Microsoft kicks off next era of small business software

Microsoft Wednesday released an updated bundle of infrastructure servers for small business and its first-ever offering tailored to midsized businesses, and said the two would evolve alongside the company's software-plus-services strategy.

Microsoft also introduced new financing plans in response to the sagging economy.

Under the marketing banner of Windows Essential Server Solutions (WESS), Microsoft released Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008, its first-ever bundle for midsized businesses, and Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2008, which has evolved over the past 12 years.

The WESS offerings bundle popular IT software in order to ease rollout and management burdens for small and midsized companies.

The two bundles represent Microsoft's best attempt to date to serve the needs of businesses that have up to 300 PCs. WESS offers small businesses for the first-time options to deploy multiple servers, mobile options, a platform for small companies to run business applications and the first integration between small business infrastructure and Microsoft's online services as part of its software-plus-services model.

Read More Article...

Development model predicts odds of software flaws

Researchers from a German university have developed a model to predict programming errors in applications.

The method has the potential to save software companies money by allowing them to isolate parts of their code that need more rigorous testing, says Kim Herzig, a researcher at the Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken, who wrote his master's thesis on the project.

"We try to find which aspects of code correlate to defects in the past," Herzig says.

Software companies rarely test every single line of code in their software. Testing is expensive, and companies are under pressure to release products. But fixing bugs after a product has been released is also expensive and inconvenient for customers, Herzig says.

Read More Article...

Software firms must shape up or ship out

Indian companies are moving up slowly. The fact is that customers actually want you to move up the value chain and a few companies like Infosys have already made the transition. Most Indian software companies are still largely providing high quality but low end work.

Reeling under the burden of the US economy, which is seemingly headed for recession, the hassled country’s tech firms are preparing for tougher times. Dr Michael Cusumano, the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor at the MIT’s Sloan School of Management, throws light on the effect of the slowdown on Indian software industry and how companies must gear up for the future. Dr Cusumano, a consultant and author of several books. Ramanujam Sridhar on behalf of Deccan Herald caught up with Dr Cusumano, who was at SDM_IMD, a management institute at Mysore recently to deliver a lecture on leadership.

Read More Article...

Outsourced product development firms see no impact of rising rupee

Rupee appreciation and a possible slowdown of the US economy, is hardly having an impact on the growth of the outsourced product development (OPD) firms in India. They provide product engineering services to global software firms.

Apart from hedging to negate the impact of Re-appreciation on their margins, most OPD firms are adopting multiple ways like increasing the billing rates and going in for bigger customers to offset the impact of Rupee appreciation. In terms of business from the US, OPD companies are witnessing a strong rise in the number of new customers.

“On an average, we are adding 4-5 customers every quarter, and now even relatively larger ones. In many cases, our clients are open to any increase in costs, considering the problems we are facing due to the Rupee-rise. Customers are also approaching us for certain specialised areas like product globalisation, product migration and test automation,” said Gowri Shankar Subramanian, CEO of Chennai-based Aspire Systems.

Read More Article...