Facts and Figures about Smartphones in Malaysia

The typical smartphone user: 25-34 years old, high educated and working

Smartphones are not a gadget of the very young only – the majority of users are between 25-34 years old, are high educated with full time employment and an income of 5.000 RM and more. Many users are new to this smart world (80% first device), more than the half joined within the past 12 months.

Devices, their role and usage: Important accessory - always and everywhere

Nokia (35%) and Sony Ericsson (25%) with highest market share and with clear distance to other brands. Rather un-mobile location usage place number 1: at home followed by in restaurants. Important as purse and key, two thirds don´t leave the house without the smartphone. The users are driven by killing time and having instant information at hand by taking the smartphone along. Internet usage – especially browsing (41% last week) and accessing a social network (37%) – are very important for smartphone users. Only 13% of users do not have cross-media usage habits: the majority does something in parallel when using the smartphone like listening to music (63%) or using the internet on a further device (49%).

Internet Usage: High frequency and number of daily sessions

The typical smartphone user accesses the web almost every day (43% mobile, 73% fixed) with several sessions on a usage day – however rather short ones on mobile and longer ones on PC. One third expects to spend more time on the mobile web via smartphone in the future. Future web usage on PC is expected to be higher (52%).

Search: High frequency and Google followed by Yahoo!

Search engines of major relevance in everyday search (55% mobile, 88% fixed). Only 10% never use local search and more than 90% mention further actions after looking up specific information, with 41% making a purchase. For the majority Google is not only one of the used search engines but the number one search engine followed by Yahoo!.

Videos: Medium frequency and Facebook & YouTube on one level

Around every second smartphone is used to watch videos at least on a weekly base. Facebook (78%) is more used via smartphone than YouTube (62%) – on computer YouTube with higher usage rate.

Social Networking: High frequency and Facebook the one

Every second smartphone user accesses social networks via smartphone every day – 41% post personal updates daily. THE social network is Facebook (mobile and fixed with more than 90%).

Mobile Advertising: Accepted on high level with high awareness

Almost one half would not mind mobile ads as long as they receive a goody. Every fifth has used a mobile coupon in a store. 81% have noticed mobile advertising a least sometimes – mostly on search engines and apps. Two out of three have taken action after seeing a mobile ad.

Mobile Commerce: Growing shopping channel hindered by security and convenience

29% use the smartphone for price comparison or product information when shopping – about the same amount changed their mind on purchase as a result of retrieving information via smartphone. One third does not only use the smartphone when shopping physically but shops directly via this device – 47% of them within the past month. Preference of fixed PC and fear that purchase might not be secure are main barriers of mobile commerce. 32% anticipate a higher purchase rate via smartphone within the next 12 months.

Private smartphone users who use the internet in general

Age	18 - 24 Years	38%
	25 - 34 Years	41%
	35 - 44 Years	13%
	45 - 54 Years	8%
Gender	Male	29%
	Female	71%
Education	Low	1%
	Middle	26%
	High	71%
Education	Employed - full-time	66%
	Employed - part-time	5%
	Retired	1%
	Student / Apprentice	20%
	Unemployed/homemaker	8%
Marital Status	Alone	54%
	Together	45%
Household size	1 Person	2%
	2 Persons	6%
	3 Persons	17%
	4 Persons	22%
	5 Persons and more	53%
Number of children	0 Children	47%
	1 Child	25%
	2 Children	15%
	3 Children and more	13%
Annual household	Top (5.000 RM and above)	49%
	Middle (1.500 - 4.999 RM)	39%
	Low (1.499 RM and below)	5%
Region	Urban	74%
	Suburban	20%
	Rural	6%

Source:

Mobile Internet Insights Report Malaysia
Ipsos MediaCT Germany
The Media, Content and Technology Research Specialists

Survey Shows Malaysian Site Owners and Advertisers should Optimise for Mobile Web

If you were asked to give up your smartphone or your TV, which would you choose?
Earlier this year, Google teamed up with IPSOS Research to learn the answer to this question and many others -- by asking 30,000 people in 30 countries, including Malaysia, about how they use their smartphones, giving us a detailed snapshot of how consumers around the globe think about their smartphones.

It’s the first time anyone has asked this many people the same questions, and it means we can compare and contrast behaviour and trends across countries: we can compare how someone in Malaysia uses mobile banking as opposed to someone in, say, France.

And as we’ve always made clear, we want to make this rich trove of information accessible to everyone -- journalists, marketers, advertisers, app developers, and academics--so that an app developer can make educated decisions about which countries to market their apps, or a reporter can learn how widespread mobile social networking is in his home country.

We’re pleased to announce that today, we’ve made this data publicly available in, via http://www.ourmobileplanet.com, which is also available in Bahasa Malaysia.

Now, anyone can go to Our Mobile Planet to create instant charts and graphs comparing, say, how many Malaysians notice mobile ads versus Australia.

To get you started, here are some interesting things we learned about Malaysia:

• 1 in 3 Malaysians say they would rather give up their TV than their smartphone.
  
• On a daily basis: 43% of Malaysian smartphone users go onto the mobile Internet.
  
• 68% say they never leave home without their smartphones and 58% say they first access information on their smartphones and then follow up to find more info on their laptops / PCs.
  
• 64% of smartphone owners use their devices to get on the net to get information when not in front of a computer and 47% say their smartphones provide them with a quick answer to a question when they need an immediate answer.
  And Malaysia compared to other countries in the region:
  
• Japan, Korea & Taiwan have the greatest proportion (~80%) of smartphone users for whom this is their first smartphone. Australia, India & Malaysia are also at 80%, ahead of rest of world. A full 23% of Australian smartphone users have had their phone for less than 3 months, second only to South Korea with 28% having purchased their smartphone in just the last 3 months.
  
• Southeast Asian consumers are as or more likely to have made a purchase on their smartphone than U.S. users. Consumers in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia report
  significantly higher likelihood to have made a purchase, while Malaysian consumers report a slightly higher propensity.
  
• Intention to use more apps in the future seems to be significantly higher in developing Asian-Pacific economies, as compared to developed countries across the world. For example, 39% of US and UK consumers, and 45% of Japanese consumers, intend to use more apps in the future, while over 60% of Malaysian, Thai, and Indian consumers and 59% of Indonesian consumers intend to do so.
  

In addition to charts and graphs, Our Mobile Planet site visitors can also choose to download the data as an image, a spreadsheet file, or an open CSV (comma-separated value) format.

We hope that everyone finds this wealth of information as entertaining and useful as we have.

About the data 

This study is a global effort conducted in partnership by Google, Ipsos and the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) to get insights about the mobile user and its mobile usage. To better understand the mobile usage, the OurMobilePlanet site provides deep dives into the search, video, social and email behaviour, as well as mobile research and purchase intentions. Most of the data is set into context to the classical desktop internet to evaluate difference and similarities between these channels.  

About the survey methodology

• Timing - surveys were administered during March and July 2011.
  
• Population - target population were the private smartphone user, who accessed the mobile internet on their device in each country surveyed. Frame population (sample base) was from Ipsos online access panels and partner panels in each country surveyed.
  
• Sampling -samples in each country surveyed were aimed to be representative of the target population. Sample sizes are n=6,000 in the US, n=2,000 in Germany, UK, France and Japan, n=500 in Indonesia and Malaysia and n=1,000 in each other country surveyed. Quotas were applied in the sampling process with regard to age, gender, mobile internet usage and mobile brand, as to ensure representivity.
  

Motorola Solutions Enables the Developer Community to create Next Generation Enterprise Solutions

Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI), today shared its vision of next generation enterprise solutions with around 180 Asia Pacific developers and showcased a host of technology innovations to its growing community of independent software vendors, system integrators and application developers at its second APAC Developer Conference.

The company also reinforced its commitment to enabling its developer community with RhoElements, its new Operating System-independent framework for HTML5 application development, and showcased ET1, its first built for enterprise Android-based tablet to developers. The two-day conference covers a wide range of emerging technologies, development roadmap and enterprise solutions for tomorrow’s enterprise and businesses. The conference agenda include trends and technologies for advanced devices, enhanced information capture, integrated communications, adaptive networking and advanced application services.

The developer conference organised by Motorola Solutions serves to connect partners, developers, users and technologies across the Asia Pacific with an ecosystem of devices, tools, programs and support to enable them to create next generation enterprise solutions and deliver greater business impact and results.

Expert speakers include Luis Llamas, Product Management Director for Mobile Computing Device, Mark Kirstein, Product Management Senior Director for Solutions and Frameworks and Sanchit Gogia, Senior Analyst from Forrester Research, providing insights on topics such as Android for the enterprises, introduction of new development platform, mobile application development for the future and many more upcoming developments to add value to the developer community.

During the conference the developers can also tap into Motorola’s digital two-way radio technology expertise, and discuss industry trends and latest developments in this space. Experts will be there on hand to cover topics which help developers discover and create applications that leverage the full potential of digital radio systems to deliver new experiences to the users.

Key Facts:

• RhoElements, is industry's first HTML5 application framework designed to allow businesses to quickly and cost-effectively develop and deploy web-based applications on their existing Motorola Windows Embedded Handheld (formerly Windows Mobile) and Windows Embedded Compact (CE) mobile computers. RhoElements also ensure business continuity by enabling the application to run, isolated from the operating system and provides a bridge for businesses to adopt future Windows Embedded Handheld releases, Android or other operating systems.
  
• Defining a true enterprise tablet, the features of the ET1, Motorola’s first Android-based tablet, runs on an enterprise ready version of the Android Operating System. It offers enhanced security, durability and flexibility through its comprehensive suite of robust enterprise features and accessories, designed to meet the critical business needs across vertical markets from Retail, Hospitality, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Utilities.
  

RHOELEMENTS Key Facts

• RhoElements provides a modern HTML5/advanced JavaScript/CSS application framework for high-performance web-based applications, enabling a seamless transition from terminal emulation solutions or legacy browser-based applications to more powerful and user-friendly web-based applications.
  
• RhoElements allows enterprise customers and Channel partners to leverage on the productivity of web-based applications, cutting down the costs for application development, management and support.
  
• RhoElements allows developers to offer enterprise users applications with a consumer-style look and feel with consistency across device type, screen size and operating system.
  
• With support for HTML5 features such as application caching and web storage, developers can optimize network utilization and enable continuous operation when users temporarily lose connectivity.
  
• RhoElements exposes web developers to device-level application programming interfaces (APIs) so that they may take advantage of the enterprise-rich features found in Motorola enterprise mobile computers.
  
• The first version of RhoElements will provide support for the Motorola enterprise tablet (ET1) running the Android™ operating system and Motorola mobile devices running Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5, Windows Embedded CE 5 and 6 and Windows Embedded Compact 7.
  
• RhoElements 1.0 is available immediately for download.
  

How To Disable the Parameter Prompt for Crystal Report Using VB.Net

Just sharing, no big deal.

Refer to

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms227086%28v=vs.90%29.aspx

This applies to MS .NET programming using Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

Three things to take note.

1. ) Do not invoke CrystalReportViewer.RefreshReport Method

This method will refresh the data for the report currently displayed in the CrystalReportViewer control. The report will prompt for parameters or logon info is necessary.

So, this method is not needed unless the same CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument object is reused.

2.) Procedures (Must follow this order)

2.1. Refresh ReportDocument object

2.2. Set ReportDocument object datasource

2.3. Set ReportDocument object as CrystalReportViewer.ReportSource

2.4. Set parameters to ReportDocument

3.) Two ways of setting parameters at step 2.4

3.1) Using a combination of

CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterField.CurrentValues
CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterField.HasCurrentValue

3.2) Using CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument.SetParameterValue

Sample Codes: 

Public Sub LoadReport_1(Optional ByVal remoteDataCol As Collection = Nothing)

        Dim CrxReport As New CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument
        Dim strReportName As String
        Dim paramV As CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterValues
        Dim paramDValue As CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterDiscreteValue


        Try

            Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor

            strReportName = Application.StartupPath & "\Rpt\Report1.rpt"
            CrxReport.Load(strReportName, CrystalDecisions.Shared.OpenReportMethod.OpenReportByDefault)

            '-1. Refresh ReportDocument object
            CrxReport.Refresh()

            '-2. Set ReportDocument object datasource
            CrxReport.SetDataSource(remoteDataCol)

            '-3. Set ReportDocument object as CrystalReportViewer.ReportSource
            CRViewer.ReportSource = CrxReport

            '-4. Set parameters  to ReportDocument ----
            paramV = New CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterValues
            paramDValue = New CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterDiscreteValue
            paramDValue.Value = "ABC Company"
            paramV.Add(paramDValue)

            '--- Method 1 (This works) ----
            CrxReport.ParameterFields.Item("MyCompany").CurrentValues = paramV
            CrxReport.ParameterFields.Item("MyCompany").HasCurrentValue = True

            '--- or Method 2 (This also work) ----
            'CrxReport.SetParameterValue(0, "ABC Company")
            'CrxReport.SetParameterValue("MyCompany", paramDValue)

            CRViewer.ShowExportButton = True
            CRViewer.ShowPrintButton = True
            CRViewer.ShowGroupTreeButton = True

            CRViewer.Zoom(100)
            Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default

        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.ToString & vbCrLf & ex.Message & vbCrLf & ex.StackTrace)
        End Try
    End Sub

Akamai Solutions for Cloud Computing

Akamai Solutions for Cloud Computing is meant to accelerate, scale and fortify applications and platforms running in the cloud.

In other words, Akamai is in the ADN (application delivery network) business and it supports cloud computing platform.

The benefits of Akamai solutions for cloud are:

1. Cloud acceleration; performance
2. Cloud business continuity; fail-over, load balancing
3. Cloud security
4. Cloud applications and data storage;high availability

How does the EdgePlatform or Akamai Intelligent Platform work in this manner ?

First of all, it is a distributed computing platform, means it is client server architecture with peer-to-peer client capability.

Secondly, this distributed computing platform can be deployed into cloud computing environment.

To setup Akamai's ADN for cloud based application (SaaS), first of all, setup a cloud environment. Then deploy the application into the cloud environment. Finally, deploy ADN on top of the application for web traffic control and management.

Examples:

Company	Industry	Solution	Key Impacts
Standard Chartered Bank London, Hong Kong, Singapore	Financial services	1.) Dynamic site accelerator 2.) Web application accelerator	1.) Improved speed of delivery of web site by 500%. 2.) Increased secure online transaction performance by 100%. 3.) Enabled annual infrastructure and significant operating savings. 4.) Supports significant growth in online banking application adoption. 5.) supported 20% increase in online banking transaction volume. 6.) Gained ability to quickly expand into emerging markets.
Cathay Pacific Hong Kong	Travel	1.) Dynamic site accelerator 2.) Web application accelerator	1.) 100% increase in online bookings. 2.) Estimated annual savings of up to $1,500,000. 3.) Significant increase in agent extranet adoption. 4.) 65% increase in traffic without additional infrastructure. 5.) 65% increase in global site performance. 6.) Considerable infrastructure savings per year. 7.) Confidence in its online presence
HP Company, Palo Alto, CA	Technology	Web application accelerator	1.) 60% reduction in response times from Europe and a 50% reduction in Asia. 2.) Elimination of customer and partner complaints 3.) Zero capital expenditure.

Also refer to 'Akamai Provides the DDoS Solution to AIMS'

The Consumerization of IT – What and Why?

Refer to this article from 'Enterprise IT News'

Consumerization of IT is referring to a phenomenon where consumer IT and enterprise IT is merging. It is one of the major enterprise IT trend.

This is driven by two main catalysts 1.) proliferation of smart devices 2.) cloud computing.

Consumerization of IT is that it is about shift of control that users are now decider of policies. I agree with that not just because it is lifestyle and trends, more importantly, empowering employees with mobile computing also serves more working efficiency, cost savings and business performance.

Another reason for 'consumer-driven IT' is that people tends to do comparison. Enterprise IT will each have own IT teams which can exist for many reasons such as development of internal and customized business applications. These applications are subjected to comparison with available alternatives applications and technology out there, such as social media apps which are actually provided for free. Users will compare the better of both and decide on the best ones to use.

The challenge of coping with such trend is enterprise security where security solutions simply have to scan for more possibilities.

Also refer to 'Apple Is Everywhere, Including the Enterprise Market'

Refer more on trends.

Google Search: Breaking down language barriers with Malay-translated English language results

Google Search: Breaking down language barriers with Malay-translated English language results.

English speakers take it for granted that they can always find answers online, regardless of their search topic. But what if you speak Malay, Hindi, Welsh or Afrikaans? The amount of content available online per speaker for Malay is less than 1% of the vast content out there on the web per English speaker. So if you speak one of the languages with less online content, some of the most relevant results for your search may actually be in English.

To help break down that language barrier between you and the answers you need, starting today you may see relevant results in English in addition to those in your default language. For example, let’s say you primarily speak Malay and want to find information about a ‘balanced diet’ -- we want to help you also find the relevant pages in English and for these, you’ll also see a translation into your language.

Language is one of the biggest barriers to making information universally accessible, and we’ve been working to make increasing use of machine translation to improve search across languages. This is especially important for languages with less prevalent local language content available online. You should also get the most relevant information regardless of the language you’re searching in. We use machine translation to translate your search, find the pages that best answer your question and translate the relevant results for you.

You’ll start to see relevant English-language pages when you’re searching in one of 14 languages: Afrikaans, Malay, Swahili, Serbian, Slovak, Macedonian, Slovenian, Norwegian, Hindi, Catalan, Maltese, Icelandic, Welsh and Albanian. If you click on the main result title, you’ll get to the original English-language page, while the translated link underneath will take you to a translated page. We hope this will help you find the information you need, no matter what language it’s in.

HealthMEDX Deploys Brocade Unified Campus Network to Advance Healthcare Technology Innovations

Healthcare technology is changing at a rapid pace and applications must adapt to the new regulations and government mandates that are transitioning a paper-based, manual industry into the electronic age. Missouri-based HealthMEDX, the leading provider of software for long-term care, home health and rehabilitation organizations, is helping its clients stay ahead of these technology requirements by providing end-to-end support for their business operations with Brocade® unified campus networking solutions for healthcare providers and organizations.

When the company's incumbent networking vendor could not deliver the scalability and simplicity that HealthMEDX required, it chose Brocade after undergoing a stringent assessment process. In addition to Brocade FCX Series and Brocade FastIron® WS Series Power over Ethernet (PoE) LAN switches, Brocade wireless LAN solutions are helping the company meet the security and privacy requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

"We were a Cisco shop and assumed we would be buying new Cisco gear," said Chris Bingham, vice president of infrastructure at HealthMEDX. "However, after extensive evaluation, we realized that Brocade solutions clearly enabled us to build our latest software faster, and deliver it to our customers that much sooner."

During the evaluation, one of the key objectives for HealthMEDX was unifying its wired and wireless LAN (WLAN) environments. The lines between wired and WLAN connectivity are merging quickly and use of wireless networking continues to grow, especially as mobile devices are becoming more prevalent in the workforce. According to a March 2011 report from analyst firm Gartner, "WLAN market growth will continue to be driven primarily by the penetration of the addressable market, as the global installed base of wireless-enabled devices used in enterprise WLANs grows by a yearly average of 32 percent from 2010 through 2015."(1)

Based on a positive experience with Brocade SAN solutions, which the company installed in 2009, HealthMEDX was eager to evaluate the Brocade unified campus network solutions.

The new Brocade unified campus network implemented at HealthMEDX is faster, improves efficiency and minimizes networking operations and capital expenses. This network also supports the company's Voice over IP (VoIP) service, and will pay for itself -- including capital and operational expenditures -- in an estimated 14 months.

HealthMEDX completed the network transition in less than six hours without any downtime or interruptions to users. With HIPAA-compliant security standards on its wireless network, preventing unauthorized user access and reducing the time needed to build and deploy new software packages to customers were key competitive advantages.

Due to security and privacy requirements outlined in HIPAA, Bingham and his team had to ensure that users could access only the parts of the network that were relevant to them. "We use virtual WLANs and firewalls to keep users only on the portions of the network where they are allowed," Bingham said. "We now have a more secure network with better performance and increased flexibility."

"A Brocade switch can push line-rate data through every port. I had huge Cisco chassis switches in my data center that can only push a fraction of the line rate. The ability to leverage the full throughput potential out of each port led us to move to Brocade for our overall IP infrastructure solutions and wireless LAN," said Bingham. "We are much more mobile now, so users can move locations without interruption. Based on this, we anticipate full ROI in just over one year."

In addition to all the mobility benefits of a WLAN network, it also allows organizations to quickly and cost efficiently expand network connectivity over an enterprise campus. This type of network design can significantly reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).

"Availability, performance and scalability -- those are things we are always trying to improve," said Bingham. "The entire Brocade deployment has been a real eye-opener for the company. The network is now easier to manage, and overall it's a better total cost of ownership for us."

About Brocade Unified Campus Networking for Healthcare

Brocade helps healthcare organizations align their business and IT objectives through a comprehensive family of networking solutions that:

• Provides a campus foundation for unified communications through IPTV, wireless mobility and TeleHealth, enabling safe anytime, anywhere patient point of care
• Combines higher efficiency and a more scalable infrastructure with high performance and port density to reduce real estate costs and power/cooling requirements
• Reduces costs through energy efficiency and PoE capabilities that support the influx of new medical devices
• Enables a converged solution that supports wired/wireless data, voice and video on a single, unified platform that offers clinicians continuous secure application connectivity
• Provides a high-performance, non-blocking network to leverage new healthcare technology for greater patient intimacy and differentiated patient care

Solarwinds Introduces Newest Free Tool: Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor

SolarWinds® Inc. (NYSE: SWI), a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, today announced Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor, a free tool designed to monitor interfaces with sub-second polling for quick and easy troubleshooting.

Several instances of Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor can be launched to monitor bandwidth usage of many interfaces concurrently. The customer enters the device information and log-in credentials, runs discovery to list all available interfaces, then chooses one to monitor. Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor is a small tool that can be minimized while in use to optimize desktop real estate.

“Customers that need really frequent polling will love SolarWinds Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor,” said Josh Stephens, SolarWinds’ Head Geek and VP of technology. “With this free tool, you see what is happening in real time when making changes to the network, or try to catch transient network traffic issues that might be hard to find with slower polling intervals.”

Overall usage of network bandwidth can have a detrimental effect on all network users’ experience. Sometimes, it’s important to know bandwidth at a granular level, especially when troubleshooting or making network changes. Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor is a great, free tool that ensures customers never miss spikes.

Pricing and Availability

SolarWinds Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor is free and available for download on the SolarWinds website along with over twenty free IT Management tools (and counting).

Those interested in monitoring their network should also check out SolarWinds suite of Network Management products, including Network Performance Monitor, Network Configuration Manager, NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, IP Address Manager, IP SLA Manager, User Device Tracker, Engineer’s Toolset, LANsurveyor, ipMonitor, and CatTools.

These products start at between US$750 and US$2,495, with the first year of maintenance included. For more information, visit the SolarWinds website, download a free 30-day evaluation, or call +65 593 7600.

Sourcefire Introduces Industry’s First IPS for 40 Gigabit Ethernet networks

Sourcefire, Inc. (Nasdaq: FIRE), a leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, today announced the availability of new appliances, increasing customer agility by giving them the ability to support a wide range of performance requirements. With this announcement Sourcefire continues to deliver on its Agile Security vision, expanding its portfolio of intelligent, adaptive security solutions.

This launch brings new models and enhancements to the 3D8000 series for high-end performance networks, introduces the new 3D7000 series of appliances for mid-range performance networks, and delivers a new SSL Appliance that delivers lightning fast SSL decryption. Leveraging Sourcefire’s FirePOWER technology, these appliances provide customers reliable, high quality, flexible security solutions that also maintain ultra-low latency inspection and security feature parity across the 3D8000 and 3D7000 series.


According to Ivan Wen, Country Manager of Sourcefire Malaysia, the Sourcefire 3D8000 series now allows quad stacking that can grow throughput to deliver an amazing performance of over 40Gbps of IPS inspection in 10Gbps performance stages. This throughput scalability enables customers to purchase a device based on current performance requirements, and then easily expand throughput as needed.

“With the new 40 Gigabit Ethernet support, the 3D8000 Sourcefire IPS family makes us the 1st network security vendor to offer programmable fail-open 40 GbE interfaces to the IPS market.”

As a customer’s security, network connectivity and performance requirements change, the 3D8000 platform is agile enough to adapt with modular and programmable fail-open interfaces and Sourcefire’s leading FirePOWER unified security architecture.

The 3D8000 series now allows quad stacking so that customers can grow throughput to deliver over 40Gbps of IPS inspection in 10Gbps performance stages. This throughput scalability enables customers to purchase a device based on current performance requirements, and then easily expand throughput as needed. With its new 40 Gigabit Ethernet support, the 3D8000 family also makes Sourcefire the first network security vendor to offer programmable fail-open 40 GbE interfaces to the IPS market.

“In line with the recent launch of the Sourcefire’s Agile Security initiative, we have outlined our vision for the ways how security solutions need to operate and provide customers with criteria to evaluate their security mesurements,” said Ivan Wen. The 3D8000 series and the new 3D7000 series IPS appliances illustrate our commitment to the customer, by providing them with the flexibility and capability to select and expand its network security landscape as their needs change in the future.”

Unlike most other SSL decryption solutions, this new featured SSL 2000 appliance works on both inbound and outbound SSL traffic.The new SSL 2000 appliance enables customers to see inside encrypted communications to check for attack and misuse at the highest performance point available in the industry. With up to 2Gbps of SSL traffic decrypted in up to 10Gbps of overall traffic, the Sourcefire SSL 2000 appliance also recognized with the best SSL decryption capability in the industry.

Today’s announcement encompasses all of the following appliances:

• 3D8250 with Quad Device Stacking
  
• 3D8250-40GbE (First 40 GbE interface in an IPS appliance)
  
• 3D8130 (4 Gbps IPS inspection / modular interfaces)
  
• 3D8120 (2 Gbps IPS inspection / modular interfaces)
  
• 3D7120 (1 Gbps IPS inspection / 8 port copper)
  
• 3D7110 (500 Mbps IPS inspection / 8 port copper)
  
• SSL-2000 (2 Gbps IPS inspection / choice of interface)

Latest Trends on Enterprise ICT Industry

If we look at Enterprise IT News.

These are where money are being or projected to be spent now and the near future.

1. Cloud computing.
   
2. Security (especially on cloud computing)
   
3. Ethernet fabric
   
4. Appliances - i.e SAP Hana, Oracle appliances
   
5. Storage - i.e SAN, NAS
   
6. Green IT
   
7. IPv6
   
8. Consumerization of IT - this includes social media
   

Examples

1.) Cloud computing

Cloud computing is everywhere and is in every new product. Cloud computing is the biggest driver of all enterprise It business today, if you are not, you are literally out. Refer to 'Cloud Computing Products And Services # 1'

2.) Security

Security has been around for all these years and it is getting harder and more challenging with cloud computing and consumerization of IT.

• Fortinet Expands Consolidated Security Appliance Line for Mid-Range Enterprise Market
  
• Intelligent Security: Leveraging ‘Big Data’ for Good Decision Making
• Security Study Finds Enterprises Revising Strategy to Accommodate New IT Trends
• Symantec and VMware Announce Strategic Partnership to Deliver Desktop-as-a-Service Solutions

3.) Ethernet fabric

• Brocade - The Optimized Cloud Data Center Solutions Provider
• Juniper Networks Revolutionalized The Single Tier Network

4.) Appliances

• Oracle Announces the Immediate Availability of the Oracle Database Appliance
• SAP Announces Global General Availability of 4.0 Releases of Business Intelligence (BI) Solutions
• SAP Harnesses the Power of SAP HANA™ Platform to Deliver New Real-Time Applications

5.) Storage

More emphasis on SAN and NAS.

• The Emerging Needs of Clustered NAS Systems
• Oracle Announces Hybrid Columnar Compression Support for ZFS Storage Appliances and Pillar Axiom Storage Systems
• Managing The Explosive Need for Data Storage

6.) Green IT

Cloud computing is actually part of green IT.

• Integrating Green ICT within a Human-Centric Intelligent Society
• Gmail: It's cooler in the cloud
• Acer Debuts First Ultrabook: Aspire S3
• Hitachi Showcases Smart City Concept at IGEM 2011

7.) IPv6

• Brocade Advances Cloud Service Delivery
• HP Ensures Business Continuity for Clients Switching to IPv6
• Making a Secure Transition to IPv6 (From Cisco)
• Sourcefire Among First IT Security Vendors To Complete Federal IPv6 Testing Program

8.) Consumerization of IT

• Apple Is Everywhere, Including the Enterprise Market

The top three trends (cloud computing, security and Ethernet fabric) actually co-exist and co-catalyst with each other.

Cloud Computing Products And Services # 1

Cloud computing is going to be the industry's biggest makeshift and opportunity now and near future. Everybody is crazy about it and it is like the iPhone for the consumer market.

It is crazy.

Almost every technology vendors are launching cloud optimized products and solutions. Virtualization, scalable, fabric and etc, you name it. It all means the same thing.

It is software, in cyberspace, there is no system core, it cannot be shut down.

Let's take a look at ten vendors, what they are their offerings.

Company	Product	Desc	Nature	URL	Remarks
Dell	Dell's Virtual Network Services Infrastructure	Virtual data center for rental	IaaS	URL	I think Dell is trying to capitalize on two markets. 1.) Sell cloud optimized servers to its own data centers which support virtual network services 2.) Sell cloud optimized servers to customers planning to setup own cloud optimized data centers.
Redhat	OpenShift	Cloud application hosting for free. Supports open source programming languages which include Java EE 6. It is similar to Google App Engine and Windows Azure	PaaS	URL	Redhat is providing consumers especially enterprise IT departments, to experiment with cloud environment. The free platform will come with certain restrictions and Redhat strategizes to sell Redhat cloud optimized OS and solutions for companies willing to setup cloud environment to host business applications. We must remember that having the appropriate platform is very important factor in the success of every undertaking
IBM	zEnterprise Mainframe server	Mainframe server with supports for cloud computing.	Hardware & IaaS	URL	By default, mainframe support virtualization (which is the core idea of cloud computing). A typical setup includes IBM System z, IBM System Storage®, SUSE Linux® Enterprise Server for IBM System z and IBM Tivoli® Service Automation Manager
EMC	Symmetrix VMAX Virtual Data Center Capabilities	cloud optimized storage solution,it caters for scaling of storage in data center environment which supports cloud computing	Hardware & IaaS	URL	Scalable means having to support multiple virtual servers, I/O and etc.It comprises of the VMAX (Virtual Mastrix Architecture) which is the software platform to enable virtualization. Symmetrix VMAX is the hardware product which runs VMAX platform and its supported applications in a box; completely plug and play and ready for deployment out of the box
Solarwinds	VM To Cloud Calculator	Virtualization management free tool	Software Tool	URL	Designed to estimate what it would cost to run virtual machines (VM) on a cloud service, VM-to-Cloud Calculator takes inventory of all the VMs running on a user’s network and after the user selects which VMs a user wants to move, the VM-to-Cloud Calculator estimates and compares costs for Amazon EC2, Windows Azure and Rackspace Cloud Servers
Brocade	VCS Technology	Ethernet fabric	Hardware and software suite	URL	Ethernet fabric technology in the industry is actually a platform to support virtualization of the Ethernet network. The VCS technology consists of three components namely: Etherenet Fabric, Distributed Intelligence and Logical Chasis
Oracle	Oracle Public Cloud	Subscription-based, self-service access to Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Database, all completely managed, hosted and supported by Oracle	PaaS & SaaS	URL	The Oracle Public Cloud includes Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Cloud Service, Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud Service, Oracle Social Network, Oracle Java Cloud Service and Oracle Database Cloud Service
VMWare	VMware Workstation™ 8	VMware Workstation is a desktop version of VMWare's virtualization platform	Software	URL	VMware Workstation™ 8 can be used to run cloud computing (virtual machines) on PC and can be configured as server services as well. However, it is not meant for server and data center with its limited functionality. VMware Workstation 8 now allows better integration with vSphere
Citrix	XenServer® 6	Virtualization platform	Software	URL	Optimizations for Cloud and Service Delivery Networking – XenServer 6 includes full integration of Open vSwitch, full Support for Microsoft System Center 2012,incorporates Xen 4.1 hypervisor (Powerful, Open Source Xen Hypervisor Engine)
Juniper Networks	QFabric	Ethernet Fabric	Hardware and software suite	URL	Single tier network architecture. QFabric allows the network to be virtualized and creates nodes which are logical. The outcome is seemingly a fabric where all nodes are interconnected without inter-intermediaries.

SerialPort.BytesToRead And System.StackOverflowException

Just sharing, no big deal.

This applies to MS .NET Programming and MS Windows Platform.

When invoking 'SerialPort.BytesToRead' to check for available bytes from the input buffer, one may encounter 'System.StackOverflowException'.

Don't worry, this is common issue.

'System.StackOverflowException' is an exception which was resulted having too many calls to a method within a short period of time. This is especially common when dealing with recursive calls.

The solution is not to slow down communication with the serial port by having longer delays in between read and write operation, but to reduce the speed of invoking 'SerialPort.BytesToRead' during read process. To do this, introduce deliberate delay if the data is not completely received or when there is no data yet. Let's call this 'stackoverflow delay'. Basically, the idea is to make longer the duration in between invokes of 'SerialPort.BytesToRead' property.

What this means is let's say you have a loop. For each iteration, you will evaluate 'SerialPort.BytesToRead' to check whether there are still data available, if not then you will quit the loop. In between each iteration, introduce this so called 'stackoverflow delay' via deliberate wait. You can make use of System.Threading.Thread.Sleep, so that 'SerialPort.BytesToRead' actually have got enough time to rest before the next invocation.

Introducing the 'stackoverflow delay' is a also a good way to reduce wasted loop, which is to reduce CPU utilization.

Besides that, this exception will actually crash the application all together. It cannot be captured even with implementation of handling for AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException.

Also refer to

1. How to reduce CPU Utilization (Windows Software Development) ?
   
2. Troubleshoot CPU Utilization Using Profiler (Windows Software Development)

ADN To Play A Bigger Role In Enterprise IT

Refer to 'New Country Manager of F5 Networks Malaysia To Move With Agility and Speed' on Enterprise IT News.

ADN (Application Delivery Network) has the intention of providing acceleration and extended security for application communication between two or more points of networks, as a result, it caters for more availability.

With the convergence of consumer and enterprise IT markets due to cloud computing and mobile gadgets trends, ADN is playing ever a bigger role in the enterprise IT market.

Deployment of ADN will ensure achievements of four characteristics applies to application ecosystems:

1. Availability
   
2. Security
   
3. Performance
   
4. Flexibility
   

And by having these four characteristics, application ecosystem can achieve more agility. F5 Networks can help enterprises with achieving more agility in the enterprise IT infrastructure.

Brocade Advances Cloud Service Delivery

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) today announced new features designed to enable service providers to build resilient, cloud-optimized networks and transform their businesses to maximize profitability and infrastructure investment. These enhancements are part of the new Multi-Service IronWare Software Release 5.3 (Brocade® NetIron® 5.3 software release) for the Brocade NetIron family of Internet and metro routers. This family of routers gives service providers a migration path from providing basic connectivity services to delivering high-value cloud services, increasing customer satisfaction and creating new revenue-generating business opportunities.

As service providers look to deliver cloud-based services to their enterprise customers, the network infrastructure has become the critical IT component. As a result, skyrocketing customer bandwidth demands impact both the network and the bottom line. In fact, according to Gartner, the total telecommunications market is expected to grow from $2 trillion in 2010 to exceed $2.4 trillion in 2015. Customers require an unlimited amount of fast, secure, value-added services from anywhere at any time—without prohibitive costs. To meet these demands, service providers need a truly powerful and scalable core-to-edge network infrastructure with the agility to support large-scale multitenant environments, enabling the delivery of differentiated cloud services to an increasingly wider range of customers.

The Brocade NetIron 5.3 software release enhances the value of Brocade router products that already support some of the world’s largest service provider networks. The comprehensive Brocade solution includes industry-leading 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 10 GbE density; advanced IPv4/IPv6 capabilities; high-performance routing table scalability; and MPLS and Carrier Ethernet functionality to help service providers meet their growing business challenges.

Building Resilient Cloud-Optimized Networks

With server virtualization and rich-media content creating the need for more servers to connect through wire-speed connectivity, increased service provider data center network capacity has become crucial for scaling services. The Brocade NetIron family of routers delivers on these requirements with a comprehensive solution that integrates a highly resilient architecture and wire-speed switching/routing with enormous system capacity to collapse network layers.

The newly expanded Multi-Chassis Trunking (MCT) innovation now supports MCT for Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) in the Brocade NetIron family of routers, simplifying service provider networks and increasing resiliency for customers moving to 10 GbE-enabled servers. VPLS presents an Ethernet interface to customers, simplifying the LAN/WAN boundary between service providers and their customers. This approach enables rapid and flexible service provisioning, because the service bandwidth is not tied to the physical interface. As a result, service providers can simplify VM mobility and enhance network reliability while greatly reducing management complexity.

Delivering Massive Scalability for Service Providers

Service providers are increasingly required to carry private content and services for a growing customer base over virtual local area networks (VLANs). In order to increase headroom to support additional customers while maintaining high service level agreements, service providers require a solution that partitions individual customer traffic. The use of Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) provides a clear and strong demarcation between the customer and service provider networks at the metro edge—an approach that can simplify the operation of the routers. PBB is designed for Layer 2 metro core and aggregation networks to increase scalability enabling service providers to support over 16 million customers. For customers that want to scale the Internet access, PBB offers a very easy and simple way for them to scale both the number of Media Access Control (MAC) addresses in the network, and also the number of services that they can support in the network.

With the addition of PBB, as part of the Brocade NetIron 5.3 software release, service providers have greater network reliability, improved quality of service (QoS) and far greater scalability in order to deliver additional revenue-generating services with their existing infrastructure.

“Service providers are stressed with competitive pressures and the requirement to deliver more services to their growing customer base,” said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst, ZK Research. “In order to build out a massively scalable, service-rich infrastructure, they require flexible and cost-effective networking solutions with a sophisticated feature set. With the enhanced capabilities delivered in the Brocade NetIron 5.3 software release, service providers can take advantage of their existing infrastructure and expand their performance, scalability and reliability while further simplifying their architecture.”

In addition to PBB and MCT enhancements, other new features help simplify the management of service provider networks. These features reduce management complexity and costs to streamline business operations. Auto-bandwidth Label Switch Path (LSP) allows service providers to dynamically and automatically adjust bandwidth based on traffic patterns, easing the management of cloud-bursting applications. Standard based Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) enables interoperability among multivendor devices, eliminating the barriers to creating a best-in-class solution. LLDP helps reduce operational costs for service providers by greatly simplifying management and network maintenance through management tool consolidation and the automation of diagnostic and other network operations.

“The new Brocade NetIron 5.3 software release delivers on the four value propositions of the Brocade One™ strategy: non-stop networking, investment protection, unmatched simplicity and application optimization,” said Gina Tan, Regional Director, Southeast Asia for Brocade. “Brocade helps service providers transition their metro broadband and core networks to seamlessly meet growing customer demand. Scalable, high-performance Brocade network solutions provide the leading-edge capabilities that help service providers maximize their return on investment as they deliver new revenue-generating cloud services to their customers.”

In order to advance cloud service delivery at the metro edge, the recently announced Brocade 6910 Ethernet Access Switch is now generally available worldwide. This compact Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF)-compliant solution extends wire-speed Ethernet services to the network edge without compromising performance. This design helps service providers expand their cloud-based network services to customers in the “last mile.” Because of its condensed form factor as well as its ability to perform with no fan in extreme temperature ranges, the Brocade 6910 is ideal for space-constrained locations that deliver metro access, mobile backhaul for cellular 4G/LTE, public safety networks and managed customer premises devices for enterprise customers.

Pricing and Availability

The Brocade NetIron 5.3 software release will be available in January 2012, at no additional cost to all Brocade NetIron router family customers with a valid service contract.

Video

Announcement Overview: Brocade NetIron 5.3 Software Release http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUTlsuCJKMw

Lighting Awareness and Safety Workshop by Cal-Lab

As part of Cal-Lab Marketing’s ongoing campaign to empower the public about the dangers of lightning & the choices we have as Malaysians to be safe, the company will be organizing a series of Lightning-Safety Workshops with the following objectives:-

• To understand the awesome nature of lightning and how it affects us
  
• To understand how the negative effects of lightning can be overcome with the correct knowledge
  
• Armed with this knowledge, the power is NOW within our hands to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from lightning, both indoors and outdoors
  

The company’s first workshop will be held on October 15, 2011 at the venue and time below:-

Time: 1.30pm – 2.30pm
Venue: Mosaic Community Studio
S20 (2nd Floor), Centrepoint
Bandar Utama, 47800 Petaling Jaya

Restart Application (exe) Effectively (VB.NET)

This applies to MS .NET programming, MS Windows platform.

Assuming that the application process is running as a non Windows Service. It is a normal exe process.

Invoking 'Application.Restart' doesn't work all the time.

Instead of trying to self terminate a running instance and start a new one thereafter, I found that it is must more efficient if we can start a new instance and using the new instance to detect for previous running instance and kill the previous instance.

Therefore, whenever an instance of the application is starting up, implement a check if existing application is already running. If it does, kill the one that is currently running and allow the new one to continue running. This will restart for sure!

Make use of 'System.Diagnostics.Process' class to check for previous running instance where the idea is the process name (for previous and current running instance) is always the name.

The process name is the name of the application installed; which is the 'Assembly Name' which the application is being built. Make use of 'System.Diagnostics.Process.ProcessName' for this purpose.

One can also make use of 'System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo' class to pass command-line arguments to the newly invoked instance and to make use of 'System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()' to retrieve the arguments from the newly launched instance.

Apple Is Everywhere, Including the Enterprise Market

About a year ago, Steve Jobs gave an interview with AllThingsD (D8 in 2010) talking about a few interesting topics which are most interesting to me, such as Adobe Flash, Google's competing in the phone industry, the media industry and Steve mentioned that Apple is not really in the enterprise IT industry. Apple triumphs in the consumer IT industry because consumers would only buy the best products.

As the matter of fact, I believe that things have changed now. Six reasons.

1.) One of the thing happening these days is enterprise IT users are using own gadgets to perform their everyday tasks. It is no longer those days where you come to work, login to the workstation, turn off your phones and whatever gadgets and then do the opposite when you are about go home.

2.) Enterprise technologies are being encouraged to integrate with mobile apps platform, which covers the mobile gadget industry.

3.) Enterprise technologies are integrating with social apps and cloud based technologies. Cloud based ecosystem will not do well if we want to draw clear lines.

4.) Enterprises are purchasing mobile gadgets to empower their employees.

5.) The tendency to work from home, work from anywhere is getting more relevant these days, especially for large enterprises.

6.) Cloud computing is going to empower mobile devices with all the computing power necessary to perform any tasks possible.

VMWare just recently announced two products offering for iPad and Android and both products are going to be cloud based.

The two products being 1.) SlideRocket is a presentation software for mobile professionals while 2.) Socialcast is an enterprise social networking platform for the connected enterprise.

So, consumer IT and enterprise IT industry are converging, with the help of smart mobile devices.

The near future of IT success is about integration. This sounds like a very generic thought but things are different now, which is consumers are getting more used to high availability than product keys.

After all, there is no winners or losers, just shared revenues.

Social Graph vs Interest Graph

Inspired by The Future of the Social Web: Social Graphs Vs. Interest Graphs.

Social graph defines who you know (through the web).

Interest graph defines what you like and how you are related to others through such interests(through the web)

A graph simply defines what connects the dots.

According to David Rogers, the Future of the Social Web, integrating the Graphs is something which Facebook have NOT succeeded in doing so via its apps platform. And this the is direction which Google's Social circles is counting on.

I think that the interest graph is subset of the social graph. And if I try to think about how interest graph can help me or to make my life more interesting and meaningful as what social graph has done in helping to connect old friends, saving my costs and efforts on communicating with people, making new friends and even doing business, I would say that interest graph is pretty much business oriented.

So things like who wants to buy what and I just so happen to sell that kind of thing and I can make use of the interest graph to sell it.

People don't really like to buy things through the social graph for two reasons. 1.) You don't really want to sell to your friends 2.) You don't really want to buy things from a stranger who happens to be on your social graph.

Therefore, interest graph looks like is going into few possibilities. Group based (or volume based) purchasing is a type of interest graph and is connected via the social graph.

What I really agree is that the near future is about integration. If you'd got a good platform and integration will decide your survival or extinction.

Steve Jobs Passed On

Steve Jobs (1955-2011), was a great inventor and genius marketer, co-founder of Apple Inc has passed on.

He is an icon who I often looked up to, he gave me inspirations and wills to move beyond limitations and courage to explore endless possibilities.

My heartfelt condolences to his family and Apple Inc.

To Steve, my idol, thanks for inspiring me as always.

You will always be remembered and the world will never be the same again.

We will stop blogging for the rest of the week.

Huawei Symantec OCEANSPACE STORAGE Achieves Industry's Highest Benchmark Results (SPC-1)

Huawei Symantec announced that its Oceanspace T-series reported excellent SPC Benchmark 1 (SPC-1) performance, as defined by the Storage Performance Council, a vendor-neutral standards body focused on the storage industry.

In demonstrating excellent SPC-1 performance results, the Oceanspace S6800T employs a modular design, supports hot swap, automatic failover, and load balancing, which guarantees high performance and high reliability. It also reported a SPC-1 Price-Performance of only ~RM9 per SPC-1 IOPS.

As a midrange SAN product, Oceanspace S5600T reported a SPC-1 Price-Performance of ~RM8 per SPC-1 IOPS making it a cost-effective midrange storage system.

This makes both Huawei Symantec Oceanspace storage solutions ideal for enterprises that engage in online transactions, database operations, and mail server so that end-users have faster access to their data.

Leading-edge Storage Platform Capabilities

The recently launched storage systems of the Oceanspace T-series have customer-centric, flexible structures to allow a high level of performance via rapid flow of system data.

Oceanspace T-series products also support FC, iSCSI, and hot-plugging, and meet the demands of key business areas including online trade, large database processing, and high-performance computing.

Sean Hoong, Product manager (Storage), Huawei Symantec - Malaysia, says "The Huawei Symantec Oceanspace T-series is one of our flagship storage series, and it enables higher productivity, better efficiency, and a lower total cost of ownership."

“In addition to boasting advanced storage features such as high density, it also offers industry-leading enhanced data protection, using approaches such as snapshot and synchronous mirroring. The SPC-1 performance affirms the R&D investment that Huawei Symantec has made across its entire product line."

About the Storage Performance Council (SPC)

The SPC is a non-profit corporation founded to define, standardize and promote storage benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable storage performance data to the computer industry and its customers. The organization's strategic objectives are to empower storage vendors to build better products as well as to stimulate the IT community to more rapidly trust and deploy multi-vendor storage technology.

Fujitsu Collaborates with IDS to Boost Channels Revenue Contribution for Malaysia

Fujitsu, Asia’s No.1 ICT solution provider, today announces its partnership with local distributor Infotech Distribution System Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (IDS) as part of Fujitsu Malaysia’ strategy to deepen its local market penetration via IT channel partners.

According to IDS Managing Director, Mr. Ros Sham Sirun, the company is now officially affiliated with Fujitsu Malaysia as a Fujitsu SELECT EXPERT partner.

“Being a Fujitsu SELECT EXPERT partner, IDS is the highest of three tiers of partnership levels with this leading Japanese ICT solution. We are also the first certified Fujitsu SELECT EXPERT partner since the program has been introduced to Malaysia several years ago,” says Mr. Ros Sham.

Currently, Fujitsu Malaysia’s channel partners contribute about 60 percent of its Platform Products business.

NOTE: Fujitsu Malaysia business is broadly segregated into a) Platform Products (servers, storage, and scanners) b) Infrastructure Integration Services c) Network Services d) Applications Services e) Managed /Outsourcing services.

According to Charles Lew, President of Fujitsu Malaysia, the company is targeting to grow this percentage by 30 per cent through the formalisation of more partnerships with local IT distributors by 2012.

Picture Caption (From left): Quadri Abdullah Zaki-general Manager of IDS, Aida Hamdan-Business Manager of IDS, Ros Sham Sirun-Managing Director of IDS, Charles Lew-President, Fujitsu Malaysia, Michele Lum-Marketing Director, Fujitsu Malaysia, Tally Low-witness lawyer

 
“Fujitsu Malaysia is also looking forward to the expansion of its channel partner strategy to bring up the sales of our focused industries: Public Service/Government, Telecommunications, Healthcare, Education, Enterprise, Oil & Gas and Financial Services.”

“To date, Fujitsu Malaysia has worked with over 25 partners at 3 different tiers of partnership that range from Fujitsu Partner, to the higher Fujitsu SELECT Partner, and the highest rank as Fujitsu SELECT EXPERT Partner”

The Fujitsu SELECT Partnership Program

The ‘Fujitsu SELECT Partnership Program’ is Fujitsu’s global partnership strategy towards collaboration with local IT distributors and resellers who able to capitalise on Fujitsu product and solutions to achieve joint growth through technology and business cooperation.

Lew says, “We see great value in having IDS as our partner in Malaysia as we value its network and good reputation with local organisations. By partnering with Fujitsu Malaysia at SELECT EXPERT level, IDS is committed by dedicating a team for Fujitsu’s technology expert certification.”

Established since 2004, IDS is a leading IT distributor that provides total business technology solutions for the local enterprise marketplace, focusing on providing IT solutions & services especially to the government sector.

Mr. Ros Sham shares, "Our strategic decision to be a Fujitsu Alliance partner is mainly to expand IDS’ business portfolio. We truly believe Fujitsu will play a big role in helping us achieve this through an alliance partnership to provide a more comprehensive business solution to the local enterprise market."

IDS has fulfilled the requirements for a complete business profile and met the required number of certified staff for the Fujitsu PRIMERGY Industry Standard Servers and the ETERNUS Disk Storage Systems certification programme. This enables them to be qualified to drive sales opportunity at a higher level and entitlement to better discount privileges.

Being a Fujitsu SELECT EXPERT partner, IDS enjoys benefits such as price protection and good discount levels, promotion and incentive programs, joint marketing activities, and access to Fujitsu’s system architect to build a better platform to achieve greater sales.

Oxford University Press Launches Major New Online Platform For Cross-University Press Monograph Content

Oxford University Press (OUP) is pleased to announce the creation of a groundbreaking online platform for university press monograph content. Having redeveloped the award-winning Oxford Scholarship Online, OUP is launching University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) and inviting the University Press community to take advantage of a fully enabled XML environment with the cutting edge search and discovery functionality that has marked the on-going success of Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO).

“University Press Scholarship Online represents a convenient, dynamic step forward for ensuring that scholarly content from many venerable presses across the globe is conveniently searchable and accessible via one platform to the academic community worldwide,” notes Tim Barton, Managing Director of Global Academic Publishing for Oxford University Press.

Responding to increased demand for online scholarly content, UPSO streamlines the research process by making disparately published monographs easily accessible, highly discoverable and fully cross-searchable via one online platform. Research that previously would have required users to jump between a variety of books, and disconnected websites can now be concentrated through a single search engine.

First phase of content from participating partner presses include Fordham University Press (Fordham Scholarship Online/FSO); The American University in Cairo Press (Cairo Scholarship Online/CSO); The University Press of Kentucky (Kentucky Scholarship Online/KSO); University Press of Florida (Florida Scholarship Online/FLASO); Hong Kong University Press (Hong Kong Scholarship Online/HKSO).

Michael Duckworth, Publisher at Hong Kong University Press, has commented that “Hong Kong University Press is thrilled to join with OUP in this initiative to engage scholars and librarians where they live, and how they want to engage new knowledge most efficiently. UPSO’s flexible partnership mentality, combined with its insistence on rigorous quality control and its commitment to extend its imprint to build a broader platform of excellence, is exactly right for Asia now.”

Additional presses are signing up to participate and OUP expects to add their content to UPSO in March 2012. Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh Scholarship Online/ESO) and Policy Press (Policy Press Scholarship Online/PPSO) are just two additional presses planned for the March 2012 update.

UPSO’s mission is to create an individually-branded home for monographs from each participating university press just as it has done for Oxford Scholarship Online while allowing highly intuitive tools to deep search across all the content in the program. As such, UPSO will be the premier online research tool—for scholars, teachers, graduate and undergraduate students—and an essential resource for all academic libraries.

Oxford Scholarship Online was launched in 2003 and immediately hailed as “A superior e-book implementation” by Booklist, and “For ease of use, user-friendly design, and quality texts, Oxford Scholarship Online is among the best I have ever used” by Library Journal.

Benefits of UPSO for academics, libraries, and partner presses:

• Provides the highest quality scholarly content across 22 subject areas
  
• Includes a vast and growing number of titles. 7,000 + titles will be available at launch, 652 of which are new titles, with abstracts and keywords at both the book and chapter level for each title
  
• All UPSO content is available in XML, which provides deep tagging and better search results. Content can also be downloaded and saved to PDF
  
• Is fully cross-referenced and cross-searchable, with clickable citations from bibliographies and footnotes, including OpenURL and DOI-linking support
  
• Allows users to streamline research through a single online platform
  
• Can be easily integrated into library systems and updated frequently with new content
  
• Offers full customer support services as well as flexibility and choice in purchasing models
  
• Mobile functionality will be available later this year
  
• Increase discoverability and usage of university press scholarly materials
  
• Offers university presses unique opportunity to create an XML digital workflow and join a highly successful online scholarship platform, reaching the global academic market at low distribution costs
  

“OUP has developed this innovative and highly successful service specifically to address digital monographs. We’re the only publisher with a decade of this digital experience under our belt with more than 60% of research libraries now offering their users access to Oxford Scholarship Online,” said Casper Grathwohl, VP, Digital Publisher at Oxford University Press. “The UPSO program builds on this experience by opening the environment to the university press community—a welcome expansion for librarians and users who understand the growing power provided by a post-PDF research solution.”

“I think the timing is right for the UPSO model—over the past year the university press community has delved more deeply into strategic conversations about how to address their digital monograph publishing and we hope that the UPSO program will offer them a solution with a proven track record in an environment that is more flexible than most other offerings that are becoming available. UPSO is ultimately about unlocking the power of the academic monograph, and that singular focus makes it incredibly compelling,” concluded Grathwohl.

For access to UPSO and more information re partner presses, pricing, functionality and additional updates regarding this project please contact

Kate Farquhar-Thomson
Kate.farquhar-thomson@oup.com
07967 099456