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IIM Indore October 2012

IT BYTES

Infinit-IThe Technology and Systems Club

Contents

3

4

6

Starting new web services -

software enterprises: Is Content

Management System sufficient?

LEAN Methodology:

Transforming IT

Implications of advancement in

data mining

What is in News?

As Classrooms Get Digitised,

Will This Lead To Better

Education

7

2

Quiz, Quotes

9Mergers and Acquisitions

10



IT-Bytes

Google has publicly madeavailable a series o

photographs, a video and a

Google Street View map from

its data centers, which are

located in the US as well as in

Europe and Asia. The images

may be of cooling racks, steel

beams, server rooms spread

over thousands of square feet

and miles and miles of wire, but

there is a certain romance to

knowing these are the physical

spaces through which our search

queries pass. The full set o

photographs is available on

Google's own website. A few o

them are shown in the right.

What is in News?

Cloud, Mobility and Open Source willdrive Indian application development

market: GartnerGartner believes that the Indian applicationdevelopment software market will reach more than

USD 227 million in 2012 – translating into an

increase of 22.6 percent over 2011. Evolvingsoftware delivery models, new development

methodologies, emerging mobile application

development and open source software will drive

growth.

Perceptual computing may be the nextbig thing

Intel Capital Global Summit witnessed a slew of futuristic reflections dubbed as „Perceptual

Computing‟. The use of natural and immersiveinteraction with devices including touch, facial

recognition and voice has already started to change

the way users operate their mobile phones andcomputers. Intel thinks voice will emerge as a

mega trend over the next few years.

Start-up ventures emerge as an attractive career option in the sluggish job market

Google releases imagesof giant data centers

In a scenario where most high-volume and key industries struggle to sustain growth momentum in the prevailing global downturn, start-up enterprises are emerging as an attractive option for talents from leading

B-schools. Students from premier B-schools are moving into nimble start-ups such as FlipKart, Myntra, In-Mobi for more challenging career opportunities signaling an inflection point in talent movement in the so far

stable talent landscape in the Indian IT/Telecom industry. According to a survey, attractive monetary

benefits coupled with greater involvement in the organization‟s business process, better work-life balance,

challenging projects in an emerging market given by these start-ups are sufficient enough to entice the jobseekers.



IT-BYTES

After a decent technology boom in Indian IT industry there has been

gradual slowdown due to recession. This has led to hordes of layoffsand unemployment. “Entrepreneurship” – A new trend, seems to be a

new mantra to cope up with the problem. It is everywhere –

throughout the world, people sitting in their home have started becoming creative with ideas to start a new business. Any business

requires marketing and communication, and a preeminent and cost

effective channel could be an e-portal or online portal.

This trend and emergence of resource sharing online platforms like

freelancer, elance, odesk etc. has led to rise of many freelancers.

Technology sharing has become easy and cost effective due to bidding

processes involved. Also, there has been a rise in content managementsystem (CMS) frameworks, which have revolutionized the world of

web design and development. Frameworks like wordpress, drupal,

moodle, joomla, magento, opencms, etc. have simplified developmentof systems like enterprise application integration systems, document

management, e-commerce, intranet groupware, knowledgemanagement, virtual/managed learning environments and many more.

The task is easy – content creation, content management, publishingand presentation.

Starting new web services - software enterprises:Is Content Management System sufficient?

- Saurav Demta

CMS has simplified development

of systems like enterprise

application integration systems,document management, e-

commerce, intranet groupware,

knowledge management, and

virtual/managed learning

environments.

Availability of these open source technologies has led to emergence of many small companies offeringservices based on these technologies. There are many companies in India especially in cities like Bangalore,

Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad, which cater to web services needs throughout the planet. There is

steady fluctuation in the ratio of these companies, the reason being instability to maintain the business.

The major challenge faced by these companies is not to get the right project, which aids in businessdevelopment but to get the right set of resource to execute the project. Also, a novice player in this market

could be trapped in identifying right channels for business development. Financial constraints could be

another challenge to hire right pool of resources. Usually companies start hiring fresh recruits or inexperienced developers to strengthen their manpower. The concept is to build them into perfection, butanother form of evil in IT industry is „attrition‟ which engulfs this conception.

Even though a company manages to gather a perfect team for project execution and start with easiest option

i.e. using CMS, there still remain pitfalls. CMS frameworks come in packages and require lots of

customizations. There is good amount of unlearning than learning. There could be complexities incustomization, version compatibility, integration, and support and design issues. The packages are flooded

with various features, which could be needed to eliminate as per the project demand. All these could lead to

customer dissatisfaction and eventually loss in business and issues in customer retention.

CMS could seem as a lucrative option to start an enterprise but there still remain challenges in streamlining

one‟s own processes in the organization. Correct requirement gathering, identifying the right CMS, setting a

right team and overall value addition to customer requirement will lead to success in project completion and

eventually success of the enterprise.



IT-BYTES

Lean principles are primarily associated with

manufacturing or to a lesser degree to services, but implementing its principles in IT industry is

the new strategy that companies are adopting to

increase their efficiency, agility and competence.

Implementation of Lean in IT can help companiesto come closer to their clients by becoming more

flexible and reactive, increase their efficiency,

both from an operational and financial point of view, and develop the internal competencies to

become a learning entity that can continually

perform at a level of excellence.

Lean methodology implies increasing the output

or creating value by eliminating waste. As leandevelops itself as a management discipline, it is

high time that companies should adopt lean in

their IT management. But, implementing lean toIT is very much different from being applied to

manufacturing as in IT organizations the waste is

LEAN Methodology: Transforming IT

- Vipul Singh

mostly hidden and the products are typically

unique requiring a relatively advanced decisionmaking. By implementing lean properly

organizations can easily cut down their project

cycle times, reduce their amount of rework and

can optimize their standards for drawing out a

strategic plan.

As part of implementation, companies should

adopt a bottom-up approach in order to increase

the adaptation rate. Operational managers should be trained in lean principles and approaches so

that they easily identify the obstacles in the

implementation process and determine the way

forward. Beside this, managers should receivetraining in the change management concepts

basically covering the diagnostic, analytical and

cultural levers required to bring about a change in

Continued...



IT-BYTES

people‟s behavior. It will help companies to transform their managers

into professionals that will provide long-term benefits to the

organization going forward.

The next step forward for organizations is to ingrain the principles of

change and continuous improvement in its strategic design. The

implementation of lean initiatives is likely to receive resistance fromthe employees. Thus, it is quite essential that organizations should

properly leverage the HR function. They should measure the progress

correctly while communicating clearly and regularly on the status of

transformation to counter the skeptics and keep the people engaged and

informed.

Lean IT is the new standard being formed in the industry and thus the

CIOs should keep a close watch in its adoption and implementation

process. Organizations adopting lean methodology in their processes

should utilize their internal capabilities while enhancing their understanding about their external resources so as to develop a

powerful methodology, which can increase its efficiency and

competence in the highly competitive market.

Implementing lean properly

organizations can easily cut

down their project cycle

times, reduce their amount

of rework and can optimizetheir standards for drawing

out a strategic plan

(Continued)



IT-BYTES

Implications of advancement in datamining

- Ragavendran K

YouTube has been one of most popular platforms for sharing videos

online. It has been so successful because it is free and anyone canshare the videos without any restrictions (barring the disclaimer regarding the ownership of the video). Users specify “tags” while

uploading the videos. At present, YouTube relies heavily on these tags

to pull the videos when they are searched. What is the problem withthis approach? Well, at the bare minimum, there could be a mismatch

between the tag entered and the corresponding video; YouTube is

virtually blind to this fact. Another implication of this limitation is

that if I am interested in watching a video with a particular content, Iwouldn‟t be able to search precisely for those videos unless I know

the tags that were originally used.

Processing video would unquestionably be much more complicated than processing plain text. Yes we areindeed talking about data mining of videos. Once such data mining capabilities are developed, the marketers

will be able to harness the wealth of information available in the social media websites to craft and deliver

the most effective campaigns, promotions and offers. In general, businesses will be undoubtedly benefited

with such superior technology.

Will it not be a blessing to the medical practitioners in treating the patients? It has a great potential for delivering painless surgeries and cost effective treatments. With the advancements in the data mining

technology, if we could decode and understand the DNA patterns, chances of discovering drugs for many

killer diseases like cancer, AIDS etc. would undeniably be very high. We would also be in a better position

to forecast the weather by understanding flawlessly the satellite pictures and videos and what not;Government, farmers and public can thus be better prepared to face the natural calamities. Thus, it is evident

that the data-mining field will be the torchbearer for many other fields and any innovation in this field would

invariably result in the overall betterment of the society.



IT-BYTES

As Classrooms Get Digitised, Will ThisLead To Better Education?

- Sudeep Tripathy

The knowledge or skill obtained by the process of learning is called

education. This process of learning, as we experienced it, in our

school days was that of a teacher using chalk and blackboard or at best a white board and a marker as the only teaching tools in the

classroom.

Today, digitisation is set to change the look and feel of these

classrooms. A typical digitised classroom would have projectors,

screens, computer aided presentations, simulations and academic

curriculum on digital platform and audio-video format. Students canderive best results if they are attentive in the class as well as

assimilate most/all of what is being taught in class. With a typicalschool student trying to read, write and understand what is written in

the board at the same time, it is only natural that he skips most of

what the teacher is delivering.

Over the course of time, education reformers have brought in a lot of interesting changes into the schoolcurriculum. For example, students are to carry crafts and drawing books apart from normal course materials

lending their backpacks very heavy for somebody of their age.

There are other more deep-seated problems in the education sector in India. There is a requirement of over more than one lakh schools to cater to primary education itself. The existing schools don‟t have qualified

teachers to impart quality education to the students. Certain schools function out of make-shift houses thatgive way to rain, wind and sun. Consequently, these schools would shut down till repairs are done which

takes eternity.

Whenever there is a debate surrounding India‟s development, we talk of its demographic dividends. But

with this pitiable educational state of large sections of India‟s population, it might not prove to be an asset.

In order to bring about a standardisation of curriculum that is imparted across schools, they need to digitise.Digitisation shall further enable a more dutiful and skilled teacher towards his/her students. Be it

Micromax‟s funbook or Amazon‟s kindle or Harness Handitouch, all these platforms shall not only ease

studies but also make it more fun and engaging. Harness Handitouch is coming up with a technology that

shall equip students and teachers with hand-held devices. All that they need to do is listen to what theteacher says in the class and understand. They can go back to their homes and playback the records to revise

the concepts. The administration of quizzes shall also be online and the teacher can evaluate the students on

a real-time basis. The device is also programmed to enable the teacher to pay special attention to anystudent she desires. This kind of technology shall also be of great help to students with vision problems as

they can hear and learn.

Continued…



IT-BYTES

E-content in the classrooms shall help students in understanding subjects where it is important to use one‟s

imagination and visualisation. For instance, students of 3-D geometry and mechanics preparing for IIT-JEEshall find demonstrations and illustrations very useful. Kids in kindergarten medium can be shown cartoons

and asked to recollect and reproduce what they were shown. This shall not only help them improve their retention power but also enhance their creative abilities. Students interested in taking guitar lessons can be

provided with video-taped lectures by the school showing step by step procedure to learn.

As far as feasibility of mass scale digitisation is concerned, there is concern over the reach and affordability

of this technology. As of now, there were only 2 major players in Educomp and Pearson. Recently TATA

Information Systems and Birla Shloka Edutech have entered into this „Classroom ICT‟ industry. Birla has

provided ICT solutions to 542 tribal schools across Maharashtra and is planning to build 100 schoolsequipped with digital classrooms. TIS is looking at digitising schools in every district of India. As of now,

they have started getting 50% of their revenues from tier III and tier IV regions. In a situation whereavailability of decent teachers is a concern, it is only logical for parents and schools to adopt these solutions.

(Continued)



1. This game system from Microsoft is hands-free and equipped with a camera that detects and reacts to

your every move. What is it?

2. What is the name of the free application from Google allows users to take a picture of just aboutanything and, within moments, returns a search-result page for the item.

3.

Longhorn, Whistler, Blackcomb, Memphis – What are these?4. What is the fraud tactic called which relies on mistakes such as typographical errors made by Internet

users when inputting a website address into a web browser to lead them to an alternative websiterather than to the intended popular website?

5. It is an open API developed by Pixar Animation Studios to describe three-dimensional scenes and

turn them into digital photorealistic images. What is it called?

Quiz

1. In today's knowledge-based economy, what you earn depends on what you learn. Jobs in the

information technology sector, for example, pay 85 percent more than the private sector average.

– William J. Clinton

2. The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want

to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't

think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

– Steve Ballmer

3. Not all problems have a technological answer, but when they do, that is the more lasting solution.

– Andrew Grove

4. The demographic weight of countries such as China and India exercise a massive pressure on our

wages and salaries. They have accomplished massive technological advances and the revolution ininformation technology has reduced the costs of transport.

– Laurent Fabius

5. It A variety of national and international studies indicate that the broad-based deployment of

information technology can have a substantial impact on our nation's economic productivity and

growth as well as the educational and social success of our citizens.

– Tim Holden

Quotable Quotes

Answers to Quiz: 1. Kinect 2. Google goggles 3. Codenames of various Windows OS4. Typosquatting 5. RenderMan Interface Specification



1. Tech Mahindra acquired 51% stake in Bharti Group-owned mobile value-added services (VAS)

provider Comviva Technologies for Rs 260 crore.

2. Infosys acquired Swiss Consulting firm Lodestone Holding AG for 330 million Swiss Frances.

3. Tech Mahindra acquired privately held Hutchison Global Services for USD 87.1 Million.

4. Google acquired photo-editing platform Snapseed (very similar to Instagram).

5. Apple to acquire Mobile and Network Security provider AuthenTec for USD 356 Million.

6. HCL Infosystems acquired educational content provider Edurix to improve its offerings for

Digischool solutions through its tablet PC MyEduTab.

7. TCS acquired Pune-based Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) for Rs 188 crore.

8. Wipro acquired premium personal care brand Yardley's UK business.

Merger and Acquisition

Did you know???

The first commercial Internet domain

name was registered in the name

symbolics.com on 15th March 1985

by Symbolics Inc., a computer

systems firm in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

Around the globe, average number of

email messages sent per day is 300

billion. 90% of them are spam.

If you want to get your articles published on IT Bytes, Please send the articles [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



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