this announcement Oracle is providing a market-leading, world-class financial budgeting, planning and forecasting as a cloud service, with the following advantages: ·                     Subscription-based pricing ·                     Available standalone or as an extension to Oracle Fusion Financials Cloud Service ·                     Implementation services available from Oracle and the Oracle Partner Network ·                     High scalability and performance ·                     Integrated financial reporting and MS Office interface ·                     Seamless integration with Oracle and non-Oracle transactional applications ·                     Provides customers with more options for their planning and budgeting deployment vs. strictly on-premise or cloud-only solution providers. The OpenWorld announcement of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service is a preview announcement, with controlled availability expected in calendar year 2012.  For more information, check out the links below: Press Release Web site If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me at [email protected].

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  • The Three-Legged Milk Stool - Why Oracle Fusion Incentive Compensation makes the difference!

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    During the London Olympics, we were exposed to dozens of athletes who worked with sports psychologists to maximize their performance. Executives often hire business psychologists to coach their teams to excellence. In the same vein, Fusion Incentive Compensation can be used to get people to change their sales behavior so we can make our numbers. But what about using incentive compensation solutions in a non-sales scenario to drive change? Recently, I was working an opportunity where a company was having a low user adoption rate for Salesforce.com, which was causing problems for them. I suggested they use Fusion Incentive Comp to change the reps' behavior. We tossed around the idea of tracking user adoption by creating a variable bonus for reps based on how well they forecasted revenues in the new system. Another thought was to reward the reps for how often they logged into the system or for the percentage of leads that became opportunities and turned into revenue. A new twist on a great product. Fusion CRM's Sweet Spot I'm excited about the sales performance management (SPM) tools in Fusion CRM. This trio of Incentive Compensation, Territory Management, and Quota Management sets us apart from the competition because Oracle is the only vendor that provides all three of these capabilities on a single tech stack, in a single application, and with a single look and feel. The niche vendors offer standalone territory or incentive compensation solutions, but then the customer has to custom build the other tools and can end up with a Frankenstein-type environment. On average, companies overpay sales commissions by three to eight percent. You calculate that number for a company the size of Oracle for one quarter and it makes a pretty air-tight financial case for using SPM tools to figure accurate commissions. Plus when sales reps get the right compensation, they can be out selling rather than spending precious time figuring out what they didn't get paid or looking for another job. And one more thing ... Oracle knows incentive comp. We have been a Gartner Market Scope leader in this space for the last five years. Our solution gets high marks because of its scalability and because of its interoperability with other technologies. And now that we're leading with Fusion, our incentive compensation offering includes the innovations that the Fusion team built, plus enhancements from the E-Business Suite Incentive Comp team. It's a case of making a good thing even better. (See product video.) The "Wedge" Apps In a number of accounts that I'm working on, there is a non-Oracle CRM system of record. That gives me the perfect opportunity to introduce the benefits of our SPM tools and to get the customer using Fusion. Then the door is wide open for the company to uptake more of Fusion CRM, especially since all the integrations they need are out of the box. I really believe that implementing this wedge of SPM tools is the ticket to taking market share away from other vendors. It allows us to insert ourselves in an environment where no other CRM solution in the market has the extending capabilities of Fusion. Not Just Your Usual Suspects Usually the stakeholders that I talk to for Territory Management are tightly aligned with the sales management team. When I sell the quota planning tool, I'm talking to finance people on the ERP side of the house who are measuring quotas and forecasting revenue. And then Incentive Comp is of most interest to the sales operations people, and generally these people roll up to either HR or the payroll department. I think of our Fusion SPM tools as a three-legged stool straddling an organization's Sales, Finance, and HR departments. So when you're prospecting for opportunities -- yes, people with a CRM perspective will be very interested -- but don't limit yourselves to that constituency. You might find stakeholders in accounting, revenue planning, or HR compensation teams. You just might discover, as I did at United Airlines, that the HR organization is spearheading the CRM project because incentive compensation is what they need ... and they're the ones with the budget. Jason Loh Global Solutions Manager, Fusion CRM Sales Planning Oracle Corporation

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  • Openmatics Revolutionizes Fleet Management with Standards-Based Vehicle Telematics Platform

    - by Michael Snow
    Openmatics s.r.o. was founded in 2010 as a subsidiary of ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a global player in driveline and chassis technology. Oracle Customer:  Openmatics s.r.o.Location:  Pilsen, Czech RepublicIndustry:  AutomotiveEmployees:  70 Its goal was to develop and operate a flexible, open telematics platform for automotive applications, which is independent from vehicle and component suppliers—recognizing that the fragmented telematics market was not meeting today’s fleet management needs. Openmatics provides a rich product portfolio, and customers can extend the platform, as required, to meet their needs. Partners and third-parties can develop their own applications using the Openmatics’ software development kit and can sell them via the Openmatics app shop.ZF Friedrichshafen AG is a global player in driveline and chassis technology. With 121 production companies and 650 service partners in 26 countries, ZF is among the top 10 largest automotive suppliers worldwide. Founded in 1915 to develop and produce transmissions for airships and vehicles, the group’s product offerings now include transmissions and steering systems as well as chassis components and complete axle systems and modules.  A word from Openmatics s.r.o.  “Oracle WebCenter Portal, together with the underlying Oracle Application Development Framework, provided the fundamental infrastructure for the Openmatics platform. Fleet managers can now reduce fuel consumption and operating costs, and more efficiently manage vehicle usage, maintenance, and safety. The standards-based platform allows third-party suppliers to deploy their own vehicle telematics services as Openmatics apps and creates a de facto standard for the automotive industry, independent from a single manufacturer or service provider.” – Gero Strobel, Head of Development, Openmatics s.r.o. Challenges Create an industry standard for vehicle telematics by establishing a customizable platform that enables access to telematics information, such as current and past fuel consumption, through a web browser to better meet automotive market and customer needs Reduce fleet-management costs by eliminating the need to invest in isolated telematics hardware and software solutions per vehicle brand and vehicle component manufacturer Establish an open platform where third-party providers—such as original equipment manufacturers (OEM), insurers, fleet operators, and individual developers—can deploy their own vehicle telematics services Allow users to purchase targeted telematics services as single apps to reduce costs and ensure rapid growth of telematics services available on the platform Enable users to configure their telematics apps with ease to make sure the platform meets individual fleet management requirements, such as analyzing past and current fuel consumption of a truck fleet Solutions Deployed Oracle WebCenter Portal as a foundation for Openmatics, a standards-based automotive telematics platform that provides next-generation fleet management with unified digital communication from and to vehicles on the move Used Oracle Application Development Framework as the development framework for Oracle WebCenter Portal’s components and services, providing developers with ready-to-use software development kits with application programming interfaces, design templates, and visual tools that accelerated time to market Used Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse to simplify telematics application development in Java Enabled fleet monitoring by recording vehicle data—such as fuel consumption information—through onboard units, delivering the information to Oracle Database, and making it accessible through a customizable app portfolio on any web browser Stored vehicle telematics data—sent as encrypted information—in Oracle Database, ensuring data integrity and immediate availability for the platform’s telematics applications Enabled a wide range of telematics services suppliers, from vehicle component manufacturers to fleet application developers, to offer vehicle telematics services on the Openmatics platform, ensuring platform independence from OEMs Provided Openmatics customers with the means to individually select the automotive telematics services that are relevant to their business requirements, eliminating the need to pay for superfluous information and reducing fleet management costs Oracle Products & Services Oracle Application Development Framework Oracle WebCenter Portal Oracle SOA Suite Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse Oracle Database Oracle Consulting &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

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  • Brazil is Hot for Social Media

    - by Mike Stiles
    Today’s guest blog is from Oracle SVP Product Development Reggie Bradford, fresh off a visit to Sao Paulo, Brazil where he spoke at the Dachis Social Business Summit and spent some time getting a personal taste for the astonishing growth of social in Brazil, both in terms of usage and engagement. I knew it was big, but I now have an all-new appreciation for why the Wall Street Journal branded Brazil the “social media capital of the universe.” Brazil has the world’s 5th largest economy, an expanding middle class, an active younger demo market, a connected & outgoing culture, and an ongoing embrace of the social media platforms. According to comScore's 2012 Brazil Digital Future in Focus report, 97% are using social media, and that’s not even taking mobile-only users into account. There were 65 million Facebook users in 2012, spending an average 535 minutes there, up 208%. It’s one of Twitter’s fastest growing markets and the 2nd biggest market for YouTube. Instagram usage has grown over 300% since last year. That by itself is exciting, but look at the opportunity for social marketing brands. 74% of Brazilian social users follow brands on Facebook, and 59% have praised a company on either Twitter or Facebook. A 2011 Oh! Panel study found 81% of social networkers there used social to research new products and 75% went there looking for discounts. B2C eCommerce sales in Brazil is projected to hit $26.9 billion by 2015. I bet I’m not the only one who sees great things ahead, and I was fortunate enough give a keynote ABRADI, an association of leading digital agencies in Brazil with 53 execs from 35 agencies attending. I was also afforded the opportunity to give my impressions of what’s going on in Brazil to Jornal Propoganda & Marketing, one of the most popular publications in Latin America for marketers. I conveyed that especially in an environment like Brazil, where social users are so willing to connect and engage brands, marketers need to back away from the heavy-handed, one-way messaging of old school advertising and move toward genuine relationships and trust-building. To aide in this, organizational and operation changes must be embraced inside the enterprise. We've talked often about the new, tighter partnership forming between the CIO and CMO. If this partnership is not encouraged, fostered and resourced, the increasing amount of time consumers spend on mobile and digital, and the efficiencies and integrations offered by cloud-based software cannot be exploited. These are the kinds of changes that can yield social data that, when combined with enterprise data, helps you come to know your social audiences intimately and predict their needs. Consumers are always connected and need your brand to be accessible at any time, be it for information or customer service. And, of course, all of this is happening quite publicly. The holistic, socially-enable enterprise connects social to customer service systems and all other customer touch points, facilitating the kind of immediate, real-time, gratifying response customers are coming to expect. Social users in Brazil are highly active and clearly willing to meet us as brands more than halfway. Empowering yourself with a social management technology platform will have you set up to maximize this booming social market…from listening & monitoring to engagement to analytics to workflow & automation to globalization & language support. Brands, it’s time to be as social as the great people of Brazil are. Obrigado! @reggiebradfordPhoto: Gualberto107, freedigitalphotos.net

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  • Faster Trip to Innovation with Simplified Data Integration: Sabre Holdings Case Study

    - by Tanu Sood
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Author: Irem Radzik, Director of Product Marketing, Data Integration, Oracle In today’s fast-paced, competitive environment, IT teams are under pressure to deliver technology solutions for many critical business initiatives as fast as possible. When the focus is on speed, it can be easy to continue to use old style, point-to-point custom scripts that grow organically to the point where they are unmanageable and too costly to maintain. As data volumes, data sources, and end users grow, uncoordinated data integration efforts create significant inefficiencies for both IT and business users. In addition to losing IT productivity due to maintaining spaghetti architecture, data integrity becomes a concern as well. Errors caused by inconsistent, data and manual data entry can prove very costly for companies and disrupt business activities. Many industry leaders recognize now that data should be moved in an automated and reliable manner across all platforms to have one version of the truth. By simplifying their data integration architecture and standardizing on a centralized approach, IT teams now accelerate time to market. Especially, using a centralized, shared-service approach brings agility, increases IT productivity, and frees up resources for innovation. One such industry leader that simplified its data integration architecture is Sabre Holdings. Sabre Holdings provides distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry, and is a winner of Oracle Excellence Awards for Fusion Middleware in 2011 in the data integration category. I had the pleasure to host Sabre Holdings on a public webcast and discuss their data integration best practices for data warehousing. In this webcast Sabre’s Amjad Saeed, presented how the company reduced complexity by consolidating systems and standardizing development on Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate for its global data warehouse development team. With Oracle’s complete real-time data integration solution, Sabre also streamlined support and maintenance operations, achieved real-time view in the execution of the integration processes, and can manage the data warehouse and business intelligence solution performance on demand. By reducing complexity and leveraging timely market insights, the company was able to decrease time to market by 40%. You can now listen to the webcast on demand: Sabre Holdings Case Study: Accelerating Innovation using Oracle Data Integration I invite you to hear directly from Sabre how to use advanced data integration capabilities to enable accelerated innovation. To learn more about Oracle’s data integration offering you can download our free resources.

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  • advanced xml? multi level .. php parsing

    - by dave1019
    hi my knowledge of xml and php is somewhat basic but have been able to parse a simple xml document (one level) ~ <numbers> <number>1</number> <number>2</number> </numbers> i'm attempting to parse an xml document from a website providing the latest market prices for gold bullion. I think i'm going to need a paid professional but want to give it a shot the xml file looks like this: <envelope> <message type="MARKET_DEPTH_A" version="0.1"> <market> <pitches> <pitch securityClassNarrative="GOLD" securityId="AUXLN" considerationCurrency="GBP" > <buyPrices> <price actionIndicator="B" quantity="0.153" limit="23477" /> </buyPrices> <sellPrices> <price actionIndicator="S" quantity="0.058" limit="23589" /> </sellPrices> </pitch> </pitches> </market> </message> </envelope> and simply i have no idea how to access the values within the "headings". (whatever the term is) sounds like i'm asking for someone to do it for me, which I don't want, but I don't know what to search for ~ it doesn't look like a regular xml structure to me. thanks!

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  • PHP and curl for fetching currency rate from Yahoo Finance

    - by gregj
    Hello, I wrote the following php snippet to fetch the currency conversion rate from Yahoo Finance.Im using curl to fetch the data. Suppose, i want to convert from US dollars (USD) to Indian National Rupee (INR),then the url is http://in.finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=USD&to=INR&submit= and the Indian Rupee value is shown as 45.225. However,if i run my code, the value im getting is 452.25. Why this discrepancy ? <?php $amount = $_GET['amount']; $from = $_GET['from']; $to = $_GET['to']; $url = "http://in.finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=".$amount."&from=".$from."&to=".$to; $handle = curl_init($url); curl_setopt ($handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); $data = curl_exec($handle); if(preg_match_all('/<td class="yfnc_tabledata1"><b>(?:[1-9]\d+|\d)(?:\.\d\d)?/',$data,$matches)) { print_r($matches[0][1]); } else { echo "Not found !"; } curl_close($handle); ?> Is there something wrong with my regex ? Please help. Thank You.

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  • creating matrix with probabilities

    - by John Chan
    Hi all, I want to generate a matrix of NxN to test some code that I have where each row contains floats as the elements and has to add up to 1 (i.e. a row with a set of probabilities). Where it gets tricky is that I want to make sure that randomly some of the elements should be 0 (in fact most of the elements should be 0 except for some random ones to be the probabilities). I need the probabilities to be 1/m where m is the number of elements that are not 0 within a single row. I tried to think of ways to output this, but essentially I would need this stored in a C++ array. So even if I output to a file I would still have the issue of not having it in array as I need it. At the end of it all I need that array because I want to generate a Market Matrix file. I found an implementation in C++ to take an array and convert it to the market matrix file, so this is what I am basing my findings on. My input for the rest of the code takes in this market matrix file so I need that to be the primary form of output. The language does not matter, I just want to generate the file at the end (I found a way mmwrite and mmread in python as well) Please help, I am stuck and not really sure how to implement this.

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  • Android: New app not showing on a sprint phone...

    - by Allan
    I uploaded my app to the Android Market last week and people have been purchasing it with no problems. My carrier is T-Mobile. As soon as I uploaded my app to the Market I got on my phone (Nexus One), searched for it, and there it was - instantly! (Is that because I have a google phone?) My friends G1 found it instantly also. BUT, another friend has a Sprint Moment phone and when he tried to search for it - it just wasn't there - like it didn't exist. I then called T-Mobile and Sprint representatives and found some information that I didn't know. The Sprint dude said that Sprint goes to some sort of massive Android Market Database and that's how Sprint knows about new apps and is then able to list them. New apps are not instantly shown on Sprint phones, you have to wait till their database updates to Android's database. At least that is what I thought they were trying to say to me. Has anyone else come across this issue and/or does anyone know how long Sprint takes to update their database for new Android apps? Do other carriers follow these methods?

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  • MSCC: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp

    Mauritius participated and contributed to the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 (GWAB). Again! And this time stronger than ever, and together with 137 other locations in 56 countries world-wide. We had 62 named registrations, 7 guest additions and approximately 10 offline participants prior to the event day. Most interestingly the organisation of the GWAB through the MSCC helped to increased the number of craftsmen. The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community has currently 138 registered members - in less than one year! Only with those numbers we can proudly say that all the preparations and hard work towards this event already paid off. Personally, I'm really grateful that we had this kind of response and the feedback from some attendees confirmed that the MSCC is on the right track here on Cyber Island Mauritius. Inspired and motivated by the success of this event, rest assured that there will be more public events like the GWAB. This time it took some time to reflect on our meetup, following my first impression right on spot: "Wow, what an experience to organise and participate in this global event. Overall, I've been very pleased with the preparations and the event itself. Surely, there have been some nicks that we have to address and to improve for future activities like this. Quite frankly, we are not professional event organisers (not yet) but we learned a lot over the past couple of days. A big Thank You to our event sponsors, namely Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific, Ceridian Mauritius and Emtel. Without them this event wouldn't have happened - Thank You! And to the cool team members of Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs). You geeks did a great job! Thanks!" So, how many attendees did we actually have? 61! - Awesome - 61 cloud computing instances to help on the research of diabetes. During Saturday afternoon there was even an online publication on L'Express: Les développeurs mauriciens se joignent au combat contre le diabète Reactions of other attendees Don't take my word for granted... Here are some impressions and feedback from our participants: "Awesome event, really appreciated the presentations :-)" -- Kevin on event comments "very interesting and enriching." -- Diana on event comments "#gwab #gwabmru 2014 great success. Looking forward for gwab 2015" -- Wasiim on Twitter "Was there till the end. Awesome Event. I'll surely join upcoming meetup sessions :)" -- Luchmun on event comments "#gwabmru was not that cool. left early" -- Mohammad on Twitter The overall feedback is positive but we are absolutely aware that there quite a number of problems we had to face. We are already looking into that and ideas / action plans on how we will be able to improve it for future events. The sessions We started the day with welcoming speeches by Thierry Coret, Sr. Marketing Manager of Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific and Vidia Mooneegan, Managing Director and Sr. Vice President of Ceridian Mauritius. The clear emphasis was on the endless possibilities of cloud computing and how it can enable any kind of sectors here in the country. Then it was about time to set up the cloud computing services in order to contribute each attendees cloud computing resources to the global research of diabetes, a step by step guide presented by Arnaud Meslier, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft. Given a rendering package and a configuration file it was very interesting to follow the single steps in Windows Azure. Also, during the day we were not sure whether the set up had been correctly, as Mauritius didn't show up on the results board - which should have been the case after approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Anyways, let the minions work... Next, Arnaud gave a brief overview of the variety of services Windows Azure has to offer. Whether you need a development environment for your websites or mobiles app, running a virtual machine with your existing applications or simply putting a SQL database online. No worries, Windows Azure has the right packages available and the online management portal is really easy t handle. After this, we got a little bit more business oriented while Wasiim Hosenbocus, employee at Ceridian, took the attendees through the inerts of a real-life application, and demoed a couple of the existing features. He did a great job by showing how the different services of Windows Azure can be created and pulled together. After the lunch break it is always tough to keep the audience awake... And it was my turn. I gave a brief overview on operating and managing a SQL database on Windows Azure. Well, there are actually two options available and depending on your individual requirements you should be aware of both. The simpler version is called SQL Database and while provisioning only takes a couple of seconds, you should take into consideration that SQL Database has a number of constraints, like limitations on the actual database size - up to 5 GB as web edition and up to 150 GB maximum as business edition -, among others. Next, it was Chervine Bhiwoo's session on Windows Azure Mobile Services. It was absolutely amazing to see that the mobiles services directly offers you various project templates, like Windows 8 Store App, Android app, iOS app, and even Xamarin cross-platform app development. So, within a couple of minutes you can have your first mobile app active and running on Windows Azure. Furthermore, Chervine showed the attendees that adding another user interface, like Web Sites running on ASP.NET MVC 4 only takes a couple of minutes, too. And last but not least, we rounded up the day with Windows Azure Websites and hosting of Virtual Machines presented by some members of the local Microsoft Students Partners programme. Surely, one of the big advantages using Windows Azure is the availability of pre-defined installation packages of known web applications, like WordPress, Joomla!, or Ghost. Compared to running your own web site with a traditional web hoster it is surely en par, and depending on your personal level of expertise, Windows Azure provides you more liberty in terms of configuration than maybe a shared hosting environment. Running a pre-defined web application is one thing but in case that you would like to have more control over your hosting environment it is highly advised to opt for a virtual machine. Provisioning of an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS system was very simple to do but it takes some more minutes than you might expect. So, please be patient and take your time while Windows Azure gets everything in place for you. Afterwards, you can use a SecureShell (ssh) client like Putty in case of a Linux-based machine, or Remote Desktop Services when operating a Windows Server system to log in into your virtual machine. At the end of the day we had a great Q&A session and we finalised the event with our raffle of goodies. Participation in the raffle was bound to submission of the session survey and most gratefully we had a give-away for everyone. What a nice coincidence to finish of the day. Note: All session slides (and demo codes) will be made available on the MSCC event page. Please, check the Files section over there. (Some) Visual impressions from the event Just to give you an idea about what has happened during the GWAB 2014 at Ebene... Speakers and Microsoft Student Partners are getting ready for the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 GWAB 2014 attendees are fully integrated into the hands-on-labs and setting up their individuals cloud computing services 60 attendees at the GWAB 2014. Despite some technical difficulties we had a great time running the event GWAB 2014: Using the lunch break for networking and exchange of ideas - Great conversations and topics amongst attendees There are more pictures on the original event page: Questions & Answers Following are a couple of questions which have been asked and didn't get an answer during the event: Q: Is it possible to upload static pages via FTP? A: Yes, you can. Have a look at the right side column on the dashboard of your website. There you'll find information about the FTP and SFTP host names. You can use any FTP client, like ie. FileZilla to log in. FTP also gives you access to your log files. Q: What are the size limitations on SQL Database? A: 5 GB on the Web Edition, and 150 GB on the business edition. A maximum 150 databases (inclusing 'master') per SQL Database server. More details here: General Guidelines and Limitations (Azure SQL Database) Q: What's the maximum size of a SQL Server running in a Virtual Machine? A: The maximum Windows Azure VM has currently 8 CPU cores, 14 or 56 GB of RAM and 16x 1 TB hard drives. More details here: Virtual Machine and Cloud Service Sizes for Azure Q: How can we register for Windows Azure? A: Mauritius is currently not listed for phone verification. Please get in touch with Arnaud Meslier at Microsoft IOI & FP Q: Can I use my own domain name for Windows Azure websites? A: Yes, you can. But this might require to upscale your account to Standard. In case that I missed a question and answer, please use the comment section at the end of the article. Thanks! Final results Every participant was instructed during the hands-on-lab session on how to set up a cloud computing service in their account. Of course, I won't keep the results from you... Global Azure Lab GWAB 2014: Our cloud computing contribution to the research of diabetes And I would say Mauritius did a good job! Upcoming Events What are the upcoming events here in Mauritius? So far, we have the following ones (incomplete list as usual) in chronological order: Launch of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (15.4.2014) Corsair Hackers Reboot (19.4.2014) WebCup (TBA ~ June 2014) Developers Conference (TBA ~ July 2014) Linuxfest 2014 (TBA ~ November 2014) Hopefully, there will be more announcements during the next couple of weeks and months. If you know about any other event, like a bootcamp, a code challenge or hackathon here in Mauritius, please drop me a note in the comment section below this article. Thanks! Networking and job/project opportunities Despite having technical presentations on Windows Azure an event like this always offers a great bunch of possibilities and opportunities to get in touch with new people in IT, have an exchange of experience with other like-minded people. As I already wrote about Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion - I had a great conversation with representatives of the University des Mascareignes which are currently embracing cloud infrastructure and cloud computing for their various campuses in the Indian Ocean. As for the MSCC it would be a great experience to stay in touch with them, and to work on upcoming, common activities. Furthermore, I had a very good conversation with Thierry and Ludovic of Microsoft IOI & FP on the necessity of user groups and IT communities here on the island. It's great to see that the MSCC is currently on a run and that local companies are sharing our thoughts on promoting IT careers and exchange of IT knowledge in such an open way. I'm also looking forward to be able to participate and to contribute on more events in the near future. My resume of the day We learned a lot today and there is always room for improvement! It was an awesome event and quite frankly it was a pleasure to spend the day with so many enthuastic IT people in the same room. It was a great experience to organise such event locally and participate on a global scale to support the GlyQ-IQ Technology in their research on diabetes. I was so pleased to see the involvement of new MSCC members in taking the opportunity to share and learn about the power of cloud computing. The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is on the right way and this year's bootcamp on Windows Azure only marked the beginning of our journey. Thank you to our sponsors and my kudos to the MSPs! Update: Media coverage The event has been reported in local media, too. Following are some resources: Orange - Local - Business: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète Maurice Info.mu: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète Le Quotidien Pg 2: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 - Le cloud pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète The Observer Pg 12: Le cloud, pour des recherches approfondies sur le diabète

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  • Start a software company offshore

    - by Mascarpone
    Hello Everybody, I own a small, very young, EU based (Italy) company, and among other things, we sell IT solutions. I have a degree in applied mathematics, and I mainly deal with user interfaces, embedded systems, automation and web applications. You can say that I'm an enlightened entrepreneur because I work only with open source software (OS, IDE, I release under BSD , ... everything is free as in freedom), I give high importance to post sales services and customer satisfaction, plus I think I'm the best boss someone could desire (LOL), as I have google in mind when I think about IT workers rights. But the most beautiful thing is that, although everybody advised us not to use open source, is that we are quite profitable!!! (for the sixth trimester in a row). Now I offshore most of the work to an Indian company. I divide the work in modules and I outsource the longer or more trivial ones. I spend a lot of time defining the specifications and I leave the hard work to them. Using productivity bonuses, a lot of prototypes and third-party audits I think that my software has reached a very good quality level. I would like to start my own software development company, in order to improve control over process and cut costs. Obviously I can't afford the cost of labor in the EU, so I thought about opening a company in Asia. What I need Is: 1) Cheap labor - I can afford to give productivity bonuses and higher than average wages and stay profitable just because labor is cheap. 2) Many talents - I need a good level of tertiary education, and a good number of graduates, so I can hire junior developers and train and teach them according to my needs and philosophies (e.g.: open source mind) 3) Good infrastructure - buildings, transport, internet, .... everything that a company might need. I thought about 3 possible candidates: 1) India - I already work with indian people, I know that they are realiable and speak a good english. Big cities are too expensive, but maybe a small city like lucknow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucknow could suits my needs. 2) China - They say it's cheaper than India, but I everytime I worked with a chineese company the language was a big barrier. They work hard, are somewhat skilled and cheap but maybe it's a risky path. Plus I feel a little uncofortable with their lack of human rights. 3) Philippines - Same as china: cheaper than india, but maybe less educated. Where do you think it's the best place to start a software company? Any reading or book to advise? thank you very much

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