How to automate windows programs to run at a specific schedule

In this post I would describe how we could automate windows programs to run at a specific schedule using Windows Task Scheduler. Below are the list of steps that you need to follow to get that working :
1) In the start menu search for 'Schedule Tasks' and click on the Schedule tasks option that gets displayed. Click on the Schedule tasks option.

 

2) when you click on the Schedule tasks option a new window gets opened with the Title Task Scheduler as below :

 

  

3) Click on Create task option on the right of the newly opened window shown above. A new window gets opened which is as below:

4) On The General tab add the Name that you would like your task to have. You could also add the Description of the task in the description text box on the window.

5) Go to the Triggers Tab on the window. This would look as below:

 

6) Click on the new Button. A new window gets opened which is shown as below :

This is the window where you need to do most of your work. For normal scenario where you want to schedule a task at specific time you can let the value 'on the schedule' selected. Below that in the settings groupbox you need to select the start date and time. You also have the options of selecting that you want your program to run only once or daily at the specified time or weekly at the time specified or Monthly. You can do the selection based on your requirement.

7) Now you can go on the action tab on the Create task window. You need to click on the New Button. When you click on new button a new window would get opened which is as below :

 

Here in the action dropdown you need to keep the default selected value if you want your program to start. In the Program/script text box you need to specify the path of the .exe which you want to run at the specified date and time. If you have any arguments that you need to  pass for your program to run then you can pass them in the add arguments textbox. Click ok once you are done with this.

8) Now you can click of on the create task window and you have successfully scheduled a task which would run on the specified scenarios we set up as per our requirements.

If you want to see the task that you just created you can see that in the task scheduler library on the left of the window.

Hope you have followed me properly. Enjoy scheduling your task.

 

EC plans using Facebook to educate voters

The Election Commission is planning to take the help of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to impart electoral messages to young voters, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi said.

"The Commission is now seriously looking at the social media as the hubs to impart electoral education," Quraishi said delivering the Maulana Azad Memorial Lecture 2011 titled 'Education for Deepening Democracy'

"Like Maulana Azad, I believe that an educated and aware citizen is the best guarantee for deepening both democracy and development," Quraishi said.

The CEC said he had recently held talks with policy makers of Education and Youth ministries to integrate citizenship and voter education as a part of the curriculum of their various courses.

"We have established the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management ( IIDEM) making voter education a core area of emphasis in it," Quraishi said.

Regretting that many voters in the age group of 18-35 years do not exercise their voting rights for whatever reason, the CEC said the Commission has put voter education and awareness programme on fast track to improve the situation.

In a strategic initiative called YUVA (Youth Unite for Voter Awareness), the Commission has planned to rope in the new and young voters, he said.

Mahindra Satyam, Tech Mahindra to merge in 2012

Mahindra Satyam's merger with parent firm Tech Mahindra will take place next year, its chairman Vineet Nayyar said.

"It is a process. We are looking at it when to commence it and we are hoping that by the next year, some time in later half of the year, this amalgamation will in fact take place," he told reporters while declaring Q2 results of Mahindra Satyam.

Nayyar recalled that after winning the bid for the company in April 2009, Tech Mahindra had indicated its intention to merge. "That intention remains," he said.

In May this year, he hinted that the merger may be delayed as it is a legal process which has to go to two high courts.

Tech Mahindra had acquired Satyam Computer Services Limited in April 2009, a few months after Satyam was rattled by India's biggest corporate fraud. Satyam was subsequently re-named Mahindra Satyam.

To another query, Nayyar said the firm had resolved almost all cases in the US, which arose because of the fraud committed by the earlier management.

The company has already paid $10 million to settle the US Securities and Exchange Commission's suit over the fraud. It paid $125 million to settle class action suits and another $70 million to settle the Upaid case.

On the Income Tax department's notice to pay Rs.616 crore tax, Mahindra Satyam CEO C.P. Gurnani said the demand on fictitious income was unreasonable. "That is the reason we have choosen to go to court and are seeking justice," he said.

The Mahindra Group company had earlier said that on the one hand, the government agencies were prosecuting former Satyam chief B. Ramalinga Raju for showing fictitious income, but on the other, making the same fictitious income a basis for demanding taxes.

Inventing the Future of Computing

In a windowless room deep inside IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, scientists are teaching a computer chip to learn from what it sees, much like a human. The effort is paying off, if performance at Pong is any measure.

When the chip, part of a project called SyNAPSE, first learned to play the classic videogame in March, it did poorly. Weeks later, the company reports, it was nearly unbeatable.

The SyNAPSE chip was designed to learn through experience, find correlations, create hypotheses, and remember outcomes. As chips such as the one from SyNAPSE become smarter and smaller, it will be possible to embed them in everyday objects. That portends a future in which the interaction between computer and user is far more natural and ubiquitous. “Computers were originally designed to solve math problems and that’s what they’re really good at—symbolic computation,” says Steve Esser, one of three scientists teaching the SyNAPSE chip. “Anything that involves visual processing, auditory processing, or speech processing—they can do it, but they’re just not very good at it.”

IBM is the third-biggest spender on research and development among US tech companies, having invested $6.28 billion in the past 12 months, according to Bloomberg data. Along with Microsoft, the top spender at $9.18 billion, and Intel, at $7.71 billion, these technology bellwethers are investing in what they see as computing’s next wave.

MORE INNOVATION THAN EVER

“Computing is undergoing the most remarkable transformation since the invention of the PC,” said Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini during his company’s developer conference in September. “The innovation of the next decade is going to outstrip the innovation of the past three combined.”
At Microsoft, researchers are looking at the ways in which users will interact with computers in 3D spaces. In September the company announced a project reminiscent of Star Trek‘s Holodeck, a simulated reality room where people could interact naturally with virtual objects and other individuals.
Microsoft’s effort, called Holodesk, is a like a mini-Holodeck for the office desk, which lets workers interact and manipulate virtual 3D images.
It uses an Xbox Kinect camera and an optical transparent display to give people the illusion that they’re interacting with 3D graphics. For example, a user can juggle virtual balls or hold a virtual prototype of a smartphone. The Holodesk is part of Microsoft’s pioneering work in what it calls natural user interfaces.

It looks at how people will interact with computers when computing power is everywhere and not limited to a PC. “There is this real sense that this is a dramatic new trend for the industry and for Microsoft,” said Steve Clayton, who writes about internal research for the company blog, “Next at Microsoft.” “We’ve been investing a lot over this vision.”

At Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, Brian David Johnson spends quite a bit of time thinking about the future—the year 2020, to be precise. In fact, the futurist recently participated in a conference call about building Intel’s 2020 CPU.

As chips become embedded in many different devices, the company has realised that it needs to change.


ALGORITHMS THAT GRASP HUMANITY

“Fast and less-expensive and smaller isn’t enough anymore; we really need
to have an understanding of what we’re going to do with it,” says Johnson, who travels the world talking to people about how they envision the future.
“To be a human in 2020, it will begin to feel like data is taking on a life of its own,” he says. The proliferation of computing into everyday objects will generate massive quantities of sensor and other data, with algorithms talking to algorithms and machines talking to machines, he adds. “That algorithm—that thing that processes that massive amount of data—will need to have an understanding of what it means to be human.”

Who Manages Cloud Services to the Home?

Users are frustrated trying to connect all their home devices to a wireless network. Who will fill the gap?

The enterprise is where the big bucks used to be, but home is where the hearts of consumers are. As the Web becomes more integrated in people’s lives, the home will become the battleground for a coming generation of startups and big companies. There’s a huge hole in the market where broadband hits the home, and normal people struggle to connect their ever-growing number of devices to a wireless network they may not understand.

After watching big firms aim products at the home consumer and talking to venture firms trying to see which business models might have the most success, we believe the question boils down to whether an application or hardware is a better way to deliver connected home services? Fundamentally, every entrepreneur should realise that in a broadband world, what they will deliver is a service, and the rest is just the wrapping.

CONSUMERS LIKE HARDWARE
Earlier this week we saw the launch of Nest, a smart, connected thermostat, which is both beautiful and simple to use. All its complexity is hidden in the simplistic touch-wheel design, but it aims to control the heating and cooling in your home in a manner that will save consumers up to 30 percent of their energy consumption. At $250, this isn’t a cheap thermostat, but what people are buying here is the intelligence that resides in the service (and a pretty thermostat).

A similar example is the Sonos system, which is awesomesounding hardware that acts as a music delivery service. Again, the Sonos system isn’t cheap, but it does offer consumers aesthetically
pleasing (in sound; the boxes aren’t all that attractive) hardware with the true purpose of delivering music from the Web.

The box is also easy to set up and manages to mask any problems with the quality of a user’s home Wi-Fi network, so the consumer doesn’t need to worry about allocating bandwidth to the box. The list goes on with such devices as the Roku, which, like Sonos, is easy to set up and helps ensure a solid experience. And I can’t avoid mentioning Apple, which might be the king of building hardware that hides its complexity and is heading toward becoming a means of delivering such services as iTunes, iCloud, and MobileMe. It’s not quite there on the service side, yet, but I have no doubt it will get there.

UNCLEAR APP-ORTUNITY
While the app economy is huge on mobile devices, its ability to deliver services designed to be consumed at home is unclear. So far, apps designed to help consumers manage network-based services inside the home have faltered.

On the energy management side, Google’s PowerMeter and Microsoft’s Hohm products were abandoned after low adoption. That may reflect a lack of interest in home energy monitoring, so we’ll have to see if Nest makes an impact where these services failed.

The television industry hopes to build apps for its screen, and pay TV providers are offering apps in the form of TV Anywhere products that might count as an example of success. But it’s hard to pinpoint specific apps that provide a connected experience tied to the home or gadgets residing in the home. I wonder if services such as security and TV apps might be the best way to hide a service in the form of an application.

With TVs and TV content, an app strategy makes sense, because the content will come via IP to a multitude of devices from different manufacturers (although for traditional TVs, a settop box might work, too). For security, which would require a professional installation of equipment, an app strategy may also work.

MANAGING THE HOME NETWORK
The other area where I’d love to see some sort of user-centric app or device is in managing the network.

Right now, I don’t have the ability to allocate bandwidth easily to certain areas of my home or to certain applications. I think that, as more devices compete for limited Wi-Fi, such services make more sense. It could be built into a router or perhaps managed through the Web via an ISP-provided app.
Either way, consumers are beginning to get frustrated with the toll of maintaining, updating, troubleshooting, and having mediocre experiences on their connected devices.

Instead of bringing the glitchy PC experience to homes, let’s get it right this time with something that looks more like electricity. I don’t care if it’s hardware or an app; I just want to be able to flip a switch and have it work.

YouTube Releases Its 90-Minute, User-Generated Documentary Film For Free

Last summer, YouTube embarked an ambitious film project of the sort that is only possible in the 21st century. They asked thousands of people all over the world to document their experiences on a single day and upload the footage.

The result, titled 'Life in a Day,' is a 90-minute film directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott. It documents human life on Earth for one day, insofar as such a thing is possible within a span of 90 minutes. The movie, which has already premiered at a few festivals, is now available in its entirety on YouTube.

When the project was first underway, ReadWriteWeb's own Curt Hopkins questioned whether it was truly possible to effectively document life in a single day with constraints such as the inherent length of a feature film and YouTube's own terms of service restrictions. Such a task would seem to be impossible, but a project of this nature can at least provide a snapshot of life for a small sample of human beings across the planet.

We'll leave a more in-depth critique of the film up to the movie critics, but if nothing else, it's a very interesting concept, made possibly only by digital technology and the Web.

Macdonald and Scott pieced together their creation from 4,500 hours of footage uploaded to YouTube, all of it purportedly recorded on July 24, 2010. Even six years prior, gathering that much footage from so many geographically dispersed locations would have required a huge budget, large film crew and extensive air travel.

In this case, the project was backed by a giant tech company who can afford to bring on award-winning talent to help piece the whole thing together. That ability sure made the finished product looked nice, but we can imagine a similar approach being used by amateur filmmakers, as well as budding professionals, who now have history's largest, most distributed film crew at their disposal.

Google Reader Gets The Google Plus Treatment

After announcing on October 20 that Google Reader would be annexed by Google Plus, Reader has gotten the ol' +1 today. Google is rolling out the new, clean Plus theme that has already come to Gmail, Docs and elsewhere, and it is replacing the Reader 'Like' function with the +1 button. Sharing from Google Reader now produces a +snippet. I guess we no longer need that nice workaround.

But it's not all plusses on Google Reader today. Reader's social features, beloved by some avid readers who didn't want the noise of sharing on full-fledged social networks, are now switched off. No more friending, following and sharing; it's all circling and +1s now.

The changes don't really remove any functionality, either (edit: except note-taking. Did you know Google Reader had note-taking?), but they do force those who like to share via Google Reader to join Plus. Shuttering features that have devoted users, even if it isn't many, is always a bold move.

'Retiring Reader's sharing features wasn't a decision that we made lightly,' says engineer Alan Green in Google's blog post, 'but in the end, it helps us focus on fewer areas, and build an even better experience across all of Google.'

But it seems like Google has had it out for Reader for a while now. In January, it demoted Reader below the fold in Gmail. Google's essence is social now, and standalone Reader users have to join the party.

The close-knit sharing between avid readers was nice, but there are clear advantages to sharing on Google Plus, not the least of which is the fact that +snippets are much more attractive to click on than simple Google Reader links. For those mourning the loss of their Google Reader communities, wouldn't creating a Google Reader circle do the trick?

Although, it sure is lame that Google didn't make it easy to convert your Reader friends into a circle automatically.

For anyone who doesn't use Google Plus, there are some amazing RSS clients that use your Google Reader as the back-end but let you share however you'd like. And you know you can still add all your preferred sharing services to the 'Send To' tab, right? The same settings we showed you before to add Google Plus as a Reader service will let you add anything else, too.

BSNL and others to build Rs 20k cr broadband network

The telecom ministry has accepted the finance ministry's stance that state-owned BSNL must not be entrusted with the 20,000-crore project to build a national broadband network to take high-speed internet to the hinterlands.

A special purpose vehicle (SPV) with equity participation from state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL and other public sector units such asRailTel, Gail and PowerGrid, among others, will now undertake this project as demanded by the finance ministry. This initiative involves laying 11 lakh km of optic fibre network connecting over 2.5 lakh panchayats across the country.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) in its proposal to the Cabinet has said that private players would be 'inducted' into the SPV by equity expansion at a later date. "This stage could be considered at any point when it is felt that it would add value to the objectives of the programme," the Cabinet note seeking approval for this project added.

In July, communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal had said that the telecom commission, the apex decision making body of the department, had approved the project to build this network that would connect all the gram panchayats utilising the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Sibal said that the initial phase of this project would cost about Rs 20,000 crore and added that a similar amount of investment was likely from the private sector towards this.

Telecom companies contribute 5% of their annual revenues towards this fund, which is used to support rural telephony, and the unutilised amount in this kitty is estimated to be about Rs 20,000 crore and this is expected to increase to Rs 36,000 crore within the next 36 months. But the proposal was delayed after the finance ministry raised concerns on the agency that would implement it.

The DoT shared the view that an SPV should only be created for managing the fibre network after it is built by BSNL. The finance ministry, on the other hand, had demanded that the SPV be entrusted with both the rollout and managing the network. The DoT in its Cabinet note has also added that it had already formed a high-level committee (HLC) and an advisory body to oversee the project.

"The project implementation team consisting of members of BSNL, PowerGrid, RailTel, National Informatics Centre and C-DoT is presently looking after various preparatory activities such as geographic information systems mapping, finalisation of network design etc.

Indian IT biggies TCS, Infosys, Wipro can withstand demand uncertainty: S&P

Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) today said top three Indian IT companies -- Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro -- are likely to maintain their investment grade ratings even if demand weakens.

"The largest Indian IT companies have strong margins, are cost-competitive, and have proven delivery models. These attributes will help them to weather uncertain and volatile demand," S&P's Credit Analyst Abhishek Dangra said about the three firms.

S&P has given TCS and Infosys BBB+ and Stable rating, while Wipro holds BBB and positive credit rating.

S&P report said that the three leading IT companies will be able to grow at a faster pace than the global industry, at least over the next few years.

It expects these companies to maintain industry-leading EBITDA (indication of cash flow) margins and grow in double digits in the next 12 months.

"Bigger challenges for the Indian IT companies will occur in the long-term. We expect the cost advantages of these companies to diminish as foreign competitors increase their already-large employee bases in India," a S&P statement said.

The agency said business and reputation risk is rising due to increasing protectionism and it expects the three Indian IT companies to adapt to the challenges, as they have in the past.

On dependency of IT companies on the slowing economies of the US and Europe, it said sovereign budget cuts across these markets could hurt business sentiment and lower private-sector IT spending.

The agency, however, added that deal cancellations would not have as much impact as in 2008-2009, and the time it takes to close deals has lengthened.

Dangra said high unemployment rates, slowing growth and political activism in many countries are generating opposition to outsourcing.

"Still, we expect focus on cutting costs in a slowing global economy to support demand for outsourcing to India. Such a practice results in significant cost savings," he added.

Zend Launches PHP Development Cloud

PHP developers, the world's fourth-largest developer group, now have an option enjoyed by other leading languages: they can collaborate on new software in the cloud, then deploy it to the cloud.

Microsoft illustrated the value of software development in the cloud when it made Visual Studio tools available for collaborative use on Windows Azure. Popular platforms as a service Heroku and Engine Yard did the same for Ruby developers. VMware's Cloud Foundry is a development environment for Java developers. And IBM has its developer's SmartCloud.

Zend Technologies has joined their ranks on behalf of PHP developers with PHPcloud.com. In addition to providing tools, Zend will give developers the option of deploying their finished applications to Amazon's EC2, IBM SmartCloud, Rackspace, or Red Hat's Cloud Foundation. The multi-cloud deployment option may be a draw for PHP developers, who have thus far had few collaborative environments to choose from.


Zend will offer Zend Development Cloud, a set of PHP tools, and Zend Application Fabric, an application server and other deployment middleware, as a development platform on Amazon's EC2. Instead of requiring a developer to fire up an Amazon virtual server to get started, a developer will sign in and be given a slice of an existing server so he can immediately start writing code in his own sandbox."We're going to make Zend Development Cloud a powerful troubleshooting environment," said Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend Technologies, in an interview. Code tracing, a feature of application server Zend Server, can capture the execution of an application request and allow developers to replay the way its functions execute to troubleshoot any problems.

Gutmans, one of the original developers of PHP with CTO Zeev Suraski, believes software development in the cloud will be more productive than on premises. Developers may coordinate their efforts more easily there and a standard development environment can be equipped with better troubleshooting tools.

Investors claim Zenith Infotech FCCB default more than $85 million

The story of IT services provider Zenith Infotech's default on its dollar convertible bonds seems to be getting bigger and murkier. Investors claim IT provider's default could now be in excess $85 million instead of the $33 million as it originally submitted to the stock exchanges because of a cross default exchange clause, which is part of the bond agreement.

A division that was spun off to a group company and in which US-based Summit Partners announced an investment is also muddying the issue with hedge fund QVT and a few shareholders taking Zenith Infotech to court seeking disclosure of the full value and structure of the deal.

A representative of QVT Fund confirmed that payment on the remaining bonds raised by Zenith Infotech has also become immediately due taking its obligation, including the premium, to over $85 million. Zenith Infotech raised two lots of foreign currency convertible bonds - one for $33 million which was due on September 21, 2011, and a second tranche of $50 million, which was due for repayment in August 2012.

Under the cross default clause, which is a feature in many bond agreements, all dues to bondholders become immediately payable if the company defaults on $1 million or more of debt. "We have accelerated bonds for immediate payment," the QVT representative said. QVT, one of the bondholders which moved a winding petition against pharma firmWockhardt on a similar default, holds about a fourth of Zenith Infotech's FCCBs.

The QVT representative also said Zenith Infotech has not been in touch with it. "The company has had no discussion whatsoever with QVT regarding the re-structuring or extension of maturity of the bonds. We are not aware of any efforts by the management to contact QVT," the person said, adding, "We hold a majority in both the $33-million and $50-million FCCBs."

Last week, Zenith Infotech had said 'it was and in negotiations' with bond-holders to extend the time for repayment, in a filing to the stock exchanges last week. When contacted by ET, Zenith Infotech chairman and director, Raj Saraf, said in a text message, "Our company solicitors have advised us to currently refrain from making press statements, as the matter is sub judice."

Two days ago, Zenith Infotech CEO Akash Saraf was quoted in a well-known blog MSPmentor.net for managed services providers and re-sellers, as saying in an open letter, "We are actively discussing our debt obligations with our bond-holders. We are optimistic that the process will result in financial terms that are acceptable to everyone. Our ongoing operations are not affected by this."

Mspmentor.net also quoted Michael George, CEO of Zenith RMM, a company to which Zenith Infotech spun off its managed services division, as saying Zenith RMM is a separate independent company from Zenith Infotech.

Oracle competitor Tidemark launches, wins more cash

Cloud-based analytics companyTidemark took the wraps off its business after two years in stealth mode, and announced a new funding round.

The company is another in a list of start-ups aimed at helping businesses deal with sorting through growing amounts of data. It works using the cloud -- meaning data gets stored on a network of computers and is accessible from anywhere.

But in a sign of the tough fund-raising environment that has emerged over the last couple of months, the company raised less money this year than it did last year. Typically, companies raise a bigger sum with each funding round.

Tidemark, formerly known as Proferi, raised $6.3 million in its A, or first significant, funding round last year, and said total equity raised totaled "more than $11 million." A spokesman confirmed the new round was slightly smaller than the previous round, and said Tidemark didn't want to raise more cash than it needed at this stage.

Its software takes on established players like Oracle and SAP, and will allow customers to quickly see the possible outcomes for a variety of scenarios: "For what happens if a competitor enters your space, or if you change a product line," Chief Executive Officer Christian Gheorghe told Reuters as examples.

Fellow cloud-based business-software company Box said last week it won $81 million in a late-stage round of funding. Domo, a cloud-based business intelligence company founded by former Omniture CEO Josh James, won $33 million in July.

Tidemark's initial customers are sales & marketing company Acosta; US Sugar, and a large technology company it declined to name.

Its backers include venture-capital firms Greylock Partners and Andreessen Horowitz; and Dave Duffield, co-founder of Workday and founder of PeopleSoft, both business-enterprise companies.

RIL plans to roll out 4G services by 2012

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries plans to offer high-speed data services on attractively priced tablets by early next year and scale it up to a countrywide network by the middle of 2012.

The company, which made a comeback to the telecom sector last year, plans to offer fourth-generation or 4G-enabled data cards that can be plugged into computers, apart from providing tablets at a game-changing price of Rs 3,000 or even lower to hook customers, two executives said. RIL has also initiated talks with media and entertainment firms, including Walt Disney's Indian venture UTV Software, to acquire content for its wireless broadband offerings.

A deal with Walt Disney, which is close to being finalised , will enable the company to offer games and applications for the younger customers. It plans to provide data connectivity with speeds of 50-100 mbps, which is much faster than 3G services currently on offer, at cheaper prices.

The strategy of enticing customers with low prices is similar to the strategy followed in 2003, when it took mobile telephony to the masses with its "Monsoon Hungama" handsets at Rs 501, helping it win 1 million customers in just 10 days. Reliance Infocom, the telecom arm of the undivided Reliance Group, began its services on December 28, 2002, the birthday of the group's founder Dhirubhai Ambani.

The company, now known as Reliance Communication is owned Anil Ambani, the younger brother of Mukesh. RIL has acquired Infotel, a company that won pan-India spectrum for broadband wireless access (BWA) last year and plans full-scale commercial operation by mid-2012.

By then, it expects to have its pan-India networks ready across 700 cities in the country, one of the executives said. Neither wanted to be identified. It will also gradually offer much higher speeds for data transfer on its network. The company has considered a soft launch as early as December, one source said.

Reliance hopes to boost investor confidence

Reliance is working overtime to make a success out of its latest venture, which it hopes will boost investor confidence that has been battered by harsh criticism from the CAG. The company's other initiatives such as retail continue to be small blips in its balance sheet while its gas production has declined because of reservoir complexity.

The company's spokesman declined comment on specifics of its broadband plans saying Reliance would not comment on speculation. But in an update on its telecoms business, Reliance said on Friday that it's telecoms unit was "in the process of setting up a world-class broadband wireless network using state-of-the-art technologies and finalising the arrangement with leading global technology players, service providers, infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to help usher the 4G revolution into India".

The company is learnt to be in the final phase of talks with three vendors - Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and China's Huawei -- for its broadband gear after finishing trails with equipment provided by all vendors. It is not clear if RIL will go with a single vendor or split the contracts between the three, executives with gear makers aware of the ongoing talks said.

Several industry executives said that that RIL had examined prototypes of tablets from over 15 Taiwanese and Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) before shortlisting a slew of designs that will enable the company to offer devices across a wide spectrum of services at prices ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 15,000.

RIL may focus on three to four models, all of which are likely to be priced between Rs 3000 to Rs 8000, an industry executive said while adding that the entry-level tablets may have Google's android operating system. Industry executives also confirmed that RIL was not considering UK-based Datawind, which recently launched the world's cheapest tablet - Aakash - priced at $35 or Rs 1,750 for students with the Indian government sourcing these device at Rs 2,256.

RIL is also in talks with multiple players for pan-India tower deals - it may go in for deals on a regional basis by tying up with the tower firm that has maximum reach and density in that particular zone, this executive added. RIL has already started internal testing of the service at its own offices.

The company will also have the opportunity to provide voice services. Last week, telecoms minister Kapil Sibal confirmed that the new policy would allow winners of last year's broadband auctions to offer voice services, a development that will significantly benefit RIL as it can become a full-fledged service provider.

Reliance Industries in talks with global players to launch hi-speed broadband

Reliance Industries (RIL) is in the process of finalising agreements with global technology players and service providers to offer high speed broadband wireless services in the country, the company said today.

"...Is in the process of setting up a world class broadband wireless network using state-of-art technologies and finalising the arrangement with leading global technology players, service providers and infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to help usher the 4G revolution into India," RIL said in a statement while announcing the second quarter results.

Last year, Mukesh Ambani-led RIL had forayed into the telecom arena with a bang, announcing the acquisition of Infotel, which had emerged as the sole winner of pan-India broadband spectrum, for Rs 4,800 crore.

"Reliance also made a substantial commitment to being a leader in the evolution of India's digital economy by acquiring control of a nationwide broadband wireless access licence. We are fully geared to participate in India's growth and continued global recovery in the coming years," Ambani said.

In June this year, Ambani had said that the services would be in the domain of education, healthcare, entertainment, financial services and government-citizen interfaces.

Reliance Industries had a cash and cash equivalent of Rs 42,393 crore (USD 9.5 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2011.

Broadband and broadband-enabled digital services are the next big leap forward in the digital transformation of our knowledge economy, he had said.

Dedicated servers and its benefits

What are dedicated servers? A dedicated server is not someone who is attentive to you in a restaurant. When you hear the term "dedicated servers" online it usually refers to the type of web hosting provider for a website.

If you have started an internet website, you are probably aware that you need a host. There are several different types of web hosting available. You can get hosting through a free server. This is usually used by people who want to have a personal web page for friends and family. A free server will most likely put their own ads on your web page so that they can generate income. There are also shared servers. A shared server is the logical choice of most businesses starting out on the website. Because internet hosting can cost hundreds of dollars per month, most small businesses choose a shared server so they do not have to invest so much money at the onset of their business. A shared server can be a good option for a small internet business or a personal website. There is no reason for a personal website owner to have a dedicated server. A small business or personal website can keep costs down if they share the cost of hosting with other businesses. However, if your business suddenly begins to take off, or you find that you want a lot more space for forums and shopping carts that your current shared server cannot give you, it may be time to look into getting a dedicated server.

Most of the websites host on 2 important servers, Linux Dedicated Server which supports PHP, Mysql and Windows Dedicated Server which supports ASP.Net, ASP, PHP, MSSQL, Mysql technologies for your personal or business website programming needs.

Dedicated servers host only your website. This means that all of the space and bandwidth on the server is yours and yours alone. You do not have to share hosting with other businesses. You can generally make your website as large as you want and include databases such as shopping carts as well as forums, that normally take up quite a bit of space. This also means that you have total control over the safety of your server and your website. You can add additional features that can make your site even more secure, to the benefit of both your customers as well as yourself. Dedicated servers usually cost a lot more each month to maintain, but there are different sizes as well as services available for this type of web hosting. When perusing the different options when it comes to dedicated servers online, you can generally find everything from larger servers to budget dedicated servers.

Nothing can be worse for an internet business than the following:
Customers not being able to access the website because there is not enough bandwidth, leading the customer to believe the website no longer exists.
Customers not trusting the security of the website because last month their credit card information was lifted because the website was not secure.
A severe limit on the website with regard to space that eventually costs you customers.
All of the above scenarios can be avoided by using dedicated servers instead of shared servers. Dedicated servers add space, bandwidth and security for internet business websites.

Web Hosting Benefits of a Dedicated Server

Hosting your web sites on your own dedicated server may seem a little expensive in comparison to shared web hosting, but the end result is more advantageous. Shared web hosting, no matter how well managed, cannot be 100% reliable and stable. However if you have your own dedicated server you can manage to avoid most of the variables affecting the reliability and stability of a server, commonly experienced by shared hosting accounts; variables such as: overload, bad codes and scripts from other users (especially beginners); and, too many applications and components uploaded, and so on.

On a dedicated server you will install only software and applications you want to use, while on a shared hosting server you will find a host of other softwares and applications installed for other users.

By the very nature of the account, a dedicated server: reduces your dependency on the web host; and bypasses time delays and possible expenses incurred from these. With dedicated server hosting you can provide instant support to your own clients whenever required, which is not possible if you are on a shared server. A reliable, and fast support service is vital for your own business growth just like the stability and reliability you wish for your own website. In business, reliability is reflected through word-of-mouth as one of the most effective promotional activities.

For people with clients, such as Graphic Designers and Web Designers a dedicated server is invaluable. A dedicated server will bring extra income into the studio, not just as a hosting facility, but, as a designer knows only too well, for the extra ‘bread and butter’ income value. If you have 24hour access to your own dedicated server then you can adjust, correct or update a clients website in minutes, allowing you to keep the dollar back in your studio and not in someone else’s. Ready availability results in reduced labour costs for the client, but higher studio-income frequency for the designer. Hence you will see the return of all your regular offline clients, bringing their web work with them.

The need for a dedicated server to your average shared server user is realised when stats tell you: how quickly people left your site because it was taking too much time to download; or how many daily visitors you are down by, because your site was not up. The true negative is the worry of how many lost visitors could have been your future paying-customers. The loss could easily equal the value of the upgrade to a Dedicated Server!

For a business, a website that is quickly downloadable and up all the time gives the visitor encouragement that your service is just as reliable, hence you will be more likely to make a sale. It will also enhance the company’s image and encourage existing customers to refer your service to others. This will result in more sales for less promotion.

Govt of India targets 600 mn broadband connections by 2020; revises download speed

The Government of India, through the Draft National Telecom Policy 2011, has set a target of 600 million high-speed internet connections in India by 2020. The draft NTP-2011 aims to achieve 175 million broadband connections by 2017.

The draft also aims To revise the existing broadband download speed of 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps by 2011 and subsequently to 2 Mbps by 2015 and and higher speeds of atleast 100 Mbps thereafter.

The policy, unveiled by Minister of Communications and IT Kapil Sibal, went to the extent of likening the broadband connectivity to basic necessities like health and education and proposes to work towards a 'Right to Broadband' for every citizen.

SAP Ventures invests $10 million in Delhi-based One97 Communications

SAP Ventures, the investment arm of the world's largest maker of business management software SAP AG has invested $10 million in Delhi-based mobile internet services firm One97 Communications. SAP is a lone investor in this third round of funding.

One97 founded in 2000 by engineer-turned-entrepreneur Vijay Shekhar Sharma delivers mobile content, advertising and commerce services to customers such as Airtel, Vodafone, Afghan Wireless, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Samsung and General Motors.

With this investment, One97 plans to expand its reach in emerging markets such as Asia, Africa, hire talent and do research and development.

Mobility and emerging markets are both key focus areas for SAP Ventures which this year launched a new $360 million fund.

"One97 is right in the middle of exploding mobile usage among consumers in developing countries who are using their mobile phones to access the internet, play games, buy content and shop online," said Jai Das managing director at SAP Ventures, headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

"I am right now holidaying in Cochin, and it is amazing to see how people are connected and accessing internet differently in India," added Das.

The benefit of tapping booming mobile and internet is paying off handsomely. This year One97 crossed a turnover of Rs 200 crore.It had just Rs 11 crore in revenues three years ago.

Experts such as Ajit Balakrishnan, founder of online media major Rediff.com believes India will become the largest internet market in next 5-7 years with 400 million users, as new investments to build the infrastructure are going to happen in next two years.

"The opportunity is big. Like an early car, internet is a horseless carriage in India right now. It is sandbox play due to lack of infrastructure and red tape delay of projects" said Balakrishnan.

Investors are also betting big on hot sectors that includes internet and mobile market.

Private equity investments in first nine months of 2011 have surpassed the entire of 2010 as deal sizes grow significantly.

PE firms invested about $2,249 million across 98 deals during the quarter ended September this year, according to a study by Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity,M&A activity.

IT & ITES companies attracted $437 million across 29 transactions, according to the report.

Last month, in one of the largest global deals in the mobile internet space, Japanese internet major, SoftBank Corp invested $200 million in Bangalore based mobile advertising company InMobi.

This was followed by the $40 million round raised by online group buying service Snapdeal.com from Bessemer Ventures with participation from existing investors IndoUS Ventures and Nexus Ventures.

Blackstone invested about $33 million in financial inclusion-focused tech firm FINO.

For Sharma who hails from Aligarh a small town in Uttar Pradesh it has been a meteoric rise. Sharma started his first business venture XS Corps, a web solutions firm while still studying at college. The start-up was later sold to US based technology firm Lotus Interworks in 1999.

One97 which started with providing caller identification facility moved up the value chain by diversifying into services such as music , customer analytics and sending mobile phone voice messages to farmers for better agricultural practices.

"Initially it was a struggle due to lack of funds. We had to keep on innovating to survive," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CMD of One97.

The firm has raised a total funding of Rs 83.6 crore from marquee investors-- Intel Capital, SAIF Partners and Silicon Valley Bank.

One97 now has a team of 1,000 people, who are spread across India, Middle East and Africa.

For SAP, this is the second India investment this year. It invested $10 million in local search engine Just Dial along with Sequoia Capital Global Equities in June.

SAP which counts social media major LinkedIn, open source solutions major Red Hat among its top portfolio companies had earlier invested in Indian technology firms such as Connectiva, iYogi and Newgen. " We are scouting for more start-ups," said Das.

McDonalds to provide Wi-Fi internet access across 110 outlets in Delhi and NCR

Fast-food chain McDonalds is planning to introduce free high-speed wireless internet access at its 110 outlets in Delhi and the NCR by the end of the next six months. The service for the first 10 minutes would be free and then the user would be charged Rs 30 an hour.

"We are currently looking at introducing Wi-Fi at 54 of our outlets based in Delhi and around the NCR. Then we plan to move to the entire northern market," said Vikram Bakshi, managing director, McDonalds India.

Aakash tablet production cost below $35, govt buying at $49

A dream project of the government, the 'world's cheapest tablet PC', Aakash, is being produced at less than $35 (approximately Rs 1,750) per unit, but the replacement warranty attached to it has led to an increase in its price by about $14 to $49.98 per piece.

"The government has asked for a special replacement warranty. Government has asked us not to to repair it (Aakash Tablet)... You will have to replace it... which is a big cost," Suneet Singh Tuli, the CEO of Datawind, the company manufacturing the tablet, told PTI.

Tuli further explained that the ratio of defects in any device sold in India is higher when compared to America because of the harsh climatic conditions here.

"Those kind of costs add to it. This (Aakash) is Rs 2,200... it can be Rs 1,700. Actual manufacturing cost still is less than Rs 1,750. But there are all these other conditions which take it above Rs 1,750," he said.

On July 22, 2010, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal had unveiled a prototype of the device and announced that it would be developed for use at around $35 per unit.

To ensure complete transparency and a level playing-field, the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) decided to task IIT Rajasthan, Jodhpur, with the job of procuring and testing these devices, based on the design and specifications that the mission's team had finalised.

IIT Jodhpur had floated tenders and the lowest bidder quoted an ex-factory price of $37.98, which was close to the cost mentioned by the minister.

This cost comprised components and material, as well as manufacturing expenses. The final landed price of $49.98 (Rs 2,276) per unit included taxes, levies, and charges like freight and insurance, servicing and documentation, etc.

Tuli said people have been challenging the development of such a low cost device, but by selling this device to the government, Datawind is making enough profits, which even allows him to donate 10 per cent of the total profit to charity.

Tuli said that over-and-above the production cost, Datawind pays almost 20 per cent as taxes, which add to the cost of the device.

"If we bring it after making in China, then there would have been no issues, because it's exempted from duties. I would have not been required to pay 4 per cent VAT (value added tax). Getting it from China and selling in India would have not make it exciting. Therefore, we made it at Hyderabad," Tuli said.

He said that company will sell the commercial version of Aakash in the market for Rs 2,999, which -- unlike the government's Aakash tablet with a 1-year replacement warranty -- will carry only a 30-day replacement warranty.

Tuli has said that he will sell the government Aakash tablets for Rs 1,750 if the government orders 10 lakh units. At present, Datawind has an order for supplying 1 lakh units to the government.

The government is buying the tablets for Rs 2,276 per unit and giving them to education institutes at a 50 per cent subsidy.

Public services to go mobile, government targets IT industry to $300 bn by 2020

India plans to provide all public serviceson mobile devices, make one person IT literate in every household and increase the size of India's IT industry to $300 billion by 2020 from $89 billion this fiscal, as per the draft of government's first policy on information technology, released on Friday.

The government wants the IT industry to flourish in tier II and III towns. It plans to increase software exports from $59 billion at present to $200 billion by 2020.

The plan include diversifying exports to other countries apart from US and Europe to mitigate the impact of recession on India's IT companies. Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal said the government may also offer tax incentives to local tech companies after the Direct Tax Code comes into place.

The country's small and mid sized IT companies have been impacted with the 10-year tax holiday from theSoftware Technology Parks of India scheme coming to end in 2010. "We'll certainly try and do something," Sibal said on a possibility of sops for the small IT firms.

He added that he was hopeful of 'formalizing' the policy by end 2011. The IT policy is the second of the three policies that the ministry intends to deliver by December. Earlier this week, Sibal unveiled the draftnational electronics policy which aims to bring $100 billion worth of investment into the sector and create 28 million jobs over the next nine years.

Sibal, who also handles the portfolio of telecoms, will introduce draft of the much-awaited national telecoms policy on Monday.

The National IT policy aims at increasing its of skilled IT professionals four times to 10 million by 2020 while envisaging the extensive use of mobile phones and the recently launched world's cheapest tablet Aakash, at $35, as a platform for delivering public services to all Indians.

"Aakash will be the delivery system for all public services. Going forward, we will improve the product," Sibal said. Besides making use of social media to reach out to the masses, the government also plans to integrate Aadhar to offer public services to the masses and simplify their delivery.

It plans to increase affordability of accessibility through IT. The government also plans to promote innovation and R&D in cutting edge technologies and development of applications and solutions in areas like localization, location based services, mobile value added services, cloud computing, social media and utility models.

Sibal added that the government was keen on introducing the electronic delivery of services bill in the winter session of Parliament. The bill mandates states to provide all services electronically within five years.

The minister also emphasised on changing copyright laws in a bill pending in Parliament, at the same time not compromising nation's IT security.