How to make accounting software cool

Microsoft tapped a cutting-edge ad agency to craft an offbeat, viral campaign aimed at small business owners.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- It was too weird to be true. In late 2006, a series of videos appeared on YouTube about a Willow Springs, Ill., resident named Kyle Bone who'd created a successful product called "the anti-shirt" - a shirt that exposed the area of one's torso that a normal tee shirt would cover and revealed the area that would otherwise be exposed. In short, said Bone, it cured the age-old problem of "farmer's tan."

Viewers who investigated Bone's site found a link to another site, www.ideawins.com, where they could enter an American Idol-like search for the best small business idea in America. And, oh, they would also download a free copy of Microsoft Office Accounting.

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iPhone Software Development Kit coming March 6th?

Apple has called a special event at its Cupertino headquarters next Thursday, 6th March, to discuss the current state of the iPhone and its future.

It's widely believed that Apple will use this time to launch — or at least provide a decent information update — on the Software Development Kit (SDK). Steve Jobs had originally said that this software, which will allow third-party applications to natively (and officially) run on the iPhone, would be available this month. However, that date slipped.

Many believe that the iPhone should have been an open system from the start. It's one of the main reasons (along with trying to break away from the exclusive network carriers) why so many iPhones have been hacked.

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New virtualisation software from Oracle

ENTERPRISE software maker Oracle announced the availability of Oracle VM, its new server virtualisation software which supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications.

“It’s a highly optimised VM,” said the company’s chief executive officer Larry Ellison at the recent Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco.

Oracle VM, Ellison claimed will run three times faster than competing products in a virtualised environment be it Linux or Windows.

“You will see that it will run dramatically faster than the competition,” Ellison promised, though he did not produce benchmarking data to support his claims.

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AJAX alliance recognizes mashups

The OpenAjax Alliance, formed to boost interoperability in the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) realm, has put forth an aggressive road map that recognizes the growing trend toward mashups.

Speaking at the AJAXWorld conference in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday, Jon Ferraiolo, OpenAjax operations manager and an IBM Web architect, detailed the upcoming release of the OpenAjax Hub 1.0 and the follow-up 1.1 release. Ferraiolo also noted other projects, including the OpenAjax Registry and IDE accommodations for AJAX.

With the hub, the alliance aims to iron out interoperability issues between AJAX tool kits.

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Web 2.0 - Software Development Is Art

Software development is an inherently creative process. Many developers compare it to art, and - like artists - take great pride in their work. However, creative processes are typically not efficient. The software development process is no exception, as the quote below clearly indicates.

Given that software development is a business, many software development managers and team leads want to make it more productive and predictable. Yet, they worry that such efforts will frustrate developers and impact the creativity that is vital for successful software projects.

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Oracle links business process analysis, SOA

Oracle announced Wednesday an enhanced version of its business process analysis software that enhances collaboration between process modelers and implementers.

Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite 10.1.3.3 features "closed loop support" for business analyst and IT collaboration, sharing a common process model format with the Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle said.

The new business process analysis suite features round-trip engineering, said Amlan Debnath, vice president of server technologies at Oracle. "What it lets you do is share the [business process] model with IT," Debnath said.

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Microsoft attacks Google Apps

Microsoft has launched an attack on Google in which it sought to dissuade businesses from downloading Google Apps.

The attack came in a statement on Monday, the same day Google signed a deal with Capgemini to promote its office-productivity software among businesses.

Capgemini, a global consulting firm, is to offer desktop support and installation services to large corporations running Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), the premium version of Google's web-based package. Google Apps includes a word processor, calendar and mail functions, and so is a direct rival to Microsoft Office.

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Future of software development is global cooperation

BOFFINETTE GLORIANNA DAVENPORT, the Principal Research Scientist from MIT MediaLab sees future of software, and web development as a global event, with current social sites such as Facebook being just the beginning of a real global village.

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Software Outsourcing India Is The Hottest Destination !!

In today's competitive world of business, Technology and advancement are best thing that has happened to humankind. Both are the two aspects of Progress. Every company wants to make an outstanding position in the business industry. The business sectors from almost all the world have been witnessing some great benefits especially the software companies. One of the primary reasons for this benefit is undoubtedly the software outsourcing.

There are numerous software outsourcing and application development company all across the world including India, China, United States of America, Thailand, Dubai and various other nations, offering software outsourcing services to businesses and companies who are interested in getting the software work of their company done by some other professional. But amongst them software outsourcing India is the most sought after destination, Studies reveal that India shares about forty four percent of the global Offshore Software Outsourcing market for software and back office services. The reason behind this is the cost of software outsourcing from India, it is estimated that the cost of hiring Indian software professional is about five times less than that of American and European countries. Apart from this the software outsourcing India has highly skilled software professionals to provide quality work, excellent professionalism and security that too at cheaper rates. Indian government has implemented easy policies for software outsourcing and dedicatedly improving the infrastructure as well as reliable communication facility and support for Software Outsourcing and Development to flourish thus contribute a major role for the success of software outsourcing to India.

Before handing over your entire project to any India software outsourcing and application development company it must need to verify and consider few things. Knowledge, skills and sufficient backup of the vendor about industry vertical approach depending upon the project must be me looked forth. Hand over your project to skilled outsourcing Company and do track record on the vendor as to know and help yourself to alleviate on their offered services. ISO or CMM level certification should be considered while hiring outsourcing company. The software outsourcing and web application development services needs an expert to handle software outsourcing work efficiently and must be trained enough to over come any kind of problem.

To conclude, the cost effective software outsourcing India has proved advantageous for most of the software companies as their business has gain a huge profit by investing those saved money on the growth and expansion plans. That’s why outsourcing is one of the reasons for its ever increasing popularity and demand.

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Must You Outsource Software Development? Here Are Some Reasons Why You Should

How do you secure your rights over intellectual property? When a software development project is finished, who retains ownership of both the software’s source code and the intellectual property rights?

These are valid concerns that should be addressed before outsourcing your software development needs, commences. To develop software inside the company’s premises is undeniably safer, but lower cost alternatives nowadays, are enticing.

Programs and equipments needed to build software are expensive, local skilled labor may be scarce and time may not be on your side. Offshore outsourcing of your software development needs to India will give you the in-house advantage of being with a virtual team of your own choosing, cost effective, and you will be introduced to a broad spectrum of competencies far advanced than your own.

Software development is a complex job, highly technical and fast-changing. To fully adapt, even the first Fortune 500 companies go offshore outsourcing of their software needs. In a business environment that changes quickly, where competition is keener than it seems, speed in the accomplishment of tasks, as well as quality of inputs are vital factors that need not be compromised.

When does offshore outsourcing of software development to India, beneficial?

A big project entails hiring of more manpower and key support personnel. Regular hiring and selection process may take time, and training will use up a portion of company’s resources.

Outsourcing of software development needs will obliterate the rigorous and expensive process of manpower selection and deployment.

Routine tasks that take up more time away from the concentration of efforts on competencies that can bring about more revenues for the company can be outsourced. As higher priority is accorded to core functions, your company earns more market advantage against its competitors, while maintaining its technological upper hand, through the expertise of your outsourced software developers.

Offshore outsourcing of software development favors small-scale companies that have just started, and as much as possible scrimp on anything that pertains to cost. Outsourcing to India is definitely a far less expensive option.

But how secure?

Indian companies have been known for their high levels of work ethics. Ownership of rights over intellectual properties, software codes and software development specs remain with the client. Indian outsource service providers assure the strictest measures to safeguard these rights.

Next time you outsource your software development needs, think of India. It’s one decision you can never go wrong.

Source : http://www.web-software-development.com/

Best of open-source in software development

The wealth of open-source software development goodies is heaven for the developer community, but it's hell on an awards committee. Considering integrated development environments (IDE), debuggers, defect trackers, code coverage tools, unit testers, load testers, and so on, we could have come up with more awards here than the rest of the 2007 InfoWorld Bossie Awards combined. Then there were paths that could only lead to trouble. Could we really choose a best language? Or a best development platform? Could we pick Python over Perl, or Rails over Mono?

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Offshore Software Development: How to Select Projects That Will Succeed

One of the key decisions a company needs to make in offshoring software development is which projects to offshore. You cannot simply offshore “maintenance” projects, because your staff in the U.S. wants to work on new product development. This issue must be carefully thought through and here are time tested and proven guidelines:

1. Business objective: It may sound simple but make sure you clearly define your objectives for offshore outsourcing. Are you going offshore for cost only, for cost and skills, do you wish to use local expertise to develop or customize products for that part of the world? Each of these can lead you to a different list of potential projects.
   
2. Adequate resource pool offshore: This issue is not always obvious; but depending on the technologies you employ, you need to ascertain if there is a large enough resource pool. Competition for the right resources in countries like India is intense; if you are in a narrow niche and you need to invest significant training dollars to get the staff up to speed, you need to think through how you can retain your staff. Industry has experienced many instances where one company invested in training key staff, only to find that 6 months later a competitor offered enough incentives for the recently trained staff to leave the first company. A mid-sized company who experienced this is evaluating if they should bring the project back to U.S.
   
3. ROI: A small software company recently considered offshoring; the proposal was to offshore the equivalent of four to six developers. The financial analysis indicated that at this level, the overhead needed to establish and manage an offshore effort was significant and the cost savings after considering all associated costs didn’t exist. The company decided against outsourcing. This example points to another criterion for determining whether a project makes sense for offshore -- return on investment. After all, one of the most common reasons for offshoring is to reduce cost.
   
4. Deliverables and level of interface with the U.S. team: Can you define clearly what the offshore team needs to do? The more you can do this, the better your chances of success. What is the level of interface? How much interaction does the offshore team need to do with the U.S. team? If you need to provide ongoing (read: some times daily) management guidance, it will take significant management effort make it successful or worse yet, it may not succeed at all.
   
5. Specialized equipment or tools: If your development environment involves specialized tools and equipment, it can impact financial feasibility and schedules; you need to think through the time it will take to create the necessary environment offshore.
   
6. Transfer of Information and Training: How long does it take, at what cost and whether you have personnel available to devote to this, in addition to doing their own current tasks?
   
7. Cultural fit (Contextual knowledge necessary); is it possible to train offshore personnel within a reasonable time frame? For example, projects that deal with user interfaces are harder to transfer because of the need to understand the cultural issues in the U.S.
   
8. Attracting and retaining offshore talent: If you are doing new development or you are in a hot technology area, this will work in your favour. If you are considering dated or proprietary technology with limited market appeal and/or sustaining effort, this will work against you.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/outsourcing-articles/offshore-software-development-how-to-select-projects-that-will-succeed-207696.html

About the Author:
Do you want to learn more about key ingredients for global outsourcing success?
http://www.offshoringsuccess.com/web_log.php
M. M. “Sath” Sathyanarayan was executive at a Fortune 500 corporation and CEO of a startup; now a consultant, author and trainer, he has published a book and dozens of articles on global outsourcing.

Free Software Foundation Statement RE: Claims by Microsoft

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released the following statement in response to claims by Microsoft regarding their obligations under the GNU GeneralPublic License version 3 (GPLv3).

Microsoft cannot declare itself exempt from the requirements of GPLv3

In its November 2006 deal with Novell, Microsoft attempted to use its patent portfolio to divide and conquer the free software community. It did so by extending narrow and discriminatory promises not to sue certain classes of Novell SUSE GNU/Linux customers for patent infringement, while leaving others vulnerable to attack, including noncommercial developers and users of other GNU/Linux distributions. Microsoft's ultimate aim in this scheme was the de facto proprietization of free software: it hoped that frightened users would be willing to pay one favored distributor just to be safe from lawsuits. Though the details and timing were a surprise, it was no isolated incident; Microsoft has engaged in anticompetitive conduct in the software industry for many years, and has sought to attack free software for almost as long.

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Future of software development is global cooperation

BOFFINETTE GLORIANNA DAVENPORT, the Principal Research Scientist from MIT MediaLab sees future of software, and web development as a global event, with current social sites such as Facebook being just the beginning of a real global village.

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Software Development Project: Phases Overview

Most materials discussing the phases of a software development project are intended for the developers community. I decided to take a different look at the issue and help those novices who are going to outsource a software development project to an outsource service provider (OSP).

Software development isn't all about the code. In fact, coding is part of the overall project lifecycle. The project phases that I'm going to review in this article are a slightly modified version of the classical sequential model that is appropriate for a lot of projects. However, you shouldn't think that this model is universal throughout the industry and that it can't be modified; on the contrary, almost each business applying this model adapts it to the specific needs of real situations.

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Startup software maker Netbooks takes on Intuit

BOSTON (Reuters) - Privately held NetBooks Inc started selling a line of computer programs designed to help run small businesses on Wednesday, taking on QuickBooks provider Intuit Inc and NetSuite Inc, which has filed to go public.

Netbooks' software is accessed via Web browsers and hosted on servers maintained by the company, which is based in Rohnert Park, California.

It also said it raised $6.9 million in capital from CMEA Ventures, Integral Capital and other advisors.

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Opening up BT networks 'central to development'

BT's decision to open up its network to customers looking to develop their own services represents the next stage of progression in the telecoms industry according to Andy Green, the executive leading a major reorganisation of the former monopoly's internal structure. His task is to speed up BT's transformation into a fully-fledged IT services company.

Mr Green spent five years as chief executive of BT Global Services, the IT division which has acted as the overall group's growth engine in recent times. Under his leadership, the division grew into the third-largest IT contracting company in the world, behind US giants IBM and EDS. Yet last month, the well-regarded BT executive switched to a new role as chief executive of group strategy and operations. He also took charge of two new units – BT Design and BT Operate – focused on improving processes across the whole company.

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Microsoft's new chief architect is taking software into "the cloud"

Consumers are getting used to retrieving their digital information and collections — contacts, photographs, e-mail, documents — on practically any computer and a growing number of mobile devices.

These Internet services are replacing much of what was done only a few years ago with software firmly rooted to an individual computer.

The software industry is in the midst of a transformation that will see an expanding range of desktop-software functions delivered to users as Internet services.

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Microsoft adds to framework to simplify development

ADO.Net Entity Framework and tools to eliminate impedance mismatch are implemented to help developers build business apps

Looking to assist developers in building business applications, Microsoft published a second beta version of ADO.Net Entity Framework this week and a community technology preview of tools to work with the framework.

The goal of the ADO.Net Entity Framework is to eliminate the impedance mismatch between data models and languages, saving developers from having to deal with these. An example of such a mismatch is objects and relational stores.

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Wipro will set up software development centre in Egypt

Wipro, the leading consulting and information technology company from India, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) of Egypt to set up a global development centre in Smart Village.

Dr Tarek Kamal, Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, was present at the signing of the deal in which Wipro will target the IT Export Services for the Middle East and global markets.

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