Tag Archives: product

Google Fiber Project: Programming Key to Success

Google has officially rolled out its long-touted Google Fiber Project showcasing what broadband should look and feel like to all users. Yes, it sets the new standard for broadband connections with a 1Gig speedster, over 100 times faster than current broadband offerings in the U.S. Not-withstanding, just speed will not be the determining success factor; the availability of competitive programming will become the deciding judgment in Google’s move to tout reasonable costs to bundled broadband.

Programming Rights Historically Elusive

Obtaining rights to mainstream content producers is the key to a Google Fiber success. Without the likes of HBO, The Discovery Channel and other must-have content for any TV package, the prospects dim for any competitor trying to enter the broadband-cable bundles which dominate the market. Time Warner Cable will be watching closely as Google moves forward to secure rights and compete head-to-head in Kansas City. Just broadband alone, using Netflix, YouTube and others to compete is not enough. Historically, incumbent service providers have been able to lock-down competitors in any semblance of affordable programming from top content producers.

"Fiber’s biggest problem is that it needs backing from the big players, says Marguerite Reardon at CNET. The Discovery Channel, CNBC, AMC, TNT, Comedy Central, ESPN, CNN, and HBO are all glaringly absent. And Google may have a hard time convincing the owners of those channels — like Disney (ESPN, HBO) and Time Warner (TNT) — to climb onboard." From (Can Google conquer Cable TV?)

Google needs economies of scale going forward. That means it must target additional cities for Google Fiber, and quickly, in demonstrating to programmers it has staying power to compete effectively. Otherwise, programmers will shy away from any substantial deal with a new entrant. This entails having deep pockets and a willingness to compete for the long-haul.

By-Passing Hardware Vendors

Google Fiber seems intent on holding costs down by combining its own research and hardware. Project engineers have taken research from related Google hardware molding new hardware into low-cost products. The devices include a cable box, and hand-held device all seem to come from Google resources, like Google TV, Nexus 7 Tablet. New devices created include a stackable storage and network box. All these components add up to a quick and nimble broadband and TV package available for $120.00 per month. Boxes for additional TV’s are separate from this package. Learning from those going before it, Google is forging a seemingly level-headed approach to combine resources in the venture, thereby keeping the $500 million price tag in check.

Potential Customers Must Show Interest

Kansas City’s potential customers must register online for the project by paying a $10.00 fee, and their neighbor’s must do the same to get in line for initial installation of Google Fiber. This pre-qualifying aspect is the marketing component which Google foresees as a must-have in moving forward with actual deployment. If the interest is not concentrated enough within neighborhoods, roll-out will be delayed until enough interests warrant the cost of installation. This could save tons of money on the front end with less truck-roll for individual installations.

Residents can either pay a $300.00 fee or sign up to an initial package like broadband and TV or just broadband to waive that fee. There will be a 2 year contract for packages. Signing up for free broadband is also available, but does not include the 1Gig version, only a standard speeds. Google is playing it smart, at least on the front end of their historic project, using milestones to move from one level to the next in roll out. If insufficient interest by neighborhood does not materialize, those neighborhoods will have to wait for the fastest broadband available.

Conclusion

While these factors; using in-house hardware, and qualifying potential customers will save money on the front-end, as stated, the determining factor will be competitive programming acquisition. It is worth watching to see how Google handles entrenched competitive forces with what many think is an innovative project at its best. But the Internet giant must not only navigate a competitive environment, it also must offer the best product on the market. That will ensure success over the long-haul, which means, pouring money into build-outs, programming, and marketing costs for a multi-year investment.

source:

http://www.circleid.com/posts/

0120805_google_fiber_project_programming_key_to_success/

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Why your IT outsourcing RFP is holding you back

The methods the RFP process employs to "normalise" the proposals of various vendors and create apples-to-apples comparisons virtually locks out any attempts by a provider to bring something creative to the table. The more detailed the buyer gets in the RFP, the less room there is for innovation or flexibility – ?which outsourcing customers claim to want. And outsourcing customers often take an everything-but-the-kitchen sink approach to their RFP requirements, including not only need-to-have requirement, but nice-to-have services.

In response to a recent ISG survey, service providers said their pricing was at least 10 percent higher when responding to complex RFPs An alternative is what Young calls a request for solution (RFS). In contrast to a detailed, buyer-led RFP, the RFS is an open-ended, collaborative process. The customer describes its IT environment, objectives, concerns, and risk tolerance and the potential suppliers come back with unique solutions that meet those general requirements.

"In buyer-led commerce – like an RFP or RFQ – the buyer dictates the terms and scope of the commerce. In seller-led commerce, the seller makes "often unsolicited" offers to the buyer on the seller terms," says Young. "The RFS is meant to bridge these approaches – getting the best aspects of both."

Young likes to use a vacation-planning analogy. With a traditional RFP process, you’d ask a travel agent find the cheapest package for a family of four to fly from New York to a hotel room within five miles of Disneyworld for five days in June. Taking the RFS approach, you’d say you want to take a family of four on a five night vacation and spend $4000 or less and then select from the variety of options the agent provides that meets those criteria, such as a cruise, a camping trip, a European tour, or Disney.

RFS offers a better working relationship

When a buyer really wants to transform an IT environment, they may not know what they want even though a detailed RFP implies that they do. An RFS can reveal options an outsourcing customer may not have thought of, says Young.

When Young first began offering the RFS option four years ago, only a few customers were willing to try it. Today, just under half of those he works take an RFS approach, at least for part of a deal.

The option provides valuable getting-to-know-you time. "An RFP is very formal. It’s doesn’t build trust," says Young. With an RFS, "you’re jointly working together to solve the problem right from the start. And that time is better spent starting off the relationship on the right foot." It can also shift the buyer’s focus from who has the lowest price to who they mesh with best.

One consumer products retailer who recently issued an RFS with Young ultimately chose a service provider based on soft benefits. "They liked them, they trusted them, they fit in culturally," says Young. They shook hands and immediately began writing the statement of work and the contract exhibits. "But [the customer] also made it clear if [the provider] jerked them around, they’d put an RFP cover sheet on the solution and send it out for competitive bid," says Young."

Ideally, that’s the way it works. One of the solutions lights the buyer’s fancy and they fast forward to contract negotiations, cutting the typical four to six month provider selection process in half. But many still follow up with a traditional RFP, either because they think competitive bidding is the only way to get a good deal or because that’s the way they’ve always done it.

"It’s a little disappointing. They just don’t seem to get the fact that the perfect can be the enemy of the good. A good deal managed well is great. A perfect deal managed poorly is terrible," says Young. "They think if they can create a 1,000-page contract through a competitive RFP process, they will be protected. But the more buttoned down the RFP and contracting process is, the more that take their foot off the pedal during the management phase."

RFS requires flexibility and transparency

The kind of handshake agreement created by the RFS process actually encourages the parties to work out ambiguities early on and also leaves room for flexibility as the business and IT environment inevitably changes, says Young. But it requires a leap of faith. Client and provider must communicate, collaborate, and be transparent. "The client has to trust the provider to deliver on requirements rather than micro-manage pricing and service delivery," says Young. They also have to be willing to change their own processes and deal with internal constraints and complexities in order to drive the desired end state.

An RFS approach requires the provider to shake up their traditional sales approach as well. Some of the big players who are doing just fine with the RFP-led process won’t go for it, says Young. But others, particularly tier-two, offshore providers, and business consulting-focused providers, ?welcome the opportunity. An outsourcing provider can spend two or three million on a proposal for a $100 million-plus deal and wind up winning the business less than half the time. The RFS has a lower cost of entry. "It gives them at least one swing at the deal," Young says.

For customers trying an RFS for the first time, Young advises they start small. Pick a project where there’s a lack of consensus about to do – one faction arguing for offshoring, another for a cloud solution, and yet another for a re-engineering effort. And RFP process can bring those options to life. "The RFS can bring clarity and the credibility of the commercial markets to help focus the point of view internally on the proper direction to take," says Young

source:http://www.computerworlduk.com/indepth/outsourcing/3364952/why-your-it-outsourcing-rfp-is-holding-you-back/

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SAP Develops Database Software to Challenge Oracle

German software maker SAP said on Thursday that it plans to become a large database software developer, which exacerbates the long-term hostile relationship between the company and Oracle. Moreover, on April 10, SAP will hold a press conference in San Francisco, not far away from Oracle headquarter.

SAP is the world’s largest business management software developer, whose products could manage accounting, manufacturing and wages and other aspects. Although Oracle is in the second place in this area, thanks to the leadership position of database market, its total income is still higher than SAP.

SAP said in a statement that it will launch a unified data management product set and prove how they will become the industry leader of database.

In July 2010, SAP purchased Sybase, the fourth largest database software developer in the world. After the ransaction, Sybase CEO John Chen still served as CEO of SAP Sybase sector. However, SAP spokesman Scott Behles said John Chen would not speak at the press conference on April 10.

Since the acquisition of Sybase, SAP has been working to expand Sybase’s mobile software product line, rarely disclosing the related database technology program. Moreover, SAP will challenge the two industry giants IBM and Microsoft in the process of marching to database business.

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Outsourcing to improve productivity of SMEs

Recently, outsourcing by companies especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), has started taking shape, which if nurtured and adopted widely, can greatly improve productivity of SMEs in India. In India a few emerging outsourcing opportunities include:

1. Technology Outsourcing

IT outsourcing helps in reducing the initial capital requirements of the SMEs, and more importantly, helps in freeing up organisational bandwidth in managing IT resources.

2. Finance and Accounts

Several SMEs are choosing outsourcing CFOs, as the scale of operations doesn’t necessarily warrant a full-time CFO. More than the cost of hiring, retention of CFO has been a bigger problem for SMEs, which is obviated in an outsourced model, as it is managed by the service provider, who is held accountable for the quality of service delivered. Progressive SMEs are gaining significant advantages from this emerging outsourcing opportunity.

3. Human resource function

The emerging practice in recent years is outsourcing of the basic day-to-day functions of the HR department. The outsourced HR function makes it affordable for SMEs to have systems and processes that are hitherto utilised only by large corporations.

Today similar opportunities are available for progressive SMEs in India, who are willing to capitalise on this emerging phenomenon.

Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/mentor/article2604254.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home

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Outsourcing software program careers

Nowadays outsourcing software program careers is obviously for all sorts of industries. Actually, outsourcing software program careers is a sound business enterprise apply but treatment need to be takin gto stay clear of particular pitfalls frequently connected with outsourcing function. Outsourcing includes outsourcing the function to people or providers. And taking some precautions can avoid the business from generating errors. Here are tips for effectively screening outsourcing candidates:

1. Illustrate the task sufficiently in occupation ads

2. Assessment apps and resumes cautiously

3. Routine interviews with capable candidates

4. Request job interview candidates to present an inventory of function references

5. Confirm each and every reference and verify the validity of function historical past

Furthermore, you should create schedules when outsourcing. Meanwhile, investing an excessive amount of cash on outsourcing, including cash compensated towards the person or company to total the function too as cash invested in locating essentially the most capable candidate manpower consultant, is also an error providers frequently make when outsourcing.

Source: http://msqstudio.com/2011/08/14/placement-agencies-tips-precautions-for-outsourcing-software-program-employment/

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Indian Stocks Decline as Wipro Plunges on Outsourcing Slowdown

Today, in Asia concern whether rising inflation and interest rates will dent corporate earnings, while India’s benchmark stock index dropped.

Wipro, Ltd., one of the world’s largest third party R&D services provider, caters to product engineering requirements in multiple domains. It plunged the most in three months after its earnings were little changed. However, the builder of dams, roads and bridges, Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. declined 1.6 percent. The Sensex has declined 9.3 percent this year. Moreover, three out of six Sensex companies that have reported earnings for the quarter ended June 30 have fallen short of analyst estimates as rising borrowing costs damped demand.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/20/bloomberg1376-LOKXT10UQVI901-1K4PAQA7432CK5D532JR9FT53P.DTL

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Basware’s expansion – from P2P software to AP outsourcing

For the question whether the vendor plans to partner with other outsourcing providers in multi-tower deals where AP is just part of what’s on the plate, Basware’s Bob Cohen’s answer is “yes.” He suggested that Basware would work with partners to ensure that their products and services were available for their customers. He added that it would be in addition to Basware offering InvoiceOut via direct sals and delivered by Basware.

Source: http://www.spendmatters.com/index.cfm/2011/7/5/Basware-Expands-Introduces-New-BPO-Offering–From-P2P-Software-to-AP-Outsourcing-Part-3

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When Flash Can Be Run On Apple’s Products

15 April, 2010
Written by Effie Sha
Beijing RayooTech Co., Ltd.

Everyone, especially iPhone developers known that Flash is not working on iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad devices. Speaking with the Bloomberg news service on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen acknowledged that even after months of striving, a workable sversion of Flash for the iPhone remains a tough nut to crack. ‘It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,’ Narayen told Bloomberg Television. ‘The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver. To bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone Web-browsing experience we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK (the iPhone software development kit) and the current license around it.’

Though the relationship between Adobe and Apple had reached the bottom, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said Flash cannot be run on iPhone is ‘Apple issue’. In January, Apple CEO Steve Jobs had accused Adobe for being lazy to have potential to do things. Adobe has come up with a way to let iPhone developers write Flash applications for Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices, even without the support of Apple. Adobe has been trying to work with Apple for more than one year to get its Flash running on Apple’s devices, but they still need more cooperation.

It seems that consumers who bought Apple’s products can see sunlight from the cooperation between Adobe and Apple. However, things are not that easy. As the new operating system on iPhone – iPhone OS4 came out, poor iPhone developers will be restricted by using Objective-C, C, C++, and JavaScript only. This directly affects Adobe’s Packager for iPhone that allows developers to work with Flash via Adobe ActionScript, and then convert it to an iPhone app on the fly. Any application developed in this way would be rejected due to Apple’s new restriction. And When Steve Jobs was asked if there were plans to add Flash or Java on live from Apple’s iPhone OS 4 event, his response was a flat: No.

Adobe will be placed in an embarrassing position. The Packager for iPhone was supposed to be a bright feature in the upcoming Flash CS5. And now, iPhone developers and end-users couldn’t see any hope from this endless war. Running Flash on Apple’s products still have long way to go.

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China Software Outsourcing CompanyDownload ‘ When Flash Can Be Run On Apple’s Products ‘ Article

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Financial Outsourcing Services in China

09 April, 2010
Written by William Zhu
Beijing RayooTech Co., Ltd.

–Financial Outsourcing Services Market–

"Financial outsourcing services, is the financial institutions base on the sustainable operations development, using the outsourcing business (finance company subsidiaries within the Group entity or the entities outside the financial companies) to implement its own conduct of business."

                                                                                — Basel Committee on Banking Supervision

Financial outsourcing services currently divided into ITO and BPO, that is, the business process outsourcing (BPO) and Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO), for example, consulting, software development, software implementation support and maintenance, issuing and acquiring services, data processing and disaster recovery and customer service, etc.

Deloitte & Touche survey demonstrates that there are 410 billion USD of financial services outsourcing to overseas institutions in the past five years in the USA, which occupied 15% of the total expenditure of financial outsourcing services.

However, the scale of China’s financial outsourcing services market in 2009 is about 10 billion Yuan (not including product purchase). In the past three years, the financial outsourcing services, maintaining a compound growth rate of more than 30% in China market.

Thus, this area presents tremendous potential and business opportunities.

–The Currently Situation of Financial Outsourcing Services and the Future Development–

“Take the IT skills as the core competitiveness, to use the industry knowledge and project management capabilities to personalize the IT services, will become the trend of the financial outsourcing services”

                                                                                          —Beijing Rayoo Tech. Company

The previous financial outsourcing services include the suppliers which list on the above figure. When the Software products supplier, hardware products supplier, systems integration supplier and consulting providers offer the software or hardware products, they provide outsourcing services at the same time. For example, Vanda Group provide the bank business system plus with offering the implementation outsourcing services and maintenance outsourcing services at the same time. When IBM provides apparatus, they also offer maintenance outsourcing services. The representative companies include IBM, HP, Lenovo, Chang Tian International Engineering Co., NanTian Group, etc. At this stage, the IT needs of the financial institutions can be satisfied through the standardized products.

The characteristics of these software outsourcing services are around with the software and hardware products, usually provide with the simple standardized services. Such kind of services can meet the needs of financial institutions at this stage.

With the development of the financial industry and the maturity of information technology, financial services and IT needs demonstrate the following trends:

1)Bank, insurance, securities-based financial institutions pay more attention on the core financial business innovation, unique and personalized financial business services are the competitiveness of the financial institutions.

2)The core financial business and non-core businesses, the front and back office operations, the standard operating procedures and non-standard operational procedures, which are separated fast.

3)Financial institution is to strengthen customer relationship management and carry out the customer-focused business philosophy, the speed and quality of customer service become more important.

4)The standardized software products is no longer occupied the dominant position of financial institutions, financial institutions began develop a large number of customized business systems and projects to meet the needs of business innovation. These include: the core business systems, E-channel platform, intermediate business platform and E-commerce.

5)Efficiency improvement, consolidate resources and reduce costs become a trend for the backstage construction of the financial institutions.

However, the current financial outsourcing services provider has no corresponding ability to provide such outsourcing services. Thus, the software development, technology research and business promotion of the four major state-owned commercial banks are outsourcing to Headquarters’ R&D centers at present. The major insurance companies have built their own insurance centers. As far as known, Citigroup, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and other world-class financial institutions have the teams to provide the support service at the backstage. Those teams aim to meet the individual needs of the financial institutions.

(Standardization requirements including consulting, technology, resources and business processing.)

(Individual requirements including hardware providing, integration services and software products offer.)

At present, the standardized demands of the software products, hardware products and integration products accounted for 40% of the financial institutions requirements, while the individual needs occupy 60% in total, which is rising rapidly. To meet this part of the demand, many financial IT products provider has launched a personalized IT services, such as LongTop Group, etc. RayooTech is the professional service provider that offers the personalized technology services.

There are several types of software service providers in this market:

Take the technology as the core service model:

The personalized service for Financial Institutions

In the future development, the service profrividers who can meet the personalized demands of the financial institutions will present the following competency models:

-Provide the low-cost human resources and infrastructure for financial institutions, and take them as the core competencies;

-Take the project management capability as the core competence, and able to help financial institutions to organize a certain amount of project team, under the leadership of the financial institutions themselves, the third parties technology vendors or the consulting firms to implement the delivery works;

-Take the technology as the core competence, integrated project management capabilities and financial industry knowledge, which to provide the personalized service to meet the changing demands. This kind of providers need to have strong technical skills, extensive industry background, consulting service capabilities, and able to participate in the standard development for financial services and IT services. This is the direction and goal for Beijing RayooTech as well.

–Domestic Financial Services Firms:–


[ All rights reserved, reprint, please specify source and the author. Thank you. ]

China Software Outsourcing CompanyDownload ‘ Financial Outsourcing Services in China ‘ Article

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How to Leverage the Power of Outsourcing Product Development

Outsource product development has caught maximum number of eye balls in the business world. Bygones are the times when it was all about software vendors’ abilities to build new products. With existing dynamic market conditions, the software companies, which are able to offer customized offshore product development services of superior grade in the minimal time frame possible are considered as successful.
Software product development is inclusive of services such as software research & development, outsourced software documentation, customized software solutions, outsourced product support, outsourced product testing, outsourced document management, outsourced process enhancements etc. Since this has emerged as a promising business concept, it calls for sharpened business acumen and formulation of more impactful satisfaction methodologies.

Now the next question arises – How to leverage its full potential? To reap its benefits, one must be aware of the arenas in which the power of outsourcing product development can be fully tapped. It’s highly beneficial under following situations:

When there is a requirement of expertise since the in-house team faces dearth of time to focus solely on product development.

When the resources available do not suffice for efficient product development then outsourcing product development can be conveniently resorted to.

There is a need of reducing the product life cycle.

If there is a requirement for building modular product to incorporate certain functionalities.

The cost incurred on product development is much higher if the in-house team focuses completely on development of product.

If there is an urgent need of integration of standard practices in the ongoing process of development.

If there is a need to save the product from the phase of technological obsoleteness.

To capitalize on the concept of outsourcing product development, huge multitudes of outsourcing companies delivering offshore product development services have surfaced on the World Wide Web. These companies aim to help ISVs across the globe in helping them save their product development endeavors, time and cost. However, choosing the right offshore company as per the business requirements is a big challenge. It’s where the intelligence quotient comes into the picture since any wrong decision here is a recipe for disaster.
Say ‘Hello’ to Outsourcing Product Development if you haven’t until now!

source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-leverage-the-power-of-outsourcing-product-development.html

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