NETGEAR Unveils Revolutionary Smart Network Cloud Application Platform

NETGEAR®, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a global networking company, unveils its Smart Network Cloud Application Platform that enables consumers to purchase and download apps from the cloud for their home network.

The Smart Network Cloud Application Platform provides a platform for new and innovative applications to exist in the cloud and be easily downloaded by consumers – to optimize their home network capabilities to match their particular lifestyle and needs.

Enabled through NETGEAR routers, ReadyNAS storage devices, media players and future products, the Smart Network Cloud Application Platform gives consumers a new level of control to use their home network than ever before with the management of practically any device.

Apps Download to Enhance NETGEAR Devices

According to Mr. Soo Kean Thai, Regional Director ASEAN NETGEAR, the Smart Network Cloud Application Platform allows consumers to download Cloud apps for media, gaming, security, energy conservation, and much more to their connected NETGEAR home network devices.

“These capability from these cloud apps can do everything from managing smart home devices, such as Wi-Fi thermostats, increase storage device energy efficiency, priority and performance management for streaming media entertainment.”

“There is also cloud apps for personal productivity as such print sharing, cloud printing capabilities for tablets, picture and home video sharing can also be done with friends and family on social networks without having to upload any files to public web sites.”

Apps Development Opportunities for Users

The Smart Network Cloud Application Platform also acts as a platform for anyone to develop and commercialize their network applications – be it students, freelance/ independent programmers, game developers, home appliance company, major utility company and more.

Soo says that the opportunities with Smart Network Cloud Application Platform are virtually limitless giving the following examples:-

• Independent programmers developing data usage meter app that alerts consumers when they are about to reach the maximum usage of their storage device;
  
• Utility companies can develop apps for users to more closely monitor, and even lower, their energy usage;
  
• Game developers can provide network optimizers to prioritize bandwidth for specific games;
  
• ISPs (Internet service providers) can create apps for sharing of user-generated content without the need to upload any content files to public web sites.
  

“NETGEAR is opening up a whole new world of possibilities for consumers around the world. “For the first time, consumers can customized their own network experience in using NETGEAR devices with the new ability to develop, and perhaps also commercialize, applications that caters to their needs and desires via the Smart Network Cloud Application Platform,” says Soo. “Today’s smart devices are only as smart as the networks they are connected to. NETGEAR is driving the evolution from home networks to Smart Networks that allow consumers themselves to download and develop innovative new applications that can harness the power of their entire home network devices,” ends Soo.  

The ‘AppManager’ AppStore

The NETGEAR ‘AppManager’ is a dashboard that enables consumers to select and use downloadable apps – built by both NETGEAR as well as third party vendors/ developers, from the NETGEAR operated cloud. Consumers can easily download and install these new apps via the Smart Network Cloud Application Platform.  

Call to Developers to Join the Revolution!

NETGEAR is now accepting applications from developers to become a part of the Smart Network developer’s community Early Access Program. Interested parties are encouraged to visit www.netgear.com/smartnetwork.

Brocade Bolsters Investment in Asia Pacific with Opening of New Regional Briefing Center

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD), the leader in fabric-based networking solutions, today expanded its investment in the vibrant Asia Pacific region with the opening of a regional briefing center (RBC) located in Singapore. The new networking-solutions center will showcase leading-edge product demonstrations and facilitate discussions for enterprise, campus and service provider customers throughout the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

Brocade opened the RBC in a formal ceremony hosted by Brocade CEO Mike Klayko and a number of VIP guests including customers and partners.

The Brocade RBC in APAC is the newest facility in a global network of briefing centers that Brocade maintains to support customer visits in key markets. It is important to showcase Brocade’s product features and functionalities in the region as many of the key decision makers operate locally. Brocade at present operates an award-winning, world-class facility at its headquarters in San Jose, Calif. that hosts thousands of customers per year.

The opening of its RBC in APAC is a strategic initiative for Brocade as it is directly correlated to the opportunities available in the region. According to Forrester Research*, the APAC market for information technologies purchased by government and business was more than $460 billion in 2011, making it the third largest regional market after the US and Western and Central Europe. Further, Forrester expects total IT investments to exceed $500 billion in 2012, growing nearly 10 percent, “even in the face of economic weakness in other parts of the global economy.”

“These investments are aimed at achieving our company’s goal of constantly enhancing our ability to serve the needs of our customers worldwide,” said Michael Klayko, CEO of Brocade. “While we are justifiably proud of our world-class executive briefing center facility at our corporate headquarters, these regional briefing centers make it easier for our Asia Pacific customers to do business with us by enabling them to access Brocade resources, explore solution options, and interact with our staff in their home region.”

The RBC strengthens the company’s presence and investments in APAC over its 16-year history. Highlights include:

• Brocade maintains a direct presence through sales and R&D facilities throughout the region spanning Greater China, Japan, Korea, India, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand;
  
• Brocade serves regional customers across numerous industries including Telecommunications & Mobile, Media & Entertainment Manufacturing, High-Performance Computing, and Healthcare
  
• China and India represent two of the fastest growing countries for Brocade in terms of revenue;
  
• Brocade has a loyal installed base for its core SAN switching solutions and commands approximately 80 percent market share in the region;
  
• About 12 percent of the total global Brocade workforce is based in Asia Pacific with the company having doubled its headcount in the last year;
  
• APAC offers Brocade unique routes-to-market through strategic partnerships and alliances
  

The APAC RBC in Singapore will have both logistic and technical staff to coordinate briefings and seminars with Brocade sales teams, partners and customers to brief them on the latest solutions, roadmaps and demonstrate solutions spanning service provider, enterprise data center and campus LAN environments. To schedule a briefing, please contact your local Brocade sales representative.

IBM To Unveil Hollywood-Styled Security Intelligence System

As what was fortold by trends, IBM announced new capabilities for its security intelligence platform which aims to protect enterprises from sophisticated and complex security threads, using a single platform.

To understand this easily, remember the movie Terminator's Skynet system ? It is something dreamed up to be similar kind.

To date, many corporations have been unable to create a security defense system because they have cobbled together technologies that don't integrate in an intelligent and automated fashion. This patchwork approach has created loopholes that hackers can exploit.

The QRadar Security Intelligence Platform, designed by Q1 Labs and acquired by IBM last fall, tackles this problem head-on by serving as a control center that integrates real-time security intelligence data to include more than 400 different sources.

The system offers 3 main benefits:

1. Threat intelligence - Intelligence from one of the world's largest repository of threat and vulnerability insights is planned to be available based on the real-time monitoring of 13 billion security events per day
   
2. Broad coverage - people, data, applications, infrastructure
   
3. Big data capability
   

The machines are coming!

For more details, refer to 'Enterprise IT News'.

More on trends

SAS Acquisition Brings Advanced Analytics to Digital Advertising Industry

SAS, a leader in business analytics and integrated marketing management, has acquired aiMatch, a company that provides cloud-based ad server technology to help publishers sell and manage online ad inventory.

SAS' advanced analytics combined with aiMatch's technology will provide publishers with an end-to-end solution to help manage, forecast, optimize and measure ad inventory to maximize ad revenue. Current aiMatch customers include APN Digital, Photobucket, Pinger and Popcornflix.

According to SAS Malaysia Managing Director, Andrew Tan, the digital advertising sector has been identified as one of the fastest growing potential market for advanced analytics.

"Last year USD32 billion was spent on online advertising in the United States and the market is projected to reach USD50 billion by 2015¹. The local digital advertising industry has the same trend with greater focus and bigger spending in online media which is more far-reaching and interactive than traditional advertisement mediums."

He adds, "The future for advertisers is in mobile ads and video ads, as mobile ads are expected to overtake social media and email by 2016."

Despite its size the digital ad market is fragmented and lacks purpose-built analytical applications, making it difficult for publishers to effectively manage ad inventory and optimize profitability.

Iriani Kamaluddin, Marketing Director of SAS Malaysia, shares that digital advertising has huge potential to benefit from the application of advanced analytics.

"Publishers lack a solution to help them efficiently manage ad inventory. Advanced analytics will help determine optimal ad pricing, audience and inventory to yield maximum ad revenue."

Kamaluddin says, “As the digital ad market shifts toward real-time bidding, advanced analytics provide advertising executives the ability to process and reallocate ad inventory in real-time, whether via video, mobile, display or other digital media,”

“Advanced analytics can also automate sales and provide better audience profiling through behavioral segmentation for advertising professionals to better understand where and when to place advertisements to target the right crowd,” shares Kamaluddin.

aiMatch Acquisition Positions SAS in Online Advertising market

SAS acquired aiMatch to be integrated into its Integrated Marketing Management platform. Combining aiMatch's technology, SAS can now help advertisers and publishers to connect the targeted ad to a specific buyer demographic.

Kamaluddin says, “Take banks for example. By knowing a customer’s demographic and preferences, banks can offer relevant digital advertisements on mortgage loans or credit cards to the right customer every time they log in to check their balance online. We help to serve the right content to the right audience at the right time.”

Jeff Wood, former CEO of aiMatch says, "Due to an explosion of data in trends, the online advertising industry is in desperate need of better solutions to analyze and make use of all of the new information available to them."

“SAS also plans to extend this new division’s capabilities to local advertisers and agencies to help them make more informed decisions on where to advertise and how to optimize budgets for maximum impact,” ends Tan.

SAS Global expects revenues from the new acquired division to touch USD100 million in just five (5) years.

The aiMatch acquisition makes SAS, recently named a leader in Gartner Inc.'s Magic Quadrant for Integrated Marketing Management and The Forrester Wave™:Cross-Channel Campaign Management Platforms, Q1 2012.

Simplifying Big Data - Oracle Malaysia

Big data is a brand new trend in the ICT industry. In simple terms, it is referring to a scenario of evolving data boundery which matters to business analytics.

Traditionally, business analytics will depend on information system data such as data from EPR, CRM and etc which are deemed structured and transactional based.

Big data aspires to incorporate non-traditional, less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and photographs

Big data trends emerged as a result of decreases in the cost of both storage and compute power, hence creating better feasibility to collect these types of data and store it for analysis.

Big data can be categorized into three types:

1. Traditional enterprise data
   
2. Machine-generated /sensor data
   
3. Social data
   

The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that data volume is growing 40% per year, and will grow 44x between 2009 and 2020. However, volume is not the only characteristic which matters. Velocity, variety and value must also be managed accordingly.

Why Is Big Data Important ? 

According to Jimmy Cheah (Oracle Malaysia), when big data is distilled and analyzed in combination with traditional enterprise data, enterprises can develop a more thorough and insightful understanding of their business, which can lead to enhanced productivity, a stronger competitive position and greater innovation – all of which can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

The Next Step Forward

Enterprises have been deploying business analytics solution, now it is the time to capitalize those systems further by performing analysis with combination of big data.

To solve the Big Data challenge, enterprises need a complete and integrated solution to address the full spectrum of enterprise big data requirements.

The big data trend presents a new frontier for business analytics vendors in terms of business opportunities and for end users to capitalize on existing system or to deploy new system for business analytics.

 For more details, refer to Malaysia Technology News

Symantec Delivers Cloud Services To SMBs Via Parallels Automated Platforms

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced new integrations with the Application Packaging Standard (APS) and Parallels Automation for Cloud Marketplace (PACM) allowing Service Providers to offer additional Symantec software and services to their small and medium sized business (SMB) customers. The Parallels platforms make it easier and more cost effective for service providers to offer Symantec.cloud Email and Endpoint Protection, Symantec Trust Services and Norton consumer solutions to their SMB customers.

For Service Providers who serve the SMB market, the ability to quickly adapt to the changing IT needs of their customers is critical. Through the APS integration with the Parallels Automation cloud services automated delivery platform, Service Providers can now easily sell, resell, bundle and deliver Symantec.cloud Email and Endpoint Protection solutions to their SMB customers. In addition, the Parallels Automation for Cloud Marketplace (PACM) now allows Parallels to resell Symantec Trust Services and Norton Internet Security Online, which offers Service Providers the flexibility to map product entitlement to their own customer billing cycles.

Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud and Email Security.cloud are now available through Parallels Automated Delivery Platform, the Application Packaging Standard (APS). APS, adopted by Parallels for SaaS integration, makes it easy for Service Providers to package and deliver Symantec.cloud solutions for seamless cloud integration. Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud offers comprehensive security for Windows-based computer systems as a cloud-based service, helping to centrally manage security requirements via a Web-based console and without installing additional hardware or management software. The Symantec MessageLabs Email AntiSpam.cloud and Email AntiVirus.cloud services help organizations combat threats through advanced perimeter defenses and our proprietary Skeptic technologies.

Award-winning Norton Internet Security Online, offered in one, three, five and 10 license packs, is now available to small businesses through PACM. The PACM platform enables Cloud Service Providers to offer small businesses with a wide range of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that can be deployed quickly and easily within days rather than weeks or months. Norton Internet Security Online detects and eliminates online threats and prevents cybercriminals from stealing important information and business data, enabling small businesses and their employees to use the Internet safely and confidently. Norton Internet Security Online features Norton Insight, the industry-leading, reputation-based security technology, which has been proven to attain unmatched detection of new malware far beyond what is possible with traditional security technologies.

Symantec Trust Services, which includes the VeriSign Seal and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificates, is also providing greater value-add to website Security Service Providers’ offerings by delivering a robust solution of SSL, website Anti-Malware Daily Scan, Vulnerability Assessment, and Seal-in-Search™ protecting confidential information transacted over the Internet. In April of 2012, the VeriSign Seal will become the Norton Secured Seal. The VeriSign Seal is currently displayed up to 800 million times per day in 170 countries. Symantec is making the seal transition as easy and seamless as possible for partners and customers. The new Norton Secured Seal, with the check mark that is recognized around the world, will continue to help Service Providers enable their customers to grow their businesses by the display of the trust mark.

MyIX Announces Their New Revamped Website

Malaysia’s sole neutral Internet Exchange operator, MyIX – also known as ‘Persatuan Pengendali Internet Malaysia’, today announces the launch of its overhauled website, www.myix.my.

According to MyIX Chairman Chiew Kok Hin, the new website is to allow visitors to gain a comprehensive understanding of MyIX.

In Effort to Boost ISP Memberships

“This site has a fresh feel which I think appeals to our growing number of ISP members. This step is taken by MyIX to build better relationship with our existing members by making the site interactive and at the same giving our loyalist members what they have come to expect.”

The revamping of the MyIX website is essential to the growth strategy by encouraging the sign-ups of more ISPs and content providers with MyIX besides, promoting broadband that helps the penetration rate in the country.

So far, this has been effective for MyIX with the latest addition of four new members i.e. Tune Music Sdn Bhd, VADS Berhad, BigBand Sdn Bhd and Tg Agas Technology Sdn Bhd.

“We want members to invite us into their office or home through this site and be satisfied with the service they are getting. It’s a place that will continue to evolve as we do,” says Chiew.

New Website Functions and Features

When overhauling the site, designers took around 2-3 months but decided to keep it fun and simple with a user friendly approach. Take for example the Member Login, here MyIX members are able to download reports, minutes of the meetings etc once they are logged-in.

The redesigned website reflects non-profit organization’s new direction to enhance its existing services to new and existing customers by streamlining its operations and providing instant accessibility and directly connection with the aggregation of networks within MyIX’s Internet hub.

The overhauled website offers a brand new multimedia experience, showcasing MyIX’s innovative features, animated stills and photo gallery which provide a more engaging usage and browsing experience for its members.

There are five tabs offering a wide range of services such as Member Login for Reports, Traffic Statistics, Useful Links (Looking Glass and Network Monitoring System), Photo Gallery and Latest Updates.

Brocade Expands Distribution Network in Malaysia

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) announced the appointment of Springlab Distribution Sdn Bhd as a Brocade Alliance Partner Network (APN) Distributor for Malaysia.

Under the agreement, Springlab will distribute Brocade’s complete IP product range to its network of resellers across the country, including Ethernet fibre channel and converged switches, a complete family of Ethernet routers for enterprise, data center and service provider networks, Layer 4-7 application delivery and traffic management solutions, dependent and adaptive Access Points (APs), mobility wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers, network management software solutions, server connectivity solutions, and mobility security appliances.

Springlab was selected based on its ability to efficiently deliver a complete portfolio of scalable, high performance IP networking solutions to channel reseller partners, as well as its extensive knowledge, skills, and expertise in the networking industry.

Springlab will focus on Brocade’s offerings and on enterprise markets such as the public sector and government, healthcare, financial services, oil and gas, manufacturing, and retail sectors. In addition, support services for Brocade products distributed by Springlab will be provided through its contracted technical support entity. Through Springlab, Brocade will expand its reach to developing horizontal markets for server virtualization, server farm customers and Microsoft customers.

“As we continue to build our distribution in Malaysia and expand the reach of our APN channel program, we are pleased to extend the availability of our offerings through Springlab,” said Gina Tan, regional director, Brocade South East Asia. “This partnership will help us focus on delivering and implementing business critical networks that meet the evolving needs of our customers. Malaysia’s enterprise IT spending in 2012 is forecasted at RM31.5 billion (US$10.02 billion), a 6.1 percent increase over 2011, according to Gartner.”

“The distribution agreement increases Brocade’s coverage in Malaysia’s ICT market, especially outside of the Klang Valley metropolitan area. Springlab’s reseller network includes partners who complement our IP solutions in network security and network acceleration, and who are specialized in virtualization, as well as those that will bring us to server farm providers and new data center customers. With these partners, Springlab is in an excellent position to expand Brocade’s market reach in Malaysia.”

“Brocade is a world leader in IP networking and we are very proud to be working with them,” said Desmond Low, director, Springlab Distribution. “As businesses in Malaysia increasingly view their network as a critical asset, Brocade’s Fibre Channel and Ethernet fabric networking solutions can help reduce complexity and support new and distributed applications, while providing new levels of uptime and an open, multi-vendor architecture that protects their IT investments.”

“We will be able to supply Brocade solutions to a significant network of IP resellers, supported by IP tele-sales and industry knowledge. The key shareholders of Springlab collectively have more than 50 years of IP industry knowledge.”

Desmond said that the agreement enables Springlab to support its resellers throughout the solution sales cycle with tools, training material and resources, and guidance necessary to accelerate sales activities in the IP networking space.

The 17th Cards & Payments Asia 2012 - Singapore

The 17th edition, Cards & Payments Asia 2012, Asia’s largest smart technology exhibition is set to wow with a bigger and better event this year. It will showcase highly anticipated new technologies in Near Field Communication (NFC) and contactless payment together with the entire spectrum of smart technology initiatives. Key stakeholders from the telecommunications, government authorities and services, banking, hospitality, retail, healthcare, transport, aviation and logistics sectors will come together to reveal how the latest applications and product innovations can drive service, growth and business opportunities in their respective industries across Asia.

Singapore may be one of the first nations to see the widespread adoption of NFC as a payment mode. This is made possible via the S$40 million Call-for-Collaboration (CFC) initiative, allowing up to 20,000 retail points and taxis to be NFC-enabled by mid 2012. This initiative, by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and 7 companies, namely mobile operators M1, StarHub, SingTel, payment service providers Citibank, DBS and EZ-Link, as well as Gemalto, a digital security company, marks Asia’s first interoperable nationwide deployment of NFC mobile payment system. Along with the rest of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region which sees more than 9 countries like Thailand, Malaysia, India, China, South Korea and Sri Lanka making advances in NFC technology, experts believe that this tech savvy region could be the first adopters of NFC enabled mobile payment for their next mobility solutions.

Richard Ireland, Chief Executive, Terrapinn Asia Pacific said, “This year’s Cards & Payments Asia not only allows attendees to gain valuable insights on how to capitalise on the exponential growth of e-commerce and mobile commerce, but leverage on cutting-edge knowledge of multi-channel strategies for effective customer engagement, making it a must-attend event for all stakeholders seeking an edge over their competitions.”

This three-day event expects to draw more than 8,000 attendees, over 200 international leading solution providers from Singapore, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy and many more. 7 concurrent conferences and pre- and post-workshops will feature renowed speakers from all over Asia and beyond.

Co-located with Cards & Payments Asia 2012 are seven synergistic events: Prepaid Cards Asia, Near Field Communication (NFC) World Asia, Digital ID World Asia, RFID World Asia, Retail World Asia, Online Retail World Asia and Digital Signage World Asia .

• 5th Annual Prepaid Cards - See, touch and hear about emerging applications worldwide in prepaid cards
  
• Near Fied Communication World Asia 2012 - Showcase of latest NFC technology applications for payments, mobile communications, retailers and merchants that transform the way customers interact today
  
• Digital ID World Asia 2012 - Speakers from governments, transport and healthcare to give valuable insights on how to improve and roll out identification, authentication and access control systems
  
• R.F.I.D World Asia 2012 - A showcase of RFID technologies for improving manufacturing & operational efficiency, supply chain efficiency, increasing productivity, minimising theft and improving customer service
  
• 6th Annual Retail Asia 2012 - Leading international and local companies, showcasing the latest technology applications retailers can have within their stores to capture customers’ attention and enhance customer experience
  
• Online REtail World Asia 2012 - Brings together leading retailers and their partners to network, discuss and strategise on the optimisation of online retailing to win new sales and growth
  
• Digital Signage World Asia 2012 - Asia’s international showcase featuring breakthrough digital signage technology innovations and solutions
  

Cards & Payments Asia 2012 will be held in Singapore 25 – 27 April 2012, Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Cisco Forecasts Mobile Internet Growth 2011 to 2016

Refer to Malaysia Technology News, The Cisco visual Networking Index (VNI) forecasts that mobile Internet traffic will contribute to explosive growth of Internet data from 2011 to 2016.

Such traffic comes from:

• Non-Smartphone
  
• M2M
  
• Smartphone
  
• Ebook Reader
  
• Tablet
  
• Laptop
  

This is interesting, it shows that currently, mobile Internet traffic comes mainly from laptop usage and by year 2016, tablet usage will rival that by a small margin difference. The forecast predicts an annual run rate of 130 exabytes of mobile data traffic, equivalent to:

• 33 billion DVDs.
  
• 4.3 quadrillion MP3 files (music/audio).
  
• 813 quadrillion short message service (SMS) text messages.
  

In terms of growth projections measured according to CAGR,

• Middle East and Africa will have the highest regional mobile data traffic growth rate with a CAGR of 104 percent, or 36-fold growth.
  
• Asia-Pacific will have an 84 percent CAGR, or 21-fold growth.
  
• Central and Eastern Europe will have an 83 percent CAGR, or 21-fold growth.
  
• Latin America will have a 79 percent CAGR, or 18-fold growth.
  
• North America will have a 75 percent CAGR, or 17-fold growth.
  
• Western Europe will have a 68 percent CAGR, or 14-fold growth.
  

IBM Unveils Plans for Collaboration Software and Services for SME

At Lotusphere, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced plans for a software portfolio expansion geared to the needs of millions of companies from 5 to 500 employees that want to focus on growing their businesses instead of running their office systems.

IBM Lotus Foundations is a future line of small business software servers, installed on-premise, and is expected to be offered primarily through IBM Business Partners. In addition, IBM announced a managed beta of a Web-delivered service codenamed "Bluehouse." "Bluehouse" provides extranet services that make it easy for small-and-medium sized companies to securely collaborate beyond their organizational boundaries.

The combination of Lotus Foundations and "Bluehouse" will provide essential software solutions in simple to acquire and manage packages. Small-and-medium sized businesses (SMBs) need superior collaboration and business solutions as much as large companies. With Lotus Foundations and Bluehouse, used separately or in combination, organizations will be able to take advantage of proven enterprise-strength software delivered as a turn-key package for start-up businesses without IT staff.

"Small-and-medium sized business represents a significant growth opportunity for IBM," said Mike Rhodin, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. "Our SMB approach -- which combines easy-to-deploy, self-managed on premise servers with Web-delivered, extranet collaboration services -- uniquely empowers SMBs to succeed in any market."

Based on Linux, IBM Lotus Foundations is expected to provide server software that requires minimal technical expertise and is autonomic -- able to manage and heal itself. This will allow small-and-medium sized companies to focus on their business, rather than spending time and resources managing information technology. Lotus Foundations will be built on the principles of IBM's Express Advantage program for small and medium business such as ease-of-installation and ease-of-use.

The first component of the Lotus Foundations family is currently expected to include a pre-loaded, one-stop-shop solution for small companies: Lotus Domino mail and collaboration platform, file management, directory services, firewall, back-up and recovery, and office productivity tools. Designed to accommodate growth, customers will be able to easily add more users or servers as needed. In addition, as planned, Lotus Foundations will give system integrators and independent software vendors the opportunity to integrate their new or existing applications into the Foundations platform with minimal effort.

A key component of the Lotus Foundations family will be technology acquired through IBM's purchase of Net Integration Technologies, which is expected to close later in the first quarter of 2008, as announced last week. Industry observers have favorably rated the Net Integration Technologies small-business server against Microsoft's Small Business Server. Net Integration Technologies features have consistently received high marks for ease-of-use, installation and disaster recovery. IBM plans to integrate the innovative Net Integration's technology into its Lotus Foundations family of software servers. Lotus Domino is already integrated into the Net Integration platform. IBM's strategies for SMB, collaboration and acquisitions are among the keys to its growth.

"Bluehouse," will offer a suite of collaboration services that allows businesses to work together by sharing contacts, files, project activities and interacting with chat and Web meetings. This new set of services will enable small companies to easily collaborate beyond their organizational boundaries without the need for any in-house technical expertise. "Bluehouse" is now available as a limited beta offering and will be progressively unveiled throughout the year.

SMBs have the same types of business challenges as large corporations but must solve them with limited or no IT resources. They need to compete globally and they require industry-specific solutions that help them automate, simplify and speed product-to-market cycles.

Consequently, small-medium companies need powerful collaboration and business solutions to allow them to work more easily with their customers and suppliers. These new offerings from IBM Lotus software draw upon 20 years of innovation in collaboration with world-class business expertise and research delivered in a way that is easy to access and use.

SolarWinds Launches Industry’s First Cloud-Based Location Web Transactions Monitoring

SolarWinds® (NYSE: SWI) continues to deliver powerful IT management software products at competitive prices with release of SolarWinds Synthetic End User Monitor (SeUM) v. 1.5. SeUM allows system administrators and application support staff to monitor response time proactively for multi-step web transactions. The latest version of SeUM introduces the Cloud Player Portal that allows users to deploy transaction players easily to Amazon® EC2. This enables monitoring from various cloud-based locations without the necessity of paying the expensive subscriptions required by other vendors for their SaaS offerings.

“Our customers want control over their monitoring infrastructure and they want to monitor web user experience from all over the world,” Denny LeCompte, vice president of product management at SolarWinds, said. “The new SeUM cloud capability fulfills both of these needs; unlike existing solutions in the market, we enable customers to leverage the cloud directly, without paying a high price for what is fundamentally a very simple service.”

New Features in v. 1.5

• Cloud Player Portal: Easily deploys transaction players to Amazon® EC2 to enable web transaction monitoring from cloud-based locations and does not require users to pay subscription fees
  
• Multi-Tenant UI: Monitors website and web application performance for large deployments or in MSP environments
  
• Rich Content Recording and Playback: Record and playback dynamic web pages to include support for Flash® and Silverlight®; also validates the existence or absence of text and other website content
  
• Firewall-Friendly Communication: Transaction players make their monitoring data available for polling from the SeUM server, eliminating any need to open in-bound Firewall connections
  

Key Features

• Truly Easy-to-Use Recorder: Intuitive, multi-step transaction recorder enables complex recordings with no professional services
  
• Simple Interface: Delivers at-a-glance insight into the duration and success of web transactions
  
• Competitive Pricing
  

SeUM Enables Sysadmins to:

• Monitor Websites and Web Applications: Continual monitoring of user experience and response time for any application with a web user interface
  
• Alert and Report on Individual Steps: Measure and alert on the latency of each discrete step in a recording, taking screenshots of the exact step that failed
  
• Playback Recordings from Multiple Locations: Multiple location playback gives insight into the global user experience
  

Synthetic End User Monitor is part of SolarWinds systems management product portfolio that together addresses the troubleshooting, patch management, and performance monitoring needs of the system administrator. This includes Server & Application Monitor (SAM) — formerly Application Performance Monitor (APM) — and three new products: Patch Manager, DameWare NT Utilities, and DameWare Mini Remote Control.

While SAM monitors servers and applications from the bottom up, SeUM monitors websites and web applications from the top down. Together, they help the sysadmin understand system status from both points of view to troubleshoot quickly and accurately. SolarWinds also offers Web Transaction Watcher, a free tool that can playback one recording at a time. Any recording made on Web Transaction Watcher can be reused in Synthetic End User Monitor.  

Analyst Reactions

“EMA sees this as an important announcement, for SolarWinds, its customers, and its prospects. It puts a quality APM solution within reach of almost any company, providing a good entry point for APM monitoring that can grow along with a company’s expanding application portfolio,” said Julie Craig at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). “IT professionals are now responsible for monitoring between dozens and hundreds of applications for their internal clients, and many of those live in the cloud,” said Bojan Simic at TRAC Research. “The ability to monitor any transaction on the web, as well as transactions from a player that’s hosted on Amazon® EC2 will help IT pros ensure their key applications are running smoothly.”

Pricing and Availability

SolarWinds Synthetic End User Monitor is available now; pricing starts at US$1,995 for five transaction recordings with the first year of maintenance included. Monitoring unlimited transaction recordings from unlimited locations is US$28,995 with no requirement for professional services, onsite training or recurring monthly subscription fees.

Brocade Appoints Industry Veteran to Chart Strategic Growth for Malaysia

Brocade® (NASDAQ: BRCD) announced the appointment of Sean Ong as Country Manager for Malaysia. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Ong will spearhead operations and drive business growth for Brocade in Malaysia. He will report to regional director for South East Asia, Gina Tan.

In his new role, Ong will lead the Malaysian team, and drive growth on go-to-market and channel strategies to deliver and implement business critical networks that meet the evolving needs of customers.

“Malaysia is a promising market given its rising status as a regional data center hub and robust demand for networking solutions and services,” said Gina Tan. “Sean’s extensive experience in business development and partner enablement programs will prove instrumental in staking a stronger presence in the enterprise networking segment for Brocade in Malaysia.”

The ICT industry in Malaysia grew 8-10 percent in 2011 and the country’s enterprise IT spending in 2012 is forecasted at RM31.5 billion (US$10.02 billion), a 6.1 percent increase over 2011, according to Gartner¹.

An industry veteran with 16 years of industry experience, Ong was most recently with Cisco Systems (M) Sdn Bhd, where he held a variety of roles in engineering and sales, culminating in the role of Director, Enterprise Business. Prior to joining Cisco in 1999, he was with AT&T Solutions and British Telecom.

Jobs: IT Executive - Makna

IT Executive - Makna

JOB DESCRIPTION

Duties and Responsibilities

• Implementation and administration of all IT related tasks.
  
• Perform Project management of IT initiatives.
  
• Guarantee timely and correct delivery of technology merchandise and services.
  
• Manage multiple areas of technology and multiple departments.
  
• Oversee new system facilitation, current system enhancements.
  
• Manage internal/external application upgrades.
  
• Outline and improve all system and network operations processes.
  
• Negotiate contracts with makers for all software, hardware and consulting services.
  
• Produce strategic goals and convert to simply implemented plans.
  
• Manage external partners relationships and services.
  

Skills / Attributes Required

• A people person
  
• Diploma or Degree in IT with 1~2 year of experience in a related field.
  
• Relative knowledge and/or experience in the following fields is an advantage:
  
  • Web developer with knowledge in (dot).NET
    
  • E-blast monitoring & recording
    
  • E-Fundraising / E-Charity / E-marketing
    
  • Social Media Networking — Facebook, Twitter, Blog etc
    
  • SEO — Search Engine Optimisation
    
  • Coalition Branding CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
    
  • Knowledge in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
    
  • Knowledge in CMS (Content Management System)
    
  • Designing (Photoshop, AI), Video making & editing
    
• Excellent communicator with good writing skills in English & Bahasa Malaysia
  
• Good organisation skills
  
• A rounded, relatively good understanding of the full range of IT communication tools
  
• Ideas-driven individual
  
• Fresh Graduates are encouraged to apply
  

Please send full resume (photo attached) to
Mr. Vemanna Appannah, Senior Manager at vem@makna.org.my

PT Inovisi Takes Up A 10% Stake In Nextnation

ACE-market listed mobile applications and platform provider Nextnation Communication Berhad ('Nextnation') announces that its Indonesia outsourcing customer - PT Inovisi Infracom Tbk (‘Inovisi’), is purchasing a 10% stake in the company.

The private placement by *Inovisi will effectively allow Nextnation to secure a portion of the CAPEX funds of USD5 million that it requires to set up the IT equipment and infrastructure to take on the multi-million dollar project which it recently secured from the Indonesia conglomerate.

Nextnation recently won an outsourcing project to provide mobile platform infrastructure hosting and maintenance services to Inovisi.

This project will provide Nextnation with a minimum guaranteed revenue of approximately RM67.5 million (USD22.5 million) over three (3) years. From this guaranteed revenue, the company expects to generate a 31% profit margin, or approximately RM21 million (USD7 million) over the same period.

Strengthened Vendor-Customer Partnership

Nextnation's Group CEO Larry Tey said that the 10% stake acquisition by Inovisi shows a strong vote of confidence from the customer in Nextnation.

"In awarding the project to Nextnation, this Indonesian mobile infrastructure giant chose us as its select vendor partner to take its telecommunications business to the next level in its vast and populous 250 million Indonesian market."

“In addition, the 10% equity stake acquisition indicates our customer’s confidence to work with us on a long-term basis," says Tey, adding that there is the possibility of Inovisi increasing its stake up to a total of 30% in the future.

Inovisi's chief finance officer Adrian Ooi says, "Inovisi is wants to capitalise on the booming demand for greater IP services and bandwidth in Indonesia. However this requires continuous R&D and capital expenditure to optimize our telecommunications network infrastructure data transfer across large and diverse geographic areas in Indonesia.”

"We have evaluated Nextnation and found their technology to be proven and superior. Therefore, besides awarding them with the (recent) telco IT project, we are taking a stake in Nextnation as we believe they are an excellent partner vendor to create greater synergies for both companies in this space,” says Ooi.

Significant Performance Expected

The recent outsourcing project by Inovisi allows Nextnation to export its in-house mobile platform technologies to Indonesian market where Inovisi's corporate clients are sited.

"Whilst the guaranteed revenue for Nextnation from this project is RM67.5 million over three years, we are actually looking at a revenue target of up to RM375million (USD125 million),” says Tey.

"This 10% stake purchase Inovisi only increases our confidence of achieving this greater performance for all of our shareholders as we start to capitalize on our strategic business expansion into Indonesia.”

For FYE 30 April 2011, Nextnation’s audited revenue was over RM72 million. EPS for FYE 30 April 2011 was 0.26 sen per share, while its NTA amounted to about 16 sen per share.

With the guaranteed minimum revenue from Inovisi expected to contribute from 2H of 2012 onwards, Nextnation estimates its FYE 30 April 2013 earnings to jump about 100% from its FYE 30 April 2011 figures.

Details of the Inovisi-Nextnation Private Placement

Nextnation proposes to undertake a private placement of ten per cent (10%) of its issued and paid-up share capital or 41,580,000 new Nextnation shares, to Great World Ltd - a wholly owned subsidiary of Inovisi.

The placement shares will not be priced at more than ten percent (10%) discount to the five (5)-day volume weighted average market price of Nextnation's shares immediately before the price fixing date. In any event, the placement shares will not be priced lower than its par value of RM0.10.

The actual proceeds to be raised from the proposed private placement are dependent on the final issue price, which shall be determined and fixed at a later date upon receipt of all the relevant approvals.

Upon completion of the proposed private placement exercise, the enlarged issued and paid-up share capital of Nextnation will increase from 415.80 million to 457.38 million ordinary shares of RM0.10 each

Fujitsu Launches TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVES Microsite for CIOs and Mass Public

Fujitsu, Asia’s No.1 ICT solutions and services provider, today announces the availability of its Technology Perspectives Microsite www.technology-perspectives.com as a research and resources (R&R) center for local Chief Information Officers (CIOs).

The new and innovative Fujitsu Microsite presents an across-the-board look at trends in technology, business and society; and features Fujitsu’s thought leadership on revolutionary IT that lead to societal impacts.

President of Fujitsu Malaysia, Charles Lew says that the Fujitsu Microsite is in line with the company's vision to build a ‘Human-Centric Intelligent Society’ by leveraging the application of smart IT systems and networks to improve people daily lives.

“Fujitsu not only looks into the future of ICT but also takes steps to turn IT vision into human reality. The microsite shows how we invest significant resources to identify the patterns of ICT change that are paving the way for the future.”

The Fujitsu Technology Perspectives Microsite will be updated on a regular basis on visionary ICT advancements to reflect the key forces and dynamics which are shaping the various industries.

The microsite is also to serve the needs of those looking-forward organisations, business decision makers, analysts, journalists and even the mass public.

Supporting Executive Researches

Based on the recent Computer Weekly research - 'Top CIOs Admit Their IT is behind the Times', a high 67 percent of CIOs interviewed said that their IT systems were not sufficiently flexible to accommodate their future business needs.

"In view of this, the Technology Perspectives Microsite helps CIOs think of ways to innovate their existing IT infrastructures to meet tomorrow’s challenges,” says Lew, adding that the microsite’s user friendly interface allow busy executives to find and download the information they need quickly and easily.

The Technology Perspectives Microsite is broken down into 12 distinct business and technology trends which include Real Time Insights; Borderless Business; People First; Big ‘I’ Little ‘T’; Every Thing Connected; Trading Places; Outside-in; Choice: The New One-size-fits-all; Social Working; Crowding Out; Re-shaping Organizations; and Mobile is Dead (Long Live Mobile).

“You can read on the Fujitsu Technology Perspectives Microsite of some of the key ICT trends that will impact businesses in 2012 and beyond. These include mobile technologies, cloud services and social media – which are all in line with the explosive Big Data growth that has been happening for the past 2 years."

“IT decision makers will find the microsite very helpful for suggestions to exploit IT to maintain a competitive yet sustainable edge in the future," ends Lew.

First Look At Wolfram Alpha, The Next Intelligence

Wolfram Alpha is created by Wolfram who created the Mathematica software.

Check out the story of Mathematica from Malaysia Technology News.

In the apparent manner, Wolfram Alpha is a search engine. You type in a question, it will answer back. It works similarly to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and etc.

However, the underlying technology is different. Wolfram Alpha is powered by the technology which powers Mathematica. It computes answers (real time) and not search for published answers.

In other words, search engine like Google works by matching content similarity and creates a vast sea of indexes. For Wolfram Alpha, it works by matching facts and compute them into results.

For instance, if you ask a question 'how many cars in malaysia ?'

In Wolfram Alpha, it derives that there were 5.5 million vehicles in year 2003.

In Google, someone (i.e Wikipedia) has to publish the article first.

While it may require some gut to trust the result of Wolfram Alpha, the ingenuity of it is being acknowledged where it literally sits on top of contents and making use of its Mathematical functions to recalculate facts and then to present the result in an overview manner. And this makes it cool!

The way I see it, it is one of the technology which will mark the dawn of mainstream Artificial Intelligence. The machines are coming!

NETGEAR Launches 1st Ever ‘Intelligent Edge Switches’ below RM3,000

NETGEAR, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a global networking company, announced its new ‘Intelligent Edge’ family of switches that consists of four new 12 and 24-port NETGEAR ProSafe Gigabit L2+ Managed Switches with PoE+ connectivity.

This new ‘Intelligent Edge’ switch family simplifies the area of converged networks, making it a perfect option for organizations requiring intelligence at the network’s edge.

According to NETGEAR’s ASEAN Regional Director, Soo Kean Thai, the NETGEAR ‘Intelligent Edge’ switch family is an extremely cost-effective factor for voice, video and data networking solutions.

“Many IP telephony and IP camera operations are still limited to Fast Ethernet switching, because Gigabit and PoE+ offerings are cost-prohibitive. Underscoring our commitment to smart IT (not big IT), the NETGEAR ‘Intelligent Edge’ can now provide reliable, affordable and simple Gigabit technology backed with lifetime support.”

NETGEAR’s switches are affordable as they are priced below RM3,000 and include a number of industry firsts that make these products more reliable, affordable and simple to deploy. This new gigabit PoE switch family offers:

• The world’s first distribution switch with 12-port fiber and PoE+ capability.
  
• The world’s most affordable switch with PoE pass-through capability.
  
• Automatic IP phone recognition.
  
• Optimized real-time video streaming support.
  
• The world’s first selectable mini-USB console interface.
  
• Layer 2+ support.
  
• Support for SNMP management software.
  

Lifetime Support

Additionally, the complete NETGEAR ProSafe managed switches product line in Malaysia now includes lifetime 24x7 telephone technical support and three years of onsite services as well.  

All  ProSafe managed switches now include:

• Lifetime hardware warranty.
  
• Lifetime telephone, web and email technical support, 24x7, anywhere in the world including Malaysia .
  
• Three years of Next Business Day (NBD) onsite service.
  

Pricing and Availability

The new family of NETGEAR ‘Intelligent Edge’ switches is available in Malaysia from February 2012; ranging from RM2,920 to RM4,110. ProSupport Lifetime 24x7 Technical Support is included standard with all NETGEAR switches, effective January 1, 2012. To learn more about NETGEAR ProSafe Intelligent Edge managed switches, please visit http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/fully-managed-switches/.

To learn more about support for NETGEAR’s managed switches including location details, please visit: http://onsite.netgear.com

Tech Blog Malaysia Statistics (Jan 2012)

A usual, check out the analysis for 2011.

For month of Jan 2012, we have the following organic search keywords:

• A celebrity in Malaysia
  
• Latest PC trend
  
• Training courses
  
• A hotlink feature
  
• Cisco routing protocols comparison
  
• A common CR 8.5 report issue
  
• Mobile lifestyle
  
• A common .NET issue
  

Overview:
 

• Total unique visitors increased by as much as 0.006%.
  
• Traffic from referring sites decreased by 8.03%.
  
• Organic search traffic top contributor (78.52%). Up from last month.
  
• Top 5 countries (Malaysia, US, India, Singapore, Philippines).
  
• New visitors 87.32% (up from last month).
  

Symantec Announces Intelligent Information Governance to Mitigate Risks and Free Information

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced an intelligent information governance solution that allows organisations to bridge the gap between business, legal and IT, reduce their risks and costs, and empower employees to work freely in a connected world. In order to enable organisations to better protect their information, establish retention policies and streamline their eDiscovery process, Symantec announced its plans for increased integration between its leading storage and eDiscovery offerings. Additionally, Symantec announced that it has acquired LiveOffice, a privately-held cloud-based archiving leader, for a purchase price of approximately US$115 million. The acquisition will extend Symantec’s intelligent information governance offering to the cloud, providing customers choice between on-premise, cloud or hybrid delivery of Symantec solutions.

The Advantage of Intelligent Information Governance

By implementing the proper controls for information retention and protection, organisations can confidently allow their employees to share information freely. This provides a critical edge in a world where corporate information is increasingly accessed from a wider variety of devices (including smartphones and tablets), shared via social media, and stored in the cloud. The organisation’s ability to secure this information, while allowing employees the ability to access it virtually anywhere, improves employee productivity and reduces information risk.

Symantec’s intelligent information governance solutions provide organisations with the technology needed to reduce the risks related to eDiscovery and compliance, and allow them to consolidate previously discrete portions of IT operations. Symantec provides federated search and a common classification engine across critical data sources, bringing context and relevance to information so organisations can find what they need, when they need it, and appropriately enforce policies and controls. Additionally, the ability to centrally manage security, information retention and eDiscovery functions reduces operational expenses and training costs.

“Organisations today face a host of compliance requirements pertaining to IT governance, compliance and risk management. Malaysian organisations are also facing the same challenges, especially as information management, eDiscovery, and data security are rapidly coming together due to the rapid growth of electronically stored information that deliver and disseminate it. We are seeing organisations increasingly demanding that these issues be addressed in a unified way through information governance,” said Alex Ong, senior country manager, Symantec Malaysia.

“To maintain a strong security posture, organisations in Malaysia need to have integrated and consistent controls and policies in place to eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies, streamline audit processes, and reduce threats to their business,” Ong added. “Symantec’s Intelligent Information Governance enables our customers to proactively classify, retain and discover information, taking full advantage of the information explosion for maximum productivity. Through a unified platform that combines on premise and cloud-based security, automation, and customisation, Symantec can help organisations meet these new information governance demands while driving down costs and risks.”

New Enhanced Governance Functionality

Adding an information archive is one of the simplest steps an organisation can take to improve its information governance. With an archive, organisations can systematically index, classify and retain information and thus establish a proactive approach to eDiscovery. Today, Symantec announces its plans to strengthen the integration of its leading archiving and eDiscovery solutions.

Symantec’s Clearwell eDiscovery Platform is expected to have the only collector certified by Symantec to collect directly from Symantec Enterprise Vault. This can allow users to collect content at scale from Enterprise Vault in the same manner they collect from other data sources over the network using the collection management console, accelerating collections and avoiding archive performance degradation.

Additionally, by leveraging Enterprise Vault’s existing index and Data Classification Services tags, users can perform targeted collections by providing metadata and keyword filters, specifying collection criteria via a simple point-and-click interface. Symantec’s Clearwell eDiscovery Platform also is expected to be able to preserve archived information in Symantec Enterprise Vault in place, thereby reducing risk and streamlining the eDiscovery process.

Together, the announced integration of Enterprise Vault and Clearwell will enable organisations to reduce their eDiscovery costs from information management through production, reduce their risk by improving the defensibility and repeatability of their processes, and streamline their processes to meet legal and regulatory deadlines.

Symantec’s Continued Investment in Archiving

Symantec continues to enhance its market leading archiving and eDiscovery offerings with the acquisition of LiveOffice, Symantec’s hosted archiving OEM partner for Enterprise Vault.cloud. This acquisition, completed on Jan. 13, 2012, further deepens the company’s commitment to provide the most comprehensive and innovative archiving, compliance and eDiscovery solutions delivered on-premise, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution. With the addition of LiveOffice, Symantec will help organisations to store, manage, and discover an increasingly broad range of unstructured information including on-premise and cloud-based information sources such as email, instant message, social media and file sharing.

Through the existing integrations between LiveOffice and the recently acquired Clearwell eDiscovery Platform, customers can export information from LiveOffice to the Clearwell eDiscovery Platform where it is collected along with information from Enterprise Vault and other data sources for processing, analysis, early case assessment and review. This acquisition will continue to enable Symantec to provide customers deeper alignment between these industry leading archiving and eDiscovery software solutions.

This acquisition also provides an opportunity for tighter integration between archiving and Symantec.cloud’s email security and management capabilities. With LiveOffice, Symantec provides customers a complete cloud-based solution for messaging protection, including: anti-SPAM, security, continuity, archiving, compliance, and eDiscovery – all from one vendor. With LiveOffice’s cloud-based archiving, customers can confidently address the challenges of messaging protection for both on-premise and hosted email. With no hardware or software required, this solution frees up IT resources and provides users with rapid and secure access to email from their inbox, any supported web browser or hand held device.

Ministry Ponders Guidelines For Web Advertisement

Refer to 'Malaysia Technology News'

Google has been working hard in Malaysia to create more local presence and with the recent Get Malaysian Business Online initiative, it is teaming up with government to literally encourage more people to do business online, to have more web presence and to advertise more online.

Google is no new comer to the advertising industry, its Adsense platform literally generated much love-and-hate relationship with conventional players in the advertising arena. In US and Europe, some media companies labeled Google as parasite for its Google news which aggregated news content from others and host advertisements.

The Adsense platform was explosive and disruptive, it achieved its peak during the period of year 2005 to 2006 when Google achieved all time surplus corporate profit and its share 'free floated' highest since its IPO.

On August 19, 2004 the number of shares outstanding was 172.85 million while the "free float" was 19.60 million (which makes 89% held by insiders). In January 2005 the number of shares outstanding was up 100 million to 273.42 million, 53% of that was held by insiders, which made the float 127.70 million (up 110 million shares from the first trading day).

During those periods, Adsense was literally new-kid-on-the-block, it offers equal opportunity to everybody to advertise with lowest entry cost and DIY. Everybody was able to advertise something without going through the hassle of agencies and middlemen.

That was then. Now Google is officially in Malaysia and apparently it is spearheading the Malaysia's Internet industry.

For this, personally I take it positively. For one thing, with Google's mission of net neutrality and non-censorship stance, it is a good thing for Malaysia's Internet. I can rest better thinking that Google will be the last person to fight for Internet freedom in Malaysia heavy rooted with conventional political ideas.

Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry is playing along, proposing guidelines to protect consumers from errant advertisers. This is actually better for Google because of its local presence and collaboration with the Government offers Google first-hand information to compete and adapt faster. Besides that, it will also save Google the trouble of being sued for hosting errant advertisements.

Google recently announced that The Internet contributed 4.1% to Malaysia's GDP in 2010.

Fujitsu Asia Appoints Gavin Selkirk as Regional Chief Executive Officer

Fujitsu Asia, a leading provider of IT-based business solutions, today announced Mr.Gavin Selkirk as Regional Chief Executive Officer of Fujitsu Asia, effective 1 February 2012, and replaces Mr. Lawrence Wee who has left to pursue other opportunities.

Mr. Selkirk brings to Fujitsu his leadership expertise, as well as his global experience in managing business services,

to drive business growth and profitability of Fujitsu Asia’s operations in ASEAN. As the CEO of Fujitsu Asia, Mr. Selkirk will work with the leadership team to focus on performance and accountability as the business looks to increase its market position in ASEAN and contributing to the overall Asia strategy.

Prior to joining Fujitsu Asia, Gavin served as the Corporate Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan of software provider, Computer Associates (CA). In his eight years in CA, Gavin held various management roles in Australia and Asia Pacific, where he played a key role in growing and managing the regional Asia Pacific and Japan business. Before shifting his focus to this region, he was based in the CA headquarters in New York as the Executive Assistant (Chief of Staff) to the Global CEO. Gavin was based in Japan and ran CA’s domestic business operations before moving to New York. Mr. Selkirk has over 20 years of experience in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Previously he held key positions with Avnet Computers, SAS Institute and Vodafone.

Mr. Rod Vawdrey, Corporate Senior Vice President and President, Global Business Group shares, “ASEAN is a strategically important market for Fujitsu, as well as for many of our customers. We are confident that Gavin’s experience will ensure that Fujitsu will continue to take advantage of fast growing technology areas such as cloud services, technology convergence and mobility computing to increase our market share across both mature and emerging markets within ASEAN”.

“I look forward to working with the team to develop and innovate from the customers’ perspective while working in close collaboration with customers. I hope to capitalise upon Fujitsu’s constant pursuit of innovation to help our customers address their challenges, stay ahead of competition and more importantly help them create new business opportunities,” said Mr. Selkirk, who will be based in Singapore for his new role.

Mr. Selkirk graduated from University of New South Wales with a diploma in Business Management. Before launching his career in ICT, Mr. Selkirk spent eight years with the Royal Australian Navy where he was responsible for planning and providing financial recommendations on a range of issues to support the Australian Naval Fleet.

Application Delivery Switches Allow Customers to “Predict the Future” and Create New Services

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) today announced significant software advancements to the Brocade® ServerIron® ADX Series of cloud-optimized application delivery switches designed to help customers gain greater application control and service scalability. The new Brocade OpenScript™ engine is an open platform for innovation, with the ability to intelligently predict the effect on the network before introducing scripts into production. This allows ADX customers to customize their service delivery for improved scalability and performance. Together with an OpenScript community and tools to enhance network management and performance enhancements to IPv6, this comprehensive set of new capabilities greatly increases the competitiveness of the entire Brocade ServerIron ADX family of products.

“Application delivery performance, scalability and flexibility are critical requirements for our customers. These requirements have a direct effect on our ability to scale our business while exceeding customer expectations,” said Rob Jackson, Solution Line Leader for Networking and Security at Rackspace. “With the Brocade ServerIron ADX, we look forward to continuing our success with the platform and implementing stable, customizable traffic management capabilities so that our new and existing customers can maintain greater application control.”

Application Flexibility and Predictability with the OpenScript Engine

Service customization and traffic manipulation are critical requirements for businesses to deliver new and differentiated cloud-based services. To foster innovation and enable the deployment of advanced capabilities in production environments, Brocade has introduced the OpenScript engine, a scalable and deterministic application scripting engine that allows network operators to customize the capabilities of their network to match their specific needs.

Built on PERL, a powerful and widely-accepted standards-based programming language, the OpenScript engine provides the programming framework for network operators to develop customized traffic management capabilities. The Brocade OpenScript Performance Estimator provides network operators the unique ability to estimate the performance impact of custom scripts before implementing them in live production environments. This deterministic visibility enables operators to better plan for service capacity requirements, and to deploy new services with confidence.

To enable application delivery professionals to learn, browse and share application scripts, Brocade has created the OpenScript community. It provides a social networking space for real-time discussions, solutions, technical guidance, and configuration examples for the OpenScript engine.

“A service provider’s critical asset is its network; this makes reliability, scalability and performance critical factors for its success,” said Alan Weckel, senior director for Dell’Oro Group. “The importance to predetermine the impact network load on their application delivery infrastructure is becoming critical as service providers not only create new revenue generating services but also mitigate network implications before any traffic passes through their application delivery infrastructure.”

Facilitating IPv6 Internet Transformation for Cloud-Optimized Networks

IPv6 technology dramatically increases the pool of global IP addresses while simplifying network administration, resolving security and mobility issues and improving Quality of Service (QoS). Brocade ADX version 12.4 doubles the IPv6 performance of ADX and delivers consistent services across IPv4 and IPv6. The Brocade ADX switch also enables a seamless transition to IPv6 while preserving IPv4 assets through standards-based IPv4-to-IPv6 translation technology. Organizations can now migrate to IPv6 while offering consistent services to clients across both IPv4 and IPv6.

Tools to Simplify Network Management and Control

As network operators develop and deliver new cloud services, application delivery switches must seamlessly integrate with orchestration and automation systems. Brocade ADX version 12.4 enables automatic provisioning of application and network resources in a heterogeneous virtual environment. Coupled with Brocade Application Resource Broker 2.0, Brocade ADX simplifies the management of application resources within globally distributed data centers by automating on-demand resource provisioning of virtual machines within heterogeneous virtual environments, which include VMware, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Brocade has also delivered an all-new task-oriented graphical interface that offers an intuitive approach to configure, monitor, and maintain the ADX. The new ADX web interface also includes a real-time dashboard for quick access to essential application and system performance information. Brocade has also released extensions to the Brocade ADX XML/SOAP API, simplifying integration with custom and third party orchestration applications. The API extensions include the OpenScript engine support, as well as richer server load balancing, security, health check, and system management capabilities.

Pricing and Availability

The Brocade ServerIron ADX software release version 12.4 is generally available now. This is a no-cost software upgrade for customers with valid service contracts.

As the growing usage of on-demand applications and cloud computing are driving the need for business partners to focus on the delivery of solutions and services within virtualized environments, the Brocade ADX family of application delivery switches presents a unique value proposition for channel partners. All products are available through dedicated Brocade partners.