mid the current economic slowdown, small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India are more inclined to spend on software than their counterparts in other geographies. As per a AMI study, Indian SMBs are projected to invest approx 15% more this year on packaged software. According to a recent AMI-Partners study, in 2008, small businesses (SBs, or companies with up to 99 employees) posted a 21% rise in software spending, while medium businesses (MBs, or companies with 100 to 999 employees) showed a much lower 12% growth in the same spending category last year.

2008 displayed good traction for productivity suits, collaborative tools and even high-end applications like BI tools, middleware, security/ storage applications and network management tools. Nirupam Chaudhuri, senior research manager with AMI-Partners, said, “There is increasing pressure on technology decision-makers to ensure that application investments meet both short-term and long-term business and financial goals.”

In the current economic constraints, SMBs in India are looking to leverage IT to enhance productivity, improve customer relations, and expand business capabilities. However, SBs are looking for major cost savings.

Applications for productivity enhancements, accounts and financial solutions, advanced marketing and sales tools, analytics tools will find buyers even in current times of slowdown, the study predicts. IT vendors, too, are looking at product innovations to help facilitate more availability, affordability and performance of solutions.

Among verticals, the study said the manufacturing and professional services sector together drove more than 47% of SB software spending and 70% of MB software spend.

As regards consolidation and virtualization solutions, the study says they will find major takers, although adoption is still much lower than global standards. “Customer base will increase manifolds in coming times amid focus to leverage existing IT and more utilization of resources in place. Scale is essential to get full potential of virtualization; below some trade-off points these solutions are not yet cost-effective,” Chaudhuri said.

There is high awareness about software as a service (SaaS) among companies in India, but low enthusiasm. According to Chaudhuri, the proliferation of broadband with increasing speeds has been a major influencer for increased interest in SaaS. However, for the scenario in India to improve, ISVs have to think of innovative business models to support installations. To support ISVs, SaaS hosts can provide them with value-added services like SLA monitoring, billing, etc.

After the recent layoff of 2,100 staff for being “Non-performers”, Infosys Technologies has extended the mandatory training period for new recruits from the existing four months to seven months.

This move is ostensibly to ensure that more trainees get absorbed in the organization.
According to T. V. Mohandas Pai, member of the board of Infosys Technologies, based on their performance, 2,100 employees had left (or asked to leave) Infosys. “However, this does not mean that they were overall poor performers for the IT industry. They were only not up to our standards.” “The extension of the trainingeriod is to ensure more of them get qualified as per our standards,” said Pai.

Interestingly, while 2% of the staff were layed off last year, this year it is 3% of the staff.
At present, the company has 8,000 trainees, coming from various cities, undergoing training at Mysore.

Out of the total number of layoffs, Infosys claims 850 persons left on their own, while 650 were asked to go through personal improvement programme, and the rest were outplaced. “We don’t indiscriminately fire trainees, but have to layoff the bottom 5% of the poor performers,” Pai said.

Spelling mansion for sale

Late television producer Aaron Spelling’s mansion is on the market for a cool $150 million.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The widow of producer Aaron Spelling is placing “The Manor” in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood on the market for a jaw-dropping $150 million, making it by far the most expensive home for sale in the U.S.

The French chateau-style mansion has 56,500 square feet of space on more than 4.6 acres and is the largest home in Los Angeles County. Among the neighbors are the Los Angeles Country Club and, not too far away, the Playboy Mansion.

Spelling’s late husband produced hit shows such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “Dynasty” and “Beverly Hills 90210.” He died in 2006.

“Everything there is glamorous, and is luxurious and it’s really great scale,” said Sally Forster Jones, an agent with Coldwell Banker Previews International in Los Angeles, which is co-listing the property. “There really is nothing to compare it to.”

Spelling told The Associated Press that she let her dog Madison, a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, help pick out the best real estate agent for the task. She had her security bring the dog into the room every time she met one of the candidate agents and watched how the dog reacted. If Madison didn’t like them, Spelling crossed them off the list.

Prospective buyers won’t have to worry about passing such scrutiny, Spelling jokes.

“Not at all,” she says.

The three-story mansion, built in 1991, is gated and features a winding driveway that leads up to the three-story house, which includes ceilings that reach up to 30 feet high, Jones said.

While some published reports put the tally of rooms in the mansion at well past 100, Jones couldn’t provide an exact count.

Spelling says she doesn’t know either.

“You’re really asking the wrong person,” Spelling jokes. “There’s a lot. (The house) has evolved and I actually haven’t gone around and counted.”

The Spellings found no shortage of uses for the many rooms in the mansion, however.

There’s a bowling alley, wine cellar, wine tasting room, gift-wrapping room, a humidity-controlled silver storage room, China room, library, gym and media room, among many others.

The screening room is one of Spelling’s favorites.

“I had some really wonderful times entertaining in that room,” she said. “We showed movies and I still do.”

The room features a movie projection system that automatically comes up from the floor at the same time that shades extend over the windows. It’s an idea that came to Candy Spelling in dream as she sought to avoid having a projection screen open all the time.

“I wanted Aaron to have the best projection room anyone had ever seen, and the biggest, so I came with this solution, not realizing that we had to excavate a lot of dirt to get down that low, to have a special room that housed the screen that was totally dust free,” said Spelling, 63.

The Spellings also finished the 17,000 square-foot attic that includes a barber shop and beauty salon.

The home also includes a wing for service staff, including a kitchen and seven bedrooms, and five fireplaces and four wet bars.

Lavish features also can be found outside the house, including a tennis court, fountains, a waterfall, a pool and spa, a reflection pool and a pool house with a kitchen, and 16 car ports.

The estate also boasts an 18th Century-style garden, a rooftop rose garden and a citrus orchard.

Prospective buyers won’t have to worry much about parking when they host big parties. The property includes a winding motor court with space for more than 100 cars.

Spelling plans to trade her mansion lifestyle for a luxurious, two-story condo atop a residential tower in Los Angeles that she bought last year for $47 million.

“I have a lot of wonderful, wonderful, wonderful feelings about this house and special things that I went through in building it, with a love that you can’t even imagine,” she gushed. “Yet I feel like I’m moving on to a new chapter in my life.”

San Francisco: Can the tight US economy help Microsoft beat back the cavalry charge of its much smaller, but much cooler, competitor Apple?

The software giant from Seattle seems to sense a whiff of opportunity in the air, bombarding the trendy maker of Macs, iPhones and iPods in ads and executive comments for being too expensive in these penny-pinching times.

The latest salvo comes in the form of widely screened TV ads, which show what Microsoft says are real life computer users shopping for new machines.

In one ad a bubbly, red-haired, 20-something named Lauren goes looking for a 17-inch laptop with a $1,000 budget. She walks out of the Apple store empty handed, proclaiming that she’s obviously “not cool enough to be a Mac person”, since the appropriate machine there would cost $2,000.

But Lauren finds several dream machines at a PC retailer, where she squeals with delight as she pays $699 for her new laptop and pockets $300 in change.

The ad ends with the tagline, “I’m Lauren, and I’m a PC”, an unabashed reference to Apple’s famous ads where an uber-cool actor portrays an Apple computer while a super nerd plays a hapless PC.

Even before the latest ads, signs were emerging that Apple’s exclusive cachet and relatively higher prices were hurting it in the market.

Unit sales for Apple computers were down 16 percent in February while the overall computer market increased by 10 percent, according to a research report by Morgan Stanley. Revenues at the iconic Silicon Valley company were down 22 percent compared to an 11 percent decline for the overall market.

Media experts are divided on whether Microsoft’s new campaign can blow a hole in Apple’s mythical status, especially as the company’s worldwide success with its iPhone and iPod products continues to draw customers into the Apple firmament.

“I don’t know what took Microsoft so long,” advertising executive Josh Barsch told E Commerce Times. “The biggest chink in Apple’s armour has always been its price tag.

“In flush times, the young and hip can afford to shell out more for a trendy machine. When they no longer have jobs and can’t pay their rent, it’s a different story.”

That message is reinforced by other Microsoft ads that feature kids performing all kinds of multimedia wizardry on their PCs.

But some say that Microsoft’s ads will ultimately backfire because they bring Apple into every purchase consideration. When users compare features, they could well find that the elegance, functionality and integrated software that are part of the Apple package are worth the extra money.

Recent Mac convert Greg Willis says he has no regrets about the switch. “Everything works smoothly right out of the box because it all comes from the same company,” he said. “I’m glad I paid the extra money. I got a quantum leap in quality.”

Others are not so sure that the extra expense is worthwhile. They argue that with less money to spend, they can forego the luxury of the Apple experience to save a few bucks. One of them is Jay Siegel, who has owned Macs for 25 years but recently bought a Windows PC as his main work computer.

“I’m getting my work done, using Windows. Surfing the Internet, using a web browser and a graphics programme all work on this computer,” noted the self-described Apple fan on Examiner.com.

“It may not be elegant or refined but it’s getting the job done for me. And it cost so much less. I’m sorry Apple, I just couldn’t justify those extra dollars right now. When the economy recovers and I have a bit more cash to spare I’m going to run, not walk, to buy another Mac.”

New York: Google is forming a $100 million fund called Google Ventures. The fund is aimed to invest in early-stage start-up firms.

The fund, will be wholly owned by Google, but will operate as a separate entity and will seek investment opportunities to maximize returns rather than looking for investments that strictly fit with Google’s strategic vision.

Rich Miner, a Co-founder of Android smart phone software that Google acquired in 2005, and Bill Maris are the fund’s two managing partners.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Miner appeared at an investor conference for Internet start-up companies with a name tag that listed his name alongside Google Ventures.

Miner said on Monday that Google Ventures will look at a wide variety of companies to invest in, including consumer Internet products, information technology, health care and biotech, among other areas. “Just as we were founded by entrepreneurs, we think we can help some of those next entrepreneurs with the next great idea,” said Miner.

Google Ventures has already invested in Pixazza Inc, an photo-based online marketing service and Silver Spring Networks, a company that uses technology to improve the efficiency of power grids.

Google has invested in other companies in the past through its philanthropic division, Google.org. While Google.org may continue to make investments from time to time, Maris said that Google Ventures will now function as Google’s “primary vehicle” for making venture-style investments.

Several high-tech companies have in-house venture capital arms, including Intel and Motorola, But Maris said that Google Ventures would have more in common with traditional venture capital firms.

The fund will focus primarily on companies seeking seed funding and early stage funding, and Google Ventures will have the ability to make investments ranging from tens of thousands to “several tens of millions” of dollars, Maris said.

Washington: Consumers prefer local soft drinks rather than global brands like Coca Cola or Pepsi due to their built-in mindsets connected to their desire, a new study said.

“Global-minded consumers prefer global products and local-minded consumers prefer local products (different specifications for consumers from different parts of the world)” the study authors explained.

“Due to rapid globalisation, local products… such as Mecca Cola (France) and Fei-Chang Cola (China) and global products… Pepsi and Coke, routinely compete against each other,” wrote study authors Yinlong Zhang (University of Texas San Antonio-UTSA) and Adwait Khare (Quinnipiac University).

The authors set out to answer the question “why global products fare better than local products in some markets and local products better than global products in other markets?”

The inclination toward global or local mindsets is connected to people’s desire for distinctiveness (local) versus their desire to be similar to others (global).

In three subsequent studies, the authors enhanced the accessibility of participants’ local or global identities to investigate their responses to products.

They then manipulated consumers’ preferences by informing participants of the unsuitability of their global or local inclinations, said an UTSA release.

“A reversal in preference occurs when global-minded consumers’ desire for distinctiveness from others is enhanced and when local-minded consumers’ desire for solidarity with others is enhanced,” the authors wrote.

“The findings reveal how multinational or local firms can solidify consumers’ preferences for global or local products if their consumers’ global or local inclinations are compatible with their products’ positioning,” the authors conclude.

The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

New Delhi: Hiring activity in February saw a 5 percent increase over that registered the previous month, according to the Naukri.com, an online headhunter.

The Naukri job index was at 774 for February, 5 percent up from January, thanks to an improved job situation in cities such as Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.

Out of the top 13 cities tracked, seven - Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Baroda and Jaipur - saw an increase in hiring. Ahmedabad and Chandigarh topped the chart as hiring in these cities moved up by 26 percent and 39 percent respectively.

However, Mumbai witnessed a 5 percent decline.

“Selective hiring is happening across most sectors now. However, the next few months will be challenging for the industry,” said Sumeet Singh, head of marketing at Info Edge, the company that runs the portal.

Hiring went up in sectors such as oil and gas, automobile, construction, telecom and insurance.

On the other hand, the index for the education industry witnessed a sudden shift, falling 16 percent from 1,112 in January to 940 in February.

Demand for professionals in the hospitality sector too saw a downward trend, the index moving down from 1,046 to 925.

The maximum number of jobs continued to be in the four-to-seven years’ experience category, though hiring in the senior management also rose significantly.

The index is based on job listings added to the site every month.

New Delhi: India’s poor internet connectivity makes the country stand at 115th position in terms of speed, among 223 nations. As per a report, India’s average internet connection speed stands low at 772 Kbps compared to the global average of 1.5 Mbps.

The country ranks 93rd in terms of broadband adoption globally with 3.74 percent connections at speed over 2 Mbps and 55th for the adoption of narrowband adoption at speeds below 256 Kbps. In terms of broadband penetration, India had 0.0001 broadband IPs per capita. Meanwhile, on another parameter called attack traffic - a measure of rogue activity on the Internet, such as DNS attacks, bots, spam activity and hackers, India ranked 17th globally.

The findings are based on the ‘State of the Internet’ report released by Akamai, which also pinpoints that approximately 19 percent internet connections around the world were at high broadband with speeds greater than 5 Mbps. The report features South Africa on the top with the country witnessing the highest percentage of connections on high broadband. Even in the in the prior quarter South Korea, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway stood with high broadband IPs per capita though comparatively less than the present.

New York: Downturn-ridden U.S. economy continues to fall further and the number of job losses is getting bigger every month. As per a report by ADP employer Services, private employers in the country have cut a record 742,000 jobs in March over 706,000 job-cuts in February.

According to the analysts, the big drop foreshadows a huge decline in the non-farm payroll reading in the government’s employment report that will be released on Friday.

“It’s a terrible number. It is almost a loss of three quarters of a million jobs which is possibly the highest we have seen so far over the length of this crisis,” said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader with Tempus Consulting in Washington.

After the news of the huge job losses in March, U.S. stock futures and the dollar have fallen, while U.S. treasury bonds regained some of their lost ground.

Scam-tainted Satyam Computer Services, which lost out on an earlier BSNL ERP contract due to its inability to produce a Letter of Comfort from any bank, is once again in the race for BSNL’s mega outsourcing deal.

The contract entails implementation of operational support systems and billing support systems for the 93 million new GSM lines that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is adding. The contract has been pegged at $1.2 billion.

The companies in the fray, apart from Satyam, are:Indian IT majors Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, along with HCL Infosystems, Tech Mahindra, and Spanco Telesystems.

TCS, HCL and Tech Mahindra have bid for all zones. Spanco has bid for north and west zones, Infosys for west and south, and Wipro and Satyam for east and south zones.

The estimated budget for each zone is Rs 1,500 crore.